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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient
+Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia, by George Rawlinson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia
+       The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea,
+       Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian
+       or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
+
+Author: George Rawlinson
+
+Illustrator: George Rawlinson
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2005 [EBook #16165]
+Last Updated: September 6, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES
+
+OF THE
+
+ANCIENT EASTERN WORLD;
+
+
+OR,
+
+
+THE HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, AND ANTIQUITIES OF CHALDAEA, ASSYRIA
+
+BABYLON, MEDIA, PERSIA, PARTHIA, AND SASSANIAN,
+
+OR NEW PERSIAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A.,
+
+CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
+
+
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+
+
+VOLUME II.
+
+
+
+WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+
+
+PERSIA PROPER.
+
+
+[Illustration: MAP]
+
+
+
+
+THE FIFTH MONARCHY.
+
+
+
+
+PERSIA.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE.
+
+
+The geographical extent of the Fifth Monarchy was far greater than that
+of any one of the four which had preceded it. While Persia Proper is a
+comparatively narrow and poor tract, extending in its greatest length
+only some seven or eight degrees (less than 500 miles), the dominions of
+the Persian kings covered a space fifty-six degrees long, and in places
+more than twenty degrees wide. The boundaries of their empire were the
+desert of Thibet, the Sutlej, and the Indus, on the east; the Indian
+Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian and Nubian deserts, on the south;
+on the west, the Greater Syrtis, the Mediterranean, the Egean, and the
+Strymon river; on the north, the Danube, the Black Sea, the Caucasus,
+the Caspian, and the Jaxartes. Within these limits lay a territory, the
+extent of which from east to west was little less than 3000 miles,
+while its width varied between 500 and 1500 miles. Its entire area was
+probably not less than, two millions of square miles--or more than half
+that of modern Europe. It was thus at least eight times as large as the
+Babylonian Empire at its greatest extent, and was probably more than
+four times as large as the Assyrian.
+
+The provinces included within the Empire may be conveniently divided
+into the Central, the Western, and the Eastern. The Central are Persia
+Proper, Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the coast tract of the
+Caspian, and Sagartia, or the Great Desert. The Western are Paeonia,
+Thrace, Asia Minor, Armenia, Iberia, Syria and Phoenicia, Palestine,
+Egypt, and the Cyrenaica. The Eastern are Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria,
+Chorasmia, Sogdiana, Bactria, Scythia, Gandaria, Sattagydia, India,
+Paricania, the Eastern AEthiopia, and Mycia.
+
+Of these countries a considerable number have been already described in
+these volumes. Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the Caspian coast,
+Armenia, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, belong to this class; and it
+may be assumed that the reader is sufficiently acquainted with their
+general features. It would therefore seem to be enough in the present
+place to give an account of the regions which have not yet occupied our
+attention, more especially of Persia Proper--the home of the dominant
+race.
+
+Persia Proper seems to have corresponded nearly to that province of the
+modern Iran, which still bears the ancient name slightly modified, being
+called Farsistan or Fars. The chief important difference between the two
+is, that whereas in modern times the tract called Herman is regarded as
+a distinct and separate region, Carmania anciently was included within
+the limits of Persia. Persia Proper lay upon the gulf to which it has
+given name, extending from the mouth of the Tab (Oroatis) to the point
+where the gulf joins the Indian Ocean. It was bounded on the west by
+Susiana, on the north by Media Magna, on the east by Mycia, and on
+the south by the sea. Its length seems to have been about 450, and its
+average width about 250 miles. It thus contained an area of rather more
+than 100,000 square miles.
+
+In modern times it is customary to divide the province of Fars into
+the _ghermsir_, or, “warm district,” and the _serdsir_, or “cold
+region”--and the physical character of the country must have made such a
+division thoroughly appropriate at every period. The “warm district”
+ is a tract of sandy plain, often impregnated with salt, which extends
+between the mountains and the sea the whole length of the province,
+being a continuation of the flat region of Susiana, but falling very
+much short of that region in all the qualities which constitute physical
+excellence. The soil is poor, consisting of alternate sand and clay--it
+is ill-watered, the entire tract possessing scarcely a single stream
+worthy of the name of river--and, lying only just without the northern
+Tropic, the district is by its very situation among the hottest of
+western Asia. It forms, however, no very large portion of the ancient
+Persia, being in general a mere strip of land, from ten to fifty
+miles wide, and thus not constituting more than an eighth part of the
+territory in question.
+
+The remaining seven eighths belong to the serdsir, or “cold region.”
+ The mountain-range which under various names skirts on the east the
+Mesopotamian lowland, separating off that depressed and generally
+fertile region from the bare high plateau of Iran, and running
+continuously in a direction parallel to the course of the Mesopotamian
+streams--i.e. from the north-west to the south-east--changes its course
+as it approaches the sea, sweeping gradually round between long. 50° and
+55°, and becoming parallel to the coast-line, while at the same time it
+broadens out, till it covers a space of nearly three degrees, or above
+two hundred miles. Along the high tract thus created lay the bulk of
+the ancient Persia, consisting of alternate mountain, plain, and narrow
+valley, curiously intermixed, and as yet very incompletely mapped. This
+region is of varied character. In places richly, fertile, picturesque,
+and romantic almost beyond imagination, with lovely wooded dells, green
+mountain-sides, and broad plains suited for the production of almost any
+crops, it has yet on the whole a predominant character of sterility and
+barrenness, especially towards its more northern and eastern portions.
+The supply of water is everywhere scanty. Scarcely any of the streams
+are strong enough to reach the sea. After short courses they are
+either absorbed by the sand or end in small salt lakes, from which
+the superfluous water is evaporated. Much of the country is absolutely
+without streams, and would be uninhabitable were it not for the
+_kanats_, or _karizes_, subterranean channels of spring-water, described
+at length in a former volume.
+
+The only rivers of the district which deserve any attention are the Tab
+(or Oroatis), whereof a description has been already given, the Kur or
+Bendamir (called anciently Araxes), with its tributary, the Pulwar (or
+Cyrus), and the Khoonazaberni or river of Khisht.
+
+The Bendamir rises in the mountains of the Bakhtiyari chain, in lat.
+30° 35’, long. 51° 50’ nearly, and runs with a course which is generally
+south-east, past the ruins of Persepolis, to the salt lake of Neyriz
+or Kheir, which it enters in long. 53° 30’. It receives, where it
+approaches nearest to Persepolis, the Pulwar or Kur-ab, a small stream
+coming from the north-east and flowing by the ruins of both Pasargadae
+and Persepolis. A little below its junction with this stream the
+Bendamir is crossed by a bridge of five arches, and further down, on the
+route between Shiraz and Herman, by another of twelve. Here its waters
+are to a great extent drawn off by means of canals, and are made to
+fertilize a large tract of rich flat country on either bank, after which
+the stream pursues its course with greatly diminished volume to the salt
+lake in which it ends. The entire course, including only main windings,
+may be estimated at 140 or 150 miles.
+
+The Khoonazaberni or river of Khisht rises near the ruins of Shapur, at
+a short distance from Kazerun, on the route between Bushire and
+Shiraz, and flows in a broad valley between lofty mountains towards
+the south-west, entering the Persian Gulf by three mouths, the chief of
+which is at Rohilla, twenty miles north of Bushire, where the stream has
+a breadth of sixty yards, and a depth of about four feet. Above Khisht
+the river is already thirty yards wide. Its chief tributary is the
+Dalaki stream, which enters it from the east, nearly in long. 51°. The
+entire course of the Khisht river may be about 95 or 100 miles. Its
+water is brackish except near the source.
+
+The principal lakes are the Lake of Neyriz and the Deriah-i-Nemek. The
+Deriah-i-Nemek is a small basin distant about ten miles from Shiraz,
+which receives the waters of the streams that supply that town. It has a
+length of about fifteen and a breadth of about three or three and a half
+miles. The lake of Neyriz or Kheir is of far larger size, being from
+fifty to sixty miles long and from three to six broad, though in the
+summer season it is almost entirely dried up. Salt is then obtained
+from the lake in large quantities, and forms an important feature in the
+commerce of the district. Smaller lakes, also salt or brackish, exist in
+other parts of the country, as Lake Famur, near Kazerun, which is about
+six miles in length, and from half a mile to a mile across.
+
+The most remarkable feature of the country consists in the extraordinary
+gorges which pierce the great mountain-chain, and render possible the
+establishment of routes across that tremendous barrier. Scarped rocks
+rise almost perpendicularly on either side of the mountain-streams,
+which descend rapidly with frequent cascades and falls. Along the slight
+irregularities of these rocks the roads are carried in zigzags, often
+crossing the streams from side to side by bridges of a single arch,
+which are thrown over profound chasms where the waters chafe and roar
+many hundred feet below.46 [PLATE XXVI.] The roads have for the most
+part been artificially cut in the sides of the precipices, which rise
+from the streams sometimes to the height of 2000 feet. In order to cross
+from the Persian Gulf to the high plateau of Iran, no fewer than three
+or four of these kotuls, or strange gorge-passes, have to be traversed
+successively. Thus the country towards the edge of the plateau is
+peculiarly safe from attack, being defended on the north and east by
+vast deserts, and on the south by a mountain-barrier of unusual strength
+and difficulty.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVI.]
+
+
+It is in these regions, which combine facility of defence with
+pleasantness of climate, that the principal cities of the district have
+at all times been placed. The earliest known capital of the region was
+Pasargadae, or Persagadae, as the name is sometimes written, of which
+the ruins still exist near Murgab, in lat. 30° 15’ long. 53° 17’.
+Here is the famous tomb of Cyrus, whereof a description will be given
+hereafter; and here are also other interesting remains of the old
+Persian architecture. Neither the shape nor the extent of the town can
+be traced. The situation was a plain amid mountains, watered by small
+streams which found their way to a river of some size (the Pulwar)
+flowing at a little distance to the west. [PLATE XXVII Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVII.]
+
+
+At the distance of thirty miles from Pasargadae, or of more than forty
+by the ordinary road, grew up the second capital, Persepolis, occupying
+a more southern position than the primitive seat of power, but still
+situated towards the edge of the plateau, having the mountain-barrier
+to the south-west and the desert at no great distance to the north-east.
+Like its predecessor, Persepolis was situated in a plain, but in a plain
+of much larger dimensions and of far greater fertility. The plain of
+Merdasht is one of the most productive in Persia, being watered by the
+two streams of the Bendamir and the Pulwar, which unite a few miles
+below the site of the ancient city. From these two copious and unfailing
+rivers a plentiful supply of the precious fluid can at all times be
+obtained; and in Persia such a supply will always create the loveliest
+verdure, the most abundant crops, and the richest and thickest foliage.
+The site of Persopolis is naturally far superior to that in which
+the modern provincial capital, Shiraz, has grown up, at about the
+same distance from Persepolis as that is from Pasargadae. and in the
+same--i.e. in a south-west--direction.
+
+Besides Persepolis and Pasargadse, Persia Proper contained but few
+cities of any note or name. If we include Carmania in Persia, Carmana,
+the capital of that country, may indeed be mentioned as a third Persian
+town of some consequence; but otherwise the names which occur in ancient
+authors are insignificant, and designate villages rather than towns of
+any size. Carmana, however, which is mentioned by Ptolemy and
+Ammianus as the capital of those parts, seems to have been a place of
+considerable importance. It may be identified with the modern Kerman,
+which lies in lat. 39° 55’, long. 56° 13’, and is still one of the
+chief cities of Persia. Situated, like Pasargadae and Persepolis, in a
+capacious plain surrounded by mountains, which furnish sufficient water
+for cultivation to be carried on by means of kanats in most parts of the
+tract enclosed by them, and occupying a site through which the trade of
+the country almost of necessity passes, Kerman must always be a town of
+no little consequence. Its inland and remote position, however,
+caused it to be little known to the Greeks; and, apparently, the great
+Alexandrian geographer was the first who made them acquainted with its
+existence and locality.
+
+The Persian towns or villages upon the coast of the Gulf were chiefly
+Armuza (which gave name to the district of Ar-muzia), opposite the
+modern island of Ormuz; Sisidona, which must have been near Cape Jerd;
+Apostana, probably about Shewar; Gogana, no doubt the modern Kongoon;
+and Taoce on the Granis, famous as having in its neighborhood a royal
+palace, which we may perhaps place near Dalaki, Taoce itself occupying
+the position of Rohilla, at the mouth of the Khisht river. Of the inland
+towns the most remarkable, after Persepolis, Pasargadse, and Carmana,
+were Gabae, near Pasar-gadae, also the site of a palace; Uxia, or the
+Uxian city, which may have occupied the position of Mai-Amir, Obroatis,
+Tragonice, Ardea, Portospana, Hyrba, etc., which it is impossible to
+locate unless by the merest conjecture.
+
+The chief districts into which the territory was divided were
+Paraetacene, a portion of the Bakhtiyari mountain-chain, which some,
+however, reckoned to Media; Mardyene, or the country of the Mardi, also
+one of the hill tracts; Taocene, the district about Taoce, part of the
+low sandy coast region; Ciribo, the more northern portion of the same
+region; and Carmania, the entire eastern territory. These districts were
+not divided from one another by any marked natural features, the only
+division of the country to which such a character attached being the
+triple one into the high sandy plains north of the mountains, the
+mountain region, and the Deshtistan, or low hot tract along the coast.
+
+From this account it will be easy to understand how Persia Proper
+acquired and maintained the character of “a scant land and a rugged,”
+ which we find attaching to it in ancient authors. The entire area, as
+has been already observed was about 100,000 square miles--little more
+than half that of Spain, and about one fifth of the area of modern
+Persia. Even of this space nearly one half was uninhabitable, consisting
+either of barren stony mountain or of scorching sandy plain, ill
+supplied with water, and often impregnated with salt, the habitable
+portion consisted of the valleys and plains among the mountains and
+along their skirts, together with certain favored spots upon the banks
+of streams in the flat regions. These flat regions themselves were
+traversed in many places by rocky ridges of a singularly forbidding
+aspect. The whole appearance of the country was dry, stony, sterile. As
+a modern writer observes, “the livery of the land is constantly brown
+or gray; water is scanty; plains and mountains are equally destitute of
+wood. When the traveller, after toiling over the rocky mountains that
+separate the plains looks down from the pass he has won with toil
+and difficulty upon the country below, his eye wanders unchecked and
+unrested over an uniform brown expanse losing itself in distance.”
+
+Still this character, though predominant, is not universal. Wherever
+there is water, vegetation springs up. The whole of the mountain region
+is intersected by valleys and plains which are more or less fertile.
+The line of country between Bebahan and Shiraz is for above sixty miles
+“covered with wood and verdure,” in East of Shiraz, on the route between
+that city and Kerman the country is said to be in parts “picturesque and
+romantic,” consisting of “low luxuriant valleys or; plains separated
+by ranges of low mountains, green to their very summits with beautiful
+turf.” The plains of Khubbes, Merdasht, Ujan, Shiraz, Kazerun,
+and others, produce abundantly under a very inefficient system of
+cultivation. Even in the most arid tracts there is generally a time of
+greenness immediately after the spring rains, when the whole country
+smiles with verdure.
+
+It has been already remarked that the Empire, which, commencing from
+Persia Proper, spread itself towards the close of the sixth century
+before Christ, over the surrounding tracts, included a number of
+countries not yet described in these volumes, since they formed no part
+of any of the four Empires which preceded the Persian. To complete,
+therefore, the geographical survey proper to our subject, it will be
+necessary to give a sketch of the tracts in question. They will
+fall naturally into three groups, an eastern, a north-western, and a
+southwestern--the eastern extending from the skirts of Mount Zagros to
+the Indian Desert, the north-western from the Caspian to the Propontis,
+and the south-western from the borders of Palestine to the shores of the
+Greater Syrtis.
+
+Inside the Zagros and Elburz ranges, bounded on the north and west by
+those mountain-lines, on the east by the ranges of Suliman and Hala, and
+on the south by the coast-chain which runs from Persia Proper nearly
+to the Indus, lies a vast tableland, from 3000 to 5000 feet above the
+sea-level, known to modern geographers as the Great Plateau of Iran. Its
+shape is an irregular rectangle, or trapezium, extending in its greatest
+length, which is from west to east, no less than twenty degrees, or
+above 1100 miles, while the breadth from north to south varies from
+seven degrees, or 480 miles (which is its measure along the line of
+Zagros), to ten degrees, or 690 miles, where it abuts upon the Indus
+valley. The area of the tract is probably from 500,000 to 600,000 square
+miles.
+
+It is calculated that two thirds of this elevated region are absolutely
+and entirely desert. The rivers which flow from the mountains
+surrounding it are, with a single exception--that of the Etymandrus or
+Helmend--insignificant, and their waters almost always lose themselves,
+after a course proportioned to their volume, in the sands of the
+interior. Only two, the Helmend and the river of Ghuzni, have even the
+strength to form lakes; the others are absorbed by irrigation, or sucked
+up by the desert. Occasionally a river, rising within the mountains,
+forces its way through the barrier, and so contrives to reach the sea.
+This is the case, especially, on the south, where the coast chain is
+pierced by a number of streams, some of which have their sources at a
+considerable distance inland. On the north the Heri-rud, or River of
+Herat, makes its escape in a similar way from the plateau, but only to
+be absorbed, after passing through two mountain chains, in the sands of
+the Kharesm. Thus by far the greater portion of this region is desert
+throughout the year, while, as the summer advances, large tracts, which
+in the spring were green, are burnt up--the rivers shrink back towards
+their sources--the whole plateau becomes dry and parched--and the
+traveller wonders that any portion of it should be inhabited.
+
+It must not be supposed that the entire plateau of which we have been
+speaking is to the eye a single level and unbroken plain. In the western
+portion of the region the plains are constantly intersected by “brown,
+irregular, rocky ridges,” rising to no great height, but serving to
+condense the vapors held in the air, and furnishing thereby springs
+and wells of inestimable value to the inhabitants. In the southern and
+eastern districts “immense” ranges of mountains are said to occur; and
+the south-eastern as well as the north-eastern corners of the plateau
+are little else than confused masses of giant elevations. Vast flats,
+however, are found. In the Great Salt Desert, which extends from Kashan
+and Koum to the Deriah or “Sea” in which the Helmend terminates, and
+in the sandy desert of Seistan, which lies east and south-east of that
+lake, reaching from near Furrah to the Mekran mountains, plains of above
+a hundred miles in extent appear to occur, sometimes formed of loose
+sand, which the wind raises into waves like those of the sea, sometimes
+hard and gravelly, or of baked and indurated clay.
+
+The tract in question, which at the present day is divided between
+Afghanistan, Beloochistan, and Iran, contained, at the time when
+the Persian Empire arose, the following nations: the Sagartians, the
+Cossseans, the Parthians, the Hariva or Arians, the Gandarians, the
+Sattagydians, the Arachotians, the Thamanseans, the Sarangae, and the
+Paricanians. The Sagartians and Cossseans dwelt in the western portion
+of the tract, the latter probably about the Siah-Koh mountains, the
+former scattered over the whole region from the borders of Persia Proper
+to the Caspian Gates and the Elburz range. Along its northern edge, east
+of the Sagartians, were the Parthians, the Arians, and the Gandarians.
+occurring in that order as we proceed from west to east. The Parthians
+held the country known now as the Atak or “Skirt,” the flat tract at the
+southern base of the Elburz from about Shahrud to Khaff, together with
+a portion of the mountain region adjoining. This is a rich and valuable
+territory, well watered by a number of small streams, which, issuing
+from the ravines and valleys of the Elburz, spread fertility around, but
+lose themselves after a short, course in the Salt Desert. Adjoining the
+Parthians upon the east were the Haroyu, Hariva, or Arians, an Iranic
+race of great antiquity, who held the country along the southern skirts
+of the mountains from the neighborhood of Khaff to the point where the
+Heri-rud (Arius) issues from the Paropamisan mountains. The character
+of this country closely resembles that of Parthia, whereof it is a
+continuation; but the copious stream of the Heri-rud renders it even
+more productive.
+
+The Gandarians held Kabul, and the mountain tract on both sides of the
+Kabul river as far as the upper course of the Indus, thus occupying
+the extreme north-eastern corner of the plateau, the region where its
+elevation is the greatest. Lofty mountain-ridges, ramifying in various
+directions but tending generally to run east and west, deep gorges,
+narrow and tremendous passes, like the Khyber, characterize this
+district. Its soil is generally rocky and barren; but many of the
+valleys are fertile, abounding with enchanting scenery and enjoying a
+delightful climate. More especially is this the case in the neighborhood
+of the city of Kabul, which is perhaps the Caspatyrus of Herodotus,
+where Darius built the fleet which descended the Indus.
+
+South of Aria and Gandaria, in the tract between the Great Desert
+and the Indus valley, the plateau was occupied by four nations--the
+Thamanseans, the Sarangians, the Sattagydians, and the Arachotians.
+The Thamanaean country appears to have been that which lies south and
+south-east of Aria (Herat), reaching from the Haroot-rud or river of
+Subzawar to the banks of the Helmend about Ghirisk. This is a varied
+region, consisting on the north and the north-east of several high
+mountain chains which ramify from a common centre, having between
+them large tracts of hills and downs, while towards the south and the
+south-west the country is comparatively low and flat, descending to
+the level of the desert about the thirty second parallel. Here the
+Thamanseans were adjoined upon by the Sarangians, who held the land
+about the lake in which the Helmend terminates--the Seistan of Modern
+Persia. Seistan is mainly desert. One third of the surface of the soil
+is composed of moving sands, and the other two thirds of a compact
+sand, mixed with a little clay, but very rich in vegetable matter. It
+is traversed by a number of streams, as the Haroot-rud, the river
+of Furrah, the river of Khash, the Helmend, and others, and is
+very productive along their banks, which are fertilized by annual
+inundations; but the country between the streams is for the most part an
+arid desert.
+
+The Sattagydians and Arachotians divided between them the remainder of
+Afghanistan, the former probably occupying south-eastern Kabul, from the
+Ghuzni river and its tributaries to the valley of the Indus, while the
+latter were located in the modern Candahar, upon the Urghand-ab and
+Turnuk rivers. The character of these tracts is similar to that of
+north-western Kabul, but somewhat less rugged and mountainous. Hills and
+downs alternate with rocky ranges and fairly fertile vales. There is
+a scantiness of water, but still a certain number of moderate-sized
+rivers, tolerably well supplied with affluents. The soil, however, is
+either rocky or sandy; and without a careful system of irrigation great
+portions of the country remain of necessity barren and unproductive.
+
+The south-eastern corner of the plateau, below the countries of the
+Sarangians and the Arachotians, was occupied by a people, called
+Paricanians by Herodotus, perhaps identical with the Gedrosians of
+later writers. This district, the modern Beloochistan, is still very
+imperfectly known, but appears to be generally mountainous, to have a
+singularly barren soil, and to be deficient in rivers. The nomadic life
+is a necessity in the greater part of the region, which is in few places
+suitable for cultivation, but has good pastures in the mountains or the
+plains according to the season of the year. The rivers of the country
+are for the most part mere torrents, which carry a heavy body of
+water after rains, but are often absolutely dry for several months in
+succession. Water, however, is generally obtainable by digging wells in
+their beds; and the liquid procured in this way suffices, not only for
+the wants of man and beast, but also for a limited irrigation.
+
+The Great Plateau which has been here described is bordered everywhere,
+except at its north-eastern and north-western corners, by low regions.
+On the north the lowland is at first a mere narrow strip intervening
+between the Elburz range and the Caspian, a strip which has been already
+described in the account given of the Third Monarchy. Where, however,
+the Caspian ends, its shore trending away to the northward, there
+succeeds to this mere strip of territory a broad and ample tract of
+sandy plain, extending from about the 54th to the 68th degree of east
+longitude--a distance of 760 miles--and reaching from the 36th to the
+50th parallel of north latitude--a distance not much short of a thousand
+miles! This tract which comprises the modern Khanats of Khiva and
+Bokhara, together with a considerable piece of Southern Asiatic Russia,
+is for the most part a huge trackless desert, composed of loose sand,
+black or red, which the wind heaps up into hills. Scarcely any region on
+the earth’s surface is more desolate. The boundless plain lies stretched
+before the traveller like an interminable sea, but dead, dull, and
+motionless. Vegetation, even the most dry and sapless, scarcely exists.
+For three or four hundred miles together he sees no running stream.
+Water, salt, slimy, and discolored, lies Occasionally in pools, or
+is drawn from wells, which yield however only a scanty supply. For
+anything like a drinkable beverage the traveller has to trust to the
+skies, which give or withhold their stores with a caprice that is truly
+tantalizing. Occasionally, but only at long intervals, out of the
+low sandy region there issues a rocky range, or a plateau of moderate
+eminence, where the soil is firm, the ground smooth, and vegetation
+tolerably abundant. The most important of the ranges are the Great
+and Little Balkan, near the Caspian Sea, between the 39th and 40th
+parallels, the Khalata and Urta Tagh, north-west, of Bokhara, and the
+Kukuth; still further to the north-west in latitude 42° nearly. The
+chief plateau is that of Ust-Urt, between the Caspian and the Sea of
+Aral, which is perhaps not more than three or four hundred feet above
+the sandy plain, but is entirely different in character.
+
+This desolate region of low sandy plain would be wholly uninhabitable,
+were it not for the rivers. Two great streams, the Amoo or Jyhun
+(anciently the Oxus), and the Sir or Synuti (anciently the Jaxartes),
+carry their waters across the desert, and pour them into the basin of
+the Aral. Several others of less volume, as the Murg-ab, or river of
+Merv, the Abi Meshed or Tejend, the Heri-rud, the river of Maymene, the
+river of Balkh, the river of Khulm, the Shehri-Sebz, the Ak Su or river
+of Bokhara, the Kizil Deria, etc., flow down from the high ground
+into the plain, where their waters either become lost in the sands, or
+terminate in small salt pools. Along the banks of these streams the soil
+is fertile, and where irrigation is employed the crops are abundant. In
+the vicinity of Khiva, at Kermineh on the Bokhara river, at Samarcand,
+at Balkh--and in a few other places, the vegetation is even luxuriant;
+gardens, meadows, orchards, and cornfields fringe the river-bank; and
+the natives see in such favored spots resemblances of Paradise! Often,
+however, even the river-banks themselves are uncultivated, and the
+desert creeps up to their very edge; but this is in default, not in
+spite, of human exertion. A well-managed system of irrigation could,
+in almost every instance, spread on either side of the streams a broad
+strip of verdure.
+
+In the time of the Fifth Monarchy, the tract which has been here
+described was divided among three nations. The region immediately to the
+east of the Caspian, bounded on the north by the old course of the Oxus
+and extending eastward to the neighborhood of Merv, though probably
+not including that city, was Chorasmia, the country of the Chorasmians.
+Across the Oxus to the north-east was Sogdiana (or Sugd), reaching
+thence to the Jaxartes, which was the Persian boundary in this
+direction. South of Sogdiana, divided from it by the Middle and Upper
+Oxus, was Bactria, the country of the Bakhtars or Bactrians. The
+territory of this people reached southward to the foot of the
+Paropamisus, adjoining Chorasmia and Aria on the west, and on the south
+Sattagydia and Gandaria.
+
+East of the table-land lies the valley of the Indus and its tributaries,
+at first a broad tract, 350 miles from west to east, but narrowing as
+it descends, and in places not exceeding sixty or seventy miles,
+across. The length of the valley is not less than 800 miles. Its area is
+probably about a hundred thousand square miles. We may best regard it
+as composed of two very distinct tracts--one the broad triangular plain
+towards the north, to which, from the fact of its being watered by five
+main streams, he natives have given the name of Punj-ab, the other the
+long and comparatively narrow valley of the single Indus river, which,
+deriving its appellation from that noble stream, is known in modern
+geography as Sinde. The Punjab, which contains an area of above fifty
+thousand square miles, is mountainous towards the north, where it
+adjoins on Kashmeer and Thibet, but soon sinks down into a vast plain,
+with a soil which is chiefly either sand or clay, immensely productive
+under irrigation, but tending to become jungle or desert if left without
+human care. Sinde, or the Indus valley below the Punjab, is a region of
+even greater fertility. It is watered, not only by the main stream of
+the Indus, but by a number of branch channels which the river begins to
+throw off from about the 28th parallel. It includes, on the right bank
+of the stream, the important tract called Cutchi Gandava, a triangular
+plain at the foot of the Suliman and Hala ranges, containing about 7000
+square miles of land which is all capable of being made into a garden.
+The soil is here for the most part rich, black, and loamy; water is
+abundant; and the climate suitable for the growth of all kinds of grain.
+Below Cutchi Gandava the valley of the Indus is narrow for about a
+hundred miles, but about Tatta it expands and a vast delta is formed.
+This is a third triangle, containing above a thousand square miles of
+the richest alluvium, which is liable however to floods and to vast
+changes in the river beds, whereby often whole fields are swept away.
+Much of this tract is moreover low and swampy; the climate is trying;
+and rice is almost the only product that can be advantageously
+cultivated.
+
+The low region lying south of the Great Plateau is neither extensive
+nor valuable. It consists of a mere strip of land along the coast of
+the Indian Ocean, extending a distance of about nine degrees (550 miles)
+from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to Cape Monze, near Kurrachee, but
+in width not exceeding ten or, at the most, twenty miles. This tract
+was occupied in ancient times mainly by a race which Herodotus called
+Ethiopians and the historians of Alexander Ichthyophagi (Fish-Eaters).
+It is an arid, sultry, and unpleasant region, scarcely possessing a
+perennial stream, and depending for its harvests entirely upon the
+winter rains, and for its water during the summer on wells which are
+chiefly brackish. Tolerable pasturage is, however, obtainable in places
+even during the hottest part of the year, and between Cape Jask and
+Gwattur the crops produced are far from contemptible.
+
+A small tract of coast, a continuation of the territory just described,
+intervening between it and Kerman, was occupied in the early Persian
+times by a race known to the Persians as Maka, and to the Greeks as
+Mycians. This district, reaching from about Cape Jask to Gombroon,
+is one of greater fertility than is usual in these regions, being
+particularly productive in dates and grain. This fertility seems,
+however, to be confined to the vicinity of the sea-shore.
+
+To complete the description of the Eastern provinces two other tracts
+must be mentioned. The mountain-chain which skirts the Great Plateau on
+the north, distinguished in these pages by the name of Elburz, broadens
+out after it passes the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea till it
+covers a space of nearly three degrees (more than 200 miles). Instead
+of the single lofty ridge which separates the Salt Desert from the low
+Caspian region, we find between the fifty-fourth and fifty-ninth degrees
+of east longitude three or four distinct ranges, all nearly parallel to
+one another, having a general direction of east and west. Broad and rich
+valleys are enclosed between these latitudinal ranges which are watered
+by rivers of a considerable size, as more especially the Ettrek and
+the Gurgan. Thus a territory is formed capable of supporting a largish
+population, a territory which possesses a natural unity, being shut in
+on three sides by mountains, and on the fourth by the Caspian. Here in
+Persian times was settled a people called Hyrcani; and from them the
+tract derived the name of Hyrcania (Vehrkana), while the lake on which
+it adjoined came to be known as “the Hyrcanian Sea.” The fertility
+of the region, its broad plains, shady woods and lofty mountains were
+celebrated by the ancient writers.
+
+Further to the east, beyond the low sandy plain, and beyond the
+mountains in which its great rivers have their source--on the other
+side of the “Roof of the World,” as the natives name this elevated
+region--lay a tract unimportant in itself, but valuable to the Persians
+as the home of a people from whom they obtained excellent soldiers. The
+plain of Chinese Tartary, the district about Kashgar and Yarkand, seems
+to have been in possession of certain Sacans or Scythians, who in the
+flourishing times of the empire acknowledged subjection to the Persian
+crown. These Sacans, who call themselves Huma-varga or Amyrgians,
+furnished some of the best and bravest of the Persian troops. Westward
+they bordered on Sogdiana and Bactria; northward they extended probably
+to the great mountain-chain of the Tien-chan; on the east they were shut
+in by the vast desert of Gobi or Shamoo; while southward they must have
+touched Gandaria and perhaps India. A portion of this country--that
+towards the north and west--was well watered and fairly productive; but
+the southern and eastern part of it must have been arid and desert.
+
+From this consideration of the Eastern provinces of the Empire, we pass
+on naturally to those which lay towards the North-West. The Caspian Sea
+alone intervened between these two groups, which thus approached each
+other within a distance of some 250 or 260 miles.
+
+Almost immediately to the west of the Caspian there rises a high
+table-land diversified by mountains, which stretches eastward for more
+than eighteen degrees between the 37th and 41st parallels. This highland
+may properly be regarded as a continuation of the great Iranean plateau,
+with which it is connected at its south-eastern corner. It comprises
+a portion of the modern Persia, the whole of Armenia, and most of Asia
+Minor. Its principal mountain-ranges are latitudinal or from west to
+east, only the minor ones taking the opposite or longitudinal direction.
+Of the latitudinal chains the most important is the Taurus, which,
+commencing at the southwestern corner of Asia Minor in longitude 29°
+nearly, bounds the great table-land upon the south, running parallel
+with the shore at the distance of sixty or seventy miles as far as
+the Pylse Cilicise, near Tarsus, and then proceeding in a direction
+decidedly north of east to the neighborhood of Lake Van, where it unites
+with the line of Zagros. The elevation of this range, though not equal
+to that of some in Asia, is considerable. In Asia Minor the loftiest of
+the Taurus peaks seem to attain a height of about 9000 or 10,000 feet.
+Further to the east the elevation appears to be even greater, the peaks
+of Ala Dagh, Sapan, Nimrud, and Mut Khan in the tract about Lake Van
+being all of them considerably above the line of perpetual snow, and
+therefore probably 11,000 or 12,000 feet.
+
+At the opposite side of the table-land, bounding it towards the north,
+there runs under various names a second continuous range of inferior
+elevation, which begins near Brusa, in the Keshish Dagh or Mysian
+Olympus, and proceeds in a line nearly parallel with the northern coast
+to the vicinity of Kars. Between this and Taurus are two other important
+ridges, which run westward from the neighborhood of Ararat to about the
+34th degree of east longitude, after which they subside into the plain.
+
+The heart of the mountain-region, the tract extending from the district
+of Erivan on the east to the upper course of the Kizil-Irmak river
+and the vicinity of Sivas upon the west, was, as it still is, Armenia.
+Amidst these natural fastnesses, in a country of lofty ridges, deep
+and narrow valleys, numerous and copious streams, and occasional broad
+plains--a country of rich pasture grounds, productive orchards, and
+abundant harvests--this interesting people has maintained itself almost
+unchanged from the time of the early Persian kings to the present day.
+Armenia was one of the most valuable portions of the Persian Empire,
+furnishing, as it did, besides stone and timber, and several most
+important minerals, an annual supply of 20,000 excellent horses to the
+stud of the Persian king.
+
+The highland west of Armenia, the plateau of Asia Minor, from the
+longitude of Siwas (37° E.) to the sources of the Meander and the
+Hermus, was occupied by the two nations of the Cappadocians and
+Phrygians, whose territories were separated by the Kizil-Irmak or Halys
+river. This tract, though diversified by some considerable ranges, and
+possessing one really lofty mountain, that of Argseus, was, compared
+with Armenia, champaign and level. Its broad plains afforded the best
+possible pasturage for sheep, while at the same time they bore excellent
+crops of wheat. The entire region was well-watered; it enjoyed a
+delightful climate; and besides corn and cattle furnished many products
+of value.
+
+Outside the plateau on the north, on the north-east, on the west, and
+on the south, lie territories which, in comparison with the high
+region whereon they adjoined, may be called lowlands. The north-eastern
+lowland, the broad and rich valley of the Kur, which corresponds closely
+with the modern Russian province of Georgia, was in the possession of a
+people called by Herodotus Saspeires or Sapeires, whom we may identify
+with the Iberians of later writers. Adjoining upon them towards the
+south, probably in the country about Erivan, and so in the neighborhood
+of Ararat, were the Alarodians, whose name must be connected with that
+of the great mountain. On the other side of the Sapeirian country, in
+the tracts now known as Mingrelia and Imeritia, regions of a wonderful
+beauty and fertility, were the Colchians--dependants, but not exactly
+subjects, of Persia.
+
+The northern lowland, which consisted of a somewhat narrow strip of land
+between the plateau and the Euxine, was a rich and well-wooded region,
+630 miles in length, and in breadth from forty to a hundred. It was
+inhabited by a large number of rude and barbarous tribes, each of whom
+possessed a small portion of the sea-board. These tribes, enumerated in
+the order of their occurrence from east to west, were the following:
+the Moschi, the Macrones (or Tzani), the Mosy-noeci, the Mares, the
+Tibareni, the Chalybes, the Paphlagones, the Mariandyni, the Bithyni,
+and the Thyni. The Moschi, Macrones, Mosynoeci, Mares, and Tibareni
+dwelt towards the east, occupying the coast from Batoum to Ordou.
+The Chalybes inhabited the tract immediately adjoining on Sinope.
+The Paphlagonians held the rest of the coast from the mouth of the
+Kizil-Irmak to Cape Baba, where they were succeeded by the Mariandyni,
+who owned the small tract between Cape Baba and the mouth of
+the Sakkariyeh (Sangarius). From the Sangarius to the canal of
+Constantinople dwelt the Thynians and Bithynians intermixed, the former
+however affecting the coast and the latter the interior of the country.
+The entire tract was of a nearly uniform character, consisting of wooded
+spurs from the northern mountain-chain, with, valleys of greater or
+less width between them. Streams were numerous, and vegetation was
+consequently rich; but it may be doubted whether the climate was
+healthy.
+
+The western lowland comprised the inland regions of Mysia, Lydia,
+and Caria, together with the coast-tracts which had been occupied by
+immigrant Greeks, and which were known as Juolis, Doris, and Ionia. The
+broad and rich plains, the open valleys, the fair grassy mountains, the
+noble trees, the numerous and copious rivers of this district are too
+well known to need description here. The western portion of Asia Minor
+is a terrestrial paradise, well deserving the praises which Herodotus
+with patriotic enthusiasm bestowed upon it. The climate is delightful,
+only that it is somewhat too luxurious; the soil is rich and varied in
+quality; the vegetable productions are abundant; and the mountains, at
+any rate anciently, possessed mineral treasures of great value.
+
+The lowland upon the south is narrower and more mountainous than either
+of the others. It comprised three countries only--Lycia, Pamphylia, and
+Cilicia. The tract is chiefly occupied by spurs from Taurus, between
+which lie warm and richly wooded valleys. In Lycia, however, the
+mountain-ridges embrace some extensive uplands, on a level not much
+inferior to that of the central plateau itself, while in Pamphylia and
+Cilicia are two or three low alluvial plains of tolerable extent and
+of great fertility. Of these the most remarkable is that near Tarsus,
+formed by the three streams of the Cydnus, the Sarus, and the Pyramus,
+which extends along the coast a distance of forty miles and reaches
+inland about thirty, the region which gave to the tract where it occurs
+the name of Cilicia Campestris or Pedias.
+
+The Persian dominion in this quarter was not bounded by sea. Opposite to
+Cilicia lay the large and important island of Cyprus, which was included
+in the territories of the Great King from the time of Cambyses to the
+close of the Empire. Further to the west, Rhodes, Cos, Samos, Chios,
+Lesbos, Tenedos, Lemnus, Imbrus, Samothrace, Thasos, and most of the
+islands of the Egean were for a time Persian, but were never grasped
+with such firmness as to be a source of real strength to their
+conquerors. The same may be said of Thrace and Pseonia, subjugated under
+Darius, and held for some twenty or thirty years, but not assimilated,
+not brought into the condition of provinces, and therefore rather
+a drain upon the Empire than an addition to its resources. It seems
+unnecessary to lengthen out this description of the Persian territories
+by giving an account of countries and islands, whose connection with the
+Empire was at once so slight and so temporary.
+
+A few words must, however, be said respecting Cyprus. This island, which
+is 140 miles long from Bafa (Paphos) to Cape Andrea, with an average
+width for two thirds of its length of thirty-five, and for the remaining
+third of about six or seven miles, is a mountainous tract, picturesque
+and varied, containing numerous slopes, and a few plains, well fitted
+for cultivation. According to Eratosthenes it was in the more ancient
+times richly wooded, but was gradually cleared by human labor. Its soil
+was productive, and particularly well suited for the vine and the olive.
+It grew also sufficient corn for its own use. But its special value
+arose from its mineral products. The copper mines near Tamasus were
+enormously productive, and the ore thence derived so preponderated over
+all other supplies that the later Romans came to use the word Cyprium
+for the metal generally--whence the names by which it is even now known
+in most of the languages of modern Europe. On the whole Cyprus was
+considered inferior to no known island. Besides its vegetable and
+mineral products, it furnished a large number of excellent sailors to
+the Persian fleet.
+
+It remains to notice briefly those provinces of the south-west which had
+not been included within any of the preceding monarchies, and which are
+therefore as yet undescribed in these volumes. These provinces are the
+African, and may be best considered under the three heads of Egypt,
+Libya, and the Cyrenaica.
+
+Egypt, if we include under the name not merely the Nile valley and the
+Delta, but the entire tract interposed between the Libyan Desert on the
+one side and the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea on the other, is a country of
+nearly the size of Italy. It measures 520 miles from Elephantine to the
+Mediterranean, and has an average width of 150 or 160 miles. It must
+thus contain an area of about 80,000 square miles. Of this space,
+however, at least three fourths is valueless, consisting of bare rocky
+mountain or dry sandy plain. It is only along the course of the narrow
+valley in which the Nile flows from the Cataracts to beyond Cairo, in
+the tract known as the Faioum, and in the broad region of the Delta,
+that cultivation is possible. Even in the Delta itself there are large
+spaces which are arid, and others which are permanent marshes, so that
+considerable portions of its surface are unfitted for husbandry. But if
+the quantity of cultivable land is thus limited in Egypt, the quality is
+so excellent, in consequence of the alluvial character of the soil, that
+the country was always in ancient times a sort of granary of the world.
+The noble river, bringing annually a fresh deposit of the richest soil,
+and furnishing a supply of water, which is sufficient, if carefully
+husbanded, to produce a succession of luxuriant crops throughout the
+year, makes Egypt--what it is even at the present day--one of the most
+fertile portions of the earth’s surface--a land of varied products,
+all excellent--but especially a land of corn, to which the principal
+nations of the world looked for their supplies, either regularly, or at
+any rate in times of difficulty.
+
+West of Egypt was a dry and sandy tract, dotted with oases, but
+otherwise only habitable along the shore, which in the time of the
+Persian Empire was occupied by a number of wild tribes who were mostly
+in the lowest condition to which savage man is capable of sinking. The
+geographical extent of this tract was large, exceeding considerably that
+of Egypt; but its value was slight. Naturally, it produced nothing but
+dates and hides. The inhumanity of the inhabitants made it, however,
+further productive of a commodity, which, until the world is
+christianized, will probably always be regarded as one of high
+value--the commodity of negro slaves, which were procured in the Sahara
+by slave-hunts, and perhaps by purchase in Nigritia.
+
+Still further to the west, and forming the boundary of the Empire in
+this direction, lay the district of the Cyrenaica, a tract of singular
+fertility and beauty. Between Benghazi, in east longitude 20°, and the
+Ras al Tynn (long. 23° 15’), there rises above the level of the adjacent
+regions an extensive table land, which, attracting the vapors that float
+over the Mediterranean, condenses them, and so abounds with springs
+and rills. A general freshness and greenness, with rich vegetation in
+places, is the consequence. Olives, figs, carobs, junipers, oleanders,
+cypresses, cedars, myrtles, arbutus-trees, cover the flanks of the
+plateau and the hollows which break its surface, while the remainder is
+suitable alike for the cultivation of cereals and for pasturage. Nature
+has also made the region a special gift in the laserpitium or silphium,
+which was regarded by the ancients as at once a delicacy and a plant
+of great medicinal power, and which added largely to the value of the
+country.
+
+Such was the geographical extent of the Persian Empire, and such
+were the chief provinces which it contained besides those previously
+comprised in the empires of Media or Babylon. Territorially, the great
+mass of the Empire lay towards the east, between long. 50° and 75°, or
+between the Zagros range and the Indian Desert. But its most important
+provinces were the western ones. East of Persepolis, the only regions
+of much value were the valleys of the Indus and the Oxus. Westward lay
+Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, Armenia, Iberia, Cappadocia, Asia
+Minor, Cyprus, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, the Cyrenaica--all countries of
+great, or at least considerable, productiveness. The two richest grain
+tracts of the ancient world, the best pasture regions, the districts
+which produced the most valuable horses, the most abundant of known
+gold-fields, were included within the limits of the Empire, which may
+be looked upon as self-sufficing, containing within it all that man in
+those days required, not only for his necessities, but even for his most
+cherished luxuries.
+
+The productiveness of the Empire was the natural result of its
+possessing so many and such large rivers. Six streams of the first
+class, having courses exceeding a thousand miles in length, helped to
+fertilize the lands which owned the sway of the Great King. These were
+the Nile, the Indus, the Euphrates, the Jaxartes, the Oxus, and the
+Tigris. Two of the six have been already described in these volumes, and
+therefore will not need to detain us here; but a few words must be
+said with respect to each of the remaining four, if our sketch of the
+geography of the Empire is to make any approach to completeness.
+
+The Nile was only in the latter part of its course a Persian stream.
+Flowing, as we now know that it does, from within a short distance of
+the equator, it had accomplished more than three fourths of its course
+before it entered a Persian province. It ran, however, through Persian
+territory a distance of about six hundred miles, and conferred on
+the tract through which it passed immeasurable benefits. The Greeks
+sometimes maintained that “Egypt was the gift of the river;” and, though
+this was very far from being a correct statement in the sense intended,
+there is a meaning of the words in which we may accept them as
+expressing a fact. Egypt is only what she is through her river. The Nile
+gives her all that makes her valuable. This broad, ample, and unfailing
+stream not only by its annual inundation enriches the soil and prepares
+it for tillage in a manner that renders only the lightest further labor
+necessary, but serves as a reservoir from which inexhaustible supplies
+of the precious fluid can be obtained throughout the whole of the year.
+The water, which rises towards the end of June, begins to subside early
+in October, and for half the year--from December till June--Egypt is
+only cultivable through irrigation. She produces, however, during this
+period, excellent crops--even at the present day, when there are few
+canals--from the facility with which water is obtained, by means of
+a very simple engine, out of the channel of the Nile. This unfailing
+supply enabled the cultivator to obtain a second, a third, and even
+sometimes a fourth crop from the same land within the space of a year.
+
+The course of the Nile from Elephantine, where it entered Egypt, to
+Cercasorus, near Heliopolis, where it bifurcated, was in general north,
+with, however, a certain tendency westward. It entered Egypt nearly in
+long. 33°, and at Neapolis (more than two degrees further north) it was
+still within 15° of the same meridian; then, however, it took a westerly
+bend, crossed the 32nd and 31st meridians, and in lat. 28° 23 reached
+west as far as long. 30° 43’. After this it returned a little eastward,
+recrossed the 31st meridian, and having reached long. 31° 22’ near
+Aphroditopolis (lat.29° 25), it proceeded almost due north to Cercasorus
+in lat. 30° 7’. The course of the river up to this point was, from its
+entry into the country, about 540 miles. At Cercasorus the Delta began.
+The river threw out two branches, which flowed respectively to the
+north-east and the north-west, while between them was a third channel,
+a continuation of the previous course of the stream, which pierced the
+Delta through its centre, flowing almost due north. Lower down, further
+branch channels were thrown out, some natural, some artificial, and the
+triangular tract between the two outer arms of the river was intersected
+by at least five, and (in later times) by fourteen large streams. The
+right and left arms appear to have been of about equal in length, and
+may be estimated at 150 or 160 miles; the central arm had a shorter
+course, not exceeding 110 miles. The volume of water which the Nile
+pours into the Mediterranean during a day and night is estimated at from
+150,000 millions to 700,000 millions of cubic metres. It was by far the
+largest of all the rivers of the Empire.
+
+The Indus, which was the next largest of the Persian rivers to the Nile,
+rose (like the Nile) outside the Persian territory. Its source is in the
+region north of the Himalaya range, about lat. 31°, long. 82° 30’. It
+begins by flowing to the north-west, in a direction parallel to that of
+the Western Himalayas, along the northern flank of which it continues
+in this line a distance of about 700 miles, past Ladak, to long. 75°
+nearly. Here it is met by the Bolor chain, which prevents its further
+progress in this direction and causes it to turn suddenly nearly at a
+right angle to the south-west. Entering a transverse valley, it finds a
+way (which is still very imperfectly known) through the numerous ridges
+of the Himalaya to the plain at its southern base, on which it debouches
+about thirty miles above Attock. It is difficult to say at what exact
+point it crossed the Persian frontier, but probably at least the first
+700 miles of its course were through territory not Persian. From Attock
+to the sea the Indus is a noble river. It runs for 900 miles in a
+general direction of S.S.W. through the plain in one main stream (which
+is several hundred yards in width), while on its way it throws off also
+from time to time small side streamlets, which are either consumed in
+irrigation or rejoin the main channel. A little below Tatta its Delta
+begins--a Delta, however, much inferior in size to that of the Nile. The
+distance from the apex to the sea is not more than sixty miles, and
+the breadth of the tract embraced between the two arms does not exceed
+seventy miles. The entire course of the Indus is reckoned at 1960 miles,
+of which probably 1260 were through Persian territory. The volume of
+the stream is always considerable, while in the rainy season it is very
+great. The Indus is said then to discharge into the Indian ocean
+446,000 cubic feet per second, or 4280 millions of cubic yards in the
+twenty-four hours.
+
+The Oxus rises from an Alpine lake, lying on the western side of the
+Bolor chain in lat. 37° 40’, long. 73° 50’. After a rapid descent from
+the high elevation of the lake, during which it pursues a somewhat
+serpentine course, it debouches from the hills upon the plain about
+long. 69° 20’, after receiving the river of Fyzabad, and then proceeds,
+first west and afterwards north-west, across the Great Kharesmian Desert
+to the Sea of Aral. During the first 450 miles of its course, while it
+runs among the hills, it receives from both sides numerous and important
+tributaries; but from the meridian of Balkh those fail entirely, and
+for above 800 miles the Oxus pursues its solitary way, unaugmented by a
+single affluent, across the waste of Tartary, rolling through the desert
+a wealth of waters, which must diminish, but which does not seem very
+sensibly to diminish, by evaporation. At Kilef, sixty miles north-west
+of Balkh, the width of the river is 350 yards; at Khodja Salih, thirty
+miles lower down, it is 823 yards with a depth of twenty feet; at Kerki,
+seventy miles below Khodja Salih, it is “twice the width of the Danube
+at Buda-Pesth,” or about 940 yards; at Betik, on the route between
+Bokhara and Merv, its width has diminished to 650 yards, but its depth
+has increased to twenty-nine feet. Finally, at Gorlen Hezaresp near
+Khiva, the breadth of the Oxus is so great that both banks are hardly
+distinguishable at the same time; but the stream is here comparatively
+shallow, ceasing to be navigable at about this point. The present course
+of the Oxus from its rise in Lake Sir-i-Kol to its termination in the
+Sea of Aral is estimated at 1400 miles. Anciently its course must have
+been still longer. The Oxus, in the time of the Achaemenian kings, fell
+into the Caspian by a channel which can even now be traced. Its length
+was thus increased by at least 450 miles, and, exceeding that of the
+Jaxartes, fell but little short of the length of the Indus.
+
+The Oxus, like the Nile and the Indus, has a periodical swell, which
+lasts from May to October. It does not, however, overflow its
+hanks. Under a scientific system of irrigation it is probable that a
+considerable belt of land on either side of its course might be brought
+under cultivation. But at present the extreme limit to which culture
+is carried, except in the immediate vicinity of Khiva, seems to be four
+miles; while often, in the absence of human care, the desert creeps up
+to the very brink of the river.
+
+The Jaxartes, or Sir-Deria, rises from two sources in the Thian-chan
+mountain chain, the more remote of which is in long. 79° nearly. The two
+streams both flow to the westward in almost parallel valleys, uniting
+about long. 71°. After their junction the course of the stream is still
+to the westward for two degrees; but between Khokand and Tashkend the
+river sweeps round in a semicircle and proceeds to run first due north
+and then north-west, skirting the Kizil Koum desert to Otrar, where
+it resumes its original westerly direction and flows with continually
+diminishing volume across the desert to the Sea of Aral. The Jaxartes
+is a smaller stream than the Oxus. At Otrar, after receiving its last
+tributary, it is no more than 250 yards wide. Below this point it
+continually dwindles, partly from evaporation, partly from the branch
+stream which it throws off right and left, of which the chief are the
+Cazala and the Kuvan Deria. On its way through the desert it spreads but
+little fertility along its banks, which are in places high and arid, in
+others depressed and swampy. The branch streams are of some service for
+irrigation; and it is possible that a scientific system might turn the
+water of the main channel to good account, and by its means redeem from
+the desert large tracts which have never yet been cultivated. But no
+such system has hitherto been applied to the Sir, and it is doubtful
+whether success would attend it. The Sir, where it falls into the Sea
+of Aral, is very shallow, seldom even in the flood season exceeding four
+feet. The length of the stream was till recently estimated at more than
+1208 miles; but the latest explorations seem to require an enlargement
+of this estimate by at least 200 or 250 miles.
+
+In rivers of the second class the Persian Empire was so rich that it
+will be impossible, within the limits prescribed for the present work,
+to do more than briefly enumerate them. The principal were, in Asia
+Minor, the Hermus (Ghiediz Chai), and the Maeander (Mendere) on the
+west, the Sangarius (Sakka-riyeh), the Halys (Kizil Irmak), and the Iris
+(Yechil Irmak) on the north, the Cydnus (Tersoos Chai), Sarus (Cilician
+Syhun), and Pyramus (Cilician Jyhun) on the south; in Armenia and the
+adjacent regions, the Araxes (Aras), Cyrus (Kur), and Phasis (Eion); on
+the Iranic plateau, the Sefid-rud, the Zenderud or river of Isfahan, the
+Etymandrus (Helmend), and the Arius (Heri-rud); in the low country east
+of the Caspian, the Gurgan and Ettrek, rivers of Hyrcania, the Margus
+Churghab (or river of Merv), the Delias or river of Balkh, the Ak Su or
+Bokhara river, and the Kizil Deria, a stream in the Khanat of Kokand;
+in Afghanistan and India, the Kabul river, the Hydaspes (Jelum), the
+Aoesines (Chenab), the Hydraotes (Ravee), and the Hyphasis (Sutlej
+or Gharra); in Persia Proper, the Oroatis (Hindyan or Tab), and the
+Bendamir; in Susiana, the Pasitigris (Kuran), the Hedypnus (Jerahi),
+the Choaspes (Kerkhah), and the Eulsenus (a branch of the same); in the
+Upper Zagros region, the Gyndes (Diyaleh), and the Greater and Lesser
+Zabs; in Mesopotamia, the Chaboras (Kha-bour), and Bilichus (Belik);
+finally, in Syria and Palestine, the Orontes or river of Antioch
+(Nahr-el-asy), the Jordan, and the Barada or river of Damascus. Thus,
+besides the six great rivers of the Empire, forty other considerable
+streams fertilized and enriched the territories of the Persian monarch,
+which, though they embraced many arid tracts, where cultivation was
+difficult, must be pronounced upon the whole well-watered, considering
+their extent and the latitude in which they lay.
+
+The Empire possessed, besides its rivers, a number of important lakes.
+Omitting the Caspian and the Aral, which lay upon its borders, there
+were contained within the Persian territories the following important
+basins: the Urumiyeh, Lake Van, and Lake Goutcha or Sivan in Armenia;
+Lakes Touz-Ghieul, Egerdir, Bey-Shehr, Chardak, Soghla, Buldur,
+Ghieul-Hissar, Iznik, Abullionte, Maniyas, and many others in Asia
+Minor; the Sabakhah, the Bahr-el-Melak, and the Lake of Antioch in
+Northern Syria; the Lake of Hems in the Coele-Syrian valley; the
+Damascus lakes, the Lake of Merom, the Sea of Tiberias, and the Dead
+Sea in Southern Syria and Palestine; Lake Moeris and the Natron lakes in
+Egypt; the Bahr-i-Nedjif in Babylonia; Lake Neyriz in Persia Proper;
+the Lake of Seistan in the Iranic Desert; and Lake Manchur in the In dus
+valley. Several of these have been already described in these
+volumes. Of the remainder the most important were the Lake of Van, the
+Touz-Ghieul, the great lake of Seistan, and Lake Moeris. These cannot be
+dismissed without a brief description.
+
+Lake Van is situated at a very unusual elevation, being more than 5400
+feet above the sea level. It is a triangular basin, of which the three
+sides front respectively S.S.E., N.N.E., and N.W. by W. The sides
+are all irregular, being broken by rocky promontories; but the chief
+projection lies to the east of the lake, where a tract is thrown out
+which suddenly narrows the expanse from about fifty miles to less than
+five. The greatest length of the basin is from N.E. to S.W., where it
+extends a distance of eighty miles between Amis and Tadvan; its greatest
+width is between Aklat and Van, where it measures across somewhat more
+than fifty miles. The scenery which surrounds it is remarkable for
+its beauty. The lake is embosomed amid high mountains, picturesque in
+outline, and all reaching in places the level of perpetual snow. Its
+waters, generally placid, but sometimes lashed into high waves, are
+of the deepest blue; while its banks exhibit a succession of orchards,
+meadows, and gardens which have scarcely their equals in Asia. The lake
+is fed by a number of small streams flowing down from the lofty ridges
+which surround it, and, having no outlet, is of course salt, though
+far less so than the neighboring lake of Urumiyeh. Gulls and cormorants
+float upon its surface fish can live in it; and it is not distasteful to
+cattle. Set in the expanse of waters are a few small islets, whose vivid
+green contrasts well with the deep azure which surrounds them.
+
+The Touz-Ghieul is a basin of a very different character. Situated on
+the upland of Phrygia, in lat. 39°, long. 33°, 30’, its elevation is not
+more than 2500 feet. Low hills of sandstone and conglomerate encircle
+it, but generally at some distance, so that a tract of plain, six or
+seven miles in width, intervenes between their base and the shore. The
+shape of the lake is an irregular oval, with the greater axis running
+nearly due north and south. Its greatest length is estimated at
+forty-five miles, its width varies, but is generally from ten to sixteen
+miles. At one point, however, nearly opposite to Kodj Hissar, the lake
+narrows to a distance of no more than five miles; and here a causeway
+has been constructed from shore to shore, which, though ruined, still
+affords a dry pathway in the summer. The water of the Touz-Ghieul is
+intensely salt, containing at some seasons of the year no less than
+thirty-two per cent of saline matter, which is considerably more than
+the amount of such matter in the water of the Dead Sea. The surrounding
+plain is barren, in places marshy, and often covered with an
+incrustation of salt. The whole scene is one of desolation. The acrid
+waters support no animal organization; birds shun them; the plain grows
+nothing but a few stunted and sapless shrubs. The only signs of life
+which greet the traveller are the carts of the natives, which pass him
+laden with the salt that is obtained with ease from the saturated water.
+
+The Zerreh or Sea of Seistan--called sometimes the Hamun, or
+“expanse”--is situated in the Seistan Desert on the Great Iranic
+plateau, and consequently at an elevation of (probably) 3000 feet. It
+is formed by the accumulation of the waters brought down by the Helmend,
+the Haroot-rud, the river of Khash, the Furrah-rud and other streams,
+which flow from the mountains of Afghanistan, with converging courses
+to the south-west. It is an extensive basin, composed of two arms, an
+eastern and a western. The western arm, which is the larger of the
+two, has its greatest length from N.N.E. to S.S.W., and extends in this
+direction about ninety miles. Its greatest width is about twenty-five
+miles. The eastern arm is rather more than forty miles long, and from
+ten to twenty broad. It is shaped much like a fish’s tail. The two arms
+are connected by a strait seven or eight miles in width, which joins
+them near their northern extremities. The water of the lake, though
+not salt, is black and has a bad taste. Fish support life in it with
+difficulty, and never grow to any great size. The lake is shallow, not
+much exceeding a depth of three or four feet. It contracts greatly in
+the summer, at which time the strait connecting the two arms is often
+absolutely dry. The edges of the lake are clothed with tamarisk and
+other trees; and where the rivers enter it, sometimes by several
+branches, the soil is rich and cultivation productive; but elsewhere the
+sand of the desert creeps up almost to the margin of the water, clothed
+only with some sickly grass and a few scattered shrubs.
+
+The Birket-el-Keroun, or Lake Moaris of the classical writers, is a
+natural basin--not, as Herodotus imagined, an artificial one--situated
+on the western side of the Nile valley, in a curious depression which
+nature has made among the Libyan hills. This depression--the modern
+district of the Faioom--is a circular plain, which sinks gradually
+towards the north-west, descending till it is more than 100 feet below
+the surface of the Nile at low water. The Northern and northwestern
+portion of the depression is occupied by the lake, a sheet of brackish
+water shaped like a horn (whence the modern name) measuring about
+thirty-five or thirty-six miles from end to end, and attaining in the
+middle a width of between five and six miles. The area of the lake is
+estimated roughly at 150 square miles, its circumference at about ninety
+miles. It has a depth varying from twelve to twenty-four feet. Though
+the water is somewhat brackish, yet the Birket contains several species
+of fresh-water fish; and in ancient times its fisheries are said to have
+been exceedingly productive.
+
+The principal cities of the Empire were, besides Pesargadae and
+Persepolis, Susa--the chief city of Susiana--which became the capital;
+Babylon, Ecbatana, Rhages, Zadracarta, Bactra (now Balkh), Maracanda
+(now Samarcand), Aria, or Artacoana (Herat), Caspatyrus on the Upper
+Indus,Taxila (Attock?), Pura (perhaps Bunpoor), Carmana (Kerman),
+Arbela, Nisibis, Amida (now Diarbekr); Mazaca in Cappadocia; Trapezus
+(Trebizond), Sinope, Dascyleium, Sardis, Ephesus, Miletus, Gordium,
+Perga, and Tarsus in Asia Minor: Damascus, Jerusalem, Sidon, Tyre,
+Azotus or Ashdod, and Gaza in Syria; Memphis and Thebes in Egypt; Cyrene
+and Barca in the Cyrenaica. Of these, while Susa had from the time of
+Darius Hystaspis a decided pre-eminence as the main residence of the
+court, and consequently as the usual seat of government, there were
+three others which could boast the distinction of being royal abodes
+from time to time, either regularly at certain seasons, or occasionally
+at the caprice of the monarch. These were Babylon, Ecbatana, and
+Persepolis, the capitals respectively of Chaldaea, Media, and Persia
+Proper, all great and ancient cities, accustomed to the presence of
+Courts, and all occupying positions sufficiently central to render them
+not ill-suited for the business of administration. Next to these in
+order of dignity may be classed the satrapial residences, often the
+chief cities of old monarchies, such as Sardis, the capital city of
+Lydia, Dascyleium of Bithynia, Memphis of Egypt, Bactra of Bactria, and
+the like; while the third rank was held by the towns, where there was no
+Court, either royal or satrapial.
+
+Before this chapter is concluded a few words must be said with respect
+to the countries which bordered upon the Persian Empire. The Empire
+was surrounded, for the most part, either by seas or deserts. The
+Mediterranean, the Egean, the Propontis, the Euxine, the Caspian, the
+Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Gulf or Bed Sea washed
+its shores, bounding almost all its western, and much of its northern
+and southern sides; while the sands of the Sahara, the deserts of
+Arabia and Syria of India and Thibet, filled up the greater part of the
+intervening spaces. The only countries of importance which can be viewed
+as in any sense neighbors of Persia are European and Asiatic Scythia,
+Hindustan, Arabia, Ethiopia, and Greece.
+
+Where the Black Sea, curving round to the north, ceased to furnish to
+the Empire the advantage of a water barrier, a protection of almost
+equal strength was afforded to it by the mountain-chain of the Caucasus.
+Excepting on the extreme east, where it slopes gently to the Caspian,
+this range is one of great elevation, possessing but few passes, and
+very difficult to traverse. Its fastnesses have always been inhabited by
+wild tribes, jealous of their freedom; and these tribes may have caused
+annoyance, but they could at no time have been a serious danger to
+the Empire. They were weak in numbers, divided in nationality and in
+interests, and quite incapable of conducting any distant expedition.
+Like their modern successors, the Circassians, Abassians, and Lesghians,
+their one and only desire was to maintain themselves in possession of
+their beloved mountains; and this desire would cause them to resist
+all attempts that might be made to traverse their country, whether
+proceeding from the north or from the south, from the inhabitants of
+Europe or from those of Asia. Persia was thus strongly protected in this
+quarter; but still she could not feel herself altogether safe. Once at
+least within historic memory the barrier of the Caucasus had proved to
+be surmountable. From the vast Steppe which stretches northwards from
+its base, in part salt, in part grassy, had crossed into Asia--through
+its passes or round its eastern flank--a countless host, which had swept
+all before it, and brought ruin upon flourishing empires. The Scythian
+and Samaritan hordes of the steppe-country between the Wolga and
+the Dnieper were to the monarchies of Western Asia a permanent, if a
+somewhat distant, peril. It could not be forgotten that they had
+proved themselves capable of penetrating the rocky barrier which would
+otherwise have seemed so sure a protection, or that when they swarmed
+across it in the seventh century before our era, their strength was at
+first irresistible. The Persians knew, what the great nations of the
+earth afterwards forgot, that along the northern horizon there lay a
+black cloud, which might at any time burst, carrying desolation to
+their homes and bringing ruin upon their civilization. We shall find the
+course of their history importantly affected by a sense of this danger,
+and we shall have reason to admire the wisdom of their measures of
+precaution against it.
+
+It was not only to the west of the Caspian that the danger threatened.
+East of that sea also was a vast steppe-region--rolling plains of sand
+or grass--the home of nomadic hordes similar in character to those who
+drank the waters of the Don and Wolga. The Sacse, Massagetse, and Dahse
+of this country, who dwelt about the Caspian, the Aral, and the Lower
+Jaxartes, were an enemy scarcely less formidable than the Sarmatians
+and the Scyths of the West. As the modern Iran now suffers from the
+perpetual incursions of Uzbegs and Turcomans, so the north-eastern
+provinces of the ancient Persia were exposed to the raids of the Asiatic
+Scythians and the Massagetse, who were confined by no such barrier as
+the Caucasus, having merely to cross a river, probably often fordable
+during the summer, in order to be in Persia. Hyrcania and Parthia had
+indeed a certain amount of protection from the Kharesmian Desert; but
+the upper valleys of the great streams--the satrapies of Sogdiana and
+Bactria--must have suffered considerable annoyance from such attacks.
+
+On the side of India, the Empire enjoyed a twofold security. From the
+shores of the Indian Ocean in the vicinity of the Runn of Cutch to the
+31st parallel of north latitude--a distance of above 600 miles--there
+extends a desert, from one to two hundred miles across, which
+effectually shuts off the valley of the Indus from the rest of
+Hindustan. It is only along the skirts of the mountains, by Lahore,
+Umritsir, and Loodiana, that the march of armies is possible--by this
+line alone can the Punjabis threaten Central India, or the inhabitants
+of Central India attack the Punjab. Hence in this quarter there was but
+a very narrow tract to guard; and the task of defence was still further
+lightened by the political condition of the people. The Gangetic
+Indians, though brave and powerful, were politically weak, from their
+separation into a number of distinct states under petty Rajahs, who
+could never hope to contend successfully against the forces of a mighty
+Empire. Persia, consequently, was safe upon this side, in the division
+of her adversaries. Nor had she neglected the further security which was
+obtainable by an interposition between her own actual frontier and her
+enemies’ dominions of a number of half-subject dependencies. Native
+princes were allowed to bear sway in the Punjab region, who acknowledged
+the suzerainty of Persia, and probably paid her a fixed tribute, but
+whose best service was that they prevented a collision between the Power
+of whom they held their crowns and the great mass of their own nation.
+
+The Great Arabian Peninsula, which lay due south of the most central
+part of the Empire, and bordered it on this side for about thirteen
+degrees, or (if we follow the line of the boundary) for above a thousand
+miles, might seem to have been the most important of all the adjacent
+countries, since it contains an area of a million of square miles, and
+is a nursery of brave and hardy races. Politically, however, Arabia is
+weak, as has been shown in a former volume; while geographically she
+presents to the north her most arid and untraversable regions, so that
+it is rarely, and only under very exceptional circumstances, that she
+menaces seriously her northern neighbors. Persia seems never to have
+experienced any alarm of an Arab invasion; her relations with the tribes
+that came into closest contact with her were friendly; and she left the
+bulk of the nation in unmolested enjoyment of their independence.
+
+Another country adjoining the Persian Empire on the south, and one which
+might have been expected to cause some trouble, was Ethiopia. To Egypt
+Ethiopia had always proved an unquiet, and sometimes even a dangerous,
+neighbor; she was fertile, rich, populous; her inhabitants were tall,
+strong, and brave; she had a ready means of marching into Egypt down the
+fertile valley of the Nile; and her hosts had frequently ravaged,
+and even held for considerable terms of years, that easily subjected
+country. It is remarkable that during the whole time of the Persian
+dominion Ethiopia seems to have abstained from any invasion of the
+Egyptian territory. Apparently, she feared to provoke the power which
+had seated itself on the throne of the Pharaohs, and preferred the quiet
+enjoyment of her own wealth and resources to the doubtful issues of a
+combat with the mistress of Asia.
+
+On her western horizon, clearly discernible from the capes and headlands
+of the Asiatic coast, but separated from her, except in one or two
+places, by a tolerably broad expanse of sea, and so--as it might have
+seemed--less liable to come in contact with her than her neighbors upon
+the land, lay the shores and isles of Greece--lovely and delightful
+regions, in possession of a brave and hardy race, as yet uncorrupted by
+luxury, though in the enjoyment of a fair amount of civilization. As the
+eye looked across the Egean waters, resting with pleasure on the varied
+and graceful forms of Sporades and Cyclades, covetous thoughts might
+naturally arise in the beholder’s heart; and the idea might readily
+occur of conquering and annexing the fair tracts which lay so temptingly
+near and possessed such numerous attractions. The entire region,
+continent and islands included, was one of diminutive size--not half
+so large as an ordinary Persian satrapy; it was well peopled, but its
+population could not have amounted to that of the Punjab or of Egypt,
+countries which Persia had overrun in a single campaign; its inhabitants
+were warlike, but they were comparatively poor, and the true sinews of
+war are money; moreover, they were divided amongst themselves, locally
+split up by the physical conformation of their country, and politically
+repugnant to anything like centralization or union. A Persian king like
+Cambyses or Darius might be excused if, when his thoughts turned to
+Greece, he had a complacent feeling that no danger could threaten him
+from that quarter--that the little territory on his western border was a
+prey which he might seize at any time that it suited his convenience or
+seemed good to his caprice; so opening without any risk a new world
+to his ambition. It required a knowledge that the causes of military
+success and political advance lie deeper than statistics can reach--that
+they have their roots in the moral nature of man, in the grandeur of his
+ideas and the energy of his character--in order to comprehend the fact,
+that the puny power upon her right flank was the enemy which Persia had
+most to fear, the foe who would gradually sap her strength, and finally
+deal her the blow that would lay her prostrate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS.
+
+
+It is evident that an Empire which extended over more than twenty
+degrees of latitude, touching on the one hand the tropic of Cancer,
+while it reached upon the other to the parallel of Astrakan, and which
+at the same time varied in elevation, from 20,000 feet above to 1300
+below the sea level, must have comprised within it great differences of
+climate, and have boasted an immense variety of productions. No general
+description can be applicable to such a stretch of territory; and it
+will therefore be necessary to speak of the various parts of the
+Empire successively in order to convey to the reader a true idea of
+the climatic influences to which it was subject, and the animals,
+vegetables, and minerals which it produced.
+
+Commencing with Persia Proper, the original seat and home of the race
+with whose history we are specially concerned at present, we may observe
+that it was regarded by the ancients as possessing three distinct
+climates--one along the shore, dry and scorchingly hot; another in the
+mountain region beyond, temperate and delightful; and a third in the
+tract further inland, which was thought to be disagreeably cold and
+wintry. Moderns, on the contrary, find two climates only in Fars--one
+that of the Desbistan or “low country,” extremely hot and dry,
+with frequent scorching and oppressive winds from the south and the
+south-east; the other, that of the highlands, which is cold in winter,
+but in summer pleasant and enjoyable. In the Deshistan snow never falls,
+and there is but little rain; heavy dews, however, occur at night, so
+that the mornings are often fresh and cool; but the middle of the day
+is almost always hot, and from March to November the temperature at noon
+ranges from 90° to 100° of Fahrenheit. Occasionally it reaches 125°, and
+is then fearfully oppressive. Fierce gusts laden with sand sweep over
+the plain, causing vegetation to droop or disappear, and the animal
+world to hide itself. Man with difficulty retains life at these trying
+times, feeling a languor and a depression of spirits which are barely
+supportable.10 All who can do so quit the plains and betake themselves
+to the upland region till the great heats are past, and the advance of
+autumn brings at any rate cool nights and mornings. The climate of the
+uplands is severe in winter. Much snow falls, and the thermometer often
+marks from ten to fifteen degrees of frost. From time to time there are
+furious gales, and, as the spring advances, a good deal of wet falls;
+but the summer and autumn are almost rainless. The heat towards midday
+is often considerable, but it is tempered by cool winds, and even at the
+worst is not relaxing. The variations of temperature are great in the
+twenty-four hours, and the climate is, so far, trying; but, on the
+whole, it seems to be neither disagreeable nor unhealthy.
+
+A climate resembling that of the Deshtistan prevailed along the entire
+southern coast of the Empire, from the mouth of the Tigris to that of
+the Indus. It was exchanged in the lower valleys of the great streams
+for a damp close heat, intolerably stifling and oppressive. The upper
+valleys of these streams and the plains into which they expanded were at
+once less hot and less moist, but were subject to violent storms, owing
+to the near vicinity of the mountains. In the mountains themselves, in
+Armenia and Zagros, and again in the Elburz, the climate was of a more
+rigorous character--intensely cold in winter, but pleasant in the summer
+time. [PLATE XXVII., Fig. 3.] Asia Minor enjoyed generally a warmer
+climate than the high mountain regions; and its western and southern
+coasts, being fanned by fresh breezes from the sea, or from the hills
+of the interior, and cooled during the whole of the summer by frequent
+showers, were especially charming. In Syria and Egypt the heats of
+summer were somewhat trying, more especially in the Ghor or depressed
+Jordan valley, and in the parts of Egypt adjoining on Ethiopia; but the
+winters were mild, and the springs and autumns delightful. The rarity of
+rain in Egypt was remarkable, and drew the attention of foreigners,
+who recorded, in somewhat exaggerated terms, the curious meteorological
+phenomenon. In the Cyrenaica there was a delicious summer climate--an
+entire absence of rain, with cool breezes from the sea, cloudy skies,
+and heavy dews at night, these last supplying the moisture which through
+the whole of summer covered the ground with the freshest and loveliest
+verdure. The autumn and winter rains were, however, violent; and
+terrific storms were at that time of no unusual occurrence. The natives
+regarded it as a blessing, that over this part of Africa the sky was
+“pierced,” and allowed moisture to fall from the great reservoir of
+“waters above the firmament;” but the blessing must have seemed one of
+questionable value at the time of the November monsoon, when the country
+is deluged with rain for several weeks in succession.
+
+On the opposite side of the Empire, towards the north and the
+north-east, in Azerbijan, on the Iranian plateau, in the Afghan plains,
+in the high flat region east of the Bolor, and again in the low plain
+about the Aral lake and the Caspian, a severe climate prevailed during
+the winter, while the summer combined intense heat during the day with
+extraordinary cold--the result of radiation--at night. Still more bitter
+weather was experienced in the mountain regions of these parts--in
+the Bolor, the Thian Chan, the Himalaya, and the Paropamisus or Hindu
+Kush--where the winters lasted more than half the year, deep snow
+covering the ground almost the whole of the time, and locomotion being
+rendered almost impossible; while the summers were only moderately hot.
+On the other hand, there was in this quarter, at the very extreme
+east of the Empire, one of the most sultry and disagreeable of all
+climates--namely, that of the Indus valley, which is either intolerably
+hot and dry, with fierce tornadoes of dust that are unspeakably
+oppressive, or close and moist, swept by heavy storms, which, while
+they somewhat lower the temperature, increase the unhealthiness of the
+region. The worst portion of the valley is its southern extremity, where
+the climate is only tolerable during three months of the year. From
+March to November the heat is excessive; dust-storms prevail; there are
+dangerous dews at night; and with the inundation, which commences in
+April, a sickly time sets in, which causes all the wealthier classes
+to withdraw from the country till the stagnant water, which the swell
+always leaves behind it, has dried up.
+
+Upon the whole, the climate of the Empire belonged to the warmer class
+of the climates which are called temperate. In a few parts only, indeed,
+as in the Indus valley, along the coast from the mouth of the Indus
+to that of the Tigris, in Lower Babylonia and the adjoining portion
+of Susiana, in Southern Palestine, and in Egypt, was frost absolutely
+unknown; while in many places, especially in the high mountainous
+regions, the winters were bitterly severe; and in all the more elevated
+portions of the Empire, as in Phrygia and Cappadocia, in Azerbijan, on
+the great Iranian plateau, and again in the district about Kashgar and
+Yarkand, there was a prolonged period of sharp and bracing weather. But
+the summer warmth of almost the whole Empire was great, the thermometer
+probably ranging in most places from 90° to 120° during the months of
+June, July, August, and September. The springs and autumns were, except
+in the high mountain tracts, mild and enjoyable; the Empire had few very
+unhealthy districts; while the range of the thermometer was in most of
+the provinces considerable, and the variations in the course of a single
+day and night were unusually great, there was in the climate, speaking
+generally, nothing destructive of human vigor--nothing even inimical to
+longevity.
+
+The vegetable productions of Persia Proper in ancient times (so far as
+we have direct testimony on the subject) were neither numerous nor very
+remarkable. The low coast tract supplied dates in tolerable plenty,
+and bore in a few favored spots, corn, vines, and different kinds of
+fruit-trees; but its general character was one of extreme barrenness.
+In the mountain region there was an abundance of rich pasture, excellent
+grapes were grown, and fruit-trees of almost every sort, except the
+olive, flourished. One fruit-tree, regarded as indigenous in the
+country, acquired a special celebrity, and was known to the Romans
+as the persica, whence the German Pfirsche, the French peche, and our
+“peach.” Citrons, which grew in few places, were also a Persian fruit.
+Further, Persia produced a coarse kind of silphium or assafoetida; it
+was famous for its walnuts, which were distinguished by the epithet
+of “royal”; and it supplied to the pharmacopeia of Greece and Rome a
+certain number of herbs.
+
+The account of Persian vegetable products which we derive from antiquity
+is no doubt very incomplete; and it is necessary to supplement it from
+the observations of modern travellers. These persons tell us that, while
+Fars and Kerman are ill-supplied with forest-trees, they yet produce in
+places oaks, planes, chenars or sycamores, poplars, willows, pinasters,
+cypresses, acacias, fan-palms, konars, and junipers. Among shrubs, they
+bear the wild fig, the wild almond, the tamarisk, the myrtle, the box,
+the rhododendron, the camel’s thorn, the gum tragacanth, the caper
+plant, the benneh, the blackberry, and the liquorice-plant. They boast a
+great abundance of fruit-trees--as date-bearing palms, lemons, oranges,
+pomegranates, vines, peaches, nectarines, apricots, quinces, pears,
+apples, plums, figs, cherries, mulberries, barberries, walnuts, almonds,
+and pistachio-nuts. The kinds of grain chiefly cultivated are wheat,
+barley, millet, rice, and Indian corn or maize, which has been imported
+into the country from America. Pulse, beans, sesame, madder, henna,
+cotton, opium, tobacco, and indigo, are also grown in some places. The
+three last-named, and maize or Indian corn, are of comparatively recent
+introduction; but of the remainder it may be doubted whether there is a
+single one which was unknown to the ancient inhabitants.
+
+Among Persian indigenous animals may be enumerated the lion, the bear,
+the wild ass, the stag, the antelope, the ibex or wild goat, the wild
+boar, the hyena, the jackal, the wolf, the fox, the hare, the porcupine,
+the otter, the jerboa, the ichneumon, and the marmot. The lion appears
+to be rare, occurring only in some parts of the mountains. The ichneumon
+is confined to the Deshtistan. The antelope, the wild boar, the wolf,
+the fox, the jackal, the porcupine, and the jerboa are common. Wild
+asses are found only on the northern side of the mountains, towards the
+salt desert. In this tract they are frequently seen, both singly and in
+herds, and are hunted by the natives, who regard their flesh as a great
+delicacy.
+
+The most remarkable of the Persian birds are the eagle, the vulture, the
+cormorant, the falcon, the bustard, the pheasant, the heath-cock, the
+red-legged partridge, the small gray partridge, the pin tailed grouse,
+the sand-grouse, the francolin, the wild swan, the flamingo, the stork,
+the bittern, the oyster-catcher, the raven, the hooded crow, and
+the cuckoo. Besides these, the lakes boast all the usual kinds of
+water-fowl, as herons, ducks, snipe, teal, etc.; the gardens and groves
+abound with blackbirds, thrushes, and nightingales; curlews and peewits
+are seen occasionally; while pigeons, starlings, crows, magpies, larks,
+sparrows, and swallows are common. The francolin is hunted by men on
+foot in the country between Shiraz and Kerman, and is taken by the hand
+after a few flights. The oyster-catcher, which is a somewhat rare bird,
+has been observed only on Lake Neyriz. The bustard occurs both in the
+low plain along the coast, and on the high plateau, where it is captured
+by means of hawks. The pheasant and the heath-cock (the latter a black
+species spotted with white) are found in the woods near Failyun. The
+sand-grouse and the pin-tailed grouse belong to the eastern portion
+of the country, the portion known anciently as Carmania or “the hot
+region.” The other kinds are diffused pretty generally.
+
+The shores and rivers of Persia Proper supplied the people very
+plentifully with fish. The ancient writers tell us that the inhabitants
+of the coast tract lived almost wholly on a fish diet. The Indian Sea
+appears in those days to have abounded with whales, which were not
+unfrequently cast upon the shores, affording a mine of wealth to the
+natives. The great ribs were used as beams in the formation of huts,
+while the jaws served as doors and the smaller bones as planking.
+Dolphins also abounded in the Persian waters; together with many other
+fish of less bulk, which were more easy to capture. On these smaller
+fish, which they caught in nets, the maritime inhabitants subsisted
+principally. They had also an unfailing resource in the abundance of
+oysters, and other shell-fish along their coast--the former of excellent
+quality.
+
+In the interior, though the lakes, being salt or brackish, had no
+piscatory stores, the rivers were, for the most part, it would seem,
+well provided; at least, good fish are still found in many of the
+streams, both small and large; and in some they are exceedingly
+plentiful. Modern travellers fail to distinguish the different kinds;
+but we may presume that they are not very unlike those of the adjoining
+Media, which appear to be trout, carp, barbel, dace, bleak, and gudgeon.
+
+The reptiles of Persia Proper are not numerous. They are chiefly
+tortoises, lizards, frogs, land-snakes, and water-snakes. The
+land-snakes are venomous, but their poison is not of a very deadly
+character; and persons who have been bitten by them, if properly
+treated, generally recover. The lizards are of various sizes, some quite
+small, others more than three feet long, and covered with a coarse rough
+skin like that of a toad. They have the character of being venomous, and
+even dangerous to life; but it may be doubted whether they are not, like
+our toads and newts, in reality perfectly harmless.
+
+The traveller in Persia suffers less from reptiles than from insects.
+Scorpions abound in all parts of the country, and, infesting houses,
+furniture, and clothes, cause perpetual annoyance. Mosquitoes swarm
+in certain places and seasons, preventing sleep and irritating the
+traveller almost beyond endurance. A poisonous spider, a sort of
+tarantula, is said to occur in some localities; and Chardin further
+mentions a kind of centipede, the bite of which, according to him, is
+fatal. To the sufferings which these creatures cause, must be added a
+constant annoyance from those more vulgar forms of insect life which
+detract from the delights of travel even in Europe.
+
+Persia, moreover, suffers no less than Babylonia and Media, from the
+ravages of locusts. Constantly, when the wind is from the south-east,
+there cross from the Arabian coast clouds of these destructive insects,
+whose numbers darken the air as they move, in flight after flight,
+across the desert to the spots where nature or cultivation has clothed
+the earth with verdure. The Deshtistan, or low country, is, of course,
+most exposed to their attacks, but they are far from being confined to
+that region. The interior, as far as Shiraz itself, suffers terribly
+from this scourge, which produces scarcity, or even famine, when (as
+often happens) it is repeated year after year. The natives at such times
+are reduced to feeding on the locusts themselves; a diet which they do
+not relish, but to which necessity compels them.
+
+The locusts of Persia Proper are said to be of two kinds. One, which
+is regarded as bred in the country, bears the name of _missri_, being
+identified with the locust of Egypt. The other, which is thought to
+be blown over from Arabia, and thus to cross the sea, is known as the
+_melelch deriai_, or “sea-locust.” The former is regarded as especially
+destructive to the crops, the latter to the shrubs and trees.
+
+The domestic animals in use at the present day within the provinces of
+Fars and Kerman are identical with those employed in the neighboring
+country of Media, and will need only a very few words of notice here.
+The ordinary horse of the country is the Turcoman, a large, strong, but
+somewhat clumsy animal, possessed of remarkable powers of endurance;
+but in the Deshtistan the Arabian breed prevails, and travellers tell us
+that in this region horses are produced which fall but little short of
+the most admired coursers of Nejd. Cows and oxen are somewhat rare, beef
+being little eaten, and such cattle being only kept for the supply
+of the dairy, and for purposes of agriculture. Sheep and goats are
+abundant, and constitute the chief wealth of the inhabitants; the goat
+is, on the whole, preferred, and both goats and sheep are generally of
+a black or brown color. The sheep of Kerman are small and short-legged;
+they produce a wool of great softness and delicacy.
+
+It is probable that in ancient times the domestic animals of the country
+were nearly the same as at the present day. The statement of Xenophon,
+that anciently a horse was a rarity in Persia Proper, is contradicted by
+the great bulk of the early writers, who tell us that the Persians were
+from the first expert riders, and that their country was peculiarly well
+fitted for the breeding of horses. Their camels, sheep, goats, asses,
+and oxen, are also expressly mentioned by the Greeks, who even indicate
+a knowledge of the fact that goats were preferred to sheep by the
+herdsmen of the country.
+
+The mineral treasures of the country appear to have been considerable,
+though to what extent they were known and made use of in ancient times
+is open to some question. Mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, red lead,
+and orpiment are said to have been actually worked under the Persian
+kings; and some of the other minerals were so patent and obvious, that
+we can scarcely suppose them to have been neglected. Salt abounded in
+the region in several shapes. It appeared in some places as rock salt,
+showing itself in masses of vast size and various colors. In other
+places it covered the surface of the ground for miles together with a
+thick incrustation, and could be gathered at all seasons with little
+labor. It was deposited by the waters of several lakes within the
+territory, and could be collected round their edges at certain times
+of the year. Finally, it was held in solution, both in the lakes and in
+many of the streams; from whose waters it might have been obtained by
+evaporation. Bitumen and naphtha were yielded by sources near Dalaki,
+which were certainly known to the ancients. Sulphur was deposited upon
+the surface of the ground in places. Some of the mountains contained
+ordinary lead; but it is not unlikely that this metal escaped notice.
+
+Ancient Persia produced a certain number of gems. The pearls of
+the Gulf, which have still so great a reputation, had attracted the
+attention of adventurers before the time of Alexander, whose naval
+captains found a regular fishery established in one of the islands. The
+Orientals have always set a high value on this commodity; and it appears
+that in ancient times the Gulf pearls were more highly esteemed than any
+others. Of hard stones the only kinds that can be distinctly assigned to
+Persia Proper are the iritis, a species of rock-crystal; the atizoe, a
+white stone which had a pleasant odor; the mithrax, a gem of many hues,
+the nipparene, which resembled ivory; and the the lycardios or mule,
+which was in special favor among the natives of the country.
+
+From this account of the products of Persia Proper we have now to pass
+to those of the Empire in general--a wide subject, which it will be
+impossible to treat here with any completeness, owing to the limits to
+which the present work is necessarily confined. In order to bring the
+matter within reasonable compass, the reader may be referred in the
+first instance to the account which was given in a former volume of the
+products of the empire of Babylon; and the enquiry may then be confined
+to those regions which were subject to Persia, but not contained within
+the limits of the Fourth Monarchy.
+
+Among the animals belonging to these regions, the following are
+especially noticeable:--The tiger, the elephant, the hippopotamus, the
+crocodile, the monitor, the two-humped camel, the Angora goat, the elk,
+the monkey, and the spotted hysena, or _Felis chaus_. The tiger, which
+is entirely absent from Mesopotamia, and unknown upon the plateau of
+Iran, abounds in the low tract between the Elburz and the Caspian, in
+the flat region about the Sea of Aral, and in the Indus valley. The
+elephant was, perhaps, anciently an inhabitant of Upper Egypt, where the
+island of Elephantine remained an evidence of the fact. It was also in
+Persian times a denizen of the Indus valley, though perhaps only in a
+domesticated state. The hippopotamus, unknown in India, was confined to
+the single province of Egypt, where it was included among the animals
+which were the objects of popular worship. The crocodile--likewise a
+sacred animal to the Egyptians--frequented both the Nile and the Indus.
+Monitors, which are a sort of diminutive crocodiles, were of two kinds:
+one, the _Lacerta Nilotica_, was a water animal, and was probably found
+only in Egypt; the other, _Lacerta scincus_, frequented dry and sandy
+spots, and abounded in North Africa and Syria, as well as in the Nile
+valley. The two-humped camel belonged to Bactria, where he was probably
+indigenous, but was widely spread over the Empire, on account of his
+great strength and powers of endurance.
+
+The Angora goat is, perhaps, scarcely a distinct species. If not
+identical with the ordinary wild goat of Persia and Mesopotamia (_Capra
+cegagrus_), he is at any rate closely allied to it; and it is possible
+that all his peculiar characteristics may be the effect of climate. He
+has a soft, white, silky fleece, very long, divided down the back by
+a strong line of separation, and falling on either side in beautiful
+spiral ringlets; his fleece weighs from two to four pounds. It is
+of nearly uniform, length, and averages from five to five and a half
+inches.
+
+The elk is said to inhabit Armenia, Affghanistan, and the lower part of
+the valley of the Indus; but it is perhaps not certain that he is really
+to be found in the two latter regions. Monkeys abound in Eastern Oabul
+and the adjoining parts of India. They may have also existed formerly
+in Upper Egypt. The spotted hyena, _Felis chaus_ (_Canis crocuta_ of
+Linnaeus), is an Egyptian animal, inhabiting principally the hills on
+the western side of the Nile. In appearance it is like a large cat,
+with a tuft of long black hair at the extremities of its ears--a feature
+which it has in common with the lynx.
+
+Among the rarer birds of the Empire may be mentioned the ostrich, which
+occurred in Mesopotamia; parrots, which were found in Cabul and the
+Punjab; ibises, which abounded in Egypt, and in the Delta of the Indus,
+the great vulture (Vultur cinereus), which inhabited the Taurus, the
+Indian owl (_Athena Indica_), the spoonbill (_Platalea nudifrons_); the
+benno (_Ardea bubulcus_), and the sicsac (_Charadrius melanocephalus_).
+
+The most valuable of the fish belonging to the Persian seas and rivers
+were the pearl oyster of the Gulf, and the murex of the Mediterranean,
+which furnished the famous purple dye of Tyre. After these may be placed
+the sturgeon and sterlet of the Caspian, the silurus of the Sea of Aral,
+the Aleppo eel, and the palla, a small but excellent fish, which is
+captured in the Indus during the flood season. The Indian Ocean and
+the Persian Gulf, as we have seen, were visited by whales; dolphins,
+porpoises, cod, and mullet abounded in the same seas; the large rivers
+generally contained barbel and carp; while some of them, together with
+many of the smaller streams, supplied trout of a good flavor. The
+Nile had some curious fish peculiar to itself, as the oxyrinchus,
+the lepidotus, the Perca Nilotica, the Silurus Schilbe Niloticus, the
+Silurus carmuth and others. Great numbers of fish, mostly of the same
+species with those of the Nile, were also furnished by the Lake Moeris;
+and from these a considerable revenue was derived by the Great Kings.
+
+Among the more remarkable of the reptiles which the Empire comprised
+within its limits may be noticed--besides the great saurians already
+mentioned among the larger animals--the Nile and Euphrates turtles
+(_Trionyx Egypticus_ and _Trionyx Euphraticus_), iguanas (_Stellio
+vulgaris_ and _Stellio spinipes_), geckos, especially the Egyptian house
+gecko (_O. lobatus_), snakes, such as the asp (_Coluber haje_) and
+the horned snake (_Coluber cerastes_), and the chameleon. The Egyptian
+turtle is a large species, sometimes exceeding three feet in length. It
+is said to feed on the young of the crocodile. Both it and the Euphrates
+turtle are of the soft kind, i.e., of the kind which has not the shell
+complete, but unites the upper and under portions by a coriaceous
+membrane. The turtle of the Euphrates is of moderate size, not exceeding
+a a length of two feet. It lives in the river, and on warm days suns
+itself on the sandbanks with which the stream abounds. It is active,
+strong, violent, and passionate. When laid on its back it easily
+recovers itself. If provoked, it will snap at sticks and other objects,
+and endeavor to tear them to pieces. It is of an olive-green color, with
+large irregular greenish black spots.
+
+Iguanas are found in Egypt, in Syria, and elsewhere. The most common
+kind (_Stellio vulgaris_) does not exceed a foot in length, and is of
+an olive color, shaded with black. It is persecuted and killed by the
+Mahometans, because they regard its favorite attitude as a derisive
+imitation of their own attitude of prayer. There is another species,
+also Egyptian, which is of a much larger size, and of a grass-green
+color. This is called _Stellio spinipes_: it has a length of from two to
+three feet.
+
+The gecko is a kind of nocturnal lizard. Its eyes are large, and the
+pupil is extremely contractile. It hides itself during the day, and is
+lively only at nights. It haunts rooms, especially kitchens, in Egypt,
+where it finds the insects which form its ordinary food. Its feet
+constitute its most marked characteristic. The five toes are enlarged
+and furnished with an apparatus of folds, which, by some peculiar
+action, enable it to adhere to perfectly smooth surfaces, to ascend
+perpendicular walls, cross ceilings, or hang suspended for hours on the
+under side of leaves. The Egyptians called it the abu burs, or “father
+of leprosy,” and there is a wide-spread belief in its poisonous
+character; but modern naturalists incline to regard the belief as
+unfounded, and to place the gecko among reptiles which are absolutely
+harmless. [PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.]
+
+
+The asp of Egypt (_Coluber haje_) is a species of cobra. It is a large
+snake, varying from three to six feet in length, and is extremely
+venomous. It haunts gardens, where it is of great use, feeding on mice,
+frogs, and various small reptiles. It has the power of greatly dilating
+the skin of the neck, and this it does when angered in a way that is
+very remarkable. Though naturally irritable, it is easily tamed; and the
+serpent-charmers of the East make it the object of their art more often
+than any other species. [PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 2.] After extracting the
+fangs or burning out the poison-bag with a red-hot iron, the charmer
+trains the animal by the shrill sounds of a small flute, and it is soon
+perfectly docile.
+
+The cerastes is also employed occasionally by the snake-charmers. It
+has two long and thin excrescences above the eyes, whereto the name of
+“horns” has been given: they stand erect, leaning a little backwards;
+no naturalist has as yet discovered their use. The cerastes is of a
+very pale brown color, and is spotted with large, unequal, and
+irregularly-placed spots. Its bite is exceedingly dangerous, since it
+possesses a virulent poison; and, being in the habit of nearly burying
+itself in the sand, which is of the same color with itself, it is the
+more difficult of avoidance. Its size also favors its escaping notice,
+since in length it rarely much exceeds a foot. [PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 3.]
+
+The chameleon has in all ages attracted the attention of mankind. It is
+found in Egypt, and in many others parts of Africa, in Georgia, and in
+India. The power of changing color which it possesses is not really its
+most remarkable characteristic. Far more worthy of notice are its slow
+pace, extraordinary form, awkward movements, vivacity, and control of
+eye, and marvellous rapidity of tongue. It is the most grotesque of
+reptiles. With protruding and telescopic eyes, that move at will in
+the most opposite directions, with an ungainly head, a cold, dry,
+strange-looking skin, and a prehensile tail, the creature slowly steals
+along a branch or twig, scarcely distinguishable from the substance
+along which it moves, and scarcely seeming to move at all, until it has
+come within reach of its prey. Then suddenly, with a motion rapid as
+that of the most agile bird, the long cylindrical and readily extensile
+tongue is darted forth with unerring aim, and the prey is seized
+and swallowed in a single moment of time. The ordinary color of the
+chameleon is a pale olive-green. This sometimes fades to a sort of
+ashen-gray, while sometimes it warms to a yellowish-brown, on which
+are seen faint spots of red. Modern naturalists, for the most part,
+attribute the changes to the action of the lungs, which is itself
+affected chiefly by the emotions of anger, desire, and fear. [PLATE
+XXVIII., Fig. 5.]
+
+The great extent of the Empire caused its vegetable productions to
+include almost all the forms known to the ancient world. On the one
+hand, the more northern and more elevated regions bore pines, firs,
+larches, oaks, birch, beech, ash, ilex, and junipers, together with the
+shrubs and flowers of the cooler temperate regions; on the other
+hand, the southern tracts grew palms of various kinds, mangoes,
+tamarind-trees, lemons, oranges, jujubes, mimosas, and sensitive plants.
+Between these extremes of tropical and cold-temperate products, the
+Empire embraced an almost infinite variety of trees, shrubs, and
+flowers. The walnut and the Oriental plane grew to avast size in many
+places. Poplars, willows, fig-mulberries, konars, cedars, cypresses,
+acacias, were common. Bananas, egg-plants, locust-trees, banyans,
+terebinths, the gum-styrax, the gum-tragacanth, the assafoetida plant,
+the arbor vitse, the castor-oil plant, the Judas-tree, and other
+somewhat rare forms, sprang up side by side with the pomegranate,
+the oleander, the pistachio-nut, the myrtle, the bay, the laurel, the
+mulberry, the rhododendron, and the arbutus. The Empire grew all the
+known sorts of grain, and almost all the known fruits. Among its various
+productions of this class, it is only possible to select for notice
+a few which were especially remarkable either for their rarity or for
+their excellent quality.
+
+The ancients celebrated the wheat of AEolis, the dates of Babylon,
+the citrons of Media, the Persian peach, the grapes of Carmania,
+the Hyrcanian fig, the plum of Damascus, the cherries of Pontus, the
+mulberries of Egypt and of Cyprus, the silphium of Gyrene, the wine of
+Helbon, the wild-grape of Syria. It is not unlikely that to these
+might have been added as many other vegetable products of first-rate
+excellence, had the ancients possessed as good a knowledge of the
+countries included within the Empire as the moderns. At present, the
+mulberries of Khiva, the apricots of Bokhara, the roses of Mexar, the
+quinces and melons of Isfahan, the grapes of Kasvin and Shii-az, the
+pears of Natunz, the dates of Dalaki, have a wide-spread reputation,
+which appears in most cases to be well deserved. On the whole, it is
+certain that for variety and excellence the vegetable products of the
+Persian Empire will bear comparison with those of any other state or
+community that has as yet existed, either in the ancient or the modern
+world.
+
+Two only of these products seem to deserve a longer description. The
+Cyrenaic silphium, of which we hear so much, as constituting the main
+wealth of that province, was valued chiefly for its medicinal qualities.
+A decoction from its leaves was used to hasten the worst kind of labors;
+its root and a juice which flowed from it were employed in a variety
+of maladies. The plant, which is elaborately described by Theophrastus,
+appears to have been successfully identified by modern travellers in
+the Cyrenaica, who see it in the drias or derias of the Arabs, an
+umbelliferous plant, which grows to a height of about three feet, has a
+deleterious effect on the camels that browse on it, and bears a striking
+resemblance to the representations of the ancient silphium upon
+coins and medals. This plant grows only in the tract between Merj and
+Derna--the very heart of the old silphium country, while that it has
+medicinal properties is certain from its effects upon animals; there can
+thus be little doubt that it is the silphium of the ancients, somewhat
+degenerated, owing to want of cultivation.
+
+The Egyptian byblus or papyrus (_Cyperus papyrus_) was perhaps the
+most valuable of all the vegetables of the Empire. The plant was a
+tall smooth reed of a triangular shape. It grew to the height of ten or
+fifteen feet, and terminated in a tuft or plume of leaves and flowers.
+Though indigenous in the country, it was the subject of careful
+cultivation, and was grown in irrigated ground, or in such lands as were
+naturally marshy. The root of the plant was eaten, while from its stem
+was made the famous Egyptian paper. The manufacture of the papyrus was
+as follows; The outer rind having been removed, there was exposed a
+laminated interior, consisting of a number of successive layers of inner
+cuticle, generally about twenty. These were carefully separated from
+one another by the point of a needle, and thus were obtained a number
+of strips of the raw material, which were then arranged in rows, covered
+with a paste, and crossed at right angles by another set of strips
+placed over them, after which the whole was converted into paper by
+means of a strong pressure. A papyrus roll was made by uniting together
+a greater or less number of such sheets. The best paper was made
+from the inmost layers of cuticle. The outer rind of the papyrus was
+converted into ropes; and this fabric was found to be peculiarly adapted
+for immersion in water.
+
+The mineral treasures of the Empire were various and abundant. It has
+been noticed already that Persia Proper, if we include in it Carmania,
+possessed mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, red lead, orpiment, and
+salt, yielding also bitumen, naphtha, sulphur, and most probably common
+lead. We are further informed by ancient writers that Drangiana, or
+Sarangia, furnished the rare and valuable mineral tin, without which
+copper could not be hardened into bronze; that Armenia yielded emery, so
+necessary for the working and polishing of gems; that the mountains
+and mines of the Empire supplied almost all the varieties of useful and
+precious stones; and that thus there was scarcely a mineral known to and
+required by the ancients for the purposes of their life which the Great
+King could not command without having recourse to others than his own
+subjects. It may be likewise noticed that the more important were very
+abundant, being found in many places and in large quantities. Gold was
+furnished from the mountains and deserts of Thibet and India, from the
+rivers of Lydia, and probably from other places where it is still found,
+as Armenia, Cabul, and the neighborhood of Meshed. Silver, which was
+the general medium of exchange in Persia, must have been especially
+plentiful. It was probably yielded, not only by the Kerman mines,
+but also by those of Armenia, Asia Minor, and the Elburz. Copper was
+obtained in great abundance from Cyprus, as well as from Carmania; and
+it may have been also derived, as it is now in very large quantities,
+from Armenia. Iron, really the most precious of all metals, existed
+within the Persian territory in the shape of huge boulders, as well
+as in nodules and in the form of ironstone. Lead was procurable from
+Bactria, Armenia, Korman, and many parts of Affghanistan; orpiment
+from Bactria, Kerman, and the Hazareh country; antimony from Armenia,
+Affghanistan, and Media; hornblende, quartz, talc, and asbestos, from
+various places in the Taurus.
+
+Of all necessary minerals probably none was so plentiful and so widely
+diffused as salt. It was not only in Persia Proper that nature had
+bestowed this commodity with a lavish hand--there was scarcely
+a province of the Empire which did not possess it in superfluous
+abundance. Large tracts were covered by it in North Africa, in Media,
+in Carmania, and in Lower Babylonia. In Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria,
+Palestine, and other places, it could be obtained from lakes. In Kerman,
+and again in Palestine, it showed itself in the shape of large masses,
+not inappropriately termed “mountains.” Finally, in India it was the
+chief material of a long mountain-range, which is capable of supplying
+the whole world with salt for many ages.
+
+Bitumen and naptha were also very widely diffused. At the eastern foot
+of the Caucasus, where it subsides into the Caspian Sea, at various
+points in the great Mesopotamian plain, in the Deshtistan or low country
+of Persia Proper, in the Bakh-tiyari mountains, and again in the distant
+Jordan valley, these two inseparable products are to be found, generally
+united with indications of volcanic action, present or recent. The
+bitumen is of excellent quality, and was largely employed by the
+ancients. The naphtha is of two kinds, black naphtha or petroleum, and
+white naphtha, which is much preferred to the other. The bitumen-pits
+also, in some places, yielded salt.
+
+Another useful mineral with which the Persians were very plentifully
+supplied, was sulphur. Sulphur is found in Persia Proper, in Carmania,
+on the coast of Mekran, in Azerbijan, in the Elburz, on the Iranian
+plateau, in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, and in very large quantities
+near Mosul. Here it is quarried in great blocks, which are conveyed to
+considerable distances.
+
+Excellent stone for building purposes was obtainable in most parts of
+the Empire. Egypt furnished an inexhaustible supply of the best possible
+granite; marbles of various kinds, compact sandstone, limestone, and
+other useful sorts were widely diffused; and basalt was procurable from
+some of the outlying ranges of Taurus. In the neighborhood of Nineveh,
+and in much of the Mesopotamian region, there was abundance of grey
+alabaster, and a better kind was quarried near Damascus. A gritty
+silicious rock on the banks of the Euphrates, a little above Hit, was
+suitable for mill-stones.
+
+The gems furnished by the various provinces of the Empire are too
+numerous for mention. They included, it must be remembered, all the
+kinds which have already been enumerated among the mineral products of
+the earlier Monarchies. Among them, a principal place must, one would
+think, have been occupied by the turquoise--the gem, par excellence, of
+modern Persia--although, strange to say, there is no certain mention
+of it among the literary remains of antiquity. This lovely stone
+is produced largely by the mines at Nishapur in the Elburz, and is
+furnished also in less abundance and less beauty by a mine in Kerman,
+and another near Khojend. It is noticed by an Arabian author as early as
+the twelfth century of our era. A modern writer on gems supposes that it
+is mentioned, though not named, by Theophrastus; but this view scarcely
+seems to be tenable.
+
+Among the gems of most value which the Empire certainly produced were
+the emerald, the green ruby, the red ruby, the opal, the sapphire, the
+amethyst, the carbuncle, the jasper, the lapis lazuli, the sard, the
+agate, and the topaz. Emeralds were found in Egypt, Media, and Cyprus;
+green rubies in Bactria; common or red rubies in Caria; opals in Egypt,
+Cyprus, and Asia Minor; sapphires in Cyprus; amethysts also in Cyprus,
+and moreover in Egypt, Galatia, and Armenia; carbuncles in Caria;
+jaspers in Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Persia Proper; the lapis lazuli in
+Cyprus, Egypt, and Media; the sard in Babylonia; the agate in Carmania,
+Susiana, and Armenia; and the topaz or chrysoprase in Upper Egypt.
+
+The tales which are told of enormous emeralds are undoubtedly fictions,
+the material which passed for that precious substance being really in
+these cases either green jasper or (more probably) glass. But lapis
+lazuli and agate seem to have existed within the Empire in huge masses.
+Whole cliffs of the former overhang the river Kashkar in Kaferistan; and
+the myrrhine vases of antiquity which were (it is probable) of agate,
+and came mainly from Carmania, seem to have been of a great size.
+
+We may conclude this review by noticing, among stones of less
+consequence produced within the Empire, jet, which was so called from
+being found at the mouth of the river Gagis in Lycia, garnets, which are
+common in Armenia, and beryl, which is a product of the same country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. CHARACTER, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, DRESS, ETC., OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+“I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the
+river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one
+was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.”--Dan. viii. 3.
+
+
+The ethnic identity of the Persian people with the Medes, and the
+inclusion of both nations in that remarkable division of the human
+race which is known to ethnologers as the Ipanic or Arian, have been
+maintained in a former volume. To the arguments there adduced it seems
+unnecessary to add anything in this place, since at the present day
+neither of the two positions appears to be controverted. It is admitted
+generally, not only that the Persians were of the same stock with the
+Medes, but that they formed, together with the Medes and a few
+other tribes and peoples of less celebrity, a special branch of the
+Indo-European family--a branch to which the name of Arian may be
+assigned, not merely for convenience sake, but on grounds of actual
+tradition and history. Undistinguished in the earlier annals of their
+race, the Medes and Persians became towards the eighth or seventh
+century before our era, its leading and most important tribes. Closely
+united together, with the superiority now inclining to one, now to the
+other, they claimed and exercised a lordship over all the other members
+of the stock, and not only over them, but over various alien races
+also. They had qualities which raised them above their fellows, and a
+civilization, which was not, perhaps, very advanced, but was still not
+wholly contemptible. Such details as could be collected, either from
+ancient authors, or from the extant remains, of the character, mode of
+life, customs, etc., of the Medes, have already found a place in this
+work.
+
+The greater part of what was there said will apply also to the Persians.
+The information, however, which we possess, with respect to this latter
+people, is so much more copious than that which has come down to us with
+regard to the Medes, that, without repeating anything from the former
+place, our materials will probably enable us to give to the present
+chapter considerable dimensions.
+
+The woodcuts of the preceding volume will have made the reader
+sufficiently familiar with the physiognomy of the Persians, or, at any
+rate, with the representation of it which has come down to us upon the
+Persian monuments. It may be remarked that the type of face and head is
+uniform upon all of them, and offers a remarkable contrast to the type
+assigned to themselves by the Assyrians, from whom the Arians evidently
+adopted the general idea of bas-reliefs, as well as their general mode
+of treating subjects upon them. The novelty of the physiognomy is
+a strong argument in favor of its truthfulness; and this is further
+confirmed by the evidence which we have, that the Persian artists aimed
+at representing the varieties of the human race, and succeeded fairly
+in rendering them. Varieties of, physiognomy are represented upon the
+bas-reliefs with much care, and sometimes with remarkable success, as
+the annexed head of a negro, taken from one of the royal tombs, will
+sufficiently indicate. [PLATE XXIX., Fig.1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXIX.]
+
+
+According to Herodotus, the skulls of the Persians were extraordinarily
+thin and weak--a phenomenon for which he accounted by the national habit
+of always covering the head. There does not seem to be in reality any
+ground for supposing that such a practice would at all tend to produce
+such a result. If, therefore, we regard the fact of thinness as
+established, we can only view it as an original feature in the physical
+type of the race. Such a feature would imply, on the supposition that
+the heads were of the ordinary size, a large brain-cavity, and so
+an unusual volume of brain, which is generally a concomitant of high
+intellectual power.
+
+The Persians seem, certainly, to have been quick and lively,
+keen-witted, capable of repartee, ingenious, and, for Orientals,
+far-sighted. They had fancy and imagination, a relish for poetry and
+art, and they were not without a certain power of political combination.
+But we cannot justly ascribe to them any high degree of intellectual
+excellence. The religious ideas which they held in common with the Medes
+were, indeed, of a more elevated character than is usual with races not
+enlightened by special revelation; but these ideas were the common stock
+of the Iranic peoples, and were inherited by the Persians from a remote
+ancestry, not excogitated by themselves. Their taste for art, though
+marked, was neither pure nor high. We shall have to consider, in a
+future chapter, the architecture and mimetic art of the people to weigh
+their merits in these respects, and, at the same time, to note their
+deficiencies.
+
+Without anticipating the exact verdict then to be pronounced, we may say
+at once that there is nothing in the remains of the Persian architecture
+and sculpture that have come down to us indicative of any remarkable
+artistic genius; nothing that even places them on a par with the best
+works of the kind produced by Orientals. Again, if the great work of
+Firdausi represents to us, as it probably does, the true spirit of the
+ancient poetry of the Persians, we must conclude that, in the highest
+department of art, their efforts were but of moderate merit. A tone of
+exaggeration, an imagination exuberant and unrestrained, a preference
+for glitter over solid excellence, a love of far-fetched conceits,
+characterize the Shahnameh; and, though we may fairly ascribe something
+of this to the idiosyncrasy of the poet, still, after we have made all
+due allowance upon this score, the conviction presses upon us that there
+was a childish and grotesque character in the great mass of the old
+Persian poetry, which marks it as the creation of moderate rather than
+of high intellectual power, and prevents us from regarding it with the
+respect with which we view the labors of the Greeks and Romans, or,
+again, of the Hebrews, in this department. A want of seriousness, a
+want of reality, and, again, a want of depth, characterize the poetry
+of Iran, whose bards do not touch the chords which rouse what is noblest
+and highest in our nature. They give us sparkle, prettiness, quaint and
+ingenious fancies, grotesque marvels, an inflated kind of human heroism;
+but they have none of the higher excellencies of the poetic art, none of
+the divine fire which renders the true poet, and the true prophet, one.
+
+Among moral qualities, we must assign to the Persians as their most
+marked characteristics, at any rate in the earlier times, courage,
+energy, and a regard for truth. The valor of their troops in the great
+combats of Platsea and Thermopylae extorted the admiration of their
+enemies, who have left on record their belief that, “in boldness and
+warlike spirit, the Persians were not a whit behind the Greeks,”
+ and that their defeat was “wholly owing to the inferiority of their
+equipment and training.” Without proper shields, with little defensive
+armor, wielding only short swords and lances that were scarcely more
+than javelins, they dashed themselves upon the serried ranks of the
+Spartans, seizing the huge spear-shafts of these latter with their
+hands, striving to break them, and to force a way in. No conduct could
+have been braver than this, which the modern historian well compares
+with brilliant actions of the Romans and the Swiss. The Persians
+thoroughly deserved to be termed (as they are termed by AEschylus), a
+“valiant-minded people;” they had boldness, elan, dash, and considerable
+tenacity and stubbornness; no nation of Asia or Africa was able to stand
+against them; if they found their masters in the Greeks, it was owing,
+as the Greeks themselves tell us, to the superiority of Hellenic arms,
+equipment, and, above all, of Hellenic discipline, which together
+rendered the most desperate valor unavailing, when it lacked the support
+of scientific organization and united simultaneous movement.
+
+The energy of the Persians during the earlier years of their ascendancy
+is no less remarkable than their courage. AEschylus speaks of a
+mysterious fate which forced them to engage continually in a long series
+of wars, to take delight in combats of horse, and in the siege and
+overthrow of cities. Herodotus, in a tone that is not very different,
+makes Xerxes, soon after his accession, represent himself as bound by
+the examples of his forefathers to engage his country in some great
+enterprise, and not suffer the military spirit of his people to decay
+through want of employment. We shall find, when we come to consider the
+history of the Empire, that, for eighty years, under four sovereigns,
+the course indicated by these two writers was in fact pursued--that
+war followed on war, expedition on expedition--the active energy of
+sovereign and people carrying them on, without rest or pause, in a
+career of conquest that has few parallels in the history of Oriental
+nations. In the subsequent period, this spirit is less marked; but,
+at all times, a certain vigor and activity has characterized the race,
+distinguishing it in a very marked way from the dreamy and listless
+Hindus upon the one hand, and the apathetic Turks upon the other.
+
+The Persian love of truth was a favorite theme with the Greeks, who
+were, perhaps, the warmer in their praises from a latent consciousness
+of their own deficiency in the virtue. According to Herodotus, the
+attention of educators was specially directed to the point, and each
+young Persian was taught by his preceptors three main things:--“To
+ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth.” We find that, in the
+Zendavesta, and more especially in its earliest and purest portions,
+truth is strenuously inculcated. Ahura-Mazda himself is “true,”
+ “the father of all truth,” and his worshippers are bound to conform
+themselves to his image. Darius, in his inscriptions, protests
+frequently against “lies,” which he seems to regard as the embodiment
+of all evil. A love of finesse and intrigue is congenital to Orientals;
+and, in the later period of their sway, the Persians appear to have
+yielded to this natural inclination, and to have used freely in their
+struggle with the Greeks the weapons of cunning and deception; but,
+in the earlier period, a different spirit prevailed; lying was then
+regarded as the most disgraceful act of which a man could possibly be
+guilty truth was both admired and practised; Persian kings, entrapped
+into a promise, stood to it firmly, however much they might wish it
+recalled; foreign powers had never to complain that the terms of a
+treaty were departed from; the Persians thus form an honorable exception
+to the ordinary Asiatic character, and for general truthfulness and a
+faithful performance of their engagements compare favorably with the
+Greeks and Romans.
+
+The Persian, if we may trust Herodotus, was careful to avoid debt.
+He had a keen sense of the difficulty with which a debtor escapes
+subterfuge and equivocation--forms, slightly disguised, of lying. To buy
+and sell wares in a market place, to chaffer and haggle over prices,
+was distasteful to him, as apt to involve falsity and unfairness. He
+was free and open in speech, bold in act, generous, warm-hearted,
+hospitable. His chief faults were an addiction to self-indulgence and
+luxury, a passionate abandon to the feeling of the hour, whatever that
+might happen to be; and a tameness and subservience in all his relations
+towards his prince, which seem to moderns almost incompatible with real
+self-respect and manliness.
+
+The luxury of the Persians will be considered when we treat of
+their manners. In illustration of the two other weak points of their
+character, it may be observed that, in joy and in sorrow, they were
+alike immoderate; in the one transported beyond all reasonable bounds,
+and exhibiting their transports with entire unreserve and openness;
+in the other proportionately depressed, and quite unrestrained in
+the expression of their anxiety or misery. AEschylus’ tragedy of the
+“Persae” is, in this respect, true to nature, and represents with
+accuracy the real habits of the nation. The Persian was a stranger
+to the dignified reserve which has commonly been affected by the more
+civilized among Western nations. He laughed and wept, shouted and
+shrieked, with the unrestraint of a child, who is not ashamed to lay
+bare his inmost feelings to the eyes of those about him. Lively and
+excitable, he loved to give vent to every passion that stirred his
+heart, and cared not how many witnessed his lamentations or his
+rejoicings.
+
+The feeling of the Persian towards his king is one of which moderns can
+with difficulty form a conception. In Persia the monarch was so much the
+State, that patriotism itself was, as it were, swallowed up in loyalty;
+and an absolute unquestioning submission, not only to the deliberate
+will, but to the merest caprice of the sovereign, was, by habit and
+education, so engrained into the nature of the people that a contrary
+spirit scarcely ever manifested itself. In war the safety of the
+sovereign was the first thought, and the principal care of all.
+The tales told of the self-devotion of individuals to secure the
+preservation of the monarch may not be true, but they indicate
+faithfully the actual tone of men’s sentiments about the value of the
+royal person. If the king suffered, all was lost; if the king escaped,
+the greatest calamities seemed light, and could be endured with
+patience. Uncomplaining acquiescence in all the decisions of the
+monarch--cheerful submission to his will, whatever it might chance to
+be--characterized the conduct of the Persians in time of peace. It
+was here that their loyalty degenerated into parasitical tameness,
+and became a defect instead of a virtue. The voice of remonstrance, of
+rebuke, of warning, was unheard at the Court; and tyranny was allowed to
+indulge unchecked in the wildest caprices and extravagances. The
+father, whose innocent son was shot before his eyes by the king in pure
+wantonness, instead of raising an indignant protest against the
+crime, felicitated him on the excellence of his archery. Unfortunates,
+bastinadoed by the royal orders, declared themselves delighted, because
+his majesty had condescended to recollect them. A tone of sycophancy
+and servility was thus engendered, which, sapping self-respect, tended
+fatally to lower and corrupt the entire character of the people.
+
+In considering the manners and customs of the Persians, it will be
+convenient to follow the order already observed in treating of Assyria
+and Media--that is to say, to treat, in the first instance, of their
+warlike, and subsequently of their peaceful usages. On the latter the
+monuments throw considerable light; on the former, the information which
+they supply is comparatively scanty.
+
+The Persians, like the Medes, regarded chariots with disfavor, and
+composed their armies almost entirely of foot and horse. The ordinary
+dress of the foot-man was, in the earlier times, a tunic with long
+sleeves, made of leather, and fitting rather tightly to the frame, which
+it covered from the neck to the knee. Under this was worn a pair of
+trousers, also of leather, and tolerably tight-fitting, especially at
+the ankles, where they met a sort of high shoe, or low boot. The head
+was protected by a loose round cap, apparently of felt, which projected
+a little in front, and rose considerably above the top of the head.
+Round the waist was worn a double girdle or belt, from which depended a
+short sword. [PLATE XXVIII Fig. 4.]
+
+The offensive arms of the foot-man were, a sword, a spear, and a bow.
+The sword, which was called by the Persians _akinaces_, appears to
+have been a short, straight weapon, suited for stabbing rather than for
+cutting, and, in fact, not very much better than a dagger. [PLATE XXIX.,
+Fig. 2.] It was carried in a sheath, and was worn suspended from the
+girdle on the right side. From the Persepolitan sculptures it would
+seem not to have hung freely, but to have been attached to the right
+thigh by a thong which passed round the knee. The handle was short,
+and generally unprotected by a guard; but, in some specimens, we see a
+simple cross-bar between the hilt and the blade.
+
+The spear carried by the Persian foot-man was also short, or, at any
+rate, much shorter than the Greek. To judge by the representations of
+guardsmen on the Persepolitan sculptures, it was from six to six and a
+half or seven feet in length. The Grecian spear was sometimes as much as
+twenty-one feet. The Persian weapon had a short head, which appears to
+have been flattish, and which was strengthened by a bar or ridge down
+the middle. The shaft, which was of cornel wood, tapered gradually from
+bottom to top, and was ornamented at its lower extremity with a ball,
+sometimes carved in the shape of an apple or a pomegranate. [PLATE
+XXIX., Fig. 3.]
+
+The Persian bow, according to Herodotus and Xenophon, was of unusual
+size. According to the sculptures, it was rather short, certainly not
+exceeding four feet. It seems to have been carried strung, either on the
+left shoulder, with the arm passed through it, or in a bow-case slung at
+the left side. It was considerably bent in the middle, and had the ends
+slightly turned back. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 1.] The arrows, which were of
+reed, tipped with metal, and feathered, were carried in a quiver, which
+hung at the back near the left shoulder. To judge from the sculptures,
+their length must have been about two feet and a half. The arrow-heads,
+which were either of bronze or iron, seem to have been of various
+shapes, the most common closely resembling the arrow-heads of the
+Assyrians. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 3.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXX.]
+
+
+Other offensive weapons carried occasionally by the Persian foot-men
+were, a battle-axe, a sling, and a knife. The battle-axe, which appears
+in the sculptures only in one or two instances, is declared to have been
+a common Persian weapon by Xenophon, who, upon such a point, would seem
+to be trustworthy. The use of the sling by the Persian light-armed is
+quite certain. It is mentioned by Curtius and Strabo, no less than by
+Xenophon; and the last-named writer speaks with full knowledge on the
+subject, for he witnessed the effect of the weapon in the hands of
+Persian slingers during his return with the Ten Thousand. The only
+missiles which the Persian slingers threw were stones; they did not,
+like the Rhodians, make use of small lumps of lead.
+
+The knife seems also to have been a Persian weapon. Its blade appears to
+have been slightly curved, like that of a pruning-hook. It was worn in a
+sheath, and was probably thrust into the belt or girdle like the similar
+weapon, half knife, half dagger, of a modern Persian.
+
+The ordinary defence of the Persian against the weapons of his enemy was
+a shield of wicker-work, which covered him almost from head to foot,
+and which probably differed little from the wattled shield of the
+Assyrians. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 2.] This he commonly planted on the ground,
+supporting it, perhaps, with a crutch, while he shot his arrows from
+behind it. Occasionally, he added to this defence the protection of a
+coat of mail, composed either of scale armor, or of quilted linen, like
+the corselets of the Egyptians. Armor of the former kind was almost
+impenetrable, since the scales were of metal--iron, bronze, or sometimes
+gold--and overlapped one another like those of a fish.
+
+The Persian cavalry was armed, in the early times of the monarchy,
+almost exactly in the same manner as their infantry. Afterwards, however
+a considerable change seems to have been made. In the time of the
+younger Cyrus cavalry soldiers were very fully protected. They wore
+helmets on their heads, coats of mail about their bodies, and greaves
+on their legs. Their chief offensive arms seem, then, to have been the
+short sword, the javelin, and the knife. It is probable that they were
+without shields, being sufficiently defended by their armor, which (as
+we have seen) was almost complete.
+
+The javelin of the horseman, which was his special weapon, was a short
+strong spear or pike, with a shaft of cornel-wood, and an iron point. It
+was common for him to carry two such weapons, one of which he used as
+a missile, while he retained the other in order to employ it in
+hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. It was a stout manageable weapon,
+and though no match for the longer and equally strong spear of
+the Macedonian cavalry, was preferred by Xenophon to the long weak
+reed-lance commonly carried by horse-soldiers in his day.
+
+It was the practice of the later Persians to protect with armor, not
+only the horseman, but the horse. They selected for the service large
+and powerful animals, chiefly of the Nisaean breed, and cased them
+almost wholly in mail. The head was guarded by a frontlet, and the neck
+and chest by a breast-piece; the sides and flanks had their own special
+covering and cuisses defended the thighs. These defences were not
+merely, like those of the later Assyrian heavy cavalry, of felt or
+leather, but consisted, like the cuirasses worn by the riders, of some
+such material covered with metal scales. The weight which the horse had
+to sustain was thus very great, and the movements of the cavalry force
+were, in consequence, slow and hesitating. Flight was difficult; and, in
+a retreat, the weaker animals were apt to sink under their burdens, and
+to be trampled to death by the stronger ones.
+
+There can be no doubt that, besides these heavy horsemen, the Persians
+employed, even in the latest times, and much more in the earlier,
+a light and agile cavalry force. Such were the troops which, under
+Tissaphernes, harassed the Ten Thousand during their retreat; and such,
+it may be conjectured, was really at all times the great body of their
+cavalry. The education of the Persian, as we shall see hereafter, was
+directed to the formation of those habits of quickness and agility in
+the mounting and managing of horses, which have a military value only
+as furnishing a good training for the light-cavalry service; and the
+tendency of the race has at all times been, not to those forms of
+military organization which are efficient by means of solidity and
+strength, but to those lighter, more varied, and more elastic branches
+which compensate for a want of solidity by increased activity,
+readiness, and ease of movement.
+
+Though the Persians did not set any great store by chariots, as an arm
+of the military service, they nevertheless made occasional use of them.
+Not only were their kings and princes, when they commanded their troops
+in person, accustomed to direct their movements, both on the march and
+even inaction, from the elevation of a war-chariot, but now and then, in
+great battles, a considerable force of them was brought into the field,
+and important consequences were expected from their employment. The
+wheels of the war-chariots were armed with scythes; and these, when the
+chariot was set in motion, were regarded as calculated to inflict great
+damage on the ranks of opponents. Such hopes seem, however, to have
+been generally disappointed. As every chariot was drawn by at least
+two horses, and contained at least two persons--the charioteer and the
+warrior--a large mark was offered by each to the missiles of the light
+troops who were commonly stationed to receive them; and, as practically
+it was found that a single wound to either horse or man threw the whole
+equipage into confusion, the charge of a scythed chariot was commonly
+checked before it reached the line of battle of the enemy. Where this
+was not the case, the danger was escaped by opening the ranks and
+letting the chariots pass through them to the rear, a good account being
+speedily given of any adventurer who thus isolated himself from the
+support of his own party.
+
+The Persian war-chariot was, probably, somewhat loftier than the
+Assyrian. The wheels appear to have been from, three to four feet in
+diameter; and the body rose above them to a height from the ground of
+nearly five feet. The person of the warrior was thus protected up to his
+middle by the curved board which enclosed the chariot on three sides.
+The axle-tree is said to have been broad, since breadth afforded a
+security against being overturned, and the whole construction to have
+been strong and solid. The wheels had twelve spokes, which radiated from
+a nave of unusual size. The felloes were narrower than the Assyrian, but
+were still composed, like them, of two or three distinct layers of wood.
+The tires were probably of metal, and were indented like the edge of a
+saw. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXI.]
+
+
+No great ornamentation of the chariot appears to have been attempted.
+The body was occasionally patterned with a chequer-work, which maybe
+compared with a style common in Assyria, and the spokes of the wheels
+were sometimes of great elegance, but the general character of the
+workmanship was massive and plain. The pole was short, and terminated
+with a simple curve. From the evidence of the monuments it would seem
+that chariots were drawn by two horses only; but the classical writers
+assure us that the ordinary practice was to have teams of four. The
+harness used was exceedingly simple, consisting of a yoke, a belly-band,
+a narrow collar, a head-stall, a bit, and reins. When the charioteer
+left his seat, the reins could be attached to a loop or bar which
+projected from the front of the chariot-board.
+
+Chariots were constructed to contain two, or perhaps, in some instances,
+three persons. These consisted of the warrior, his charioteer, who stood
+beside him, and an attendant, whose place was behind, and whose business
+it was to open and shut the chariot doors. The charioteer wore a visor
+and a coat of mail, exposing nothing to the enemy but his eyes.
+
+The later Persians made use also of elephants in battle, but to a very
+small extent, and without any results worth mentioning.
+
+The chief points of Persian tactics were the following. The army was
+organized into three distinct services--those of the chariots, the
+horse, and the foot. In drawing up the line of battle, it was usual,
+where chariots were employed, to place them in the front rank, in front
+of the rest of the army. Behind the chariots were stationed the horse
+and the foot; the former generally massed upon the wings; the latter
+placed in the middle, drawn up according to nations, in a number of
+oblong squares, which touched, or nearly touched, one another. The
+bravest and best armed troops were placed in front; the ranks towards
+the rear being occupied by those of inferior quality. The depth of the
+ranks was usually very great, since Oriental troops cannot be trusted to
+maintain a firm front unless they are strongly supported from behind.
+No attempt, however, seems to have been made at forming a second line of
+battle in the rear of the first, nor does there even seem to have been
+any organized system of reserves. When the battle began, the chariots
+were first launched against the enemy, whose ranks it was hoped they
+would confuse, or, at any rate, disturb. After this the main line
+advanced to the attack, but without any inclination to come at once to
+close quarters. Planting their shields firmly on the ground in front of
+them, the Persian heavy-armed shot flight after flight of arrows against
+their foe, while the slingers and other light-armed in the rear sent
+clouds of missiles over the heads of their friends into the adverse
+ranks beyond them. It was usually the enemy which brought this phase of
+the battle to an end, by pressing onward and closing with the Persian
+main line in a hand:to-hand combat. Here the struggle was commonly
+brief--a very few minutes often decided the engagement. If the Persian
+line of battle was forced or broken, all was immediately regarded as
+lost--flight and rout followed. The cavalry, from its position on
+the wings, might attempt, by desperate charges on the flanks of the
+advancing foe, to stay his progress, and restore the fortune of the
+day, but such efforts were usually unavailing. Its line of battle
+once broken, a Persian army lost heart; its commander commonly set the
+example of flight, and there was a general rush of all arms from the
+battle-field.
+
+For success the Persians trusted mainly to their numbers, which enabled
+them, in some cases, to renew an attack time after time with fresh
+troops, in others to outflank and surround their adversary. Their best
+troops were undoubtedly their cavalry, both heavy and light. The heavy,
+armed in the old times with bows, and in the later with the javelins,
+highly distinguished itself on many important occasions. The weight of
+its charge must have been great; its offensive weapons were good; and
+its armor made it almost invulnerable to ordinary weapons. The
+light cavalry was celebrated for the quickness and dexterity of its
+manoeuvres. It had the loose organization of modern Bashi-Bazouks or
+Cossacks; it hung in clouds on the enemy--assailed, retreated, rallied,
+re-advanced--fled, and even in flight was formidable, since each rider
+was trained to discharge his arrows backwards with a sure aim.
+against the pursuing foe. The famous skill of the Parthians in their
+horse-combats was inherited from their Persian predecessors, who seem to
+have invented the practice which the later people carried to perfection.
+
+Though mainly depending for success on their numbers, the Persians did
+not wholly despise the use of contrivance and stratagem. At Arbela,
+Darius Codomannus had spiked balls strewn over the ground where he
+expected the Greek cavalry to make its attacks. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 5];
+and, at Sardis, Cyrus obtained his victory over the Lydian horse
+by frightening them with the grotesque and unfamiliar camel. Other
+instances will readily occur to the reader, whereby it appears that the
+art of war was studied, and ingenuity allowed its due place in military
+matters, by this people, who showed a fair share of Oriental subtlety in
+the devices which they employed against their enemies.
+
+It is doubtful whether we are to include among these devices the use of
+military engines. On the one hand, we have several distinct statements
+by the author of the “Cyrpoasdia,” to the effect that engines were well
+known to the Persians; on the other, we remark an entire absence from
+the works of other ancient writers of any notice that they actually
+employed them, either in their battles or their sieges. The silence of
+Scripture, of Herodotus, of the inscriptions, of Quintus Curtius, of
+Arrian, may fairly be regarded as outweighing the unsupported authority
+of the romance-writer, Xenophon; and though it would be rash to decide
+that such things as siege-towers, battering rams, and balistce--all
+of which are found to have been in constant use under the Assyrian and
+Babylonian monarchies--were wholly discarded by, or unknown to,
+their successors in the government of Asia, yet a wise criticism will
+conclude, that they were, at any rate, unfamiliar to the Persians,
+rarely and sparingly (if at all) employed by them, other methods
+of accomplishing the ends whereto they served having more approved
+themselves to this ingenious people. In ordinary sieges it would seem
+that they trusted to the bank or mound, while sometimes they drove mines
+under the walls, and sought in this way to effect a breach. Where the
+place attacked was of great strength, they had recourse in general
+either to stratagem or to blockade. Occasionally they employed the
+destructive force of fire, and no doubt they often succeeded by the
+common method of escalade. On the whole, it must certainly be said that
+they were successful in their sieges, exhibiting in their conduct of
+them courage, activity, and considerable fertility of resource.
+
+A Persian army was usually, though not always, placed under a single
+commander. This commander was the monarch, if he was present; if not, it
+was a Persian, or a Mede, nominated by him. Under the commander-in-chief
+were a number of general officers, heads of corps or divisions, of whom
+we find, in one instance, as many as nine. Next in rank to these were
+the chiefs of the various ethnic contingents composing the army, who
+were, probably, in general the satraps of the different provinces. Thus
+far appointments were held directly from the crown; but beyond this the
+system was changed. The ethnic or satrapial commanders appointed the
+officers next below themselves, the captains over a thousand, and (if
+their contingent was large enough to admit it) the captains over ten
+thousand; who, again, nominated their subordinates, commanders of a
+hundred, and commanders of ten. Thus, in the main, a decimal scale
+prevailed. The lowest rank of officers commanded each ten men, the next
+lowest a hundred, the next to that a thousand, the next ten thousand.
+The officer over ten thousand was sometimes a divisional chief;
+sometimes he was subject to the commander of an ethnic contingent, who
+was himself under the orders of the head of a division. Altogether there
+were six ranks of officers, exclusive of the commander-in-chief.
+
+The proper position of the commander-in-chief was considered to be the
+centre of the line of battle. He was regarded as safer there than
+he would have been on either wing; and it was seen that, from such a
+position, his orders would be most rapidly conveyed to all parts of the
+battlefield. It was not, however, thought to be honorable that he should
+keep aloof from the fight, or avoid risking his own person. On the
+contrary, he was expected to take an active part in the combat; and
+therefore, though his place was not exactly in the very foremost ranks,
+it was towards the front, and the result followed that he was often
+exposed to imminent danger. The consequences of this arrangement
+were frequently disastrous in the extreme, the death or flight of the
+commander producing universal panic, stopping the further issue of any
+general order, and thus paralyzing the whole army.
+
+The numbers of a Persian army, though no doubt exaggerated by the
+Greeks, must have been very great, amounting, probably, on occasions,
+to more than a million of combatants. Troops were drawn from the entire
+empire, and were marshalled in the field according to nations,
+each tribe accoutred in its own fashion. Here were seen the gilded
+breastplates and scarlet kilts of the Persians and Medes; there the
+woollen shirt of the Arab, the leathern jerkin of the Berber, or the
+cotton dress of the native of Hindustan. Swart savage Ethiops from the
+Upper Nile, adorned with a war-paint of white and red, and scantily
+clad with the skins of leopards or lions, fought in one place with huge
+clubs, arrows tipped with stone, and spears terminating in the horn of
+an antelope. In another, Scyths, with their loose spangled trousers and
+their tall pointed caps, dealt death around from their unerring blows;
+while near them Assyrians, helmeted, and wearing corselets of quilted
+linen, wielded the tough spear, or the still more formidable iron mace.
+Rude weapons, like cane bows, unfeathered arrows, and stakes hardened at
+one end in the fire, were seen side by side with keen swords and
+daggers of the best steel, the finished productions of the workshops
+of Phoenicia and Greece. Here the bronze helmet was surmounted with
+the ears and horns of an ox; there it was superseded by a fox-skin, a
+leathern or wooden skull-cap, or a head-dress fashioned out of a horse’s
+scalp. Besides horses and mules, elephants, camels, and wild asses,
+diversified the scene, and rendered it still more strange and wonderful
+to the eye of a European. One large body of cavalry was accustomed
+to enter the field apparently unarmed; besides the dagger, which the
+Oriental never lays aside, they had nothing but a long leathern thong.
+They used this, however, just as the lasso is used by the natives of
+Brazil, and the wretch at whom they aimed their deadly noose had small
+chance of escape. The Persians, like the Assyrians, usually avoided
+fighting during the winter, and marched out their armies against the
+enemy in early spring. With the great hosts which they moved a fixed
+order of march was most necessary; and we find evidence of so much
+attention being paid to this point that confusion and disorder seem
+scarcely ever to have arisen. When the march lay within their own
+country, it was usual to send on the baggage and the sumpter-beasts in
+advance, after which came about half the troops, moving slowly in a long
+and continuous column along the appointed line of route. At this point
+a considerable break occurred, in order that all might be clear for
+the most important part of the army, which was now to follow. A guard,
+consisting of a thousand horse and a thousand foot, picked men of the
+Persian people, prepared the way for what was most holy in the eyes of
+the nation--the emblems of their religion, and their king. The former
+consisted of sacred horses and cars; perhaps, in the later times, of
+silver altars also, bearing the perpetual and heaven-kindled fire,
+which was a special object of Persian religious regard, and which the
+superstition of the people viewed as a sort of palladium, sure to bring
+the blessings of heaven upon their arms. Behind the sacred emblems
+followed the Great King himself, mounted on a car drawn by Nissean
+steeds, and perhaps protected on either side by a select band of his
+relatives. Behind the royal chariot came a second guard, consisting,
+like the first, of a thousand foot and a thousand horse. Then followed
+ten thousand picked foot, probably the famous “Immortals;” then came
+a body of ten thousand picked Persian horsemen. After these a space of
+four hundred yards (nearly a quarter of a mile) was left vacant; then
+marched, in a second continuous column, the remainder of the host.
+
+On entering an enemy’s country, or drawing near a hostile force in their
+own, certain alterations in these dispositions became necessary, and
+were speedily effected. The baggage-train was withdrawn, and instead of
+moving before the army, followed at some little distance in the rear.
+Horsemen were thrown out in front, to feel for the enemy and notify his
+arrival. Sometimes, if the host was large, a division of the troops
+was made, and several _corps d’armee_ advanced against the foe
+simultaneously by distinct routes. When this took place, the
+commander-in-chief was careful to accompany the central force, so as to
+find himself in his proper position if he was suddenly compelled to give
+battle.
+
+Night movements were seldom attempted by the Persians. They marched from
+sunrise to sunset, halting, probably, during the midday heat. In their
+most rapid marches they seldom accomplished more than from twenty to
+twenty-five miles in the day; and when this rate was attempted for any
+continuance, it was necessary to rest the men at intervals for as much
+as three days at a time. The great drag upon rapidity of movement was
+the baggage-train, which consisted ordinarily of a vast multitude of
+camels, horses, asses, mules, oxen, etc., in part carrying burthens upon
+their backs, in part harnessed to carts laden with provisions, tents,
+and other necessaries. The train also frequently comprised a number of
+litters, in which the wives or female companions of the chief men were
+luxuriously conveyed, amid a crowd of eunuchs and attendants, and with
+all the cumbrous paraphernalia of female wardrobes. Roads, it must be
+remembered, did not exist; rivers were not bridged, except occasionally
+by boats; the army marched on the natural ground along an established
+line of route which no art had prepared for the passage of man or beast.
+Portions of the route would often be soft and muddy; the carts and
+litters would become immovable, their wheels sinking into the mire up
+to the axles; all the efforts of the teams would be unavailing; it must
+have been imperative to halt the main line, and employ the soldiers in
+the release of the vehicles, which had to be lifted and carried forward
+till the ground was sufficiently firm to bear them. When a river crossed
+the line of route, a ford had to be sought, boats procured, or rafts
+extemporized. The Persians were skilful in the passage of streams, to
+which they became accustomed in their first campaigns under Cyrus; but
+the march was necessarily retarded by these and similar obstacles, and
+we cannot be surprised that the average rate of movement was slow.
+
+As evening approached the Persians sought a suitable place for their
+camp. An open plain was preferred for the purpose, and the vicinity of
+water was a necessity. If an enemy was thought to be at hand, a ditch
+was rapidly dug, and the earth thrown up inside; or if the soil was
+sandy, sacks were filled with it, and the camp was protected with
+sand-bags. Immediately within the rampart were placed the _gerrhophori_,
+or Persians armed with large wicker shields. The rest of the soldiers
+had severally their appointed places, the position assigned to the
+commander-in-chief being the centre. All the army had tents, which were
+pitched so as to face the east. The horses of the cavalry were tethered
+and hobbled in front of the tents of their owners.
+
+The Persians disliked encamping near to their enemy. They preferred an
+interval of seven or eight miles, which they regarded as a considerable
+security against a surprise. As their most important arm was the
+cavalry, and as it was impossible for the cavalry to unfasten and
+unhobble their steeds, to equip them properly, to arm themselves, and
+then to mount in a short space of time, when darkness and confusion
+reigned around, a night attack on the part of an enterprising enemy
+would have been most perilous to a Persian army. Hence the precaution
+which they observed against its occurrence--a precaution which was
+seldom or never omitted where they felt any respect for their foe,
+and which seems to have been effective, since we do not hear of their
+suffering any disaster of the kind which they so greatly feared.
+
+The Persians do not seem to have possessed any special corps of
+pioneers. When the nature of the country was such as to require the
+felling of timber or the removal of brushwood, the army was halted, and
+the work was assigned to a certain number of the regular soldiers. For
+the construction of bridges, however, in important places, and for
+other works on a grand scale intended to facilitate an expedition,
+preparations were made beforehand, the tasks being entrusted either to
+skilled workmen, or to the crews of ships, if they were tolerably easy
+of performance.
+
+Commissariat arrangements were generally made by the Persians on a
+large scale, and with the best possible results. An ample baggage-train
+conveyed corn sufficient to supply the host during some months and in
+cases where scarcity was apprehended, further precautions were taken.
+Ships laden with corn accompanied the expedition as closely as possible,
+and supplemented any deficiency that might arise from a failure on the
+part of the land transport department. Sometimes, too, magazines were
+established at convenient points along the intended line of march
+previously to the setting forth of the army, and stores were thus
+accumulated at places where it was probable they would be found of most
+service.
+
+Requisitions for supplies were also made upon the inhabitants of the
+towns and villages through which lay the route of the army. Whenever the
+host rested for a night at a place of any consequence, the inhabitants
+seem to have been required to furnish sufficient bread for a meal
+to each man, and, in addition, to provide a banquet for the king
+(or general) and his suite, which was always very numerous. Such
+requisitions, often intolerably burthensome to those upon whom they
+were laid, must have tended greatly to relieve the strain upon their own
+resources, which the sustentation of such enormous hosts as the Persian
+kings were in the habit of moving, cannot have failed to produce in many
+cases.
+
+The effectiveness of these various arrangements for the provisioning of
+troops upon a march was such that Persian armies were rarely, if ever,
+in any difficulty with respect to their subsistence. Once only in
+the entire course of their history do we hear of the Persian forces
+suffering to any considerable extent from a want of supplies. According
+to Herodotus, Cambyses, when he invaded Ethiopia, neglected the ordinary
+precautions and brought his army into such straits that his men began to
+eat each other. This caused the total failure of his expedition, and
+the loss of a great proportion of the troops employed in it. There
+is, however, reason to suspect that, even in this case, the loss and
+difficulty which occurred have been much exaggerated.
+
+The Persians readily gave quarter to the enemy who asked it, and
+generally treated their prisoners of war with much kindness. Personages
+of importance, as monarchs or princes, either preserved their titles
+and their liberty, with even a certain nominal authority, or received
+appanages in other parts of the Persian territory, or, finally, were
+retained about the Court as friends and table-companions of the Great
+King. Those of less rank were commonly given lands and houses in some
+province remote from their own country, and thenceforth held the same
+position as the great mass of the subject races. Exchanges of prisoners
+do not seem to have been thought of. In a few cases, persons, whom we
+should regard as prisoners of war, experienced some severities, but
+probably only when they were viewed by the Persians, not as fair
+enemies, but as rebels. Rebels were, of course, liable to any punishment
+which the king might think it right to inflict upon them, and there were
+occasions after a revolt when sentences of extreme rigor were passed
+upon the persons considered to have been most in fault. According to
+Herodotus, three thousand Babylonians were crucified by order of
+Darius, to punish their revolt from him; and, though this is probably an
+exaggeration, it is certain that sometimes, where an example was thought
+to be required, the Persians put to death, not only the leader of a
+rebellion, but a number of his chief adherents. Crucifixion, or, at
+any rate, impalement of some sort, was in such cases the ordinary
+punishment. Sometimes, before a rebel was executed, he was kept for a
+while chained at the king’s door, in order that there might be no doubt
+of his capture.
+
+Among the minor punishments of rebellion were branding, and removal of
+the rebels _en masse_ from their own country, to some remote locality.
+In this latter case, they were merely treated in the same way as
+ordinary prisoners of war. In the former, they probably became royal
+slaves attached to the household of the monarch.
+
+Though the Persians were not themselves a nautical people, they were
+quite aware of the great importance of a navy, and spared no pains to
+provide themselves with an efficient one. The conquests of Phoenicia,
+Cyprus, Egypt, and the Greek islands were undertaken, it is probable,
+mainly with this object; and these parts of the Empire were always
+valued chiefly as possessing skilled seamen, vessels, and dockyards,
+from which the Great King could draw an almost inexhaustible supply of
+war-ships and transports. Persia at times had the complete command of
+the Mediterranean Sea, and bore undisputed sway in the Levant during
+almost the whole period of her existence as an empire.
+
+The war-ship preferred by the best naval powers during the whole period
+of the Persian rule was the trireme, or decked galley impelled by rowers
+sitting in three tiers, or banks, one above another. This vessel, the
+invention of the Corinthians, had been generally adopted by the nations
+bordering on the Mediterranean in the interval between B.C. 700 and B.C.
+525, when by the reduction of Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Egypt, the Persians
+obtained the command of the sea. Notwithstanding the invention of
+quadriremes by the Carthaginians before B.C. 400, and of quinqueremes by
+Dionysius the Elder soon after, the trireme stood its ground, and from
+first to last the Persian fleets were mainly composed of this class of
+vessels.
+
+The trireme was a vessel of a considerable size, and was capable of
+accommodating two hundred and thirty persons. Of these, two hundred
+constituted the crew, while the remaining thirty were men-at-arms,
+corresponding to our own “marines.” By far the greater number of the
+crew consisted of the rowers, who probably formed at least nine-tenths
+of the whole, or one hundred and eighty out of the two hundred. The
+rowers sat, not on benches running right across the vessel, but on small
+seats attached to its side. They were arranged, as before stated, in
+three tiers, not, however, directly one over the head of another, but
+obliquely, each at once above and behind his fellow. Each rower had the
+sole management of a single oar, which he worked through a hole pierced
+in the side of the vessel. To prevent his oar from slipping he had a
+leathern strap, which he twisted round it, and fastened to the thole,
+probably by means of a button. The remainder of the crew comprised the
+captain, the steersman, the petty officers, and the sailors proper, or
+those whose office it was to trim the sails and look to the rigging.
+The trireme of Persian times had, in all cases, a mast, and at least one
+sail, which was of a square shape, hung across the mast by means of a
+yard or spar, like the “square-sail” of a modern vessel. The rudder
+was composed of two broad-bladed oars, one on either side of the stern,
+united, however, by a cross-bar, and managed by a single steersman. The
+central part of a trireme was always decked, and on this deck, which
+was generally level with the bulwarks, stood and fought the men-at-arms,
+whose business it was to engage the similar force of the enemy.
+
+The weapon of the trireme, with which she was intended chiefly to
+attack her foe, was the beak. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 3.] This consisted of
+a projection from the prow of the ship, either above or below the
+water-line, strongly shod with a casting of iron, and terminating either
+in the head of an animal, or in one or more sharp points. A trireme was
+expected, like a modern “ram,” to use this implement against the sides
+of her adversary’s vessels, so as to crush them in and cause the vessels
+to sink. Driven by the full force of her oars, which impelled her almost
+at the rate of a modern steamer, she was nearly certain, if she struck
+her adversary full, to send ship and men to the bottom. She might
+also, it is true, greatly damage herself; but, to preclude this, it was
+customary to make the whole prow of a trirene exceedingly strong, and,
+more particularly, to support it with beams at the side which tended to
+prevent the timbers from starting.
+
+Besides triremes, which constituted the bulk of the Persian navy, there
+were contained in their fleet various other classes of vessels, as
+triaconters, penteconters, cercuri, and others. Triaconters were long,
+sharp-keeled ships, shaped very much like a trireme, rowed by thirty
+rowers, who sat all upon a level, like the rowers in modern boats,
+fifteen on either side of the vessel. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 2.]
+Penteconters were very similar, the only difference being in the number
+of the oars and oarsmen. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 4.] Both these classes of
+vessels seem to have been frequently without sails. Cercuri were light
+boats, very long and swift. They are said to have been invented by the
+Cyprians, and were always peculiar to Asia.
+
+The transports of the Persians were either for the conveyance of horses
+or of food. Horse-transports were large clumsy vessels, constructed
+expressly for the service whereon they were used, possessing probably a
+special apparatus for the embarkation and disembarkation of the animals
+which they were built to carry. Corn-transports seem to have been of a
+somewhat lighter character. Probably, they varied very considerably in
+their size and burthen, including huge and heavy merchantmen on the one
+hand, and a much lighter and smaller craft on the other.
+
+The Persians used their ships of war, not only for naval engagements,
+but also for the conveyance of troops and the construction of bridges.
+Accustomed to pass the great streams which intersect Western Asia
+by bridges of boats, which were permanently established wherever an
+unfordable river crossed any of the regular routes connecting the
+provinces with the capital, the Persians, when they proceeded to carry
+their arms from Asia into Europe, conceived the idea of bridging the
+interval between the continents, which did not much exceed the width of
+one of the Mesopotamian streams, by constructions similar in principle
+and general character to those wherewith long use had made them familiar
+in their own country. Ranging a number of vessels side by side, at no
+great distance one from another, parallel with the course of the stream,
+which ran down the straits, anchoring each vessel stem and stern to keep
+it in place, and then laying upon these supports a long wooden platform,
+they made a floating bridge of considerable strength, reaching from
+the Asiatic to the European coast, on which not only men, but horses,
+camels, chariots, and laden carts passed over safely from the one
+continent to the other. Only, as the water which they had to cross was
+not a river, but an arm of the real salt sea, and might, therefore, in
+case of a storm, show a might and fury far beyond a river’s power, they
+thought it necessary to employ, in lieu of boats, the strongest ships
+which they possessed, namely, triremes and pentecon-ters, as best
+capable of withstanding the force of an angry sea. Bridges of this
+kind were intended sometimes for temporary, sometimes for permanent
+constructions. In the latter case, great care and much engineering skill
+was lavished on their erection. The shore cables, which united the ships
+together, and sustained the actual bridge or platform, were made of most
+carefully selected materials, and must have been of enormous strength;
+the ships were placed in close proximity one to another; and by the
+substitution of a double for a single line--of two bridges, in fact, for
+one--the solidity of the work was very largely augmented. Yet, rare as
+was the skill shown, solid and compact as were the causeways thus
+thrown by human art over the sea, they were found inadequate to the end
+desired. The great work of Xerxes, far the most elaborate of its class,
+failed to withstand the fury of the elements for a single year; the
+bridge, constructed in one autumn, was utterly swept away in the next;
+and the army which had crossed into Europe by its aid had to embark as
+it best could, and return on board ship to Asia.
+
+As the furnishing of the Persian fleet was left wholly to the subject
+nations of the Empire, so was its manning intrusted to them almost
+entirely. Phoenicians, Syrians, Egyptians, Cypriots, Cilicians, Lycians,
+Pamphylians, Carians, Greeks, equipped in the several costumes of their
+countries, served side by side in their respective contingents of ships,
+thereby giving the fleet nearly the same motley appearance which
+was presented by the army. In one respect alone did the navy exhibit
+superior uniformity to their sister service--the _epibatae_, or
+“marines,” who formed the whole fighting force of the fleet while it
+kept the sea, was a nearly homogeneous body, consisting of three races
+only (two of which were closely allied), namely, Persians, Medes, and
+Sacse. Every ship had thirty such men on board; all, it is probable,
+uniformly armed, and all animated by one and the same spirit. To this
+force the Persians must have owed it mainly that their great fleets
+were not mere congeries of mutually repellant atoms, but were capable of
+acting against an enemy with a fair amount of combination and singleness
+of purpose.
+
+When a fleet accompanied a land army upon an expedition, it was usually
+placed under the same commander. This commander, however, was not
+expected to adventure himself on board much less to take the direction
+of a sea-fight. He intrusted the fleet to an officer, or officers, whom
+he nominated, and was content himself with the conduct of operations
+ashore. Occasionally the land and sea forces were assigned to distinct
+commanders of co-ordinate authority--an arrangement which led naturally,
+to misunderstanding and quarrel.
+
+The tactics of a Persian fleet seem to have been of the simplest
+kind Confident in their numbers, until experience had taught them the
+fallaciousness of such a ground of hope, they were chiefly anxious
+that their enemy should not escape. To prevent this they endeavored to
+surround the ships opposed to them, advancing their line in a crescent
+form, so as to enclose their adversary’s wings, or even detaching
+squadrons to cut off his retreat. They formed their line several ships
+deep and when the hour of battle came, advanced directly at their best
+speed against the enemy, endeavoring to run down his vessels by sheer
+force, and never showing any acquaintance with or predilection for
+manoeuvres of a skilful antagonist, who avoided or successfully
+withstood this first onset, they were apt through their very numbers to
+be thrown into disorder: the first line would become entangled with the
+second, the second with the third, and inextricable confusion would be
+the result. Confusion placed them at the mercy of their antagonist,
+who, retaining complete command over his own vessels, was able to strike
+theirs in vulnerable parts, and, in a short time, to cover the sea with
+shattered and sinking wrecks. The loss to the Persians in men as well
+as in material, was then sure to be very great; for their sailors seldom
+knew how to swim, and were consequently drowned, even when the shore was
+but a few yards distant.
+
+When, from deficiency in their numbers, or distrust of their own
+nautical skill in comparison with that of their enemy, the commanders of
+a Persian fleet wished to avoid an engagement, a plan sometimes adopted
+was to run the ships ashore upon a smooth soft beach, and, after drawing
+them together, to surround them with such a rampart as could be hastily
+made, and defend this rampart with the sailors. The crews of the Persian
+vessels were always more or less completely armed, in order that, if
+occasion arose, they might act as soldiers ashore, and were thus quite
+capable of fighting effectively behind a rampart. They might count, too,
+under such circumstances, upon assistance from such of their own land
+forces as might happen to be in the neighborhood, who would be sure to
+come with all speed to their aid, and might be expected to prove a sure
+protection.
+
+The subject nations who furnished the Persians with their fleet were,
+in the earlier times, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Cypriots, the
+Cilicians, the Syrians of Palestine, the Pamphylians, the Lycians, the
+Carians, and the Greeks of Asia Minor and the islands. The Greeks seem
+to have furnished the largest number of ships; the Phoenicians, the
+next largest; then the Egyptians; after them the Cypriots; then the
+Cilicians; then the Carians; next the Lycians; while the Pamphylians
+furnished the least. The best ships and the best sailors were the
+Phoenicians, especially those of Sidon. In later times, ships were drawn
+either from Phoenicia alone, or from Phoenicia, Cilicia, and Cyprus.
+
+The limits assigned to the present work forbid the further prosecution
+of this branch of our inquiry, and require us now to pass on from the
+consideration of the Persian usages in war, to that of their manners
+and customs, their habits and proceedings, in time of peace. And here
+it will once more be convenient to follow a division of the subject with
+which the reader is familiar, and to treat first of the public life of
+the King and Court, and next of the private life of the people.
+
+The Persian king held the same rank and position in the eyes of his
+subjects which the great monarch of Western Asia, whoever he might be,
+had always occupied from time immemorial. He was their lord and master,
+absolute disposer of their lives, liberties, and property; the
+sole fountain of law and right, incapable himself of doing wrong,
+irresponsible irresistable--a sort of God upon earth; one whose favor
+was happiness, at whose frown men trembled, before whom all bowed
+themselves down with the lowest and humblest obeisance.
+
+To a personage so exhalted, a state and pomp of the utmost magnificence
+was befitting. The king’s ordinary dress in time of peace was the long
+flowing “Median garment,” or _candys_--made in his case (it is probable)
+of richest silk, which, with its ample folds, its wide hanging sleeves,
+and its close fit about the neck and chest, gave dignity to almost any
+figure, and excellently set off the noble presence of an Achaemenian
+prince. The royal robe was either of purple throughout, or sometimes of
+purple embroidered with gold. It descended below the ankles; resting on
+the foot even when the monarch was seated. A broad girdle confined it at
+the waist. Under it was worn a tunic, or shirt, which reached from the
+neck to the knee, and had tight-fitting sleeves that covered the arm to
+the wrist. The tunic was purple in color, like the _candys_, or robe,
+but striped or mixed with white. The lower limbs were encased in
+trousers of a crimson hue. On his feet the the king wore shoes like
+those of the Medes, long and taper at the toe buttoned in front,
+and reaching very high up the instep: their color was deep yellow or
+saffron. [PLATE XXXII., Fig.1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXII.]
+
+
+Thus far the monarch’s costume, though richer in material than the dress
+of the Persian nobles, and in some points different in color, was on the
+whole remarkably like that of the upper class of his subjects. It
+was, however, most important that his dress should possess some
+distinguishing feature, and that that feature should be one of
+very marked prominency. In an absolute monarchy the king must be
+unmistakable, at almost any distance, and almost in any light.
+Consequences of the gravest kind may follow from any mistake of the
+royal identity; and it is therefore essential to the comfort both of
+prince and subject that some very conspicuous badge shall mark and
+notify the monarch’s presence. Accordingly, it appears that the Persian
+ruler was to be known by his headdress, which was peculiar alike
+in shape and in color, and was calculated to catch the eye in both
+respects. It bore the name _kitaris_ or _hidaris_, and was a tall stiff
+cap, slightly swelling as it ascended, flat at top, and terminating in a
+ring or circle which projected beyond the lines of the sides. Round
+it, probably near the bottom, was worn a fillet or band--the diadem
+proper--which was blue, spotted with white.
+
+As the other Persians wore either simple fillets round their heads, or
+soft, rounded, and comparatively low caps, with no band round them, the
+king’s headdress, which would tower above theirs and attract attention
+by its color, could readily be distinguished even in the most crowded
+Court.
+
+It has been asserted that the _kidaris_, or tiara of the Persian kings,
+was “commonly adorned with gold and jewelry;” and this may possibly have
+been the case, but there is no evidence that it was so. Its material
+was probably either cloth or felt, and it was always of a bright color,
+though not (apparently) always of the same color. Its distinguishing
+features were its height, its stiffness, and the blue and white fillet
+which encircled it.
+
+Among other certain indications of the royal presence may be mentioned
+the golden sceptre, and the parasol. The sceptre, which is seen
+frequently in the king’s hands, was a plain rod, about five feet in
+length, ornamented with a ball, or apple, at its upper end, and at its
+lower tapering nearly to a point. The king held it in his right hand,
+grasping it near, but not at, the thick end, and rested the thin end on
+the ground in his front. When he walked, he planted it upright before
+him, as a spearman would plant his spear. When he sate, he sloped it
+outwards, still, however, touching the ground with its point.
+
+The parasol, which has always been in the East a mark of dignity, seems
+in Persia, as in Assyria, to have been confined, either by law or usage,
+to the king. The Persian implement resembled the later Assyrian, except
+that it was not tasselled, and had no curtain or flap. It had the same
+tent-like shape, the same long thick stem, and the same ornament at the
+top. It only differed in being somewhat shallower, and in having the
+supports, which kept it open, curved instead of straight. It was held
+over the king’s head on state occasions by an attendant who walked
+immediately behind him. [PLATE XXXII., Fig. 3.]
+
+The throne of the monarch was an elevated seat, with a high back, but
+without arms, cushioned, and ornamented with a fringe, and with moldings
+or carvings along the back and legs. The ornamentation consisted chiefly
+of balls and broad rings, and contained little that was artistic or
+elaborate. The legs, however, terminated in lions’ feet, resting upon
+half balls, which were ribbed or fluted. The sides of the chair
+below the seat appear to have been panelled, like the thrones of the
+Assyrians, but were not adorned with any carving. The seat of the throne
+was very high from the ground, and without a rest the legs would have
+dangled. A footstool consequently was provided, which was plain, like
+the throne, but was supported on legs terminating in the feet of bulls.
+Thus the lion and the bull, so frequent in the symbolism of the East,
+were here again brought together, being represented as the supports of
+the throne.
+
+With respect to the material whereof the throne was composed, there
+can be no doubt that it was something splendid and costly. Late writers
+describe it as made of pure gold; but, as we hear of its having silver
+feet, we may presume that parts at least were of the less precious
+metal. Ivory is not said to have been used in its composition. We may,
+perhaps, conjecture, that the frame of the throne was wood, and that
+this was overlaid with plates of gold or silver, whereby the whole of
+the woodwork was concealed from view, and an appearance of solid metal
+presented.
+
+The person of the king was adorned with golden ornaments. He had
+earrings of gold in his ears, often inlaid with jewels he wore golden
+bracelets upon his wrists; and he had a chain or collar of gold about
+his neck. [PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 1.] In his girdle, which was also of
+gold, he carried a short sword, the sheath of which was formed of a
+single precious stone. The monuments, unfortunately, throw little light
+on the character and workmanship of these portions of the royal costume.
+We may gather from them, perhaps, that the bracelets had a large jewel
+set in their centre, and that the collars were of twisted work, worn
+loosely around the neck. The sword seems to have differed little from
+that of the ordinary Persians. It had a short straight blade, a mere
+crossbar for a guard, and a handle almost devoid of ornament. This
+plainness was compensated, if we may trust Curtius, by the magnificence
+of the sheath, which was, perhaps, of jasper, agate, or lapis lazuli.
+[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 2.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIII.]
+
+
+The officers in most close attendance on the monarch’s person were,
+in war, his charioteer, his stool-bearer, his bow-bearer, and his
+quiver-bearer; in peace, his parasol-bearer, and his fan bearer, who
+was also privileged to carry what has been termed “the royal
+pocket-handkerchief.”
+
+The royal charioteer is seemingly unarmed. His head is protected merely
+by a fillet. He sits in front of his master, and both his hands are
+fully occupied with the management of the reins. He has no whip, and
+seems to urge his horses forward simply by leaning forward himself, and
+slackening or shaking the reins over them. He was, no doubt, in every
+case a Persian of the highest rank, such near proximity to the Royal
+person being a privilege to which none but the very noblest could
+aspire. [PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 2.]
+
+The office of the stool-bearer, was to assist the king as he mounted his
+chariot or dismounted from it. He carried a golden stool, and followed
+the royal chariot closely, in order that he might be at hand whenever
+his master felt disposed to alight. On a march, the king was wont to
+vary the manner of his travelling, exchanging, when the inclination took
+him, his chariot for a litter, and riding in that more luxurious vehicle
+till he was tired of it, after which he returned to his chariot for
+a space. The services of the stool-bearer were thus in constant
+requisition, since it was deemed quite impossible that his Majesty could
+ascend or descend his somewhat lofty war-car without such aid.
+
+The rank of the bow-bearer was probably nearly as great as that of the
+driver of the chariot. He was privileged to stand immediately behind the
+monarch on grand occasions, so carrying in his left hand the weapon from
+which he derived his appellation. The quiver-bearer had the next place.
+Both wore the Median costume--the _candys_, or flowing robe, the girdle,
+the high shoe, and the stiff fluted cap, or, perhaps, occasionally the
+simple fillet. Sometimes the two offices would seem to have been held
+by the same person, unless we are to attribute this appearance, where
+it occurs, to the economy of the artist, who may have wished to save
+himself the trouble of drawing two separate figures. [PLATE XXXIII.,
+Fig. 5.]
+
+The parasol-bearer was attired as the bow and quiver bearers,
+except that he was wholly unarmed, and had the fillet for his proper
+head-dress. Though not a military officer, he accompanied the monarch in
+his expeditions, since in the midst of war there might be occasions of
+state when his presence would be convenient. The officer who bore the
+royal fan and handkerchief had generally the same costume; but sometimes
+his head was enveloped in a curious kind of cowl or muffler, which
+covered the whole of it except the forehead, the eyes, the nose, the
+mouth, and the upper portion of the cheeks. [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIV.]
+
+
+The fan, or fly-chaser, had a long straight handle, ornamented with
+a sort of beading, which held a brush of some springy fibrous matter.
+[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 4.] The bearer, whose place was directly behind the
+monarch, held his implement, which bent forward gracefully, nearly at
+arm’s length over his master’s head.
+
+It would seem that occasionally the bearer of the handkerchief
+laid aside his fly-chaser, and assumed in lieu of it a small bottle
+containing perfumery. [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 4.] In a sculptured tablet at
+Persepolis, given by Ker Porter, an attendant in the Median robe, with a
+fillet upon his head, who bears the handkerchief in the usual way in his
+left hand, carries in the palm of his right what seems to be a bottle,
+not-unlike the scent-bottle of a modern lady. It has always been an
+Oriental custom to wash the hands before meals, and the rich commonly
+mix some perfumery or other with the water. We may presume that this
+was the practice at the Persian Court, and that the Great King therefore
+took care to have an officer, who should at all times be ready to
+provide his guests, or himself, with the scent which was most rare or
+most fashionable.
+
+The Persians seem to have been connoisseurs in scents. We are told that,
+when the royal tiara was not in wear, it was laid up carefully with a
+mixture of myrrh and _labyzus_, to give it an agreeable odor. Unguents
+were thought to have been a Persian invention, and at any rate were most
+abundantly used by the upper classes of the nation. The monarch applied
+to his own person an ointment composed of the fat of lions, palm wine,
+saffron, and the herb helianthes, which was considered to increase the
+beauty of the complexion. He carried with him, even when he went to the
+wars, a case of choice unguents; and such a treasure fell into the hands
+of Alexander, with the rest of Darius’s camp equipage, at Arbela. It may
+be suspected that the “royal ointment” of the Parthian kings, composed
+of cinnamon, spikenard, myrrh, cassia, gum styrax, saffron, cardamum,
+wine, honey, and sixteen other ingredients, was adopted from the
+Persians, who were far more likely than the rude Parthians to have
+invented so recondite a mixture. Nor were scents used only in this form
+by the ingenious people of whom we are speaking. Arabia was required
+to furnish annually to the Persian crown a thousand talents’ weight of
+frankincense; and there is reason to believe that this rare spice was
+largely employed about the Court, since the walls of Persepolis have
+several representations of censers, which are sometimes carried in
+the hands of an attendant, while sometimes they stand on the ground
+immediately in front of the Great King.321 [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 2.]
+
+The box or vase in which the Persians commonly kept their unguents was
+of alabaster. This stone, which abounded in the country, was regarded as
+peculiarly suited for holding ointments, not only by the Persians, but
+also by the Egyptians, the Greeks, and (probably) the Assyrians. The
+Egyptian variety of stone seems to have been especially valued; and
+vases appear to have been manufactured in that country for the use of
+the Persian monarch, which were transmitted to the Court, and became
+part of the toilet furniture of the palace.330 [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 3.]
+
+Among the officers of the Court, less closely attached to the person of
+the monarch than those above enumerated, may be mentioned the steward
+of the household; the groom or master of the horse; the chief eunuch,
+or keeper of the women; the king’s “eyes” and “ears,” persons whose
+business it was to keep him informed on all matters of importance;
+his scribes or secretaries, who wrote his letters and his edicts; his
+messengers, who went his errands; his ushers, who introduced strangers
+to him; his “tasters,” who tried the various dishes set before him lest
+they should be poisoned; his cupbearers who handed him his wine, and
+tasted it; his chamberlains, who assisted him to bed; and his musicians,
+who amused him with song and harp. Besides these, the Court comprised
+various classes of guards, and also doorkeepers, huntsmen, grooms,
+cooks, and other domestic servants in great abundance, together with
+a vast multitude of visitors and guests, princes, nobles, captives of
+rank, foreign refugees, ambassadors, travellers. We are assured that
+the king fed daily within the precincts of his palace as many as fifteen
+thousand persons, and that the cost of each day’s food was four hundred
+talents. A thousand beasts were slaughtered for each repast, besides
+abundance of feathered game and poultry. The beasts included not only
+sheep, goats, and oxen, but also stags, asses, horses, and camels. Among
+the feathered delicacies were poultry, geese, and ostriches.
+
+The monarch himself rarely dined with his guests. For the most part he
+was served alone. Sometimes he admitted to his table the queen and two
+or three of his children. Sometimes, at a “banquet of wine,” a certain
+number of privileged boon companions were received, who drank in the
+royal presence, not, however, of the same wine, nor on the same terms.
+
+The monarch reclined on a couch with golden feet, and sipped the rich
+wine of Helbon; the guests drank an inferior beverage, seated upon the
+floor. At a great banquet, it was usual to divide the guests into two
+classes. Those of lower degree were entertained in an outer court or
+chamber to which the public had access, while such as were of higher
+rank entered the private apartments, and drew near to the king. Here
+they were feasted in a chamber opposite to the king’s chamber, which had
+a curtain drawn across the door, concealing him from their gaze, but not
+so thick as to hide them from their entertainer. Occasionally, on some
+very special occasion, as, perhaps, on the Royal birthday, or other
+great festival, the king presided openly at the banquet, drinking and
+discoursing with his lords, and allowing the light of his countenance to
+shine freely upon a large number of guests, whom, on these occasions,
+he treated as if they were of the same flesh and blood with himself.
+Couches of gold and silver were spread for all, and “royal wine in
+abundance” was served to them in golden goblets. On these, and, indeed,
+on all occasions, the guests, if they liked, carried away any portion
+of the food set before them which they did not consume at the time,
+conveying it to their homes, where it served to support their families.
+
+The architecture of the royal palace will be discussed in another
+chapter; but a few words may be said in this place with respect to its
+furniture and general appearance. The pillared courts and halls of
+the vast edifices which the Achaemenian monarchs raised at Susa and
+Persepolis would have had a somewhat bare and cold aspect, if it had not
+been for their internal fittings. The floors were paved with stones
+of various hues, blue, white, black, and red, arranged doubtless into
+patterns, and besides were covered in places with carpeting. The spaces
+between the pillars were filled with magnificent hangings, white green,
+and violet, which were fastened with cords of fine linen (?) and purple
+to silver rings and pillars of marble, screening the guests from sight,
+while they did not too much exclude the balmy summer breeze. The walls
+of the apartments were covered with plates of gold. All the furniture
+was rich and costly. The golden throne of the monarch stood under an
+embroidered canopy or awning supported by four pillars of gold inlaid
+with precious stones. [PLATE XXXV.] Couches resplendent with silver and
+gold filled the rooms. The private chamber of the monarch was adorned
+with a number of objects, not only rich and splendid, but valuable as
+productions of high art. Here, impending over the royal bed, was the
+golden vine, the work of Theodore of Samos, where the grapes were
+imitated by means of precious stones, each of enormous value. Here,
+probably, was the golden plane-tree, a worthy companion to the
+vine, though an uncourtly Greek declared it was too small to shade a
+grasshopper. Here, finally, was a bowl of solid gold, another work
+of the great Samian metallurgist, more precious for its artistic
+workmanship than even for its material.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXV.]
+
+
+Nothing has hitherto been said of the Royal harem or seraglio, which,
+however, as a feature of the Court always important, and ultimately
+preponderating over all others, claims a share of our attention. In the
+early times, it would appear that the Persian kings were content with
+three or four wives, and a moderate number of concubines. Of the wives
+there was always one who held the most exalted place, to whom alone
+appertained the title of “Queen,” and who was regarded as “wife” in a
+different sense from the others. Such was Atossa to Darius Hystaspis,
+Amestris to Xerxes, Statira to Darius Codomannus. Such, too, were Vashti
+and Esther to the prince, whoever he was, whose deeds are recorded in
+Scripture under the name of Ahasuerus. The chief wife, or Queen-Consort,
+was privileged to wear on her head a royal tiara or crown. She was
+the acknowledged head of the female apartments or Gynaeceum, and the
+concubines recognized her dignity by actual prostration. On great
+occasions, when the king entertained the male part of the Court, she
+feasted all the females in her own part of the palace. She had a
+large revenue of her own, assigned her, not so much by the will of her
+husband, as by an established law or custom. Her dress was splendid,
+and she was able to indulge freely that love of ornament of which few
+Oriental women are devoid. Though legally subject to her husband as much
+as the meanest of his slaves, she could venture on liberties which would
+have been fatal to almost any one else, and often, by her influence over
+the monarch, possessed a very considerable share of power.
+
+The status of the other wives was very inferior to this; and it is
+difficult to see how such persons were really in a position much
+superior to that of the concubines. As daughters of the chief
+nobles--for the king could only choose a wife within a narrow
+circle--they had, of course, a rank and dignity independent of that
+acquired by marriage; but otherwise they must have been almost on a par
+with those fair inmates of the Gynaeceum who had no claim even to
+the name of consort. Each wife had probably a suite of apartments to
+herself, and a certain number of attendants--eunuchs, and tirewomen--at
+her disposal; but the inferior wives saw little of the king, being only
+summoned each in their turn to share his apartment, and had none of the
+privileges which made the position of chief wife so important.
+
+The concubines seem to have occupied a distinct part of the Gynaeceum,
+called “the second house of the women.” They were in the special charge
+of one of the eunuchs, and were no doubt kept under strict surveillance.
+The Empire was continually searched for beautiful damsels to fill the
+harem, a constant succession being required, as none shared the royal
+couch more than once, unless she attracted the monarch’s regard very
+particularly. In the later times of the Empire, the number of the
+concubines became enormous, amounting (according to one authority) to
+three hundred and twenty-nine, (according to another) to three hundred
+and sixty. They accompanied the king both in his wars and in his hunting
+expeditions. It was a part of their duty to sing and play for the royal
+delectation; and this task, according to one author, they had to perform
+during the whole of each night. It is a more probable statement that
+they entertained the king and queen with music while they dined, one of
+them leading, and the others singing and playing in concert.
+
+The Gynaeceum--in the Susa palace, at any rate--was a building distinct
+from the general edifice, separated from the “king’s house” by a court.
+It was itself composed of at least three sets of apartments--viz.
+apartments for the virgins who had not yet gone into the king,
+apartments for the concubines, and apartments for the Queen-Consort and
+the other wives. These different portions were under the supervision
+of different persons. Two eunuchs of distinction had the charge
+respectively of the “first” and of the “second house of the women.” The
+Queen-Consort was, at any rate nominally, paramount in the third, her
+authority extending over all its inmates, male and female.
+
+Sometimes there was in the Gynaeceum a personage even more exalted than
+any which have as yet been mentioned. The mother of the reigning prince,
+if she outlived his father, held a position at the Court of her son
+beyond that even of his Chief Wife. She kept the ensigns of royalty
+which she had worn during the reign of her husband; and wielded, as
+Queen-Mother, a far weightier and more domineering authority than she
+ever exercised as Queen-Consort. The habits of reverence and obedience,
+in which the boy had been reared, retained commonly their power over the
+man; and the monarch who in public ruled despotically over millions
+of men, succumbed, within the walls of the seraglio, to the yoke of a
+woman, whose influence he was too weak to throw off. The Queen-Mother
+had her seat at the royal table whenever the king dined with his wife;
+and, while the wife sat below, she sat above the monarch. She had a
+suite of eunuchs distinct from those of her son. Ample revenues were
+secured to her, and were completely at her disposal. She practically
+exercised--though she could not perhaps legally claim--a power of life
+and death. She screened offenders from punishment, procuring for them
+the royal pardon, or sheltering them in her own apartments; and she
+poisoned, or openly executed, those who provoked her jealousy or
+resentment.
+
+The service of the harem, so far as it could not be fitly performed by
+women, was committed to eunuchs. Each legitimate wife--as well as the
+Queen-Mother--had a number of these unfortunates among her attendants;
+and the king intrusted the house of the concubines, and also that of the
+virgins, to the same class of persons. His own attendants seem likewise
+to have been chiefly eunuchs. In the later times, the eunuchs acquired
+a vast political authority, and appear to have then filled all the chief
+offices of state. They were the king’s advisers in the palace, and his
+generals in the field. They superintended the education of the young
+princes, and found it easy to make them their tools. The plots and
+conspiracies, the executions and assassinations, which disfigure the
+later portion of the Persian annals, maybe traced chiefly to their
+intrigues and ambition. But the early Persian annals are free from these
+horrors; and it is clear that the power of the eunuchs was, during this
+period, kept within narrow bounds. We hear little of them in authentic
+history till the reign of Xerxes. It is remarkable that the Persepolitan
+sculptures, abounding as they do in representations of Court life, of
+the officers and attendants who approached at all closely to the person
+of the monarch, contain not a single figure of a eunuch in their entire
+range. We may gather from this that there was at any rate a marked
+difference between the Assyrian and the early Persian Court in the
+position which eunuchs occupied at them respectively: we should not,
+however, be justified in going further and questioning altogether the
+employment of eunuchs by the Persian monarchs during the early period,
+since their absence from the sculptures may be accounted for on other
+grounds.
+
+It is peculiarly noticeable in the Persian sculptures and inscriptions
+that they carry to excess that reserve which Orientals have always
+maintained with regard to women. The inscriptions are wholly devoid
+of all reference to the softer sex, and the sculptures give us no
+representation of a female. In Persia, at the present day, it is
+regarded as a gross indecorum to ask a man after his wife; and anciently
+it would seem that the whole sex fell under a law of taboo, which
+required that, whatever the real power and influence of women, all
+public mention of them, as well as all representations of the female
+form, should be avoided. If this were so, it must of course still more
+have been the rule that the women--or, at any rate, those of the upper
+classes--should not be publicly seen. Hence the indignant refusal of
+Vashti to obey the command of King Aha-suerus to show herself to his
+Court. Hence, too, the law which made it a capital offence to address or
+touch one of the royal concubines or even to pass their litters upon
+the road. The litters of women were always curtained; and when the Queen
+Statira rode in hers with the curtains drawn, it was a novelty which
+attracted general attention, as a relaxation of the ordinary etiquette,
+though only females were allowed to come near her. Married women
+might not even see their nearest male relatives, as their fathers and
+brothers; the unmarried had, it is probable, a little more liberty.
+
+As the employment of eunuchs at the Persian Court was mainly in the
+harem, and in offices connected therewith, it is no wonder that
+they shared, to some extent, in the law of taboo, which forbade the
+representation of women. Their proper place was in the female courts and
+apartments, or in close attendance upon the litters, when members of
+the seraglio travelled, or took the air--not in the throne-room, or the
+antechambers, or the outer courts of the palace, which alone furnished
+the scenes regarded as suitable for representation.
+
+Of right, the position at the Persian Court immediately below that of
+the king belonged to the members of certain privileged families. Besides
+the royal family itself--or clan of the Achaemenidae--there were
+six great houses which had a rank superior to that of all the other
+grandees. According to Herodotus these houses derived their special
+dignity from the accident that their heads had been fellow-conspirators
+with Darius Hystaspis; but there is reason to suspect that the rank
+of the families was precedent to the conspiracy in question, certain
+families conspiring because they were great, and not becoming great
+because they conspired. At any rate, from the time of Darius I.,
+there seem to have been seven great families, including that of the
+Achaemenidae, whose chiefs had the privilege of free communication
+with the monarch, and from which he was legally bound to choose his
+legitimate wives. The chiefs appear to have been known as “the Seven
+Princes,” or “the Seven Counsellors,” of the king. They sat next to him
+at public festivals; they were privileged to tender him their advice,
+whenever they pleased; they recommended important measures of state, and
+were, in part, responsible for them; they could demand admission to the
+monarch’s presence at any time, unless he were in the female apartments;
+they had precedence on all great occasions of ceremony, and enjoyed
+a rank altogether independent of office. Sometimes--perhaps most
+commonly--they held office; but they rather conferred a lustre on the
+position which they consented to fill, than derived any additional
+splendor from it.
+
+It does not appear that the chiefs of the seven great families had any
+peculiar insignia. Officers of the Court, on the contrary, seem to have
+always carried, as badges marking their position, either wands about
+three feet in length, or an ornament resembling a lotos blossom, which
+is sometimes seen in the hands of the monarch himself. Such officers
+wore, at their pleasure, either the long Median robe and the fluted cap,
+or the close-fitting Persian tunic and trousers, with the loose felt
+[Greek name]. All had girdles, in which sometimes a dagger was placed;
+and all had collars of gold about their necks, and earrings of gold in
+their ears. The Median robes were of various colors--scarlet, purple,
+crimson, dark gray, etc. Over the Persian tunic a sleeved cloak, or
+great coat, reaching to the ankles, was sometimes worn; this garment was
+fastened by strings in front, and descended loosely from the shoulders,
+no use being commonly made of the sleeves, which hung empty at the
+wearer’s side. [PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVI.]
+
+
+An elaborate Court ceremonial was the natural accompaniment of the ideas
+with respect to royalty embodied in the Persian system. Excepting
+the “Seven Princes,” no one could approach the royal person unless
+introduced by a Court usher, Prostration--the attitude of worship--was
+required of all as they entered the presence. The hands of the persons
+introduced had to be hidden in their sleeves so long as their audience
+lasted. In crossing the Palace Courts it was necessary to abstain
+carefully from touching the carpet which was laid for the king to walk
+on. Coming into the king’s presence unsummoned was a capital crime,
+punished by the attendants with instant death, unless the monarch
+himself, as a sign that he pardoned the intrusion, held out towards the
+culprit the golden sceptre which he bore in his hands. It was also a
+capital offence to sit down, even unknowingly, upon the royal throne;
+and it was a grave misdemeanor to wear one of the king’s cast-off
+dresses. Etiquette was almost as severe on the monarch himself as on
+his subjects. He was required to live chiefly in seclusion; to eat his
+meals, for the most part, alone; never to go on foot beyond the palace
+walls; never to revoke an order once given, however much he might regret
+it; never to draw back from a promise, whatever ill results he might
+anticipate from its performance. To maintain the quasi-divine character
+which attached to him it was necessary that he should seem infallible,
+immutable, and wholly free from the weakness of repentance.
+
+As some compensation for the restrictions laid upon him, the Persian
+king had the sole enjoyment of certain luxuries. The wheat of Assos was
+sent to the Court to furnish him with bread, and the vines of Helbon
+were cultivated for the special purpose of supplying him with wine.
+Water was conveyed to Susa for his use from distant streams regarded as
+specially sweet and pure; and in his expeditions he was accompanied, by
+a train of wagons, which were laden with silver flasks, filled from the
+clear stream of the Choaspes. The oasis of Ammon contributed the salt
+with which he seasoned his food. All the delicacies that the Empire
+anywhere produced were accumulated on his board, for the supply of which
+each province was proud to send its best and choicest products.
+
+The chief amusements in which the Great King indulged were hunting and
+playing at dice. Darius Hystaspis, who followed the chase with such
+ardor as on one occasion to dislocate his ankle in the pursuit of a wild
+beast, had himself represented on his signet-cylinder as engaged in a
+lion-hunt. From this representation, we learn that the Persian monarchs,
+like the Assyrian, pursued the king of beasts in their chariots, and
+generally despatched him by means of arrows. Seated in a light car,
+and attended by a single unarmed charioteer, they invaded the haunts of
+these fiercest of brutes, rousing them from their lairs--probably with
+Indian hounds, and chasing them at full speed if they fled, or, if they
+faced the danger, attacking them with arrows or with the javelin. [PLATE
+XXXVI., Fig. 2.] Occasionally the monarch might indulge in this sport
+alone; but generally he was (it seems) accompanied by some of his
+courtiers, who shared the pleasures of the chase with him on the
+condition that they never ventured to let fly their weapons before he
+had discharged his. If they disregarded this rule they were liable
+to capital punishment, and might esteem themselves fortunate if they
+escaped with exile.
+
+Besides lions, the Persian monarch chased, it is probable, stages,
+antelopes, wild asses, wild boars, bears, wild sheep, and leopards.
+[PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 3.] These animals all abounded in the neighborhood
+of the royal palaces, and they are enumerated by Xenophon among the
+beasts hunted by Cyrus. The mode of chasing the wild ass was for the
+horsemen to scatter themselves over the plain, and to pursue the
+animal in turns, one taking up the chase when the horse of another was
+exhausted. The speed of the creature is so great that no horse with
+a rider on his back can long keep pace with him; and thus relays were
+necessary to tire him out, and enable the hunters to bring him within
+the range of their weapons.
+
+When game was scarce in the open country, or when the kings were
+too indolent to seek it in its native haunts, they indulged their
+inclination for sport by chasing the animals which they kept in their
+own “paradises.” These were walled enclosures of a large size, well
+wooded, and watered with sparkling streams, in which were bred or kept
+wild beasts of various kinds, chiefly of the more harmless sorts, as
+stags, antelopes, and wild sheep. These the kings pursued and shot with
+arrows, or brought down with the javelin; but the sport was regarded as
+tame, and not to be compared with hunting in the open field.
+
+Within the palace the Persian monarchs are said to have amused
+themselves with dice. They played, it is probable, chiefly with their
+near relatives, as their wives, or the Queen-Mother. The stakes, as was
+to be expected, ran high, as much as a thousand darics (nearly L 1100.)
+being sometimes set on a single throw. Occasionally they played for the
+persons of their slaves, eunuchs, and others, who, when lost, became the
+absolute property of the winner.
+
+Another favorite royal amusement was carving or planing wood. According
+to AElian, the Persian king, when he took a journey, always employed
+himself, as he sat in his carriage, in this way; and Ctesias speaks of
+the occupation as pursued also within the walls of the palace. Manual
+work of this kind has often been the refuge of those rulers, who, sated
+with pleasure and devoid of literary tastes, have found time hang heavy
+upon their hands.
+
+In literature a Persian king seems rarely to have taken any pleasure at
+all. Occasionally, to beguile the weary hours, a monarch may have had
+the “Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Persia and Media” read
+before him; but the kings themselves never opened a book, or studied any
+branch of science or learning. The letters, edicts, and probably even
+the inscriptions, of the monarch were the composition of the Court
+scribes, who took their orders from the king or his ministers, and
+clothed them in their own language. They did not even call upon their
+master to sign his name to a parchment; his seal, on which his name was
+engraved, sufficiently authenticated all proclamations and edicts.
+
+Among the more serious occupations of the monarch were the holding of
+councils, the reviewing of troops, the hearing of complaints, and the
+granting or refusing of redress, the assignment of rewards, perhaps, in
+some cases, the trying of causes, and, above all, the general direction
+of the civil administration and government of the Empire. An energetic
+king probably took care to hear all the reports which were sent up to
+the Court by the various officials employed in the actual government of
+the numerous provinces, as well as those sent in by the persons who from
+time to time inspected, on the part of the Crown, the condition of this
+or that satrapy. Having heard and considered these reports, and perhaps
+taken advice upon them, such a monarch would give clear directions as
+to the answers to be sent, which would be embodied in despatches by his
+secretaries, and then read over to him, before he affixed his seal to
+them. The concerns of an empire so vast as that of Persia would have
+given ample employment for the greater part of the day to any monarch
+who was determined not only to reign, but to govern. Among the Persian
+sovereigns there seems to have been a few who had sufficient energy and
+self-denial to devote themselves habitually to the serious duties of
+their office. Generally, however, the cares of government were devolved
+upon some favorite adviser, a relative, or a eunuch, who was entrusted
+by the monarch with the entire conduct of affairs, in order that he
+might give himself up to sensual pleasures, to the sports of the field,
+or to light and frivolous amusements.
+
+The passion for building, which we have found so strong in Assyria and
+Babylonia, possessed, but in a minor degree, a certain number of the
+Persian monarchs. The simplicity of their worship giving little scope
+for architectural grandeur in the buildings devoted to religion, they
+concentrated their main efforts upon the construction of palaces and
+tombs. The architectural character of these works will be considered in
+a later chapter. It is sufficient to note here that a good deal of the
+time and attention of many monarchs were directed to these objects; and
+particularly it is interesting to remark, that, notwithstanding their
+worldly greatness, and the flattering voices of their subjects, which
+were continually bidding them “live for ever,” the Persian kings were
+quite aware of the frail tenure by which man holds his life, and, while
+they were still in vigorous health, constructed their own tombs.
+
+It was an important principle of the Magian religion that the body
+should not after death be allowed to mingle with, and so pollute, any
+one of the four elements. Either from a regard for this superstition, or
+from the mere instinctive desire to preserve the lifeless clay as long
+as possible, the Persians entombed their kings in the following way.
+The body was placed in a golden coffin, which was covered with a
+close-fitting lid, and deposited either in a massive building erected to
+serve at once as a tomb and a monument, or in a chamber cut out of some
+great mass of solid rock, at a considerable elevation above its base. In
+either case, the entrance into the tomb was carefully closed, after the
+body had been deposited in it, by a block or blocks of stone. [PLATE
+XXXVII., Fig. 1.] Inside the tomb were placed, together with the coffin,
+a number of objects, designed apparently for the king’s use in the other
+world, as rich cloaks and tunics, trousers, purple robes, collars of
+gold, earrings of gold, set with gems, daggers, carpets, goblets,
+and hangings. Generally the tomb was ornamented with sculptures, and
+sometimes, though rarely, it had an inscription (or inscriptions) upon
+it, containing the name and titles of the monarch whose remains reposed
+within.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVII.]
+
+
+If the tomb were a building, and not rock-hewn, the ground in the
+vicinity was formed into a park or garden, which was planted with all
+manner of trees. Within the park, at some little distance from the
+tomb, was a house, which formed the residence of a body of priests, who
+watched over the safety of the sepulchre.
+
+The Greeks seem to have believed that divine honors were sometimes paid
+to a monarch after his decease; but the spirit of the Persian religion
+was so entirely opposed to any such observance that it is most probable
+the Greeks were mistaken. Observing that sacrifices were offered once a
+month in the vicinity of some of the royal tombs, they assumed that
+the object of the cult was the monarch himself, whereas it was no doubt
+really addressed either to Ormazd or to Mithras. The Persians cannot
+rightly be accused of the worship of dead men, a superstition from which
+both the Zoroastrian and the Magian systems were entirely free.
+
+From this account of the Persian monarchs and their Court, we may
+now turn to a subject which moderns regard as one of much greater
+interest--the general condition, manners, and customs of the Persian
+people. Our information on these points is unfortunately far less full
+than on the subject which we have been recently discussing, but still it
+is perhaps sufficient to give us a tolerably complete notion of the real
+character of the nation.
+
+The Persians, according to Herodotus, were divided into ten tribes, of
+which four were nomadic and three agricultural. The nomadic were the
+Dai, the Mardi, the Dropici, and the Sagartii; the agricultural were
+the Panthilaei, the Derusisei, and the Germanii, or Carmanians. What the
+occupation of the other three tribes was Herodotus does not state;
+but, as one of them--the Pasargadae--was evidently the ruling class,
+consisting, therefore (it is probable), of land owners, who did not
+themselves till the soil, we may perhaps assume that all three occupied
+this position, standing in Persia somewhat--as the three tribes of
+Dorians stood to the other Greeks in the Peloponnese. If this were the
+case, the population would have been really divided broadly into the two
+classes of settled and nomade, whereof the former class was subdivided
+into those who were the lords of the soil, and those who cultivated it,
+either as farmers or as laborers, under them.
+
+The ordinary dress of the poorer class, whether agricultural or nomade,
+was probably the tunic and trousers of leather which have been already
+mentioned as the true national costume of the people. The costume was
+completed by a loose felt cap upon the head, a strap or belt round the
+waist, and a pair of high shoes upon the feet, tied in front with a
+string. [PLATE XXXVIII., Fig. 2.] In later times a linen or muslin rag
+replaced the felt cap, and the tunic was lengthened so as to reach half
+way between the knee and the ankle.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVIII.]
+
+
+The richer classes seem generally to have adopted the Median costume
+which was so prevalent at the Court. They wore long purple or flowered
+robes with loose hanging sleeves, flowered tunics reaching to the knee,
+also sleeved, embroidered trousers, tiaras, and shoes of a more elegant
+shape than the ordinary Persian. Nor was this the whole of their dress.
+Under their trousers they wore drawers, under their tunics shirts, on
+their hands gloves, and under their shoes socks or stockings--luxuries
+these, one and all, little known in the ancient world. The Persians
+were also, like most Orientals, extremely fond of ornaments. Men of rank
+carried, almost as a matter of course, massive chains or collars of gold
+about their necks, and bracelets of gold upon their arms. The sheaths
+and handles of their swords and daggers were generally of gold,
+sometimes, perhaps, studded with gems. Many of them wore earrings. Great
+expense was lavished on the trappings of the horses which they rode or
+drove; the bridle, or at least the bit, was often of solid gold, and the
+rest of the equipment was costly. Among the gems which were especially
+affected, the pearl held the first place. Besides being set in the
+ordinary way, it was bored and strung, in order that it might be used
+for necklaces, bracelets, and ankles. Even children had sometimes golden
+ornaments, which were preferred when the gold was of a reddish color.
+
+Very costly and rich too was the furniture of the better class of
+houses. The tables were plated or inlaid with silver and gold. Splendid
+couches, spread with gorgeous coverlets, invited the inmates to repose
+at their ease; and, the better to insure their comfort, the legs of the
+couches were made to rest upon carpets, which were sufficiently elastic
+to act as a sort of spring, rendering the couches softer and more
+luxurious than they would otherwise have been. Gold and silver plate,
+especially in the shape of drinking-cups, was largely displayed in all
+the wealthy mansions, each household priding itself on the show which it
+could make of the precious metals.
+
+In respect of eating and drinking, the Persians, even better sort, were
+in the earlier times noted for their temperance and sobriety. Their
+ordinary food was wheaten bread, barley-cakes, and meat simply roasted
+or boiled, which they seasoned with salt and with bruised cress-seed, a
+substitute for mustard. The sole drink in which they indulged was water.
+Moreover, it was their habit to take one meal only each day. The poorer
+kind of people were contented with even a simpler diet, supporting
+themselves, to a great extent, on the natural products of the soil, as
+dates, figs, wild pears, acorns, and the fruit of the terebinth-tree.
+But these abstemious habits were soon laid aside, and replaced by luxury
+and self-indulgence, when the success of their arms had put it in their
+power to have the full and free gratification of all their desires and
+propensities. Then, although the custom of having but one meal in the
+day was kept up, the character of the custom was entirely altered by
+beginning the meal early and making it last till night. Not many sorts
+of meat were placed on the board, unless the occasion was a grand one;
+but course after course of the lighter kinds of food flowed on in
+an almost endless succession, intervals of some length being allowed
+between the courses to enable the guests to recover their appetites.
+Instead of water, wine became the usual beverage; each man prided
+himself on the quantity he could drink; and the natural result followed
+that most banquets terminated in general intoxication. Drunkenness even
+came to be a sort of institution. Once a year, at the feast of Mithras,
+the king of Persia, according to Duris, was bound to be drunk. A general
+practice arose of deliberating on all important affairs under the
+influence of wine, so that, in every household, when a family crisis
+impended, intoxication was a duty.
+
+The Persians ate, not only the meats which we are in the habit of
+consuming, but also the flesh of goats, horses, asses, and camels. The
+hump of the last-named animal is considered, even at the present day, a
+delicacy in many parts of the East; but in ancient Persia it would seem
+that the entire animal was regarded as fairly palatable. The horse
+and ass, which no one would touch in modern Persia, were thought,
+apparently, quite as good eating as the ox; and goats, which were far
+commoner than sheep, appeared, it is probable, oftener at table. The
+dietery of a grand house was further varied by the admission into it
+of poultry and game--the game including wild boars, stags, antelopes,
+bustards, and probably partridges; the poultry consisting of geese
+and chickens. Oysters and other fish were used largely as food by the
+inhabitants of the coast-region.
+
+Grades of society were strongly marked among the Persians; and the
+etiquette of the Court travelled down to the lowest ranks of the people.
+Well-known rules determined how each man was to salute his equal,
+his inferior, or his superior; and the observance of these rules was
+universal. Inferiors on meeting a decided superior prostrated themselves
+on the ground; equals kissed each other on the lips; persons nearly but
+not quite equals kissed each other’s cheeks. The usual Oriental rules
+prevailed as to the intercourse of the sexes. Wives lived in strict
+seclusion within the walls of the Gynaeceum, or went abroad in litters,
+seeing no males except their sons, their husbands, and their husbands’
+eunuchs. Concubines had somewhat more freedom, appearing sometimes at
+banquets, when they danced, sang, and played to amuse the guests of
+their master.
+
+The Persian was allowed to marry several wives, and might maintain in
+addition as many concubines as he thought proper. Most of the richer
+class had a multitude of each, since every Persian prided himself on the
+number of his sons, and it is even said that an annual prize was given
+by the monarch to the Persian who could show most sons living. The
+concubines were not unfrequently Greeks, if we may judge by the case of
+the younger Cyrus, who took two Greek concubines with him when he made
+his expedition against his brother. It would seem that wives did
+not ordinarily accompany their husbands, when these went on military
+expeditions, but that concubines were taken to the wars by most Persians
+of consideration. Every such person had a litter at her disposal, and a
+number of female attendants, whose business it was to wait upon her and
+execute her orders.
+
+All the best authorities are agreed that great pains were taken by
+the Persians--or, at any rate, by those of the leading clans--in the
+education of their sons. During the first five years of his life the boy
+remained wholly with the women, and was scarcely, if at all, seen by his
+father. After that time his training commenced. He was expected to rise
+before dawn, and to appear at a certain spot, where he was exercised
+with other boys of his age in running, slinging stones, shooting with
+the bow, and throwing the javelin. At seven he was taught to ride, and
+soon afterwards he was allowed to begin to hunt. The riding included,
+not only the ordinary management of the horse, but the power of jumping
+on and off his back when he was at speed, and of shooting with the bow
+and throwing the javelin with unerring aim, while the horse was still at
+full gallop. The hunting was conducted by state-officers, who aimed at
+forming by its means in the youths committed to their charge all the
+qualities needed in war. The boys were made to bear extremes of heat
+and cold, to perform long marches, to cross rivers without wetting their
+weapons, to sleep in the open air at night, to be content with a single
+meal in two days, and to support themselves occasionally on the wild
+products of the country, acorns, wild pears, and the fruit of the
+terebinth-tree. On days when there was no hunting they passed their
+mornings in athletic exercises, and contests with the bow or the
+javelin, after which they dined simply on the plain food mentioned above
+as that of the men in the early times, and then employed themselves
+during the afternoon in occupations regarded as not illiberal--for
+instance, in the pursuits of agriculture, planting, digging for roots,
+and the like, or in the construction of arms and hunting implements,
+such as nets and springes. Hardy and temperate habits being secured
+by this training, the point of morals on which their preceptors mainly
+insisted was the rigid observance of truth. Of intellectual education
+they had but little. It seems to have been no part of the regular
+training of a Persian youth that he should learn to read. He was given
+religious notions and a certain amount of moral knowledge by means of
+legendary poems, in which the deeds of gods and heroes were set before
+him by his teachers, who recited or sung them in his presence, and
+afterwards required him to repeat what he had heard, or, at any rate,
+to give some account of it. This education continued for fifteen years,
+commencing when the boy was five, and terminating when he reached the
+age of twenty.
+
+The effect of this training was to render the Persian an excellent
+soldier and a most accomplished horseman. Accustomed from early boyhood
+to pass the greater part of every day in the saddle, he never felt so
+much at home as when mounted upon a prancing steed. On horseback he
+pursued the stag, the boar, the antelope, even occasionally the bear
+or the lion, and shot his arrows, or slung his stones, or hurled his
+javelin at them with deadly aim, never pausing for a moment in his
+career. [PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 2.] Only when the brute turned on his
+pursuers, and stood at bay, or charged them in its furious despair, they
+would sometimes descend from their coursers, and receive the attack,
+or deal the _coup de grace_ on foot, using for the purpose a short
+but strong hunting-spear. [PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 3.] The chase was the
+principal delight of the upper class of Persians, so long as the ancient
+manners were kept up, and continued an occupation in which the bolder
+spirits loved to indulge long after decline had set in, and the advance
+of luxury had changed, to a great extent, the character of the nation.
+
+At fifteen years of age the Persian was considered to have attained to
+manhood, and was enrolled in the ranks of the army, continuing liable to
+military service from that time till he reached the age of fifty. Those
+of the highest rank became the body-guard of the king, and these formed
+the garrison of the capital. They were a force of not less than fourteen
+or fifteen thousand men. Others, though liable to military service, did
+not adopt arms as their profession, but attached themselves to the Court
+and looked to civil employment, as satraps, secretaries, attendants,
+ushers, judges, inspectors, messengers. A portion, no doubt, remained
+in the country districts, and there followed those agricultural pursuits
+which the Zoroastrian religion regarded as in the highest degree
+honorable. But the bulk of the nation must, from the time of the great
+conquests, have passed their lives mainly, like the Roman legionaries
+under the Empire, in garrison duty in the provinces. The entire
+population of Persia Proper can scarcely have exceeded two millions. Not
+more than one fourth of this number would be males between the ages
+of fifteen and fifty. This body of 500,000 men, besides supplying the
+official class at the Court and throughout the provinces, and also
+furnishing to Persia Proper those who did the work of its cultivation,
+had to supply to the whole Empire those large and numerous garrisons on
+whose presence depended the maintenance of the Persian dominion in every
+province that had been conquered. According to Herodotus, the single
+country of Egypt contained, in his day, a standing army of 120,000
+Persians; and, although this was no doubt an exceptional case, Egypt
+being more prone to revolt than any other satrapy, yet there is abundant
+evidence that elsewhere, in almost every part of the Empire, large
+bodies of troops were regularly maintained; troops which are always
+characterized as “Persians.” We may suspect that under the name were
+included the kindred nation of the Medes, and perhaps some other Arian
+races, as the Hyrcanians, and the Bactrians, for it is difficult to
+conceive that such a country as Persia Proper could alone have kept up
+the military force which the Empire required for its preservation;
+but to whatever extent the standing army was supplemented from these
+sources, Persia must still have furnished the bulk of it; and the
+demands of this service must have absorbed, at the very least, one third
+if not one half of the adult male population.
+
+For trade and commerce the Persians were wont to express extreme
+contempt. The richer classes made it their boast that they neither
+bought nor sold, being supplied (we must suppose) from their estates,
+and by their slaves and dependents, with all that they needed for the
+common purposes of life. Persians of the middle rank would condescend to
+buy, but considered it beneath them to sell; while only the very lowest
+and poorest were actual artisans and traders. Shops were banished
+from the more public parts of the towns; and thus such commercial
+transactions as took place were veiled in what was regarded as a decent
+obscurity. The reason assigned for this low estimation of trade was that
+shopping and bargaining involved the necessity of falsehood.
+
+According to Quintus Curtius, the Persian ladies had the same objection
+to soil their hands with work that the men had to dirty theirs with
+commerce. The labors of the loom, which no Grecian princess regarded
+as unbecoming her rank, were despised by all Persian women except the
+lowest; and we may conclude that the same idle and frivolous gossip
+which resounds all day in the harems of modern Iran formed the main
+occupation of the Persian ladies in the time of the Empire.
+
+With the general advance of luxury under Xerxes and his successors, of
+which something has been already said, there were introduced into the
+Empire a number of customs of an effeminate and demoralizing character.
+From the earliest times the Persians seem to have been very careful of
+their beards and hair, arranging the latter in a vast number of short
+crisp curls, and partly curling the former, partly training it to hang
+straight from the chin. After a while, not content with this degree
+of care for their personal appearance, they proceeded to improve it by
+wearing false hair in addition to the locks which nature had given them,
+by the use of cosmetics to increase the delicacy of their complexions,
+and by the application of a coloring matter to the upper and lower
+eyelids, for the purpose of giving to the eye an appearance of greater
+size and beauty. They employed a special class of servants to perform
+these operations of the toilet, whom the Greeks called “adorners”. Their
+furniture increased, not merely in splendor, but in softness; their
+floors were covered with carpets, their beds with numerous and delicate
+coverlets; they could not sit upon the ground unless a cloth was first
+spread upon it; they would not mount a horse until he was so caparisoned
+that the seat on his back was softer even than their couches. At the
+same time they largely augmented the number and variety of their viands
+and of their sauces, always seeking after novel delicacies, and offering
+rewards to the inventors of “new pleasures.” A useless multitude of lazy
+menials was maintained in all rich households, each servant confining
+himself rigidly to a single duty, and porters, bread-makers, cooks,
+cup-bearers, water-bearers, waiters at table, chamberlains, “awakers,”
+ “adorners,” all distinct from one another, crowded each noble mansion,
+helping forward the general demoralization. It was probably at this
+comparatively late period that certain foreign customs of a sadly
+lowering character were adopted by this plastic and impressible people,
+who learnt the vice of paederasty from the Greeks, and adopted from the
+Assyrians the worship of Beltis, with its accompaniment of religious
+prostitution.
+
+On the whole the Persians may seem to have enjoyed an existence free
+from care, and only too prosperous to result in the formation of a high
+and noble character. They were the foremost Asiatic people of their
+time, and were fully conscious of their pre-eminency. A small ruling
+class in a vast Empire, they enjoyed almost a monopoly of office, and
+were able gradually to draw to themselves much of the wealth of the
+provinces. Allowed the use of arms, and accustomed to lord it over the
+provincials, they themselves maintained their self-respect, and showed,
+even towards the close of their Empire, a spirit and an energy seldom
+exhibited by any but a free people. But there was nevertheless a dark
+side to the picture--a lurking danger which must have thrown a shadow
+over the lives of all the nobler and richer of the nation, unless
+they were utterly thoughtless. The irresponsible authority and cruel
+dispositions of the kings, joined to the recklessness with which they
+delegated the power of life and death to their favorites, made it
+impossible for any person of eminence in the whole Empire to feel sure
+that he might not any day be seized and accused of a crime, or even
+without the form of an accusation be taken and put to death, after
+suffering the most excruciating tortures. To produce this result, it was
+enough to have failed through any cause whatever in the performance of
+a set task, or to have offended, even by doing him too great a service,
+the monarch or one of his favorites. Nay, it was enough to have
+provoked, through a relation or a connection, the anger or jealousy of
+one in favor at Court; for the caprice of an Oriental would sometimes
+pass over the real culprit and exact vengeance from one quite
+guiltless--even, it may be, unconscious--of the offence given.
+Theoretically, the Persian was never to be put to death for a single
+crime; or at least he was not to suffer until the king had formally
+considered the whole tenor of his life, and struck a balance between his
+good and his evil deeds to see which outweighed the other. Practically,
+the monarch slew with his own hand any one whom he chose, or, if
+he preferred it, ordered him to instant execution, without trial
+or inquiry. His wife and his mother indulged themselves in the same
+pleasing liberty of slaughter, sometimes obtaining his tacit consent to
+their proceedings, sometimes without consulting him. It may be said
+that the sufferers could at no time be very many in number, and that
+therefore no very wide-spread alarm can have been commonly felt; but
+the horrible nature of many of the punishments, and the impossibility
+of conjecturing on whom they might next fall, must be set against their
+infrequency; and it must be remembered that an awful horror, from which
+no precautions can save a man, though it happen to few, is more terrible
+than a score of minor perils, against which it is possible to guard.
+Noble Persians were liable to be beheaded, to be stoned to death, to be
+suffocated with ashes, to have their tongues torn out by the roots, to
+be buried alive, to be shot in mere wantonness, to be flayed and then
+crucified, to be buried all but the head, and to perish by the lingering
+agony of “the boat.” If they escaped these modes of execution, they
+might be secretly poisoned, or they might be exiled, or transported for
+life. Their wives and daughters might be seized and horribly mutilated,
+or buried alive, or cut into a number of fragments. With these perils
+constantly impending over their heads, the happiness of the nobles can
+scarcely have been more real than that of Damocles upon the throne of
+Dionysius.
+
+In conclusion, we may notice as a blot upon the Persian character and
+system, the cruelty and barbarity which was exhibited, not only in these
+abnormal acts of tyranny and violence, but also in the regular and legal
+punishments which were assigned to crimes and offences. The criminal
+code, which--rightly enough--made death the penalty of murder, rape,
+treason, and rebellion, instead of stopping at this point, proceeded
+to visit with a like severity even such offences as deciding a cause
+wrongfully on account of a bribe, intruding without permission on the
+king’s privacy, approaching near to one of his concubines, seating
+oneself, even accidentally, on the throne, and the like. The modes of
+execution were also, for the most part, unnecessarily cruel. Poisoners
+were punished by having their heads placed upon a broad stone, and then
+having their faces crushed, and their brains beaten out by repeated
+blows with another stone. Ravishers and rebels were put to death by
+crucifixion. The horrible punishment of “the boat” seems to have been no
+individual tyrant’s cruel conception, but a recognized and legal form of
+execution. The same may be said also of burying alive. Again the Persian
+secondary punishments were for the most part exceedingly barbarous.
+Xenophon tells us, as a proof of the good government maintained by the
+younger Cyrus, in his satrapy, that under his sway it was common to see
+along all the most frequented roads numbers of persons who had had
+their hands or feet cut off, or their eyes put out, as a punishment
+for thieving and rascality. And other writers relate that similar
+mutilations were inflicted on rebels, and even on prisoners of war.
+It would seem, indeed, that mutilation and scourging were the ordinary
+forms of secondary punishment used by the Persians, who employed
+imprisonment solely for the safe custody of an accused person between
+his arrest and his execution, while they had recourse to transportation
+and exile only in the case of political offenders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. LANGUAGE AND WRITING.
+
+
+It has been intimated in the account of the Median Empire which was
+given in a former-volume that the language of the Persians, which was
+identical, or almost identical, with that of the Medes, belonged to the
+form of speech known to moderns as Indo-European. The characteristics of
+that form of speech are a certain number of common, or at least
+widely spread, roots, a peculiar mode of inflecting, together with
+a resemblance in the inflections, and a similarity of syntax or
+construction. Of the old Persian language the known roots are, almost
+without exception, kindred forms to roots already familiar to the
+philologist through the Sanscrit, or the Zend, or both; while many are
+of that more general type of which we have spoken--forms common to all,
+or most of the varieties of the Indo-European stock. To instance in a
+few very frequently recurring words--“father” is in old Persian (as
+in Sanscrit) _pitar_, which differs only in the vocalization from the
+Zendic _patar_, the Greek [ ], and the Latin _pater_, and of which
+cognate forms are the Gothic _fadar_, the German voter, the English
+_father_, and the Erse _athair_.
+
+     [See the html version for the following pages of this
+     chapter which is a section with hundreds of Greek
+     words.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 365]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 366]
+
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+[Illustration: PAGE 377]
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+[Illustration: PAGE 378]
+
+
+The ordinary Persian writing was identical with that which has been
+described in the second volume of this work as Median. A cuneiform
+alphabet, consisting of some thirty-six or thirty-seven forms,
+expressive of twenty-three distinct sounds, sufficed for the wants of
+the people, whose language was simple and devoid of phonetic luxuriance.
+Writing was from left to right, as with the Arian nations generally.
+Words were separated from one another by an oblique wedge; and were
+divided at any point at which the writer happened to reach the end of
+a line. Enclitics were joined without any break to the words which they
+accompanied.
+
+The Persian writing which has come down to us is almost entirely upon
+stone. It comprises various rock tablets, a number of inscriptions upon
+buildings, and a few short legends upon vases and cylinders. It is in
+every case incised or cut into the material. The letters are of various
+sizes, some (as those at Elwend) reaching a length of about two inches,
+others (those, for instance, on the vases) not exceeding the sixth of
+an inch. The inscriptions cover a space of at least a hundred and eighty
+years, commencing with Cyrus, and terminating with Artaxerxes Ochus,
+the successor of Mnemon. The style of the writing is, on the whole,
+remarkably uniform, the latter inscriptions containing only two
+characters unknown to the earlier times. Orthography, however, and
+grammar are in these later inscriptions greatly changed, the character
+of the changes being indicative of corruption and decline, unless,
+indeed, we are to ascribe them to mere ignorance on the part of the
+engravers.
+
+There can be little doubt that, besides the cuneiform character, which
+was only suited for inscriptions, the Persians employed a cursive
+writing for common literary purposes. Ctesias informs us that the royal
+archives were written on parchment; and there is abundant evidence that
+writing was an art perfectly familiar to the educated Persian. It might
+have been supposed that the Pehlevi, as the lineal descendant of the
+Old Persian language, would have furnished valuable assistance towards
+solving the question of what character the Persians employed commonly;
+but the alphabetic type of the Pehlevi inscriptions is evidently
+Semitic; and it would thus seem that the old national modes of writing
+had been completely lost before the establishment by Ardeshir, son of
+Babek, of the new Persian Empire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. ARCHITECTURE AND OTHER ARTS.
+
+
+If in the old world the fame of the Persians, as builders and artists,
+fell on the whole below that of the Assyrians and Babylonians--their
+instructors in art, no less than in letters and science--it was not so
+much that they had not produced works worthy of comparison with those
+which adorned Babylon and Nineveh, as that, boasting less antiquity and
+less originality than those primitive races, they did not strike in the
+same way the imagination of the lively Greeks, who moreover could not
+but feel a certain jealousy of artistic successes, which had rewarded
+the efforts of a living and rival people. It happened, moreover, that
+the Persian masterpieces were less accessible to the Greeks than the
+Babylonian, and hence there was actually less knowledge of their real
+character in the time when Greek literature was at its best. Herodotus
+and Xenophon, who impressed on their countrymen true ideas of the
+grandeur and magnificence of the Mesopotamian structures, never
+penetrated to Persia Proper, and perhaps never beheld a real Persian
+building. Ctesias, it is true, as a resident at the Achaemenian Court
+for seventeen years, must certainly have seen Susa and Ecbatana, if not
+even Persepolis, and he therefore must have been well acquainted with
+the character of Persian palaces; but, so far as appears from the
+fragments of his work which have come down to us, he said but little
+on the subject of these edifices. It was not until Alexander led his
+cohorts across the chain of Zagros to the high plateau beyond, that a
+proper estimate of the great Persian buildings could be made; and then
+the most magnificent of them all was scarcely seen before it was laid
+in ruins. The barbarous act of the great Macedonian conqueror, in
+committing the palace of Persepolis to the flames, tended to prevent
+a full recognition of the real greatness of Persian art even after the
+Greeks had occupied the country; but we find from this time a certain
+amount of acknowledgment of its merits--a certain number of passages,
+which, like that which forms the heading to this chapter, admit alike
+its grandeur and its magnificence.
+
+If, however, the ancients did less than justice to the efforts of the
+Persians in architecture, sculpture, and the kindred arts, moderns have,
+on the contrary, given them rather an undue prominence. From the
+middle of the seventeenth century, when Europeans first began freely to
+penetrate the East, the Persian ruins, especially those of Persepolis,
+drew the marked attention of travellers; and in times when the site of
+Babylon had attracted but scanty notice, and that of Nineveh and the
+other great Assyrian cities was almost unknown, English, French, and
+German savans measured, described, and figured the Persian remains with
+a copiousness and exactness that left little to desire. Chardin, the
+elder Mebuhr, Le Brun, Ouseley, Ker Porter, exerted themselves with the
+most praiseworthy zeal to represent fully and faithfully the marvels of
+the Chehl Minar; and these persevering efforts were followed within no
+very lengthy period by the splendid and exhaustive works of the Baron
+Texier and of MM. Flandin and Coste. Persepolis rose again from its
+ashes in the superb and costly volumes of these latter writers, who
+represented on the grandest scale, and in the most finished way,
+not only the actual but the ideal--not only the present but the
+past--placing before our eyes at once the fullest and completest views
+of the existing ruins, and also restorations of the ancient structures,
+some of them warm with color and gilding, which, though to a certain
+extent imaginary, probably give to a modern the best notion that it is
+now possible to form of an old Persian edifice.
+
+It is impossible within the limits of the present work, and with the
+resources at the author’s command, to attempt a complete description of
+the Persian remains, or to vie with writers who had at their disposal
+all the modern means of illustration. By the liberality of a well-known
+authority on architecture, he is able to present his readers with
+certain general views of the most important structures; and he also
+enjoys the advantage of illustrating some of the most curious of the
+details with engravings from a set of photographs recently taken. These
+last have, it is believed, an accuracy beyond that of any drawings
+hitherto made, and will give a better idea than words could possibly do
+of the merit of the sculptures. With these helps, and with the addition
+of reduced copies from some of MM. Flandin and Coste’s plates, the
+author hopes to be able to make his account fairly intelligible, and to
+give his readers the opportunity of forming a tolerably correct judgment
+on the merit of the Persian art in comparison with that of Babylon and
+Assyria.
+
+Persian architectural art displayed itself especially in two forms of
+building--the palace and the tomb. Temples were not perhaps unknown in
+Persia, though much of the worship may always have been in the open
+air; but temples, at least until the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon, were
+insignificant, and neither attracted the attention of contemporaries,
+nor were of such a character as to leave traces of themselves to after
+times. The palaces of the Persian kings, on the other hand, and the
+sepulchres which they prepared for themselves, are noticed by many
+ancient writers as objects of interest; and, notwithstanding certain
+doubts which have been raised in recent years, it seems tolerably
+certain that they are to be recognized in the two chief classes of
+ancient ruins which still exist in the country.
+
+The Persian palatial buildings, of which traces remain, are four in
+number. One was situated at Ecbatana, the Median capital, and was a sort
+of adjunct to the old residence of the Median kings. Of this only a very
+few vestiges have been hitherto found; and we can merely say that it
+appears to have been of the same general character with the edifices
+which will be hereafter described. Another was built by Darius and
+his son Xerxes on the great mound of Susa; and of this we have the
+ground-plan, in a great measure, and various interesting details. A
+third stood within the walls of the city of Persepolis, but of this not
+much more is left than of the construction at Ecbatana. Finally, there
+was in the neighborhood of Persepolis, but completely distinct from the
+town, the Great Palace, which, as the chief residence, at any rate of
+the later kings, Alexander burnt, and of which the remains still to
+be seen are ample, constituting by far the most remarkable group of
+buildings now existing in this part of Asia.
+
+It is to this last edifice, or group of edifices, that the reader’s
+attention will be specially directed in the following pages. Here the
+greatest of the Persian monarchs seem to have built the greatest of
+their works. Here the ravages of time and barbarism, sadly injurious
+as they may have been, have had least effect. Here, moreover, modern
+research has spent its chief efforts, excavations having been made,
+measurements effected, and ground-plans laid down with accuracy. In
+describing the Persepolitan buildings we have aids which mostly fail us
+elsewhere--charts, plans, drawings in extraordinary abundance and often
+of high artistic value, elaborate descriptions, even photographs. [PLATE
+XXXVIII., Fig. 3.] If the describer has still a task of some difficulty
+to perform, it is because an overplus of material is apt to cause almost
+as much embarrassment as too poor and scanty a supply.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.]
+
+
+The buildings at Persepolis are placed upon a vast platform. It was
+the practice of the Persians, as of the Assyrians and Babylonians, to
+elevate their palaces in this way. They thus made them at once more
+striking to the eye, more dignified, and more easy to guard. In
+Babylonia an elevated habitation was also more healthy and more
+pleasant, being raised above the reach of many insects, and laid open to
+the winds of heaven, never too boisterous in that climate. Perhaps the
+Assyrians and Persians in their continued use of the custom, to some
+extent followed a fashion, elevating their royal residences, not so much
+for security or comfort, as because it had come to be considered that a
+palace ought to have a lofty site, and to look down on the habitations
+of meaner men; but, however this may have been, the custom certainly
+prevailed, and at Persepolis we have, in an almost perfect condition,
+this first element of a Persian palace. [PLATE XXXIX.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIX.]
+
+
+The platform at Persepolis is built at the foot of a high range of
+rocky hills, on which it abuts towards the east. It is composed of solid
+masses of hewn stone, which were united by metal clamps, probably of
+iron or lead. The masses were not cut to a uniform size, nor even always
+to a right angle, but were fitted together with a certain amount
+of irregularity, which will be the best understood from the woodcut
+overleaf. Many of the blocks were of enormous size; and their
+quarrying, transport, and elevation to their present places, imply very
+considerable mechanical skill. They were laid so as to form a perfectly
+smooth perpendicular wall, the least height of which above the
+plain below is twenty feet. The outline of the platform was somewhat
+irregular. Speaking roughly, we may call it an oblong square, with a
+breadth about two thirds of its length; but this description, unless
+qualified, will give an idea of far greater uniformity than actually
+prevails. [PLATE XL., Fig. 1.] The most serious irregularity is on the
+north side, the general line of which is not parallel to the south side,
+nor at right angles with the western one, but forms with the general
+line of the western an angle of about eighty degrees. The cause of this
+deviation lay probably in the fact that, on this side, a low rocky
+spur ran out from the mountain-range in this direction, and that it
+was thought desirable to accommodate the line of the structure to the
+natural irregularities of the ground. In addition to the irregularity
+of general outline thus produced, there is another of such perpetual
+occurrence that it must be regarded as an essential element of the
+original design, and therefore probably as approving itself to the
+artistic notions of the builder. This is the occurrence of frequent
+angular projections and indentations, which we remark on all three sides
+of the platform equally, and which would therefore seem to have been
+regarded in Persia, no less than in Assyria, as ornamental.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XL.]
+
+
+The whole of the platform is not of a uniform height. On the contrary,
+it seems to have been composed, as originally built, of several quite
+distinct terraces. Three of these still remain, exhibiting towards the
+west a very marked difference of elevation. The lowest of the three is
+on the south side, and it may therefore be termed the Southern Terrace.
+It extends from east to west a distance of about 800 feet, with a width
+of about 170 or 180, and has an elevation above the plain of from twenty
+to twenty-three feet. Opposite to this, on the northern side of the
+platform, is a second terrace, more than three times the breadth of the
+southern one, which may be called, by way of distinction, the Northern
+Terrace. This has an elevation above the plain of thirty-five feet.
+Intermediate between these two is the great Central or Upper Terrace,
+standing forty-five feet above the plain, having a length of 770 feet
+along the west face of the platform, and a width of about 400. Upon
+this Upper Terrace were situated almost all the great and important
+buildings.
+
+The erection of a royal residence on a platform composed of several
+terraces involved the necessity of artificial ascents, which the
+Persian architects managed by means of broad and solid staircases. These
+staircases constitute one of the most remarkable features of the place,
+and seem to deserve careful and exact description. [PLATE XLI., Fig. 2.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLI.]
+
+
+The first, and grandest in respect of scale, is on the west front of the
+platform towards its northern end, and leads up from the plain to the
+summit of the northern terrace, furnishing the only means by which the
+platform can even now be ascended. It consists of two distinct sets of
+steps, each composed of two flights, with a broad landing-place between
+them, the steps themselves running at right angles to the platform wall,
+and the two lower flights diverging, while the two upper ones converge
+to a common landing-place on the top. The slope of the stairs is so
+gentle that, though each step has a convenient width, the height of a
+step is in no case more than from three to four inches. It is thus
+easy to ride horses both up and down the staircase, and travellers are
+constantly in the habit of ascending and descending it in this way.
+
+The width of the staircase is twenty-two feet--space sufficient to allow
+of ten horsemen ascending each flight of steps abreast. Altogether this
+ascent, which is on a plan unknown elsewhere, is pronounced to be the
+noblest example of a flight of stairs to be found in any part of the
+world. It does not project beyond the line of the platform whereto it
+leads, but is, as it were, taken out of it. [PLATE XLII.]
+
+
+[[Illustration: PLATE XLII.]
+
+
+The next, and in some respects the most remarkable of all the
+staircases, conducts from the level of the northern platform to that of
+the central or upper terrace. This staircase fronts northward, and opens
+on the view as soon as the first staircase (A on the plan) has been
+ascended, lying to the right of the spectator at the distance of about
+fifty or sixty yards. It consists of four single flights of steps, two
+of which are central, facing one another, and leading to a projecting
+landing-place (B), about twenty feet in width; while the two others
+are on either side of the central flights, distant from them about
+twenty-one yards. The entire length of this staircase is 212 feet;
+its greatest projection in front of the line of the terrace whereon it
+abuts, is thirty-six feet. The steps, which are sixteen feet wide, rise
+in the same gentle way as those of the lower or platform staircase. The
+height of each is under four inches; and thus there are thirty-one steps
+in an ascent of ten feet.
+
+The feature which specially distinguishes this staircase from the lower
+one already described is its elaborate ornamentation. The platform
+staircase is perfectly plain. The entire face which this staircase
+presents to the spectator is covered with sculptures. In the first
+place, on the central projection, which is divided perpendicularly into
+three compartments, are represented, in the spandrels on either side,
+a lion devouring a bull, and in the compartment between the spandrels
+eight colossal Persian guardsmen, armed with spears and either with
+sword or shield. Further, above the lion and bull, towards the edge of
+the spandrel where it slopes, forming a parapet to the steps, [PLATE
+XLIII., Fig. 1.] there was a row of cypress trees, while at the end of
+the parapet and along the whole of its inner face were a set of small
+figures, guardsmen habited like those in the central compartment, but
+carrying mostly a bow and quiver instead of a shield. Along the extreme
+edge of the parapet externally was a narrow border thickly set with
+rosettes. [PLATE XLIII., Fig. 2.] Next, in the long spaces between the
+central stairs and those on either side of them, the spandrels contain
+repetitions of the lion and bull sculpture, while between them and the
+central stairs the face of the wall is divided horizontally into three
+bands, each of which has been ornamented with a continuous row of
+figures. The highest row of the three is unfortunately mutilated, the
+upper portion of all the bodies being lost in consequence of their
+having been sculptured upon a parapet wall built originally to protect
+the edge of the terrace, but now fallen away. The middle and lowest rows
+are tolerably perfect, and possess considerable interest, as well as
+some artistic merit. The entire scene represented on the right side
+seems to be the bringing of tribute or presents to the monarch by the
+various nations under his sway. On the left-hand side this subject was
+continued to a certain extent; but the greater part of the space was
+occupied by representations of guards and officers of the court, the
+guards being placed towards the centre, and, as it were, keeping the
+main stairs, while the officers were at a greater distance. The three
+rows of figures were separated from one another by narrow bands, thickly
+set with rosettes.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIII.]
+
+
+The builder of this magnificent work was not content to leave it to
+history or tradition to connect his name with his construction, but
+determined to make the work itself the means of perpetuating his memory.
+In three conspicuous parts of the staircase, slabs were left clear of
+sculpture, undoubtedly to receive inscriptions commemorative of the
+founder. The places selected were the front of the middle staircase, the
+exact centre of the whole work, and the space adjoining the spandrels to
+the extreme right and the extreme left. In one instance alone, however,
+was this part of the work completed. On the right hand, or western
+extremity of the staircase, an inscription of thirty lines in the old
+Persian language informs us that the constructor was “Xerxes, the Great
+King, the King of Kings, the son of King Darius, the Achaemenian.” The
+central and left-hand tablets, intended probably for Babylonian and
+Scythic translations of the Persian legend, were never inscribed, and
+remain blank to the present day.
+
+The remaining staircases will not require very lengthy or elaborate
+descriptions. They are six in number, and consist, in most instances,
+of a double flight of steps, similar to the central portion of the
+staircase which has been just described. Two of them (e and f) belonged
+to the building marked as the “Palace of Darius” on the plan, and gave
+entrance to it from the central platform above which it is elevated
+about fourteen or fifteen feet. Two others (c and d) belonged to the
+“Palace of Xerxes.” These led up to a broad paved space in front of
+that building, which formed a terrace, elevated about ten feet above
+the general level of the central platform. Their position was at the two
+ends of the terrace, opposite to one another; but in other respects
+they cannot be said to have matched. The eastern, which consisted of two
+double flights, was similar in general arrangement to the staircase by
+which the platform was mounted from the plain, excepting that it was not
+recessed, but projected its full breadth beyond the line of the terrace.
+It was decidedly the more elegant of the two, and evidently formed the
+main approach. It was adorned with the usual bull and lion combats, with
+figures of guardsmen, and with attendants carrying articles needed for
+the table or the toilet. The inscriptions upon it declare it to be
+the work of Xerxes. [PLATE XLIV.] The western staircase was composed
+merely of two single flights, facing one another, with a narrow
+landing-place between them. It was ornamented like the eastern, but
+somewhat less elaborately.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIV.]
+
+
+A staircase, very similar to this last, but still one with certain
+peculiarities, was built by Artaxerxes Ochus, at the west side of the
+Palace of Darius, in order to give it a second entrance. [PLATE XLV.,
+Fig. 1.] There the spandrels have the usual figures of the lion and
+bull; but the intermediate space is somewhat unusually arranged. It is
+divided vertically and horizontally into eight squared compartments,
+three on either side, and two in the middle. The upper of these two
+contains nothing but a winged circle, the emblem of Divinity being thus
+placed reverently by itself. Below, in a compartment of double size, is
+an inscription of Ochus, barbarous in language, but very religious in
+tone. The six remaining compartments had each four figures, representing
+tribute-bearers introduced to the royal presence by a court officer.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLV.]
+
+
+The other, and original, staircase to this palace (f on the plan) was
+towards the north, and led up to the great portico, which was anciently
+its sole entrance. Two flights of steps, facing each other, conducted to
+a paved space of equal extent with the portico and projecting in front
+of it about five feet. On the base of the staircase were sculptures in
+a single line--the lion and bull in either spandrel--and between the
+spandrels eighteen colossal guardsmen, nine facing either way towards
+a central inscription, which was repeated in other languages on slabs
+placed between the guardsmen and the bulls. Above the spandrels, on
+the parapet which fenced the stairs, was a line of figures representing
+attendants bringing into the palace materials for the banquet. A similar
+line adorned the inner wall of the staircase.
+
+Opposite to this, at the distance of about thirty-two yards, was another
+very similar staircase, leading up to the portico of another
+building, erected (apparently) by Artaxerxes Ochus, which occupied the
+south-western corner of the upper platform. The sculptures here seem to
+have been of the usual character but they are so mutilated that no very
+decided opinion can be passed upon them.
+
+Last of all, a staircase of a very peculiar character, (h on the plan)
+requires notice. This is a flight of steps cut in the solid rock,
+which leads up from the southern terrace to the upper one, at a point
+intervening between the south-western edifice, or palace of Artaxerxes,
+and the palace of Xerxes, or central southern edifice. These steps are
+singular in facing the terrace to which they lead, instead of being
+placed sideways to it. They are of rude construction, being without a
+parapet, and wholly devoid of sculpture or other ornamentation.
+They furnish the only communication between the southern and central
+terraces.
+
+It is a peculiarity of the Persepolitan ruins that they are not
+continuous, but present to the modern inquirer the appearance, at
+any rate, of a number of distinct buildings. Of these the platform
+altogether contains ten, five of which are of large size, while the
+remainder are comparatively insignificant.
+
+Of the five large buildings four stand upon the central or upper
+terrace, while one lies east of that terrace, between it and the
+mountains. The four upon the central terrace comprise three buildings
+made up of several sets of chambers, together with one great open
+pillared hall, to which are attached no subordinate apartments. The
+three complex edifices will be here termed “palaces,” and will take
+the names of their respective founders, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes
+Ochus: the fourth will be called the “Great Hall of Audience.” The
+building between the upper terrace and the mountains will be termed the
+“Great Eastern Edifice.”
+
+The “Palace of Darius,” which is one of the most interesting of the
+Persepolitan buildings, stands near the western edge of the platform,
+midway between the “Great Hall of Audience” and the “Palace of
+Artaxerxes Ochus.” [PLATE XLVI., Fig. 1.] It is a building about one
+hundred and thirty five feet in length, and in breadth a little short of
+a hundred. Of all the existing buildings on the platform it occupies
+the most exalted position, being elevated from fourteen to fifteen feet
+above the general level of the central terrace, and being thus four or
+five feet higher than the “Palace of Xerxes.” It fronted towards the
+south, where it was approached by a double staircase of the usual
+character, which led up to a deep portico of eight pillars arranged in
+two rows. On either side of the portico were guard-rooms, which opened
+upon it, in length twenty-three feet, and in breadth thirteen. Behind
+the portico lay the main chamber, which was a square of fifty feet,
+having a roof supported by sixteen pillars, arranged in four rows of
+four, in line with the pillars of the portico. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 2.]
+The bases for the pillars alone remain; and it is thus uncertain whether
+their material was stone or wood. They were probably light and slender,
+not greatly interrupting the view. The hall was surrounded on all sides
+by walls from four to five feet in thickness, in which were doors,
+windows, and recesses, symmetrically arranged. The entrance from the
+portico was by a door in the exact centre of the front wall, on either
+side of which were two windows, looking into the portico. The
+opposite, or back, wall was pierced by two doors, which faced the
+intercolumniations of the side rows of pillars, as the front door faced
+the intercolumniation of the central rows. Between the two doors
+which pierced the back wall was a squared recess, and similar recesses
+ornamented the same wall on either side of the doors. The side walls
+were each pierced originally by a single doorway, between which and the
+front wall was a squared recess, while beyond, between the doorways
+and the back wall, were two recesses of the same character. Curiously
+enough, these side doorways and recesses fronted the pillars, not the
+intercolumniations.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVI.]
+
+
+No sculpture, so far as appears, adorned this apartment, excepting
+in the doorways, which however had in every case this kind of
+ornamentation. The doorways in the back wall exhibited on their jambs
+figures of the king followed by two attendants, one holding a cloth, and
+the other a fly-chaser. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 3.] These figures had in every
+case their faces turned towards the apartment. The front doorway showed
+on its jambs the monarch followed by the parasol-bearer and the bearer
+of the fly-chaser, with his back turned to the apartment, issuing forth,
+as it were, from it. On the jambs of the doors of the side apartments
+was represented the king in combat with a lion or a monster, the king
+here in every case facing outwards, and seeming to guard the entrances
+to the side chambers.
+
+At the back of the hall, and at either side, were chambers of very
+moderate dimensions. The largest were to the rear of the building,
+where there seems to have been one about forty feet by twenty-three, and
+another twenty-eight feet by twenty. The doorways here had sculptures,
+representing attendants bearing napkins and perfumes. The side chambers,
+five in number, were considerably smaller than those behind the great
+hall, the largest not exceeding thirty-four feet by thirteen.
+
+It seems probable that this palace was without any second story. There
+is no vestige in any part of it of a staircase--no indication of its
+height having ever exceeded from twenty-two to twenty-five feet. It was
+a modest building, simple and regular, covering less than half the space
+of an ordinary palace in Assyria. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 2.] Externally,
+it must have presented an appearance not very dissimilar to that of
+the simpler Greek temples; distinguished from them by peculiarities of
+ornamentation, but by no striking or important feature, excepting
+the grand and elaborately sculptured staircase. Internally, it was
+remarkable for the small number of its apartments, which seem not to
+have been more than twelve or thirteen, and for the moderate size of
+most of them. Even the grand central hall covered a less area than three
+out of the five halls in the country palace of Sargon. The effect
+of this room was probably fine, though it must have been somewhat
+over-crowded with pillars. If these were, however (as is probable),
+light wooden posts, plated with silver or with gold, and if the ceiling
+consisted (as it most likely did) of beams, crossing each other at right
+angles, with square spaces between them, all likewise coated with the
+precious metals; if moreover the cold stone walls, excepting where
+they were broken by a doorway, or a window, were similarly decked; if
+curtains of brilliant hues hung across the entrances; if the pavement
+was of many-colored stones, and in places covered with magnificent
+carpets; if an elevated golden throne, under a canopy of purple, adorned
+the upper end of the room, standing against the wall midway between the
+two doors--if this were in truth the arrangement and ornamentation of
+the apartment, we can well understand that the _coup d’oeil_ must
+have been effective, and the impression made on the spectator highly
+pleasing. A room fifty feet square, and not much more than twenty high,
+could not be very grand; but elegance of form, combined with richness
+of material and splendor of coloring, may have more than compensated for
+the want of that grandeur which results from mere size.
+
+If it be inquired how a palace of the dimensions described can have
+sufficed even for one of the early Persian kings, the reply must
+seemingly be that the building in question can only have contained
+the public apartments of the royal residence--the throne-room,
+banqueting-rooms, guard-rooms, etc.,--and that it must have been
+supplemented by at least one other edifice of a considerable size, the
+Gynaeceum or “House of the Women.” There is ample room on the platform
+for such a building, either towards the east, where the ground is now
+occupied by a high mound of rubbish, or on the west, towards the edge of
+the platform, where traces of a large edifice were noted by Niebuhr. On
+the whole, this latter situation seems to be the more probable; and the
+position of the Gynaeceum in this quarter may account for the alteration
+made by Artaxerxes Ochus in the palace of Darius, which now seriously
+interferes with its symmetry. Artaxerxes cut a doorway in the outer
+western wall, and another opposite to it in the western wall of the
+great hall, adding at the same time a second staircase to the building,
+which thus became accessible from the west no less than from the south.
+It has puzzled the learned in architecture to assign a motive for this
+alteration. May we not find an adequate one in the desire to obtain a
+ready and comparatively private access to the Gynaeceum, which must have
+been somewhere on the platform, and which may well have lain in this
+direction?
+
+The minute account which has been now given of this palace will render
+unnecessary a very elaborate description of the remainder. Two grand
+palatial edifices seem to have been erected on the platform by later
+kings--one by Xerxes and the other by Artaxerxes Ochus; but the latter
+of these is in so ruined a condition, and the former is so like the
+palace of Darius, that but few remarks need be made upon either. The
+palace of Xerxes is simply that of Darius on a larger scale, the pillars
+in the portico being increased from two rows of four to two rows of six,
+and the great hall behind being a square of eighty instead of a square
+of fifty feet, with thirty-six instead of sixteen pillars to support
+its roof. On either side of the hall, and on either side of the portico,
+were apartments like those already described as abutting on the same
+portions of the older palace, differing from them chiefly in being
+larger and more numerous. The two largest, which were thirty-one feet
+square, had roofs supported on pillars, the numbers of such supports
+being in each case four. The only striking difference in the plans of
+the two buildings consisted in the absence from the palace of Xerxes of
+any apartments to the rear of the great hall. In order to allow space
+for an ample terrace in front, the whole edifice was thrown back so
+close to the edge of the upper platform that no room was left for any
+chambers at the back, since the hall itself was here brought almost to
+the very verge of the sheer descent from the central to the low southern
+terrace. In ornamentation the palaces also very closely resembled each
+other, the chief difference being that the combats of the king with
+lions and mythological monsters, which form the regular ornamentation
+of the side-chambers in the palace of Darius, occur nowhere in the
+residence of his son, where they are replaced by figures of attendants
+bringing articles for the toilet or the table, like those which adorn
+the main staircase of the older edifice. Figures of the same kind also
+ornament all the windows in the palace of Xerxes. A tone of mere sensual
+enjoyment is thus given to the later edifice, which is very far from
+characterizing the earlier; and the decline of morals at the Court,
+which history indicates as rapid about this period, is seen to
+have stamped itself, as such changes usually do, upon the national
+architecture.
+
+A small building, at the distance of about twenty or twenty-five yards
+from the eastern wall of the palace of Xerxes, possesses a peculiar
+interest, in consequence of its having some claims to be considered
+the most ancient structure upon the platform. It consists of a hall and
+portico, in size, proportions, and decoration almost exactly resembling
+the corresponding parts of Darius’s palace, but unaccompanied by any
+trace of circumjacent chambers, and totally devoid of inscriptions. The
+building is low, on the level of the northern, rather than on that of
+the central terrace, and is indeed half buried in the rubbish which has
+accumulated at its base. Its fragments are peculiarly grand and massive,
+while its sculptures are in strong and bold relief. There can be little
+doubt but that it was originally, like the hall and portico of Darius,
+surrounded on three sides by chambers. These, however, have entirely
+disappeared, having probably been pulled down to furnish materials for
+more recent edifices. Like the palaces of Xerxes and Artaxerxes Ochus,
+and unlike the palace of Darius, the building faces to the north, which
+is the direction naturally preferred in such a climate. We may suppose
+it to have been the royal residence of the earlier times, the erection
+of Cyrus or Cambyses, and to have been intended especially for summer
+use, for which its position well fitted it. Darius, wishing for a winter
+palace at Persepolis, as well as a summer one, took probably this early
+palace for his model, and built one as nearly as possible resembling it,
+except that, for the sake of greater warmth, he made his new erection
+face southwards. Xerxes, dissatisfied with the size of the old summer
+palace, built a new one at its side of considerably larger dimensions,
+using perhaps some of the materials of the old palace in his new
+building. Finally, Artaxerxes Ochus made certain additions to the palace
+of Xerxes on its western side, and at the same time added a staircase
+and a doorway to the winter residence of Darius. Thus the Persepolitan
+palace, using the word in its proper sense of royal residence, attained
+its full dimensions, occupying the southern half of the great central
+platform, and covering with its various courts and buildings a space
+500 feet long by 375 feet wide, or nearly the space covered by the less
+ambitious of the palaces of Assyria.
+
+Besides edifices adapted for habitation, the Persepolitan platform
+sustained two other classes of buildings. These were propylaea, or
+gateways--places commanding the approach to great buildings, where a
+guard might be stationed to stop and examine all comers--and halls of a
+vast size, which were probably throne-rooms, where the monarch held
+his court on grand occasions, to exhibit himself in full state to his
+subjects. The propylaea upon the platform appear to have been four
+in number. One, the largest, was directly opposite the centre of the
+landing-place at the top of the great stairs which gave access to the
+platform from the plain. This consisted of a noble apartment, eighty-two
+feet square, with a roof supported by four magnificent columns, each
+between fifty and sixty feet high. The walls of the apartment were from
+sixteen to seventeen feet thick. Two grand portals, each twelve feet
+wide by thirty-six feet high, led into this apartment, one directly
+facing the head of the stairs, and the other opposite to it, towards the
+east. Both were flanked with colossal bulls, those towards the staircase
+being conventional representations of the real animal, while the
+opposite pair are almost exact reproductions of the winged and
+human-headed bulls, with which the Assyrian discoveries have made us so
+familiar. The accompanying illustration [PLATE XLVII., Fig. 1.], which
+is taken from a photograph, exhibits this inner pair in their present
+condition. The back of one of the other pair is also visible. Two of
+the pillars--which alone are still standings appear in their places,
+intervening between the front and the back gateway.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVII.]
+
+
+The walls which enclosed this chamber, notwithstanding their immense
+thickness, have almost entirely disappeared. On the southern side alone,
+where there seems to have been a third doorway, unornamented, are there
+any traces of them. We must conclude that they were either of burnt
+brick or of small blocks of stone, which the natives of the country
+in later times found it convenient to use as material for their own
+buildings.
+
+An edifice, almost exactly similar to this, but of very inferior
+dimensions, occupied a position due east of the palace of Darius, and
+a little to the north of the main staircase leading to the terrace in
+front of the palace of Xerxes. The bases of two pillars and the jambs
+of three doorways remain, from which it is easy to reconstruct the main
+building. Its position seems to mark it as designed to give entrance
+to the structure, whatever it was, which occupied the site of the great
+mound (M on the Plan) east of Darius’s palace, and north of the palace
+of his son. The ornamentation, however, would rather connect it with
+the more eastern of the two great pillared halls, which will have to be
+described presently.
+
+A third edifice of the same kind stood in front of the great eastern
+hall, at the distance of about seventy yards from its portico. This
+building is more utterly ruined than either of the preceding, and its
+dimensions are open to some doubt. On the whole, it seems probable that
+it resembled the great propylaea at the head of the stairs leading from
+the plain rather than the central propylaea just described. Part of its
+ornamentation was certainly a colossal bull, though whether human-headed
+or not cannot be determined.
+
+The fourth of the propylaea was on the terrace whereon stood the palace
+of Xerxes, and directly fronting the landing-place at the head of its
+principal stairs, just as the propylaea first described fronted the
+great stairs leading up from the plain. Its dimensions were suited to
+those of the staircase which led to it, and of the terrace on which it
+was placed. It was less than one fourth the size of the great propylaea,
+and about half that of the propylaea which stood the nearest to it.
+The bases of the four pillars alone remain in situ; but, from the
+proportions thus obtained, the position of the walls and doorways is
+tolerably certain.
+
+We have now to pass to the most magnificent of the Perse-politan
+buildings--the Great Pillared Halls--which constitute the glory of Arian
+architecture, and which, even in their ruins, provoke the wonder and
+admiration of modern Europeans, familiar with all the triumphs of
+Western art, with Grecian temples, Roman baths and amphitheatres,
+Moorish palaces, Turkish mosques, and Christian cathedrals. Of these
+pillared halls, the Persepolitan platform supports two, slightly
+differing in their design, but presenting many points of agreement. They
+bear the character of an earlier and a later building--a first effort
+in the direction which circumstances compelled the architecture of the
+Persians to take, and the final achievement of their best artists in
+this kind of building.
+
+Nearly midway in the platform between its northern and its southern
+edges, and not very far from the boundary of rocky mountain on which
+the platform abuts towards the east, is the vast edifice which has been
+called with good reason the “Hall of a Hundred Columns,” since its
+roof was in all probability supported by that number of pillars. This
+building consisted of a single magnificent chamber, with a portico, and
+probably guard-rooms, in front, of dimensions quite unequalled upon
+the platform. The portico was 183 feet long by 52 feet deep, and was
+sustained by sixteen pillars, about 33 feet high, arranged in two rows
+of eight. The great chamber behind was a square of 227 feet, and had
+therefore an area of about 51,000 feet. Over this vast space were
+distributed, at equal distances from one another, one hundred columns,
+each 35 feet high, arranged in ten rows of ten each, every pillar thus
+standing at a distance of nearly 20 feet from any other. The four walls
+which enclosed this great hall had a uniform thickness of 10 1/2 feet,
+and were each pierced at equal intervals by two doorways, the doorways
+being thus exactly opposite to one another, and each looking down an
+avenue of columns. In the spaces of wall on either side of the doorways,
+eastward, westward, and southward, were three niches, all square-topped,
+and bearing the ornamentation which is universal in the case of all
+niches, windows, and doorways in the Persepolitan ruins. [PLATE XLVII.,
+Fig. 2.] In the northern, or front, wall, the niches were replaced by
+windows looking upon the portico, excepting towards the angles of the
+building, where niches were retained, owing to a peculiarity in the
+plan of the edifice which has now to be noticed. The portico, instead
+of being, as in every other Persian instance, of the same width with the
+building which it fronted, was 44 feet narrower, its antce projecting
+from the front wall, not at either extremity, but at the distance of 11
+feet from the corner. While the porch was thus contracted, so that the
+pillars had to be eight in each row instead of ten, space was left on
+either side for a narrow guard-room opening on to the porch, indications
+of which are seen in the doorways placed at right angles to the front
+wall, which are ornamented with the usual figures of soldiers armed
+with spear and shield. It has been suggested that the hall was, like the
+smaller pillared chambers upon the platform, originally surrounded on
+three sides by a number of lesser apartments; and this is certainly
+possible: but no trace remains of any such buildings. The ornamentation
+which exists seems to show that the building was altogether of a public
+character. Instead of exhibiting attendants bringing articles for the
+toilet or the banquet, it shows on its doors the monarch, either engaged
+in the art of destroying symbolical monsters, or seated on his throne
+under a canopy, with the tiara on his head, and the golden sceptre in
+his right hand. The throne representations are of two kinds. On the
+jambs of the great doors leading out upon the porch, we see in the top
+compartment the monarch seated under the canopy, accompanied by five
+attendants, while below him are his guards, arranged in five rows of
+ten each, some armed with spears and shields, others with spears, short
+swords, bows and quivers. Thus the two portals together exhibit the
+figures of 200 Persian guardsmen in attendance on the person of the
+king. The doors at the back of the building present us with a still
+more curious sculpture. On these the throne appears elevated on a lofty
+platform, the stages of which, three in number, are upheld by figures
+in different costumes, representing apparently the natives of all the
+different provinces of the Empire. It is a reasonable conjecture that
+this great hall was intended especially for a throne-room, and that in
+the representations on these doorways we have figured a structure which
+actually existed under its roof (probably at t in the plan)--a platform
+reached by steps, whereon, in the great ceremonies of state, the royal
+throne was placed, in order that the monarch might be distinctly seen at
+one and the same time by the whole Court.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVIII.]
+
+
+The question of the lighting of this huge apartment presents some
+difficulties. On three sides, as already observed, the hall had (so
+far as appears) no windows--the places where windows might have been
+expected to occur being occupied by niches. The apparent openings are
+consequently reduced to some fifteen, viz., the eight doorways, and
+seven windows, which looked out upon the portico, and were therefore
+overhung and had a north aspect. It is clear that sufficient light could
+not have entered the apartment from these--the only visible--apertures.
+We must therefore suppose either that the walls above the niches were
+pierced with windows, which is quite possible, or else that light was in
+some way or other admitted from the roof. The latter is the supposition
+of those most competent to decide. M. Flandin conjectures that the roof
+had four apertures, placed at the points where the lines drawn from
+the northern to the southern, and those drawn from the eastern to the
+western, doors would intersect one another. He seems to suppose that
+these openings were wholly unprotected, in which case they would have
+admitted, in a very inconvenient way, both the sun and the rain. May we
+not presume that, if such openings existed, they were guarded by louvres
+such as have been regarded as probably lighting the Assyrian halls, and
+of which a representation has already been given?
+
+The portico of the Hall of a Hundred Columns was flanked on either side
+by a colossal bull, standing at the inner angle of the antes, and thus
+in some degree narrowing the entrance. Its columns were fluted, and
+had in every case the complex capital, which occurs also in the great
+propylaea and in the Hall of Xerxes. It was built of the same sort of
+massive blocks as the south-eastern edifice, or Ancient Palace--blocks
+often ten feet square by seven feet thick, and may be ascribed probably
+to the same age as that structure. Like that edifice, it is situated
+somewhat low; it has no staircase, and no inscription. We may fairly
+suppose it to have been the throne-room or great hall of audience of the
+early king who built the South-eastern Palace.
+
+We have now to describe the most remarkable of all the Persepolitan
+edifices--a building the remains of which stretch nearly 350 feet in one
+direction, while in the other they extend 246 feet. Its ruins consist
+almost entirely of pillars, which are divided into four groups. The
+largest of these was a square of thirty-six pillars, arranged in six
+rows of six, all exactly equidistant from one another, and covering
+an area of above 20,000 square feet. On three sides of this square,
+eastward, northward, and westward, were magnificent porches, each
+consisting of twelve columns, arranged in two rows, in line with the
+pillars of the central cluster. These porches stood at the distance of
+seventy feet from the main building, and have the appearance of having
+been entirely separate from it. They are 143 feet long, by thirty broad,
+and thus cover each an area of 4260 feet. The most astonishing feature
+in the whole building is the height of the pillars. These, according to
+the measurements of M. Flandin, had a uniform altitude throughout the
+building of sixty-four feet. Even in their ruin, they tower over every
+other erection upon the platform, retaining often, in spite of the
+effects of time, an elevation of sixty feet.
+
+The capitals of the pillars were of three kinds. Those of the side
+colonnades were comparatively simple: they consisted, in each case, of
+a single member, formed, in the eastern colonnade, of two half-griffins,
+with their heads looking in opposite directions [PLATE XLVII, Fig. 2];
+and, in the western colonnade, of two half-bulls, arranged in the
+same manner [PLATE XLVII., Fig. 3]. The capitals of the pillars in the
+northern colonnade, which faced the great sculptured staircase, and
+constituted the true front of the building, were of a very complex
+character. They may be best viewed as composed of three distinct
+members--first, a sort of lotos-bud, accompanied by pendent leaves;
+then, above that, a member, composed of volutes like those of the Ionic
+order, but placed in a perpendicular instead of a horizontal direction;
+and at the top, a member composed of two half-bulls, exactly similar to
+that which forms the complete capital of the western group of pillars.
+The pillars of the groat central cluster had capitals exactly like those
+of the northern colonnade.
+
+The bases of the colonnade pillars are of singular beauty. Bell-shaped,
+and ornamented with a double or triple row of pendent lotus-leaves, some
+rounded, some narrowed to a point; they are as graceful as they are rare
+in their forms, and attract the admiration of all beholders. Above them
+rise the columns, tapering gently as they ascend, but without any swell
+or entasis. They consist of several masses of stone, carefully joined
+together, and secured at the joints by an iron cramp in the direction of
+the column’s axis. All are beautifully fluted along their entire length,
+the number of the incisions or flutings being from forty-eight to
+fifty-two in each pillar. They are arcs of circles smaller than
+semicircles, thus resembling those of the Doric, rather than those of
+the Ionic or Corinthian order. The cutting of all is very exact and
+regular.
+
+There can be little doubt but that both the porches, and the
+great central pillar-cluster, were roofed in. The double-bull and
+double-griffin capital are exactly suited to receive the ends of beams,
+which would stretch from pillar to pillar, and support a roof and an
+entablature. [PLATE L., Fig.1.] We may see in the entrances to the royal
+tombs the true use of pillars in a Persian building, and the character
+of the entablature which, they were intended to sustain, Assuming,
+then, that both the great central pillar phalanx and the three detached
+colonnades supported a roof, the question arises, were the colonnades
+in any way united with the main building, or did they stand completely
+detached from it? It has been supposed that they were all porticos _in
+antis_, connected with the main building by solid walls--that the great
+central column-cluster was surrounded on all sides by a wall of a very
+massive description, from the four corners of which similar barriers
+were carried down to the edge of the terrace, abutting in front upon
+the steps of the great sculptured staircase, and extending eastward and
+westward, so as to form the antce of an eastern and a western portico.
+In the two corners between the northern in _antae_ of the side porticos
+and the _antae_ of the portico in front are supposed to have been large
+guard-rooms, entirely filling up the two angles. The whole building is
+thus brought into close conformity with the “Palace of Xerxes,” from
+which it is distinguished only by its superior size, its use of stone
+pillars, and the elongation of the tetrastyle chambers at the sides of
+that edifice into porticos of twelve pillars each.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE L.]
+
+
+The ingenuity of this conception is unquestionable; and one is tempted
+at first sight to accept a solution which removes so much that is
+puzzling, and establishes so remarkable a harmony between works whose
+outward aspect is so dissimilar. It seems like the inspiration of genius
+to discern so clearly the like in the unlike, and one inclines at first
+to believe that what is so clever cannot but be true. But a rigorous
+examination of the evidence leads to an opposite conclusion, and if it
+does not absolutely disprove Mr. Fergusson’s theory, at any rate shows
+it to be in the highest degree doubtful. Such walls as he describes,
+with their _antae_ and their many doors and windows, should have left
+very marked traces of their existence in great squared pillars at the
+sides of porticos, in huge door-frames and window-frames, or at least
+in the foundations of walls, or, the marks of them, on some part of the
+paved terrace. Now the entire absence of squared pillars for the ends
+of antce, of door-frames, and window-frames, or even of such sculptured
+fragments as might indicate their former existence, is palpable and is
+admitted; nor is there any even supposed trace of the walls, excepting
+in one of the lines which by the hypothesis they would occupy. In front
+of the building, midway between the great pillar-cluster and the north
+colonnade, are the remains of four stone bases, parallel to one another,
+each seventeen feet long by five feet six inches wide. Mr. Fergusson
+regards these bases as marking the position of the doors in his front
+wall; and they are certainly in places where doors might have been
+looked for, if the building had a front wall, since the openings are
+exactly opposite the inter-columniations of the pillars, both in the
+portico and in the main cluster. But there are several objections to the
+notion of these bases being the foundations of the jambs of doors. In
+the first place, they are too wide apart, being at the distance from one
+another of seventeen feet, whereas no doorway on the platform exceeds a
+width of twelve or thirteen feet. In the second place, if these massive
+stone bases were prepared for the jambs of doors, it could only have
+been for massive stone jambs like those of the other palaces; but
+in that case, the jambs could not have disappeared. Thirdly, if the
+doorways on this side were thus marked, why were they not similarly
+marked on the other sides of the building? On the whole, the supposition
+of M. Flandin, that the bases were pedestals for ornamental statues,
+perhaps of bulls, seems more probable than that of Mr. Fergusson;
+though, no doubt, there are objections also to M. Flandin’s hypothesis,
+and it would be perhaps best to confess that we do not know the use of
+these strange foundations, which have nothing that at all resembles them
+upon the rest of the platform.
+
+Another strong objection to Mr. Fergusson’s theory, and one of which
+he, to a certain extent, admits the force, is the existence of drains,
+running exactly in the line of his side walls, which, if such walls
+existed, would be a curious provision on the part of the architect for
+undermining his own work. Mr. Fergusson supposes that they might be
+intended to drain the walls themselves and keep them dry. But as it is
+clear that they must have carried off the whole surplus water from
+the roof of the building, and as there is often much rain and snow
+at Persepolis, their effect on the foundations of such a wall as Mr.
+Fergusson imagines would evidently be disastrous in the extreme.
+
+To these minute and somewhat technical objections may be added the
+main one, whereof all alike can feel the force--namely, the entire
+disappearance of such a vast mass of building as Mr. Fergusson’s
+hypothesis supposes. To account for this, Mr. Fergusson is obliged to
+lay it down, that in this magnificent structure, with its solid
+stone staircase, its massive pavement of the same material, and its
+seventy-two stone pillars, each sixty-four feet high, the walls were of
+mud. Can we believe in this incongruity? Can we imagine that a prince,
+who possessed an unbounded command of human labor, and an inexhaustible
+supply of stone in the rocky mountains close at hand, would have had
+recourse to the meanest of materials for the walls of an edifice which
+he evidently intended to eclipse all others upon the platform. And,
+especially, can we suppose this, when the very same prince used solid
+blocks of stone, in the walls of the very inferior edifice which he
+constructed in this same locality? Mr. Fergusson, in defence of
+his hypothesis, alleges the frequent combination of meanness with
+magnificence in the East, and softens down the meanness in the present
+case by clothing his mud walls with enamelled tiles, and painting them
+with all the colors of the rainbow. But here again the hypothesis is
+wholly unsupported by fact. Neither at Persepolis, nor at Pasargadae,
+nor at any other ancient Persian site, has a single fragment of an
+enamelled tile or brick been discovered. In Babylonia and Assyria, where
+the employment of such an ornamentation was common, the traces of it
+which remain are abundant. Must not the entire absence of such traces
+from all exclusively Persian ruins be held to indicate that this mode of
+adorning edifices was not adopted in Persia?
+
+If then we resign the notion of this remarkable building having been a
+walled structure, we must suppose that it was a summer throne-room,
+open to all the winds of heaven, except so far as it was protected by
+curtains. For the use of these by the Persians in pillared edifices, we
+have important historical authority in the statement already quoted from
+the Book of Esther. The Persian palace, to which that passage directly
+refers, contained a structure almost the exact counterpart of this
+at Persepolis; and it is probable that at both places the interstices
+between the outer pillars of, at any rate, the great central colonnade,
+were filled with “hangings of white and green and blue, fastened with
+cords of white and purple to silver rings,” which were attached to the
+“pillars of marble;” and that by these means an undue supply of light
+and air, as well as an unseemly publicity, were prevented. A traveller
+in the country well observes, in allusion to this passage from Esther:
+Nothing could be more appropriate than this method at Susa and
+Persepolis, the spring residences of the Persian monarchs. It must be
+considered that these columnar halls were the equivalents of the modern
+throne-rooms, that here all public business was dispatched, and that
+here the king might sit and enjoy the beauties of the landscape. With
+the rich plains of Susa and Persepolis before him, he could well, after
+his winter’s residence at Babylon, dispense with massive walls, which
+would only check the warm fragrant breeze from those verdant prairies
+adorned with the choicest flowers. A massive roof, covering the whole
+expanse of columns, would be too cold and dismal, whereas curtains
+around the central group would serve to admit both light and warmth.
+Nothing can be conceived better adapted to the climate or the season.
+
+If the central cluster of pillars was thus adapted to the purposes of
+a throne-room, equally well may the isolated colonnades have served as
+ante-chambers or posts for guards. Protected, perhaps, with curtains
+or awnings of their own, of a coarser material than those of the main
+chamber, or at any rate casting, when the sun was high, a broad and deep
+shadow, they would give a welcome shelter to those who had to watch
+over the safety of the monarch, or who were expecting but had not yet
+received their summons to the royal presence. Except in the very hottest
+weather, the Oriental does not love to pass his day within doors. Seated
+on the pavement in groups, under the deep shadows of these colonnades,
+which commanded a glorious view of the vast fertile plain of the
+Bendamir, of the undulating mountain-tract beyond, and of the
+picturesque hills known now as Koh-Istakhr, or Koh-Rhamgherd, the
+subjects of the Great King, who had business at Court, would wait,
+agreeably enough, till their turn came to approach the throne.
+
+Our survey of the Persepolitan platform is now complete; but, before we
+entirely dismiss the subject of Persian palaces, it seems proper to say
+a few words with respect to the other palatial remains of Achasmenian
+times, remains which exist in three places--at Murgab or Pasargadse, at
+Istakr, and at the great mound of Susa. The Murgab and Istakr ruins were
+carefully examined by MM. Coste and Flandin; while General Williams and
+Mr. Loftus diligently explored, and completely made out, the plan of the
+Susian edifice.
+
+The ruins at Murgab, which are probably the most ancient in Persia,
+comprise, besides the well-known “Tomb of Cyrus,” two principal
+buildings. The largest of these was of an oblong-square shape, about 147
+feet long by 116 wide. It seems to have been surrounded by a lofty
+wall, in which were huge portals, consisting of great blocks of
+stone, partially hollowed out, to render them portable. There was an
+inscription on the jambs of each portal, containing the words, “I am
+Cyrus the King, the Achaemenian.” Within the walled enclosure which may
+have been skirted internally by a colonnade was a pillared building, of
+much greater height than the surrounding walls, as is evident from the
+single column which remains. This shaft, which is perfectly plain, and
+shows no signs of a capital, has an altitude of thirty-six feet, with
+a diameter of three feet four inches at the base. On the area around,
+which was carefully paved, are the bases of seven other similar pillars,
+arranged in lines, and so situated as apparently to indicate an oblong
+hall, supported by twelve pillars, in three rows of four each. The
+chief peculiarity of the arrangement is, a variety in the width of the
+intercolumniations, which measure twenty-seven feet ten inches in one
+direction, but twenty-one feet only in the other. The smaller building,
+which is situated at only a short distance from the larger one, covers a
+space of 125 feet by fifty. It consists of twelve pillar bases, arranged
+in two rows of six each, the pillars being somewhat thicker than those
+of the other building, and placed somewhat closer together. [PLATE
+XLIX., Fig. 5.] The form of the base is very singular. It exhibits
+at the side a semicircular bulge, ornamented with a series of nine
+flutings, which are carried entirely round the base in parallel
+horizontal circles. [PLATE L., Fig. 2.] In front of the pillar bases,
+at the distance of about twenty-three feet from the nearest, is a square
+column, still upright, on which is sculptured a curious mythological
+figure, together with the same curt legend, which appears on the larger
+building--“I am Cyrus, the King, the Achaemenian.”
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIX.]
+
+
+There are two other buildings at Murgab remarkable for their masonry.
+One is a square tower, with slightly projecting corners, built of
+hewn blocks of stone, very regularly laid, and carried to a height
+of forty-two feet. The other is a platform, exceedingly massive and
+handsome, composed entirely of squared stone, and faced with blocks
+often eight or ten feet long, laid in horizontal courses, and rusticated
+throughout in a manner that is highly ornamental. [PLATE L. Fig. 3.] The
+style resembles that of the substructions of the Temple of Jerusalem.
+It occurs occasionally, though somewhat rarely, in Greece; but there
+is said to exist nowhere so extensive and beautiful a specimen of it as
+that of the platform at this ancient site. [PLATE L., Fig. 4.]
+
+The palace at Istakr is in better preservation than either of the two
+pillared edifices at Murgab; but still, it is not in such a condition as
+to enable us to lay down with any certainty even its ground-plan. [PLATE
+LI., Fig. 1.] One pillar only remains erect; but the bases of eight
+others have been found in situ; the walls are partly to be traced,
+and the jambs of several doorways and niches are still standing. These
+remains show that in many respects, as in the character of the pillars,
+which were fluted and had capitals like those already described, in the
+massiveness of the door and window jambs, and in the thickness of
+the walls, the Istakr Palace resembled closely the buildings on the
+Persepolitan platform; but at the same time they indicate that its plan
+was wholly different, and thus our knowledge of the platform buildings
+in no degree enables us to complete, or even to carry forward to any
+appreciable extent, the ground-plan of the edifice derived from actual
+research. The height of the columns, which is inferior to that of the
+lowest at the great platform, would seem to indicate, either that the
+building was the first in which stone pillars were attempted, or that
+it was erected at a time when the Persians no longer possessed the
+mechanical skill required to quarry, transport, and raise into place the
+enormous blocks used in the best days of the nation.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LI.]
+
+
+The palace of Susa, exhumed by Mr. Loftus and General Williams,
+consisted of a great Hall or Throne-room, almost exactly a duplicate
+of the Chehl Minar at Persepolis, and of a few other very inferior
+buildings. It stood at the summit of the great platform, a quadrilateral
+mass of unburnt brick, which from a remote antiquity had supported the
+residence of the old Susian kings. It fronted a little west of north,
+and commanded a magnificent view over the Susianian plains to the
+mountains of Lauristan. An inscription, repeated on four of its
+pillar-bases, showed that it was originally built by Darius Hystaspis,
+and afterwards repaired by Artaxerxes Longimanus. As it was so exactly
+a reproduction of an edifice already minutely described, no further
+account of it need be here given.
+
+From the palaces of the Persian kings we may now pass to their tombs,
+remarkable structures which drew the attention of the ancients, and
+which have been very fully examined and represented in modern times.
+These tombs are eight in number, but present only two types, so that
+it will be sufficient to give in this place a detailed account of two
+tombs--one of each description.
+
+The most ancient, and, on the whole, the most remarkable of the tombs,
+is almost universally allowed to be that of the Great Cyrus. It is
+unique in design, totally different from all the other royal sepulchres;
+and, though it has been often described, demands, and must
+receive, notice in any account that is given of the ancient Persian
+constructions. The historian Arrian calls it “a house upon a pedestal;”
+ and this brief description exactly expresses its general character. On a
+base, composed of huge blocks of the most beautiful white marble,1 which
+rises pyramidically in seven steps of different heights, there stands a
+small “house” of similar material, crowned with a stone roof, which
+is formed in front and rear into a pediment resembling that of a Greek
+temple. [PLATE LI., Fig.3.] The “house” has no window, but one of the
+end walls was pierced by a low and narrow doorway, which led into a
+small chamber or cell, about eleven feet long, seven broad, and seven
+high. Here, as ancient writers inform us, the body of the Great Cyrus
+was deposited in a golden coffin. Internally the chamber is destitute
+of any inscription, and indeed seems to have been left perfectly plain.
+Externally, there is a cornice of some elegance below the pediment, a
+good molding over the doorway, which is also doubly recessed--and two
+other very slight moldings, one at the base of the “house,” and the
+other at the bottom of the second step. [PLATE LI., Fig. 2.] Except for
+these, the whole edifice is perfectly plain. Its present height above
+the ground is thirty-six feet, and it may originally have been a foot
+or eighteen inches higher, for the top of the roof is worn away. It
+measures at the base forty-seven feet by forty-three feet nine inches.
+
+The tomb stands within a rectangular area, marked out by pillars, the
+bases or broken shafts of which are still to be seen. They appear to
+have been twenty-four in number; all of them circular and smooth, not
+fluted; six pillars occupied each side of the rectangle, and they stood
+distant from each other about fourteen feet. It is probable that they
+originally supported a colonnade, which skirted internally a small
+walled court, within which the tomb was placed. The capitals of the
+pillars, if they had any, have wholly disappeared; and the researches
+conducted on the spot have failed to discover any trace of them.
+
+The remainder of the Persian royal sepulchres are rock-tombs,
+excavations in the sides of mountains, generally at a considerable
+elevation, so placed as to attract the eye of the beholder, while they
+are extremely difficult of approach. Of this kind of tomb there are
+four in the face of the mountain which bounds the Pulwar Valley on the
+north-west, while there are three others in the immediate vicinity of
+the Persepolitan platform, two in the mountain which overhangs it, and
+one in the rocks a little further to the south. The general shape of
+the excavations, as it presents itself to the eye of the spectator,
+resembles a Greek cross. [PLATE LII., Fig. 1.] This is divided by
+horizontal lines into three portions, the upper one (corresponding with
+the topmost limb of the cross) containing a very curious sculptured
+representation of the monarch worshipping Ormazd; the middle one, which
+comprises the two side limbs, together with the space between them,
+being carved architecturally so as to resemble a portico; and the third
+compartment (corresponding with the lowest limb of the cross) being left
+perfectly plain. In the centre of the middle compartment is sculptured
+on the face of the rock the similitude of a doorway, closely resembling
+those which still stand on the great platform; that is to say, doubly
+recessed, and ornamented at the top with lily-work. The upper portion of
+this doorway is filled with the solid rock, smoothed to a flat surface
+and crossed by three horizontal bars. The lower portion, to the height
+of four or five feet, is cut away; and thus entrance is given to the
+actual tomb, which is hollowed out in the rock behind.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LII.]
+
+
+Thus far the rock tombs, are, with scarcely an exception, of the same
+type. The excavations, however, behind their ornamental fronts, present
+some curious differences. In the simplest case of all, we find, on
+entering, an arched chamber, thirteen feet five inches long by seven
+feet two inches wide, from which there opens out, opposite to the door
+and at the height of about four feet from the ground, a deep horizontal
+recess, arched, like the chamber. Near the front of this recess is a
+further perpendicular excavation, in length six feet ten inches, in
+width three feet three inches, and in depth the same. This was the
+actual sarcophagus, and was covered, or intended to be covered, by a
+slab of stone. In the deeper part of the recess there is room for two
+other such sarcophagi; but in this case they have not been excavated,
+one burial only having, it would seem, taken place in this tomb. Other
+sepulchres present the same general features, but provide for a much
+greater number of interments. In that of Darius Hystaspis the sepulchral
+chamber contains three distinct recesses, in each of which are three
+sarcophagi, so that the tomb would hold nine bodies. It has, apparently,
+been cut originally for a single recess, on the exact plan of the tomb
+described above, but has afterwards been elongated towards the left.
+[PLATE LIII., Fig. 1.] Two of the tombs show a still more elaborate
+ground-plan--one in which curved lines take to some extent the place
+of straight ones. [PLATE LII., Fig. 2.] The tombs above the platform of
+Persepolis are more richly ornamented than the others, the lintels
+and sideposts of the doorways being covered with rosettes, and the
+entablature above the cornice bearing a row of lions, facing on either
+side towards the centre. [PLATE LIII., Fig. 2.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIII.]
+
+
+A curious edifice, belonging probably to the later Achaemenian times,
+stands immediately in front of the four royal tombs at Nakhsh-i-Eustam.
+This is a square tower, composed of large blocks of marble, cut with
+great exactness, and joined together without mortar or cement of
+any kind. The building is thirty-six feet high; and each side of it
+measures, as near as possible, twenty-four feet. It is ornamented with
+pilasters at the corners and with six recessed niches, or false windows,
+in three ranks, one over the other, on three out of its four faces. On
+the fourth face are two niches only, one over the other; and below
+them is a doorway with a cornice. The surface of the walls between the
+pilasters is also ornamented with a number of rectangular depressions,
+resembling the sunken ends of beams. The doorway, which looks north,
+towards the tombs, is not at the bottom of the building, but half-way up
+its side, and must have been reached either by a ladder or by a flight
+of steps. It leads into a square chamber, twelve feet wide by nearly
+eighteen high, extending to the top of the building, and roofed in with
+four large slabs of stone, which reach entirely across from side to
+side, being rather more than twenty-four feet long, six feet wide, and
+from eighteen inches to three feet in thickness. [PLATE LIII., Fig. 3.]
+On the top these slabs are so cut that the roof has every way a slight
+incline; at their edges they are fashioned between the pilasters, into
+a dentated cornice, like that which is seen on the tomb. Externally they
+were clamped together in the same careful way which we find to have been
+in use both at Persepolis and Parsargadae. The building seems to have
+been closed originally by two ponderous stone doors. [PLATE LIV., Fig.
+1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIV.]
+
+
+Another remarkable construction, which must belong to a very ancient
+period in the history of the country, is a gateway composed of enormous
+stones, which forms a portion of the ruins of Istakr. [PLATE LIV., Fig.
+2.] It has generally been regarded as one of the old gates of the city;
+but its position in the gorge between the town wall and the opposite
+mountain, and the fact that it lies directly across the road from
+Pasargadae into the plain of Merdasht, seem rather to imply that it was
+one of those fortified “gates,” which we know to have been maintained by
+the Persians, at narrow points along their great routes, for the purpose
+of securing them, and stopping the advance of an enemy. On either
+side were walls of vast thickness, on the one hand abutting upon the
+mountain, on the other probably connected with the wall of the town,
+while between them were three massive pillars, once, no doubt, the
+supports of a tower, from which the defenders of the gate would engage
+its assailants at a great advantage.
+
+We have now described (so far as our data have rendered it possible)
+all the more important of the ancient edifices of the Persians, and
+may proceed to consider the next branch of the present inquiry, namely,
+their skill in the mimetic arts. Before, however, the subject of their
+architecture is wholly dismissed, a few words seem to be required on its
+general character and chief peculiarities.
+
+First, then, the simplicity and regularity of the style are worthy of
+remark. In the ground-plans of buildings the straight line only is used;
+all the angles are right angles; all the pillars fall into line; the
+intervals between pillar and pillar are regular, and generally equal;
+doorways are commonly placed opposite intercolumniations; where there is
+but one doorway, it is in the middle of the wall which it pierces; where
+there are two, they correspond to one another. Correspondence is the
+general law. Not only does door correspond to door, and pillar to
+pillar, but room to room, window to window, and even niche to niche.
+Most of the buildings are so contrived that one half is the exact
+duplicate of the other; and where this is not the case, the irregularity
+is generally either slight, or the result of an alteration, made
+probably for convenience sake. Travellers are impressed with the Grecian
+character of what they behold, though there is an almost entire absence
+of Greek forms. The regularity is not confined to single buildings, but
+extends to the relations of different edifices one to another. The sides
+of buildings standing on one platform, at whatever distance they may be,
+are parallel. There is, however, less consideration paid than we should
+have expected to the exact position, with respect to a main building,
+in which a subordinate one shall be placed. Propylaea, for instance,
+are not opposite the centre of the edifice to which they conduct, but
+slightly on one side of the centre. And generally, excepting in the
+parallelism of their sides, buildings seem placed with but slight regard
+to neighboring ones.
+
+For effect, the Persian architecture must have depended, firstly,
+upon the harmony that is produced by the observance of regularity and
+proportion; and, secondly, upon two main features of the style. These
+were the grand sculptured staircases which formed the approaches to all
+the principal buildings, and the vast groves of elegant pillars in and
+about the great halls. The lesser buildings were probably ugly, except
+in front. But such edifices as the Chehl Minar at Persepolis, and its
+duplicate at Susa--where long vistas of columns met the eye on every
+side, and the great central cluster was supported by lighter detached
+groups, combining similarity of form with some variety of ornament,
+where richly colored drapings contrasted with the cool gray stone of the
+building, and a golden roof overhung a pavement of many hues--must
+have been handsome, from whatever side they were contemplated, and for
+general richness and harmony of effect may have compared favorably
+with any edifices which, up to the time of their construction, had been
+erected in any country or by any people. If it may seem to some that
+they were wanting in grandeur, on account of their comparatively low
+height--a height which, including that of the platform, was probably in
+no case much more than a hundred feet--it must be remembered that the
+buildings of Greece and (except the Pyramids) those of Egypt, had the
+same defect, and that, until the constructive powers of the arch came to
+be understood, it was almost impossible to erect a building that should
+be at once lofty and elegant. Height, moreover, if the buildings are for
+use, implies inconvenience, a waste of time and power being involved
+in the ascent and descent of steps. The ancient architects, studying
+utility more than effect, preferred spreading out their buildings
+to piling them up, and rarely, unless in thickly-peopled towns, even
+introduced a second story.
+
+The spectator, however, was impressed with a sense of grandeur in
+another way. The use of huge blocks of stone, not only in platforms,
+but in the buildings themselves, in the shafts of pillars, the antae of
+porticos, the jambs of doorways, occasionally in roofs, and perhaps in
+epistylia, produced the same impression of power, and the same feeling
+of personal insignificance in the beholder, which is commonly effected
+by great size in the edifice, and particularly by height. The mechanical
+skill required to transport and raise into place the largest of these
+blocks must have been very considerable, and their employment causes not
+merely a blind admiration of those who so built on the part of ignorant
+persons, but a profound respect for them on the part of those who are by
+their studies and tastes best qualified for pronouncing on the relative
+and absolute merits of architectural masterpieces.
+
+Among the less pleasing peculiarities of the Persian architecture may be
+mentioned a general narrowness of doors in proportion to their height, a
+want of passages, a thickness of walls, which is architecturally clumsy,
+but which would have had certain advantages in such a climate, an
+inclination to place the doors of rooms near one corner, an allowance of
+two entrances into a great hall from under a single portico, a peculiar
+position of propylaea, and the very large employment of pillars in
+the interior of buildings. In many of these points, and also in the
+architectural use which was made of sculpture, the style of building
+resembled, to some extent, that of Assyria; the propylaea, however, were
+less Assyrian than Egyptian; while in the main and best features of the
+architecture, it was (so far as we can tell) original. The solid and
+handsome stone platforms, the noble staircases, and the profusion of
+light and elegant stone columns, which formed the true glory of
+the architecture--being the features on which its effect chiefly
+depended--have nowhere been discovered in Assyria; and all the
+evidence is against their existence. The Arians found in Mesopotamia an
+architecture of which the pillar was scarcely an element at all--which
+was fragile and unenduring--and which depended for its effect on a
+lavish display of partially colored sculpture and more richly tinted
+enamelled brick. Instead of imitating this, they elaborated for
+themselves, from the wooden buildings of their own mountain homes, a
+style almost exactly the reverse of that with which their victories had
+brought them into contact. Adopting, of main features, nothing but the
+platform, they imparted even to this a new character, by substituting
+in its construction the best for the worst of materials, and by further
+giving to these stone structures a massive solidity, from the employment
+of huge, blocks, which made them stand in the strongest possible
+contrast to the frail and perishable mounds of Babylonia and Assyria.
+Having secured in this way a firm and enduring basis, they proceeded to
+erect upon it buildings where the perpendicular line was primary and the
+horizontal secondary--buildings of almost, the same solid and massive
+character as the platform itself--forests of light but strong columns,
+supporting a wide-spreading roof, sometimes open to the air, sometimes
+enclosed by walls, according as they were designed for summer or winter
+use, or for greater or less privacy. To edifices of this character
+elaborate ornamentation was unnecessary; for the beauty of the column is
+such that nothing more is needed to set off a building. Sculpture
+would thus be dispensed with, or reserved for mere occasional use, and
+employed not so much on the palace itself as on its outer approaches;
+while brick enamelling could well be rejected altogether, as too poor
+and fragile a decoration for buildings of such strength and solidity.
+
+The origination of this columnar architecture must be ascribed to the
+Medes, who, dwelling in or near the more wooden parts of the Zagros
+range, constructed, during the period of their empire, edifices of
+considerable magnificence, whereof wooden pillars were the principal
+feature, the courts being surrounded by colonnades, and the chief
+buildings having porticos, the pillars in both cases being of wood. A
+wooden roof rested on these supports, protected externally by plates of
+metal. We do not know if the pillars had capitals, or if they supported
+an entablature; but probability is in favor of both these arrangements
+having existed. When the Persians succeeded the Medes in the
+sovereignty of Western Asia, they found Arian architecture in this
+condition. As stone, however, was the natural material of their country,
+which is but scantily wooded and is particularly barren towards the edge
+of the great plateau, where their chief towns were situated, and as
+they had from the first a strong desire of fame and a love for the
+substantial and the enduring, they almost immediately substituted for
+the cedar and cypress pillars of the Medes, stone shafts, plain or
+fluted, which they carried to a surprising height, and fixed with such
+firmness that many of them have resisted the destructive powers of
+time, of earthquakes, and of vandalism for more than three-and-twenty
+centuries, and still stand erect and nearly as perfect as when they
+received the last touch from the sculptor’s hand more than 2000 years
+ago. It is the glory of the Persians in art to have invented this style,
+which they certainly did not learn from the Assyrians, and which
+they can scarcely be supposed to have adopted from Egypt, where the
+conception of the pillar and its ornamentation were wholly different.
+We can scarcely doubt that Greece received from this quarter the impulse
+which led to the substitution of the light and elegant forms which
+distinguish the architecture of her best period from the rude and clumsy
+work of the more ancient times.
+
+Of the mimetic art of the Persians we do not possess any great amount,
+or any great variety, of specimens. The existing remains consist of
+reliefs, either executed on the natural rock or on large slabs of hewn
+stone used in building, of impressions upon coins, and of a certain
+number of intaglios cut upon gems. We possess no Persian statues, no
+modelled figures, no metal castings, no carvings in ivory or in wood, no
+enamellings, no pottery even. The excavations on Persian sites have been
+singularly barren of those minor results which flowed so largely
+from the Mosopotamian excavations, and have yielded no traces of the
+furniture, domestic implements, or wall-ornamentation of the people;
+have produced, in fact, no small objects at all, excepting a few
+cylinders and some spear and arrow heads, thus throwing scarcely any
+light on the taste or artistic genius of the people.
+
+The nearest approach to statuary which we meet with among the Persian
+remains are the figures of colossal bulls, set to guard portals,
+or porticos, which are not indeed sculptures in the round, but are
+specimens of exceedingly high relief, and which, being carved in front
+as well as along the side, do not fall very far short of statues. Of
+such figures, we find two varieties--one representing the real animal,
+the other a monster with the body and legs of a bull, the head of a
+man, and the wings of an eagle. There is considerable merit in both
+representations. They are free from the defect of flatness, or want of
+breadth in comparison with the length, which characterizes the similar
+figures of Assyrian artists; and they are altogether grand, massive, and
+imposing. The general proportions of the bulls are good, the limbs are
+accurately drawn, the muscular development is well portrayed, and the
+pose of the figure is majestic. Even the monstrous forms of human-headed
+bulls have a certain air of quiet dignity, which is not without its
+effect on the beholder; and, although implying no great artistic merit,
+since they are little more than reproductions of Assyrian models,
+indicate an appreciation of some of the best qualities of Assyrian
+art--the combination of repose with strength, of great size with the
+most careful finish, and of strangeness with the absence of any approach
+to grotesqueness or absurdity. The other Persian reliefs may be divided
+under four heads:
+
+(1) Mythological representations of a man--the king apparently--engaged
+in combat with a lion, a bull, or a monster; (2) Processions of guards,
+courtiers, attendants, or tribute-bearers; (3) Representations of the
+monarch walking, seated upon his throne, or employed in the act of
+worship; and (4) Representations of lions and bulls, either singly or
+engaged in combat.
+
+On the jambs of doorways in three of the Persepolitan buildings, a human
+figure, dressed in the Median robe, but with the sleeve thrown back from
+the right arm, is represented in the act of killing either a lion, a
+bull, or a grotesque monster. In every case the animal is rampant, and
+assails his antagonist with three of his feet, while he stands on the
+fourth. The lion and bull have nothing about them that is very peculiar;
+but the monsters present most strange and unusual combinations. One
+of them has the griffin head, which we have already seen in use in
+the capitals of columns, a feathered crest and neck, a bird’s wings,
+a scorpion’s tail, and legs terminating in the claws of an eagle. The
+other has an eagle’s head, ears like an ass, feathers on the neck, the
+breast, and the back, with the body, legs, and tail of a lion. [PLATE
+LV., Fig. 1.] Figures of equal grotesqueness, some of which possess
+certain resemblances to these, are common in the mythology of Assyria,
+and have been already represented in these volumes; but the Persian
+specimens are no servile imitations of these earlier forms. The idea of
+the Assyrian artist has, indeed, been borrowed; but Persian fancy has
+worked it out in its own way, adding, modifying, and subtracting in such
+a manner as to give to the form produced a quite peculiar, and (so to
+speak) native character.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LV.]
+
+
+Persian gems abound with monstrous forms, of equal, or even superior
+grotesqueness. As the Gothic architects indulged their imagination
+in the most wonderful combinations to represent evil spirits or the
+varieties of vice and sensualism, so the Persian gem-engravers seem
+to have allowed their fancy to run riot in the creation of monsters,
+representative of the Powers of Darkness or of different kinds of evil,
+The stones exhibit the king in conflict with a vast variety of monsters,
+some nearly resembling the Persepolitan, while others have strange
+shapes unseen elsewhere. Winged lions, with two tails and with the horns
+of a ram or an antelope, sphinxes and griffins of half a dozen different
+kinds, and various other nondescript creatures, appear upon the Persian
+gems and cylinders, furnishing abundant evidence of the quaint and
+prolific fancy of the designers.
+
+The processional subjects represented by the Persian artists are of
+three kinds. In the simplest and least interesting the royal guards, or
+the officers of the court, are represented in one or more lines of very
+similar figures, either moving in one direction, or standing in two
+bodies, one facing the other, in the attitude of quiet expectation. In
+these subjects there is a great sameness, and a very small amount of
+merit. The proportion of the forms is, indeed, fairly good, the heads
+and hands are well drawn, and there is some grace in certain of
+the figures, but the general effect is tame and somewhat heavy; the
+attitudes are stiff, and present little variety, while, nevertheless,
+they are sometimes impossible; there is a monotonous repetition of
+identically the same figure, which is tiresome, and a want of grouping
+which is very inartistic. If Persia had produced nothing better than
+this in sculpture, she would have had to be placed not only behind
+Assyria, but behind Egypt, as far as the sculptor’s art is concerned.
+
+Processional scenes of a more attractive character are, however,
+tolerably frequent. Some exhibit to us the royal purveyors arriving at
+the palace with their train of attendants, and bringing with them the
+provisions required for the table of the monarch. Here we have some
+varieties of costume which are curious, and some representations
+of Persian utensils, which are not without a certain interest.
+Occasionally, too, we are presented with animal forms, as kids, which
+have considerable merit.
+
+But by far the most interesting of the processional scenes, are those
+which represent the conquered nations bringing to the monarch those
+precious products of their several countries which the Lord of Asia
+expected to receive annually, as a sort of free gift from his subjects,
+in addition to the fixed tribute which was exacted from them. Here we
+have a wonderful variety of costume and equipment, a happy admixture of
+animal with human forms, horses, asses, chariots, sheep, cattle, camels,
+interspersed among men, and the whole divided into groups by means of
+cypress-trees, which break the series into portions, and allow the eye
+to rest in succession upon a number of distinct pictures. Processions of
+this kind occurred on several of the Persepolitan staircases; but by far
+the most elaborate and complete is that on the grand steps in front of
+the Chehl Minar, or Great Hall of Audience, where we see above twenty
+such groups of figures, each with it own peculiar features, and all
+finished with the utmost care and delicacy. The illustration [PLATE LV.,
+Fig. 2], which is taken from a photograph, will give a tolerable idea
+of the general character of this relief; it shows the greater portion of
+six groups, whereof two are much injured by the fall of the parapet-wall
+on which they were represented, while the remaining four are in good
+preservation. It will be noticed that the animal forms--the Bactrian
+camel and the humped ox--are superior to the human, and have
+considerable positive merit as works of art. This relative superiority
+is observable throughout the entire series, which contains, besides
+several horses (some of which have been already represented in these
+volumes), a lioness, an excellent figure of the wild ass, and two
+tolerably well-drawn sheep. [PLATE LVI., Fig. 2 and 3.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LVI.]
+
+
+The representations of the monarch upon the reliefs are of three kinds.
+In the simplest, he is on foot, attended by the parasol-bearer and
+the napkin-bearer, or by the latter only, apparently in the act of
+proceeding from one part of the palace to another. In the more elaborate
+he is either seated on an elevated throne, which is generally supported
+by numerous caryatid figures, or he stands on a platform similarly
+upheld, in the act of worship before an altar. This latter is the
+universal representation upon tombs, while the throne scenes are
+reserved for palaces. In both representations the supporting figures
+are numerous; and it is here chiefly that we notice varieties of
+physiognomy, which are evidently intended to recall the differences
+in the physical type of the several races by which the Empire was
+inhabited. In one case, we have a negro very well portrayed; in others
+we trace the features of Scyths or Tatars. It is manifest that the
+artist has not been content to mark the nationality of the different
+figures by costume alone, but has aimed at reproducing upon the stone
+the physiognomic peculiarities of each race.
+
+The purely animal representations which the bas-reliefs bring before us
+are few in number, and have little variety of type. The most curious and
+the most artistic is one which is several times repeated at Persepolis,
+where it forms the usual ornamentation of the triangular spaces on the
+facades of stairs. This is a representation of a combat between a lion
+and a bull, or (perhaps, we should rather say) a representation of a
+lion seizing and devouring a bull; for the latter animal is evidently
+powerless to offer any resistance to the fierce beast which has sprung
+upon him from behind, and has fixed both fangs and claws in his body.
+[PLATE LVI., Fig. 4.] In his agony the bull rears up his fore-parts, and
+turns his head feebly towards his assailant, whose strong limbs and jaws
+have too firm a hold to be dislodged by such struggles as his unhappy
+victim is capable of making. In no Assyrian drawing is the massiveness
+and strength of the king of beasts more powerfully rendered than in
+this favorite group, which the Persian sculptors repeated without the
+slightest change from generation to generation. The contour of the lion,
+his vast muscular development, and his fierce countenance are really
+admirable, and the bold presentation of the face in full, instead of in
+profile, is beyond the ordinary powers of Oriental artists.
+
+Drawings of bulls and lions in rows, where each animal is the exact
+counterpart of all the others, are found upon the friezes of some of the
+tombs, and upon the representations of canopies over the royal throne.
+These drawings are fairly spirited, but have not any extraordinary
+merit. They reproduce forms well known in Assyria. A figure of a sitting
+lion seems also to have been introduced occasionally on the facades of
+staircases, occurring in the central compartment of the parapet-wall at
+top. These figures, in no case, remain complete; but enough is left
+to show distinctly what the attitude was, and this appears not to have
+resembled very closely any common Assyrian type. [PLATE LVII., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LVII.]
+
+
+The Persian gem-engravings have considerable merit, and need not fear a
+comparison with those of any other Oriental nation. They occur upon
+hard stones of many different kinds, as cornelian, onyx, rock-crystal,
+sapphirine, sardonyx, chalcedony, etc., and are executed for the most
+part with great skill and delicacy. The designs which they embody are in
+general of a mythological character; but sometimes scenes of real life
+occur upon them, and then the drawing is often good, and almost
+always spirited. In proof of this, the reader may be referred to the
+hunting-scenes already given, which are derived wholly from this source,
+as well as to the gems figured [PLATE LVI., Fig. 3], one of which is
+certainly, and the other almost certainly, of Persian workmanship. In
+the former we see the king, not struggling with a mythological lion but
+engaged apparently in the actual chase of the king of beasts Two lions
+have been roused from their lairs, and the monarch hastily places an
+arrow on the string, anxious to despatch one of his foes before the
+other can come to close quarters The eagerness of the hunter and the
+spirit and boldness of the animals are well represented. In the other
+gem, while there is less of artistic excellence, we have a scene of
+peculiar interest placed before us. A combat between two Persians and
+two Cythians seems to be represented. The latter marked by their peaked
+cap and their loose trousers, fight with the bow and the battle-axe,
+the former with the bow and the sword One Scyth is receiving his
+death-wound, the other is about to let loose a shaft, but seems at the
+same time half inclined to fly The steady confidence of the warriors
+on the one side contrasts well with the timidity and hesitancy of their
+weaker and smaller rivals. [PLATE LVII., Fig. 3.]
+
+The vegetable forms represented on the gems are sometimes graceful
+and pleasing. This is especially the case with palm-trees, a favorite
+subject of the artists, who delineated with remarkable success the
+feathery leaves, the pendant fruit and the rough bark of the
+stem. [PLATE LVIII., Fig 1.] The lion-hunter represented on the
+signet-cylinder of Darius Hystaspis takes place in a palm-grove, and
+furnishes the accompanying example of this form of vegetable life.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LVIII.]
+
+
+One gem, ascribed on somewhat doubtful grounds to the Persians of
+Achaemenian times, contains what appears to be a portrait. It is thought
+to be the bust of a satrap of Salamis in Cyprus, and is very carefully
+executed. If really of Persian workmanship, it would indicate a
+considerable advance in the power of representing the human countenance
+between the time of Darius Hystaspis and that of Alexander [PLATE LVII.
+Fig. 2.]
+
+Persian coins are of three principal types. The earliest have on the one
+side the figure of a monarch bearing the diadem and armed with the bow
+and javelin, while on the other there is an irregular indentation of the
+same nature with the _quadratum incusum_ of the Greeks. This rude form
+is replaced in later times by a second design, which is sometimes a
+horseman, sometimes the forepart of a ship, sometimes the king drawing
+an an arrow from his quiver. Another type exhibits on the obverse the
+monarch in combat with a lion while the reverse shows a galley, or a
+towered and battlemented city with two lions standing below it, back to
+back. The third common type has on the obverse the king in his chariot,
+with his charioteer in front of him, and (generally) an attendant
+carrying a fly-chaser behind. The reverse has either the trireme or the
+battlemented city. A specimen of each type is given. [PLATE LVII., Fig.
+4.]
+
+The artistic merit of these medals is not great. The relief is low,
+and the drawing generally somewhat rude. The head of the monarch in the
+early coins is greatly too large. The animal forms are, however, much
+superior to the human, and the horses which draw the royal chariot, the
+lions placed below the battlemented city, and the bulls which are found
+occasionally in the same position, must be pronounced truthful and
+spirited.
+
+Of the Persian taste in furniture, utensils, personal ornaments and the
+like, we need say but little. The throne and footstool of the monarch
+are the only pieces of furniture represented in the sculptures,
+and these, though sufficiently elegant in their forms, are not very
+remarkable. Costliness of material seems to have been more prized than
+beauty of shape; and variety appears to have been carefully eschewed,
+one single uniform type of each article occurring in all the
+representations. The utensils represented are likewise few in number,
+and limited to certain constantly repeated forms. The most elaborate is
+the censer, which has been already given. With this is usually seen
+a sort of pail or basket, shaped like a lady’s reticule, in which the
+aromatic gums for burning were probably kept. [PLATE LVIII., Fig. 5.]
+A covered dish, and a goblet with an inverted saucer over it, are also
+forms of frequent occurrence in the hands of the royal attendants; and
+the tribute-bearers frequently carry, among their other offerings, bowls
+or basons, which, though not of Persian manufacture, were no doubt left
+at the court, and took their place among the utensils of the palace.
+[PLATE LVIII., Figs. 2 and 3.]
+
+In the matter of personal ornaments the taste of the Persians seems to
+have been peculiarly simple. Earrings were commonly plain rings of gold;
+bracelets mere bands of the same metal. Collars were circlets of gold
+twisted in a very inartificial fashion. There was nothing artistic
+in the sheaths or hilts of swords, though spear-shafts were sometimes
+adorned with the representation of an apple or a pomegranate. Dresses
+seem not to have been often patterned, but to have depended generally
+for their effect on make and color. In all these respects we observe
+a remarkable contrast between the Arian and the Semitic races,
+extreme simplicity characterizing the one, while the most elaborate
+ornamentation was affected by the other.
+
+Persia was not celebrated in antiquity for the production of any special
+fabrics. The arts of weaving and dyeing were undoubtedly practised in
+the dominant country, as well as in most of the subject provinces, and
+the Persian dyes seem even to have had a certain reputation; but none
+of the productions of their looms acquired a name among foreign nations.
+Their skill, indeed, in the mechanical arts generally was, it is
+probable, not more than moderate. It was their boast that they were
+soldiers, and had won a position by their good swords which gave them
+the command of all that was most exquisite and admirable, whether in the
+natural world or among the products of human industry. So long as the
+carpets of Babylon and Sardis, the shawls of Kashmir and India, the fine
+linen of Borsippa and Egypt, the ornamental metal-work of Greece,
+the coverlets of Damascus, the muslins of Babylonia, the multiform
+manufactures of the Phoenician towns, poured continually into Persia
+Proper in the way of tribute, gifts, or merchandise, it was needless for
+the native population to engage largely in industrial enterprise.
+
+To science the ancient Persians contributed absolutely nothing. The
+genius of the nation was adverse to that patient study and those
+laborious investigations from which alone scientific progress ensues.
+Too light and frivolous, too vivacious, too sensuous for such pursuits,
+they left them to the patient Babylonians, and the thoughtful, many-sided
+Greeks. The schools of Orchoe, Borsippa, and Miletus flourished under
+their sway, but without provoking their emulation, possibly without so
+much as attracting their attention. From first to last, from the dawn
+to the final close of their power, they abstained wholly from scientific
+studies. It would seem that they thought it enough to place before the
+world, as signs of their intellectual vigor, the fabric of their Empire
+and the buildings of Susa and Persepolis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. RELIGION.
+
+
+The original form of the Persian religion has been already described
+under the head of the third or Median monarchy. It was identical with
+the religion of the Medes in its early shape, consisting mainly in
+the worship of Ahura-Mazda, the acknowledgment of a principle of
+evil--Angro-Mainyus, and obedience to the precepts of Zoroaster. When
+the Medes, on establishing a wide-spread Empire, chiefly over races by
+whom Magism had been long professed, allowed the creed of their subjects
+to corrupt their own belief, accepted the Magi for their priests, and
+formed the mixed religious system of which an account has been given in
+the second volume of this work, the Persians in their wilder country,
+less exposed to corrupting influences, maintained their original faith
+in undiminished purity, and continued faithful to their primitive
+traditions. The political dependence of their country upon Media during
+the period of the Median sway made no difference in this respect; for
+the Medes were tolerant, and did not seek to interfere with the creed of
+their subjects. The simple Zoroastrian belief and worship, overlaid by
+Magism in the now luxurious Media, found a refuge in the rugged Persian
+uplands, among the hardy shepherds and cultivators of that unattractive
+region, was professed by the early Achaemenian princes, and generally
+acquiesced in by the people.
+
+The main feature of the religion daring this first period was the
+acknowledgment and the worship of a single supreme God--“the Lord God of
+Heaven”--“the giver (i.e. maker) of heaven and earth”--the disposer of
+thrones, the dispenser of happiness. The foremost place in inscriptions
+and decrees was assigned, almost universally, to the “great god,
+Ormazd.” Every king, of whom we have an inscription more than two lines
+in length, speaks of Ormazd as his upholder; and the early monarchs
+mention by name no other god. All rule “by the grace of Ormazd.” From
+Ormazd come victory, conquest, safety, prosperity, blessings of every
+kind. The “law of Ormazd” is the rule of life. The protection of Ormazd
+is the one priceless blessing for which prayer is perpetually offered.
+
+While, however, Ormazd holds this exalted and unapproachable position,
+there is still an acknowledgment made, in a general way, of “other
+gods.” Ormazd is “the greatest of the gods” (_mathista baganam_). It is
+a usual prayer to ask for the protection of Ormazd, together with that
+of these lesser powers (_hada bagaibish_). Sometimes the phrase is
+varied, and the petition is for the special protection of a certain
+class of Deities--the _Dii familiares_--or “deities who guard the
+house.”
+
+The worship of Mithra, or the Sun, does not appear in the inscriptions
+until the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, the victor of Cunaxa. It is,
+however, impossible to doubt that it was a portion of the Persian
+religion, at least as early as the date of Herodotus. Probably it
+belongs, in a certain sense, to primitive Zoroastrianism, but was kept
+in the background during the early period, when a less materialistic
+worship prevailed than suited the temper of later times.
+
+Nor can it be doubted that the Persians held during this early period
+that Dualistic belief which has been the distinguishing feature of
+Zoroastrianism from a time long anterior to the commencement of the
+Median Empire down to the present day. It was not to be expected
+that this belief would show itself in the inscriptions, unless in the
+faintest manner; and it can therefore excite no surprise that they are
+silent, or all but silent, on the point in question. Nor need we wonder
+that this portion of their creed was not divulged by the Persians to
+Herodotus or to Xenophon, since it is exactly the sort of subject on
+which reticence was natural and might have been anticipated. Neither the
+lively Halicarnassian, nor the pleasant but somewhat shallow Athenian,
+had the gift of penetrating very deeply into the inner mind of a
+foreign people; added to which, it is to be remembered that they were
+unacquainted with Persia Proper, and drew their knowledge of Persian
+opinions and customs either from hearsay or from the creed and practices
+of the probably mixed garrisons which held Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.
+
+Persian worship, in these early times, was doubtless that enjoined by
+the Zendavesta, comprising prayer and thanksgiving to Ormazd and the
+good spirits of his creation, the recitation of Gathas or hymns, the
+performance of sacrifice, and participation in the Soma ceremony.
+Worship seems to have taken place in temples, which are mentioned
+(according to the belief of most cuneiform scholars) in the Behistun
+inscription. Of the character of these buildings we can say nothing.
+It has been thought that those two massive square towers so similar in
+construction, which exist in a more or less ruined condition at Murgab
+and Nakhsh-i-Rustam, are Persian temples of the early period, built to
+contain an altar on which the priests offered victims. But the absence
+of any trace of an altar from both, the total want of religious emblems,
+and the extremely small size of the single apartment which each tower
+contains, make strongly against the temple theory; not to mention that a
+much more probable use may be suggested for the buildings.
+
+With respect to the altars upon which sacrifice was offered, we are not
+left wholly without evidence. The Persian monarchs of the early period,
+including Darius Hystaspis, represented themselves on their tombs in the
+act of worship. Before them, at the distance of a few feet, stands an
+altar, elevated on three steps, and crowned with the sacrificial fire.
+Its form is square, and its only ornaments are a sunken squared recess,
+and a strongly projecting cornice at top. The height of the altar,
+including the steps, was apparently about four and a half feet. [PLATE
+LVIII., Fig. 4.]
+
+The Persians’ favorite victim was the horse; but they likewise
+sacrificed cattle, sheep, and goats. Human sacrifices seem to have been
+almost, if not altogether, unknown to them, and were certainly alien to
+the entire spirit of the Zoroastrian system. The flesh of the victim was
+probably merely shown to the sacred fire, after which it was eaten by
+the priests, the sacrificer, and those whom the latter associated with
+himself in the ceremony.
+
+The spirit of the Zendavesta is wholly averse to idolatry, and we may
+fully accept the statement of Herodotus that images of the gods were
+entirely unknown to the Persians. Still, they did not deny themselves a
+certain use of symbolic representations of their deities, nor did
+they even scruple to adopt from idolatrous nations the forms of their
+religious symbolism. The winged circle, with or without the addition of
+a human figure, which was in Assyria the emblem of the chief Assyrian
+deity, Asshur, became with the Persians the ordinary representation of
+the Supreme God, Ormazd, and, as such, was placed in most conspicuous
+positions on their rock tombs and on their buildings. [PLATE LVIII.,
+Fig. 7.] Nor was the general idea only of the emblem adopted, but all
+the details of the Assyrian model were followed, with one exception. The
+human figure of the Assyrian original wore the close-fitting tunic, with
+short sleeves, which was the ordinary costume in Assyria, and had on
+its head the horned cap which marked a god or a genius. In the Persian
+counterpart this costume was exchanged for the Median robe, and a tiara,
+which was sometimes that proper to the king,23 sometimes that worn with
+the Median robe by court officers. [PLATE LVIII., Fig. 7.]
+
+Mithra, or the Sun, is represented in Persian sculptures by a disk or
+orb, which is not four-rayed like the Assyrian, but perfectly plain
+and simple. In sculptures where the emblems of Ormazd and Mithra occur
+together, the position of the former is central, that of the latter
+towards the right hand of the tablet. The solar emblem is universal on
+sculptured tombs, but is otherwise of rare occurrence.
+
+Spirits of good and evil, the Ahuras and Devas of the mythology, were
+represented by the Persians under human, animal, or monstrous forms.
+There can be little doubt that it is a good genius--perhaps the
+“well-formed, swift, tall Serosh”--who appears on one of the square
+pillars set up by Cyrus at Pasargadae. This figure is that of a colossal
+man, from whose shoulders issue four wings, two of which spread upwards
+above his head, while the other two droop and reach nearly to his feet.
+[PLATE LIX.] It stands erect, in profile, with both arms raised and the
+hands open. The costume of the figure is remarkable. It consists of a
+long fringed robe reaching from the neck to the ankles--apparently of
+a stiff material, which conceals the form--and of a very singular
+head-dress. This is a striped cap, closely fitting the head,
+overshadowed by an elaborate ornament, of a character purely Egyptian.
+First there rise from the top of the cap two twisted horns, which,
+spreading right and left, become a sort of basis for the other forms to
+rest upon. These consist of two grotesque human-headed figures, one at
+either side, and of a complex triple ornament between them, clumsily
+imitated from a far more elegant Egyptian model. [PLATE LX., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIX.]
+
+
+The winged human-headed bulls, which the Persians adopted from the
+Assyrians, with very slight modifications, were also, it is probable,
+regarded as emblems of some god or good genius. They would scarcely
+otherwise have been represented on Persian cylinders as upholding the
+emblem of Ormazd in the same way that human-headed bulls uphold the
+similar emblem of Asshur on Assyrian cylinders. [PLATE LX., Fig. 2.]
+Their position, too, at Persepolis, where they kept watch over the
+entrance to the palace, accords with the notion that they represented
+guardian spirits, objects of the favorable regard of the Persians. Yet
+this view is not wholly free from difficulty. The bull appears in
+the bas-reliefs of Persepolis among the evil, or at any rate hostile,
+powers, which the king combats and slays; and though in these
+representations the animal is not winged or human-headed, yet on some
+cylinders apparently Persian, the monarch contends with bulls of exactly
+the same type as that which is assigned in other cylinders to the
+upholders of Ormazd. It would seem therefore that in this case the
+symbolism was less simple than usual, the bull in certain combinations
+and positions representing a god or a good spirit, while in others he
+was the type of a deva or evil genius.
+
+
+[[Illustration: PLATE LX.]
+
+
+The most common representatives of the Evil Powers of the mythology
+were lions, winged or unwinged, and monsters of several different
+descriptions. At Persepolis the lions which the king stabs or strangles
+are of the natural shape, and this type is found also upon gems and
+cylinders; but on these last the king’s antagonist is often a winged,
+while sometimes he is a winged and horned, lion. [PLATE LX., Fig. 3.]
+The monsters are of two principal types. In both the forms of a bird and
+a beast are commingled; but in the one the bird, and in the other the
+beast predominates. Specimens are given [PLATE LX., Fig. 4] taken from
+Persian gems and cylinders.
+
+Such seems to have been, in outline, the purer and more ancient form
+of the Persian religion. During its continuance a fierce iconoclastic
+spirit animated the princes of the Empire, who took every opportunity of
+showing their hatred and contempt for the idolatries of the neighboring
+nations, burning temples, confiscating or destroying images, scourging
+or slaying idolatrous priests, putting a stop to festivals,
+disturbing tombs, smiting with the sword animals believed to be divine
+incarnations. Within their own dominions the fear of stirring up
+religious wars compelled them to be moderately tolerant, unless it
+were after rebellion, when a province lay at their mercy; but when they
+invaded foreign countries, they were wont to exhibit in the most open
+and striking way their aversion to materialistic religions. In Greece,
+during the great invasion, they burned every temple that they came near;
+in Egypt, on their first attack, they outraged every religious feeling
+of the people.
+
+It was during this time of comparative purity, when the anti-idolatrous
+spirit was in full force, that a religious sympathy seems to have drawn
+together the two nations of the Persians and the Jews. Cyrus evidently
+identified Jehovah with Ormazd, and, accepting as a divine command the
+prophecy of Isaiah, undertook to rebuild their temple for a people who,
+like his own, allowed no image of God to defile the sanctuary. Darius,
+similarly, encouraged the completion of the work, after it had been
+interrupted by the troubles which followed the death of Cambyses. The
+foundation was thus laid for that friendly intimacy between the two
+peoples, of which we have abundant evidence in the books of Ezra,
+Nehemiah, and Esther, a friendly intimacy which caused the Jews to
+continue faithful to Persia to the last, and to brave the conqueror
+of Issus rather than desert masters who had shown them kindness and
+sympathy.
+
+The first trace that we have of a corrupting influence being brought
+to bear on the Persian religion is connected with the history of the
+pseudo-Smerdis. According to Herodotus, Cambyses, when he set out on
+his Egyptian expedition, left a Magus, Patizeithes, at the capital, as
+comptroller of the royal household. The conferring of an office of such
+importance on the priest of an alien religion is the earliest indication
+which we have of a diminution of zeal for their ancestral creed on the
+part of the Achaemenian kings, and the earliest historical proof of the
+existence of Magism beyond the limits of Media. Magism was really, it
+is probable, an older creed than Zoroastrianism in the country where the
+Persians were settled; but it now, for the first time since the Persian
+conquest, began to show itself, to thrust itself into high places, and
+to attract general notice. From being the religion of the old Scythic
+tribes whom the Persians had conquered and whom they held in subjection,
+it had passed into being the religion of great numbers of the Persians
+themselves. The same causes which had corrupted Zoroastrianism in Media
+soon after the establishment of the Empire, worked also, though more
+slowly, in Persia, and a large section of the nation was probably weaned
+from its own belief, and won over to Magism, before Cambyses went
+into Egypt. His prolonged absence in that country brought matters to
+a crisis. The Magi took advantage of it to attempt a substitution
+of Magism for Zoroastrianism as the religion of the state. When
+this attempt failed, there was no doubt a reaction for a time, and
+Zoroastrianism thought itself triumphant. But a foe is generally most
+dangerous when he is despised. Magism, repulsed in its attempt to oust
+the rival religion, derived wisdom from the lesson, and thenceforth set
+itself to sap the fortress which it could not storm. Little by little
+it crept into favor, mingling itself with the old Arian creed, not
+displacing it, but only adding to it. In the later Persian system the
+Dualism of Zoroaster and the Magian elemental worship were jointly
+professed--the Magi were accepted as the national priests--the rights
+and ceremonies of the two religions were united--a syncretism not
+unusual in the ancient world blended into one two creeds originally
+quite separate and distinct, but in few respects antagonistic--and the
+name of Zoroaster being still fondly cherished in the memory of the
+nation, while in their practical religion Magian rites predominated,
+the mixed religion acquired the name, by which it was known to the later
+Greeks, of “the Magism of Zoroaster.”
+
+The Magian rites have been described in the chapter on the Median
+Religion. Their leading feature was the fire-worship, which is still
+cherished among those descendants of the ancient Persians who did
+not submit to the religion of Islam. On lofty spots in the high
+mountain-chain which traversed both Media and Persia, fire-altars were
+erected, on which burnt a perpetual flame, watched constantly lest it
+should expire, and believed to have been kindled from heaven. Over the
+altar in most instances a shrine or temple was built; and on these
+spots day after day the Magi chanted their incantations, displayed
+their barsoms or divining-rods, and performed their choicest ceremonies.
+Victims were not offered on these fire-altars. When a sacrifice took
+place, a fire was laid hard-by with logs of dry wood, stript of their
+bark, and this was lighted from the flame which burned on the altar.
+On the fire thus kindled was consumed a small part of the fat of the
+victim; but the rest was cut into joints, boiled, and eaten or sold
+by the worshipper. The true offering, which the god accepted, was,
+according to the Magi, the soul of the animal.
+
+If human victims were ever really offered by the Persians as sacrifices,
+it is to Magian influence that the introduction of this horrid practice
+must be attributed, since it is utterly opposed to the whole spirit of
+Zoroaster’s teaching. An instance of the practice is first reported in
+the reign of Xerxes, when Magism, which had been sternly repressed by
+Darius Hystaspis, began once more to lift its head, crept into favor
+at Court, and obtained a status which it never afterwards forfeited.
+According to Herodotus, the Persians, on their march into Greece,
+sacrificed, at Ennea Hodoi on the Strymon river, nine youths and nine
+maidens of the country, by burying them alive. Herodotus seems to have
+viewed the act as done in propitiation of a god resembling the Grecian
+Pluto; but it is not at all certain that he interpreted it correctly.
+Possibly he mistook a vengeance for a religious ceremony. The Brygi, who
+dwelt at this time in the vicinity of Ennea Hodoi, had given Mardonius
+a severe defeat on a former occasion; and the Persians were apt to
+treasure up such wrongs, and visit them, when occasion offered, with
+extreme severity.
+
+When the Persians had once yielded to the syncretic spirit so far as to
+unite the Magian tenets and practices with their primitive belief, they
+were naturally led on to adopt into their system such portions of the
+other religions, with which they were brought into close contact, as
+possessed an attraction for them. Before the date of Herodotus they had
+borrowed from the Babylonians the worship of a Nature-Goddess, whom the
+Greeks identified at one time with Aphrodite, at another with Artemis,
+at another (probably) with Here, and had thus made a compromise with one
+of the grossest of the idolatries which, theoretically, they despised
+and detested. The Babylonian Venus, called in the original dialect of
+her native country Nana, was taken into the Pantheon of the Persians,
+under the name of Nansea, Anaea, Anaitis, or Tanata, and became in a
+little while one of the principal objects of Persian worship. At first
+idolatry, in the literal sense, was avoided; but Artaxerxes Mnemon, the
+conqueror of Cunaxa, an ardent devotee of the goddess, not content with
+the mutilated worship which he found established, resolved to show his
+zeal by introducing into all the chief cities of the Empire the image
+of his patroness. At Susa, at Persepolis, at Babylon, at Ecbatana, at
+Damascus, at Sardis, at Bactra, images of Anaitis were set up by his
+authority for the adoration of worshippers. It is to be feared that at
+this time, if not before, the lascivious rites were also adopted, which
+throughout the East constituted the chief attraction of the cult of
+Venus.
+
+With the idolatry thus introduced, another came soon to be joined.
+Mithra, so long an object of reverence, if not of actual worship, to
+the Zoroastrians, was in the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, honored, like
+Anaitis, with a statue, and advanced into the foremost rank of deities.
+The exact form which the image took is uncertain; but probability is in
+favor of the well-known type of a human figure slaying a prostrate bull,
+which was to the Greeks and Romans the essential symbol of the Mithraic
+worship. The intention of this oft-repeated group has been well
+explained by Hyde, who regards it as a representation of the Sun
+quitting the constellation of Taurus, the time when in the East his
+fructifying power is the greatest. The specimens which we possess of
+this group belong to classical art and to times later than Alexander;
+but we can scarcely suppose the idea to have been Occidental. The
+Western artists would naturally adopt the symbolism of those from whom
+they took the rites, merely modifying its expression in accordance with
+their own aesthetic notions.
+
+Towards the close of the Empire two other gods emerged from the
+obscurity in which the lower deities of the Zoroastrian system were
+shrouded during the earlier and purer period. Vohu-manu, or Bah-man,
+and Amerdat, or Amendat, two of the councillors of Ormazd, became the
+objects of a worship, which was clearly of an idolatrous character.
+Shrines were built in their honor, and were frequented by companies
+of Magi, who chanted their incantations, and performed their rites
+of divination in these new edifices as willingly as in the old
+Fire-temples. The image of Bah-man was of wood, and was borne in
+procession on certain occasions.
+
+Thus as time went on, the Persian religion continually assimilated
+itself more and more to the forms of belief and worship which prevailed
+in the neighboring parts of Asia. Idolatries of several kinds came
+into vogue, some adopted from abroad, others developed out of their
+own system. Temples, some of which had a character of extraordinary
+magnificence, were erected to the honor of various gods; and the
+degenerate descendants of pure Zoroastrian spiritualists bowed down to
+images, and entangled themselves in the meshes of a sensualistic and
+most debasing Nature-worship. Still, amid whatsoever corruptions, the
+Dualistic faith was maintained. The supremacy of Ormazd was from first
+to last admitted. Ahriman retained from first to last the same character
+and position, neither rising into an object of worship, nor sinking into
+a mere personification of evil. The inquiries which Aristotle caused to
+be made, towards the very close of the Empire, into the true nature of
+the Persian Religion, showed him Ormazd and Ahriman still recognized
+as Principles, still standing in the same hostile and antithetical
+attitude, one towards the other, which they occupied when the first
+Fargard of the Vendidad was written, long anterior to the rise of the
+Persian Power.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY.
+
+
+“I saw the man pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so
+that no beast might stand before him, neither was there any that could
+deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became
+great.”--Daniel, viii. 4.
+
+
+The history of the Persian Empire dates from the conquest of Astyages by
+Cyrus, and therefore commences with the year B.C. 558. But the present
+inquiry must be carried considerably further back, since in this, as
+in most other cases, the Empire grew up out of a previously existing
+monarchy. Darius Hystaspis reckons that there had been eight Persians
+kings of his race previously to himself; and though it is no doubt
+possible that some of the earlier names may be fictitious, yet we can
+scarcely suppose that he was deceived, or that he wished to deceive, as
+to the fact that long anterior to his own reign, or that of his elder
+contemporary, Cyrus, Persia had been a monarchy, governed by a line of
+princes of the same clan, or family, with himself. It is our business in
+this place, before entering upon the brilliant period of the Empire, to
+cast a retrospective glance over the earlier ages of obscurity, and
+to collect therefrom such scattered notices as are to be found of the
+Persians and their princes or kings before they suddenly attracted
+the general attention of the civilized world by their astonishing
+achievements under the great Cyrus.
+
+The more ancient of-the sacred books of the Jews, while distinctly
+noticing the nation of the Medes, contain no mention at all of Persia
+or the Persians. The Zendavesta, the sacred volume of the people
+themselves, is equally silent on the subject. The earliest appearance
+of the Persians in history is in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings,
+which begin to notice them about the middle of the ninth century B.C.
+At this time Shalmaneser II. found them in south-western Armenia, where
+they were in close contact with the Medes, of whom, however, they seem
+to have been wholly independent. Like the modern Kurds in this same
+region, they owned no subjection to a single head, but were under the
+government of numerous petty chieftains, each the lord of a single town
+or of a small mountain district. Shalmaneser informs us that he took
+tribute from twenty-five such chiefs. Similar tokens of submission were
+paid also to his son and grandson. After this the Assyrian records are
+silent as to the Persians for nearly a century, and it is not until the
+reign of Sennacherib that we once more find them brought into contact
+with the power which aspired to be mistress of Asia. At the time of
+their reappearance they are no longer in Armenia, but have descended the
+line of Zagros and reached the districts which lie north and north-east
+of Susiana, or that part of the Bakhtiyari chain which, if it is not
+actually within Persia Proper, at any rate immediately adjoins upon it.
+Arrived thus far, it was easy for them to occupy the region to which
+they have given permanent name; for the Bakhtiyari mountains command it
+and give a ready access to its valleys and plains.
+
+The Persians would thus appear not to have completed their migrations
+till near the close of the Assyrian period, and it is probable that
+they did not settle into an organized monarchy much before the fall of
+Nineveh. At any rate we hear of no Persian ruler of note or name in the
+Assyrian records, and the reign of petty chiefs would seem therefore to
+have continued at least to the time of Asshur-bani-pal, up to which date
+we have ample records. The establishment, however, about the year
+B.C. 660, or a little later, of a powerful monarchy in the kindred and
+neighboring Media, could not fail to attract attention, and might well
+provoke imitation in Persia; and the native tradition appears to have
+been that about this time. Persian royalty began in the person of a
+certain Achaemenes (Hakhamanish), from whom all their later monarchs,
+with one possible exception, were proud to trace their descent.
+
+The name Achaemenes cannot fail to arouse some suspicion. The Greek
+genealogies render us so familiar with heroes eponymi--imaginary
+personages, who owe their origin to the mere fact of the existence
+of certain tribe or race names, to account for which they were
+invented--that whenever, even in the history of other nations, we
+happen upon a name professedly personal, which stands evidently in close
+connection with a tribal designation, we are apt at once to suspect it
+of being fictitious. But in the East tribal and even ethnic names
+were certainly sometimes derived from actual persons; and it may be
+questioned whether the Persians, or the Iranic stock generally, had the
+notion of inventing personal eponyms. The name Achaemenes, therefore,
+in spite of its connection with the royal clan name of Achaemenidae, may
+stand as perhaps that of a real Persian king, and, if so, as probably
+that of the first king, the original founder of the monarchy, who united
+the scattered tribes in one, and thus raised Persia into a power of
+considerable importance.
+
+The immediate successor of Achaemenes appears to have been his son,
+Teispes. Of him and of the next three monarchs, the information that
+we possess is exceedingly scanty. The very names of one or two in the
+series are uncertain. One tradition assigns either to the second or the
+fourth king of the list the establishment of friendly relations with
+a certain Pharnaces, King of Cappadocia, by an intermarriage between a
+Persian princess, Atossa, and the Cappadocian monarch. The existence
+of communication at this time between petty countries politically
+unconnected, and placed at such a distance from one another as
+Cappadocia and Persia, is certainly what we should not have expected;
+but our knowledge of the general condition of Western Asia at the period
+is too slight to justify us in a positive rejection of the story, which
+indicates, if it be true, that even during this time of comparative
+obscurity, the Persian monarchs were widely known, and that their
+alliance was thought a matter of importance.
+
+The political condition of Persia under these early monarchs is a more
+interesting question than either the names of the kings or the foreign
+alliances which they attracted. According to Herodotus, that condition
+was one of absolute and unqualified subjection to the sway of the Medes,
+who conquered Persia and imposed their yoke upon the people before
+the year B.C. 634. The native records, however, and the accounts which
+Xenophon preferred, represent Persia as being at this time a separate
+and powerful state, either wholly independent of Media, or, at any
+rate, held in light bonds of little more than nominal dependence. On the
+whole, it appears most probable that the true condition of the country
+was that which this last phrase expresses. It maybe doubted whether
+there had ever been a conquest; but the weaker and less developed of
+the two kindred states owned the suzerainty of the stronger, and though
+quite unshackled in her internal administration, and perhaps not very
+much interfered with in her relations towards foreign countries, was,
+formally, a sort of Median fief, standing nearly in the position in
+which Egypt now stands to Turkey. The position was irksome to the
+sovereigns rather than unpleasant to the people. It detracted from the
+dignity of the Persian monarchs, and injured their self-respect; it
+probably caused them occasional inconvenience, since from time to time
+they would have to pay their court to their suzerain; and it seems
+towards the close of the Median period to have involved an obligation
+which must have been felt, if not as degrading, at any rate as very
+disagreeable. The monarch appears to have been required to send his
+eldest son as a sort of hostage to the Court of his superior, where he
+was held in a species of honorable captivity, not being allowed to
+quit the Court and return home without leave, but being otherwise well
+treated. The fidelity of the father was probably supposed to be in this
+way secured while it might be hoped that the son would be conciliated,
+and made an attached and willing dependent.
+
+When Persian history first fairly opens upon us in the pages of Xenophon
+and of Nicolaus Damascenus, this is the condition of things which we
+find existing. Cambyses, the father of Cyrus the Great--called Atradates
+by the Syrian writer--is ruler of Persia, and resides in his native
+country, while his son Cyrus is permanently, or at any rate usually,
+resident at the Median Court, where he is in high favor with the
+reigning monarch, Astyages. According to Xenophon, who has here the
+support of Herodotus, he is Astyages’ grandson, his father, Cambyses,
+being married to Mandane, that monarch’s daughter. According to
+Nicolaus, who in this agrees with Ctesias, he is no way related to
+Astyages, who retains him at his court because he is personally attached
+to him. In the narrative of the latter writer, which has already been
+preferred in these volumes, the young prince, while at the Court,
+conceives the idea of freeing his own country by a revolt, and enters
+into secret communication with his father for the furtherance of his
+object. His father somewhat reluctantly assents, and preparations are
+made, which lead to the escape of Cyrus and the commencement of a war
+of independence. The details of the struggle, as they are related by
+Nicolaus, have been already given. After repeated defeats, the Persians
+finally make a stand at Pasargadae, their capital, where in two great
+battles they destroy the power of Astyages, who himself remains a
+prisoner in the hands of his adversary.
+
+In the course of the struggle the father of Cyrus had fallen, and its
+close, therefore, presented Cyrus himself before the eyes of the Western
+Asiatics as the undisputed lord of the great Arian Empire which had
+established itself on the ruins of the Semitic. Transfers of sovereignty
+are easily made in the East, where independence is little valued,
+and each new conqueror is hailed with acclamations from millions. It
+mattered nothing to the bulk of Astyages’ subjects whether they were
+ruled from Ecbatana or Pasargadae, by Median or Persian masters. Fate
+had settled that a single lord was to bear sway over the tribes and
+nations dwelling between the Persian Gulf and the Euxine; and the
+arbitrament of the sword had now decided that this single lord should be
+Cyrus. We may readily believe the statement of Nicolaus that the nations
+previously subject to the Medes vied with each other in the celerity
+and zeal with which they made their submission to the Persian conqueror.
+Cyrus succeeded at once to the full inheritance of which he had
+dispossessed Astyages, and was recognized as king by all the tribes
+between the Halys and the desert of Khorassan.
+
+He was at this time, if we may trust Dino, exactly forty years of age,
+and was thus at that happy period in life when the bodily powers
+have not yet begun to decay, while the mental are just reaching their
+perfection. Though we may not be able to trust implicitly the details of
+the war of independence which have come down to us, yet there can be no
+doubt that he had displayed in its course very remarkable courage and
+conduct. He had intended, probably, no more than to free his country
+from the Median yoke; by the force of circumstances he had been led on
+to the destruction of the Median power, and to the establishment of a
+Persian Empire in its stead. With empire had come an enormous accession
+of wealth. The accumulated stores of ages, the riches of the Ninevite
+kings--the “gold,” the “silver,” and the “pleasant furniture” of those
+mighty potentates, of which there was “none end”--together with all the
+additions made to these stores by the Median monarchs, had fallen into
+his hands, and from comparative poverty he had come per saltum into the
+position of one of the wealthiest--if not of the very wealthiest--of
+princes. An ordinary Oriental would have been content with such a
+result, and have declined to tempt fortune any more. But Cyrus was
+no ordinary Oriental. Confident in his own powers, active, not to say
+restless, and of an ambition that nothing could satiate, he viewed,
+the position which he had won simply as a means of advancing himself to
+higher eminence. According to Ctesias, he was scarcely seated upon the
+throne, when he led an expedition to the far north-east against the
+renowned Bactrians and Sacans; and at any rate, whether this be true or
+no--and most probably it is an anticipation of later occurrences--it
+is certain that, instead of folding his hands, Cyrus proceeded with
+scarcely a pause on a long career of conquest, devoting his whole life
+to the carrying out of his plans of aggression, and leaving a portion
+of his schemes, which were too extensive for one life to realize, as a
+legacy to his successor. The quarter to which he really first turned
+his attention seems to have been the north-west. There, in the somewhat
+narrow but most fertile tract between the river Halys and the Egean Sea,
+was a state which seemed likely to give him trouble--a state which had
+successfully resisted all the efforts of the Medes to reduce it, and
+which recently, under a warlike prince, had shown a remarkable power
+of expansion. An instinct of danger warned the scarce firmly-settled
+monarch to fix his eye at once upon Lydia; in the wealthy and successful
+Croesus, the Lydian king, he saw one whom dynastic interests might
+naturally lead to espouse the quarrel of the conquered Mede, and whose
+power and personal qualities rendered him a really formidable rival.
+
+The Lydian monarch, on his side, did not scruple to challenge a contest.
+The long strife which his father had waged with the great Cyaxares
+had terminated in a close alliance, cemented by a marriage, which made
+Croesus and Astyages brothers. The friendship of the great power of
+Western Asia, secured by this union, had set Lydia free to pursue
+a policy of self-aggrandizement in her own immediate, neighborhood.
+Rapidly, one after another, the kingdoms of Asia Minor had been reduced;
+and, excepting the mountain districts of Lycia and Cilicia, all Asia
+within the Halys now owned the sway of the Lydian king. Contented with
+his successes, and satisfied that the tie of relationship secured him
+from attack on the part of the only power which he had need to fear,
+Croesus had for some years given himself up to the enjoyment of his
+gains and to an ostentatious display of his magnificence. It was a rude
+shock to the indolent and self-complacent dreams of a sanguine optimism,
+which looked that “to-morrow should be as to-day, only much more
+abundant,” when tidings came that revolution had raised its head in the
+far south-east, and that an energetic prince, in the full vigor of life,
+and untrammelled by dynastic ties, had thrust the aged Astyages from
+his throne, and girt his own brows with the Imperial diadem. Croesus,
+according to the story, was still in deep grief on account of the
+untimely death of his eldest son, when the intelligence reached
+him. Instantly rousing himself from his despair, he set about his
+preparations for the struggle, which his sagacity saw to be inevitable.
+After consultation of the oracles of Greece, he allied himself with the
+Grecian community, which appeared to him on the whole to be the most
+powerful. At the same time he sent ambassadors to Babylon and Memphis,
+to the courts of Labynetus and Amasis, with proposals for an alliance
+offensive and defensive between the three secondary powers of the
+Eastern world against that leading power whose superior strength and
+resources were felt to constitute a common danger. His representations
+were effectual. The kings of Babylon and Egypt, alive to their own
+peril, accepted his proposals; and a joint league was formed between the
+three monarchs and the republic of Sparta for the purpose of resisting
+the presumed aggressive spirit of the Medo-Persians.
+
+Cyrus, meanwhile, was not idle. Suspecting that a weak point in his
+adversary’s harness would be the disaffection of some of his more
+recently conquered subjects, he sent emissaries into Asia Minor to sound
+the dispositions of the natives. These emissaries particularly addressed
+themselves to the Asiatic Greeks, who, coming of a freedom-loving stock,
+and having been only very lately subdued, would it was thought, be
+likely to catch at an opportunity of shaking off the yoke of their
+conqueror. But, reasonable as such hopes must have seemed, they were in
+this instance doomed to disappointment. The Ionians, instead of hailing
+Cyrus as a liberator, received his overtures with suspicion. They
+probably thought that they were sure not to gain, and that they might
+possibly lose, by a change of masters. The yoke of Croesus had not,
+perhaps, been very oppressive; at any rate it seemed to them preferable
+to “bear the ills they had,” rather than “fly to others” which might
+turn out less tolerable.
+
+Disappointed in this quarter, the Persian prince directed his efforts to
+the concentration of a large army, and its rapid advance into a position
+where it would be excellently placed both for defence and attack. The
+frontier province of Cappadocia, which was only separated from the
+dominions of the Lydian monarch by a stream of moderate size, the
+Halys, was a most defensible country, extremely fertile and productive,
+abounding in natural fastnesses, and inhabited by a brave and warlike
+population. Into this district Cyrus pushed forward his army with all
+speed, taking, as it would seem, not the short route through Diarbekr,
+Malatiyah, and Gurun, along which the “Royal Road” afterwards ran,
+but the more circuitous one by Erzerum, which brought him into Northern
+Cappadocia, or Pontus, as it was called by the Romans. Here, in a
+district named Pteria, which cannot have been very far from the coast,
+he found his adversary, who had crossed the Halys, and taken several
+Cappadocian towns, among which was the chief city of the Pterians.
+Perceiving that his troops considerably outnumbered those of Crcesus, he
+lost no time in giving him battle. The action was fought in the Pterian
+country, and was stoutly contested, terminating at nightfall without any
+decisive advantage to either party. The next day neither side made any
+movement; and Crcesus, concluding from his enemy’s inaction that, though
+he had not been able to conquer him, he had nothing to fear from
+his desire of vengeance or his spirit of enterprise, determined on
+a retreat. He laid the blame of his failure, we are told, on the
+insufficient number of his troops, and purposed to call for the
+contingents of his allies, and renew the war with largely augmented
+forces in the ensuing spring.
+
+Cyrus, on his part, allowed the Lydians to retire unmolested, thus
+confirming his adversary in the mistaken estimate which he had formed of
+Persian courage and daring. Anticipating the course which Croesus would
+adopt under the circumstances, he kept his army well in hand, and, as
+soon as the Lydians were clean gone, he crossed the Halys, and marched
+straight upon Sardis. Croesus, deeming himself safe from molestation,
+had no sooner reached his capital than he had dismissed the bulk of
+his troops to their homes for the winter, merely giving them orders to
+return in the spring, when he hoped to have received auxiliaries
+from Sparta, Babylon, and Egypt. Left thus almost without defence, he
+suddenly heard that his audacious foe had followed on his steps, had
+ventured into the heart of his dominions, and was but a short distance
+from the capital. In this crisis he showed a spirit well worthy of
+admiration. Putting himself at the head of such an army of native
+Lydians as he could collect at a few hours’ notice, he met the advancing
+foe in the rich plain a little to the east of Sardis, and gave him
+battle immediately. It is possible that even under these disadvantageous
+circumstances he might in fair fight have been victorious, for the
+Lydian cavalry were at this time excellent, and decidedly superior
+to the Persian. But Cyrus, aware of their merits, had recourse to
+stratagem, and by forming his camels in front, so frightened the Lydian
+horses that they fled from the field. The riders dismounted and fought
+on foot, but their gallantry was unavailing. After a prolonged and
+bloody combat the Lydian army was defeated, and forced to take refuge
+behind the walls of the capital.
+
+Croesus now in hot haste sent off fresh messengers to his allies,
+begging them to come at once to his assistance. He had still a good hope
+of maintaining himself till their arrival, for his city was defended
+by walls, and was regarded by the natives as impregnable. An attempt to
+storm the defences failed; and the siege must have been turned into
+a blockade but for an accidental discovery. A Persian soldier had
+approached to reconnoitre the citadel on the side where it was strongest
+by nature, and therefore guarded with least care, when he observed one
+of the garrison descend the rock after his helmet, which had fallen from
+his head, pick it up, and return with it. Being an expert climber, he
+attempted the track thus pointed out to him, and succeeded in reaching
+the summit. Several of his comrades followed in his steps; the citadel
+was surprised, and the town taken and plundered.
+
+Thus fell the greatest city of Asia Minor after a siege of fourteen
+days. The Lydian monarch, it is said, narrowly escaped with his life
+from the confusion of the sack; but, being fortunately recognized
+in time, was made prisoner, and brought before Cyrus. Cyrus at first
+treated him with some harshness, but soon relented, and, with that
+clemency which was a common characteristic of the earlier Persian kings,
+assigned him a territory for his maintenance, and gave him an honorable
+position at Court, where he passed at least thirty years, in high favor,
+first with Cyrus, and then with Cambyses. Lydia itself was absorbed at
+once into the Persian Empire, together with most of its dependencies,
+which submitted as soon as the fall of Sardis was known. There still,
+however, remained a certain amount of subjugation to be effected. The
+Greeks of the coast, who had offended the Great King by their refusal of
+his overtures, were not to be allowed to pass quietly into the condition
+of tributaries; and there were certain native races in the south-western
+corner of Asia Minor which declined to submit without a struggle to
+the new conqueror. But these matters were not regarded by Cyrus as
+of sufficient importance to require his own personal superintendence.
+Having remained at Sardis for a few weeks, during which time he received
+an insulting message from Sparta, whereto he made a menacing reply, and
+having arranged for the government of the newly-conquered province and
+the transmission of its treasures to Ecbatana, he quitted Lydia for
+the interior, taking Croesus with him, and proceeded towards the
+Median capital. He was bent on prosecuting without delay his schemes
+of conquest in other quarters--schemes of a grandeur and a
+comprehensiveness unknown to any previous monarch.
+
+Scarcely, however, was he departed when Sardis became the scene of an
+insurrection. Pactyas, a Lydian, who had been entrusted with the duty
+of conveying the treasures of Croesus and his more wealthy subjects to
+Ecbatana, revolted against Tabalus, the Persian commandant of the town,
+and being joined by the native population and numerous mercenaries,
+principally Greeks, whom he hired with the treasure that was in his
+hands, made himself master of Sardis, and besieged Tabalus in the
+citadel. The news reached Cyrus while he was upon his march; but,
+estimating the degree of its importance aright, he did not suffer it to
+interfere with his plans. He judged it enough to send a general with
+a strong body of troops to put down the revolt, and continued his own
+journey eastward. Mazares, a Mede, was the officer selected for
+the service. On arriving before Sardis, he found that Pactyas had
+relinquished his enterprise and fled to the coast, and that the revolt
+was consequently at an end. It only remained to exact vengeance. The
+rebellious Lydians were disarmed. Pactyas was pursued with unrelenting
+hostility, and demanded, in succession, of the Cymaeans, the
+Mytilenseans, and the Chians, of whom the last-mentioned surrendered
+him. The Greek cities which had furnished Pactyas with auxiliaries were
+then attacked, and the inhabitants of the first which fell, Priene, were
+one and all sold as slaves.
+
+Mazares soon afterwards died, and was succeeded by Ha-pagus, another
+Mede, who adopted a somewhat milder policy towards the unfortunate
+Greeks. Besieging their cities one by one, and taking them by means
+of banks or mounds piled up against the walls, he, in some instances,
+connived at the inhabitants escaping in their ships, while, in others,
+he allowed them to take up the ordinary position of Persian subjects,
+liable to tribute and military service, but not otherwise molested. So
+little irksome were such terms to the Ionians of this period that even
+those who dwelt in the islands off the coast, with the single exception
+of the Samians--though they ran no risk of subjugation, since the
+Persians did not possess a fleet--accepted voluntarily the same
+position, and enrolled themselves among the subjects of Cyrus.
+
+One Greek continental town alone suffered nothing during this time of
+trouble. When Cyrus refused the offers of submission, which reached him
+from the Ionian and AEolian Greeks after his capture of Sardis, he made
+an exception in favor of Miletus, the most important of all the Grecian
+cities in Asia. Prudence, it is probable, rather than clemency, dictated
+this course, since to detach from the Grecian cause the most powerful
+and influential of the states was the readiest way of weakening the
+resistance they would be able to make. Miletus singly had defied the
+arms of four successive Lydian kings, and had only succumbed at last
+to the efforts of the fifth, Croesus. If her submission had been now
+rejected, and she had been obliged to take counsel of her despair, the
+struggle between the Greek cities and the Persian generals might have
+assumed a different character.
+
+Still more different might have been the result, if the cities
+generally had had the wisdom to follow a piece of advice which the great
+philosopher and statesman of the time, Thales, the Milesian, is said
+to have given them. Thales suggested that the Ionians should form
+themselves into a confederation, to be governed by a congress which
+should meet at Teos, the several cities retaining their own laws and
+internal independence, but being united for military purposes into a
+single community. Judged by the light which later events, the great
+Ionian revolt especially, throw upon it, this advice is seen to have
+been of the greatest importance. It is difficult to say what check, or
+even reverse, the arms of Persia might not have at this time sustained,
+if the spirit of Thales had animated his Asiatic countrymen generally;
+if the loose Ionic Amphictyony, which in reality left each state in
+the hour of danger to its own resources, had been superseded by a
+true federal union, and the combined efforts of the thirteen Ionian
+communities had been directed to a steady resistance of Persian
+aggression and a determined maintenance of their own independence.
+Mazares and Harpagus would almost certainly have been baffled, and the
+Great King himself would probably have been called off from his eastern
+conquests to undertake in person a task which after all he might have
+failed to accomplish.
+
+The fall of the last Ionian town left Harpagus free to turn his
+attention to the tribes of the south-west which had not yet made their
+submission--the Carians, the Dorian Greeks, the Caunians, and the people
+of Lycia. Impressing the services of the newly-conquered Ionians and
+AEolians, he marched first against Caria, which offered but a feeble
+resistance. The Dorians of the continent, Myndians, Halicarnassians, and
+Cnidians. submitted still more tamely, without any struggle at all; but
+the Caunians and Lycians showed a different spirit. These tribes, which
+were ethnically allied, and of a very peculiar type, had never yet, it
+would seem, been subdued by any conqueror. Prizing highly the liberty
+they had enjoyed so long, they defended themselves with desperation.
+When they were defeated in the field they shut themselves up within
+the walls of their chief cities, Caunus and Xanthus, where, finding
+resistance impossible, they set fire to the two places with their own
+hands, burned their wives, children, slaves, and valuables, and then
+sallying forth, sword in hand, fell on the besiegers’ lines, and fought
+till they were all slain.
+
+Meanwhile Cyrus was pursuing a career of conquest in the far east. It
+was now, according to Herodotus, who is, beyond all question, a better
+authority than Ctesias for the reign of Cyrus, that the reduction of the
+Bactrians and the Sacans, the chief nations of what is called by moderns
+Central Asia, took place. Bactria was a country which enjoyed the
+reputation of having been great and glorious at a very early date. In
+one of the most ancient portions of the Zendavesta it was celebrated
+as “Bahhdi eredhwo-drafsha,” or “Bactria” with the lofty banner; and
+traditions not wholly to be despised made it the native country of
+Zoroaster. There is good reason to believe that, up to the date of
+Cyras, it had maintained its independence, or at any rate that it had
+been untouched by the great monarchies which for above seven hundred
+years had borne sway in the western parts of Asia. Its people were
+of the Iranic stock, and retained in their remote and somewhat savage
+country the simple and primitive habits of the race. Though their arms
+were of indifferent character, they were among the best soldiers to
+be found in the East, and always showed themselves a formidable enemy.
+According to Ctesias, when Cyrus invaded them, they fought a pitched
+battle with his army, in which the victory was with neither party.
+They were not, he said, reduced by force of arms at all, but submitted
+voluntarily when they found that Cyrus had married a Median princess.
+Herodotus, on the contrary, seems to include the Bactrians among the
+nations which Cyrus subdued, and probability is strongly in favor of
+this view of the matter. So warlike a nation is not likely to have
+submitted unless to force; nor is there any ground to believe that a
+Median marriage, had Cyrus contracted one, would have made him any the
+more acceptable to the Bactrians.
+
+On the conquest of Bactria followed, we may be tolerably sure, an attack
+upon the Sacae. This people, who must certainly have bordered on the
+Bactrians, dwelt probably either on the Pamir Steppe, or on the high
+plain of Chinese Tartary, east of the Bolar range--the modern districts
+of Kashgar and Yarkand. They were reckoned excellent soldiers. They
+fought with the bow, the dagger, and the battle-axe, and were equally
+formidable on horseback and on foot. In race they were probably Tatars
+or Turanians, and their descendants or their congeners are to be seen
+in the modern inhabitants of these regions. According to Ctesias, their
+women took the field in almost equal numbers with their men; and the
+mixed army which resisted Cyrus amounted, including both sexes, to half
+a million. The king who commanded them was a certain Amorges, who was
+married to a wife called Sparethra. In an engagement with the Persians
+he fell into the enemy’s hands, whereupon Sparethra put herself at the
+head of the Sacan forces, defeated Cyrus, and took so many prisoners
+of importance that the Persian monarch was glad to release Amorges in
+exchange for them. The Sacse, however, notwithstanding this success,
+were reduced, and became subjects and tributaries of Persia.
+
+Among other countries subdued by Cyrus in this neighborhood, probably
+about the same period, may be named Hyrcania, Parthia, Chorasmia,
+Sogdiana, Aria (or Herat), Drangiana, Arachosia, Sattagydia, and
+Gandaria. The brief epitome which we possess of Ctesias omits to make
+any mention of these minor conquests, while Herodotus sums them all
+up in a single line; but there is reason to believe that the Cnidian
+historian gave a methodized account of their accomplishment, of which
+scattered notices have come down to us in various writers. Arrian
+relates that there was a city called Cyropolis, situated on the
+Jaxartes, a place of great strength defended by very lofty walls, which
+had been founded by the Great Cyrus. This city belonged to Sogdiana.
+Pliny states that Capisa, the chief city of Capisene, which lay not far
+from the upper Indus, was destroyed by Cyrus. This place is probably
+Kafshan, a little to the north of Kabul. Several authors tell us that
+the Ariaspse, a people of Drangiana, assisted Cyrus with provisions when
+he was warring in their neighborhood, and received from him in return a
+new name, which the Greeks rendered by “Euergetse”--“Benefactors.” The
+Ariaspae must have dwelt near the Hamoon, or Lake of Seistan. We have
+thus traces of the conqueror’s presence in the extreme north on the
+Jaxartes, in the extreme east in Affghanistan, and towards the south as
+far as Seistan and the Helmend; nor can there be any reasonable doubt
+that he overran and reduced to subjection the whole of that vast tract
+which lies between the Caspian on the west, the Indus valley and the
+desert of Tartary towards the east, the Jaxartes or Sir Deria on the
+north, and towards the south the Great Deserts of Seistan and Khorassan.
+
+More uncertainty attaches to the reduction of the tract lying south
+of these deserts. Tradition said that Cyrus had once penetrated into
+Gedrosia on an expedition against the Indians, and had lost his entire
+army in the waterless and trackless desert; but there is no evidence at
+all that he reduced the country. It appears to have been a portion of
+the Empire in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, but whether that monarch,
+or Cambyses, or the great founder of the Persian power conquered it,
+cannot at present be determined.
+
+The conquest of the vast tract lying between the Caspian and the
+Indus, inhabited (as it was) by a numerous, valiant, and freedom-loving
+population, may well have occupied Cyrus for thirteen or fourteen years.
+Alexander the Great spent in the reduction of this region, after the
+inhabitants had in a great measure lost their warlike qualities, as
+much as five years, or half the time occupied by his whole series of
+conquests. Cyrus could not have ventured on prosecuting his enterprises,
+as did the Macedonian prince, continuously and without interruption,
+marching straight from one country to another without once revisiting
+his capital. He must from time to time have returned to Ecbatana or
+Pasargadae; and it is on the whole most probable that, like the Assyrian
+monarchs, he marched out from home on a fresh expedition almost every
+year. Thus it need cause us no surprise that fourteen years were
+consumed in the subjugation of the tribes and nations beyond the Iranic
+desert to the north and the north-east, and that it was not till B.C.
+539, when he was nearly sixty years of age, that the Persian monarch
+felt himself free to turn his attention to the great kingdom of the
+south.
+
+The expedition of Cyrus against Babylon has been described already.
+Its success added to the Empire the rich and valuable provinces of
+Babylonia, Susiana, Syria, and Palestine, thus augmenting its size by
+about 240,000 or 250,000 square miles. Far more important, however,
+than this geographical increase was the removal of the last formidable
+rival--the complete destruction of a power which represented to the
+Asiatics the old Semitic civilization, which with reason claimed to be
+the heir and the successor of Assyria, and had a history stretching back
+for a space of nearly two thousand years. So long as Babylon, “the
+glory of kingdoms,” “the praise of the whole earth,” retained her
+independence, with her vast buildings, her prestige of antiquity, her
+wealth, her learning, her ancient and grand religious system, she could
+scarcely fail to be in the eyes of her neighbors the first power in the
+world, if not in mere strength, yet in honor, dignity, and reputation.
+Haughty and contemptuous herself to the very last, she naturally imposed
+on men’s minds, alike by her past history and her present pretensions;
+nor was it possible for the Persian monarch to feel that he stood before
+his subjects as indisputably the foremost man upon the earth until he
+had humbled in the dust the pride and arrogance of Babylon. But, with
+the fall of the Great City, the whole fabric of Semetic greatness was
+shattered. Babylon became “an astonishment and a hissing”--all her
+prestige vanished--and Persia stepped manifestly into the place, which
+Assyria had occupied for so many centuries, of absolute and unrivalled
+mistress of Western Asia.
+
+The fall of Babylon was also the fall of an ancient, widely spread,
+and deeply venerated religious system. Not of course, that the religion
+suddenly disappeared or ceased to have votaries, but that, from a
+dominant system, supported by all the resources of the state, and
+enforced by the civil power over a wide extent of territory, it became
+simply one of many tolerated beliefs, exposed to frequent rebuffs and
+insults, and at all times overshadowed by a new and rival system--the
+comparatively pure creed of Zoroastrianism, The conquest of Babylon by
+Persia was, practically, if not a death-blow, at least a severe wound,
+to that sensuous idol-worship which had for more than twenty centuries
+been the almost universal religion in the countries between the
+Mediterranean and the Zagros mountain range. The religion never
+recovered itself--was never reinstated. It survived, a longer or a
+shorter time, in places. To a slight extent it corrupted Zoroastrianism;
+but, on the whole, from the date of the fall of Babylon it declined.
+“Bel bowed down; Nebo stooped;” “Merodach was broken in pieces.”
+ Judgment was done upon the Babylonian graven images; and the system, of
+which they formed a necessary part, having once fallen from its proud
+pre-eminence, gradually decayed and vanished.
+
+Parallel with the decline of the old Semitic idolatry was the advance
+of its direct antithesis, pure spiritual Monotheism. The same blow which
+laid the Babylonian religion in the dust struck off the fetters from
+Judaism. Purified and refined by the precious discipline of adversity,
+the Jewish system, which Cyrus, feeling towards it a natural sympathy,
+protected, upheld, and replaced in its proper locality, advanced from
+this time in influence and importance, leavening little by little the
+foul mass of superstition and impurity which came in contact with it.
+Proselytism grew more common. The Jews spread themselves wider. The
+return from, the captivity, which Cyrus authorized almost immediately
+after the capture of Babylon, is the starting point from which we may
+trace a gradual enlightenment of the heathen world by the dissemination
+of Jewish beliefs and practices--such dissemination being greatly helped
+by the high estimation in which the Jewish system was held by the civil
+authority, both while the empire of the Persians lasted, and when power
+passed to the Macedonians.
+
+On the fall of Babylon its dependencies seem to have submitted to
+the conqueror, with a single exception. Phoenicia, which had never
+acquiesced contentedly either in Assyrian or in Babylonian rule, saw,
+apparently, in the fresh convulsion that was now shaking the East, an
+opportunity for recovering autonomy. It was nearly half a century since
+her last struggle to free herself had terminated unsuccessfully. A new
+generation had grown up since that time--a generation which had seen
+nothing of war, and imperfectly appreciated its perils. Perhaps some
+reliance was placed on the countenance and support of Egypt, which, it
+must have been felt, would view with satisfaction any obstacle to the
+advance of a power wherewith she was sure, sooner or later, to come into
+collision. At any rate, it was resolved to make the venture. Phoenicia,
+on the destruction of her distant suzerain, quietly resumed her freedom;
+abstained from making any act of submission to the conqueror; while,
+however, at the same time, she established friendly relations for
+commercial purposes with one of the conqueror’s vassals, the prince who
+had been sent into Palestine to re-establish the Jews at Jerusalem.
+
+It might have been expected that Cyrus, after his conquest of Babylon,
+would have immediately proceeded towards the south-west. The reduction
+of Egypt had, according to Herodotus, been embraced in the designs which
+he formed fifteen years earlier. The non-submission of Phoenicia
+must have been regarded as an act of defiance which deserved signal
+chastisement. It has been suspected that the restoration of the Jews was
+prompted, at least in part, by political motives, and that Cyrus, when
+he re-established them in their country, looked to finding them of use
+to him in the attack which he was meditating upon Egypt. At any rate it
+is evident that their presence would have facilitated his march through
+Palestine, and given him a _point d’appui_, which could not but have
+been of value. These considerations make it probable that an Egyptian
+expedition would have been determined on, had not circumstances occurred
+to prevent it.
+
+What the exact circumstances were, it is impossible to determine.
+According to Herodotus, a sudden desire seized Cyrus to attack the
+Massagetae, who bordered his Empire to the north-east. He led his troops
+across the Araxes (Jaxartes?), defeated the Massagetae by stratagem in
+a great battle, but was afterwards himself defeated and slain, his body
+falling into the enemy’s hands, who treated it with gross indignity.
+According to Ctesias, the people against whom he made his expedition
+were the Derbices, a nation bordering upon India, Assisted by Indian
+allies, who lent them a number of elephants, this people engaged Cyrus,
+and defeated him in a battle, wherein he received a mortal wound.
+Reinforced, however, by a body of Sacae, the Persians renewed the
+struggle, and gained a complete victory, which was followed by the
+submission of the nation. Cyrus, however, died of his wound on the third
+day after the first battle.
+
+This conflict of testimony clouds with uncertainty the entire closing
+scene of the life of Cyrus. All that we can lay down as tolerably well
+established is, that instead of carrying out his designs against Egypt,
+he engaged in hostilities with one of the nations on his north-eastern
+frontier, that he conducted the war with less than his usual success,
+and in the course of it received a wound of which he died (B.C. 529),
+after he had reigned nine-and-twenty years. That his body did not fall
+into the enemy’s hands appears, however, to be certain from the fact
+that it was conveyed into Persia Proper, and buried at Pasargadae.
+
+It may be suspected that this expedition, which proved so disastrous to
+the Persian monarch, was not the mere wanton act which it appears to be
+in the pages of our authorities. The nations of the north-east were at
+all times turbulent and irritable, with difficulty held in check by the
+civilized power that bore rule in the south and west. The expedition
+of Cyrus, whether directed against the Massagetae or the Derbices, was
+probably intended to strike terror into the barbarians of these regions,
+and was analogous to those invasions which were undertaken under the
+wisest of the Roman Emperors, across the Rhine and Danube, against
+Germans, Goths, and Sarmatae. The object of such inroads was not to
+conquer, but to alarm--it was hoped by an imposing display of organized
+military force to deter the undisciplined hordes of the prolific North
+from venturing across the frontier and carrying desolation through large
+tracts of the Empire. Defensive warfare has often an aggressive look. It
+may have been solely with the object of protecting his own territories
+from attack that Cyrus made his last expedition across the Jaxertes, or
+towards the upper Indus.
+
+The character of Cyrus, as represented to us by the Greeks, is the
+most favorable that we possess of any early Oriental monarch. Active,
+energetic, brave, fertile in stratagems, he has all the qualities
+required to form a successful military chief. He conciliates his people
+by friendly and familiar treatment, but declines to spoil them by
+yielding to their inclinations when they are adverse to their true
+interests. He has a ready humor, which shows itself in smart sayings and
+repartees, that take occasionally the favorite Oriental turn of parable
+or apologue. He is mild in his treatment of the prisoners that fall into
+his hands, and ready to forgive even the heinous crime of rebellion. He
+has none of the pride of the ordinary eastern despot, but converses on
+terms of equality with those about him. We cannot be surprised that the
+Persians, contrasting him with their later monarchs, held his memory
+in the highest veneration, and were even led by their affection for
+his person to make his type of countenance their standard of physical
+beauty.
+
+The genius of Cyrus was essentially that of a conqueror, not of an
+administrator. There is no trace of his having adopted anything like a
+uniform system for the government of the provinces which he subdued.
+In Lydia he set up a Persian governor, but assigned certain important
+functions to a native; in Babylon he gave the entire direction of
+affairs into the hands of a Mede, to whom he allowed the title and style
+of king; in Judaea he appointed a native, but made him merely “governor”
+ or “deputy;” in Sacia he maintained as tributary king the monarch who
+had resisted his arms. Policy may have dictated the course pursued
+in each instance, which may have been suited to the condition of the
+several provinces; but the variety allowed was fatal to consolidation,
+and the monarchy, as Cyrus left it, had as little cohesion as any of
+those by which it was preceded.
+
+Though originally a rude mountain-chief, Cyrus, after he succeeded to
+empire, showed himself quite able to appreciate the dignity and value
+of art. In his constructions at Pasargadae he combined massiveness
+with elegance, and manifested a taste at once simple and refined. He
+ornamented his buildings with reliefs of an ideal character. It is
+probably to him that we owe the conception of the light tapering stone
+shaft, which is the glory of Persian architecture. If the more massive
+of the Persepolitan buildings are to be ascribed to him, we must regard
+him as haying fixed the whole plan and arrangement which was afterwards
+followed in all Persian palatial edifices.
+
+In his domestic affairs Cyrus appears to have shown the same moderation
+and simplicity which we observe in his general conduct. He married, as
+it would seem, one wife only, Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes,
+who was a member of the royal family. By her he had issue two sons
+and at least three daughters. The sons were Cambyses and Smerdis;
+the daughters Atossa, Artystone, and one whose name is unknown to us.
+Cassandane died before her husband, and was deeply mourned by him.
+Shortly before his own death he took the precaution formally to settle
+the succession. Leaving the general inheritance of his vast dominions to
+his elder son, Cambyses, he declared it to be his will that the younger
+should be entrusted with the actual government of several large and
+important provinces. He thought by this plan to secure the well-being of
+both the youths, never suspecting that he was in reality consigning
+both to untimely ends, and even preparing the way for an extraordinary
+revolution.
+
+The ill effect of the unfortunate arrangement thus made appeared almost
+immediately. Cambyses was scarcely settled upon the throne before he
+grew jealous of his brother, and ordered him to be privately put to
+death. His cruel orders were obeyed, and with so much secrecy that
+neither the mode of the death, nor even the fact, was known to more than
+a few. Smerdis was generally believed to be still alive; and thus an
+opportunity was presented for personation--a form of imposture very
+congenial to Orientals, and one which has often had very disastrous
+consequences. We shall find in the sequel this opportunity embraced, and
+results follow of a most stirring and exciting character.
+
+It required time, however, to bring to maturity the fruits of the crime
+so rashly committed. Cambyses, in the meanwhile, quite unconscious of
+danger, turned his attention to military matters, and determined on
+endeavoring to complete his father’s scheme of conquest by the reduction
+of Egypt. Desirous of obtaining a ground of quarrel less antiquated
+than the alliance, a quarter of a century earlier, between Amasis and
+Croesus, he demanded that a daughter of the Egyptian king should be sent
+to him as a secondary wife. Amasis, too timid to refuse, sent a damsel
+named Nitetis, who was not his daughter; and she, soon after her
+arrival, made Cambyses acquainted with the fraud. A ground of quarrel
+was thus secured, which might be put forward when it suited his purpose;
+and meanwhile every nerve was being strained to prepare effectually
+for the expedition. The difficulty of a war with Egypt lay in her
+inaccessibility. She was protected on all sides by seas or deserts; and,
+for a successful advance upon her from the direction of Asia, it was
+desirable both to obtain a quiet passage for a large army through the
+desert of El-Tij, and also to have the support of a powerful fleet in
+the Mediterranean. This latter was the paramount consideration. An army
+well supplied with camels might carry its provisions and water through
+the desert, and might intimidate or overpower the few Arab tribes which
+inhabited it; but, unless the command of the sea was gained and the
+navigation of the Nile closed, Memphis might successfully resist
+attack. Cambyses appears to have perceived with sufficient clearness
+the conditions on which victory depended, and to have applied himself at
+once to securing them. He made a treaty with the Arab Sheikh who had the
+chief influence over the tribes of the desert; and at the same time
+he set to work to procure the services of a powerful naval force. By
+menaces or negotiations he prevailed upon the Phoenicians to submit
+themselves to his yoke, and having thus obtained a fleet superior to
+that of Egypt, he commenced hostilities by robbing her of a dependency
+which possessed considerable naval strength, in this way still further
+increasing the disparity between his own fleet and that of his enemy.
+Against the combined ships of Phoenicia, Cyprus, Ionia, and AEolis,
+Egypt was powerless, and her fleets seem to have quietly yielded the
+command of the sea. Cambyses was thus able to give his army the support
+of a naval force, as it marched along the coast, from Carmel probably
+to Pelusium; and when, having defeated the Egyptians at the last-named
+place, he proceeded against Memphis, he was able to take possession of
+the Nile, and to blockade the Egyptian capital both by land and water.
+
+It appears that four years were consumed by the Persian monarch in his
+preparations for his Egyptian expedition. It was not until B.C. 525 that
+he entered Egypt at the head of his troops, and fought the great battle
+which decided the fate of the country. The struggle was long and bloody.
+Psammenitus, who had succeeded his father Amasis, had the services, not
+only of his Egyptian subjects, but a large body of mercenaries besides,
+Greeks and Carians. These allies were zealous in his cause, and are said
+to have given him a horrible proof of their attachment. One of
+their body had deserted to the Persians some little time before the
+expedition, and was believed to have given important advice to the
+invader. He had left his children behind in Egypt; and these his former
+comrades now seized, and led out in front of their lines, where they
+slew them before their father’s eyes, and, having so done, mixed their
+blood in a bowl with water and wine, and drank, one and all, of the
+mixture. The battle followed immediately after; but, in spite of their
+courage and fanaticism, the Egyptian army was completely defeated.
+According to Ctesias, fifty thousand fell on the vanquished side, while
+the victors lost no more than seven thousand. Psammenitus, after his
+defeat, threw himself into Memphis, but, being blockaded by land
+and prevented from receiving supplies from the sea, after a stout
+resistance, he surrendered. The captive monarch received the respectful
+treatment which Persian clemency usually accorded to fallen sovereigns.
+Herodotus even goes so far as to intimate that, if he had abstained from
+conspiracy, he would probably have been allowed to continue ruler
+of Egypt, exchanging, of course, his independent sovereignty for a
+delegated kingship held at the pleasure of the Lord of Asia.
+
+The conquest of Egypt was immediately followed by the submission of the
+neighboring tribes. The Libyans of the desert tract which borders the
+Nile valley to the west, and even the Greeks of the more remote Barca
+and Cyrene, sent gifts to the conqueror and consented to become his
+tributaries. But Cambyses placed little value on such petty accessions
+to his power. Inheriting the grandeur of view which had characterized
+his father, he was no sooner master of Egypt than he conceived the idea
+of a magnificent series of conquests in this quarter, whereby he hoped
+to become Lord of Africa no less than of Asia, or at any rate to leave
+himself without a rival of any importance on the vast continent which
+his victorious arms had now opened to him. Apart from Egypt, Africa
+possessed but two powers capable, by their political organization and
+their military strength, of offering him serious resistance. These were
+Ethiopia and Carthage--the one the great power of the South, the equal,
+if not even the superior, of Egypt--the other the great power of the
+West--remote, little known, but looming larger for, the obscurity in
+which she was shrouded, and attractive from her reputed wealth. The
+views of Cambyses comprised the reduction of both these powers, and
+also the conquest of the oasis of Ammon. As a good Zoroastrian, he was
+naturally anxious to exhibit the superiority of Ormazd to all the
+“gods of the nations;” and, as the temple of Ammon in the oasis had the
+greatest repute of all the African shrines, this design would be best
+accomplished by its pillage and destruction. It is probable that he
+further looked to the subjugation of all the tribes on the north coast
+between the Nile valley and the Carthaginian territory; for he would
+undoubtedly have sent an army along the shore to act in concert with his
+fleet, had he decided ultimately on making the expedition. An unexpected
+obstacle, however, arose to prevent him. The Phoenicians, who formed
+the main strength of his navy, declined to take any part in an attack
+on Carthage, since the Carthaginians were their colonists, and the
+relations between the two people had always been friendly. Cambyses
+did not like to force their inclinations, on account of their recent
+voluntary submission; and as, without their aid, his navy was manifestly
+unequal to the proposed service, he felt obliged to desist from the
+undertaking.
+
+While the Carthaginian scheme was thus nipped in the bud, the
+enterprises which Cambyses attempted to carry out led to nothing but
+disaster. An army, fifty thousand strong, despatched from Thebes against
+Ammon, perished to a man amid the sands of the Libyan desert. A still
+more numerous force, led by Cambyses himself towards the Ethiopian
+frontier, found itself short of supplies on its march across Nubia, and
+was forced to return, without glory, after suffering considerable loss.
+It became evident that the abilities of the Persian monarch were
+not equal to his ambition--that he insufficiently appreciated the
+difficulties and dangers of enterprises--while a fatal obstinacy
+prevented him from acknowledging and retrieving an error while retrieval
+was possible. The Persians, we may be sure, grew dispirited under such
+a leader; and the Egyptians naturally took heart. It seems to have
+been shortly after the return of Cambyses from his abortive expedition
+against Ethiopia that symptoms of an intention to revolt began to
+manifest themselves in Egypt. The priests declared an incarnation of
+Apis, and the whole country burst out into rejoicings. It was probably
+now that Psammenitus, who had hitherto been kindly treated by his
+captor, was detected in treasonable intrigues, condemned to death, and
+executed. At the same time, the native officers who had been left in
+charge of the city of Memphis were apprehended and capitally punished.
+Such stringent measures had all the effect that was expected from them;
+they wholly crushed the nascent rebellion; they left, however, behind
+them a soreness, felt alike by the conqueror and the conquered, which
+prevented the establishment of a good understanding between the Great
+King and his new subjects. Cambyses knew that he had been severe, and
+that his severity had made him many enemies; he suspected the people,
+and still more suspected the priests, their natural leaders; he soon
+persuaded himself that policy required in Egypt a departure from the
+principles of toleration which were ordinarily observed towards their
+subjects by the Persians, and a sustained effort on the part of the
+civil power to bring the religion, and its priests, into contempt.
+Accordingly, he commenced a serious of acts calculated to have this
+effect. He stabbed the sacred calf, believed to be incarnate Apis; he
+ordered the body of priests who had the animal in charge to be publicly
+scourged; he stopped the Apis festival by making participation in it a
+capital offence; he opened the receptacles of the dead, and curiously
+examined the bodies contained in them, he intruded himself into the
+chief sanctuary at Memphis, and publicly scoffed at the grotesque
+image of Phtha; finally, not content with outraging in the same way the
+inviolable temple of the Cabeiri, he wound up his insults by ordering
+that their images should be burnt. These injuries and indignities
+rankled in the minds of the Egyptians, and probably had a large share in
+producing that bitter hatred of the Persian yoke which shows itself in
+the later history on so many occasions; but for the time the policy was
+successful: crushed beneath the iron heel of the conqueror--their faith
+in the power of their gods shaken, their spirits cowed, their hopes
+shattered--the Egyptian subjects of Cambyses made up their minds to
+submission. The Oriental will generally kiss the hand that smites him,
+if it only smite hard enough. Egypt became now for a full generation the
+obsequious slave of Persia, and gave no more trouble to her subjugator
+than the weakest or the most contented of the provinces.
+
+The work of subjection completed, Cambyses, having been absent from his
+capital longer than was at all prudent, prepared to return home. He had
+proceeded on his way as far as Syria, when intelligence reached him of
+a most unexpected nature. A herald suddenly entered his camp and
+proclaimed, in the hearing of the whole army, that Cambyses, son of
+Cyrus, had ceased to reign, and that the allegiance of all Persian
+subjects was henceforth to be paid to Smerdis, son of Cyrus. At first,
+it is said, Cambyses thought that his instrument had played him false,
+and that his brother was alive and had actually seized the throne; but
+the assurances of the suspected person, and a suggestion which he made,
+convinced him of the contrary, and gave him a clue to the real solution
+of the mystery. Prexaspes, the nobleman inculpated, knew that the
+so-called Smerdis must be an impostor, and suggested his identity with
+a certain Magus, whose brother had been intrusted by Cambyses with the
+general direction of his household and the care of the palace. He was
+probably led to make the suggestion by his knowledge of the resemblance
+borne by this person to the murdered prince, which was sufficiently
+close to make personation possible. Cambyses was thus enabled to
+appreciate the gravity of the crisis, and to consider whether he could
+successfully contend with it or no. Apparently, he decided in the
+negative. Believing that he could not triumph over the conspiracy
+which had decreed his downfall, and unwilling to descend to a private
+station--perhaps even uncertain whether his enemies would spare his
+life--he resolved to fly to the last refuge of a dethroned king, and
+to end all by suicide. Drawing his short sword from its sheath, he gave
+himself a wound, of which he died in a few days.
+
+It is certainly surprising that the king formed this resolution. He
+was at the head of an army, returning from an expedition, which, if
+not wholly successful, had at any rate added to the empire an important
+province. His father’s name was a tower of strength; and if he could
+only have exposed the imposture that had been practised on them,
+he might have counted confidently on rallying the great mass of the
+Persians to his cause. How was it that he did not advance on the
+capital, and at least strike one blow for empire? No clear and decided
+response can be made to this inquiry; but we may indistinctly discern
+a number of causes which may have combined to produce in the monarch’s
+mind the feeling of despondency whereto he gave way. Although he
+returned from Egypt a substantial conqueror, his laurel wreath was
+tarnished by ill-success; his army, weakened by its losses, and
+dispirited by its failures, was out of heart; it had no trust in
+his capacity as a commander, and could not be expected to fight with
+enthusiasm on his behalf. There is also reason to believe that he was
+generally unpopular on account of his haughty and tyrannical temper,
+and his contempt of law and usage, where they interfered with the
+gratification of his desires. Though we should do wrong to accept as
+true all the crimes laid to his charge by the Egyptians, who detested
+his memory, we cannot doubt the fact of his incestuous marriage with his
+sister, Atossa, which was wholly repugnant to the religious feelings of
+his nation. Nor can we well imagine that there was no foundation at
+all for the stories of the escape of Croesus, the murder of the son
+of Prexaspes, and the execution in Egypt on a trivial charge of twelve
+noble Persians. His own people called Cambyses a “despot” or “master,”
+ in contrast with Cyrus, whom they regarded as a “father,” because, as
+Herodotus says, he was “harsh and reckless,” whereas his father was
+mild and beneficent. Further, there was the religious aspect of the
+revolution, which had taken place, in the background. Cambyses may have
+known that in the ranks of his army there was much sympathy with Magism,
+and may have doubted whether, if the whole conspiracy were laid bare,
+he could count on anything like a general adhesion of his troops to the
+Zoroastrian cause. These various grounds, taken together, go far
+towards accounting for a suicide which at first sight strikes us as
+extraordinary, and is indeed almost unparalleled.
+
+Of the general character of Cambyses little more need be said. He
+was brave, active, and energetic, like his father: but he lacked his
+father’s strategic genius, his prudence, and his fertility in resources.
+Born in the purple, he was proud and haughty, careless of the feelings
+of others, and impatient of admonition or remonstrance. His pride made
+him obstinate in error; and his contempt of others led on naturally
+to harshness, and perhaps even to cruelty. He is accused of “habitual
+drunkenness,” and was probably not free from the intemperance which
+was a common Persian failing; but there is not sufficient ground for
+believing that his indulgence was excessive, much less that it proceeded
+to the extent of affecting his reason. The “madness of Cambyses,”
+ reported to and believed in by Herodotus, was a fiction of the Egyptian
+priests, who wished it to be thought that their gods had in this way
+punished his impiety. The Persians had no such tradition, but merely
+regarded him as unduly severe and selfish. A dispassionate consideration
+of all the evidence on the subject leads to the conclusion that Cambyses
+lived and died in the possession of his reason, having neither destroyed
+it through inebriety nor lost it by the judgment of Heaven.
+
+The death of Cambyses (B.C. 522) left the conspirators, who had
+possession of the capital, at liberty to develop their projects, and
+to take such steps as they thought best for the consolidation and
+perpetuation of their power. The position which they occupied was one
+of peculiar delicacy. On the one hand, the impostor had to guard against
+acting in any way which would throw suspicion on his being really
+Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. On the other, he had to satisfy the Magian
+priests, to whom he was well known, and on whom he mainly depended for
+support, if his imposture should be detected. These priests must have
+desired a change of the national religion, and to effect this must have
+been the true aim and object of the revolution. But it was necessary to
+proceed with the utmost caution. An open proclamation that Magism was
+to supersede Zoroastrianism would have seemed a strange act in an
+Achaemenian prince, and could scarcely have failed to arouse doubts
+which might easily terminate in discovery. The Magian brothers shrank
+from affronting this peril, and resolved, before approaching it, to
+obtain for the new government an amount of general popularity which
+would make its overthrow in fair fight difficult. Accordingly the new
+reign was inaugurated by a general remission of tribute and military
+service for the space of three years--a measure which was certain to
+give satisfaction to all the tribes and nations of the Empire, except
+the Persians. Persia Proper was at all times exempt from tribute, and
+was thus, so far, unaffected by the boon granted, while military service
+was no doubt popular with the ruling nation, for whose benefit the
+various conquests were effected. Still Persia could scarcely take
+umbrage at an inactivity which was to last only three years, while
+to the rest of the Empire the twofold grace accorded must have been
+thoroughly acceptable.
+
+Further to confirm his uncertain hold upon the throne, the
+Pseudo-Smerdis took to wife all the widows of his predecessor. This is
+a practice common in the East; and there can be no doubt that it gives a
+new monarch a certain prestige in the eyes of his people. In the present
+case, however, it involved a danger. The wives of the late king were
+likely to be acquainted with the person of the king’s brother; Atossa,
+at any rate, could not fail to know him intimately. If the Magus allowed
+them to associate together freely, according to the ordinary practice,
+they would detect his imposture and probably find a way to divulge it.
+He therefore introduced a new system into the seraglio. Instead of the
+free intercourse one with another which the royal consorts had enjoyed
+previously, he established at once the principle of complete isolation.
+Each wife was assigned her own portion of the palace; and no visiting
+of one wife by another was permitted. Access to them from without was
+altogether forbidden, even to their nearest relations; and the wives
+were thus cut off wholly from the external world, unless they could
+manage to communicate with it by means of secret messages. But
+precautions of this kind, though necessary, were in themselves
+suspicious; they naturally suggested an inquiry into their cause and
+object. It was a possible explanation of them that they proceeded from
+an extreme and morbid jealousy; but the thought could not fail to occur
+to some that they might be occasioned by the fear of detection.
+
+However, as time went on, and no discovery was actually made, the Magus
+grew bolder, and ventured to commence that reformation of religion which
+he and his order had so much at heart. He destroyed the Zoroastrian
+temples in various places, and seems to have put down the old worship,
+with its hymns in praise of the Zoroastrian deities. He instituted
+Magian rites in lieu of the old ceremonies, and established his
+brother Magians as the priest-caste of the Persian nation. The changes
+introduced were no doubt satisfactory to the Medes, and to many of
+the subject races throughout the Empire. They were even agreeable to a
+portion of the Persian people, who leant towards a more material worship
+and a more gorgeous ceremonial than had contented their ancestors. If
+the faithful worshippers of Ormazd saw them with dismay, they were too
+timid to resist, and tacitly acquiesced in the religious revolution.
+
+In one remote province the change gave a fresh impulse to a religious
+struggle which was there going on, adding strength to the side of
+intolerance. The Jews had now been engaged for fifteen or sixteen years
+in the restoration of their temple, according to the permission granted
+them by Cyrus. Their enterprise was distasteful to the neighboring
+Samaritans, who strained every nerve to prevent its being brought to a
+successful issue, and as each new king mounted the Persian throne,
+made a fresh effort to have the work stopped by authority. Their
+representations had had no effect upon Cambyses; but when they were
+repeated on the accession of the Pseudo-Smerdis, the result was
+different. An edict was at once sent down to Palestine, reversing the
+decree of Cyrus, and authorizing the inhabitants of Samaria to interfere
+forcibly in the matter, and compel the Jews to desist from building.
+Armed with this decree, the Samaritan authorities hastened to Jerusalem,
+and “made the Jews to cease by force and power.”
+
+These revelations of a leaning towards a creed diverse from that of the
+Achaemenian princes, combined with the system of seclusion adopted in
+the palace--a system not limited to the seraglio, but extending also
+to the person of the monarch, who neither quitted the palace precincts
+himself, nor allowed any of the Persian nobles to enter them--must have
+turned the suspicions previously existing into a general belief and
+conviction that the monarch seated on the throne was not Smerdis the son
+of Cyrus, but an impostor. Yet still there was for a while no outbreak.
+It mattered nothing to the provincials who ruled them, provided that
+order was maintained, and that the boons granted them at the opening of
+the new reign were not revoked or modified. Their wishes were no doubt
+in favor of the prince who had remitted their burthens; and in Media a
+peculiar sympathy would exist towards one who had exalted Magism. Such
+discontent as was felt would be confined to Persia, or to Persia and a
+few provinces of the north-east, where the Zoroastrian faith may have
+maintained itself.
+
+At last, among the chief Persians, rumors began to arise. These were
+sternly repressed at the outset, and a reign of terror was established,
+during which men remained silent through fear. But at length some of
+the principal nobles, convinced of the imposture, held secret council
+together, and discussed the measures proper to be adopted under the
+circumstances. Nothing, however, was done until the arrival at the
+capital of a personage felt by all to be the proper leader of the nation
+in the existing crisis. This was Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a
+prince of the blood royal who probably stood in the direct line of the
+succession, failing the issue of Cyrus. At the early age of twenty he
+had attracted the attention of that monarch, who suspected him even then
+of a design to seize the throne. He was now about twenty-eight years
+of age, and therefore at a time of life suited for vigorous enterprise;
+which was probably the reason why his father, Hystaspes, who was still
+alive, sent him to the capital, instead of proceeding thither in person.
+Youth and vigor were necessary qualifications for success in a struggle
+against the holders of power; and Hystaspes no longer possessed those
+advantages. He therefore yielded to his son that headship of the
+movement to which his position would have entitled him; and, with the
+leadership in danger, he yielded necessarily his claim to the first
+place, when the time of peril should be past and the rewards of victory
+should come to be apportioned.
+
+Darius, on his arrival at the capital, was at once accepted as head of
+the conspiracy, and with prudent boldness determined on pushing matters
+to an immediate decision. Overruling the timidity of a party among the
+conspirators, who urged delay, he armed his partisans, and proceeded,
+without a moment’s pause, to the attack. According to the Greek
+historians, he and his friends entered the palace in a body, and
+surprised the Magus in his private apartments, where they slew him
+after a brief struggle. But the authority of Darius discredits the Greek
+accounts, and shows us, though with provoking brevity, that the course
+of events must have been very different. The Magus was not slain in the
+privacy of his palace, at Susa or Ecbatana, but met his death in a small
+and insignificant fort in the part of Media called “the Maesan plain,”
+ or, more briefly, “Nisaea,” whither he appears to have fled with a band
+of followers. Whether he was first attacked in the capital, and escaping
+threw himself into this stronghold, or receiving timely warning of his
+danger withdrew to it before the outbreak occurred, or merely happened
+to be at the spot when the conspirators decided to make their attempt,
+we have no means of determining. We only know that the scene of the
+last struggle was Sictachotes, in Media; that Darius made the attack
+accompanied by six Persian nobles of high rank; and that the contest
+terminated in the slaughter of the Magus and of a number of his
+adherents, who were involved in the fall of their master.
+
+Nor did the vengeance of the successful conspirators stop here.
+Speeding to the capital, with the head of the Magus in their hands, and
+exhibiting everywhere this proof at once of the death of the late king
+and of his imposture, they proceeded to authorize and aid in carrying
+out, a general massacre of the Magian priests, the abettors of the later
+usurpation. Every Magus who could be found was poniarded by the enraged
+Persians; and the caste would have been well-nigh exterminated, if it
+had not been for the approach of night. Darkness brought the carnage
+to an end; and the sword, once sheathed, was not again drawn. Only, to
+complete the punishment of the ambitious religionists who had insulted
+and deceived the nation, the day of the massacre was appointed to be
+kept annually as a solemn festival, under the name of the Magophonia;
+and a law was passed that on that day no Magus should leave his house.
+
+The accession of Darius to the vacant throne now took place (Jan. 1,
+B.C. 521). According to Herodotus it was preceded by a period of debate
+and irresolution, during which the royal authority was, as it were, in
+commission among the Seven; and in this interval he places not only the
+choice of a king, but an actual discussion on the subject of the proper
+form of government to be established. Even his contemporaries, however,
+could see that this last story was unworthy of credit and it may be
+questioned whether any more reliance ought to be placed on the remainder
+of the narrative. Probably the true account of the matter is, that,
+having come to a knowledge of the facts of the case, the heads of the
+seven great Persian clans or families met together in secret conclave
+and arranged all their proceedings beforehand. No government but the
+monarchical could be thought of for a moment, and no one could assert
+any claim to be king but Darius. Darius went into the conspiracy as a
+pretender to the throne: the other six were simply his “faithful men,”
+ his friends and well-wishers. While, however, the six were far from
+disputing Darius’s right, they required and received for themselves a
+guarantee of certain privileges, which may either have belonged to them
+previously, by law or custom, as the heads of the great clans, or may
+have been now for the first time conceded. The king-bound himself to
+choose his wives from among the families of the conspirators only, and
+sanctioned their claim to have free access to his person at all times
+without asking his permission. One of their number, Otanes, demanded and
+obtained even more. He and his house were to remain “free,” and were to
+receive yearly a magnificent kaftan, or royal present. Thus, something
+like a check on unbridled despotism was formally and regularly
+established; an hereditary nobility was acknowledged; the king became
+to some extent dependent on his grandees; he could not regard himself as
+the sole fountain of honor; six great nobles stood round the throne
+as its supports; but their position was so near the monarch that they
+detracted somewhat from his prestige and dignity.
+
+The guarantee of these privileges was, we may be sure, given, and the
+choice of Darius as king made, before the attack upon the. Magus began.
+It would have been madness to allow an interval of anarchy. When
+Darius reached the capital, with the head of the Pseudo-Smerdis in his
+possession, he no doubt proceeded at once to the palace and took his
+seat upon the vacant throne. No opposition was offered to him. The
+Persians gladly saw a scion of their old royal stock installed in power.
+The provincials were too far off to interfere. Such malcontents as
+might be present would be cowed by the massacre that was going on in the
+streets. The friends and intimates of the fallen monarch would be only
+anxious to escape notice. The reign of the new king no doubt commenced
+amid those acclamations which are never wanting in the East when a
+sovereign first shows himself to his subjects.
+
+The measures with which the new monarch inaugurated his reign had for
+their object the re-establishment of the old worship. He rebuilt the
+Zoroastrian temples which the Magus had destroyed, and probably restored
+the use of the sacred chants and the other accustomed ceremonies. It may
+be suspected that his religious zeal proceeded often to the length of
+persecution, and that the Magian priests were not the only persons who,
+under the orders which he issued, felt the weight of the secular arm.
+His Zoroastrian zeal was soon known through the provinces; and the Jews
+forthwith resumed the building of their temple, trusting that their
+conduct would be consonant with his wishes. This trust was not
+misplaced: for, when the Samaritans once more interfered and tried to
+induce the new king to put a stop to the work, the only result was
+a fresh edict, confirming the old decree of Cyrus, forbidding
+interference, and assigning a further grant of money, cattle,
+corn, etc., from the royal stores, for the furtherance of the pious
+undertaking. Its accomplishment was declared to be for the advantage of
+the king and his house, since, when the temple was finished, sacrifices
+would be offered in it to “the God of Heaven,” and prayer would be made
+“for the life of the king and of his sons.” Such was the sympathy which
+still united pure Zoroastrianism with the worship of Jehovah. But the
+reign, which, so far, might have seemed to be auspiciously begun,
+was destined ere long to meet opposition, and even to encounter armed
+hostility, in various quarters. In the loosely organized empires of
+the early type, a change of sovereign, especially if accompanied
+by revolutionary violence, is always regarded as an opportunity for
+rebellion. Doubt as to the condition of the capital paralyzes the
+imperial authority in the provinces; and bold men, taking advantage
+of the moment of weakness, start up in various places, asserting
+independence, and seeking to obtain for themselves kingdoms out of
+the chaos which they see around them. The more remote provinces are
+especially liable to be thus affected, and often revolt successfully on
+such an occasion. It appears that the circumstances under which Darius
+obtained the throne were more than usually provocative of the spirit
+of disaffection and rebellion. Not only did the governors of remote
+countries, like Egypt and Lydia, assume an attitude incompatible with
+their duty as subjects, but everywhere, even in the very heart of the
+Empire, insurrection raised its head; and for six long years the new
+king was constantly employed in reducing one province after another to
+obedience. Susiana, Babylonia, Persia itself, Media, Assyria, Armenia,
+Hyrcania, Parthia, Margiana, Sagartia, and Sacia, all revolted during
+this space, and were successively chastised and recovered. It may
+be suspected that the religious element entered into some of these
+struggles, and that the unusual number of the revolts and the obstinate
+character of many of them were connected with the downfall of Magism and
+the restoration of the pure Zoroastrian faith, which Darius was bent on
+effecting. But this explanation can only be applied partially. We must
+suppose, besides, a sort of contagion of rebellion--an awakening of
+hopes, far and wide, among the subject nations, as the rumor that
+serious troubles had broken out reached them, and a resolution to take
+advantage of the critical state of things, spreading rapidly from one
+people to another.
+
+A brief sketch of these various revolts must now be given. They
+commenced with a rising in Susiana, where a certain Atrines assumed
+the name and state of king, and was supported by the people. Almost
+simultaneously a pretender appeared in Babylon, who gave out that he was
+the son of the late king, Nabonidus, and bore the world-renowned name
+of Nebuchadnezzar. Darius, regarding this second revolt as the more
+important of the two, while he dispatched a force to punish the
+Susianians, proceeded in person against the Babylonian pretender. The
+rivals met at the river Tigris, which the Babylonians held with a naval
+force, while their army was posted on the right bank, ready to dispute
+the passage. Darius, however, crossed the river in their dispute, and,
+defeating the troops of his antagonist, pressed forward against the
+capital. He had nearly reached it, when the pretender gave him battle
+for the second time at a small town on the banks of the Euphrates.
+Fortune again declared in favor of the Persians, who drove the host of
+their enemy into the water and destroyed great numbers. The soi-disant
+Nebuchadnezzar escaped with a few horsemen and threw himself into
+Babylon; but the city was ill prepared for a siege, and was soon taken,
+the pretender falling into the hands of his enemy, who caused him to be
+executed.
+
+Meanwhile, in Susiana, Atrines, the original leader of the rebellion,
+had been made prisoner by the troops sent against him, and, being
+brought to Darius while he was on his march against Babylon, was put to
+death. But this severity had little effect. A fresh leader appeared in
+the person of a certain Martes, a Persian who, taking example from the
+Babylonian rebel, assumed a name which connected him with the old kings
+of the country, and probably claimed to be their descendant, but the
+hands of Darius were now free by the termination of the Babylonian
+contest, and he was able to proceed towards Susiana himself. This
+movement, apparently, was unexpected; for when the Susianians heard of
+it they were so alarmed that they laid hands on the pretender and slew
+him.
+
+A more important rebellion followed. Three of the chief provinces of
+the empire, Media, Armenia, and Assyria, revolted in concert. A Median
+monarch was set up, who called himself Xathrites, and claimed descent
+from the great Oyaxares; and it would seem that the three countries
+immediately acknowledged his sway. Darius, seeing how formidable the
+revolt was, determined to act with caution. Settling himself at the
+newly-conquered city of Babylon, he resolved to employ his generals
+against the rebels, and in this way to gauge the strength of the
+outbreak, before adventuring his own person into the fray. Hydarnes,
+one of the Seven conspirators, was sent into Media with an army, while
+Dadarses, an Armenian, was dispatched into Armenia, and Vomises, a
+Persian, was ordered to march through Assyria into the same country.
+All three generals were met by the forces of the pretender, and several
+battles were fought, with results that seem not to have been very
+decisive. Darius claims the victory on each occasion for his own
+generals; but it is evident that his arms made little progress, and
+that, in spite of several small defeats, the rebellion maintained a bold
+front, and was thought not unlikely to be successful. So strong was
+this feeling that two of the eastern provinces, Hyrcania and Parthia,
+deserted the Persian cause in the midst of the struggle, and placed
+themselves under the rule of Xathrites. Either this circumstance, or the
+general position of affairs, induced Darius at length to take the field
+in person. Quitting Babylon, he marched into Media, and being met by the
+pretender near a town called Kudrus, he defeated him in a great battle.
+This is no doubt the engagement of which Herodotus speaks, and which he
+rightly regards as decisive. The battle of Kudrus gave Ecbatana into the
+hands of Darius, and made the Median prince an outcast and a fugitive.
+He fled towards the East, probably intending to join his partisans in
+Hyrcania and Parthia, but was overtaken in the district of Rhages and
+made prisoner by the troops of Darius. The king treated his captive with
+extreme severity. Having cut off his nose, ears, and tongue, he kept
+him for some time chained to the door of his palace, in order that there
+might be no doubt of his capture. When this object had been sufficiently
+secured, the wretched sufferer was allowed to end his miserable
+existence. He was crucified in his capital city, Ecbatana, before the
+eyes of those who had seen his former glory.
+
+The rebellion was thus crushed in its original seat, but it had still to
+be put down in the countries whereto it had extended itself. Parthia
+and Hyrcania, which had embraced the cause of the pretender, were still
+maintaining a conflict with their former governor, Hystaspes, Darius’s
+father. Darius marched as far as Rhages to his father’s assistance, and
+dispatched from that point a body of Persian troops to reinforce him.
+With this important aid Hystaspes once more gave the rebels battle, and
+succeeded in defeating them so entirely that they presently made their
+submission.
+
+Troubles, meanwhile, had broken out in Sagartia. A native chief, moved
+probably by the success which had for a while attended the Median rebel
+who claimed to rule as the descendant and representative of Cyaxares,
+came forward with similar pretensions, and was accepted by the
+Sargartians as their monarch. This revolt, however, proved unimportant.
+Darius suppressed it with the utmost facility by means of a mixed
+army of Persians and Medes, whom he placed under a Median leader,
+Tachamaspates. The pretender was captured and treated almost exactly
+in the same way as the Mede whose example he had followed. His nose and
+ears were cut off; he was chained for a while at the palace door; and
+finally he was crucified at Arbela.
+
+Another trifling revolt occurred about the same time in Margiana. The
+Margians rebelled and set up a certain Phraates, a native, to be their
+king. But the satrap of Bactria, within whose province Margiana lay,
+quelled the revolt almost immediately.
+
+Hitherto, however thickly troubles had come upon him, Darius could have
+the satisfaction of feeling that he was contending with foreigners,
+and that his own nation at any rate was faithful and true. But now
+this consolation was to be taken from him. During his absence in
+the provinces of the north-east Persia itself revolted against his
+authority, and acknowledged for king an impostor, who, undeterred by the
+fate of Gomates, and relying on the obscurity which still hung over
+the end of the real Smerdis, assumed his name, and claimed to be the
+legitimate occupant of the throne. The Persians at home were either
+deceived a second time, or were willing to try a change of ruler; but
+the army of Darius, composed of Persians and Medes, adhered to the
+banner under which they had so often marched to victory, and enabled
+Darius, after a struggle of some duration, to re-establish his sway.
+The impostor suffered two defeats at the hands of Artabardes, one
+of Darius’s generals, while a force which he had detached to excite
+rebellion in Arachosia was engaged by the satrap of that province and
+completely routed. The so-called Smerdis was himself captured, and
+suffered the usual penalty of unsuccessful revolt, crucifixion.
+
+Before, however, these results were accomplished--while the fortune of
+war still hung in the balance--a fresh danger threatened. Encouraged
+by the disaffection which appeared to be so general, and which had at
+length reached the very citadel of the Empire, Babylon revolted for the
+second time. A man, named Aracus, an Armenian by descent, but settled
+in Babylonia, headed the insurrection, and, adopting the practice
+of personation so usual at the time, assumed the name and style of
+“Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus.” Less alarmed on this occasion than
+at the time of the first revolt, the king was content to send a
+Median general against the new pretender. This officer, who is called
+Intaphres, speedily chastised the rebels, capturing Babylon, and taking
+Aracus prisoner. Crucifixion was again the punishment awarded to the
+rebel leader.
+
+A season of comparative tranquillity seems now to have set in; and it
+may have been in this interval that Darius found time to chastise
+the remoter governors, who without formally declaring themselves
+independent, or assuming the title of king, had done acts savoring of
+rebellion. Oroetes, the governor of Sardis, who had comported himself
+strangely even under Cambyses, having ventured to entrap and put to
+death an ally of that monarch’s, Polycrates of Samos, had from the
+time of the Magian revolution assumed an attitude quite above that of a
+subject. Having a quarrel with Mitrobates, the governor of a neighboring
+province, he murdered him and annexed his territory. When Darius sent a
+courier to him with a message the purport of which he disliked, he set
+men to waylay and assassinate him. It was impossible to overlook such
+acts; and Darius must have sent an army into Asia Minor, if one of
+his nobles had not undertaken to remove Oroetes in another way. Arming
+himself with several written orders bearing the king’s seal, he went
+to Sardis, and gradually tried the temper of the guard which the satrap
+kept round his person. When he found them full of respect for the royal
+authority and ready to do whatever the king commanded, he produced
+an order for the governor’s execution, which they carried into effect
+immediately.
+
+The governor of Egypt, Aryandes, had shown a guilty ambition in a more
+covert way. Understanding that Darius had issued a gold coinage of
+remarkable purity, he, on his own authority and without consulting the
+king, issued a silver coinage of a similar character. There is reason to
+believe that he even placed his name upon his coins; an act which to
+the Oriental mind distinctly implied a claim of independent sovereignty.
+Darius taxed him with a design to revolt, and put him to death on the
+charge, apparently without exciting any disturbance.
+
+Still, however, the Empire was not wholly tranquillized. A revolt in
+Susiana, suppressed by the conspirator Gobryas, and another among the
+Sacse of the Tigris, quelled by Darius in person, are recorded on the
+rock of Behistun, in a supplementary portion of the Inscription. We
+cannot date, unless it be by approximation, these various troubles; but
+there is reason to believe that they were almost all contained within
+a space not exceeding five or six years. The date of the Behistun
+Inscription is fixed by internal evidence to about B.C. 516-515--in
+other words, to the fifth or sixth year of the reign of Darius. Its
+erection seems to mark the termination of the first period of the reign,
+or that of disturbance, and the commencement of the second period, or
+that of tranquillity, internal progress, and patronage of the fine arts
+by the monarch.
+
+It was natural that Darius, having with so much effort and difficulty
+reduced the revolted provinces to obedience, should proceed to consider
+within himself how the recurrence of such a time of trouble might be
+prevented. His experience had shown him how weak were the ties which had
+hitherto been thought sufficient to hold the Empire together, and how
+slight an obstacle they opposed to the tendency, which all great empires
+have, to disruption. But, however natural it might be to desire a remedy
+for the evils which afflicted the State, it was not easy to devise one.
+Great empires had existed in Western Asia for above seven hundred years,
+and had all suffered more or less from the same inherent weakness; but
+no one had as yet invented a cure, or even (so far as appears) conceived
+the idea of improving on the rude system of imperial sway which the
+first conqueror had instituted. It remained for Darius, not only to
+desire, but to design--not only to design, but to bring into action--an
+entirely new form and type of government. He has been well called “the
+true founder of the Persian state.” He found the Empire a crude and
+heterogeneous mass of ill-assorted elements, hanging loosely together by
+the single tie of subjection to a common head; he left it a compact
+and regularly organized body, united on a single well-ordered system,
+permanently established everywhere.
+
+On the nature and details of this system it will be necessary to speak
+at some length. It was the first, and probably the best, instance of
+that form of government which, taking its name from the Persian word
+for provincial ruler, is known generally as the system of “satrapial”
+ administration. Its main principles were, in the first place, the
+reduction of the whole Empire to a quasi-uniformity by the substitution
+of one mode of governing for several; secondly, the substitution of
+fixed and definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable and
+uncertain calls; and thirdly, the establishment of a variety of checks
+and counterpoises among the officials to whom it was necessary that the
+crown should delegate its powers, which tended greatly to the security
+of the monarch and the stability of the kingdom. A consideration of the
+modes in which these three principles were applied will bring before us
+in a convenient form the chief points of the system.
+
+Uniformity, or a near approach to it, was produced, not so much by the
+abolition of differences as by superadding one and the same governmental
+machinery in all parts of the Empire. It is an essential feature of
+the satrapial system that it does not aim at destroying differences, or
+assimilating to one type the various races and countries over which
+it is extended. On the contrary, it allows, and indeed encourages, the
+several nations to retain their languages, habits, manners, religion,
+laws, and modes of local government. Only it takes care to place above
+all these things a paramount state authority, which is one and the same
+everywhere, whereon the unity of the kingdom is dependent. The authority
+instituted by Darius was that of his satraps. He divided the whole
+empire into a number of separate governments--a number which must have
+varied at different times, but which seems never to have fallen short
+of twenty. Over each government he placed a satrap, or supreme civil
+governor, charged with the collection and transmission of the revenue,
+the administration of justice, the maintenance of order, and the general
+supervision of the territory. These satraps were nominated by the king
+at his pleasure from any class of his subjects, and held office for no
+definite term, but simply until recalled, being liable to deprivation
+or death at any moment, without other formality than the presentation
+of the royal firman. While, however, they remained in office they were
+despotic--they represented the Great King, and were clothed with a
+portion of his majesty--they had palaces, Courts, body-guards, parks
+or “paradises,” vast trains of eunuchs and attendants, well-filled,
+seraglios. They wielded the power of life and death. They assessed the
+tribute on the several towns and villages within their jurisdiction
+at their pleasure, and appointed deputies--called sometimes, like
+themselves, satraps--over cities or districts within their province,
+whose office was regarded as one of great dignity. They exacted from
+the provincials, for their own support and that of their Court, over and
+above the tribute due to the crown, whatever sum they regarded them as
+capable of furnishing. Favors, and even justice, had to be purchased
+from them by gifts. They were sometimes guilty of gross outrages on the
+persons and honor of their subjects. Nothing restrained their tyranny
+but such sense of right as they might happen to possess, and the fear of
+removal or execution if the voice of complaint reached the monarch.
+
+Besides this uniform civil administration, the Empire was pervaded
+throughout by one and the same military system. The services of the
+subject nations as soldiers were, as a general rule, declined, unless
+upon rare and exceptional cases. Order was maintained by large and
+numerous garrisons of foreign troops--Persians and Medes--quartered
+on the inhabitants, who had little sympathy with those among whom they
+lived, and would be sure to repress sternly any outbreak. All places of
+much strength were occupied in this way; and special watch was kept upon
+the great capitals, which were likely to be centres of disaffection.
+Thus a great standing army, belonging to the conquering race, stood
+everywhere on guard throughout the Empire, offending the provincials no
+doubt by their pride, their violence, and their contemptuous bearing,
+but rendering a native revolt under ordinary circumstances hopeless.
+
+Some exceptions to the general uniformity had almost of necessity to be
+made in so vast and heterogeneous an empire as the Persian. Occasionally
+it was thought wise to allow the continuance of a native dynasty in a
+province; and the satrap had in such a case to share with the native
+prince a divided authority. This was certainly the case in Cilicia, and
+probably in Paphlagonia and Phoenicia. Tribes also, included within
+the geographical limits of a satrapy, were sometimes recognized as
+independent; and petty wars were carried on between these hordes and
+their neighbors. Robber bands in many places infested the mountains,
+owing no allegiance to any one, and defied alike the satrap and the
+standing army.
+
+The condition of Persia Proper was also purely exceptional. Persia paid
+no tribute, and was not counted as a satrapy. Its inhabitants were,
+however, bound, when the king passed through their country, to bring him
+gifts according to their means. This burthen may have been felt sensibly
+by the rich, but it pressed very lightly on the poor, who, if they could
+not afford an ox or a sheep, might bring a little milk or cheese, a
+few dates, or a handful of wild fruit. On the other hand, the king was
+bound, whenever he visited Pasargadae, to present to each Persian woman
+who appeared before him a sum equal to twenty Attic drachmas, or about
+sixteen shillings of our money. This custom commemorated the service
+rendered by the sex in the battle wherein Cyrus first repulsed the
+forces of Astyages.
+
+The substitution of definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable
+and uncertain charges was aimed at, rather than effected, by the new
+arrangement of the revenue which is associated with the name of Darius.
+This arrangement consisted in fixing everywhere the amount of tribute
+in money and in kind which each satrapy was to furnish to the crown. A
+definite money payment, varying, in ordinary satrapies, from 170 to
+1000 Babylonian silver talents,330 or from L42,000. to L250,000. of our
+money, and amounting, in the exceptional case of the Indian satrapy, to
+above a million sterling, was required annually by the sovereign,
+and had to be remitted by the satrap to the capital. Besides this, a
+payment, the nature and amount of which was also fixed, had to be made
+in kind, each province being required to furnish that commodity, or
+those commodities, for which it was most celebrated. This latter burthen
+must have pressed very unequally on different portions of the Empire,
+if the statement of Herodotus be true that Babylonia and Assyria paid
+one-third of it. The payment seems to have been very considerable
+in amount. Egypt had to supply grain sufficient for the nutriment of
+120,000 Persian troops quartered in the country. Media had to contribute
+100,000 sheep, 4000 mules, and 3000 horses; Cappadocia, half the above
+number of each kind of animal; Armenia furnished 20,000 colts; Cilicia
+gave 360 white horses and a sum of 140 talents (L35,000.) in lieu
+of further tribute in kind. Babylonia, besides corn, was required to
+furnish 500 boy eunuchs. These charges, however, were all fixed by the
+crown, and may have been taken into consideration in assessing the money
+payment, the main object of the whole arrangement evidently being to
+make the taxation of each province proportionate to its wealth and
+resources.
+
+The assessment of the taxation upon the different portions of his
+province was left to the satrap. We do not know on what principles he
+ordinarily proceeded, or whether any uniform principles at all were
+observed throughout the Empire. But we find some evidence that, in
+places at least, the mode of exaction and collection was by a land-tax.
+The assessment upon individuals, and the actual collection from them,
+devolved, in all probability, on the local authorities, who distributed
+the burthen imposed upon their town, village, or district as they
+thought proper. Thus the foreign oppressor did not come into direct
+contact with the mass of the conquered people, who no doubt paid the
+calls made upon them with less reluctance through the medium of their
+own proper magistrates.
+
+If the taxation of the subject had stopped here, he would have had
+no just ground of complaint against his rulers. The population of the
+Empire cannot be estimated at less than forty millions of souls. The
+highest estimate of the value of the entire tribute, both in money and
+kind, will scarcely place it at more than ten millions sterling. Thus
+far, then, the burthen of taxation would certainly not have exceeded
+five shillings a head per annum. Perhaps it would not have reached half
+that amount. But, unhappily, neither was the tribute the sole tax which
+the crown exacted from its subjects, nor had the crown the sole right
+of exacting taxation. Persian subjects in many parts of the Empire paid,
+besides their tribute, a water-rate, which is expressly said to have
+been very productive. The rivers of the Empire were the king’s; and when
+water was required for irrigation, a state officer superintended the
+opening of the sluices, and regulated the amount of the precious fluid
+which might be drawn off by each tribe or township. For the opening of
+the sluices a large sum was paid to the officer, which found its way
+into the coffers of the state. Further, it appears that such things
+as fisheries--and if so, probably salt-works, mines, quarries, and
+forests--were regarded as crown property, and yielded large sums to the
+revenue. They appear to have been farmed to responsible persons, who
+undertook to pay at a certain fixed rate, and made what profit they
+could by the transaction. The price of commodities thus farmed would be
+greatly enhanced to the consumer.
+
+By these means the actual burthen of taxation upon the subject was
+rendered to some extent uncertain and indefinite, and the benefits of
+the fixed tribute system were diminished. But the chief drawback upon
+it has still to be mentioned. While the claims of the crown upon its
+subjects were definite and could not be exceeded, the satrap was at
+liberty to make any exactions that he pleased beyond them. There
+is every reason to believe that he received no stipend, and that,
+consequently, the burthen of supporting him, his body-guard, and his
+Court was intended to fall on the province which had the benefit of his
+superintendence. Like a Roman proconsul, he was to pay himself out of
+the pockets of his subjects; and, like that class of persons, he took
+care to pay himself highly. It has been calculated that one satrap of
+Babylon drew from his province annually in actual coin a sum equal to
+L100,000. of our money. We can scarcely doubt that the claims made by
+the provincial governors were, on the average, at least equal to
+those of the crown; and they had the disadvantage of being irregular,
+uncertain, and purely arbitrary.
+
+Thus, what was gained by the new system was not so much the relief of
+the subject from uncertain taxation as the advantage to the crown of
+knowing beforehand what the revenue would be, and being able to regulate
+its expenditure accordingly. Still a certain amount of benefit did
+undoubtedly accrue to the provincials from the system; since it gave
+them the crown for their protector. So long as the payments made to the
+state were irregular, it was, or at least seemed to be, for the interest
+of the crown to obtain from each province as much as it could anyhow
+pay. When the state dues were once fixed, as the crown gained nothing by
+the rapacity of its officers, but rather lost, since the province became
+exhausted, it was interested in checking greed, and seeing that the
+provinces were administered by wise and good satraps.
+
+The control of its great officers is always the main difficulty of a
+despotic government, when it is extended over a large space of territory
+and embraces many millions of men. The system devised by Darius for
+checking and controlling his satraps was probably the best that has
+ever yet been brought into operation. His plan was to establish in every
+province at least three officers holding their authority directly from
+the crown, and only responsible to it, who would therefore act as checks
+one upon another. These were the satrap, the military commandant, and
+the secretary. The satrap was charged with the civil administration, and
+especially with the department of finance. The commandant was supreme
+over the troops. The office of the secretary is less clearly defined;
+but it probably consisted mainly in keeping the Court informed by
+despatches of all that went on in the province. Thus, if the satrap
+were inclined to revolt, he had, in the first place, to persuade the
+commandant, who would naturally think that, if he ran the risk, it might
+as well be for himself; and, further, he had to escape the lynx eyes of
+the secretary, whose general right of superintendence gave him entrance
+everywhere, and whose prospects of advancement would probably depend a
+good deal upon the diligence and success with which he discharged the
+office of “King’s Eye” and “Ear.” So, if the commandant were ambitious
+of independent sway, he must persuade the satrap, or he would have no
+money to pay his troops; and he too must blind the secretary, or else
+bribe him into silence. As for the secretary, having neither men
+nor money at his command, it was impossible that he should think of
+rebellion.
+
+But the precautions taken against revolt did not end here. Once a year,
+according to Xenophon, or more probably at irregular intervals, an
+officer came suddenly down from the Court with a commission to inspect
+a province. Such persons were frequently of royal rank, brothers or sons
+of the king. They were accompanied by an armed force, and were empowered
+to correct whatever was amiss in the province, and in case of necessity
+to report to the crown the insubordination or incompetency of its
+officers. If this system had been properly maintained, it is evident
+that it would have acted as a most powerful check upon misgovernment,
+and would have rendered revolt almost impossible.
+
+Another mode by which it was sought to secure the fidelity of the
+satraps and commandants was by choosing them from among the king’s blood
+relations, or else attaching them to the crown by marriage with one of
+the princesses. It was thought that the affection of sons and brothers
+would be a restraint upon their ambition, and that even connections by
+marriage would feel that they had an interest in upholding the power and
+dignity of the great house with which they had been thought worthy of
+alliance. This system, which was entensively followed by Darius, had on
+the whole good results, and was at any rate preferable to that barbarous
+policy of prudential fratricide which has prevailed widely in Oriental
+governments.
+
+The system of checks, while it was effectual for the object at which it
+specially aimed, had one great disadvantage. It weakened the hands of
+authority in times of difficulty. When danger, internal or external,
+threatened, it was an evil that the powers of government should be
+divided, and the civil authority lodged in the hands of one officer, the
+military in those of another. Concentration of power is needed for rapid
+and decisive action, for unity of purpose, and secrecy both of plan and
+of execution. These considerations led to a modification of the original
+idea of satrapial government, which was adopted partially at first--in
+provinces especially exposed to danger, internal or external--but which
+ultimately became almost universal. The offices of satrap, or civil
+administrator, and commandant, or commander of the troops, were vested
+in the same person, who came in this way to have that full and complete
+authority which is possessed by Turkish pashas and modern Persian
+khans or beys--an authority practically uncontrolled. This system was
+advantageous for the defence of a province against foes; but it was
+dangerous to the stability of the Empire, since it led naturally to the
+occurrence of formidable rebellions.
+
+Two minor points in the scheme of Darius remain to be noticed, before
+this account of his governmental system can be regarded as complete.
+These are his institution of posts, and his coinage of money.
+
+In Darius’s idea of government was included rapidity of communication.
+Regarding it as of the utmost importance that the orders of the Court
+should be speedily transmitted to the provincial governors, and that
+their reports and those of the royal secretaries should be received
+without needless delay, he established along the lines of routes already
+existing between the chief cities of the Empire a number of post-houses,
+placed at regular intervals, according to the estimated capacity of a
+horse to gallop at his best speed without stopping. At each post-house
+were maintained, at the cost of the state, a number of couriers and
+several relays of horses. When a despatch was to be forwarded it was
+taken to the first post-house along the route, where a courier received
+it, and immediately mounting on horseback galloped with it to the next
+station. Here it was delivered to a new courier, who, mounted on a fresh
+horse, took it the next stage on its journey; and thus it passed from
+hand to hand till it reached its destination. According to Xenophon, the
+messengers travelled by night as well as by day; and the conveyance was
+so rapid that some even compared it to the flight of birds. Excellent
+inns or caravanserais were to be found at every station; bridges or
+ferries were established upon all the streams; guard-houses occurred
+here and there, and the whole route was kept secure from the brigands
+who infested the Empire. Ordinary travellers were glad to pursue so
+convenient a line of march; it does not appear, however, that they could
+obtain the use of post-horses even when the government was in no need
+of them. The coinage of Darius consisted, it is probable, both of a gold
+and silver issue. It is not perhaps altogether certain that he was
+the first king of Persia who coined money; but, if the term “daric” is
+really derived from his name, that alone would be a strong argument in
+favor of his claim to priority. In any case, it is indisputable that
+he was the first Persian king who coined on a large scale, and it is
+further certain that his gold coinage was regarded in later times as of
+peculiar value on account of its purity. His gold darics appear to have
+contained, on an average, not quite 124 grains of pure metal, which
+would make their value about twenty two shillings of our money.
+They were of the type usual at the time both in Lydia and in
+Greece--flattened lumps of metal, very thick in comparison with the size
+of their surface, irregular, and rudely stamped. The silver darics
+were similar in general character, but exceeded the gold in size. Their
+weight was from 224 to 230 grains, and they would thus have been worth
+not quite three shillings of our money. It does not appear that any
+other kinds of coins besides these were ever issued from the Persian
+mint. They must, therefore, it would seem, have satisfied the commercial
+needs of the people.
+
+From this review of the governmental system of Darius we must now return
+to the actions of his later life. The history of an Oriental monarchy
+must always be composed mainly of a series of biographies; for, as the
+monarch is all in all in such communities, his sayings, doings, and
+character, not only determine, but constitute, the annals of the State.
+In the second period of his reign, that which followed on the time of
+trouble and disturbance, Darius (as has been already observed)
+appears to have pursued mainly the arts of peace. Bent on settling and
+consolidating his Empire, he set up everywhere the satrapial form of
+government, organized and established his posts, issued his coinage,
+watched over the administration of justice, and in various ways
+exhibited a love of order and method, and a genius for systematic
+arrangement. At the same time he devoted considerable attention to
+ornamental and architectural works, to sculpture, and to literary
+composition. He founded the royal palace at Susa, which was the main
+residence of the later kings. At Persepolis he certainly erected one
+very important building; and it is on the whole most probable that he
+designed--if he did not live to execute--the Chehl Minor itself--the
+chief of the magnificent structures upon the great central platform. The
+massive platform itself, with its grand and stately steps, is certainly
+of his erection, for it is inscribed with his name. He gave his works
+all the solidity and strength that is derivable from the use of huge
+blocks of a good hard material. He set the example of ornamenting the
+stepped approached to a palace with elaborate bas-reliefs. He designed
+and caused to be constructed in his own lifetime the rock-tomb at
+Nakhsh-i-Rustam, in which his remains were afterwards laid. The
+rock-sculpture at Behistun was also his work. In attention to the
+creation of permanent historical records he excelled all the Persian
+kings, both before him and after him. The great Inscription of Behistun
+has no parallel in ancient times for length, finish, and delicacy
+of execution, unless it be in Assyria or in Egypt. The only really
+historical inscription at Persepolis is one set up by Darius. He was the
+only Persian king, except perhaps one, who placed an inscription upon
+his tomb. The later monarchs in their records do little more than repeat
+certain religious phrases and certain forms of self-glorification which
+occur in the least remarkable inscriptions of their great predecessor.
+He alone oversteps those limits, and presents us with geographical
+notices and narratives of events profoundly interesting to the
+historian.
+
+During this period of comparative peace, which may have extended
+from about B.C. 516 to B.C. 508 or 507, the general tranquillity was
+interrupted by at least one important expedition. The administrational
+merits of Darius are so great that they have obscured his military
+glories, and have sent him down to posterity with the character of an
+unwarlike monarch--if not a mere “peddler,” as his subjects said, yet,
+at any rate, a mere consolidator and arranger. But the son of Hystaspes
+was no carpet prince. He had not drawn the sword against his domestic
+foes to sheath it finally and forever when his triumph over them was
+completed. On the contrary, he regarded it as incumbent on him to carry
+on the aggressive policy of Cyrus and Cambyses, his great predecessors,
+and like them to extend in one direction or another the boundaries of
+the Empire. Perhaps he felt that aggression was the very law of the
+Empire’s being, since if the military spirit was once allowed to become
+extinct in the conquering nation, they would lose the sole guarantee of
+their supremacy. At any rate, whatever his motive, we find him, after
+he had snatched a brief interval of repose, engaging in great wars
+both towards his eastern and his western frontier--wars which in both
+instances had results of considerable importance.
+
+The first grand expedition was towards the East. Cyrus, as we have seen,
+had extended the Persian sway over the mountains of Affghanistan and the
+highlands from which flow the tributaries of the Upper Indus. From these
+eminences the Persian garrisons looked down on a territory possessing
+every quality that could attract a powerful conqueror. Fertile,
+well-watered, rich in gold, peopled by an ingenious yet warlike race,
+which would add strength no less than wealth to its subjugators, the
+Punjab lay at the foot of the Sufeid Koh and Suliman ranges, inviting
+the attack of those who could swoop down when they pleased upon the low
+country. It was against this region that Darius directed his first great
+aggressive effort. Having explored the course of the Indus from Attock
+to the sea by means of boats, and obtained, we may suppose, in this way
+some knowledge of the country and its inhabitants, he led or sent an
+expedition into the tract, which in a short time succeeded in completely
+reducing it. The Punjab, and probably the whole valley of the Indus, was
+annexed, and remained subject till the later times of the Empire. The
+results of this conquest were the acquisition of a brave race, capable
+of making excellent soldiers, an enormous increase of the revenue, a
+sudden and vast influx of gold into Persia, which led probably to the
+introduction of the gold coinage, and the establishment of commercial
+relations with the natives, which issued in a regular trade carried
+on by coasting-vessels between the mouths of the Indus and the Persian
+Gulf.
+
+The next important expedition--one probably of still greater
+magnitude--took exactly the opposite direction. The sea which bounded
+the Persian dominion to the west and the north-west narrowed in two
+places to dimensions not much exceeding those of of the greater Asiatic
+rivers. The eye which looked across the Thracian Bosphorus or the
+Hellespont seemed to itself to be merely contemplating the opposite
+bank of a pretty wide stream. Darius, consequently being master of
+Asia Minor, and separated by what seemed to him so poor a barrier
+from fertile tracts of vast and indeed indefinite extent, such as were
+nowhere else to be found on the borders of his empire, naturally turned
+his thoughts of conquest to this quarter. His immediate desire was,
+probably, to annex Thrace; but he may have already entertained wider
+views, and have looked to embracing in his dominions the lovely isles
+and coasts of Greece also, so making good the former threats of Cyrus.
+The story of the voyage and escape of Democedes, related by Herodotus
+with such amplitude of detail, and confirmed to some extent from other
+sources, cannot be a mere myth without historical foundation. Nor is
+it probable that the expedition was designed merely for the purpose of
+“indulging the exile with a short visit to his native country,” or of
+collecting “interesting information.” If by the king’s orders a vessel
+was fitted out at Sidon to explore the coasts of Greece under the
+guidance of Democedes, which proceeded as far as Crotona in Magna
+Grsecia, we may be tolerably sure that a political object lay at the
+bottom of the enterprise. It would have exactly the same aim and end as
+the eastern voyage of Scylax, and would be intended, like that, to pave
+the way for a conquest. Darius was therefore, it would seem, already
+contemplating the reduction of Greece Proper, and did not require
+to have it suggested to him by any special provocation. Mentally, or
+actually, surveying the map of the world, so far as it was known to
+him, he saw that in this direction only there was an attractive country
+readily accessible. Elsewhere his Empire abutted on seas, sandy deserts,
+or at best barren steppes; here, and here only, was there a rich prize
+close at hand and (as it seemed) only waiting to be grasped.
+
+But if the aggressive force of Persia was to be turned in this
+direction, if the stream of conquest was to be set westward along the
+flanks of Rhodope and Haemus, it was essential to success, and even to
+safety, that the line of communication with Asia should remain intact.
+Now, there lay on the right flank of an army marching into Europe a vast
+and formidable power, known to be capable of great efforts, which, if
+allowed to feel itself secure from attack, might be expected at any
+time to step in, to break the line of communication between the east
+and west, and to bring the Persians who should be engaged in conquering
+Pseonia, Macedonia, and Greece, into imminent danger. It is greatly to
+the credit of Darius that he saw this peril--saw it and took effectual
+measures to guard against it. The Scythian expedition was no insane
+project of a frantic despot, burning for revenge, or ambitious of an
+impossible conquest. It has all the appearance of being a well-laid
+plan, conceived by a moderate and wise prince, for the furtherance of
+a great design, and the permanent advantage of his empire. The lord of
+South-Western Asia was well aware of the existence beyond his northern
+frontier of a standing menace to his power. A century had not sufficed
+to wipe out the recollection of that terrible time when Scythian hordes
+had carried desolation far and wide over the fairest of the regions that
+were now under the Persian dominion. What had occurred once might recur.
+Possibly, as a modern author suggests, “the remembrance of ancient
+injuries may have been revived by recent aggressions.” It was at any
+rate essential to strike terror into the hordes of the Steppe Region in
+order that Western Asia might attain a sense of security. It was still
+more essential to do so if the north-west was to become the scene
+of war, and the Persians were to make a vigorous effort to establish
+themselves permanently in Europe. Scythia, it must be remembered,
+reached to the banks of the Danube. An invader, who aspired to the
+conquest even of Thrace, was almost forced into collision with her next
+neighbor.
+
+Darius, having determined on his course, prefaced his expedition by a
+raid, the object of which was undoubtedly to procure information. He
+ordered Ariaramnes, satrap of Cappadocia, to cross the Euxine with a
+small fleet, and, descending suddenly upon the Scythian coast, to carry
+off a number of prisoners. Ariaramnes executed the commission skilfully,
+and was so fortunate as to make prize of a native of high rank, the
+brother of a Scythian chief or king. From this person and his companions
+the Persian monarch was able to obtain all the information which he
+required. Thus enlightened, he proceeded to make his preparations.
+Collecting a fleet of 600 ships, chiefly from the Greeks of Asia, and
+an army estimated at from 700,000 to 800,000 men, which was made up
+of contingents from all the nations under his rule, he crossed the
+Bosphorus by a bridge of boats constructed by Mandrocles a Samian;
+marched through Thrace along the line of the Little Balkan, receiving
+the submission of the tribes as he went; crossed the Great Balkan;
+conquered the Getae, who dwelt between that range and the Danube; passed
+the Danube by a bridge, which the Ionian Greeks had made with their
+vessels just above the apex of the Delta; and so invaded Scythia. The
+natives had received intelligence of his approach, and had resolved not
+to risk a battle. They retired as he advanced, and endeavored to bring
+his army into difficulties by destroying the forage, driving off the
+cattle, and filling in the wells. But the commissariat of the Persians
+was, as usual, well arranged. Darius remained for more than two months
+in Scythia without incurring any important losses. He succeeded in
+parading before the eyes of the whole nation the immense military power
+of his empire. He no doubt inflicted considerable damage on the hordes,
+whose herds he must often have captured, and whose supplies of forage he
+curtailed. It is difficult to say how far he penetrated. Herodotus was
+informed that he marched east to the Tanais (Don), and thence north to
+the country of the Budini, where he burnt the staple of Gelonus, which
+cannot well have been below the fiftieth parallel, and was probably
+not far from Voronej. It is certainly astonishing that he should have
+ventured so far inland, and still more surprising that, having done
+so, he should have returned with his army well-nigh intact. But we can
+scarcely suppose the story that he destroyed the staple of the Greek
+trade a pure fiction. He would be glad to leave his mark in the country,
+and might make an extraordinary effort to reach the only town that was
+to be found in the whole steppe region. Having effected his purpose by
+its destruction, he would retire, falling back probably upon the coast,
+where he could obtain supplies from his fleet. It is beyond dispute that
+he returned with the bulk of his army, having suffered no loss but
+that of a few invalid troops whom he sacrificed. Attempts had been made
+during his absence to induce the Greeks, who guarded the bridge over
+the Danube, to break it, and so hinder his return; but they were
+unsuccessful. Darius recrossed the river after an interval of somewhat
+more than two months, victorious according to his own notions, and
+regarded himself as entitled thenceforth to enumerate among the subject
+races of his empire “the Scyths beyond the sea.” On his return march
+through Thrace, he met, apparently, with no opposition. Before passing
+the Bosphorus, he gave a commission to one of his generals, a certain
+Megabazus, to complete the reduction of Thrace, and assigned him for the
+purpose a body of 80,000 men, who remained in Europe while Darius and
+the rest of his army crossed into Asia.
+
+Megabazus appears to have been fully worthy of the trust reposed in him.
+In a single campaign (B.C. 506) he overran and subjugated the entire
+tract between the Propontis and the Strymon, thus pushing forward the
+Persian dominion to the borders of Macedonia. Among the tribes which he
+conquered were the Perinthians, Greeks; the Pseti, Cicones, Bistones,
+Sapaei, Dersaei and Edoni, Thracians; and the Paeoplae and Siripasones,
+Pseonians. These last, to gratify a whim of Darius, were transported
+into Asia. The Thracians who submitted were especially those of the
+coast, no attempt, apparently, being made to penetrate the mountain
+fastnesses and bring under subjection the tribes of the interior.
+
+The first contact between Persia and Macedonia possesses peculiar
+interest from the circumstances of the later history. An ancestor of
+Alexander the Great sat upon the throne of Macedon when the general of
+Darius was brought in his career of conquest to the outskirts of the
+Macedonian power. The kingdom was at this time comparatively small, not
+extending much beyond Mount Bermius on the one hand, and not reaching
+very far to the east of the Axius on the other. Megabazus saw in it,
+we may be sure, not the fated destroyer of the Empire which he was
+extending, but a petty state which the mere sound of the Persian
+name would awe into subjection. He therefore, instead of invading the
+country, contented himself with sending an embassy, with a demand
+for earth and water, the symbols, according to Persian custom, of
+submission. Amyntas, the Macedonian king, consented, to the demand
+at once; and though, owing to insolent conduct on the part of the
+ambassadors, they were massacred with their whole retinue, yet this
+circumstance did not prevent the completion of Macedonian vassalage.
+When a second embassy was sent to inquire into the fate of the first,
+Alexander, the son of Amyntas, who had arranged the massacre, contrived
+to have the matter hushed up by bribing one of the envoys with a large
+sum of money and the hand of his sister, Gygsea. Macedonia took up the
+position of a subject kingdom, and owned for her true lord the great
+monarch of Western Asia.
+
+Megabazus, having accomplished the task assigned him, proceeded to
+Sardis, where Darius had remained almost, if not quite, a full year His
+place was taken by Otanes, the son of Sisamnes, a different person from
+the conspirator, who rounded off the Persian conquests in these parts
+by reducing, probably in B.C. 505, the cities of Byzantium, Chalcedon,
+Antandrus, and Lamponium, with the two adjacent islands of Letnnos and
+Imbrus. The inhabitants of all were, it appears, taxable, either with
+having failed to give contingents towards the Scythian expedition,
+or with having molested it on its return--crimes these, which Otanes
+thought it right to punish by their general enslavement.
+
+Darius, meanwhile, had proceeded to the seat of government, which
+appears at this time to have been Susa. He had perhaps already built
+there the great palace, whose remains have been recently disinterred
+by English enterprise; or he may have wished to superintend the work of
+construction. Susa, which was certainly from henceforth the main Persian
+capital, possessed advantages over almost any other site. Its climate
+was softer than that of Ecbatana and Persepolis, less sultry than that
+of Babylon. Its position was convenient for communicating both with
+the East and with the West. Its people were plastic, and probably
+more yielding and submissive than the Medes or the Persians. The king,
+fatigued with his warlike exertions, was glad for a while to rest and
+recruit himself at Susa, in the tranquil life of the Court. For some
+years he appears to have conceived no new aggressive project; and he
+might perhaps have forgotten his designs upon Greece altogether, had not
+his memory been stirred by a signal and extraordinary provocation.
+
+The immediate circumstances which led to the Ionian Revolt belong to
+Greek rather than to Persian history, and have been so fully treated of
+by the historians of the Hellenic race that a knowledge of them may be
+assumed as already possessed by the reader. What is chiefly remarkable
+about them is, that they are so purely private and personal. A chance
+quarrel between Aristagoras of Miletus and the Persian Megabates,
+pecuniary difficulties pressing on the former, and the natural desire
+of Histiseus, father-in-law of Aristagoras, to revisit his native place,
+were undoubtedly the direct and immediate causes of what became a
+great national outbreak. That there must have been other and wider
+predisposing causes can scarcely be doubted. Among them two may be
+suggested. The presence of Darius in Asia Minor, and his friendliness
+towards the tyrants who bore sway in most of the Greek cities, were
+calculated to elate those persons in their own esteem, and to encourage
+in them habits and acts injurious or offensive to their subjects. Their
+tyranny under these circumstances would become more oppressive and
+galling. At the same time the popular mind could not fail to associate
+together the native despot and the foreign lord, who (it was clear to
+all) supported and befriended each other. If the Greeks of Asia, like so
+many of their brethren in Europe, had grown weary of their tyrants
+and were desirous of rising against them, they would be compelled to
+contemplate the chances of a successful resistance to the Persians.
+And here there were circumstances in the recent history calculated
+to inspirit them and give them hopes. Six hundred Greek ships, manned
+probably by 120,000 men, had been lately brought together, and had
+formed a united fleet. The fate of the Persian land-army had depended
+on their fidelity. It is not surprising that a sense of strength should
+have been developed, and something like a national spirit should have
+grown up in such a condition of things.
+
+If this were the state of feeling among the Greeks, the merit of
+Aristagoras would be, that he perceived it, and, regardless of all class
+prejudices, determined to take advantage of the chance which it gave
+him of rising superior to his embarrassments. Throwing himself on the
+popular feeling, the strength of which he had estimated aright, he by
+the same act gave freedom to the cities, and plunged his nation into
+a rebellion against Persia. It was easy for reason to show, when the
+matter was calmly debated, that the probabilities of success against
+the might of Darius were small. But the arrest of the tyrants by
+Aristagoras, and his deliverance of them into the hands of their
+subjects, was an appeal to passion against which reason was powerless.
+No state could resist the temptation of getting rid of the tyranny under
+which it groaned. But the expulsion of the vassal committed those who
+took part in it to resist in arms the sovereign lord.
+
+In the original revolt appear to have been included only the cities
+of Ionia and AEolis. Aristagoras felt that some further strength was
+needed, and determined to seek it in European Greece. Repulsed from
+Sparta, which was disinclined to so distant an expedition, he applied
+for aid to cities on which he had a special claim. Miletus counted
+Athens as her mother state; and Eretria was indebted to her for
+assistance in her great war with Chalcis. Applying in these quarters
+Aristagoras succeeded better, but still obtained no very important help.
+Athens voted him twenty ships, Eretria five and with the promise of
+these succors he hastened back to Asia.
+
+The European contingent soon afterwards arrived; and Aristagoras,
+anxious to gain some signal success which should attract men to his
+cause, determined on a most daring enterprise. This was no less than an
+attack on Sardis, the chief seat of the Persian power in these parts,
+and by far the most important city of Asia Minor. Sailing to Ephesus, he
+marched up the valley of the Cayster, crossed Mount Tmolus, and took
+the Lydian capital at the first onset. Artaphernes, the satrap, was only
+able to save the citadel; the invaders began to plunder the town, and in
+the confusion it caught fire and was burnt. Aristagoras and his troops
+hastily retreated, but were overtaken before they could reach Ephesus by
+the Persians quartered in the province, who fell upon them and gave
+them a severe defeat. The expedition then broke up; the Asiatic Greeks
+dispersed among their cities; the Athenians and Eretrians took ship and
+sailed home.
+
+Results followed that could scarcely have been anticipated. The failure
+of the expedition was swallowed up in the glory of its one achievement.
+It had taken Sardis--it had burnt one of the chief cities of the Great
+King. The news spread like wildfire on every side, and was proclaimed
+aloud in places where the defeat of Ephesus was never even whispered.
+Everywhere revolt burst out. The Greeks of the Hellespont--not only
+those of Asia but likewise those of Europe--the Carians and Caunians of
+the south-western coast--even the distant Cyprians broke into rebellion;
+the Scythians took heart and made a plundering raid through the Great
+King’s Thracian territories;4 vassal monarchs, like Miltiades, assumed
+independence, and helped themselves to some of the fragments of the
+Empire that seemed falling to pieces. If a great man, a Miltiades or
+a Leondias, had been at the head of the movement, and if it had been
+decently supported from the European side, a successful issue might
+probably have been secured.
+
+But Aristagoras was unequal to the occasion; and the struggle for
+independence, which had promised so fair, was soon put down. Despite a
+naval victory gained by the Greeks over the Phoenician fleet off Cyprus,
+that island was recovered by the Persians within a year. Despite a
+courage and a perseverance worthy of a better fate, the Carians were
+soon afterwards forced to succumb. The reduction of the Hellespontine
+Greeks and of the AEolians followed. The toils now closed around Ionia,
+and her cities began to be attacked one by one; whereupon the incapable
+Aristagoras, deserting the falling cause, betook himself to Europe,
+where a just Nemesis pursued him: he died by a Thracian sword. After
+this the climax soon arrived. Persia concentrated her strength upon
+Miletus, the cradle of the revolt, and the acknowledged chief of the
+cities; and though her sister states came gallantly to her aid, and a
+fleet was collected which made it for a while doubtful which way victory
+might incline, yet all was of no avail. Laziness and insubordination
+began and treachery completed the work which all the force of Persia
+might have failed to accomplish; the combined Ionian fleet was totally
+defeated in the battle of Lade; and soon after Miletus herself fell.
+The bulk of her inhabitants were transported into inner Asia and settled
+upon the Persian Gulf. The whole Ionian coast was ravaged, and the
+cities punished by the loss of their most beautiful maidens and youths.
+The islands off the coast were swept of their inhabitants. The cities on
+the Hellespont and Sea of Marmora were burnt. Miltiades barely escaped
+from the Chersonese with the loss of his son and his kingdom. The flames
+of rebellion were everywhere ruthlessly trampled out; and the power
+of the Great King was once more firmly established over the coasts and
+islands of the Propontis and the Egean Sea.
+
+It remained, however, to take vengeance upon the foreigners who had
+dared to lend their aid to the king’s revolted subjects, and had borne
+a part in the burning of Sardis. The pride of the Persians felt such
+interference as an insult of the grossest kind: and the tale may well be
+true that Darius, from the time that he first heard the news, employed
+an officer to bid him daily “remember Athens.” The schemes which he had
+formerly entertained with respect to the reduction of Greece recurred
+with fresh force to his mind; and the task of crushing the revolt was no
+sooner completed than he proceeded to attempt their execution.
+Selecting Mardonius, son of Gobryas the conspirator, and one of his
+own sons-in-law, for general, he gave him the command of a powerful
+expedition, which was to advance by way of Thrace, Macedonia, and
+Thessaly, against Eretria and Athens. At the same time, with a wisdom
+which we should scarcely have expected in an Oriental, he commissioned
+him, ere he quitted Asia, to depose the tyrants who bore rule in the
+Greek cities, and to allow the establishment of democracies in their
+stead. Such a measure was excellently calculated to preserve the
+fidelity of the Hellenic population and to prevent any renewal of
+disturbance. It gave ample employment to unquiet spirits by opening to
+them a career in their own states--and it removed the grievance which,
+more than anything else, had produced the recent rebellion.
+
+Mardonius having effected this change proceeded into Europe. He had a
+large land force and a powerful navy, and at first was successful both
+by land and sea. The fleet took Thasos, an island valuable for its
+mines; and the army forced the Macedonians to exchange their position
+of semi-independence for that of full Persian subjects, liable to both
+tribute and military service. But this fair dawn was soon overcast. As
+the fleet was rounding Athos a terrible tempest arose which, destroyed
+300 triremes and more than 20,000 men, some of whom were devoured by
+sea-monsters, while the remainder perished by drowning. On shore,
+a night attack of the Brygi, a Thracian tribe dwelling in the tract
+between the Strymon and the Axius, brought disaster upon the land force,
+numbers of which were slain, while Mardonius himself received a wound.
+This disgrace, indeed, was retrieved by subsequent operations, which
+forced the Brygi to make their submission; but the expedition found
+itself in no condition to advance further, and Mardonius retreated into
+Asia.
+
+Darius, however, did not allow failure to turn him from his purpose.
+The attack of Mardonius was followed within two years by the well-known
+expedition under Datis (B.C. 490), which, avoiding the dangers of Athos,
+sailed direct to its object, crossing the Egean by the line of the
+Cyclades, and falling upon Eretria and Attica. Eretria’s punishment
+warned the Athenians to resist to the uttermost; and the skill of
+Miltiades, backed by the valor of his countrymen, gave to Athens the
+great victory of Marathon. Datis fell back upon Asia, having suffered
+worse disasters than his predecessor, and bore to the king the
+melancholy tidings that his vast force of from 100,000 to 200,000 men
+had been met and worsted by 20,000 Athenians and Plataeans.
+
+Still Darius was not shaken in his resolution. He only issued fresh
+orders for the collection of men, ships, and materials. For three years
+Asia resounded with the din of preparation; and it is probable that in
+the fourth year a fresh expedition would have been led into Greece, had
+not an important occurrence prevented it. Egypt, always discontented
+with its subject position under a race which despised its religion, and
+perhaps occasionally persecuted it, broke out into open revolt (B.C.
+487). Darius, it seems, determined to divide his forces, and proceed
+simultaneously against both enemies; he even contemplated leading one
+of the two expeditions in person; but before his preparations were
+completed his vital powers failed. He died in the year following the
+Egyptian revolt (B.C. 486), in the sixty-third year of his age, and
+the thirty-sixth of his reign, leaving his crown to his eldest son by
+Atossa, Xerxes.
+
+The character of Darius will have revealed itself with tolerable
+clearness in the sketch which has been here given of the chief events
+of his reign. But a brief summary of some of its main points may not be
+superfluous. Darius Hystaspis was, next to Cyrus, the greatest of the
+Persian kings; and he was even superior to Cyrus in some particulars.
+His military talent has been underrated. Though not equal to the founder
+of the Empire in this respect, he deserves the credit of energy, vigor,
+foresight, and judicious management in his military expeditions, of
+promptness in resolving and ability in executing, of discrimination in
+the selection of generals, and of a power of combination not often found
+in Oriental commanders. He was personally brave, and quite willing to
+expose himself, even in his old age, to dangers and hardships. But
+he did not unnecessarily thrust himself into peril. He was content to
+employ generals, where the task to be accomplished did not seem to be
+beyond their powers; and he appears to have been quite free from an
+unworthy jealousy of their successes. He was a man of kindly and warm
+feeling--strongly attached to his friends; he was clement and even
+generous towards conquered foes. When he thought the occasion required
+it, he could be severe but his inclination was towards mildness and
+indulgence. He excelled all the other Persian kings in the arts of
+peace. To him, and him alone, the Empire owed its organization. He was
+a skilful administrator, a good financier, and a wise and far-seeing
+ruler. Of all the Persian princes he is the only one who can be called
+“many-sided.” He was organizer, general, statesman, administrator,
+builder, patron of arts and literature, all in one. Without him Persia
+would probably have sunk as rapidly as she rose, and would be known to
+us only as one of the many meteor powers which have shot athwart the
+horizon of the East.
+
+Xerxes, the eldest son of Darius by Atossa, succeeded his father by
+virtue of a formal act of choice. It was a Persian custom that the king,
+before he went out of his dominions on an expedition, should nominate a
+successor. Darius must have done this before his campaign in Thrace
+and Scythia; and if Xerxes was then, as is probable, a mere boy, it is
+impossible that he should have received the appointment. Artobazanes,
+the eldest of all Darius’s sons, whose mother, a daughter of Gobryas,
+was married to Darius before he became king, was most likely then
+nominated, and was thenceforth regarded as the heir-apparent. When,
+however, towards the close of his reign Darius again proposed to head
+a foreign expedition, an opportunity occurred of disturbing this
+arrangement, of which Atossa, Darius’s favorite wife, whose influence
+over her husband was unbounded, determined to take advantage. According
+to the law, a fresh signification of the sovereign’s will was now
+requisite; and Atossa persuaded Darius to make it in favor of Xerxes.
+The pleas put forward were, first, that he was the eldest son of the
+king, and secondly, that he was descended from Cyrus. This latter
+argument could not fail to have weight. Backed by the influence of
+Atossa, it prevailed over all other considerations; and hence Xerxes
+obtained the throne.
+
+If we may trust the informants of Herodotus, it was the wish of Xerxes
+on his accession to discontinue the preparations against Greece, and
+confine his efforts to the re-conquest of Egypt. Though not devoid of
+ambition, he may well have been distrustful of his own powers; and,
+having been nurtured in luxury, he may have shrunk from the perils of a
+campaign in unknown regions. But he was surrounded by advisers who had
+interests opposed to his inclinations, and who worked on his facile
+temper till they prevailed on him to take that course which seemed best
+calculated to promote their designs. Mardonius was anxious to retrieve
+his former failure, and expected, if Greece were conquered, that the
+rich prize would become his own satrapy. The refugee princes of the
+family of Pisistratus hoped to be reinstated under Persian influence as
+dependent despots of Athens. Demaratus of Sparta probably cherished
+a similar expectation with regard to that capital. The Persian nobles
+generally, who profited by the spoils of war, and who were still full of
+the military spirit, looked forward with pleasure to an expedition
+from which they anticipated victory, plunder, and thousands of valuable
+captives. The youthful king was soon persuaded that the example of his
+predecessors required him to undertake some fresh conquest, while the
+honor of Persia absolutely demanded that the wrongs inflicted upon her
+by Athens should be avenged. Before, however, turning his arms against
+Greece, two revolts required his attention. In the year B.C. 485--the
+second of his reign--he marched into Egypt, which he rapidly reduced to
+obedience and punished by increasing its burthens. Soon afterwards he
+seems to have provoked a rebellion of the Babylonians by acts which they
+regarded as impious, and avenged by killing their satrap, Zopyrus, and
+proclaiming their independence. Megabyzus, the son of Zopyrus, recovered
+the city, which was punished by the plunder and ruin of its famous
+temple and the desolation of many of its shrines.
+
+Xerxes was now free to bend all his efforts against Greece, and,
+appreciating apparently to the full the magnitude and difficulty of the
+task, resolved that nothing should be left undone which could possibly
+be done in order to render success certain. The experience of former
+years had taught some important lessons. The failure of Datis had proved
+that such an expedition as could be conveyed by sea across the Egean
+would be insufficient to secure the object sought, and that the only
+safe road for a conqueror whose land force constituted his real strength
+was along the shores of the European continent. But if a large army
+took this long and circuitous route, it must be supported by a powerful
+fleet; and this involved a new danger. The losses of Mardonius off Athos
+had shown the perils of Egean navigation, and taught the lesson that the
+naval force must be at first far more than proportionate to the needs
+of the army, in order that it might still be sufficient notwithstanding
+some considerable disasters. At the same time they had indicated one
+special place of danger, which might be avoided, if proper measures
+were taken. Xerxes, in the four years which followed on the reduction of
+Egypt, continued incessantly to make the most gigantic preparations
+for his intended attack upon Greece, and among them included all the
+precautions which a wise foresight could devise in order to ward off
+every conceivable peril. A general order was issued to all the satraps
+throughout the Empire, calling on them to levy the utmost force of their
+province for the new war; while, as the equipment of Oriental troops
+depends greatly on the purchase and distribution of arms by their
+commander, a rich reward was promised to the satrap whose contingent
+should appear at the appointed place and time in the most gallant array.
+Orders for ships and transports of different kinds were given to the
+maritime states, with such effect that above 1200 triremes and 3000
+vessels of an inferior description were collected together. Magazines
+of corn were formed at various points along the intended line of route.
+Above all, it was determined to bridge the Hellespont by a firm and
+compact structure, which it was thought would secure the communication
+of the army from interruption by the elements; and at the same time it
+was resolved to cut through the isthmus which joined Mount Athos to the
+continent, in order to preserve the fleet from disaster at that most
+perilous part of the proposed voyage. These remarkable works, which made
+a deep impression on the minds of the Greeks, have been ascribed to
+a mere spirit of ostentation on the part of Xerxes; the vain-glorious
+monarch wished, it is supposed, to parade his power, and made a useless
+bridge and an absurd cutting merely for the purpose of exhibiting to
+the world the grandeur of his ideas and the extent of his resources. But
+there is no necessity for travelling beyond the line of ordinary human
+motive in order to discover a reason for the works in question. The
+bridge across the Hellespont was a mere repetition of the construction
+by which Darius had passed into Europe when he made his Scythian
+expedition, and probably seemed to a Persian not a specially dignified
+or very wonderful way of crossing so narrow a strait, but merely the
+natural mode of passage. The only respect in which the bridge of Xerxes
+differed from constructions with which the Persians were thoroughly
+familiar, was in its superior solidity and strength. The shore-cables
+were of unusual size and weight, and apparently of unusual materials;
+the formation of a double line--of two bridges, in fact, instead of
+one--was almost without a parallel; and the completion of the work by
+laying on the ordinary plank-bridge a solid causeway composed of earth
+and brushwood, with a high bulwark on either side, was probably, if not
+unprecedented, at any rate very uncommon. Boat-bridges were usually,
+as they are even now in the East, somewhat rickety constructions, which
+animals unaccustomed to them could with difficulty be induced to cross.
+The bridge of Xerxes was a high-road, as AEschylus calls it along, which
+men, horses, and vehicles might pass with as much comfort and facility
+as they could move on shore.
+
+The utility of such a work is evident. Without it Xerxes must have been
+reduced to the necessity of embarking in ships, conveying across the
+strait, and disembarking, not only his entire host, but all its stores,
+tents, baggage, horses, camels, and sumpter-beasts. If the numbers of
+his army approached even the lowest estimate that has been formed of
+them, it is not too much to say that many weeks must have been spent in
+this operation. As it was, the whole expedition marched across in seven
+days. In the case of ship conveyance, continual accidents would have
+happened: the transport would from time to time have been interrupted by
+bad weather; and great catastrophes might have occurred. By means of the
+bridge the passage was probably effected without any loss of either man
+or beast. Moreover, the bridge once established, there was a safe
+line of communication thenceforth between the army in Europe and the
+headquarters of the Persian power in Asia, along which might pass
+couriers, supplies, and reinforcements, if they should be needed.
+Further, the grandeur, massiveness, and apparent stability of the work
+was calculated to impose upon the minds of men, and to diminish their
+power of resistance by impressing them strongly with a sense of the
+irresistible greatness and strength of the invader.
+
+The canal of Athos was also quite a legitimate and judicious
+undertaking. [PLATE LXI.] No portion of the Greek coast is so dangerous
+as that about Athos. Greek boatmen even at the present day refuse to
+attempt the circumnavigation; and probably any government less apathetic
+than that of the Turks would at once re-open the old cutting. The work
+was one of very little difficulty, the breadth of the isthmus being less
+than a mile and a half, the material sand and marl, and the greatest
+height of the natural ground above the level of the sea about fifty
+feet. The construction of a canal in such a locality was certainly
+better than the formation of a ship-groove or Diolcus--the substitute
+for it proposed by Ferodotus, [PLATE LXI.] not to mention that it is
+doubtful whether at the time that this cutting was made ship-grooves
+were known even to the Greeks.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXI.]
+
+
+Xerxes, having brought his preparations into a state of forwardness,
+having completed his canal and his bridge--after one failure with the
+latter, for which the constructors and the sea were punished--proceeded,
+in the year B.C. 481, along the “Royal Road” from Susa to Sardis, and
+wintered at the Lydian capital. His army is said to have accompanied
+him; but more probably it joined him in the spring, flocking in,
+contingent after contingent, from the various provinces of his vast
+Empire. Forty-nine nations, according to Herodotus, served under his
+standard; and their contingents made up a grand total of eighteen
+hundred thousand men. Of these, eighty thousand were cavalry, while
+twenty thousand rode in chariots or on camels; the remainder served on
+foot. There are no sufficient means of testing these numbers. Figures
+in the mouth of an Oriental are vague and almost unmeaning; armies are
+never really counted: there is no such thing as a fixed and definite
+“strength” of a division or a battalion. Herodotus tells us that a rough
+attempt at numbering the infantry of the host was made on this occasion;
+but it was of so rude and primitive a description that little dependence
+can be placed on the results obtained by it. Ten thousand men were
+counted, and were made to stand close together; a line was then drawn
+round them, and a wall built on the line to the height of a man’s waist;
+within the enclosure thus made all the troops in turn entered, and each
+time that the enclosure appeared to be full, ten thousand were supposed
+to be within it. Estimated in this way, the infantry was regarded as
+amounting to 1,700,000. It is clear that such mode of counting was of
+the roughest kind, and might lead to gross exaggeration. Each commander
+would wish his troops to be thought more numerous than they really were,
+and would cause the enclosure to appear full when several thousands
+more might still have found room within it. Nevertheless there would be
+limits beyond which exaggeration could not go; and if Xerxes was made to
+believe that the land force which he took with him into Europe amounted
+to nearly two millions of men, it is scarcely doubtful but that it must
+have exceeded one million.
+
+The motley composition of such a host has been described in a former
+chapter. Each nation was armed and equipped after its own fashion, and
+served in a body, often under a distinct commander. The army marched
+through Asia in a single column, which was not, however, continuous,
+but was broken into three portions. The first portion consisted of the
+baggage animals and about half of the contingents of the nations; the
+second was composed wholly of native Persians, who preceded and followed
+the emblems of religion and the king; the third was made up of the
+remaining national contingents. The king himself rode alternately in
+a chariot and in a litter. He was preceded immediately by ten sacred
+horses, and a sacred chariot drawn by eight milk-white steeds. Round
+him and about him were the choicest troops of the whole army, twelve
+thousand horse and the same number of foot, all Persians, and those too
+not taken at random, but selected carefully from the whole mass of the
+native soldiery. Among them seem to have been the famous “Immortals”--a
+picked body of 10,000 footmen, always maintained at exactly the same
+number, and thence deriving their appellation.
+
+The line of march from Sardis to Abydos was only partially along the
+shore. The army probably descended the valley of the Hermus nearly to
+its mouth, and then struck northward into the Caicus vale, crossing
+which it held on its way, with Mount Kara-dagh (Cane) on the left,
+across the Atarnean plain, and along the coast to Adramytium (Adramyti)
+and Antandros, whence it again struck inland, and, crossing the ridge
+of Ida, descended into the valley of the Scamander. Some losses were
+incurred from the effects of a violent thunderstorm amid the mountains;
+but they cannot have been of a any great consequence. On reaching the
+Scamander the army found its first difficulty with respect to water.
+That stream was probably low, and the vast host of men and animals
+were unable to obtain from it a supply sufficient for their wants. This
+phenomenon, we are told, frequently recurred afterwards; it surprises
+the English reader, but is not really astonishing, since, in hot
+countries, even considerable streams are often reduced to mere threads
+of water during the summer.
+
+Rounding the hills which skirt the Scamander valley upon the east, the
+army marched past Rhoeteum, Ophrynium, and Dardanus to Abydos. Here
+Xerxes, seated upon a marble throne, which the people of Abydos had
+erected for him on the summit of a hill, was able to see at one glance
+his whole, armament, and to feast his eyes with the sight. It is not
+likely that any misgivings occurred to him at such a moment. Before him
+lay his vast host, covering with its dense masses the entire low ground
+between the hills and the sea; beyond was the strait, and to his left
+the open sea, white with the sails of four thousand ships; the green
+fields of the Chersonese smiled invitingly a little further on; while,
+between him and the opposite shore, the long lines of his bridges lay
+darkling upon the sea, like a yoke placed upon the neck of a captive.
+Having seen all, the king gave his special attention to the fleet, which
+he now perhaps beheld in all its magnitude for the first time. Desirous
+of knowing which of his subjects were the best sailors, he gave orders
+for a sailing-match, which were at once carried out. The palm was borne
+off by the Phoenicians of Sidon, who must have beaten not only their own
+countrymen of Tyre, but the Greeks of Asia and the islands.
+
+On the next day the passage took place. It was accompanied by religious
+ceremonies. Waiting for the sacred hour of sunrise, the leader of the
+host, as the first rays appeared, poured a libation from a golden goblet
+into the sea, and prayed to Mithra that he might effect the conquest of
+Europe. As he prayed he cast into the sea the golden goblet, and with it
+a golden bowl and a short Persian sword. Meanwhile the multitude strewed
+all the bridge with myrtle boughs, and perfumed it with clouds of
+incense. The “Immortals” crossed first, wearing garlands on their
+heads. The king, with the sacred chariot and horses passed over on the
+second day. For seven days and seven nights the human stream flowed
+on without intermission across one bridge, while the attendants and the
+baggage-train made use of the other. The lash was employed to quicken
+the movements of laggards. At last the whole army was in Europe, and the
+march resumed its regularity.
+
+It is unnecessary to follow in detail the advance of the host along the
+coast of Thrace, across Chalcidice, and round the Thermaic Gulf into
+Pieria. If we except the counting of the fleet and army at Doriscus no
+circumstances of much interest diversified this portion of the march,
+which lay entirely through territories that had previously submitted
+to the Great King. The army spread itself over a wide tract of country,
+marching generally in three divisions, which proceeded by three parallel
+lines--one along the coast, another at some considerable distance
+inland, and a third, with which was Xerxes himself, midway between them.
+At every place where Xerxes stopped along his line of route the natives
+had, besides furnishing corn for his army, to entertain him and his
+suite at a great banquet, the cost of which was felt as a heavy burthen.
+Contributions of troops or ships were also required from all the cities
+and tribes; and thus both fleet and army continually swelled as they
+advanced onward. In crossing the track between the Strymon and the Axius
+some damage was suffered by the baggage-train from lions, which came
+down from the mountains during the night and devoured many of the
+camels; but otherwise the march was effected without loss, and the fleet
+and army reached the borders of Thessaly intact, and in good condition.
+Here it was found that there was work for the pioneers, and a
+reconnaissance of the enemy’s country before entering it was probably
+also thought desirable. The army accordingly halted some days in Pieria,
+while preparations were being made for crossing the Olympic range into
+the Thessalian lowland.
+
+During the halt intelligence arrived which seemed to promise the invader
+an easy conquest. Xerxes, while he was staying at Sardis, had sent
+heralds to all the Grecian states, excepting Athens and Sparta, with a
+demand for earth and water, the recognized symbols of submission. His
+envoys now returned, and brought him favorable replies from at least
+one-third of the continental Greeks--from the Perrhaebians, Thessalians,
+Dolopians, Magnetians, Achaeans of Phthiotis, Enianians, Malians,
+Locrians, and from most of the Boeotians. Unless it were the
+insignificant Phocis, no hostile country seemed to intervene between the
+place where his army lay and the great object of the expedition, Attica.
+Xerxes, therefore, having first viewed the pass of Tempe, and seen with
+his own eyes that no enemy lay encamped beyond, passed over the Olympic
+range by a road cut through the woods by his army, and proceeded
+southwards across Thessaly and Achaea Phthiotis into Malis, the fertile
+plain at the mouth of the Spercheius river. Here, having heard that a
+Greek force was in the neighborhood, he pitched his camp not far from
+the small town of Trachis.
+
+Thus far had the Greeks allowed the invader to penetrate their country
+without offering him any resistance. Originally there had been an
+intention of defending Thessaly, and an army under Evsenetus, a Spartan
+polemarch, and Themistocles, the great Athenian, had proceeded to Tempe,
+in order to cooperate with the Thessalians in guarding the pass. But the
+discovery that the Olympic range could be crossed in the,place where
+the army of Xerxes afterwards passed it had shown that the position was
+untenable; and it had been then resolved that the stand should be
+made at the next defensible position, Thermopylae. [PLATE LXII.] Here,
+accordingly, a force was found--small, indeed, if it be compared with
+the number of the assailants, but sufficient to defend such a position
+as that where it was posted against the world in arms. Three hundred
+Spartans, with their usual retinue of helots, 700 Lacedaemonians, other
+Peloponnesians to the number of 2800, 1000 Phocians, the same number
+of Locrians, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, formed an army of 9000
+men--quite as numerous a force as could be employed with any effect in
+the defile they were sent to guard. The defile was a long and narrow
+pass shut in between a high mountain, Callidromus, and the sea, and
+crossed at one point by a line of wall in which was a single gateway.
+Unless the command of the sea were gained, or another mode of crossing
+the mountains discovered, the pass could scarcely be forced.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXII.]
+
+
+Xerxes, however, confident in his numbers--after waiting four days at
+Trachis, probably in the hope that his fleet would join him--proceeded
+on the fifth day to the assault. First the Medes and Cissians, then
+the famous “Immortals” were sent into the jaws of the pass against the
+immovable foe; but neither detachment could make any impression. The
+long spears, large shields, and heavy armor of the Greeks, their skilful
+tactics, and steady array, were far more than a match for the inferior
+equipments and discipline of the Asiatics. Though the attack was made
+with great gallantry, both on this day and the next, it failed to
+produce the slightest effect. Very few of the Greeks were either slain
+or wounded; and it seemed as if the further advance of a million of men
+was to be stopped by a force less than a hundredth part of their number.
+
+But now information reached Xerxes which completely changed the face
+of affairs. There was a rough mountain-path leading from Trachis up
+the gorge of the Asopus and across Callidromus to the rear of the Greek
+position, which had been unknown to the Greeks when they decided on
+making their first stand at Thermopylae, and which they only discovered
+when their plans no longer admitted of alteration. It was, perhaps,
+not much more than a goat-track, and apparently they had regarded it as
+scarcely practicable, since they had thought its defence might be safely
+entrusted to a thousand Phocians. Xerxes, however, on learning the
+existence of the track, resolved at once to make trial of it. His
+Persian soldiers were excellent mountaineers. He ordered Hydarnes to
+take the “Immortals,” and, guided by a native, to proceed along the path
+by night, and descend with early dawn into the rear of the Greeks, who
+would then be placed between two fires. The operation was performed with
+complete success. The Phocian guard, surprised at the summit, left the
+path free while they sought a place of safety. The Greeks in the pass
+below, warned during the night of their danger, in part fled, in part
+resolved on death. When morning came, Leonidas, at the head of about
+half his original army, moved forward towards the Malian plain, and
+there met the advancing Persians. A bloody combat ensued, in which the
+Persians lost by far the greater number; but the ranks of the Greeks
+were gradually thinned, and they were beaten back step by step into the
+narrowest part of the pass, where finally they all perished, except the
+four hundred Thebans, who submitted and were made prisoners.
+
+So terminated the first struggle on the soil of Greece, between the
+invaders and the invaded. It seemed to promise that, though at vast
+cost, Persia would be victorious. If her loss in the three days’ combat
+was 20,000 men, as Herodotus states, yet, as that of her enemy was 4000,
+the proportionate advantage was on her side.
+
+But, for the conquest of such a country as Greece, it was requisite, not
+only that the invader should succeed on land, but also that he should be
+superior at sea. Xerxes had felt this, and had brought with him a fleet,
+calculated, as he imagined, to sweep the Greek navy from the Egean. As
+far as the Pagasaean Gulf, opposite the northern extremity of Euboea,
+his fleet had advanced without meeting an enemy. It had encountered one
+terrible storm off the coast of Magnesia, and had lost 400 vessels; but
+this loss was scarcely felt in so vast an armament. When from Aphetse,
+at the mouth of the gulf, the small Greek fleet, amounting to no more
+than 271 vessels, was seen at anchor off Artemisium, the only fear which
+the Persian commanders entertained was lest it should escape them. They
+at once detached 200 vessels to sail round the Coast coast of Euboea,
+and cut off the possibility of retreat. When, however, these vessels
+were all lost in a storm, and when in three engagements on three
+successive days, the Greek fleet showed itself fully able to contend
+against the superior numbers of its antagonist, the Persians themselves
+could not fail to see that their naval supremacy was more than doubtful.
+The fleet at Artemisium was not the entire Greek naval force; on another
+occasion it might be augumented, while their own could scarcely expect
+to receive reinforcements. The fights at Artemisium foreshadowed a day
+when the rival fleets would no longer meet and part on equal terms, but
+Persia would have to acknowledge herself inferior.
+
+Meanwhile, however, the balance of advantage rested with the invaders.
+The key of Northern Greece was won, and Phocis, Locris, Boeotia, Attica,
+and the Megarid lay open to the Persian army. The Greek fleet could gain
+nothing by any longer maintaining the position of Artemisium, and fell
+back towards the south, while its leaders anxiously considered where it
+should next take up its station. The Persians pressed on both by land
+and sea. A rapid march through Phocis and Boeotia brought Xerxes to
+Athens, soon after the Athenians, knowing that resistance would be vain,
+had evacuated it. The Acropolis, defended by a few fanatics, was taken
+and burnt. One object of the expedition was thus accomplished. Athens
+lay in ruins; and the whole of Attica was occupied by the conqueror.
+The Persian fleet, too, finding the channel of the Euripus clear, sailed
+down it, and rounding Sunium, came to anchor in the bay of Phalerum.
+
+In the councils of the Greeks all was doubt and irresolution. The
+army, which ought to have mustered in full force at Thermopylae and
+Callidromus, and which, after those passes were forced, might have
+defended Cithseron and Parnes, had never ventured beyond the Isthmus
+of Corinth, and was there engaged in building a wall across the neck of
+land from sea to sea. The fleet lay off Salamis, where it was detained
+by the entreaties of the Athenians, who had placed in that island the
+greater part of the non-combatant population; but the inclination was
+strong on the part of many to withdraw westward and fight the next
+battle, if a battle must be fought, in the vicinity of the land force,
+which would be a protection in case of defeat. Could Xerxes have had
+patience for a few days, the combined fleet would have broken up. The
+Peloponnesian contingents would have withdrawn to the isthmus; and the
+Athenians, despairing of success, would probably have sailed away to
+Italy. But the Great King, when he saw the vast disproportion
+between his own fleet and that of the enemy, could not believe in the
+possibility of the Greeks offering a successful resistance. Like a
+modern emperor, who imagined that, if only he could have been with his
+fleet, all would necessarily have gone well, Xerxes supposed that by
+having the sea-fight under his own eye he would be sure of victory. Thus
+again, as at Artemisium, the only fear felt was lest the Greeks should
+fly, and in that way escape chastisement. Orders were therefore issued
+to the Persian fleet to close up at once, and blockade the eastern end
+of the Salaminian strait, while a detachment repeated the attempted
+manoeuvre at Euboea, and sailed round the island to guard the channel at
+its western outlet.
+
+These movements were executed late in the day on which the Persian
+fleet arrived at Phalerum. During the night intelligence reached the
+commanders that the retreat of the Greeks was about to commence at once;
+whereupon the Persian right wing was pushed forward into the strait,
+and carried beyond the Greek position so as to fill the channel where
+it opens into the bay of Eleusis. The remainder of the night passed
+in preparations for the battle on both sides. At daybreak both fleets
+advanced from their respective shores, the Persians being rather the
+assailants. Their thousand vessels were drawn up in three lines, and
+charged their antagonists with such spirit that the general inclination
+on the part of the Greeks was at first to retreat. Some of their ships
+had almost touched the shore, when the bold example of one of the
+captains, or a cry of reproach from unknown lips, produced a revulsion
+of feeling, and the whole line advanced in good order. The battle was
+for a short time doubtful; but soon the superiority of Greek naval
+tactics began to tell. The Persian vessels became entangled one with
+another, and crashing together broke each other’s oars. The triple
+line increased their difficulties. If a vessel, overmatched, sought to
+retreat, it necessarily came into collision with the ships stationed
+in its rear. These moreover pressed too eagerly forward, since their
+captains were anxious to distinguish themselves in order to merit the
+approval of Xerxes. The Greeks found themselves able to practice
+with good effect their favorite manoeuvre of the _periplus_, and thus
+increased the confusion. It was not long before the greater part of
+the Persian fleet became a mere helpless mass of shattered or damaged
+vessels. Five hundred are said to have been sunk--the majority by the
+enemy, but some even by their own friends. The sea was covered with
+wrecks, and with wretches who clung to them, till the ruthless enemy
+slew them or forced them to let go their hold.
+
+This defeat was a death-blow to the hopes of Xerxes, and sealed the fate
+of the expedition. From the moment that he realized to himself the fact
+of the entire inability of his fleet to cope with that of the Greeks,
+Xerxes made up his mind to return with all haste to Asia. From
+over-confidence he fell into the opposite extreme of despair, and made
+no effort to retrieve his ill fortune. His fleet was ordered to sail
+straight for the Hellespont, and to guard the bridges until he reached
+them with his army. He himself retreated hastily along the same road
+by which he had advanced, his whole army accompanying him as far as
+Thessaly, where Marnonius was left with 260,000 picked men, to prevent
+pursuit, and to renew the attempt against Greece in the ensuing year.
+Xerxes pressed on to the Hellespont, losing vast numbers of his troops
+by famine and sickness on the way, and finally returned into Asia, not
+by his magnificent bridge, which a storm had destroyed, but on board a
+vessel, which, according to some, narrowly escaped shipwreck during the
+passage. Even in Asia disaster pursued him. Between Abydos and Sardis
+his army suffered almost as much from over-indulgence as it had
+previously suffered from want; and of the mighty host which had gone
+forth from the Lydian capital in the spring not very many thousands can
+have re-entered it in the autumn.
+
+Still, however, there was a possibility that the success which his
+own arms had failed to achieve might reward the exertions of his
+lieutenants. Mardonius had expressed himself confident that with 300,000
+picked soldiers he could overpower all resistance, and make Greece
+a satrapy of Persia. Xerxes had raised his forces to that amount by
+sending Artabazus back from Sestos at the head of a _corps d’armee_
+numbering 40,000 men. The whole army of 300,000 wintered in Thessaly;
+and Mardonius, when spring came, having vainly endeavored to detach the
+Athenians from the Grecian ranks, marched through Boeotia in Attica, and
+occupied Athens for the second time. Hence he proceeded to menace the
+Peloponnese, where he formed an alliance with the Argives, who promised
+him that they would openly embrace the Persian cause. At the same time
+the Athenians, finding that Sparta took no steps to help them, began to
+waver in their resistance, and to contemplate accepting the terms which
+Mardonius was still willing to grant them. The fate of Greece trembled
+in the balance, and apparently was determined by the accident of a death
+and a succession, rather than by any wide-spread patriotic feeling or
+any settled course of policy. Cleombrotus, regent for the young son
+of Leonidas, died, and his brother Pausanias--a brave, clever, and
+ambitious man--took his place. We can scarcely be wrong in ascribing--at
+least in part--to this circumstance the unlooked-for change of policy,
+which electrified the despondent ambassadors of Athens almost as soon as
+Pausanias was installed in power. It was suddenly announced that
+Sparta would take the offensive. Ten thousand hoplites and 400,000
+light-armed--the largest army that she ever levied--took the field,
+and, joined at the isthmus by above 25,000 Peloponnesians, and soon
+afterwards by almost as many Athenians and Megarians, proceeded to seek
+the foreigners, first in Attica, and then in the position to which they
+had retired in Boeotia. On the skirts of Citheeron, near Platsea, a
+hundred and eight thousand Greeks confronted more than thrice their
+number of Persians and Persian subjects; and now at length the trial
+was to be made whether, in fair and open fight on land, Greece or Persia
+would be superior. A suspicion of what the result would be might have
+been derived from Marathon. But there the Persians had been taken at a
+disadvantage, when the cavalry, their most important arm, was absent.
+Here the error of Datis was not likely to be repeated. Mardonius had a
+numerous and well-armed cavalry, which he handled with no little skill.
+It remained to be seen, when the general engagement came, whether, with
+both arms brought fully into play, the vanquished at Marathon would be
+the victors.
+
+The battle of Plataea was brought on under circumstances very
+unfavorable to the Greeks. Want of water and a difficulty about
+provisions had necessitated a night movement on their part. The
+cowardice of all the small contingents, and the obstinacy of an
+individual Spartan, disconcerted the whole plan of the operation, and
+left the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians at daybreak separated from
+each other, and deserted by the whole body of their allies. Mardonius
+attacked at once, and prevented the junction of the two allies, so that
+two distinct and separate engagements went on at the same time. In both
+the Greeks were victorious. The Spartans repulsed the Persian horse and
+foot, slew Mardonius and were the first to assail the Persian camp. The
+Athenians defeated the _medizing_ Greeks, and effected a breach in
+the defences of the camp, on which the Spartans had failed to make any
+impression. A terrible carnage followed. The contingent of 40,000 troops
+under Artabazus alone drew off in good order.
+
+The remainder were seized with panic, and were either slaughtered like
+sheep or fled in complete disarray. Seventy thousand Greeks not only
+defeated but destroyed the army of 300,000 barbarians, which melted
+away and disappeared making no further stand anywhere. The disaster of
+Marathon was repeated on a larger scale, and without the resource of
+an embarkation. Henceforth the immense superiority of Greek troops to
+Persian was well known on both sides; and nothing but the distance from
+Greece of her vital parts, and the quarrels of the Greek states among
+themselves, preserved for nearly a century and a half the doomed empire
+of Persia.
+
+The immediate result of the defeats of Salamis and Platsea was a
+contraction of the Persian boundary towards the west. Though a few
+Persian garrisons maintained themselves for some years on the further
+side of the straits, soothing thereby the wounded vanity of the Great
+King, who liked to think that he had still a hold on Europe; yet there
+can be no doubt that, after the double flight of Xerxes and Artabazus,
+Macedonia, Pseonia, and Thrace recovered their independence. Persia lost
+her European provinces, and began the struggle to retain those of Asia.
+Terminus receded, and having once receded never advanced again in this
+quarter. The Greeks took the offensive. Sailing to Asia, they not only
+liberated from their Persian bondage the islands which lay along the
+coast, but landing their men on the continent, attacked and defeated
+an army of 60,000 Persians at Mycale, and destroyed the remnant of the
+ships that had escaped from Salamis. Could they have made up their minds
+to maintain a powerful fleet permanently on the coast of Asia, they
+might at once have deprived Persia of her whole sea-hoard on the
+Propontis and the Egean; but neither of the two great powers of Greece
+was prepared for such a resolve. Sparta disliked distant expeditions;
+and Athens did not as yet see her way to undertaking the protection
+of the continental Greeks. She had much to do at home, and had not
+yet discovered those weak points in her adversary’s harness, which
+subsequently enabled her to secure by treaty the freedom of the Greek
+cities upon the mainland. For the present, therefore, Persia only lost
+the bulk of her European possessions, and the islands of the Propontis
+and the Egean.
+
+The circumstances which caused a renewal of Greek agressions upon Asia
+towards the close of the reign of Xerxes are not very clearly narrated
+by the authors who speak of them. It appears, however, that after twelve
+years of petty operations, during which Eion was recovered, and Doriscus
+frequently attacked, but without effect, the Athenians resolved, in B.C.
+466, upon a great expedition to the eastward. Collecting a fleet of
+300 vessels, which was placed under the command of Cimon, the son of
+Miltiades, they sailed to the coast of Caria and Lycia, where they drove
+the Persian garrisons out of the Greek towns, and augmenting their
+navy by fresh contingents at every step, proceeded along the shores of
+Pamphylia as far as the mouth of the river Eurymedon, where they found
+a Phoenician fleet of 340 vessels, and a Persian army, stationed to
+protect the territory. Engaging first the fleet they defeated it, and
+drove it ashore, after which they disembarked and gained a victory
+over the Persian army. As many as two hundred triremes were taken
+or destroyed. They then sailed on towards Cyprus, where they met and
+destroyed a squadron of eighty ships, which was on its way to reinforce
+the fleet at the Eurymedon. Above a hundred vessels, 20,000 captives,
+and a vast amount of plunder were the prize of this war; which had,
+however, no further effect on the relations of the two powers.
+
+In the following year the reign of Xerxes came to an end abruptly.
+With this monarch seems to have begun those internal disorders of the
+seraglio, which made the Court during more than a hundred and forty
+years a perpetual scene of intrigues, assassinations, executions, and
+conspiracies. Xerxes, who appears to have only one wife, Amestris,
+the daughter (or grand-daughter) of the conspirator, Otanes, permitted
+himself the free indulgence of illicit passion among the princesses
+of the Court, the wives of his own near relatives. The most horrible
+results followed. Amestris vented her jealous spite on those whom she
+regarded as guilty of stealing from her the affections of her husband;
+and to prevent her barbarities from producing rebellion, it was
+necessary to execute the persons whom she had provoked, albeit they were
+near relations of the monarch. The taint of incontinence spread among
+the members of the royal family; and a daughter of the king, who was
+married to one of the most powerful nobles, became notorious for
+her excesses. Eunuchs rose into power, and fomented the evils which
+prevailed. The king made himself bitter enemies among those whose
+position was close to his person. At last, Artabanus, chief of the
+guard, a courtier of high rank, and Aspamitres, a eunuch, who held the
+office of chamberlain, conspired against their master, and murdered him
+in his sleeping apartment, after he had reigned twenty years.
+
+The character of Xerxes falls below that of any preceding monarch.
+Excepting that he was not wholly devoid of a certain magnanimity, which
+made him listen patiently to those who opposed his views or gave him
+unpalatable advice and which prevented him from exacting vengeance on
+some occasions, he had scarcely a trait whereon the mind can rest with
+any satisfaction. Weak and easily led, puerile in his gusts of passion
+and his complete abandonment of himself to them--selfish, fickle,
+boastful, cruel, superstitious, licentious--he exhibits to us the
+Oriental despot in the most contemptible of all his aspects--that
+wherein the moral and the intellectual qualities are equally in defect,
+and the career is one unvarying course of vice and folly. From Xerxes we
+have to date at once the decline of the Empire in respect of territorial
+greatness and military strength, and likewise its deterioration in
+regard to administrative vigor and national spirit. With him commenced
+the corruption of the Court--the fatal evil, which almost universally
+weakens and destroys Oriental dynasties. His expedition against Greece
+exhausted and depopulated the Empire; and though, by abstaining from
+further military enterprises, he did what lay in his power to recruit
+its strength, still the losses which his expedition caused were
+certainly not repaired in his lifetime.
+
+As a builder, Xerxes showed something of the same grandeur of conception
+which is observable in his great military enterprise and in the works by
+which it was accompanied. His Propylaea, and the sculptured staircase in
+front of the Chebl Minar, which is undoubtedly his work, are among the
+most magnificent erections upon the Persepolitan platform; and are quite
+sufficient to place him in the foremost rank of Oriental builders. If
+we were to ascribe the Chehl Minar itself to him, we should have to give
+him the palm above all other kings of Persia; but on the whole it
+is most probable that that edifice and its duplicate at Susa were
+conceived, and in the main, constructed, by Darius.
+
+Xerxes left behind him three sons--Darius, Hystaspes, and
+Artaxerxes--and two daughters, Amytis and Rhodogune. Hystaspes was
+satrap of Bactria, and at the time of their father’s death, only Darius
+and Artaxerxes were at the Court.
+
+Fearing the eldest son most, Artabanus persuaded Artaxerxes that the
+assassination of Xerxes was the act of his brother, whereupon Artaxerxes
+caused him to be put to death, and himself ascended the throne (B.C.
+465).
+
+Troubles, as usual, accompanied this irregular accession. Artabanus, not
+content with exercising an influence under Artaxerxes such as has
+caused some authors to speak of him as king, aimed at removing the
+young prince, and making himself actual monarch. But his designs being
+betrayed to Artaxerxes by Megabyzus, and at the same time his
+former crimes coming to light, he was killed, together with his tool
+Aspamitres, seven months after the murder of Xerxes. The sons of
+Artabanus sought to avenge his death, but were defeated by Megabyzus in
+an engagement, wherein they lost their lives.
+
+Meanwhile, in Bactria, Hystaspes, who had a rightful claim to the
+throne, raised the standard of revolt. Artaxerxes marched against him
+in person, and engaged him in two battles, the first of which was
+indecisive, while in the second the Bactrians suffered defeat, chiefly
+(according to Ctesias) because the wind blew violently in their faces.
+So signal was victory, that Bactria at once submitted. Hystaspes’ fate
+is uncertain.
+
+Not long after the reduction of Bactria, Egypt suddenly threw off the
+Persian yoke (B.C. 460). Inarus, a king of the wild African tribes who
+bordered the Nile valley on the west, but himself perhaps a descendant
+of the old monarchs of Egypt, led the insurrection, and, in conjunction
+with an Egyptian, named Amyrtseus, attacked the Persian troops stationed
+in the country, who were commanded by Achaemenes, the satrap. A battle
+was fought near Papremis in the Delta, wherein the Persians were
+defeated, and Achaemenes fell by the hand of Inarus himself. The
+Egyptians generally now joined in the revolt; and the remnant of the
+Persian army was shut up in Memphis. Inarus had asked the aid of Athens;
+and an Athenian fleet of 200 sail was sent to his assistance. This fleet
+sailed up the Nile, defeated a Persian squadron, and took part in the
+capture of Memphis and the siege of its citade (White Castle). When
+the Persian king first learned what had happened, he endeavored to rid
+himself of his Athenian enemies by inducing the Spartans to invade their
+country; but, failing in his attempt, he had recourse to arms, and,
+levying a vast host, which he placed under the command of Megabyzus,
+sent that officer to recover the revolted province. Megabyzus marched
+upon Memphis, defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a great battle,
+relieved the citadel of Memphis from its siege, and recovered the rest
+of the town. The Athenians fled to the tract called Prosopitis, which
+was a a portion of the Delta, completely surrounded by two branch
+streams of the Nile. Here they were besieged for eighteen months, till
+Megabyzus contrived to turn the water from one of the two streams,
+whereby the Athenian ships were stranded, and the Persian troops were
+able to march across the river bed, and overwhelm the Athenians with
+their numbers. A few only escaped to Cyrene. The entire fleet fell into
+the enemy’s hands; and a reinforcement of fifty more ships, arriving
+soon after the defeat, was attacked unawares after it had entered the
+river, and lost more than half its number. Inarus was betrayed by some
+of his own men, and, being carried prisoner to Persia, suffered death by
+crucifixion. Amyrtseus fled to the fens, where for a while he maintained
+his independence. Egypt, however, was with this exception recovered to
+the Empire (B.C. 455); and Athens was taught that she could not always
+invade the dominions of the Great King with impunity.
+
+Six years after this, the Athenians resolved on another effort. A fleet
+of 200 ships was equipped and placed under the command of the victor
+of the Eurymedon, Cimon, with orders to proceed into the Eastern
+Mediterranean, and seek to recover the laurels lost in Egypt. Cimon
+sailed to Cyprus, where he received a communication from Amyrtseus,
+which induced him to dispatch sixty ships to Egypt, while with the
+remaining one hundred and forty he commenced the siege of Citium. Here
+he died, either of disease or from the effects of a wound; and his
+armament, pressed for provisions, was forced soon afterwards to raise
+the siege, and address itself to some other enterprise. Sailing past
+Salamis, it found there a Cilician and Phoenician fleet, consisting of
+300 vessels, which it immediately attacked and defeated, notwithstanding
+the disparity of number. Besides the ships which were sunk, a hundred
+triremes were taken; and the sailors then landed and gained a victory
+over a Persian army upon the shore. Artaxerxes, upon this, fearing lest
+he should lose Cyprus altogether, and thinking that, if Athens became
+mistress of this important island, she would always be fomenting
+insurrection in Egypt, made overtures for peace to the generals who were
+now in command. His propositions were favorably received. Peace was made
+on the following terms:--Athens agreed to relinquish Cyprus, and recall
+her squadron from Egypt; while the king consented to grant freedom to
+all the Greek cities on the Asiatic continent, and not to menace them
+either by land or water. The sea was divided between the two powers,
+Persian ships of war were not to sail to the west of Phaselis in the
+Levant, or of the Cyanean islands in the Euxine; and Greek war-ships, we
+may assume, were not to show themselves east of those limits. On these
+conditions there was to be peace and amity between the Greeks and the
+Persians, and neither nation was to undertake any expeditions against
+the territories of the other. Thus terminated the first period of
+hostility between Greece and Persia, a period of exactly half a century,
+commencing B.C. 499 and. ending B.C. 449, in the seventeenth year of
+Artaxerxes.
+
+It was probably not many years after the conclusion of this peace that
+a rebellion broke out in Syria. Megabyzus, the satrap of that important
+province, offended at the execution of Inarus, in violation of the
+promise which he had himself made to him, raised a revolt against
+his sovereign, defeated repeatedly the armies sent to reduce him to
+obedience, and finally treated with Artaxerxes as to the terms on which
+he would consent to be reconciled. Thus was set an example, if not of
+successful insurrection, yet at any rate of the possibility of rebelling
+with impunity--an example which could not fail to have a mischievous
+effect on the future relations of the monarch with his satraps. It
+would have been better for the Empire had Megabyzus suffered the fate
+of Oroetes, instead of living to a good old age in high favor with the
+monarch whose power he had weakened and defied.
+
+Artaxerxes survived the “Peace of Callias” twenty-four years. His
+relations with the Greeks continued friendly till his demise, though,
+on the occasion of the revolt of Samos (B.C. 440), Pissuthnes, satrap of
+Sardis, seems to have transgressed the terms of the treaty, and to
+have nearly brought about a renewal of hostilities. It was probably
+in retaliation for the aid given to the revolted Samians, that the
+Athenians, late in the reign of Artaxerxes, made an expedition against
+Caunus, which might have had important consequences, if the Caunians
+had not been firm in their allegiance. A revolt of Lycia and Caria under
+Zopyrus, the son of Megabyzus, assisted by the Greeks, might have proved
+even more difficult to subdue than the rebellion of Syria under his
+father. Persia, however, escaped this danger; and Artaxerxes, no doubt,
+saw with pleasure a few years later the Greeks turn their arms against
+each other--Athens, his great enemy, being forced into a contest for
+existence with the Peloponnesian confederacy under Sparta.
+
+The character of Artaxerxes, though it receives the approval of Plutarch
+and Diodorus, must be pronounced on the whole poor and contemptible.
+His ready belief of the charge brought by Artabanus against his brother,
+Darius, admits perhaps of excuse, owing to his extreme youth; but his
+surrender of Inarus to Amestris on account of her importunity, his
+readiness to condone the revolt of Megabyzus, and his subjection
+throughout almost the whole of his life to the evil influence of Amytis,
+his sister, and Amestris, his mother--both persons of ill-regulated
+lives--are indications of weakness and folly quite unpardonable in
+a monarch. That he was mild in temperament, and even kind and
+good-natured, is probable. But he had no other quality that deserves the
+slightest commendation. In the whole course of his long reign he seems
+never once to have adventured himself in the field against an enemy.
+He made not a single attempt at conquest in any direction. We have no
+evidence that he patronized either literature or the arts. His peace
+with Athens was necessary perhaps, but disgraceful to Persia. The
+disorders of the Court increased under his reign, from the license
+(especially) which he allowed the Queen-mother, who sported with the
+lives of his subjects. The decay of the Empire received a fatal impulse
+from the impunity which he permitted to Megabyzus.
+
+Like his father, Artaxerxes appears to have had but one legitimate wife.
+This was a certain Damaspia, of whom nothing is known, except that she
+died on the same day as her husband, and was the mother of his only
+legitimate son, Xerxes. Seventeen other sons, who survived him, were
+the issue of various concubines, chiefly--it would appear--Babylonians.
+Xerxes II. succeeded to the throne on the death of his father (B.C.
+425), but reigned forty-five days only, being murdered after a festival,
+in which he had indulged too freely, by his half-brother, Secydianus or
+Sogdianus. Secydianus enjoyed the sovereignty for little more than half
+a year, when he was in his turn put to death by another, brother, Ochus,
+who on ascending the throne took the name of Darius, and became known to
+the Greeks as Darius Nothus.
+
+Darius Nothus had in his father’s lifetime been made satrap of Hyrcania,
+and had married his aunt, Parysatis, a daughter of Xerxes. He had
+already two children at his accession,--a daughter, Amestris, and a
+son, Arsaces, who succeeded him as Artaxerxes. His reign, which lasted
+nineteen years, was a constant scene of insurrections and revolts, some
+of which were of great importance, since they had permanent and
+very disastrous consequences. The earliest of all was raised by his
+full-brother, Arsites, who rebelled in conjunction with a son of
+Megabyzus, and, obtaining the support of a number of Greek mercenaries,
+gained two victories over the forces dispatched against him by the king.
+At last, however, the fortune of war changed. Persian gold was used
+to corrupt the mercenaries; and the rebels being thus reduced to
+extremities, were forced to capitulate, yielding themselves on the
+condition that their lives should be spared. Parysatis induced her
+husband to disregard the pledges given and execute both Arsites and his
+fellow-conspirator--thus proclaiming to the world that, unless by the
+employment of perfidy, the Empire was incapable of dealing with those
+who rebelled against its authority.
+
+The revolt of Pissuthnes, satrap of Lydia, was the next important
+outbreak. Its exact date is uncertain; but it seems not to have very
+long preceded the Athenian disasters in Sicily. Pissuthnes, who had held
+his satrapy for more than twenty years, was the son of a Hystaspes, and
+probably a member of the royal family. His wealth--the accumulations of
+so long a term of office--enabled him to hire the services of a body of
+Greek mercenaries, who were commanded by an Athenian, called Lycon. On
+these troops he placed his chief dependence; but they failed him in the
+hour of need. Tissaphernes, the Persian general sent against him, bribed
+Lycon and his men, who thereupon quitted Pissuthnes and made common
+cause with his adversaries. The unfortunate satrap could no longer
+resist, and therefore surrendered upon terms, and accompanied
+Tissaphernes to the Court. Darius, accustomed now to disregard the
+pledged word of his officers, executed him forthwith, and made over his
+satrapy to Tissaphernes, as a reward for his zeal. Lycon, the Athenian
+traitor, received likewise a handsome return for his services, the
+revenues of several towns and districts being assigned him by the Great
+King.
+
+The rebellion, however, was not wholly crushed by the destruction of
+its author, Amorges, a bastard son of Pissuthnes, continued to maintain
+himself in Caria, where he was master of the strong city of Iasus, on
+the north coast of the Sinus Iasicus, and set the power of Tissaphernes
+at defiance. Having probably inherited the wealth of his father, he
+hired a number of Peloponnesian mercenaries, and succeeded in maintaining
+himself as an independent monarch for some years.
+
+Such was the condition of things in Asia Minor, when intelligence
+arrived of the fearful disasters which had befallen the Athenians in
+Sicily--disasters without a parallel since those of Salamis--sudden,
+unexpected, overwhelming. The news, flying through Asia, awoke
+everywhere a belief that the power of Athens was broken, and that her
+hostility need no longer be dreaded. The Persian monarch considered that
+under the altered circumstances it would be safe to treat the Peace of
+Callias as a dead letter, and sent down orders to the satraps of Lydia
+and Bithynia that they were once more to demand and collect the tribute
+of the Greek cities within their provinces. The satraps began to
+speculate on the advantages which they might derive from alliance with
+the enemies of Athens, and looked anxiously to see a Peloponnesian fleet
+appear off the coast of Asia. Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus vied with
+each other in the tempting offers which they made to Sparta, and it was
+not long before a formal treaty was concluded between that state
+and Persia, by which the two powers bound themselves to carry on war
+conjointly against Athens.
+
+Thus the contest between Persia and her rival entered upon a new phase.
+Henceforth until the liberties of Greece were lost, the Great King could
+always count on having for his ally one of the principal Grecian powers.
+His gold was found to possess attractions which the Greeks were quite
+unable to resist. At one time Sparta, at another Athens, at another
+Thebes yielded to the subtle influence; Greek generals commanded the
+Persian armies; Greek captains manoeuvered the Persian fleets; the very
+rank and file of the standing army came to be almost as much Greek as
+Persian. Acting on the maxim, _Divide et impera_, Persia prolonged for
+eighty years her tottering Empire, by the skilful use which she made of
+the mutual jealousies and divisions of the Hellenic states.
+
+It scarcely belongs to the history of Persia to trace in detail the
+fortunes of the contending powers during the latter portion of the
+Peloponnesian war. We need only observe that the real policy of the
+Court of Susa, well understood, and, on the whole, tolerably well
+carried out by the satraps, was to preserve the balance of power
+between Athens and Sparta, to allow neither to obtain too decided a
+preponderance, to help each in turn, and encourage each to waste the
+other’s strength, but to draw back whenever the moment came for striking
+a decisive blow against either side. This policy skilfully pursued
+by Tissaphernes (who had a genius for intrigue and did not require
+an Alcibiades to give him lessons in state-craft), more clumsily
+by Pharnabazus, whose character was comparatively sincere and
+straightforward, prevailed until the younger Cyrus made his appearance
+upon the scene, when a disturbing force came into play which had
+disastrous effects both on the fortunes of Greece and on those of
+Persia. The younger Cyrus had personal views of self-aggrandizement
+which conflicted with the true interests of his nation, and was so bent
+on paving the way for his own ascent to sovereign power that he did not
+greatly care whether he injured his country or no. As the accomplishment
+of his designs depended mainly on his obtaining a powerful land-force,
+he regarded a Spartan as preferable to an Athenian alliance; and, having
+once made his choice, he lent his ally such effectual aid that in
+two years from the time of his coming down to the coast the war was
+terminated. Persian gold manned and partly built the fleet which
+conquered at AEgos-Potami; perhaps it contributed in a still more
+decisive manner to the victory. Cyrus, by placing his stores at the
+entire command of Lysander, deserved and acquired the cordial good-will
+of Sparta and the Peloponnesians generally--an advantage of which we
+shall find him in the sequel making good use.
+
+The gain to Persia from the dominion which she had reacquired over the
+Greeks of Asia was more than counter-balanced by a loss of territory in
+another quarter, which seems to have occurred during the reign of Darius
+Nothus, though in what exact year is doubtful. The revolt of Egypt is
+placed by Heeren and Clinton in B.C. 414, by Eusebius in B.C. 411, by
+Manetho in the last year of Darius Nothus, or B.C. 405. The earlier
+dates depend on the view that the Amyrtseus of Manetho’s twenty-eighth
+dynasty was the leader of the rebellion, and had a reign of six years
+at this period--a view which is perhaps unsound. Manetho probably
+represented Nepherites (Nefaorot) as the leader; and it is quite clear
+that he placed the re-establishment of the old throne of the Pharaohs in
+the year that Darius Nothus died. As his authority is the best that we
+can obtain upon this obscure point, we may regard the last days of
+the Persian monarch as clouded by news of a rebellion, which had been
+perhaps for some time contemplated, but which did not break out until he
+was known to be in a moribund condition.
+
+A few years earlier, B.C. 408 or 409, the Medes had made an unsuccessful
+attempt to recover their independence. The circumstances of this revolt,
+which is mentioned by no writer but Xenophon, are wholly unknown, but we
+may perhaps connect it with the rebellion of Terituchmes, a son-in-law
+of the king. The story of Terituchmes, which belongs to this period,
+deserves at any rate to be told, as illustrating, in a very remarkable
+way, the corruption, cruelty, and dissoluteness of the Persian Court at
+the time to which we have now come. Terituchmes was the son of Idernes,
+a Persian noble of high rank, probably a descendant of the conspirator
+Hydarnes. On the death of his father, he succeeded to his satrapy, as
+to a hereditary fief, and being high in favor with Darius Nothus, he
+received in marriage that monarch’s daughter, Amestris. Having, however,
+after his marriage become enamored of his own half-sister, Roxana, and
+having persuaded her to an incestuous commerce, he grew to detest his
+wife, and as he could not rid himself of her without making an enemy of
+the king, he entered into a conspiracy with 300 others, and planned to
+raise a rebellion. The bond of a common crime, cruel and revolting in
+its character, was to secure the fidelity of the rebels one to another.
+Amestris was to be placed in a sack, and each conspirator in turn was
+to plunge his sword into her body. It is not clear whether this intended
+murder was executed or no. Hoping to prevent it, Darius commissioned
+a certain Udiastes, who was in the service of Terituchmes, to save his
+daughter by any means that might be necessary; and Udiastes, collecting
+a band, set upon Terituchmes and slew him after a strenuous resistance.
+After this, his mother, brothers, and sisters were apprehended by the
+order of Parysatis, the queen, who caused Roxana to be hewn in pieces,
+and the other unfortunates to be buried alive. It was with great
+difficulty that Arsaces, the heir-apparent, afterwards Artaxerxes
+Mnemon, preserved his own wife, Statira, from the massacre. It happened
+that she was sister to Terituchmes, and, though wholly innocent of his
+offence, she would have been involved in the common destruction of her
+family had not her husband with tears and entreaties begged her life of
+his parents. The son of Terituchmes maintained himself for a while in
+his father’s government; but Parysatis succeeded in having him taken off
+by poison.
+
+The character of Darius Nothus is seen tolerably clearly in the account
+of his reign which has been here given. He was at once weak and wicked.
+Contrary to his sworn word, he murdered his brothers, Secydianus and
+Arsites. He broke faith with Pissuthnes. He sanctioned the wholesale
+execution of Terituchmes’ relatives. Under him the eunuchs of the palace
+rose to such power that one of them actually ventured to aspire to the
+sovereignty. Parysatis, his wife, one of the most cruel and malignant
+even of Oriental women, was in general his chosen guide and counsellor.
+His severities cannot, however, in all eases be ascribed to her
+influence, for he was anxious that she should put the innocent Statira
+to death, and, when she refused, reproached her with being foolishly
+lenient. In his administration of the Empire he was unsuccessful; for,
+if he gained some tracts of Asia Minor, he lost the entire African
+satrapy. Under him we trace a growing relaxation of the checks by which
+the great officers of the state were intended to have been held
+under restraint. Satraps came to be practically uncontrolled in their
+provinces, and the dangerous custom arose of allowing sons to succeed,
+almost as a matter of course, to the governments of their fathers.
+Powers unduly large were lodged in the hands of a single officer, and
+actions, that should have brought down upon their perpetrators sharp
+and signal punishment, were timorously or negligently condoned by the
+supreme authority. Cunning and treachery were made the weapons wherewith
+Persia contended with her enemies. Manly habits were laid aside, and the
+nation learned to trust more and more to the swords of mercenaries.
+
+Shortly before the death of Darius there seems to have been a doubt
+raised as to the succession. Parysatis, who preferred her second son to
+her first-born, imagined that her influence was sufficient to induce her
+husband to nominate Cyrus, instead of Arsaces, to succeed him; and Cyrus
+is said to have himself expected to be preferred above his brother. He
+had the claim, if claim it can be called, that he was the first son
+born to his father after he became king; but his main dependence was
+doubtless on his mother. Darius, however, proved less facile in his
+dying moments than he had been during most of his life, and declined
+to set aside the rights of the eldest son on the frivolous pretence
+suggested to him. His own feelings may have inclined him towards
+Arsaces, who resembled him far more than Cyrus did in character; and
+Cyrus, moreover, had recently offended him, and been summoned to court,
+to answer a very serious charge. Arsaces, therefore, was nominated, and
+took the name of Artaxerxes--as one of a king who had reigned long, and,
+on the whole, prosperously.
+
+An incident of ill omen accompanied the commencement of the new reign
+(B.C. 405). The inauguration of the monarch was a religious ceremony,
+and took place in a temple at Pasargadae, the old capital, to which
+a peculiar sanctity was still regarded as attaching. Artaxerxes had
+proceeded to this place, and was about to engage in the ceremonies, when
+he was interrupted by Tissaphernes, who informed him that his life was
+in danger. Cyrus, he said, proposed to hide himself in the temple,
+and assassinate him as he changed his dress, a necessary part of the
+formalities. One of the officiating priests--a Magus, as it would
+seem--confirmed the charge. Cyrus was immediately arrested, and would
+have been put to death on the spot, had not his mother interfered, and,
+embracing him in her arms, made it impossible for the executioner to
+perform his task. With some difficulty she persuaded Artaxerxes to spare
+his brother’s life and allow him to return to his government, assuring
+him, and perhaps believing, that the charges made against her favorite
+were without foundation.
+
+Cyrus returned to Asia Minor with the full determination of attacking
+his brother at the earliest opportunity. He immediately began the
+collection of a mercenary force, composed wholly of Greeks, on whose
+arms he was disposed to place far more reliance than on those of
+Orientals. As Tissaphernes had returned to the coast with him, and was
+closely watching all his proceedings, it was necessary to exercise great
+caution, lest his intentions should become known before he was ready to
+put them into execution. He therefore had recourse to three different
+devices. Having found a cause of quarrel with Tissaphernes in the
+ambiguous terms of their respective commissions, he pressed it on to
+an actual war, which enabled him to hire troops openly, as against this
+enemy; and in this way he collected from 5000 to 6000 Greeks--chiefly
+Peloponnesians. He further gave secret commissions to Greek officers,
+whose acquaintance he had made when he was previously in these parts,
+to collect men for him, whom they were to employ in their own quarrels
+until he needed their services. From 3000 to 4000 troops were gathered
+for him by these persons. Finally, when he found himself nearly ready
+to commence his march, he discovered a new foe in the Pisidians of
+the Western Taurus, and proceeded to levy a force against them, which
+amounted to some thousands more. In all, he had in readiness 11,000
+heavy-armed and about 2000 light-armed Greeks before his purpose became
+so clear that Tissaphernes could no longer mistake it, and therefore
+started off to carry his somewhat tardy intelligence to the capital.
+
+The aims of Cyrus were different from those of ordinary rebel satraps;
+and we must go back to the times of Darius Hystaspis in order to find a
+parallel to them. Instead of seeking to free a province from the Persian
+yoke, or to carve out for himself an independent sovereignty in some
+remote corner of the Empire, his intention was to dethrone his brother,
+and place on his own brows the diadem of his great namesake. It was
+necessary for him therefore to assume the offensive. Only by a bold
+advance, and by taking his enemy to some extent unprepared, and so at a
+disadvantage, could he hope to succeed in his audacious project. It is
+not easy to see that he could have had any considerable party among
+the Persians, or any ground for expecting to be supported by any of
+the subject nations. His following must have been purely personal; and
+though it may be true that he was of a character to win more admiration
+and affection than his brother, yet Artaxerxes himself was far from
+being unpopular with his subjects, whom he pleased by a familiarity and
+a good-nature to which they were little accustomed. Cyrus knew that
+his principal dependence must be on himself, on his Greeks, and on the
+carelessness and dilatoriness of his adversary, who was destitute of
+military talent and was even thought to be devoid of personal bravery.
+
+Thus it was important to advance as soon as possible. Cyrus therefore
+quitted Sardis before all his troops were collected (B.C. 401), and
+marched through Lydia and Phrygia, by the route formally followed in the
+reverse direction by the army of Xerxes, as far as Celsense, where
+the remainder of his mercenaries joined him. With his Greek force thus
+raised to 13,000 men, and with a native army not much short of 100,000,
+he proceeded on through Phrygia and Lycaonia to the borders of Cilicia,
+having determined on taking the shortest route to Babylon, through the
+Cilician and Syrian passes, and then along the course of the Euphrates.
+At Caystrupedion he was met by Epyaxa, consort of Syennesis, the
+tributary king of Cilicia, who brought him a welcome supply of money,
+and probably assured him of the friendly disposition of her husband, who
+was anxious to stand well with both sides. In Lycaonia, Cyrus divided
+his forces, and sending a small body of troops under Menon to escort
+Epyaxa across the mountains and enter Cilicia by the more western of the
+two practicable passes he proceeded himself with the bulk of his troops
+to the famous Pylae Cilicias, where he probably knew that Syennesis
+would only make a feint of resistance. He found the pass occupied; but
+it was evacuated the next day, on the receipt of intelligence that Menon
+had already entered the country and that the fleet of Cyrus--composed
+partly of his own ships, partly of a squadron furnished to him by
+Sparta--had appeared off the coast and threatened a landing. Cyrus
+thus crossed the most difficult and dangerous of all the passes that
+separated him from the heart of the Empire, without the loss of a man.
+
+Thus far it would appear that Cyrus had to a certain extent masked his
+plans. The Greek captains must have guessed, if they had not actually
+learnt, his intentions; but to the bulk of the soldiery they had been
+hitherto absolutely unknown. It was only in Cilicia that the light broke
+in upon them, and they began to suspect that they were being marched
+into the interior of Asia, there to engage in a contest with the entire
+power of the Great King. Something of the horror which is ascribed to
+Cleomenes, when it was suggested to him a century earlier that he should
+conduct his Spartans the distance of a three months’ journey from the
+sea, appears to have taken possession of the minds of the mercenaries
+on their awaking to this conviction. They at once refused to proceed. It
+was only by the most skilful management on the part of their captains,
+joined to a judicious liberality on the part of Cyrus, that they were
+induced to forego their intention of returning home at once, and so
+breaking up the expedition. A perception of the difficulty of effecting
+a retreat, together with an increase of pay, extorted a reluctant assent
+to continue the march, of which the real term and object were even now
+not distinctly avowed. Cyrus said he proposed to attack the army of
+Abrocomas, which he believed to be posted on the Euphrates. If he did
+not find it there, a fresh consultation might be held to consider any
+further movement.
+
+The march now proceeded rapidly. The gates of Syria--a narrow pass on
+the east coast of the Gulf of Issus, shut in, like Thermopylae,
+between the mountains and the sea, and strengthened moreover by
+fortifications--were left unguarded by Abrocomas; and the army, having
+traversed them without loss, crossed the Amanus range by the pass of
+Beilan, and in twenty-nine days from Tarsus reached Thapsacus on
+the Euphrates. The forces of Artaxerxes had nowhere made their
+appearance--Abrocomas, though he had 300,000 men at his disposal, had
+weakly or treacherously abandoned all these strong and easily defensible
+positions; he does not seem even to have wasted the country; but,
+having burnt the boats at Thapsacus, he was content to fall back upon
+Phoenicia, and left the way to Babylon and Susa open. At Thapsacus there
+was little difficulty in persuading the Greeks, who had no longer the
+sea before their eyes, to continue the march; they only stipulated for a
+further increase of pay, which was readily promised them by the sanguine
+prince, who believed himself on the point of obtaining by their aid the
+inexhaustible treasures of the Empire. The river, which happened to be
+unusually low for the time of year, was easily forded. Cyrus entered
+Mesopotamia, and continued his march down the left bank of the Euphrates
+at the quickest rate that it was possible to move a hundred thousand
+Orientals. In thirty-three days he had accomplished above 600 miles, and
+had approached within 120 miles of Babylon without seeing any traces
+of an enemy. His only difficulties were from the nature of the country,
+which, after the Khabour is passed, becomes barren, excepting close
+along the river. From want of fodder there was a great mortality among
+the baggage-animals; the price of grain rose; and the Greeks had to
+subsist almost entirely upon meat. At last, when the Babylonian alluvium
+was reached, with its abundance of fodder and corn, signs of the enemy
+began to be observed. Artaxerxes, who after some doubts and misgivings
+had finally determined to give his enemy battle in the plain, was
+already on his way from Babylon, with an army reckoned at 900,000 men
+and had sent forward a body of horse, partly to reconnoitre, partly
+to destroy the crops, in order to prevent Cyrus and his troops from
+benefiting by them. Cyrus now advanced slowly and cautiously, at the
+rate of about fourteen miles a day, expecting each morning to fight a
+general engagement before evening came. On the third night, believing
+the battle to be imminent, he distributed the commands and laid down a
+plan of operations. But morning brought no appearance of the enemy, and
+the whole day passed tranquilly. In the course of it, he came upon a
+wide and deep trench cut through the plain for a distance of above forty
+miles--a recent work, which Artaxerxes had intended as a barrier to stop
+the progress of his enemy. But the trench was undefended and incomplete,
+a space of twenty feet being left between its termination and the
+Euphrates. Cyrus, having passed it, began to be convinced that his
+brother would not risk a battle in the plain, but would retreat to the
+mountains and make his stand at Persepolis or Ecbatana. He therefore
+continued his march negligently. His men piled their arms on the wagons
+or laid them, across the beasts of burthen; while he himself exchanged
+the horse which he usually rode for a chariot, and proceeded on his way
+leisurely, having about his person a small escort, which preserved
+their ranks, while all the rest of the troops were allowed to advance in
+complete disarray.
+
+Suddenly, as the army was proceeding in this disorderly manner through
+the plain, a single horseman was perceived advancing at full gallop from
+the opposite quarter, his steed all flecked with foam. As he drew near,
+he shouted aloud to those whom he met, addressing some in Greek, others
+in Persian, and warning them that the Great King, with his whole force,
+was close at hand, and rapidly approaching in order of battle. The news
+took every one by surprise, and at first all was hurry and confusion.
+The Greeks, however, who were on the right, rapidly marshalled their
+line, resting it upon the river; while Cyrus put on his armor, mounted
+his horse, and arranged the ranks of his Asiatics. Ample time was given
+for completing all the necessary dispositions; since three hours, at the
+least, must have elapsed from the announcement of the enemy’s approach
+before he actually appeared. Then a white cloud of dust arose towards
+the verge of the horizon, below which a part of the plain began soon to
+darken; presently gleams of light were seen to flash out from the dense
+mass which was advancing, the serried lines of spears came into view,
+and the component parts of the huge army grew to be discernible. On the
+extreme left was a body of horsemen with white cuirasses, commanded by
+Tissaphernes; next came infantry, carrying the long wicker shield, or
+_gerrhum_ then a solid square of Egyptians, heavily armed, and bearing
+wooden shields that reached to the feet; then the contingents of many
+different nations, some on foot, some on horseback, armed with bows
+and other weapons. The line stretched away to the east further than the
+Greeks, who were stationed on the right, could see, extending (as it
+would seem) more than twice the distance which was covered by the
+army of Cyrus. Artaxerxes was in the centre of his line, on horseback,
+surrounded by a mounted guard of 6000 Persians. In front of the line,
+towards the river, were drawn up at wide intervals a hundred and fifty
+scythed chariots, which were designed to carry terror and confusion into
+the ranks of the Greeks.
+
+On the other side, Cyrus had upon the extreme right a thousand
+Paphlagonian cavalry with the more lightly armed of the Greeks;
+next, the Greek heavy-armed, under Clearchus; and then his Asiatics,
+stretching in a line to about the middle of his adversary’s army, his
+own special command being in the centre; and his left wing being led
+by the satrap, Ariaeus. With Ariseus was posted the great mass of the
+cavalry; but a band of six hundred, clad in complete armor, with their
+horses also partially armed, waited on Cyrus himself, and accompanied
+him wherever he went. As the enemy drew near, and Cyrus saw how much he
+was outflanked upon the left, he made an attempt to remedy the evil by
+ordering Clearchus to move with his troops from the extreme right to
+the extreme left of the line, where he would be opposite to Artaxerxes
+himself. This, no doubt, would have been a hazardous movement to make in
+the face of a superior enemy; and Clearchus, feeling this, and regarding
+the execution of the order as left to his discretion, declined to move
+away from the river. Cyrus, who trusted much to the Greek general’s
+judgment, did not any further press the change, but prepared to fight
+the battle as he stood.
+
+The combat began upon the right. When the enemy had approached within
+six or seven hundred yards, the impatience of the Greeks to engage could
+not be restrained. They sang the paean and started forwards at a pace
+which in a short time became a run. The Persians did not await their
+charge. The drivers leaped from their chariots, the line of battle
+behind them wavered, and then turned and fled without striking a blow.
+One Greek only was wounded by an arrow. As for the scythed chariots,
+they damaged their own side more than the Greeks; for the frightened
+horses in many cases, carried the vehicles into the thick of the
+fugitives, while the Greeks opened their ranks and gave passage to such
+as charged in an opposite direction. Moderating their pace so as to
+preserve their tactical arrangement, but still advancing with great
+rapidity, the Greeks pressed on the flying enemy, and pursued him a
+distance of two or three miles, never giving a thought to Cyrus, who,
+they supposed, would conquer those opposed to him with as much ease as
+themselves.
+
+But the prince meanwhile was in difficulties. Finding himself
+outnumbered and outflanked, and fearing that his whole army would be
+surrounded, and even the victorious Greeks attacked in the rear, he set
+all upon one desperate cast and charged with his Six Hundred against
+the six thousand horse who protected his brother. Artagerses, their
+commander, who met him with a Homeric invective, he slew with his own
+hand. The six thousand were routed and took to flight; the person of the
+king was exposed to view; and Cyrus, transported at the sight, rushed
+forward shouting, “I see the man,” and hurling his javelin, struck him
+straight upon the breast, with such force that the cuirass was pierced
+and a slight flesh-wound inflicted. The king fell from his horse; but at
+the same moment Cyrus received a wound beneath the eye from the javelin
+of a Persian, and in the melee which followed he was slain with eight of
+his followers. The Six Hundred could lend no effectual aid, because they
+had rashly dispersed in pursuit of the flying enemy.
+
+As the whole contest was a personal one, the victory was now decided.
+Fighting, however, continued till nightfall. On learning the death of
+their leader, the Asiatic troops under Ariseus fled--first to their
+camp, and then, when Artaxerxes attacked them there, to the last night’s
+station. The Grecian camp was assaulted by Tissaphernes, who at the
+beginning of the battle had charged through the Greek light-armed,
+without however, inflicting on them any loss, and had then pressed on,
+thinking to capture the Grecian baggage. But the guard defended their
+camp with success, and slew many of the assailants. Tissaphernes and
+the king drew off after a while, and retraced their steps, in order to
+complete the victory by routing the troops of Clearchus. Clearchus was
+at the same time returning from his pursuit, having heard that his camp
+was in danger, and as the two bodies of troops approached, he found
+his right threatened by the entire host of the enemy, which might have
+lapped round it and attacked it in front, in flank, and in rear. To
+escape this peril he was about to wheel his line and make it rest
+alone its whole extent upon the river, when the Persians passed him and
+resumed the position which they had occupied at the beginning of the
+battle. They were then about to attack, when once more the Greeks
+anticipated them and charged. The effect was again ludicrous. The
+Persians would not abide the onset, but fled faster than before. The
+Greeks pursued them to a village, close by which was a knoll or mound,
+whither the fugitives had betaken themselves. Again the Greeks made a
+movement in advance, and immediately the flight recommenced. The last
+rays of the setting sun fell on scattered masses of Persian horse and
+foot flying in all directions over the plain from the little band of
+Greeks.
+
+The battle of Cunaxa was a double blow to the Persian power. By the
+death of Cyrus there was lost the sole chance that existed of such a
+re-invigoration of the Empire as might have enabled it to start again
+on a new lease of life, with ability to held its own, and strength to
+resume once more the aggressive attitude of former times. The talents of
+Cyrus have perhaps been overrated, but he was certainly very superior
+to most Orientals; and there can be no doubt that the Empire would have
+greatly gained by the substitution of his rule for that of his brother.
+He was active, energetic, prompt indeed, ready in speech, faithful in
+the observance of his engagements, brave, liberal--he had more foresight
+and more self-contro than most Asiatics; he knew how to deal with
+different classes of men; he had a great power of inspiring affection
+and retaining it; he was free from the folly of national prejudice,
+and could appreciate as they deserved both the character and the
+institutions of foreigners. It is likely that he would have proved a
+better administrator and ruler than any king of Persia since Darius
+Hystaspis. He would, therefore, undoubtedly have raised his country
+to some extent. Whether he could really have arrested its decline, and
+enabled it to avenge the humiliations of Marathon, Salamis, and the
+peace of Callias, is, however, exceedingly doubtful. For Cyrus, though
+he had considerable merits, was not without great and grievous defects.
+As the Tartar is said always to underlie the Russ, so the true Oriental
+underlay that coating of Grecian manners and modes of thought and act,
+with which a real admiration of the Hellenic race induced Cyrus to
+conceal his native barbarism. When he slew his cousins for an act which
+he chose to construe as disrespect, and when he executed Orontes for
+contemplated desertion, secretly and silently, so that no one knew
+his fate, when transported with jealous rage he rushed madly upon his
+brother, exposing to hazard the success of all his carefully formed
+plans, and in fact ruining his cause, the acquired habits of the
+Phil-Hellene gave way, and the native ferocity of the Asiatic came
+to the surface. We see Cyrus under favorable circumstances, while
+conciliation, tact, and self-restraint were necessities of his position,
+without which he could not possibly gain his ends--we do not know what
+effect success and the possession of supreme power might have had upon
+his temper and conduct; but from the acts above-mentioned we may at any
+rate suspect that the result would have been very injurious.
+
+Again, intellectually, Cyrus is only great for an Asiatic. He has more
+method, more foresight, more power of combination, more breadth of mind
+than the other Asiatics of his day, or than the vast mass of Asiatics of
+any day. But he is not entitled to the praise of a great administrator
+or of a great general. His three years’ administration of Asia Minor
+was chiefly marked by a barbarous severity towards criminals, and by a
+lavish expenditure of the resources of his government, which left him in
+actual want at the moment when he was about to commence his expedition.
+His generalship failed signally at the battle of Cunaxa, for the loss of
+which he is far more to be blamed than Clearchus. As he well knew that
+Artaxerxes was sure to occupy the centre of his line of battle, he
+should have placed his Greeks in the middle of his own line, not at
+one extremity. When he saw how much his adversary outflanked him on the
+left--a contingency which was so probable that it ought to have occurred
+to him beforehand--he should have deployed his line in that direction,
+instead of ordering such a movement as Clearchus, not unwisely, declined
+to execute. He might have trusted the Greeks to fight in line, as they
+had fought at Marathon; and by expanding their ranks, and moving off
+his Asiatics to the left, he might, have avoided the danger of being
+outflanked and surrounded. But his capital error was the wildness
+and abandon of his charge with the Six Hundred--a charge which it was
+probably right to make under the circumstances, but which required a
+combination of coolness and courage that the Persian prince evidently
+did not possess when his feelings were excited. Had he kept his
+Six Hundred well in hand, checked their pursuit, and abstained from
+thrusting his own person into unnecessary danger, he might have joined
+the Greeks as they returned from their first victory and participated
+in their final triumph. At the same time, Clearchus cannot but be blamed
+for pushing his suit too far. If, when the enemy in his front fled, he
+had at once turned against those who were engaging Cyrus, taking them
+on their left flank, which must have been completely uncovered, he might
+have been in time to prevent the fatal results of the rash charge made
+by his leader.
+
+Thus the death of Cyrus, though a calamity to Persia, was scarcely the
+great loss which it has been represented. A far worse result of the
+Cyreian expedition was the revelation which it made of the weakness of
+Persia, and of the facility with which a Greek force might penetrate
+to the very midst of the Empire, defeat the largest army that could be
+brought against it, and remain, or return, as it might think proper.
+Hitherto Babylon and Susa had been, even to the mind of a Greek
+statesman, remote localities, which it would be the extreme of rashness
+to attempt to reach by force of arms, and from which it would be
+utter folly to suppose that a single man could return alive except by
+permission of the Great King. Henceforth these towns were looked upon
+as prizes quite within the legitimate scope of Greek ambition, and their
+conquest came to be viewed as little more than a question of time. The
+opinion of inaccessibility, which had been Persia’s safeguard hitherto,
+was gone, and in its stead grew up a conviction that the heart of the
+Empire might be reached with very little difficulty.
+
+It required, however, for the production of this whole change, not
+merely that the advance to Cunaxa should have been safely made, and the
+immeasurable superiority of Greek to Asiatic soldiers there exhibited,
+but also that the retreat should have been effected, as it was effected,
+without disaster. Had the Ten Thousand perished under the attacks of the
+Persian horse, or even under the weapons of the Kurds, or amid the
+snows of Armenia, the opinion of Persian invulnerability would have been
+strengthened rather than weakened by the expedition. But the return to
+Greece of ten thousand men, who had defeated the hosts of the Great King
+in the centre of his dominions, and fought their way back to the
+sea without suffering more than the common casualties of war, was an
+evidence of weakness which could not but become generally known, and of
+which all could feel the force. Hence the retreat was as important as
+the battle. If in late autumn and mid-winter a small Greek army, without
+maps or guides, could make its way for a thousand miles through Asia,
+and encounter no foe over whom it could not easily triumph, it was clear
+that the fabric of Persian power was rotten, and would collapse on the
+first serious attack.
+
+Still, it will not be necessary to trace in detail the steps of the
+retreat. It was the fact of the return, rather than the mode of its
+accomplishment, which importantly affected the subsequent history of
+Persia. We need only note that the retreat was successfully conducted in
+spite, not merely of the military power of the Empire, but of the most
+barefaced and cruel treachery--a fact which showed clearly the strong
+desire that there was to hinder the invaders’ escape. Persia did not
+set much store by her honor at this period; but she would scarcely have
+pledged her word and broken it, without the slightest shadow of excuse,
+unless she had regarded the object to be accomplished as one of vast
+importance, and seen no other way which offered any prospect of the
+desired result. Her failure, despite the success of her treachery,
+places her military weakness in the strongest possible light. The
+Greeks, though deprived of their leaders, deceived, surprised, and
+hemmed in by superior numbers, amid terrific mountains, precipices,
+and snows, forced their way by sheer dogged perseverance through all
+obstacles, and reached Trebizond with the loss of not one fourth of
+their original number.
+
+There was also another discovery made during the return which partly
+indicated the weakness of the Persian power, and partly accounted for
+it. The Greeks had believed that the whole vast space enclosed between
+the Black Sea, Caucasus, Caspian, and Jaxartes on the one hand, and the
+Arabian Desert, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean on the other, was bound
+together into one single centralized monarchy, all the resources of
+which were wielded by a single arm. They now found that even towards the
+heart of the empire, on the confines of Media and Assyria, there existed
+independent tribes which set the arms of Persia at defiance; while
+towards the verge of the old dominion whole provinces, once certainly
+held in subjection, had fallen away from the declining State, and
+succeeded in establishing their freedom. The nineteenth satrapy of
+Herodotus existed no more; in lieu of it was a mass of warlike and
+autonomous tribes--Chalybes, Taochi, Chaldeans, Macronians, Scythians,
+Colchians, Mosynoecians, Tibarenians--whose services, if he needed them,
+the King of Persia had to buy, while ordinarily their attitude towards
+him was one of distrust and hostility. Judging of the unknown from the
+known, the Greeks might reasonably conclude that in all parts of
+the Empire similar defections had occurred, and that thus both
+the dimensions and the resources of the state had suffered serious
+diminution, and fell far below the conception which they had been
+accustomed to form of them.
+
+The immediate consequence of the Cyreian expedition was a rupture
+between Persia and Sparta. Sparta had given aid to Cyrus, and thus
+provoked the hostility of the Great King. She was not inclined to
+apologize or to recede. On the contrary, she saw in the circumstances
+of the expedition strong grounds for anticipating great advantages
+to herself from a war with so weak an antagonist. Having, therefore,
+secured the services of the returned Ten Thousand, she undertook the
+protection of the Asiatic Greeks against Persia, and carried on a war
+upon the continent against the satraps of Lydia and Phrygia for the
+space of six years (B.C. 399 to B.C. 394). The disorganization of the
+Persian Empire became very manifest during this period. So jealous were
+the two satraps of each other, that either was willing at any time
+to make a truce with the Spartans on condition that they proceeded to
+attack the other; and, on one occasion, as much as thirty silver talents
+was paid by a satrap on the condition that the war should be transferred
+from his own government to that, of his rival. At the same time the
+native tribes were becoming more and more inclined to rebel. The Mysians
+and Pisidians had for a long time been practically independent. Now the
+Bithynians showed a disposition to shake off the Persian yoke, while
+in Paphlagonia the native monarchs boldly renounced their allegiance.
+Agesilaus, who carried on the war in Asia Minor for three years, knew
+well how to avail himself of all these advantageous circumstances;
+and it is not unlikely that he would have effected the separation
+from Persia of the entire peninsula, had he been able to continue the
+struggle a few years longer. But the league between Argos, Thebes, and
+Corinth, which jealousy of Sparta caused and Persian gold promoted,
+proved so formidable, that Agesilaus had to be summoned home: and
+after his departure, Conon, in alliance with Pharnabazus, recovered the
+supremacy of the sea for Athens, and greatly weakened Spartan influence
+in Asia. Not content with this result, the two friends, in the year B.C.
+393, sailed across the Egean, and the portentous spectacle of a Persian
+fleet in Greek waters was once more seen--this time in alliance with
+Athens! Descents were made upon the coasts of the Peloponnese, and the
+island of Cythera was seized and occupied. The long walls of Athens were
+rebuilt with Persian money, and all the enemies of Sparta were richly
+subsidized. Sparta was made to feel that if she had been able at one
+time to make the Great King tremble for his provinces, or even for
+his throne, the King could at another reach her across the Egean, and
+approach Sparta as nearly as she had, with the Cyreians, approached
+Babylon.
+
+The lesson of the year B.C. 393 was not thrown away on the Spartan
+government. The leading men became convinced that unless they could
+secure the neutrality of the Persians, Sparta must succumb to the
+hostility of her Hellenic enemies. Under these circumstances they
+devised, with much skill, a scheme likely to be acceptable to the
+Persians, which would weaken their chief rivals in Greece--Athens and
+Thebes--while it would leave untouched their own power. They proposed
+a general peace, the conditions of which should be the entire
+relinquishment of Asia to the Persians, and the complete autonomy of all
+the Greek States in Europe. The first attempt to procure the acceptance
+of these terms failed (B.C. 393); but six years later, after Antalcidas
+had explained them at the Persian Court, Artaxerxes sent down an
+ultimatum to the disputants, modifying the terms slightly as regarded
+Athens, extending them as regarded himself so as to include the islands
+of Clazomenae and Cyprus, and requiring their acceptance by all the
+belligerents, on pain of their incurring his hostility. To this threat
+all yielded. A Persian king may be excused if he felt it a proud
+achievement thus to dictate a peace to the Greeks--a peace, moreover,
+which annulled the treaty of Callias, and gave back absolutely into
+his hands a province which had ceased to belong to his Empire more than
+sixty years previously.
+
+It was the more important to Artaxerxes that his relations with the
+European Greeks should be put upon a peaceful footing, since all the
+resources of the Empire were wanted for the repression of disturbances
+which had some years previously broken out in Cyprus. The exact date
+of the Cyprian revolt under Evagoras, the Greek tyrant of Salamis, is
+uncertain; but there is evidence that, at least as early as B.C. 391, he
+was at open war with the power of Persia, and had made an alliance
+with the Athenians, who both in that year and in B.C. 388 sent him aid.
+Assisted also by Achoris, independent monarch of Egypt, and Hecatomnus,
+vassal king of Caria, he was able to take the offensive, to conquer
+Tyre, and extend his revolt into Cilicia and Idumaea. An expedition
+undertaken against him by Autophradates, satrap of Lydia, seems to have
+failed. It was the first object of the Persians, after concluding the
+“Peace of Antalcidas,” to crush Evagoras. They collected 300 vessels,
+partly from the Greeks of Asia, and brought together an army of 300,000
+men. The fleet of Evagoras numbered 200 triremes, and with these he
+ventured on an attack, but was completely defeated by Tiribazus, who
+shut him up in Salamis, and, after a struggle which continued for at
+least six years, compelled him to submit to terms (B.C. 380 or 379).
+More fortunate than former rebels, he obtained not merely a promise of
+pardon, which would probably have been violated, but a recognition of
+his title, and permission to remain in his government, with the single
+obligation of furnishing to the Great King a certain annual tribute.
+
+During the continuance of this war, Artaxerxes was personally engaged in
+military operations in another part of his dominions. The Cadusians,
+who inhabited the low and fertile tract between the Elburz range and the
+Caspian, having revolted against his authority, Artaxerxes invaded their
+territory at the head of an army which is estimated at 300,000 foot and
+10,000 horse. The land was little cultivated, rugged, and covered with
+constant fogs; the men were brave and warlike, and having admitted him
+into their country, seem to have waylaid and intercepted his convoys.
+His army was soon reduced to great straits, and forced to subsist on the
+cavalry horses and the baggage-animals. A most disastrous result must
+have followed, had not Tiribazus, who had been recalled from Cyprus
+on charges preferred against him by the commander of the land force,
+Orontes, contrived very artfully to induce the rebels to make their
+submission. Artaxerxes was thus enabled to withdraw from the country
+without serious disaster, having shown in his short campaign that he
+possessed the qualities of a soldier, but was entirely deficient in
+those of a general.
+
+A time of comparative tranquillity seems to have followed the Cadusian
+campaign. Artaxerxes strengthened his hold upon the Asiatic Greeks by
+razing some of their towns and placing garrisons in others. His satraps
+even ventured to commence the absorption of the islands off the coast;
+and there is evidence that Sanaos, at any rate, was reduced and added
+to the Empire. Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Idumaea were doubtless recovered
+soon after the great defeat of Evagoras. There remained only one
+province in this quarter which still maintained its revolt, and enjoyed,
+under native monarchs, the advantages of independence. This was Egypt,
+which had now continued free for above thirty years, since it shook off
+the yoke of Darius Nothus. Artaxerxes, anxious to recover this portion
+of his ancestral dominions, applied in B.C. 375 to Athens for the
+services of her great general, Iphicrates. His request was granted, and
+in the next year a vast armament was assembled at Acre under Iphicrates
+and Pharnabazus, which effected a successful landing in the Delta at the
+Mendesian mouth of the Nile, stormed the town commanding this branch of
+the river, and might have taken Memphis, could the energetic advice of
+the Athenian have stirred to action the sluggish temper of his Persian
+colleague. But Pharnabazus declined to be hurried, and preferred to
+proceed leisurely and according to rule. The result was that the season
+for hostilities passed and nothing had been done. The Nile rose as the
+summer drew on, and flooded most of the Delta; the expedition could
+effect nothing, and had to return. Pharnabazus and Iphicrates parted
+amid mutual recriminations; and the reduction of Egypt was deferred for
+above a quarter of a century.
+
+In Greece, however, the Great King still retained that position of
+supreme arbiter with which he had been invested at the “Peace of
+Antalcidas.” In B.C. 372 Antalcidas was sent by Sparta a second time up
+to Susa, for the purpose of obtaining an imperial rescript, prescribing
+the terms on which the then existing hostilities among the Greeks should
+cease. In B.C. 367 Pelopidas and Ismenias proceeded with the same object
+from Thebes to the Persian capital. In the following year a rescript,
+more in their favor than former ones, was obtained by Athens. Thus every
+one of the leading powers of Greece applied in turn to the Great King
+for his royal mandate, so erecting him by common consent into a sort of
+superior, whose decision was to be final in all cases of Greek quarrel.
+
+But this external acknowledgment of the imperial greatness of Persia
+did not, and could not, check the internal decay and tendency to
+disintegration, which was gradually gaining head, and threatening the
+speedy dissolution of the Empire. The long reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon
+was now verging towards its close. He was advanced in years, and
+enfeebled in mind and body, suspicious of his sons and of his nobles,
+especially of such as showed more than common ability. Under these
+circumstances, revolts on the part of satraps grew frequent. First
+Ariobarzanes, satrap of Phrygia, renounced his allegiance (B.C. 366),
+and defended himself with success against Autophradates, satrap of
+Lydia, and Mausolus, native king of Caria under Persia, to whom the
+task of reducing him had been entrusted. Then Aspis, who held a part
+of Cappadocia, revolted and maintained himself by the help of the
+Pisidians, until he was overpowered by Datames. Next Datames himself,
+satrap of the rest of Cappadocia, understanding that Artaxerxes’ mind
+was poisoned against him, made a treaty with Ariobarzanes, and assumed
+an independent attitude in his own province. In this position he
+resisted all the efforts of Autophradates to reduce him to obedience;
+and Artaxerxes condescended first to make terms with him and then to
+remove him by treachery. Finally (B.C. 362), there seems to have been
+something like a general revolt of the western provinces, in which the
+satraps of Mysia, Phrygia, and Lydia, Mausolus, prince of Caria, and the
+people of Lycia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Syria, and Phoenicia participated.
+Tachos, king of Egypt, fomented the disturbances, which were also
+secretly encouraged by the Spartans. A terrible conflict appeared to be
+imminent; but it was avoided by the ordinary resources of bribery and
+treachery. Orontes, satrap of Phrygia, and Rheomithras, one of the
+revolted generals, yielding to the attractions of Persian gold, deserted
+and betrayed their confederates. The insurrection was in this way
+quelled, but it had raised hopes in Egypt, which did not at once
+subside. Tachos, the native king, having secured the services of
+Agesilaus as general, and of Chabrias, the Athenian, as admiral of his
+fleet, boldly advanced into Syria, was well received by the Phoenicians,
+and commenced the siege of some of the Syrian cities. Persia might
+have suffered considerable loss in this quarter, had not the internal
+quarrels of the Egyptians among themselves proved a better protection to
+her than her own armies. Two pretenders to the throne sprang up as soon
+as Tachos had quitted the country, and he was compelled to return to
+Egypt in order to resist them. The force intended to strike a vigorous
+blow against the power of Artaxerxes was dissipated in civil conflicts;
+and Persia had once more to congratulate herself on the intestine
+divisions of her adversaries. A few years after this, Artaxerxes died,
+having reigned forty-six years, and lived, if we may trust Plutarch,
+ninety-four. Like most of the later Persian kings, he was unfortunate
+in his domestic relations. To his original queen, Statira, he was indeed
+fondly attached; and she appears to have merited and returned his love,
+but in all other respects his private life was unhappy. Its chief curse
+was Parysatis, the queen-mother. This monster of cruelty held Artaxerxes
+in a species of bondage during almost the whole of his long reign, and
+acted as if she were the real sovereign of the country. She encouraged
+Cyrus in his treason, and brought to most horrible ends all those who
+had been prominent in frustrating it. She poisoned Statira out of hatred
+and jealousy, because she had a certain degree of influence over her
+husband. She encouraged Artaxerxes to contract an incestuous marriage
+with his daughter Atossa, a marriage which proved a fertile source
+of further calamities. Artaxerxes had three sons by Statira--Darius,
+Ariaspes, and Ochus. Of these Darius, as the eldest, was formally
+declared the heir. But Ochus, ambitious of reigning, intrigued with
+Atossa, and sought to obtain the succession by her aid. So good seemed
+to Darius the chances of his brother’s success that he took the rash
+step of conspiring against the life of his father, as the only way of
+securing the throne. His conspiracy was detected, and he was seized and
+executed, Ariaspes thereby becoming the eldest son, and so the natural
+heir. Ochus then persuaded Ariaspes that he had offended his father,
+and was about to be put to a cruel and ignominious death, whereupon that
+prince in despair committed suicide. His elder brothers thus removed,
+there still remained one rival, whom Ochus feared. This was Arsames, one
+of his half-brothers, an illegitimate son of Artaxerxes, who stood high
+in his favor. Assassination was the weapon employed to get rid of this
+rival. It is said that this last blow was too much for the aged and
+unhappy king, who died of grief on receiving intelligence of the murder.
+
+Artaxerxes was about the weakest of all the Persian monarchs. He was
+mild in temperament, affable in demeanor, goodnatured, affectionate
+and well-meaning. But, possessing no strength of will, he allowed the
+commission of the most atrocious acts, the most horrible cruelties, by
+those about him, who were bolder and more resolute than himself. The
+wife and son, whom he fondly loved, were plotted against before his
+eyes; and he had neither the skill to prevent nor the courage to avenge
+their fate. Incapable of resisting entreaty and importunity, he granted
+boons which he ought to have refused, and condoned offences which it
+would have been proper to punish. He could not maintain long the most
+just resentment, but remitted punishments even when they were far milder
+than the crime deserved. He was fairly successful in the management
+of his relations with foreign countries, and in the suppression of
+disturbances within his own dominions; but he was quite incapable
+of anything like a strenuous and prolonged effort to renovate and
+re-invigorate the Empire. If he held together the territories which he
+inherited, and bequeathed them to his successor augmented rather than
+diminished, it is to be attributed more to his good fortune than to his
+merits, and to the mistakes of his opponents than to his own prudence or
+sagacity.
+
+Ochus, who obtained the crown in the manner related above, was the most
+cruel and sanguinary of all the Persian kings. He is indeed the only
+monarch of the Achaemenian line who appears to have been bloodthirsty
+by temperament. His first act on finding himself acknowledged king (B.C.
+359) was to destroy, so far as he could, all the princes of the blood
+royal, in order that he might have no rival to fear. He even, if we may
+believe Justin, involved in this destruction a number of the princesses,
+whom any but the most ruthless of despots would have spared. Having
+taken these measures for his own security, he proceeded to show himself
+more active and enterprising than any monarch since Longimanus. It was
+now nearly half a century since one of the important provinces of the
+Empire--Egypt--had successfully asserted its independence and restored
+the throne of its native kings. General after general had been employed
+in vain attempts to reduce the rebels to obedience. Ochus determined
+to attempt the recovery of the revolted province in person. Though
+a rebellion had broken out in Asia Minor, which being supported by
+Thebes, threatened to become serious, he declined to be diverted from
+his enterprise. Levying a vast army, he marched into Egypt, and engaged
+Noctanebo, the king, in a contest for existence. Nectanebo, however,
+having obtained the services of two Greek generals, Diophantus, an
+Athenian, and Lamius, a citizen of Sparta, boldly met his enemy in the
+field, defeated him, and completely repulsed his expedition. Hereupon
+the contagion of revolt spread. Phoenicia assumed independence under the
+leadership of Sidon, expelled or massacred the Persian garrisons, which
+held her cities, and formed an alliance with Egypt. Her example was
+followed by Cyprus, where the kings of the nine principal towns assumed
+each a separate sovereignty.
+
+The chronology of this period is somewhat involved; but it seems
+probable that the attack and failure of Ochus took place about B.C. 351;
+that the revolts occurred in the next year, B.C. 350; while it was not
+till B.C. 346, or four years later, that Ochus undertook his second
+expedition into these regions. He had, however, in the meanwhile,
+directed his generals or feudatories, to attack the rebels, and bring
+them into subjection. The Cyprian war he had committed to Idrieus,
+prince of Caria, who employed on the service a body of 8000 Greek
+mercenaries, commanded by Phocion, the Athenian, and Evagoras, son of
+the former Evagoras, the Cyprian monarch; while he had committed to
+Belesys, satrap of Syria, and Mezseus, satrap of Cilicia, the task of
+keeping the Phoenicians in check. Idrieus succeeded in reducing Cyprus;
+but the two satraps suffered a single defeat at the hands of Tennes, the
+Sidonian king, who was aided by 40,000 Greek mercenaries, sent him by
+Nectanebo, and commanded by Mentor the Rhodian. The Persian forces were
+driven out of Phoenicia; and Sidon had ample time to strengthen its
+defences and make preparations for a desperate resistance. The approach,
+however, of Ochus, at the head of an army of 330,000 men, shook the
+resolution of the Phoenician monarch, who endeavored to purchase his
+own pardon by treacherously delivering up a hundred of the principal
+citizens of Sidon into the hands of the Persian king, and then admitting
+him within the defences of the town. Ochus, with the savage cruelty
+which was his chief characteristic, caused the hundred citizens to be
+transfixed with javelins, and when 500 more came out as suppliants to
+entreat his mercy, relentlessly consigned them to the same fate. Nor did
+the traitor Tennes derive any advantage from his guilty bargain.
+Ochus, having obtained from him all he needed, instead of rewarding his
+desertion, punished his rebellion with death. Hereupon the Sidonians,
+understanding that they had nothing to hope from submission, formed the
+dreadful resolution of destroying themselves and their town. They had
+previously, to prevent the desertion of any of their number, burnt their
+ships. Now they shut themselves up in their houses, and set fire each
+to his own dwelling. Forty thousand persons lost their lives in the
+conflagration; and the city was reduced to a heap of ruins, which Ochus
+sold for a large sum. Thus ended the Phoenician revolt. Among its most
+important results was the transfer of his services to the Persian king
+on the part of Mentor the Rhodian, who appears to have been the ablest
+of the mercenary leaders of whom Greece at this time produced so many.
+
+The reduction of Sidon was followed closely by the invasion of
+Egypt. Ochus, besides his 330,000 Asiatics, had now a force of 14,000
+Greeks--6000 furnished by the Greek cities of Asia Minor; 4000 under
+Mentor, consisting of the troops which he had brought to the aid of
+Tennes from Egypt; 3000 sent by Argos; and 1000 from Thebes. He divided
+his numerous armament into three bodies, and placed at the head of
+each two generals--one Persian and one Greek. The Greek commanders were
+Lacrates of Thebes, Mentor of Rhodes, and Nicostratus of Argos, a man
+of enormous strength, who regarded himself as a second Hercules, and
+adopted the traditional costume of that hero--a club and a lion’s skin.
+The Persians were Rhossaces, Aristazanes, and Bagoas, the chief of the
+eunuchs. Nectanebo was only able to oppose to this vast array an army
+less than one third of the size. Twenty thousand, however, out of the
+100,000 troops at his disposal were Greeks; he occupied the Nile and
+its various branches with a numerous navy the character of the country,
+intersected by numerous canals, and full of strongly fortified towns,
+was in his favor; and he might have been expected to make a prolonged,
+if not even a successful, resistance. But he was deficient in generals,
+and over-confident in his own powers of command: the Greek captains
+out-manoeuvred him; and no sooner did he find one line of his defences
+forced than his ill-founded confidence was exchanged for an alarm
+as little reasonable. He hastily fell back upon Memphis, leaving the
+fortified towns to the defence of their garrisons. These consisted of
+mixed troops, partly Greek and partly Egyptian; between whom jealousies
+and suspicions were easily sown by the Persian leaders, who by these
+means rapidly reduced the secondary cities of Lower Egypt, and were
+advancing upon Memphis, when Nectanebo in despair quitted the country
+and fled southwards to Ethiopia. All Egypt submitted to Ochus, who
+demolished the walls of the cities, plundered the temples, and after
+amply rewarding his mercenaries, returned to his own capital with an
+immense booty, and with the glory of having successfully carried through
+a most difficult and important enterprise.
+
+It has been well observed that “the reconquest of Egypt by Ochus must
+have been one of the most impressive events of the age,” and that it
+“exalted the Persian Empire in force and credit to a point nearly as
+high as it had ever occupied before.” Ochus not only redeemed by means
+of it his former failure, but elevated himself in the opinions of men to
+a pitch of glory such as no previous Persian king had reached, excepting
+Cyrus, Cambyses, and the first Darius. Henceforth we hear of no more
+revolts or rebellions. Mentor and Bagoas, the two generals who had most
+distinguished themselves in the Egyptian campaign, were advanced by the
+gratitude of Ochus to posts of the highest importance, in which their
+vigor and energy found ample room to display themselves. Mentor, who was
+governor of the entire Asiatic sea-board, exerted himself successfully
+to reduce to subjection the many chiefs who during the recent troubles
+had assumed an independent authority, and in the course of a few
+years brought once more the whole coast into complete submission and
+dependence. Bagoas, carried with him by Ochus to the capital, became
+the soul of the internal administration, and maintained tranquillity
+throughout the rest of the Empire. The last six years of the reign of
+Ochus form an exceptional period of vigorous and successful government,
+such as occurs nowhere else in the history of the later Persian
+monarchy. The credit of bringing about such a state of things may be due
+especially to the king’s officers, Bagoas and Mentor; but a portion of
+it must reflect upon himself, as the person who selected them, assigned
+them their respective tasks, and permanently maintained them in office.
+
+It was during this period of vigor and renewed life, when the Persian
+monarchy seemed to have recovered almost its pristine force and
+strength, that the attention of its rulers was called to a small cloud
+on the distant horizon, which some were wise enough to see portended
+storm and tempest. The growing power of Macedon, against which
+Demosthenes was at this time in vain warning the careless Athenians,
+attracted the consideration of Ochus or of his counsellors; and orders
+went forth from the Court that Persian influence was to be used to check
+and depress the rising kingdom. A force was consequently despatched to
+assist the Thracian prince, Cersobleptes, to maintain his independence;
+and such effectual aid was given to the city of Perinthus that the
+numerous and well-appointed army with which Philip had commenced its
+siege was completely baffled and compelled to give up the attempt (B.C.
+340). The battle of Chseroneia had not yet been fought, and Macedonia
+was still but one of the many states which disputed for supremacy over
+Greece; but it is evident that she had already awakened the suspicions
+of Persia, which saw a rival and a possible assailant in the rapidly
+growing monarchy.
+
+Greater and more systematic efforts might possibly have been made, and
+the power of Macedon might perhaps have been kept within bounds, had not
+the inveterate evil of conspiracy and revolution once more shown itself
+at the Court, and paralyzed for a time the action of the Empire on
+communities beyond its borders. Ochus, while he was a vigorous ruler
+and administrator, was harsh and sanguinary. His violence and cruelty
+rendered him hateful to his subjects; and it is not unlikely that they
+caused even those who stood highest in his favor to feel insecure.
+Bagoas may have feared that sooner or later he would himself be one
+of the monarch’s victims, and have been induced by a genuine alarm
+to remove the source of his terrors. In the year B.C. 338 he poisoned
+Ochus, and placed upon the throne his youngest son, Arses, at the same
+time assassinating all the brothers of the new monarch. It was evidently
+his aim to exercise the supreme power himself, as counsellor to a prince
+who owed his position to him, and who was moreover little more than a
+boy. But Arses, though subservient for a year or two, began, as he grew
+older, to show that he had a will of his own, and was even heard to
+utter threats against his benefactor whereupon Bagoas, accustomed now to
+crime, secured himself by a fresh series of murders. He caused Arses and
+his infant children to be assassinated, and selected one of his friends,
+Codomannus, the son of Arsanes, to fill the vacant throne. About the
+same time (B.C. 336), Philip of Macedon was assassinated by the incensed
+Pausanias; and the two new monarchs--Codomannus, who took the name
+of Darius, and Alexander the Great--assumed their respective sceptres
+almost simultaneously.
+
+Codomannus, the last of the Persian kings, might with some reason have
+complained, like Plato, that nature had brought him in the world too
+late. Personally brave, as he proved himself into the Cadusian war,
+tall and strikingly handsome, amiable in temper, capable of considerable
+exertion, and not altogether devoid of military capacity, he would have
+been a fairly good ruler in ordinary times, and might, had he fallen
+upon such times, have held an honorable place among the Persian
+monarchs. But he was unequal to the difficulties of such a position as
+that in which he found himself. Raised to the throne after the victory
+of Chaeroneia had placed Philip at the head of Greece, and when a
+portion of the Macedonian forces had already passed into Asia, he was
+called upon to grapple at once with a danger of the most formidable
+kind, and had but little time for preparation. It is true that Philip’s
+death soon after his own accession gave him a short breathing-space:
+but at the same time it threw him off his guard. The military talents of
+Alexander were untried, and of course unknown; the perils which he had
+to encounter were patent. Codomannus may be excused if for some months
+after Alexander’s accession he slackened his preparations for defence,
+uncertain whether the new monarch would maintain himself, whether
+he would overpower the combinations which were formed against him in
+Greece, whether he would inherit his father’s genius for war, or adopt
+his ambitious projects. It would have been wiser, no doubt, as the event
+proved, to have joined heart and soul with Alexander’s European enemies,
+and to have carried the war at once to the other side of the Egean. But
+no great blame attaches to the Persian monarch for his brief inaction.
+As soon as the Macedonian prince had shown by his campaigns in Thrace,
+Illyria, and Boeotia that he was a person to be dreaded, Darius
+Codomannus renewed the preparations which he had discontinued, and
+pushed them forward with all the speed that was possible. A fleet was
+rapidly got ready: the satraps of Asia Minor were reinforced with troops
+of good quality from the interior of the Empire, and were ordered to
+raise a strong force of mercenaries; money was sent into Greece to the
+Lacedaemonians and others in order to induce them to create disturbances
+in Europe; above all, Memnon the Rhodian, a brother of Mentor, and a
+commander of approved skill, was sent to the Hellespont, at the head of
+a body of Greeks in Persian pay, with an authority co-ordinate to that
+of the satraps.
+
+A certain amount of success at first attended these measures. Memnon
+was able to act on the offensive in North-Western Asia. He marched upon
+Cyzicus and was within a little of surprising it, obtaining from the
+lands and villas without the walls an immense booty. He forced Parmenio
+to raise the seige of Pitane; and when Callas, one of the Macedonian
+leaders, endeavored to improve the condition of things by meeting the
+Persian forces in the open field, he suffered a defeat and was compelled
+to throw himself into Rhoeteum.
+
+These advantages, however, were detrimental rather than serviceable to
+the Persian cause; since they encouraged the Persian satraps to regard
+the Macedonians as an enemy no more formidable than the various tribes
+of Greeks with whom they had now carried on war in Asia Minor for
+considerably more than a century. The intended invasion of Alexander
+seemed to them a matter of no great moment--to be classed with
+expeditions like those of Thimbron and Agesilaus, not to need, as it
+really did, to be placed in a category of its own. Accordingly, they
+made no efforts to dispute the passage of the Hellespont, or to oppose
+the landing of the expedition on the Asiatic shore. Alexander was
+allowed to transport a force of 30,000 foot and 4000 or 5000 horse from
+the Chersonese to Mysia without the slightest interference on the part
+of the enemy, notwithstanding that his naval power was weak and that
+of the Persians very considerable. This is one of those pieces of
+remissness in the Persian conduct of military matters, whereof we have
+already had to note signal instances, and which constantly caused the
+failure of very elaborate and judicious preparations to meet a danger.
+Great efforts had been made to collect and equip a numerous fleet, and
+a few weeks later it was all-powerful in the Egean. But it was absent
+exactly at the time when it was wanted. Alexander’s passage and landing
+were unopposed, and the Persians thus admitted within the Empire without
+a struggle the enemy who was fated to destroy it.
+
+When the Persian commanders heard that Alexander was in Asia, they
+were anxious to give him battle. One alone, the Rhodian Greek, Memnon,
+proposed and urged a wholly different plan of operations. Memnon advised
+that a general engagement should be avoided, that the entire country
+should be laid waste, and even the cities burnt, while the army
+should retire, cut off stragglers, and seek to bring the enemy into
+difficulties. At the same time he recommended that the fleet should be
+brought up, a strong land force embarked on board it, and an effort made
+to transfer the war into Europe. But Memnon’s colleagues, the satraps
+and commandants of the north-western portion of Asia Minor, could not
+bring themselves to see that circumstances required a line of action
+which they regarded as ignominious. It is not necessary to attribute to
+them personal or selfish motives. They probably thought honestly that
+they were a match for Alexander with the troops at their disposal, and
+viewed retreat before an enemy numerically weaker than themselves as
+a disgrace not to be endured unless its necessity was palpable.
+Accordingly they determined to give the invader battle. Supposing that
+Alexander, having crossed into Asia at Abydos, would proceed to attack
+Dascyleium, the nearest satrapial capital, they took post on the
+Granicus, and prepared to dispute the further advance of the Macedonian
+army. They had collected a force of 20,000 cavalry of the best quality
+that the Empire afforded, and nearly the same number of infantry,
+who were chiefly, if not solely, Greek mercenaries. With these
+they determined to defend the passage of the small stream above
+mentioned--one of the many which flow from the northern flank of Ida
+into the Propontis.
+
+The battle thus offered was eagerly accepted by the Macedonian. If he
+could not defeat with ease a Persian force not greatly exceeding his
+own, he had miscalculated the relative goodness of the soldiers on
+either side, and might as well desist from the expedition. Accordingly,
+he no sooner came to the bank of the river, and saw the enemy drawn up
+on the other side, than, rejecting the advice of Parmenio to wait till
+the next day, he gave orders that the whole army should enter the stream
+and advance across it. The Granicus was in most places fordable; but
+there were occasional deeper parts, which had to be avoided; and there
+was thus some difficulty in reaching the opposite bank in line. That
+bank itself was generally steep and precipitous, but offered also
+several gentle slopes where a landing was comparatively easy. The
+Persians had drawn up their cavalry along the line of the river close to
+the water’s edge, and had placed their infantry in the rear. Alexander
+consequently attacked with his cavalry. The engagement began upon the
+right. Amytas and Ptolemy, who were the first to reach the opposite
+bank, met with a strenuous resistance and were driven back into the
+stream by the forces of Memnon and his sons. The battle, however, on
+this side was restored by Alexander himself, who gradually forced the
+Persians back after a long hand-to-hand fight, in which he received
+a slight wound, and slew with his own hand several noble Persians.
+Elsewhere the resistance was less determined. Parmenio crossed on the
+left with comparative ease, by his advance relieving Alexander. The
+Persians found the long spears of the Macedonians and their intermixture
+of light-armed foot with heavy-armed cavalry irresistible. The
+Macedonians seem to have received orders to strike at their adversaries’
+faces--a style of warfare which was as unpleasant to the Persians as it
+was to the soldiers of Pompey at Pharsalia. Their line was broken
+where it was opposed to Alexander and his immediate companions; but the
+contagion of disorder rapidly spread, and the whole body of the cavalry
+shortly quitted the field, after having lost a thousand of their number.
+Only the infantry now remained. Against these the Macedonian phalanx was
+brought up in front, while the cavalry made repeated charges on
+either flank with overwhelming effect. Deserted by their horse, vastly
+outnumbered, and attacked on all sides, the brave mercenaries stood
+firm, fought with desperation, and were mostly slaughtered where they
+stood. Two thousand out of the 20,000--probably wounded men--were made
+prisoners. The rest perished, except a few who lay concealed among the
+heaps of slain.
+
+The Persians lost by the battle 20,000 of their best footmen, and one or
+two thousand horse. Among their slain the proportion of men of rank
+was unusually large. The list included Spithridates, satrap of Lydia,
+Mithrobarzanes, governor of Cappadocia, Pharnaces, a brother-in-law, and
+Mithridates, a son-in-law of Darius, Arbupales, a grandson of Artaxerxes
+Mnemon, Omares, the commander of the mercenaries, Niphates, Petines,
+and Ehoesaces, generals. The Greek loss is said to have been exceedingly
+small. Aristobulus made the total number of the slain thirty-four;
+Arrian gives it as one hundred and fifteen, or a little over. It has
+been suspected that even the latter estimate is below the truth; but the
+analogy furnished by the other great victories of the Greeks over the
+Persians tends rather to confirm Arrian’s statement.
+
+The battle of the Granicus threw open to Alexander the whole of Asia
+Minor. There was no force left in the entire country that could venture
+to resist him, unless protected by walls. Accordingly, the Macedonian
+operations for the next twelve months, or during nearly the whole
+space that intervened between the battles of the Granicus and of Issus,
+consist of little more than a series of marches and sieges. The reader
+of Persian history will scarcely wish for an account of these operations
+in detail. Suffice it to say that Alexander rapidly overran Lydia,
+Ionia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Phrygia, besieged and took
+Miletus, Halicarnassus, Marmareis, and Sagalassus, and received the
+submission of Dascyleium, Sardis, Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, the Lycian
+Telmisseis, Pinara, Xanthus, Patara, Phaselis, Side, Aspendus, Celaenee,
+and Gordium. This last city was the capital of Phrygia; and there the
+conqueror for the first time since his landing gave himself and his army
+a few months’ rest during the latter part of the winter.
+
+With the first breath of spring his forces were again in motion.
+Hitherto anxious with respect to the state of things on the coast and in
+Greece, he had remained in the western half of Asia Minor, within call
+of his friends in Macedonia, at no time distant more than about 200
+miles from the sea. Now intelligence reached him which made him feel at
+liberty to advance into the interior of Asia. Memnon the Rhodian fell
+sick and died in the early spring of B.C. 333. It is strange that so
+much should have depended on a single life; but it certainly seems that
+there was no one in the Persian service who, on Memnon’s death, could
+replace him--no one fitted for the difficult task of uniting Greeks and
+Asiatics together, capable of influencing and managing the one while he
+preserved the confidence of the other. Memnon’s death disconcerted all
+the plans of the Great King, who till it occurred had fully intended to
+carry the war into his enemy’s country. It induced Darius even to give
+up the notion of maintaining a powerful fleet, and to transfer to the
+land service the most efficient of his naval forces. At the same time it
+set Alexander free to march wherever he liked, liberating him from the
+keen anxiety, which he had previously felt, as to the maintenance of the
+Macedonian power in Europe.
+
+It now became the object of the Persian king to confront the daring
+invader of his Western provinces with an army worthy of the Persian
+name and proportionate to the vastness of the Empire. He had long been
+collecting troops from many of the most warlike nations, and had got
+together a force of several hundred thousand men. Forgetting the lessons
+of his country’s previous history, he flattered himself that the host
+which he had brought together was irresistible, and became anxious to
+hurry on a general engagement. Starting from Babylon, probably about the
+time that Alexander left Gordium in Phrygia, he marched up the valley of
+the Euphrates, and took up a position at Sochi, which was situated in
+a large open plain, not far from the modern Lake of Antioch. On his
+arrival there he heard that Alexander was in Cilicia at no great
+distance; and the Greeks in his service assured him that it would not
+be long before the Macedonian monarch would seek him out and accept his
+offer of battle. But a severe attack of illness detained Alexander at
+Tarsus, and when he was a little recovered, troubles in Western Cilicia,
+threatening his communications with Greece, required his presence;
+so that Darius grew impatient, and, believing that his enemy had no
+intention of advancing further than Cilicia, resolved to seek him in
+that country. Quitting the open plain of Sochi, he marched northwards,
+having the range of Amanus on his left, almost as far as the
+thirty-seventh parallel, when turning sharply to the west, he crossed
+the chain, and descended upon Issus, in the inner recess of the gulf
+which bore the same name. Here he came upon Alexander’s hospitals, and
+found himself to his surprise in the rear of his adversary, who, while
+Darius was proceeding northwards along the eastern flank of Amanus, had
+been marching southwards between the western flank of the same range and
+the sea. Alexander had crossed the Pylse, or narrowest portion of the
+pass, and had reached Myriandrus--a little beyond Iskonderum--when news
+reached him that Darius had occupied Issus in his rear, and had put
+to death all the sick and wounded Macedonians whom he had found in the
+town. At first he could not credit the intelligence; but when it was
+confirmed by scouts, whom he sent out, he prepared instantly to retrace
+his steps, and to fight his first great battle with the Persian king
+under circumstances which he felt to be favorable beyond anything that
+he could have hoped. The tract of flat land between the base of the
+mountains and the sea on the borders of the Gulf of Issus was nowhere
+broader than about a mile and a half. The range of Amanus on the
+east rose up with rugged and broken hills, so that on this side the
+operations of cavalry were impracticable. It would be impossible to
+form a line of battle containing in the front rank more than about 4000
+men,1048 and difficult for either party to bring into action as many as
+30,000 of their soldiers. Thus the vast superiority of numbers on the
+Persian side became in such a position absolutely useless, and even
+Alexander had more troops than he could well employ. No wonder that the
+Macedonian should exclaim, that “God had declared Himself on the Grecian
+side by putting it into the heart of Darius to execute such a movement.”
+ It may be that Alexander’s superior generalship would have made him
+victorious even on the open plain of Sochi; but in the defile of Issus
+success was certain, and generalship superfluous.
+
+Darius had started from Issus in pursuit of his adversary, and had
+reached the banks of the Pinarus, a small stream flowing westward from
+Amanus into the Mediterranean, when he heard that Alexander had hastened
+to retrace his stops, and was coming to meet him. Immediately he
+prepared for battle. Passing a force of horse and foot across the stream
+in his front, to keep his adversary in check if he advanced too rapidly,
+he drew up his best troops along the line of the river in a continuous
+solid mass, the ranks of which must have been at least twenty deep.
+Thirty thousand Greek mercenaries formed the centre of the line, while
+on either side of them were an equal number of Asiatic “braves”--picked
+probably from the mass of the army. Twenty thousand troops of a lighter
+and inferior class were placed upon the rough hills on the left, the
+outskirts of the Amanian range, where the nature of the ground allowed
+them to encircle the Macedonian right, which, to preserve its ranks
+unbroken, kept the plain. The cavalry, to the number of 30,000, was
+massed upon the other wing, near the sea.
+
+The battle began by certain movements of Alexander against the flank
+force which menaced his right. These troops, assailed by the Macedonian
+light-armed, retreated at once to higher ground, and by their manifest
+cowardice freed Alexander from all anxiety on their account. Leaving 300
+horse to keep the 20,000 in check, he moved on his whole line at a slow
+pace towards the Pinarus till it came within bow-shot of the enemy, when
+he gave the order to proceed at a run. The line advanced as commanded;
+but before it could reach the river, the Persian horse on the extreme
+right, unable to restrain themselves any longer, dashed across the
+shallow stream, and assailed Alexander’s left, where they engaged in a
+fierce battle with the Thessalian cavalry, in which neither attained any
+decided advantage. The infantry, meanwhile, came into conflict along
+the rest of the line. Alexander himself, with the right and the
+right-centre, charged the Asiatic troops on Darius’s left, who, like
+their brethren at Cunaxa, instantly broke and fled. Parmenio, with the
+left-centre, was less successful. The north bank of the Pinarus was in
+this part steep and defended by stakes in places; the Greek mercenaries
+were as brave as the Macedonians, and fought valiantly. It was not till
+the troops which had routed the Persian right began, to act against
+their centre, assailing it upon the flank, while it was at the same time
+engaged in front, that the mercenaries were overpowered and gave way.
+Seeing their defeat, the horse likewise fled, and thus the rout became
+general.
+
+It is not quite clear what part Darius took in the battle, or how far
+he was answerable for its untoward result. According to Arrian, he was
+struck with a sudden panic on beholding the flight of his left wing, and
+gave orders to his charioteer instantly to quit the field. But Curtius
+and Diodorus represent him as engaged in a long struggle against
+Alexander himself, and as only flying when he was in imminent danger of
+falling into the enemy’s hands. Justin goes further, and states that
+he was actually wounded. The character gained by Darius in his earlier
+years makes it improbable that he would under any circumstances have
+exhibited personal cowardice. On the whole it would seem to be most
+probable that the flight of the Persian monarch occurred, not when the
+left wing fled, but when the Greek mercenaries among whom he had placed
+himself began to give way before the irresistible phalanx and the
+impetuous charges of Alexander. Darius, not unwisely, accepted the
+defeat of his best troops as the loss of the battle, and hastily retired
+across Amanus by the pass which had brought him to Issus, whence
+he hurried on through Sochi to the Euphrates, anxious to place that
+obstacle between himself and his victorious enemy. His multitudinous
+host, entangled in the defiles of the mountains, suffered by its own
+weight and size, the stronger fugitives treading down the weaker, while
+at the same time it was ruthlessly slaughtered by the pursuing enemy,
+so long as the waning light allowed. As many as 100,000--90,000 foot and
+10,000 horse--are said to have fallen. The ravines were in places choked
+with the dead bodies, and Ptolemy the son of Lagus related that in one
+instance he and Alexander crossed a gully on a bridge of this kind.
+Among the slain were Sabaces, satrap of Egypt, Bubaces, a noble of high
+rank, and Arsames, Rheomithres, and Atizyes, three of the commanders
+at the Granicus. Forty thousand prisoners were made. The whole of the
+Persian camp and camp-equipage fell into the enemy’s hands, who found in
+the royal pavilion the mother, wife, and sister of the king, an
+infant son, two daughters, and a number of female attendants, wives of
+noblemen. The treasure captured amounted to 3000 silver talents. Among
+the trophies of victory were the chariot, bow, shield, and robe of the
+king, which he had abandoned in his hurried flight.
+
+The loss on the side of the Macedonians was trivial. The highest
+estimate places it at 450 killed, the lowest at 182. Besides these,
+504 were wounded. Thus Alexander had less than 1000 men placed hors de
+combat. He himself received a slight wound in the thigh from a sword,
+which, used a little more resolutely, might have changed the fortunes of
+the world.
+
+The defeat of the Persians at Issus seems to have been due simply to the
+fact that, practically, the two adversaries engaged with almost equal
+numbers, and that the troops of Alexander were of vastly superior
+quality to those of Darhis. The Asiatic infantry--notwithstanding their
+proud title of “braves”--proved to be worthless; the Greek mercenaries
+were personally courageous, but their inferior arms and training
+rendered them incapable of coping with the Macedonian phalanx. The
+cavalry was the only arm in which the Persians were not greatly at a
+disadvantage; and cavalry alone cannot gain, or even save a battle.
+When Darius put himself into a position where he lost all the advantages
+derivable from superiority of numbers, he made his own defeat and his
+adversary’s triumph certain.
+
+It remained, therefore, before the Empire could be considered as
+entirely lost, that this error should be corrected, this false step
+retrieved. All hope for Persia was not gone, so long as her full force
+had not been met and defeated in a fair and open field. When Darius fled
+from Issus, it was not simply to preserve for a few months longer his
+own wretched life; it was to make an effort to redeem the past--to give
+his country that last chance of maintaining her independence which she
+had a right to claim at his hands--to try what the award of battle
+would be under the circumstances which he had fair grounds for
+regarding as the most favorable possible to his own side and the most
+disadvantageous to his adversary. Before the heart of the Empire
+could be reached from the West, the wide Mesopotamian plain had to be
+traversed--there, in those vast flats, across which the enemy must come,
+a position might be chosen where there would be room for the largest
+numbers that even his enormous Empire could furnish--where cavalry and
+even chariots would be everywhere free to act--where consequently he
+might engage the puny force of his antagonist to the greatest advantage,
+outflank it, envelop it, and perhaps destroy it. Darius would have
+been inexcusable had he given up the contest without trying this last
+chance--the chance of a battle in the open field with the full collected
+force of Persia.
+
+His adversary gave him ample time to prepare for this final struggle.
+The battle of Issus was fought in November, B.C. 333. It was not till
+the summer of B.C. 331, twenty months later that the Macedonian forces
+were set in motion towards the interior of the Empire. More than a year
+and a half was consumed in the reduction of Phoenicia, the siege of
+Gaza, and the occupation of Egypt. Alexander, apparently, was confident
+of defeating Darius in a pitched battle, whenever and under whatever
+circumstances they should again meet; and regarded as the only
+serious dangers which threatened him, a possible interruption of his
+communications with Greece, and the employment of Persian gold and
+Persian naval force in the raising of troubles on the European side of
+the Egean. He was therefore determined, before he plunged into the depth
+of the Asiatic continent, to isolate Persia from Greece, to destroy her
+naval power, and to cripple her pecuniary resources. The event showed
+that his decision was a wise one. By detaching from Persia and bringing
+under his own sway the important countries of Syria, Phoenicia,
+Palestine, Idumsea, and Egypt, he wholly deprived Persia of her navy,
+and transferred to himself the complete supremacy of the sea, he greatly
+increased his own resources while he diminished those of the enemy, and
+he shut out Persia altogether from communication with Greece, excepting
+through his territories. He could therefore commence his march into the
+interior with a feeling of entire security as to his communications and
+his rear. No foe was left on the coast capable of causing him a moment’s
+uneasiness. Athens and Sparta might chafe and even intrigue; but without
+the Persian “archers,” it was impossible that any force should be raised
+which could in the slightest degree imperil his European dominions.
+
+From Babylon, whither Darius proceeded straight from Issus, he appears
+to have made two ineffectual attempts at negotiating with his enemy. The
+first embassy was despatched soon after his arrival, and, according
+to Arrian, was instructed merely to make proposals for peace, and to
+request the restitution of the Queen, the Queen-mother, Sisygambis, the
+infant prince, and the two princesses, captured by Alexander. To this
+Alexander replied, in haughty and contemptuous terms, that if Darius
+would acknowledge him as Lord of Asia, and deliver himself into his
+power, he should receive back his relatives: if he intended still to
+dispute the sovereignty, he ought to come and fight out the contest, and
+not run away.
+
+The second embassy was sent six or eight months later, while Alexander
+was engaged in the siege of Tyre. Darius now offered, as a ransom for
+the members of his family held in captivity by Alexander, the large sum
+of ten thousand talents (L240,000.), and was willing to purchase peace
+by the cession of all the provinces lying west of the Euphrates, several
+of which were not yet in Alexander’s possession. At the same time he
+proposed that Alexander should marry his daughter, Statira, in order
+that the cession of territory might be represented as the bestowal of a
+dowry. The reply of Alexander was, if possible, ruder and haughtier than
+before. “What did Darius mean by offering money and territory? All his
+treasure and all his territory were Alexander’s already. As for the
+proposed marriage, if he (Alexander) liked to marry a daughter of
+Darius, he should of course do so, whether her father consented or not.
+If Darius wanted merciful treatment, he had better come and deliver
+himself up at once.”
+
+The terms of this reply rendered further negotiation impossible.
+Darius had probably not hoped much from his pacific overtures, and was
+therefore not greatly concerned at their rejection. He knew that the
+members of his family were honorably and even kindly treated by their
+captor, and that, so far at any rate, Alexander had proved himself a
+magnanimous conqueror. He can scarcely have thought that a lasting peace
+was possible between himself and his young antagonist, who had only just
+fleshed his maiden sword, and was naturally eager to pursue his career
+of conquest. Indeed, he seems from the moment of his defeat at Issus to
+have looked forward to another battle as inevitable, and to have been
+unremitting in his efforts to collect and arm a force which might
+contend, with a good hope of victory, against the Macedonians. He
+replaced the panoplies lost at Issus with fresh ones; he armed his
+forces anew with swords and spears longer than the Persians had been
+previously accustomed to employ, on account of the great length of the
+Macedonian weapons; he caused to be constructed 200 scythed chariots; he
+prepared spiked balls to use against his enemy’s cavalry; above all, he
+laid under contribution for the supply of troops all the provinces,
+even the most remote, of his extensive Empire, and asked and obtained
+important aid from allies situated beyond his borders. The forces which
+he collected for the final struggle comprised--besides Persians, Medes,
+Babylonians, and Susianians from the centre of the Empire--Syrians from
+the banks of the Orontes, Armenians from the neighborhood of Ararat,
+Cappadocians and Albanians from the regions bordering on the Euxine,
+Cadusians from the Caspian, Bactrians from the Upper Oxus, Sogdians from
+the Jaxartes, Arachosians from Cabul, Arians from Herat, Indians from
+Punjab, and even Sacse from the country about Kashgar and Yarkand, on
+the borders of the Great Desert of Gobi. Twenty-five nations followed
+the standard of the Great King, and swelled the ranks of his vast army,
+which amounted (according to the best authorities) to above a million of
+men. Every available resource that the Empire possessed was brought
+into play. Besides the three arms of cavalry, infantry, and chariots,
+elephants were, for perhaps the first time in the history of military
+science, marshalled in the battle-field, to which they added an unwonted
+element of grotesqueness and savagery.
+
+The field of battle was likewise selected with great care, and
+artificially prepared for the encounter. Darius, it would seem, had
+at last become convinced that his enemy would seek him out wherever he
+might happen to be, and that consequently the choice of ground rested
+wholly with himself. Leaving, therefore, the direct road to Babylon
+by the line of the Euphrates undefended, he selected a position which
+possessed all the advantages of the Mesopotamian plain, being open,
+level, fertile, and well supplied with water, while its vicinity to the
+eastern and northern provinces, made it convenient for a rendezvous.
+This position was on the left or east bank of the Tigris, in the heart
+of the ancient Assyria, not more than thirty miles from the site of
+Nineveh. Here, in the region called by the Greeks Adiabene, extended
+between the Tigris and the river Zab or Lycus, a vast plain broken by
+scarcely any elevations, and wholly bare of both shrubs and trees. The
+few natural inequalities which presented themselves were levelled by
+order of Darius, who made the entire plain in his front practicable not
+only for cavalry but for chariots. At the same time he planted, in the
+places where Alexander’s cavalry was likely to charge, spiked balls to
+damage the feet of the horses.
+
+Meanwhile, Alexander had quitted Egypt, and after delaying some months
+in Syria while his preparations were being completed, had crossed the
+Euphrates at Thapsacus and marched through northern Mesopotamia along
+the southern flank of the Mons Masius, a district in which provisions,
+water, and forage were abundant, to the Tigris, which he must have
+reached in about lat. 36° 30’, thirty or forty miles above the site of
+Nineveh. No resistance was made to his advance; even the passage of
+the great rivers was unopposed. Arrived on the east bank of the Tigris,
+Alexander found himself in Assyria Proper, with the stream upon his
+right and the mountains of Gordyene Kurdistan at no great distance upon
+his left. But the plain widened as he advanced, and became, as he drew
+near the position of his enemy, a vast level, nowhere less than thirty
+miles in breadth, between the outlying ranges of hills and the great
+river. Darius, whose headquarters had been at Arbela, south of the Zab,
+on learning Alexander’s approach, had crossed that stream and taken post
+on the prepared ground to the north, in the neighborhood of a small town
+or village called Gaugamela. Here he drew up his forces in the order
+which he thought best, placing the scythed chariots in front, with
+supports of horse--Scythian, Bactrian, Armenian, and Cappadocian--near
+to them; then, the main line of battle, divided into a centre and two
+wings, and composed of horse and foot intermixed; and finally a reserve
+of Babylonians. Sitaceni, and others, massed in heavy column in the
+rear. His own post was, according to invariable Persian custom, in
+the centre; and about him were grouped the best troops--the Household
+brigade, the Melophori or Persian foot-guards, the Mardian archers, some
+Albanians and Carians, the entire body of Greek mercenaries, and the
+Indians with their elephants.
+
+Alexander, on his side, determined to leave nothing to chance. Advancing
+leisurely, resting his troops at intervals, carefully feeling his way by
+means of scouts, and gradually learning from the prisoners whom he
+took, and the deserters who came over to him, all the dispositions and
+preparations of the enemy, he arrived opposite the position of Darius on
+the ninth day after his passage of the Tigris. His officers were eager
+to attack at once; but with great judgment he restrained them, gave his
+troops a night’s rest, and obtained time to reconnoitre completely the
+whole position of the enemy and the arrangement which he had made of his
+forces. He then formed his own dispositions. The army with which he
+was to attack above a million of men consisted of 40,300 foot and 7000
+horse. Alexander drew them up in three lines:
+
+The first consisted of light-armed troops, horse and foot, of good
+quality, which were especially intended to act against the enemy’s
+chariots. The next was the main line of battle, and contained the
+phalanx with the rest of the heavy infantry in the centre, the heavy
+cavalry upon the two wings. The third line consisted of light troops,
+chiefly horse, and was instructed to act against such of the Persians as
+should outflank the Macedonian main line and so threaten their rear.
+As at Issus, Alexander took the command of the right wing himself, and
+assigned the left to Parmenio.
+
+As the two armies drew near, Alexander, who found himself greatly
+outflanked on both wings, and saw in front of him smooth ground
+carefully prepared for the operations of chariots and cavalry, began a
+diagonal movement towards the right, which tended at once to place him
+beyond the levelled ground, and to bring him in contact with his enemy’s
+left wing rather than with his direct front. The movement greatly
+disconcerted his adversary, who sought to prevent it by extending and
+advancing his own left, which was soon engaged with Alexander’s right
+in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict. Alexander still pressed his slanting
+movement, and in resisting it Darius’s left became separated from his
+centre, while at the same time he was forced to give the signal for
+launching the chariots against the foe sooner than he had intended, and
+under circumstances that were not favorable. The effect of the operation
+was much the same as at Cunaxa. Received by the Macedonian light-armed,
+the chariots were mostly disabled before the enemy’s main line was
+reached; the drivers were dragged from the chariot-boards; and the
+horses were cut to pieces. Such as escaped this fate and charged the
+Macedonian line, were allowed to pass through the ranks, which opened to
+receive them, and were then dealt with by grooms and others in the rear
+of the army.
+
+No sooner had the chariot attack failed, and the space between the two
+lines of battle become clear, than Alexander, with the quick eye of a
+true general, saw his opportunity: to resist his flank movement, the
+Bactrians and Sacae with the greater part of the left wing had broken
+off from the main Persian line, and in pressing towards the left
+had made a gap between their ranks and the centre. Into this gap the
+Macedonian king, at the head of the “Companion” cavalry and a portion of
+the phalanx, plunged. Here he found himself in the near neighborhood
+of Darius, whereupon he redoubled the vigor of his assault, knowing the
+great importance of any success gained in this quarter. The Companions
+rushed on with loud cries, pressing with all their weight, and thrusting
+their spears into the faces of their antagonists--the phalanx, bristling
+with its thick array of lances, bore them down. Alexander found himself
+sufficiently near Darius to hurl a spear at him, which transfixed his
+charioteer. The cry arose that the king had fallen, and the ranks at
+once grew unsteady. The more timid instantly began to break and fly;
+the contagion of fear spread; and Darius was in a little while almost
+denuded of protection on one side. Seeing this, and regarding the battle
+as lost, since his line was broken, his centre and left wing defeated,
+while only his right wing remained firm, the Persian monarch yielded to
+his alarm, and hastily quitting the field, made his way to Arbela. The
+centre and left fled with him. The right, which was under the command
+of the Syrian satrap, Mazseus, made a firmer stand. On this side the
+chariots had done some damage, and the horse was more than a match for
+the Thessalian cavalry. Parmenio found himself in difficulties about the
+time when the Persian king fled. His messengers detained a part of the
+phalanx, which was about to engage in the pursuit, and even recalled
+Alexander, who was hastening upon the track of Darius. The careful
+prince turned back, but before he could make his way through the crowd
+of fugitives to the side of his lieutenant, victory had declared in
+favor of the Macedonians in this part of the field also. Mazseus and his
+troops, learning that the king was fled, regarded further resistance as
+useless, and quitted the field. The Persian army hurriedly recrossed
+the Zab, pursued by the remorseless conquerors, who slew the unresisting
+fugitives till they were weary of slaughter. Arrian says that 300,000
+fell, while a still larger number were taken prisoners. Other writers
+make the loss considerably less. All, however, agree that the army was
+completely routed and dispersed, that it made no attempt to rally, and
+gave no further trouble to the conqueror.
+
+The conduct of Darius in this--the crisis of his fate--cannot be
+approved; but it admits of palliation, and does not compel us to
+withdraw from him that respectful compassion which we commonly accord
+to great misfortunes. After Issus, it was his duty to make at least one
+more effort against the invader. To this object he addressed himself
+with earnestness and diligence. The number and quality of the troops
+collected at Arbela attests at once the zeal and success of his
+endeavors. His choice and careful preparation of the field of battle
+are commendable; in his disposition of his forces there is nothing with
+which to find fault. Every arm of the service had full room to act; all
+were brought into play; if Alexander conquered, it was because he was a
+consummate general, while at the same time he commanded the best troops
+in the world. Arbela was not, like Issus, won by mere fighting. It was
+the leader’s victory, rather than the soldiers. Alexander’s diagonal
+advance, the confusion which it caused, the break in the Persian line,
+and its prompt occupation by some of the best cavalry and a portion
+of the phalanx, are the turning-points of the engagement. All the
+rest followed as a matter of course. Far too much importance has been
+assigned to Darius’s flight, which was the effect rather than the cause
+of victory. When the centre of an Asiatic army is so deeply penetrated
+that the person of the monarch is exposed and his near attendants begin
+to fall, the battle is won. Darius did not--indeed he could not--“set
+the example of flight.” Hemmed in by vast masses of troops, it was not
+until their falling away from him on his left flank at once exposed
+him to the enemy and gave him room to escape, that he could extricate
+himself from the melee.
+
+No doubt it would have been nobler, finer, more heroic, had the Persian
+monarch, seeing that all was lost, and that the Empire of the Persians
+was over, resolved not to outlive the independence of his country. Had
+he died in the thick of the fight, a halo of glory would have surrounded
+him. But, because he lacked, in common with many other great kings and
+commanders, the quality of heroism, we are not justified in affixing to
+his memory the stigma of personal cowardice. Like Pompey, like
+Napoleon, he yielded in the crisis of his fate to the instinct of
+self-preservation. He fled from the field where he had lost his crown,
+not to organize a new army, not to renew the contest, but to prolong for
+a few weeks a life which had ceased to have any public value.
+
+It is needless to pursue further the dissolution of the Empire.
+The fatal blow was struck at Arbela--all the rest was but the long
+death-agony. At Arbela the crown of Cyrua passed to the Macedonian;
+the Fifth Monarchy came to an end. The HE-GOAT, with the notable horn
+between his eyes, had come from the west to the ram which had two horns,
+and had run into him with the fury of his power. He had come close to
+him, and, moved with choler, had smitten the ram and broken his two
+horns--there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he had
+cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him--and there was none to
+deliver the ram out of his hand.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The
+Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia, by George Rawlinson
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient
+Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia, by George Rawlinson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia
+       The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea,
+       Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian
+       or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
+
+Author: George Rawlinson
+
+Illustrator: George Rawlinson
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2005 [EBook #16165]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES
+
+OF THE
+
+ANCIENT EASTERN WORLD;
+
+
+OR,
+
+
+THE HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, AND ANTIQUITIES OF CHALDAEA, ASSYRIA
+
+BABYLON, MEDIA, PERSIA, PARTHIA, AND SASSANIAN,
+
+OR NEW PERSIAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A.,
+
+CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
+
+
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+
+
+VOLUME II.
+
+
+
+WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+
+
+PERSIA PROPER.
+
+
+[Illustration: MAP]
+
+
+
+
+THE FIFTH MONARCHY.
+
+
+
+
+PERSIA.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE.
+
+
+The geographical extent of the Fifth Monarchy was far greater than that
+of any one of the four which had preceded it. While Persia Proper is a
+comparatively narrow and poor tract, extending in its greatest length
+only some seven or eight degrees (less than 500 miles), the dominions of
+the Persian kings covered a space fifty-six degrees long, and in places
+more than twenty degrees wide. The boundaries of their empire were the
+desert of Thibet, the Sutlej, and the Indus, on the east; the Indian
+Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian and Nubian deserts, on the south;
+on the west, the Greater Syrtis, the Mediterranean, the Egean, and the
+Strymon river; on the north, the Danube, the Black Sea, the Caucasus,
+the Caspian, and the Jaxartes. Within these limits lay a territory, the
+extent of which from east to west was little less than 3000 miles,
+while its width varied between 500 and 1500 miles. Its entire area was
+probably not less than, two millions of square miles--or more than half
+that of modern Europe. It was thus at least eight times as large as the
+Babylonian Empire at its greatest extent, and was probably more than
+four times as large as the Assyrian.
+
+The provinces included within the Empire may be conveniently divided
+into the Central, the Western, and the Eastern. The Central are Persia
+Proper, Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the coast tract of the
+Caspian, and Sagartia, or the Great Desert. The Western are Paeonia,
+Thrace, Asia Minor, Armenia, Iberia, Syria and Phoenicia, Palestine,
+Egypt, and the Cyrenaica. The Eastern are Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria,
+Chorasmia, Sogdiana, Bactria, Scythia, Gandaria, Sattagydia, India,
+Paricania, the Eastern AEthiopia, and Mycia.
+
+Of these countries a considerable number have been already described in
+these volumes. Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the Caspian coast,
+Armenia, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, belong to this class; and it
+may be assumed that the reader is sufficiently acquainted with their
+general features. It would therefore seem to be enough in the present
+place to give an account of the regions which have not yet occupied our
+attention, more especially of Persia Proper--the home of the dominant
+race.
+
+Persia Proper seems to have corresponded nearly to that province of the
+modern Iran, which still bears the ancient name slightly modified, being
+called Farsistan or Fars. The chief important difference between the two
+is, that whereas in modern times the tract called Herman is regarded as
+a distinct and separate region, Carmania anciently was included within
+the limits of Persia. Persia Proper lay upon the gulf to which it has
+given name, extending from the mouth of the Tab (Oroatis) to the point
+where the gulf joins the Indian Ocean. It was bounded on the west by
+Susiana, on the north by Media Magna, on the east by Mycia, and on
+the south by the sea. Its length seems to have been about 450, and its
+average width about 250 miles. It thus contained an area of rather more
+than 100,000 square miles.
+
+In modern times it is customary to divide the province of Fars into
+the _ghermsir_, or, "warm district," and the _serdsir_, or "cold
+region"--and the physical character of the country must have made such a
+division thoroughly appropriate at every period. The "warm district"
+is a tract of sandy plain, often impregnated with salt, which extends
+between the mountains and the sea the whole length of the province,
+being a continuation of the flat region of Susiana, but falling very
+much short of that region in all the qualities which constitute physical
+excellence. The soil is poor, consisting of alternate sand and clay--it
+is ill-watered, the entire tract possessing scarcely a single stream
+worthy of the name of river--and, lying only just without the northern
+Tropic, the district is by its very situation among the hottest of
+western Asia. It forms, however, no very large portion of the ancient
+Persia, being in general a mere strip of land, from ten to fifty
+miles wide, and thus not constituting more than an eighth part of the
+territory in question.
+
+The remaining seven eighths belong to the serdsir, or "cold region."
+The mountain-range which under various names skirts on the east the
+Mesopotamian lowland, separating off that depressed and generally
+fertile region from the bare high plateau of Iran, and running
+continuously in a direction parallel to the course of the Mesopotamian
+streams--i.e. from the north-west to the south-east--changes its course
+as it approaches the sea, sweeping gradually round between long. 50� and
+55�, and becoming parallel to the coast-line, while at the same time it
+broadens out, till it covers a space of nearly three degrees, or above
+two hundred miles. Along the high tract thus created lay the bulk of
+the ancient Persia, consisting of alternate mountain, plain, and narrow
+valley, curiously intermixed, and as yet very incompletely mapped. This
+region is of varied character. In places richly, fertile, picturesque,
+and romantic almost beyond imagination, with lovely wooded dells, green
+mountain-sides, and broad plains suited for the production of almost any
+crops, it has yet on the whole a predominant character of sterility and
+barrenness, especially towards its more northern and eastern portions.
+The supply of water is everywhere scanty. Scarcely any of the streams
+are strong enough to reach the sea. After short courses they are
+either absorbed by the sand or end in small salt lakes, from which
+the superfluous water is evaporated. Much of the country is absolutely
+without streams, and would be uninhabitable were it not for the
+_kanats_, or _karizes_, subterranean channels of spring-water, described
+at length in a former volume.
+
+The only rivers of the district which deserve any attention are the Tab
+(or Oroatis), whereof a description has been already given, the Kur or
+Bendamir (called anciently Araxes), with its tributary, the Pulwar (or
+Cyrus), and the Khoonazaberni or river of Khisht.
+
+The Bendamir rises in the mountains of the Bakhtiyari chain, in lat.
+30� 35', long. 51� 50' nearly, and runs with a course which is generally
+south-east, past the ruins of Persepolis, to the salt lake of Neyriz
+or Kheir, which it enters in long. 53� 30'. It receives, where it
+approaches nearest to Persepolis, the Pulwar or Kur-ab, a small stream
+coming from the north-east and flowing by the ruins of both Pasargadae
+and Persepolis. A little below its junction with this stream the
+Bendamir is crossed by a bridge of five arches, and further down, on the
+route between Shiraz and Herman, by another of twelve. Here its waters
+are to a great extent drawn off by means of canals, and are made to
+fertilize a large tract of rich flat country on either bank, after which
+the stream pursues its course with greatly diminished volume to the salt
+lake in which it ends. The entire course, including only main windings,
+may be estimated at 140 or 150 miles.
+
+The Khoonazaberni or river of Khisht rises near the ruins of Shapur, at
+a short distance from Kazerun, on the route between Bushire and
+Shiraz, and flows in a broad valley between lofty mountains towards
+the south-west, entering the Persian Gulf by three mouths, the chief of
+which is at Rohilla, twenty miles north of Bushire, where the stream has
+a breadth of sixty yards, and a depth of about four feet. Above Khisht
+the river is already thirty yards wide. Its chief tributary is the
+Dalaki stream, which enters it from the east, nearly in long. 51�. The
+entire course of the Khisht river may be about 95 or 100 miles. Its
+water is brackish except near the source.
+
+The principal lakes are the Lake of Neyriz and the Deriah-i-Nemek. The
+Deriah-i-Nemek is a small basin distant about ten miles from Shiraz,
+which receives the waters of the streams that supply that town. It has a
+length of about fifteen and a breadth of about three or three and a half
+miles. The lake of Neyriz or Kheir is of far larger size, being from
+fifty to sixty miles long and from three to six broad, though in the
+summer season it is almost entirely dried up. Salt is then obtained
+from the lake in large quantities, and forms an important feature in the
+commerce of the district. Smaller lakes, also salt or brackish, exist in
+other parts of the country, as Lake Famur, near Kazerun, which is about
+six miles in length, and from half a mile to a mile across.
+
+The most remarkable feature of the country consists in the extraordinary
+gorges which pierce the great mountain-chain, and render possible the
+establishment of routes across that tremendous barrier. Scarped rocks
+rise almost perpendicularly on either side of the mountain-streams,
+which descend rapidly with frequent cascades and falls. Along the slight
+irregularities of these rocks the roads are carried in zigzags, often
+crossing the streams from side to side by bridges of a single arch,
+which are thrown over profound chasms where the waters chafe and roar
+many hundred feet below.46 [PLATE XXVI.] The roads have for the most
+part been artificially cut in the sides of the precipices, which rise
+from the streams sometimes to the height of 2000 feet. In order to cross
+from the Persian Gulf to the high plateau of Iran, no fewer than three
+or four of these kotuls, or strange gorge-passes, have to be traversed
+successively. Thus the country towards the edge of the plateau is
+peculiarly safe from attack, being defended on the north and east by
+vast deserts, and on the south by a mountain-barrier of unusual strength
+and difficulty.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVI.]
+
+
+It is in these regions, which combine facility of defence with
+pleasantness of climate, that the principal cities of the district have
+at all times been placed. The earliest known capital of the region was
+Pasargadae, or Persagadae, as the name is sometimes written, of which
+the ruins still exist near Murgab, in lat. 30� 15' long. 53� 17'.
+Here is the famous tomb of Cyrus, whereof a description will be given
+hereafter; and here are also other interesting remains of the old
+Persian architecture. Neither the shape nor the extent of the town can
+be traced. The situation was a plain amid mountains, watered by small
+streams which found their way to a river of some size (the Pulwar)
+flowing at a little distance to the west. [PLATE XXVII Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVII.]
+
+
+At the distance of thirty miles from Pasargadae, or of more than forty
+by the ordinary road, grew up the second capital, Persepolis, occupying
+a more southern position than the primitive seat of power, but still
+situated towards the edge of the plateau, having the mountain-barrier
+to the south-west and the desert at no great distance to the north-east.
+Like its predecessor, Persepolis was situated in a plain, but in a plain
+of much larger dimensions and of far greater fertility. The plain of
+Merdasht is one of the most productive in Persia, being watered by the
+two streams of the Bendamir and the Pulwar, which unite a few miles
+below the site of the ancient city. From these two copious and unfailing
+rivers a plentiful supply of the precious fluid can at all times be
+obtained; and in Persia such a supply will always create the loveliest
+verdure, the most abundant crops, and the richest and thickest foliage.
+The site of Persopolis is naturally far superior to that in which
+the modern provincial capital, Shiraz, has grown up, at about the
+same distance from Persepolis as that is from Pasargadae. and in the
+same--i.e. in a south-west--direction.
+
+Besides Persepolis and Pasargadse, Persia Proper contained but few
+cities of any note or name. If we include Carmania in Persia, Carmana,
+the capital of that country, may indeed be mentioned as a third Persian
+town of some consequence; but otherwise the names which occur in ancient
+authors are insignificant, and designate villages rather than towns of
+any size. Carmana, however, which is mentioned by Ptolemy and
+Ammianus as the capital of those parts, seems to have been a place of
+considerable importance. It may be identified with the modern Kerman,
+which lies in lat. 39� 55', long. 56� 13', and is still one of the
+chief cities of Persia. Situated, like Pasargadae and Persepolis, in a
+capacious plain surrounded by mountains, which furnish sufficient water
+for cultivation to be carried on by means of kanats in most parts of the
+tract enclosed by them, and occupying a site through which the trade of
+the country almost of necessity passes, Kerman must always be a town of
+no little consequence. Its inland and remote position, however,
+caused it to be little known to the Greeks; and, apparently, the great
+Alexandrian geographer was the first who made them acquainted with its
+existence and locality.
+
+The Persian towns or villages upon the coast of the Gulf were chiefly
+Armuza (which gave name to the district of Ar-muzia), opposite the
+modern island of Ormuz; Sisidona, which must have been near Cape Jerd;
+Apostana, probably about Shewar; Gogana, no doubt the modern Kongoon;
+and Taoce on the Granis, famous as having in its neighborhood a royal
+palace, which we may perhaps place near Dalaki, Taoce itself occupying
+the position of Rohilla, at the mouth of the Khisht river. Of the inland
+towns the most remarkable, after Persepolis, Pasargadse, and Carmana,
+were Gabae, near Pasar-gadae, also the site of a palace; Uxia, or the
+Uxian city, which may have occupied the position of Mai-Amir, Obroatis,
+Tragonice, Ardea, Portospana, Hyrba, etc., which it is impossible to
+locate unless by the merest conjecture.
+
+The chief districts into which the territory was divided were
+Paraetacene, a portion of the Bakhtiyari mountain-chain, which some,
+however, reckoned to Media; Mardyene, or the country of the Mardi, also
+one of the hill tracts; Taocene, the district about Taoce, part of the
+low sandy coast region; Ciribo, the more northern portion of the same
+region; and Carmania, the entire eastern territory. These districts were
+not divided from one another by any marked natural features, the only
+division of the country to which such a character attached being the
+triple one into the high sandy plains north of the mountains, the
+mountain region, and the Deshtistan, or low hot tract along the coast.
+
+From this account it will be easy to understand how Persia Proper
+acquired and maintained the character of "a scant land and a rugged,"
+which we find attaching to it in ancient authors. The entire area, as
+has been already observed was about 100,000 square miles--little more
+than half that of Spain, and about one fifth of the area of modern
+Persia. Even of this space nearly one half was uninhabitable, consisting
+either of barren stony mountain or of scorching sandy plain, ill
+supplied with water, and often impregnated with salt, the habitable
+portion consisted of the valleys and plains among the mountains and
+along their skirts, together with certain favored spots upon the banks
+of streams in the flat regions. These flat regions themselves were
+traversed in many places by rocky ridges of a singularly forbidding
+aspect. The whole appearance of the country was dry, stony, sterile. As
+a modern writer observes, "the livery of the land is constantly brown
+or gray; water is scanty; plains and mountains are equally destitute of
+wood. When the traveller, after toiling over the rocky mountains that
+separate the plains looks down from the pass he has won with toil
+and difficulty upon the country below, his eye wanders unchecked and
+unrested over an uniform brown expanse losing itself in distance."
+
+Still this character, though predominant, is not universal. Wherever
+there is water, vegetation springs up. The whole of the mountain region
+is intersected by valleys and plains which are more or less fertile.
+The line of country between Bebahan and Shiraz is for above sixty miles
+"covered with wood and verdure," in East of Shiraz, on the route between
+that city and Kerman the country is said to be in parts "picturesque and
+romantic," consisting of "low luxuriant valleys or; plains separated
+by ranges of low mountains, green to their very summits with beautiful
+turf." The plains of Khubbes, Merdasht, Ujan, Shiraz, Kazerun,
+and others, produce abundantly under a very inefficient system of
+cultivation. Even in the most arid tracts there is generally a time of
+greenness immediately after the spring rains, when the whole country
+smiles with verdure.
+
+It has been already remarked that the Empire, which, commencing from
+Persia Proper, spread itself towards the close of the sixth century
+before Christ, over the surrounding tracts, included a number of
+countries not yet described in these volumes, since they formed no part
+of any of the four Empires which preceded the Persian. To complete,
+therefore, the geographical survey proper to our subject, it will be
+necessary to give a sketch of the tracts in question. They will
+fall naturally into three groups, an eastern, a north-western, and a
+southwestern--the eastern extending from the skirts of Mount Zagros to
+the Indian Desert, the north-western from the Caspian to the Propontis,
+and the south-western from the borders of Palestine to the shores of the
+Greater Syrtis.
+
+Inside the Zagros and Elburz ranges, bounded on the north and west by
+those mountain-lines, on the east by the ranges of Suliman and Hala, and
+on the south by the coast-chain which runs from Persia Proper nearly
+to the Indus, lies a vast tableland, from 3000 to 5000 feet above the
+sea-level, known to modern geographers as the Great Plateau of Iran. Its
+shape is an irregular rectangle, or trapezium, extending in its greatest
+length, which is from west to east, no less than twenty degrees, or
+above 1100 miles, while the breadth from north to south varies from
+seven degrees, or 480 miles (which is its measure along the line of
+Zagros), to ten degrees, or 690 miles, where it abuts upon the Indus
+valley. The area of the tract is probably from 500,000 to 600,000 square
+miles.
+
+It is calculated that two thirds of this elevated region are absolutely
+and entirely desert. The rivers which flow from the mountains
+surrounding it are, with a single exception--that of the Etymandrus or
+Helmend--insignificant, and their waters almost always lose themselves,
+after a course proportioned to their volume, in the sands of the
+interior. Only two, the Helmend and the river of Ghuzni, have even the
+strength to form lakes; the others are absorbed by irrigation, or sucked
+up by the desert. Occasionally a river, rising within the mountains,
+forces its way through the barrier, and so contrives to reach the sea.
+This is the case, especially, on the south, where the coast chain is
+pierced by a number of streams, some of which have their sources at a
+considerable distance inland. On the north the Heri-rud, or River of
+Herat, makes its escape in a similar way from the plateau, but only to
+be absorbed, after passing through two mountain chains, in the sands of
+the Kharesm. Thus by far the greater portion of this region is desert
+throughout the year, while, as the summer advances, large tracts, which
+in the spring were green, are burnt up--the rivers shrink back towards
+their sources--the whole plateau becomes dry and parched--and the
+traveller wonders that any portion of it should be inhabited.
+
+It must not be supposed that the entire plateau of which we have been
+speaking is to the eye a single level and unbroken plain. In the western
+portion of the region the plains are constantly intersected by "brown,
+irregular, rocky ridges," rising to no great height, but serving to
+condense the vapors held in the air, and furnishing thereby springs
+and wells of inestimable value to the inhabitants. In the southern and
+eastern districts "immense" ranges of mountains are said to occur; and
+the south-eastern as well as the north-eastern corners of the plateau
+are little else than confused masses of giant elevations. Vast flats,
+however, are found. In the Great Salt Desert, which extends from Kashan
+and Koum to the Deriah or "Sea" in which the Helmend terminates, and
+in the sandy desert of Seistan, which lies east and south-east of that
+lake, reaching from near Furrah to the Mekran mountains, plains of above
+a hundred miles in extent appear to occur, sometimes formed of loose
+sand, which the wind raises into waves like those of the sea, sometimes
+hard and gravelly, or of baked and indurated clay.
+
+The tract in question, which at the present day is divided between
+Afghanistan, Beloochistan, and Iran, contained, at the time when
+the Persian Empire arose, the following nations: the Sagartians, the
+Cossseans, the Parthians, the Hariva or Arians, the Gandarians, the
+Sattagydians, the Arachotians, the Thamanseans, the Sarangae, and the
+Paricanians. The Sagartians and Cossseans dwelt in the western portion
+of the tract, the latter probably about the Siah-Koh mountains, the
+former scattered over the whole region from the borders of Persia Proper
+to the Caspian Gates and the Elburz range. Along its northern edge, east
+of the Sagartians, were the Parthians, the Arians, and the Gandarians.
+occurring in that order as we proceed from west to east. The Parthians
+held the country known now as the Atak or "Skirt," the flat tract at the
+southern base of the Elburz from about Shahrud to Khaff, together with
+a portion of the mountain region adjoining. This is a rich and valuable
+territory, well watered by a number of small streams, which, issuing
+from the ravines and valleys of the Elburz, spread fertility around, but
+lose themselves after a short, course in the Salt Desert. Adjoining the
+Parthians upon the east were the Haroyu, Hariva, or Arians, an Iranic
+race of great antiquity, who held the country along the southern skirts
+of the mountains from the neighborhood of Khaff to the point where the
+Heri-rud (Arius) issues from the Paropamisan mountains. The character
+of this country closely resembles that of Parthia, whereof it is a
+continuation; but the copious stream of the Heri-rud renders it even
+more productive.
+
+The Gandarians held Kabul, and the mountain tract on both sides of the
+Kabul river as far as the upper course of the Indus, thus occupying
+the extreme north-eastern corner of the plateau, the region where its
+elevation is the greatest. Lofty mountain-ridges, ramifying in various
+directions but tending generally to run east and west, deep gorges,
+narrow and tremendous passes, like the Khyber, characterize this
+district. Its soil is generally rocky and barren; but many of the
+valleys are fertile, abounding with enchanting scenery and enjoying a
+delightful climate. More especially is this the case in the neighborhood
+of the city of Kabul, which is perhaps the Caspatyrus of Herodotus,
+where Darius built the fleet which descended the Indus.
+
+South of Aria and Gandaria, in the tract between the Great Desert
+and the Indus valley, the plateau was occupied by four nations--the
+Thamanseans, the Sarangians, the Sattagydians, and the Arachotians.
+The Thamanaean country appears to have been that which lies south and
+south-east of Aria (Herat), reaching from the Haroot-rud or river of
+Subzawar to the banks of the Helmend about Ghirisk. This is a varied
+region, consisting on the north and the north-east of several high
+mountain chains which ramify from a common centre, having between
+them large tracts of hills and downs, while towards the south and the
+south-west the country is comparatively low and flat, descending to
+the level of the desert about the thirty second parallel. Here the
+Thamanseans were adjoined upon by the Sarangians, who held the land
+about the lake in which the Helmend terminates--the Seistan of Modern
+Persia. Seistan is mainly desert. One third of the surface of the soil
+is composed of moving sands, and the other two thirds of a compact
+sand, mixed with a little clay, but very rich in vegetable matter. It
+is traversed by a number of streams, as the Haroot-rud, the river
+of Furrah, the river of Khash, the Helmend, and others, and is
+very productive along their banks, which are fertilized by annual
+inundations; but the country between the streams is for the most part an
+arid desert.
+
+The Sattagydians and Arachotians divided between them the remainder of
+Afghanistan, the former probably occupying south-eastern Kabul, from the
+Ghuzni river and its tributaries to the valley of the Indus, while the
+latter were located in the modern Candahar, upon the Urghand-ab and
+Turnuk rivers. The character of these tracts is similar to that of
+north-western Kabul, but somewhat less rugged and mountainous. Hills and
+downs alternate with rocky ranges and fairly fertile vales. There is
+a scantiness of water, but still a certain number of moderate-sized
+rivers, tolerably well supplied with affluents. The soil, however, is
+either rocky or sandy; and without a careful system of irrigation great
+portions of the country remain of necessity barren and unproductive.
+
+The south-eastern corner of the plateau, below the countries of the
+Sarangians and the Arachotians, was occupied by a people, called
+Paricanians by Herodotus, perhaps identical with the Gedrosians of
+later writers. This district, the modern Beloochistan, is still very
+imperfectly known, but appears to be generally mountainous, to have a
+singularly barren soil, and to be deficient in rivers. The nomadic life
+is a necessity in the greater part of the region, which is in few places
+suitable for cultivation, but has good pastures in the mountains or the
+plains according to the season of the year. The rivers of the country
+are for the most part mere torrents, which carry a heavy body of
+water after rains, but are often absolutely dry for several months in
+succession. Water, however, is generally obtainable by digging wells in
+their beds; and the liquid procured in this way suffices, not only for
+the wants of man and beast, but also for a limited irrigation.
+
+The Great Plateau which has been here described is bordered everywhere,
+except at its north-eastern and north-western corners, by low regions.
+On the north the lowland is at first a mere narrow strip intervening
+between the Elburz range and the Caspian, a strip which has been already
+described in the account given of the Third Monarchy. Where, however,
+the Caspian ends, its shore trending away to the northward, there
+succeeds to this mere strip of territory a broad and ample tract of
+sandy plain, extending from about the 54th to the 68th degree of east
+longitude--a distance of 760 miles--and reaching from the 36th to the
+50th parallel of north latitude--a distance not much short of a thousand
+miles! This tract which comprises the modern Khanats of Khiva and
+Bokhara, together with a considerable piece of Southern Asiatic Russia,
+is for the most part a huge trackless desert, composed of loose sand,
+black or red, which the wind heaps up into hills. Scarcely any region on
+the earth's surface is more desolate. The boundless plain lies stretched
+before the traveller like an interminable sea, but dead, dull, and
+motionless. Vegetation, even the most dry and sapless, scarcely exists.
+For three or four hundred miles together he sees no running stream.
+Water, salt, slimy, and discolored, lies Occasionally in pools, or
+is drawn from wells, which yield however only a scanty supply. For
+anything like a drinkable beverage the traveller has to trust to the
+skies, which give or withhold their stores with a caprice that is truly
+tantalizing. Occasionally, but only at long intervals, out of the
+low sandy region there issues a rocky range, or a plateau of moderate
+eminence, where the soil is firm, the ground smooth, and vegetation
+tolerably abundant. The most important of the ranges are the Great
+and Little Balkan, near the Caspian Sea, between the 39th and 40th
+parallels, the Khalata and Urta Tagh, north-west, of Bokhara, and the
+Kukuth; still further to the north-west in latitude 42� nearly. The
+chief plateau is that of Ust-Urt, between the Caspian and the Sea of
+Aral, which is perhaps not more than three or four hundred feet above
+the sandy plain, but is entirely different in character.
+
+This desolate region of low sandy plain would be wholly uninhabitable,
+were it not for the rivers. Two great streams, the Amoo or Jyhun
+(anciently the Oxus), and the Sir or Synuti (anciently the Jaxartes),
+carry their waters across the desert, and pour them into the basin of
+the Aral. Several others of less volume, as the Murg-ab, or river of
+Merv, the Abi Meshed or Tejend, the Heri-rud, the river of Maymene, the
+river of Balkh, the river of Khulm, the Shehri-Sebz, the Ak Su or river
+of Bokhara, the Kizil Deria, etc., flow down from the high ground
+into the plain, where their waters either become lost in the sands, or
+terminate in small salt pools. Along the banks of these streams the soil
+is fertile, and where irrigation is employed the crops are abundant. In
+the vicinity of Khiva, at Kermineh on the Bokhara river, at Samarcand,
+at Balkh--and in a few other places, the vegetation is even luxuriant;
+gardens, meadows, orchards, and cornfields fringe the river-bank; and
+the natives see in such favored spots resemblances of Paradise! Often,
+however, even the river-banks themselves are uncultivated, and the
+desert creeps up to their very edge; but this is in default, not in
+spite, of human exertion. A well-managed system of irrigation could,
+in almost every instance, spread on either side of the streams a broad
+strip of verdure.
+
+In the time of the Fifth Monarchy, the tract which has been here
+described was divided among three nations. The region immediately to the
+east of the Caspian, bounded on the north by the old course of the Oxus
+and extending eastward to the neighborhood of Merv, though probably
+not including that city, was Chorasmia, the country of the Chorasmians.
+Across the Oxus to the north-east was Sogdiana (or Sugd), reaching
+thence to the Jaxartes, which was the Persian boundary in this
+direction. South of Sogdiana, divided from it by the Middle and Upper
+Oxus, was Bactria, the country of the Bakhtars or Bactrians. The
+territory of this people reached southward to the foot of the
+Paropamisus, adjoining Chorasmia and Aria on the west, and on the south
+Sattagydia and Gandaria.
+
+East of the table-land lies the valley of the Indus and its tributaries,
+at first a broad tract, 350 miles from west to east, but narrowing as
+it descends, and in places not exceeding sixty or seventy miles,
+across. The length of the valley is not less than 800 miles. Its area is
+probably about a hundred thousand square miles. We may best regard it
+as composed of two very distinct tracts--one the broad triangular plain
+towards the north, to which, from the fact of its being watered by five
+main streams, he natives have given the name of Punj-ab, the other the
+long and comparatively narrow valley of the single Indus river, which,
+deriving its appellation from that noble stream, is known in modern
+geography as Sinde. The Punjab, which contains an area of above fifty
+thousand square miles, is mountainous towards the north, where it
+adjoins on Kashmeer and Thibet, but soon sinks down into a vast plain,
+with a soil which is chiefly either sand or clay, immensely productive
+under irrigation, but tending to become jungle or desert if left without
+human care. Sinde, or the Indus valley below the Punjab, is a region of
+even greater fertility. It is watered, not only by the main stream of
+the Indus, but by a number of branch channels which the river begins to
+throw off from about the 28th parallel. It includes, on the right bank
+of the stream, the important tract called Cutchi Gandava, a triangular
+plain at the foot of the Suliman and Hala ranges, containing about 7000
+square miles of land which is all capable of being made into a garden.
+The soil is here for the most part rich, black, and loamy; water is
+abundant; and the climate suitable for the growth of all kinds of grain.
+Below Cutchi Gandava the valley of the Indus is narrow for about a
+hundred miles, but about Tatta it expands and a vast delta is formed.
+This is a third triangle, containing above a thousand square miles of
+the richest alluvium, which is liable however to floods and to vast
+changes in the river beds, whereby often whole fields are swept away.
+Much of this tract is moreover low and swampy; the climate is trying;
+and rice is almost the only product that can be advantageously
+cultivated.
+
+The low region lying south of the Great Plateau is neither extensive
+nor valuable. It consists of a mere strip of land along the coast of
+the Indian Ocean, extending a distance of about nine degrees (550 miles)
+from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to Cape Monze, near Kurrachee, but
+in width not exceeding ten or, at the most, twenty miles. This tract
+was occupied in ancient times mainly by a race which Herodotus called
+Ethiopians and the historians of Alexander Ichthyophagi (Fish-Eaters).
+It is an arid, sultry, and unpleasant region, scarcely possessing a
+perennial stream, and depending for its harvests entirely upon the
+winter rains, and for its water during the summer on wells which are
+chiefly brackish. Tolerable pasturage is, however, obtainable in places
+even during the hottest part of the year, and between Cape Jask and
+Gwattur the crops produced are far from contemptible.
+
+A small tract of coast, a continuation of the territory just described,
+intervening between it and Kerman, was occupied in the early Persian
+times by a race known to the Persians as Maka, and to the Greeks as
+Mycians. This district, reaching from about Cape Jask to Gombroon,
+is one of greater fertility than is usual in these regions, being
+particularly productive in dates and grain. This fertility seems,
+however, to be confined to the vicinity of the sea-shore.
+
+To complete the description of the Eastern provinces two other tracts
+must be mentioned. The mountain-chain which skirts the Great Plateau on
+the north, distinguished in these pages by the name of Elburz, broadens
+out after it passes the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea till it
+covers a space of nearly three degrees (more than 200 miles). Instead
+of the single lofty ridge which separates the Salt Desert from the low
+Caspian region, we find between the fifty-fourth and fifty-ninth degrees
+of east longitude three or four distinct ranges, all nearly parallel to
+one another, having a general direction of east and west. Broad and rich
+valleys are enclosed between these latitudinal ranges which are watered
+by rivers of a considerable size, as more especially the Ettrek and
+the Gurgan. Thus a territory is formed capable of supporting a largish
+population, a territory which possesses a natural unity, being shut in
+on three sides by mountains, and on the fourth by the Caspian. Here in
+Persian times was settled a people called Hyrcani; and from them the
+tract derived the name of Hyrcania (Vehrkana), while the lake on which
+it adjoined came to be known as "the Hyrcanian Sea." The fertility
+of the region, its broad plains, shady woods and lofty mountains were
+celebrated by the ancient writers.
+
+Further to the east, beyond the low sandy plain, and beyond the
+mountains in which its great rivers have their source--on the other
+side of the "Roof of the World," as the natives name this elevated
+region--lay a tract unimportant in itself, but valuable to the Persians
+as the home of a people from whom they obtained excellent soldiers. The
+plain of Chinese Tartary, the district about Kashgar and Yarkand, seems
+to have been in possession of certain Sacans or Scythians, who in the
+flourishing times of the empire acknowledged subjection to the Persian
+crown. These Sacans, who call themselves Huma-varga or Amyrgians,
+furnished some of the best and bravest of the Persian troops. Westward
+they bordered on Sogdiana and Bactria; northward they extended probably
+to the great mountain-chain of the Tien-chan; on the east they were shut
+in by the vast desert of Gobi or Shamoo; while southward they must have
+touched Gandaria and perhaps India. A portion of this country--that
+towards the north and west--was well watered and fairly productive; but
+the southern and eastern part of it must have been arid and desert.
+
+From this consideration of the Eastern provinces of the Empire, we pass
+on naturally to those which lay towards the North-West. The Caspian Sea
+alone intervened between these two groups, which thus approached each
+other within a distance of some 250 or 260 miles.
+
+Almost immediately to the west of the Caspian there rises a high
+table-land diversified by mountains, which stretches eastward for more
+than eighteen degrees between the 37th and 41st parallels. This highland
+may properly be regarded as a continuation of the great Iranean plateau,
+with which it is connected at its south-eastern corner. It comprises
+a portion of the modern Persia, the whole of Armenia, and most of Asia
+Minor. Its principal mountain-ranges are latitudinal or from west to
+east, only the minor ones taking the opposite or longitudinal direction.
+Of the latitudinal chains the most important is the Taurus, which,
+commencing at the southwestern corner of Asia Minor in longitude 29�
+nearly, bounds the great table-land upon the south, running parallel
+with the shore at the distance of sixty or seventy miles as far as
+the Pylse Cilicise, near Tarsus, and then proceeding in a direction
+decidedly north of east to the neighborhood of Lake Van, where it unites
+with the line of Zagros. The elevation of this range, though not equal
+to that of some in Asia, is considerable. In Asia Minor the loftiest of
+the Taurus peaks seem to attain a height of about 9000 or 10,000 feet.
+Further to the east the elevation appears to be even greater, the peaks
+of Ala Dagh, Sapan, Nimrud, and Mut Khan in the tract about Lake Van
+being all of them considerably above the line of perpetual snow, and
+therefore probably 11,000 or 12,000 feet.
+
+At the opposite side of the table-land, bounding it towards the north,
+there runs under various names a second continuous range of inferior
+elevation, which begins near Brusa, in the Keshish Dagh or Mysian
+Olympus, and proceeds in a line nearly parallel with the northern coast
+to the vicinity of Kars. Between this and Taurus are two other important
+ridges, which run westward from the neighborhood of Ararat to about the
+34th degree of east longitude, after which they subside into the plain.
+
+The heart of the mountain-region, the tract extending from the district
+of Erivan on the east to the upper course of the Kizil-Irmak river
+and the vicinity of Sivas upon the west, was, as it still is, Armenia.
+Amidst these natural fastnesses, in a country of lofty ridges, deep
+and narrow valleys, numerous and copious streams, and occasional broad
+plains--a country of rich pasture grounds, productive orchards, and
+abundant harvests--this interesting people has maintained itself almost
+unchanged from the time of the early Persian kings to the present day.
+Armenia was one of the most valuable portions of the Persian Empire,
+furnishing, as it did, besides stone and timber, and several most
+important minerals, an annual supply of 20,000 excellent horses to the
+stud of the Persian king.
+
+The highland west of Armenia, the plateau of Asia Minor, from the
+longitude of Siwas (37� E.) to the sources of the Meander and the
+Hermus, was occupied by the two nations of the Cappadocians and
+Phrygians, whose territories were separated by the Kizil-Irmak or Halys
+river. This tract, though diversified by some considerable ranges, and
+possessing one really lofty mountain, that of Argseus, was, compared
+with Armenia, champaign and level. Its broad plains afforded the best
+possible pasturage for sheep, while at the same time they bore excellent
+crops of wheat. The entire region was well-watered; it enjoyed a
+delightful climate; and besides corn and cattle furnished many products
+of value.
+
+Outside the plateau on the north, on the north-east, on the west, and
+on the south, lie territories which, in comparison with the high
+region whereon they adjoined, may be called lowlands. The north-eastern
+lowland, the broad and rich valley of the Kur, which corresponds closely
+with the modern Russian province of Georgia, was in the possession of a
+people called by Herodotus Saspeires or Sapeires, whom we may identify
+with the Iberians of later writers. Adjoining upon them towards the
+south, probably in the country about Erivan, and so in the neighborhood
+of Ararat, were the Alarodians, whose name must be connected with that
+of the great mountain. On the other side of the Sapeirian country, in
+the tracts now known as Mingrelia and Imeritia, regions of a wonderful
+beauty and fertility, were the Colchians--dependants, but not exactly
+subjects, of Persia.
+
+The northern lowland, which consisted of a somewhat narrow strip of land
+between the plateau and the Euxine, was a rich and well-wooded region,
+630 miles in length, and in breadth from forty to a hundred. It was
+inhabited by a large number of rude and barbarous tribes, each of whom
+possessed a small portion of the sea-board. These tribes, enumerated in
+the order of their occurrence from east to west, were the following:
+the Moschi, the Macrones (or Tzani), the Mosy-noeci, the Mares, the
+Tibareni, the Chalybes, the Paphlagones, the Mariandyni, the Bithyni,
+and the Thyni. The Moschi, Macrones, Mosynoeci, Mares, and Tibareni
+dwelt towards the east, occupying the coast from Batoum to Ordou.
+The Chalybes inhabited the tract immediately adjoining on Sinope.
+The Paphlagonians held the rest of the coast from the mouth of the
+Kizil-Irmak to Cape Baba, where they were succeeded by the Mariandyni,
+who owned the small tract between Cape Baba and the mouth of
+the Sakkariyeh (Sangarius). From the Sangarius to the canal of
+Constantinople dwelt the Thynians and Bithynians intermixed, the former
+however affecting the coast and the latter the interior of the country.
+The entire tract was of a nearly uniform character, consisting of wooded
+spurs from the northern mountain-chain, with, valleys of greater or
+less width between them. Streams were numerous, and vegetation was
+consequently rich; but it may be doubted whether the climate was
+healthy.
+
+The western lowland comprised the inland regions of Mysia, Lydia,
+and Caria, together with the coast-tracts which had been occupied by
+immigrant Greeks, and which were known as Juolis, Doris, and Ionia. The
+broad and rich plains, the open valleys, the fair grassy mountains, the
+noble trees, the numerous and copious rivers of this district are too
+well known to need description here. The western portion of Asia Minor
+is a terrestrial paradise, well deserving the praises which Herodotus
+with patriotic enthusiasm bestowed upon it. The climate is delightful,
+only that it is somewhat too luxurious; the soil is rich and varied in
+quality; the vegetable productions are abundant; and the mountains, at
+any rate anciently, possessed mineral treasures of great value.
+
+The lowland upon the south is narrower and more mountainous than either
+of the others. It comprised three countries only--Lycia, Pamphylia, and
+Cilicia. The tract is chiefly occupied by spurs from Taurus, between
+which lie warm and richly wooded valleys. In Lycia, however, the
+mountain-ridges embrace some extensive uplands, on a level not much
+inferior to that of the central plateau itself, while in Pamphylia and
+Cilicia are two or three low alluvial plains of tolerable extent and
+of great fertility. Of these the most remarkable is that near Tarsus,
+formed by the three streams of the Cydnus, the Sarus, and the Pyramus,
+which extends along the coast a distance of forty miles and reaches
+inland about thirty, the region which gave to the tract where it occurs
+the name of Cilicia Campestris or Pedias.
+
+The Persian dominion in this quarter was not bounded by sea. Opposite to
+Cilicia lay the large and important island of Cyprus, which was included
+in the territories of the Great King from the time of Cambyses to the
+close of the Empire. Further to the west, Rhodes, Cos, Samos, Chios,
+Lesbos, Tenedos, Lemnus, Imbrus, Samothrace, Thasos, and most of the
+islands of the Egean were for a time Persian, but were never grasped
+with such firmness as to be a source of real strength to their
+conquerors. The same may be said of Thrace and Pseonia, subjugated under
+Darius, and held for some twenty or thirty years, but not assimilated,
+not brought into the condition of provinces, and therefore rather
+a drain upon the Empire than an addition to its resources. It seems
+unnecessary to lengthen out this description of the Persian territories
+by giving an account of countries and islands, whose connection with the
+Empire was at once so slight and so temporary.
+
+A few words must, however, be said respecting Cyprus. This island, which
+is 140 miles long from Bafa (Paphos) to Cape Andrea, with an average
+width for two thirds of its length of thirty-five, and for the remaining
+third of about six or seven miles, is a mountainous tract, picturesque
+and varied, containing numerous slopes, and a few plains, well fitted
+for cultivation. According to Eratosthenes it was in the more ancient
+times richly wooded, but was gradually cleared by human labor. Its soil
+was productive, and particularly well suited for the vine and the olive.
+It grew also sufficient corn for its own use. But its special value
+arose from its mineral products. The copper mines near Tamasus were
+enormously productive, and the ore thence derived so preponderated over
+all other supplies that the later Romans came to use the word Cyprium
+for the metal generally--whence the names by which it is even now known
+in most of the languages of modern Europe. On the whole Cyprus was
+considered inferior to no known island. Besides its vegetable and
+mineral products, it furnished a large number of excellent sailors to
+the Persian fleet.
+
+It remains to notice briefly those provinces of the south-west which had
+not been included within any of the preceding monarchies, and which are
+therefore as yet undescribed in these volumes. These provinces are the
+African, and may be best considered under the three heads of Egypt,
+Libya, and the Cyrenaica.
+
+Egypt, if we include under the name not merely the Nile valley and the
+Delta, but the entire tract interposed between the Libyan Desert on the
+one side and the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea on the other, is a country of
+nearly the size of Italy. It measures 520 miles from Elephantine to the
+Mediterranean, and has an average width of 150 or 160 miles. It must
+thus contain an area of about 80,000 square miles. Of this space,
+however, at least three fourths is valueless, consisting of bare rocky
+mountain or dry sandy plain. It is only along the course of the narrow
+valley in which the Nile flows from the Cataracts to beyond Cairo, in
+the tract known as the Faioum, and in the broad region of the Delta,
+that cultivation is possible. Even in the Delta itself there are large
+spaces which are arid, and others which are permanent marshes, so that
+considerable portions of its surface are unfitted for husbandry. But if
+the quantity of cultivable land is thus limited in Egypt, the quality is
+so excellent, in consequence of the alluvial character of the soil, that
+the country was always in ancient times a sort of granary of the world.
+The noble river, bringing annually a fresh deposit of the richest soil,
+and furnishing a supply of water, which is sufficient, if carefully
+husbanded, to produce a succession of luxuriant crops throughout the
+year, makes Egypt--what it is even at the present day--one of the most
+fertile portions of the earth's surface--a land of varied products,
+all excellent--but especially a land of corn, to which the principal
+nations of the world looked for their supplies, either regularly, or at
+any rate in times of difficulty.
+
+West of Egypt was a dry and sandy tract, dotted with oases, but
+otherwise only habitable along the shore, which in the time of the
+Persian Empire was occupied by a number of wild tribes who were mostly
+in the lowest condition to which savage man is capable of sinking. The
+geographical extent of this tract was large, exceeding considerably that
+of Egypt; but its value was slight. Naturally, it produced nothing but
+dates and hides. The inhumanity of the inhabitants made it, however,
+further productive of a commodity, which, until the world is
+christianized, will probably always be regarded as one of high
+value--the commodity of negro slaves, which were procured in the Sahara
+by slave-hunts, and perhaps by purchase in Nigritia.
+
+Still further to the west, and forming the boundary of the Empire in
+this direction, lay the district of the Cyrenaica, a tract of singular
+fertility and beauty. Between Benghazi, in east longitude 20�, and the
+Ras al Tynn (long. 23� 15'), there rises above the level of the adjacent
+regions an extensive table land, which, attracting the vapors that float
+over the Mediterranean, condenses them, and so abounds with springs
+and rills. A general freshness and greenness, with rich vegetation in
+places, is the consequence. Olives, figs, carobs, junipers, oleanders,
+cypresses, cedars, myrtles, arbutus-trees, cover the flanks of the
+plateau and the hollows which break its surface, while the remainder is
+suitable alike for the cultivation of cereals and for pasturage. Nature
+has also made the region a special gift in the laserpitium or silphium,
+which was regarded by the ancients as at once a delicacy and a plant
+of great medicinal power, and which added largely to the value of the
+country.
+
+Such was the geographical extent of the Persian Empire, and such
+were the chief provinces which it contained besides those previously
+comprised in the empires of Media or Babylon. Territorially, the great
+mass of the Empire lay towards the east, between long. 50� and 75�, or
+between the Zagros range and the Indian Desert. But its most important
+provinces were the western ones. East of Persepolis, the only regions
+of much value were the valleys of the Indus and the Oxus. Westward lay
+Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, Armenia, Iberia, Cappadocia, Asia
+Minor, Cyprus, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, the Cyrenaica--all countries of
+great, or at least considerable, productiveness. The two richest grain
+tracts of the ancient world, the best pasture regions, the districts
+which produced the most valuable horses, the most abundant of known
+gold-fields, were included within the limits of the Empire, which may
+be looked upon as self-sufficing, containing within it all that man in
+those days required, not only for his necessities, but even for his most
+cherished luxuries.
+
+The productiveness of the Empire was the natural result of its
+possessing so many and such large rivers. Six streams of the first
+class, having courses exceeding a thousand miles in length, helped to
+fertilize the lands which owned the sway of the Great King. These were
+the Nile, the Indus, the Euphrates, the Jaxartes, the Oxus, and the
+Tigris. Two of the six have been already described in these volumes, and
+therefore will not need to detain us here; but a few words must be
+said with respect to each of the remaining four, if our sketch of the
+geography of the Empire is to make any approach to completeness.
+
+The Nile was only in the latter part of its course a Persian stream.
+Flowing, as we now know that it does, from within a short distance of
+the equator, it had accomplished more than three fourths of its course
+before it entered a Persian province. It ran, however, through Persian
+territory a distance of about six hundred miles, and conferred on
+the tract through which it passed immeasurable benefits. The Greeks
+sometimes maintained that "Egypt was the gift of the river;" and, though
+this was very far from being a correct statement in the sense intended,
+there is a meaning of the words in which we may accept them as
+expressing a fact. Egypt is only what she is through her river. The Nile
+gives her all that makes her valuable. This broad, ample, and unfailing
+stream not only by its annual inundation enriches the soil and prepares
+it for tillage in a manner that renders only the lightest further labor
+necessary, but serves as a reservoir from which inexhaustible supplies
+of the precious fluid can be obtained throughout the whole of the year.
+The water, which rises towards the end of June, begins to subside early
+in October, and for half the year--from December till June--Egypt is
+only cultivable through irrigation. She produces, however, during this
+period, excellent crops--even at the present day, when there are few
+canals--from the facility with which water is obtained, by means of
+a very simple engine, out of the channel of the Nile. This unfailing
+supply enabled the cultivator to obtain a second, a third, and even
+sometimes a fourth crop from the same land within the space of a year.
+
+The course of the Nile from Elephantine, where it entered Egypt, to
+Cercasorus, near Heliopolis, where it bifurcated, was in general north,
+with, however, a certain tendency westward. It entered Egypt nearly in
+long. 33�, and at Neapolis (more than two degrees further north) it was
+still within 15� of the same meridian; then, however, it took a westerly
+bend, crossed the 32nd and 31st meridians, and in lat. 28� 23 reached
+west as far as long. 30� 43'. After this it returned a little eastward,
+recrossed the 31st meridian, and having reached long. 31� 22' near
+Aphroditopolis (lat.29� 25), it proceeded almost due north to Cercasorus
+in lat. 30� 7'. The course of the river up to this point was, from its
+entry into the country, about 540 miles. At Cercasorus the Delta began.
+The river threw out two branches, which flowed respectively to the
+north-east and the north-west, while between them was a third channel,
+a continuation of the previous course of the stream, which pierced the
+Delta through its centre, flowing almost due north. Lower down, further
+branch channels were thrown out, some natural, some artificial, and the
+triangular tract between the two outer arms of the river was intersected
+by at least five, and (in later times) by fourteen large streams. The
+right and left arms appear to have been of about equal in length, and
+may be estimated at 150 or 160 miles; the central arm had a shorter
+course, not exceeding 110 miles. The volume of water which the Nile
+pours into the Mediterranean during a day and night is estimated at from
+150,000 millions to 700,000 millions of cubic metres. It was by far the
+largest of all the rivers of the Empire.
+
+The Indus, which was the next largest of the Persian rivers to the Nile,
+rose (like the Nile) outside the Persian territory. Its source is in the
+region north of the Himalaya range, about lat. 31�, long. 82� 30'. It
+begins by flowing to the north-west, in a direction parallel to that of
+the Western Himalayas, along the northern flank of which it continues
+in this line a distance of about 700 miles, past Ladak, to long. 75�
+nearly. Here it is met by the Bolor chain, which prevents its further
+progress in this direction and causes it to turn suddenly nearly at a
+right angle to the south-west. Entering a transverse valley, it finds a
+way (which is still very imperfectly known) through the numerous ridges
+of the Himalaya to the plain at its southern base, on which it debouches
+about thirty miles above Attock. It is difficult to say at what exact
+point it crossed the Persian frontier, but probably at least the first
+700 miles of its course were through territory not Persian. From Attock
+to the sea the Indus is a noble river. It runs for 900 miles in a
+general direction of S.S.W. through the plain in one main stream (which
+is several hundred yards in width), while on its way it throws off also
+from time to time small side streamlets, which are either consumed in
+irrigation or rejoin the main channel. A little below Tatta its Delta
+begins--a Delta, however, much inferior in size to that of the Nile. The
+distance from the apex to the sea is not more than sixty miles, and
+the breadth of the tract embraced between the two arms does not exceed
+seventy miles. The entire course of the Indus is reckoned at 1960 miles,
+of which probably 1260 were through Persian territory. The volume of
+the stream is always considerable, while in the rainy season it is very
+great. The Indus is said then to discharge into the Indian ocean
+446,000 cubic feet per second, or 4280 millions of cubic yards in the
+twenty-four hours.
+
+The Oxus rises from an Alpine lake, lying on the western side of the
+Bolor chain in lat. 37� 40', long. 73� 50'. After a rapid descent from
+the high elevation of the lake, during which it pursues a somewhat
+serpentine course, it debouches from the hills upon the plain about
+long. 69� 20', after receiving the river of Fyzabad, and then proceeds,
+first west and afterwards north-west, across the Great Kharesmian Desert
+to the Sea of Aral. During the first 450 miles of its course, while it
+runs among the hills, it receives from both sides numerous and important
+tributaries; but from the meridian of Balkh those fail entirely, and
+for above 800 miles the Oxus pursues its solitary way, unaugmented by a
+single affluent, across the waste of Tartary, rolling through the desert
+a wealth of waters, which must diminish, but which does not seem very
+sensibly to diminish, by evaporation. At Kilef, sixty miles north-west
+of Balkh, the width of the river is 350 yards; at Khodja Salih, thirty
+miles lower down, it is 823 yards with a depth of twenty feet; at Kerki,
+seventy miles below Khodja Salih, it is "twice the width of the Danube
+at Buda-Pesth," or about 940 yards; at Betik, on the route between
+Bokhara and Merv, its width has diminished to 650 yards, but its depth
+has increased to twenty-nine feet. Finally, at Gorlen Hezaresp near
+Khiva, the breadth of the Oxus is so great that both banks are hardly
+distinguishable at the same time; but the stream is here comparatively
+shallow, ceasing to be navigable at about this point. The present course
+of the Oxus from its rise in Lake Sir-i-Kol to its termination in the
+Sea of Aral is estimated at 1400 miles. Anciently its course must have
+been still longer. The Oxus, in the time of the Achaemenian kings, fell
+into the Caspian by a channel which can even now be traced. Its length
+was thus increased by at least 450 miles, and, exceeding that of the
+Jaxartes, fell but little short of the length of the Indus.
+
+The Oxus, like the Nile and the Indus, has a periodical swell, which
+lasts from May to October. It does not, however, overflow its
+hanks. Under a scientific system of irrigation it is probable that a
+considerable belt of land on either side of its course might be brought
+under cultivation. But at present the extreme limit to which culture
+is carried, except in the immediate vicinity of Khiva, seems to be four
+miles; while often, in the absence of human care, the desert creeps up
+to the very brink of the river.
+
+The Jaxartes, or Sir-Deria, rises from two sources in the Thian-chan
+mountain chain, the more remote of which is in long. 79� nearly. The two
+streams both flow to the westward in almost parallel valleys, uniting
+about long. 71�. After their junction the course of the stream is still
+to the westward for two degrees; but between Khokand and Tashkend the
+river sweeps round in a semicircle and proceeds to run first due north
+and then north-west, skirting the Kizil Koum desert to Otrar, where
+it resumes its original westerly direction and flows with continually
+diminishing volume across the desert to the Sea of Aral. The Jaxartes
+is a smaller stream than the Oxus. At Otrar, after receiving its last
+tributary, it is no more than 250 yards wide. Below this point it
+continually dwindles, partly from evaporation, partly from the branch
+stream which it throws off right and left, of which the chief are the
+Cazala and the Kuvan Deria. On its way through the desert it spreads but
+little fertility along its banks, which are in places high and arid, in
+others depressed and swampy. The branch streams are of some service for
+irrigation; and it is possible that a scientific system might turn the
+water of the main channel to good account, and by its means redeem from
+the desert large tracts which have never yet been cultivated. But no
+such system has hitherto been applied to the Sir, and it is doubtful
+whether success would attend it. The Sir, where it falls into the Sea
+of Aral, is very shallow, seldom even in the flood season exceeding four
+feet. The length of the stream was till recently estimated at more than
+1208 miles; but the latest explorations seem to require an enlargement
+of this estimate by at least 200 or 250 miles.
+
+In rivers of the second class the Persian Empire was so rich that it
+will be impossible, within the limits prescribed for the present work,
+to do more than briefly enumerate them. The principal were, in Asia
+Minor, the Hermus (Ghiediz Chai), and the Maeander (Mendere) on the
+west, the Sangarius (Sakka-riyeh), the Halys (Kizil Irmak), and the Iris
+(Yechil Irmak) on the north, the Cydnus (Tersoos Chai), Sarus (Cilician
+Syhun), and Pyramus (Cilician Jyhun) on the south; in Armenia and the
+adjacent regions, the Araxes (Aras), Cyrus (Kur), and Phasis (Eion); on
+the Iranic plateau, the Sefid-rud, the Zenderud or river of Isfahan, the
+Etymandrus (Helmend), and the Arius (Heri-rud); in the low country east
+of the Caspian, the Gurgan and Ettrek, rivers of Hyrcania, the Margus
+Churghab (or river of Merv), the Delias or river of Balkh, the Ak Su or
+Bokhara river, and the Kizil Deria, a stream in the Khanat of Kokand;
+in Afghanistan and India, the Kabul river, the Hydaspes (Jelum), the
+Aoesines (Chenab), the Hydraotes (Ravee), and the Hyphasis (Sutlej
+or Gharra); in Persia Proper, the Oroatis (Hindyan or Tab), and the
+Bendamir; in Susiana, the Pasitigris (Kuran), the Hedypnus (Jerahi),
+the Choaspes (Kerkhah), and the Eulsenus (a branch of the same); in the
+Upper Zagros region, the Gyndes (Diyaleh), and the Greater and Lesser
+Zabs; in Mesopotamia, the Chaboras (Kha-bour), and Bilichus (Belik);
+finally, in Syria and Palestine, the Orontes or river of Antioch
+(Nahr-el-asy), the Jordan, and the Barada or river of Damascus. Thus,
+besides the six great rivers of the Empire, forty other considerable
+streams fertilized and enriched the territories of the Persian monarch,
+which, though they embraced many arid tracts, where cultivation was
+difficult, must be pronounced upon the whole well-watered, considering
+their extent and the latitude in which they lay.
+
+The Empire possessed, besides its rivers, a number of important lakes.
+Omitting the Caspian and the Aral, which lay upon its borders, there
+were contained within the Persian territories the following important
+basins: the Urumiyeh, Lake Van, and Lake Goutcha or Sivan in Armenia;
+Lakes Touz-Ghieul, Egerdir, Bey-Shehr, Chardak, Soghla, Buldur,
+Ghieul-Hissar, Iznik, Abullionte, Maniyas, and many others in Asia
+Minor; the Sabakhah, the Bahr-el-Melak, and the Lake of Antioch in
+Northern Syria; the Lake of Hems in the Coele-Syrian valley; the
+Damascus lakes, the Lake of Merom, the Sea of Tiberias, and the Dead
+Sea in Southern Syria and Palestine; Lake Moeris and the Natron lakes in
+Egypt; the Bahr-i-Nedjif in Babylonia; Lake Neyriz in Persia Proper;
+the Lake of Seistan in the Iranic Desert; and Lake Manchur in the In dus
+valley. Several of these have been already described in these
+volumes. Of the remainder the most important were the Lake of Van, the
+Touz-Ghieul, the great lake of Seistan, and Lake Moeris. These cannot be
+dismissed without a brief description.
+
+Lake Van is situated at a very unusual elevation, being more than 5400
+feet above the sea level. It is a triangular basin, of which the three
+sides front respectively S.S.E., N.N.E., and N.W. by W. The sides
+are all irregular, being broken by rocky promontories; but the chief
+projection lies to the east of the lake, where a tract is thrown out
+which suddenly narrows the expanse from about fifty miles to less than
+five. The greatest length of the basin is from N.E. to S.W., where it
+extends a distance of eighty miles between Amis and Tadvan; its greatest
+width is between Aklat and Van, where it measures across somewhat more
+than fifty miles. The scenery which surrounds it is remarkable for
+its beauty. The lake is embosomed amid high mountains, picturesque in
+outline, and all reaching in places the level of perpetual snow. Its
+waters, generally placid, but sometimes lashed into high waves, are
+of the deepest blue; while its banks exhibit a succession of orchards,
+meadows, and gardens which have scarcely their equals in Asia. The lake
+is fed by a number of small streams flowing down from the lofty ridges
+which surround it, and, having no outlet, is of course salt, though
+far less so than the neighboring lake of Urumiyeh. Gulls and cormorants
+float upon its surface fish can live in it; and it is not distasteful to
+cattle. Set in the expanse of waters are a few small islets, whose vivid
+green contrasts well with the deep azure which surrounds them.
+
+The Touz-Ghieul is a basin of a very different character. Situated on
+the upland of Phrygia, in lat. 39�, long. 33�, 30', its elevation is not
+more than 2500 feet. Low hills of sandstone and conglomerate encircle
+it, but generally at some distance, so that a tract of plain, six or
+seven miles in width, intervenes between their base and the shore. The
+shape of the lake is an irregular oval, with the greater axis running
+nearly due north and south. Its greatest length is estimated at
+forty-five miles, its width varies, but is generally from ten to sixteen
+miles. At one point, however, nearly opposite to Kodj Hissar, the lake
+narrows to a distance of no more than five miles; and here a causeway
+has been constructed from shore to shore, which, though ruined, still
+affords a dry pathway in the summer. The water of the Touz-Ghieul is
+intensely salt, containing at some seasons of the year no less than
+thirty-two per cent of saline matter, which is considerably more than
+the amount of such matter in the water of the Dead Sea. The surrounding
+plain is barren, in places marshy, and often covered with an
+incrustation of salt. The whole scene is one of desolation. The acrid
+waters support no animal organization; birds shun them; the plain grows
+nothing but a few stunted and sapless shrubs. The only signs of life
+which greet the traveller are the carts of the natives, which pass him
+laden with the salt that is obtained with ease from the saturated water.
+
+The Zerreh or Sea of Seistan--called sometimes the Hamun, or
+"expanse"--is situated in the Seistan Desert on the Great Iranic
+plateau, and consequently at an elevation of (probably) 3000 feet. It
+is formed by the accumulation of the waters brought down by the Helmend,
+the Haroot-rud, the river of Khash, the Furrah-rud and other streams,
+which flow from the mountains of Afghanistan, with converging courses
+to the south-west. It is an extensive basin, composed of two arms, an
+eastern and a western. The western arm, which is the larger of the
+two, has its greatest length from N.N.E. to S.S.W., and extends in this
+direction about ninety miles. Its greatest width is about twenty-five
+miles. The eastern arm is rather more than forty miles long, and from
+ten to twenty broad. It is shaped much like a fish's tail. The two arms
+are connected by a strait seven or eight miles in width, which joins
+them near their northern extremities. The water of the lake, though
+not salt, is black and has a bad taste. Fish support life in it with
+difficulty, and never grow to any great size. The lake is shallow, not
+much exceeding a depth of three or four feet. It contracts greatly in
+the summer, at which time the strait connecting the two arms is often
+absolutely dry. The edges of the lake are clothed with tamarisk and
+other trees; and where the rivers enter it, sometimes by several
+branches, the soil is rich and cultivation productive; but elsewhere the
+sand of the desert creeps up almost to the margin of the water, clothed
+only with some sickly grass and a few scattered shrubs.
+
+The Birket-el-Keroun, or Lake Moaris of the classical writers, is a
+natural basin--not, as Herodotus imagined, an artificial one--situated
+on the western side of the Nile valley, in a curious depression which
+nature has made among the Libyan hills. This depression--the modern
+district of the Faioom--is a circular plain, which sinks gradually
+towards the north-west, descending till it is more than 100 feet below
+the surface of the Nile at low water. The Northern and northwestern
+portion of the depression is occupied by the lake, a sheet of brackish
+water shaped like a horn (whence the modern name) measuring about
+thirty-five or thirty-six miles from end to end, and attaining in the
+middle a width of between five and six miles. The area of the lake is
+estimated roughly at 150 square miles, its circumference at about ninety
+miles. It has a depth varying from twelve to twenty-four feet. Though
+the water is somewhat brackish, yet the Birket contains several species
+of fresh-water fish; and in ancient times its fisheries are said to have
+been exceedingly productive.
+
+The principal cities of the Empire were, besides Pesargadae and
+Persepolis, Susa--the chief city of Susiana--which became the capital;
+Babylon, Ecbatana, Rhages, Zadracarta, Bactra (now Balkh), Maracanda
+(now Samarcand), Aria, or Artacoana (Herat), Caspatyrus on the Upper
+Indus,Taxila (Attock?), Pura (perhaps Bunpoor), Carmana (Kerman),
+Arbela, Nisibis, Amida (now Diarbekr); Mazaca in Cappadocia; Trapezus
+(Trebizond), Sinope, Dascyleium, Sardis, Ephesus, Miletus, Gordium,
+Perga, and Tarsus in Asia Minor: Damascus, Jerusalem, Sidon, Tyre,
+Azotus or Ashdod, and Gaza in Syria; Memphis and Thebes in Egypt; Cyrene
+and Barca in the Cyrenaica. Of these, while Susa had from the time of
+Darius Hystaspis a decided pre-eminence as the main residence of the
+court, and consequently as the usual seat of government, there were
+three others which could boast the distinction of being royal abodes
+from time to time, either regularly at certain seasons, or occasionally
+at the caprice of the monarch. These were Babylon, Ecbatana, and
+Persepolis, the capitals respectively of Chaldaea, Media, and Persia
+Proper, all great and ancient cities, accustomed to the presence of
+Courts, and all occupying positions sufficiently central to render them
+not ill-suited for the business of administration. Next to these in
+order of dignity may be classed the satrapial residences, often the
+chief cities of old monarchies, such as Sardis, the capital city of
+Lydia, Dascyleium of Bithynia, Memphis of Egypt, Bactra of Bactria, and
+the like; while the third rank was held by the towns, where there was no
+Court, either royal or satrapial.
+
+Before this chapter is concluded a few words must be said with respect
+to the countries which bordered upon the Persian Empire. The Empire
+was surrounded, for the most part, either by seas or deserts. The
+Mediterranean, the Egean, the Propontis, the Euxine, the Caspian, the
+Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Gulf or Bed Sea washed
+its shores, bounding almost all its western, and much of its northern
+and southern sides; while the sands of the Sahara, the deserts of
+Arabia and Syria of India and Thibet, filled up the greater part of the
+intervening spaces. The only countries of importance which can be viewed
+as in any sense neighbors of Persia are European and Asiatic Scythia,
+Hindustan, Arabia, Ethiopia, and Greece.
+
+Where the Black Sea, curving round to the north, ceased to furnish to
+the Empire the advantage of a water barrier, a protection of almost
+equal strength was afforded to it by the mountain-chain of the Caucasus.
+Excepting on the extreme east, where it slopes gently to the Caspian,
+this range is one of great elevation, possessing but few passes, and
+very difficult to traverse. Its fastnesses have always been inhabited by
+wild tribes, jealous of their freedom; and these tribes may have caused
+annoyance, but they could at no time have been a serious danger to
+the Empire. They were weak in numbers, divided in nationality and in
+interests, and quite incapable of conducting any distant expedition.
+Like their modern successors, the Circassians, Abassians, and Lesghians,
+their one and only desire was to maintain themselves in possession of
+their beloved mountains; and this desire would cause them to resist
+all attempts that might be made to traverse their country, whether
+proceeding from the north or from the south, from the inhabitants of
+Europe or from those of Asia. Persia was thus strongly protected in this
+quarter; but still she could not feel herself altogether safe. Once at
+least within historic memory the barrier of the Caucasus had proved to
+be surmountable. From the vast Steppe which stretches northwards from
+its base, in part salt, in part grassy, had crossed into Asia--through
+its passes or round its eastern flank--a countless host, which had swept
+all before it, and brought ruin upon flourishing empires. The Scythian
+and Samaritan hordes of the steppe-country between the Wolga and
+the Dnieper were to the monarchies of Western Asia a permanent, if a
+somewhat distant, peril. It could not be forgotten that they had
+proved themselves capable of penetrating the rocky barrier which would
+otherwise have seemed so sure a protection, or that when they swarmed
+across it in the seventh century before our era, their strength was at
+first irresistible. The Persians knew, what the great nations of the
+earth afterwards forgot, that along the northern horizon there lay a
+black cloud, which might at any time burst, carrying desolation to
+their homes and bringing ruin upon their civilization. We shall find the
+course of their history importantly affected by a sense of this danger,
+and we shall have reason to admire the wisdom of their measures of
+precaution against it.
+
+It was not only to the west of the Caspian that the danger threatened.
+East of that sea also was a vast steppe-region--rolling plains of sand
+or grass--the home of nomadic hordes similar in character to those who
+drank the waters of the Don and Wolga. The Sacse, Massagetse, and Dahse
+of this country, who dwelt about the Caspian, the Aral, and the Lower
+Jaxartes, were an enemy scarcely less formidable than the Sarmatians
+and the Scyths of the West. As the modern Iran now suffers from the
+perpetual incursions of Uzbegs and Turcomans, so the north-eastern
+provinces of the ancient Persia were exposed to the raids of the Asiatic
+Scythians and the Massagetse, who were confined by no such barrier as
+the Caucasus, having merely to cross a river, probably often fordable
+during the summer, in order to be in Persia. Hyrcania and Parthia had
+indeed a certain amount of protection from the Kharesmian Desert; but
+the upper valleys of the great streams--the satrapies of Sogdiana and
+Bactria--must have suffered considerable annoyance from such attacks.
+
+On the side of India, the Empire enjoyed a twofold security. From the
+shores of the Indian Ocean in the vicinity of the Runn of Cutch to the
+31st parallel of north latitude--a distance of above 600 miles--there
+extends a desert, from one to two hundred miles across, which
+effectually shuts off the valley of the Indus from the rest of
+Hindustan. It is only along the skirts of the mountains, by Lahore,
+Umritsir, and Loodiana, that the march of armies is possible--by this
+line alone can the Punjabis threaten Central India, or the inhabitants
+of Central India attack the Punjab. Hence in this quarter there was but
+a very narrow tract to guard; and the task of defence was still further
+lightened by the political condition of the people. The Gangetic
+Indians, though brave and powerful, were politically weak, from their
+separation into a number of distinct states under petty Rajahs, who
+could never hope to contend successfully against the forces of a mighty
+Empire. Persia, consequently, was safe upon this side, in the division
+of her adversaries. Nor had she neglected the further security which was
+obtainable by an interposition between her own actual frontier and her
+enemies' dominions of a number of half-subject dependencies. Native
+princes were allowed to bear sway in the Punjab region, who acknowledged
+the suzerainty of Persia, and probably paid her a fixed tribute, but
+whose best service was that they prevented a collision between the Power
+of whom they held their crowns and the great mass of their own nation.
+
+The Great Arabian Peninsula, which lay due south of the most central
+part of the Empire, and bordered it on this side for about thirteen
+degrees, or (if we follow the line of the boundary) for above a thousand
+miles, might seem to have been the most important of all the adjacent
+countries, since it contains an area of a million of square miles, and
+is a nursery of brave and hardy races. Politically, however, Arabia is
+weak, as has been shown in a former volume; while geographically she
+presents to the north her most arid and untraversable regions, so that
+it is rarely, and only under very exceptional circumstances, that she
+menaces seriously her northern neighbors. Persia seems never to have
+experienced any alarm of an Arab invasion; her relations with the tribes
+that came into closest contact with her were friendly; and she left the
+bulk of the nation in unmolested enjoyment of their independence.
+
+Another country adjoining the Persian Empire on the south, and one which
+might have been expected to cause some trouble, was Ethiopia. To Egypt
+Ethiopia had always proved an unquiet, and sometimes even a dangerous,
+neighbor; she was fertile, rich, populous; her inhabitants were tall,
+strong, and brave; she had a ready means of marching into Egypt down the
+fertile valley of the Nile; and her hosts had frequently ravaged,
+and even held for considerable terms of years, that easily subjected
+country. It is remarkable that during the whole time of the Persian
+dominion Ethiopia seems to have abstained from any invasion of the
+Egyptian territory. Apparently, she feared to provoke the power which
+had seated itself on the throne of the Pharaohs, and preferred the quiet
+enjoyment of her own wealth and resources to the doubtful issues of a
+combat with the mistress of Asia.
+
+On her western horizon, clearly discernible from the capes and headlands
+of the Asiatic coast, but separated from her, except in one or two
+places, by a tolerably broad expanse of sea, and so--as it might have
+seemed--less liable to come in contact with her than her neighbors upon
+the land, lay the shores and isles of Greece--lovely and delightful
+regions, in possession of a brave and hardy race, as yet uncorrupted by
+luxury, though in the enjoyment of a fair amount of civilization. As the
+eye looked across the Egean waters, resting with pleasure on the varied
+and graceful forms of Sporades and Cyclades, covetous thoughts might
+naturally arise in the beholder's heart; and the idea might readily
+occur of conquering and annexing the fair tracts which lay so temptingly
+near and possessed such numerous attractions. The entire region,
+continent and islands included, was one of diminutive size--not half
+so large as an ordinary Persian satrapy; it was well peopled, but its
+population could not have amounted to that of the Punjab or of Egypt,
+countries which Persia had overrun in a single campaign; its inhabitants
+were warlike, but they were comparatively poor, and the true sinews of
+war are money; moreover, they were divided amongst themselves, locally
+split up by the physical conformation of their country, and politically
+repugnant to anything like centralization or union. A Persian king like
+Cambyses or Darius might be excused if, when his thoughts turned to
+Greece, he had a complacent feeling that no danger could threaten him
+from that quarter--that the little territory on his western border was a
+prey which he might seize at any time that it suited his convenience or
+seemed good to his caprice; so opening without any risk a new world
+to his ambition. It required a knowledge that the causes of military
+success and political advance lie deeper than statistics can reach--that
+they have their roots in the moral nature of man, in the grandeur of his
+ideas and the energy of his character--in order to comprehend the fact,
+that the puny power upon her right flank was the enemy which Persia had
+most to fear, the foe who would gradually sap her strength, and finally
+deal her the blow that would lay her prostrate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS.
+
+
+It is evident that an Empire which extended over more than twenty
+degrees of latitude, touching on the one hand the tropic of Cancer,
+while it reached upon the other to the parallel of Astrakan, and which
+at the same time varied in elevation, from 20,000 feet above to 1300
+below the sea level, must have comprised within it great differences of
+climate, and have boasted an immense variety of productions. No general
+description can be applicable to such a stretch of territory; and it
+will therefore be necessary to speak of the various parts of the
+Empire successively in order to convey to the reader a true idea of
+the climatic influences to which it was subject, and the animals,
+vegetables, and minerals which it produced.
+
+Commencing with Persia Proper, the original seat and home of the race
+with whose history we are specially concerned at present, we may observe
+that it was regarded by the ancients as possessing three distinct
+climates--one along the shore, dry and scorchingly hot; another in the
+mountain region beyond, temperate and delightful; and a third in the
+tract further inland, which was thought to be disagreeably cold and
+wintry. Moderns, on the contrary, find two climates only in Fars--one
+that of the Desbistan or "low country," extremely hot and dry,
+with frequent scorching and oppressive winds from the south and the
+south-east; the other, that of the highlands, which is cold in winter,
+but in summer pleasant and enjoyable. In the Deshistan snow never falls,
+and there is but little rain; heavy dews, however, occur at night, so
+that the mornings are often fresh and cool; but the middle of the day
+is almost always hot, and from March to November the temperature at noon
+ranges from 90� to 100� of Fahrenheit. Occasionally it reaches 125�, and
+is then fearfully oppressive. Fierce gusts laden with sand sweep over
+the plain, causing vegetation to droop or disappear, and the animal
+world to hide itself. Man with difficulty retains life at these trying
+times, feeling a languor and a depression of spirits which are barely
+supportable.10 All who can do so quit the plains and betake themselves
+to the upland region till the great heats are past, and the advance of
+autumn brings at any rate cool nights and mornings. The climate of the
+uplands is severe in winter. Much snow falls, and the thermometer often
+marks from ten to fifteen degrees of frost. From time to time there are
+furious gales, and, as the spring advances, a good deal of wet falls;
+but the summer and autumn are almost rainless. The heat towards midday
+is often considerable, but it is tempered by cool winds, and even at the
+worst is not relaxing. The variations of temperature are great in the
+twenty-four hours, and the climate is, so far, trying; but, on the
+whole, it seems to be neither disagreeable nor unhealthy.
+
+A climate resembling that of the Deshtistan prevailed along the entire
+southern coast of the Empire, from the mouth of the Tigris to that of
+the Indus. It was exchanged in the lower valleys of the great streams
+for a damp close heat, intolerably stifling and oppressive. The upper
+valleys of these streams and the plains into which they expanded were at
+once less hot and less moist, but were subject to violent storms, owing
+to the near vicinity of the mountains. In the mountains themselves, in
+Armenia and Zagros, and again in the Elburz, the climate was of a more
+rigorous character--intensely cold in winter, but pleasant in the summer
+time. [PLATE XXVII., Fig. 3.] Asia Minor enjoyed generally a warmer
+climate than the high mountain regions; and its western and southern
+coasts, being fanned by fresh breezes from the sea, or from the hills
+of the interior, and cooled during the whole of the summer by frequent
+showers, were especially charming. In Syria and Egypt the heats of
+summer were somewhat trying, more especially in the Ghor or depressed
+Jordan valley, and in the parts of Egypt adjoining on Ethiopia; but the
+winters were mild, and the springs and autumns delightful. The rarity of
+rain in Egypt was remarkable, and drew the attention of foreigners,
+who recorded, in somewhat exaggerated terms, the curious meteorological
+phenomenon. In the Cyrenaica there was a delicious summer climate--an
+entire absence of rain, with cool breezes from the sea, cloudy skies,
+and heavy dews at night, these last supplying the moisture which through
+the whole of summer covered the ground with the freshest and loveliest
+verdure. The autumn and winter rains were, however, violent; and
+terrific storms were at that time of no unusual occurrence. The natives
+regarded it as a blessing, that over this part of Africa the sky was
+"pierced," and allowed moisture to fall from the great reservoir of
+"waters above the firmament;" but the blessing must have seemed one of
+questionable value at the time of the November monsoon, when the country
+is deluged with rain for several weeks in succession.
+
+On the opposite side of the Empire, towards the north and the
+north-east, in Azerbijan, on the Iranian plateau, in the Afghan plains,
+in the high flat region east of the Bolor, and again in the low plain
+about the Aral lake and the Caspian, a severe climate prevailed during
+the winter, while the summer combined intense heat during the day with
+extraordinary cold--the result of radiation--at night. Still more bitter
+weather was experienced in the mountain regions of these parts--in
+the Bolor, the Thian Chan, the Himalaya, and the Paropamisus or Hindu
+Kush--where the winters lasted more than half the year, deep snow
+covering the ground almost the whole of the time, and locomotion being
+rendered almost impossible; while the summers were only moderately hot.
+On the other hand, there was in this quarter, at the very extreme
+east of the Empire, one of the most sultry and disagreeable of all
+climates--namely, that of the Indus valley, which is either intolerably
+hot and dry, with fierce tornadoes of dust that are unspeakably
+oppressive, or close and moist, swept by heavy storms, which, while
+they somewhat lower the temperature, increase the unhealthiness of the
+region. The worst portion of the valley is its southern extremity, where
+the climate is only tolerable during three months of the year. From
+March to November the heat is excessive; dust-storms prevail; there are
+dangerous dews at night; and with the inundation, which commences in
+April, a sickly time sets in, which causes all the wealthier classes
+to withdraw from the country till the stagnant water, which the swell
+always leaves behind it, has dried up.
+
+Upon the whole, the climate of the Empire belonged to the warmer class
+of the climates which are called temperate. In a few parts only, indeed,
+as in the Indus valley, along the coast from the mouth of the Indus
+to that of the Tigris, in Lower Babylonia and the adjoining portion
+of Susiana, in Southern Palestine, and in Egypt, was frost absolutely
+unknown; while in many places, especially in the high mountainous
+regions, the winters were bitterly severe; and in all the more elevated
+portions of the Empire, as in Phrygia and Cappadocia, in Azerbijan, on
+the great Iranian plateau, and again in the district about Kashgar and
+Yarkand, there was a prolonged period of sharp and bracing weather. But
+the summer warmth of almost the whole Empire was great, the thermometer
+probably ranging in most places from 90� to 120� during the months of
+June, July, August, and September. The springs and autumns were, except
+in the high mountain tracts, mild and enjoyable; the Empire had few very
+unhealthy districts; while the range of the thermometer was in most of
+the provinces considerable, and the variations in the course of a single
+day and night were unusually great, there was in the climate, speaking
+generally, nothing destructive of human vigor--nothing even inimical to
+longevity.
+
+The vegetable productions of Persia Proper in ancient times (so far as
+we have direct testimony on the subject) were neither numerous nor very
+remarkable. The low coast tract supplied dates in tolerable plenty,
+and bore in a few favored spots, corn, vines, and different kinds of
+fruit-trees; but its general character was one of extreme barrenness.
+In the mountain region there was an abundance of rich pasture, excellent
+grapes were grown, and fruit-trees of almost every sort, except the
+olive, flourished. One fruit-tree, regarded as indigenous in the
+country, acquired a special celebrity, and was known to the Romans
+as the persica, whence the German Pfirsche, the French peche, and our
+"peach." Citrons, which grew in few places, were also a Persian fruit.
+Further, Persia produced a coarse kind of silphium or assafoetida; it
+was famous for its walnuts, which were distinguished by the epithet
+of "royal"; and it supplied to the pharmacopeia of Greece and Rome a
+certain number of herbs.
+
+The account of Persian vegetable products which we derive from antiquity
+is no doubt very incomplete; and it is necessary to supplement it from
+the observations of modern travellers. These persons tell us that, while
+Fars and Kerman are ill-supplied with forest-trees, they yet produce in
+places oaks, planes, chenars or sycamores, poplars, willows, pinasters,
+cypresses, acacias, fan-palms, konars, and junipers. Among shrubs, they
+bear the wild fig, the wild almond, the tamarisk, the myrtle, the box,
+the rhododendron, the camel's thorn, the gum tragacanth, the caper
+plant, the benneh, the blackberry, and the liquorice-plant. They boast a
+great abundance of fruit-trees--as date-bearing palms, lemons, oranges,
+pomegranates, vines, peaches, nectarines, apricots, quinces, pears,
+apples, plums, figs, cherries, mulberries, barberries, walnuts, almonds,
+and pistachio-nuts. The kinds of grain chiefly cultivated are wheat,
+barley, millet, rice, and Indian corn or maize, which has been imported
+into the country from America. Pulse, beans, sesame, madder, henna,
+cotton, opium, tobacco, and indigo, are also grown in some places. The
+three last-named, and maize or Indian corn, are of comparatively recent
+introduction; but of the remainder it may be doubted whether there is a
+single one which was unknown to the ancient inhabitants.
+
+Among Persian indigenous animals may be enumerated the lion, the bear,
+the wild ass, the stag, the antelope, the ibex or wild goat, the wild
+boar, the hyena, the jackal, the wolf, the fox, the hare, the porcupine,
+the otter, the jerboa, the ichneumon, and the marmot. The lion appears
+to be rare, occurring only in some parts of the mountains. The ichneumon
+is confined to the Deshtistan. The antelope, the wild boar, the wolf,
+the fox, the jackal, the porcupine, and the jerboa are common. Wild
+asses are found only on the northern side of the mountains, towards the
+salt desert. In this tract they are frequently seen, both singly and in
+herds, and are hunted by the natives, who regard their flesh as a great
+delicacy.
+
+The most remarkable of the Persian birds are the eagle, the vulture, the
+cormorant, the falcon, the bustard, the pheasant, the heath-cock, the
+red-legged partridge, the small gray partridge, the pin tailed grouse,
+the sand-grouse, the francolin, the wild swan, the flamingo, the stork,
+the bittern, the oyster-catcher, the raven, the hooded crow, and
+the cuckoo. Besides these, the lakes boast all the usual kinds of
+water-fowl, as herons, ducks, snipe, teal, etc.; the gardens and groves
+abound with blackbirds, thrushes, and nightingales; curlews and peewits
+are seen occasionally; while pigeons, starlings, crows, magpies, larks,
+sparrows, and swallows are common. The francolin is hunted by men on
+foot in the country between Shiraz and Kerman, and is taken by the hand
+after a few flights. The oyster-catcher, which is a somewhat rare bird,
+has been observed only on Lake Neyriz. The bustard occurs both in the
+low plain along the coast, and on the high plateau, where it is captured
+by means of hawks. The pheasant and the heath-cock (the latter a black
+species spotted with white) are found in the woods near Failyun. The
+sand-grouse and the pin-tailed grouse belong to the eastern portion
+of the country, the portion known anciently as Carmania or "the hot
+region." The other kinds are diffused pretty generally.
+
+The shores and rivers of Persia Proper supplied the people very
+plentifully with fish. The ancient writers tell us that the inhabitants
+of the coast tract lived almost wholly on a fish diet. The Indian Sea
+appears in those days to have abounded with whales, which were not
+unfrequently cast upon the shores, affording a mine of wealth to the
+natives. The great ribs were used as beams in the formation of huts,
+while the jaws served as doors and the smaller bones as planking.
+Dolphins also abounded in the Persian waters; together with many other
+fish of less bulk, which were more easy to capture. On these smaller
+fish, which they caught in nets, the maritime inhabitants subsisted
+principally. They had also an unfailing resource in the abundance of
+oysters, and other shell-fish along their coast--the former of excellent
+quality.
+
+In the interior, though the lakes, being salt or brackish, had no
+piscatory stores, the rivers were, for the most part, it would seem,
+well provided; at least, good fish are still found in many of the
+streams, both small and large; and in some they are exceedingly
+plentiful. Modern travellers fail to distinguish the different kinds;
+but we may presume that they are not very unlike those of the adjoining
+Media, which appear to be trout, carp, barbel, dace, bleak, and gudgeon.
+
+The reptiles of Persia Proper are not numerous. They are chiefly
+tortoises, lizards, frogs, land-snakes, and water-snakes. The
+land-snakes are venomous, but their poison is not of a very deadly
+character; and persons who have been bitten by them, if properly
+treated, generally recover. The lizards are of various sizes, some quite
+small, others more than three feet long, and covered with a coarse rough
+skin like that of a toad. They have the character of being venomous, and
+even dangerous to life; but it may be doubted whether they are not, like
+our toads and newts, in reality perfectly harmless.
+
+The traveller in Persia suffers less from reptiles than from insects.
+Scorpions abound in all parts of the country, and, infesting houses,
+furniture, and clothes, cause perpetual annoyance. Mosquitoes swarm
+in certain places and seasons, preventing sleep and irritating the
+traveller almost beyond endurance. A poisonous spider, a sort of
+tarantula, is said to occur in some localities; and Chardin further
+mentions a kind of centipede, the bite of which, according to him, is
+fatal. To the sufferings which these creatures cause, must be added a
+constant annoyance from those more vulgar forms of insect life which
+detract from the delights of travel even in Europe.
+
+Persia, moreover, suffers no less than Babylonia and Media, from the
+ravages of locusts. Constantly, when the wind is from the south-east,
+there cross from the Arabian coast clouds of these destructive insects,
+whose numbers darken the air as they move, in flight after flight,
+across the desert to the spots where nature or cultivation has clothed
+the earth with verdure. The Deshtistan, or low country, is, of course,
+most exposed to their attacks, but they are far from being confined to
+that region. The interior, as far as Shiraz itself, suffers terribly
+from this scourge, which produces scarcity, or even famine, when (as
+often happens) it is repeated year after year. The natives at such times
+are reduced to feeding on the locusts themselves; a diet which they do
+not relish, but to which necessity compels them.
+
+The locusts of Persia Proper are said to be of two kinds. One, which
+is regarded as bred in the country, bears the name of _missri_, being
+identified with the locust of Egypt. The other, which is thought to
+be blown over from Arabia, and thus to cross the sea, is known as the
+_melelch deriai_, or "sea-locust." The former is regarded as especially
+destructive to the crops, the latter to the shrubs and trees.
+
+The domestic animals in use at the present day within the provinces of
+Fars and Kerman are identical with those employed in the neighboring
+country of Media, and will need only a very few words of notice here.
+The ordinary horse of the country is the Turcoman, a large, strong, but
+somewhat clumsy animal, possessed of remarkable powers of endurance;
+but in the Deshtistan the Arabian breed prevails, and travellers tell us
+that in this region horses are produced which fall but little short of
+the most admired coursers of Nejd. Cows and oxen are somewhat rare, beef
+being little eaten, and such cattle being only kept for the supply
+of the dairy, and for purposes of agriculture. Sheep and goats are
+abundant, and constitute the chief wealth of the inhabitants; the goat
+is, on the whole, preferred, and both goats and sheep are generally of
+a black or brown color. The sheep of Kerman are small and short-legged;
+they produce a wool of great softness and delicacy.
+
+It is probable that in ancient times the domestic animals of the country
+were nearly the same as at the present day. The statement of Xenophon,
+that anciently a horse was a rarity in Persia Proper, is contradicted by
+the great bulk of the early writers, who tell us that the Persians were
+from the first expert riders, and that their country was peculiarly well
+fitted for the breeding of horses. Their camels, sheep, goats, asses,
+and oxen, are also expressly mentioned by the Greeks, who even indicate
+a knowledge of the fact that goats were preferred to sheep by the
+herdsmen of the country.
+
+The mineral treasures of the country appear to have been considerable,
+though to what extent they were known and made use of in ancient times
+is open to some question. Mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, red lead,
+and orpiment are said to have been actually worked under the Persian
+kings; and some of the other minerals were so patent and obvious, that
+we can scarcely suppose them to have been neglected. Salt abounded in
+the region in several shapes. It appeared in some places as rock salt,
+showing itself in masses of vast size and various colors. In other
+places it covered the surface of the ground for miles together with a
+thick incrustation, and could be gathered at all seasons with little
+labor. It was deposited by the waters of several lakes within the
+territory, and could be collected round their edges at certain times
+of the year. Finally, it was held in solution, both in the lakes and in
+many of the streams; from whose waters it might have been obtained by
+evaporation. Bitumen and naphtha were yielded by sources near Dalaki,
+which were certainly known to the ancients. Sulphur was deposited upon
+the surface of the ground in places. Some of the mountains contained
+ordinary lead; but it is not unlikely that this metal escaped notice.
+
+Ancient Persia produced a certain number of gems. The pearls of
+the Gulf, which have still so great a reputation, had attracted the
+attention of adventurers before the time of Alexander, whose naval
+captains found a regular fishery established in one of the islands. The
+Orientals have always set a high value on this commodity; and it appears
+that in ancient times the Gulf pearls were more highly esteemed than any
+others. Of hard stones the only kinds that can be distinctly assigned to
+Persia Proper are the iritis, a species of rock-crystal; the atizoe, a
+white stone which had a pleasant odor; the mithrax, a gem of many hues,
+the nipparene, which resembled ivory; and the the lycardios or mule,
+which was in special favor among the natives of the country.
+
+From this account of the products of Persia Proper we have now to pass
+to those of the Empire in general--a wide subject, which it will be
+impossible to treat here with any completeness, owing to the limits to
+which the present work is necessarily confined. In order to bring the
+matter within reasonable compass, the reader may be referred in the
+first instance to the account which was given in a former volume of the
+products of the empire of Babylon; and the enquiry may then be confined
+to those regions which were subject to Persia, but not contained within
+the limits of the Fourth Monarchy.
+
+Among the animals belonging to these regions, the following are
+especially noticeable:--The tiger, the elephant, the hippopotamus, the
+crocodile, the monitor, the two-humped camel, the Angora goat, the elk,
+the monkey, and the spotted hysena, or _Felis chaus_. The tiger, which
+is entirely absent from Mesopotamia, and unknown upon the plateau of
+Iran, abounds in the low tract between the Elburz and the Caspian, in
+the flat region about the Sea of Aral, and in the Indus valley. The
+elephant was, perhaps, anciently an inhabitant of Upper Egypt, where the
+island of Elephantine remained an evidence of the fact. It was also in
+Persian times a denizen of the Indus valley, though perhaps only in a
+domesticated state. The hippopotamus, unknown in India, was confined to
+the single province of Egypt, where it was included among the animals
+which were the objects of popular worship. The crocodile--likewise a
+sacred animal to the Egyptians--frequented both the Nile and the Indus.
+Monitors, which are a sort of diminutive crocodiles, were of two kinds:
+one, the _Lacerta Nilotica_, was a water animal, and was probably found
+only in Egypt; the other, _Lacerta scincus_, frequented dry and sandy
+spots, and abounded in North Africa and Syria, as well as in the Nile
+valley. The two-humped camel belonged to Bactria, where he was probably
+indigenous, but was widely spread over the Empire, on account of his
+great strength and powers of endurance.
+
+The Angora goat is, perhaps, scarcely a distinct species. If not
+identical with the ordinary wild goat of Persia and Mesopotamia (_Capra
+cegagrus_), he is at any rate closely allied to it; and it is possible
+that all his peculiar characteristics may be the effect of climate. He
+has a soft, white, silky fleece, very long, divided down the back by
+a strong line of separation, and falling on either side in beautiful
+spiral ringlets; his fleece weighs from two to four pounds. It is
+of nearly uniform, length, and averages from five to five and a half
+inches.
+
+The elk is said to inhabit Armenia, Affghanistan, and the lower part of
+the valley of the Indus; but it is perhaps not certain that he is really
+to be found in the two latter regions. Monkeys abound in Eastern Oabul
+and the adjoining parts of India. They may have also existed formerly
+in Upper Egypt. The spotted hyena, _Felis chaus_ (_Canis crocuta_ of
+Linnaeus), is an Egyptian animal, inhabiting principally the hills on
+the western side of the Nile. In appearance it is like a large cat,
+with a tuft of long black hair at the extremities of its ears--a feature
+which it has in common with the lynx.
+
+Among the rarer birds of the Empire may be mentioned the ostrich, which
+occurred in Mesopotamia; parrots, which were found in Cabul and the
+Punjab; ibises, which abounded in Egypt, and in the Delta of the Indus,
+the great vulture (Vultur cinereus), which inhabited the Taurus, the
+Indian owl (_Athena Indica_), the spoonbill (_Platalea nudifrons_); the
+benno (_Ardea bubulcus_), and the sicsac (_Charadrius melanocephalus_).
+
+The most valuable of the fish belonging to the Persian seas and rivers
+were the pearl oyster of the Gulf, and the murex of the Mediterranean,
+which furnished the famous purple dye of Tyre. After these may be placed
+the sturgeon and sterlet of the Caspian, the silurus of the Sea of Aral,
+the Aleppo eel, and the palla, a small but excellent fish, which is
+captured in the Indus during the flood season. The Indian Ocean and
+the Persian Gulf, as we have seen, were visited by whales; dolphins,
+porpoises, cod, and mullet abounded in the same seas; the large rivers
+generally contained barbel and carp; while some of them, together with
+many of the smaller streams, supplied trout of a good flavor. The
+Nile had some curious fish peculiar to itself, as the oxyrinchus,
+the lepidotus, the Perca Nilotica, the Silurus Schilbe Niloticus, the
+Silurus carmuth and others. Great numbers of fish, mostly of the same
+species with those of the Nile, were also furnished by the Lake Moeris;
+and from these a considerable revenue was derived by the Great Kings.
+
+Among the more remarkable of the reptiles which the Empire comprised
+within its limits may be noticed--besides the great saurians already
+mentioned among the larger animals--the Nile and Euphrates turtles
+(_Trionyx Egypticus_ and _Trionyx Euphraticus_), iguanas (_Stellio
+vulgaris_ and _Stellio spinipes_), geckos, especially the Egyptian house
+gecko (_O. lobatus_), snakes, such as the asp (_Coluber haje_) and
+the horned snake (_Coluber cerastes_), and the chameleon. The Egyptian
+turtle is a large species, sometimes exceeding three feet in length. It
+is said to feed on the young of the crocodile. Both it and the Euphrates
+turtle are of the soft kind, i.e., of the kind which has not the shell
+complete, but unites the upper and under portions by a coriaceous
+membrane. The turtle of the Euphrates is of moderate size, not exceeding
+a a length of two feet. It lives in the river, and on warm days suns
+itself on the sandbanks with which the stream abounds. It is active,
+strong, violent, and passionate. When laid on its back it easily
+recovers itself. If provoked, it will snap at sticks and other objects,
+and endeavor to tear them to pieces. It is of an olive-green color, with
+large irregular greenish black spots.
+
+Iguanas are found in Egypt, in Syria, and elsewhere. The most common
+kind (_Stellio vulgaris_) does not exceed a foot in length, and is of
+an olive color, shaded with black. It is persecuted and killed by the
+Mahometans, because they regard its favorite attitude as a derisive
+imitation of their own attitude of prayer. There is another species,
+also Egyptian, which is of a much larger size, and of a grass-green
+color. This is called _Stellio spinipes_: it has a length of from two to
+three feet.
+
+The gecko is a kind of nocturnal lizard. Its eyes are large, and the
+pupil is extremely contractile. It hides itself during the day, and is
+lively only at nights. It haunts rooms, especially kitchens, in Egypt,
+where it finds the insects which form its ordinary food. Its feet
+constitute its most marked characteristic. The five toes are enlarged
+and furnished with an apparatus of folds, which, by some peculiar
+action, enable it to adhere to perfectly smooth surfaces, to ascend
+perpendicular walls, cross ceilings, or hang suspended for hours on the
+under side of leaves. The Egyptians called it the abu burs, or "father
+of leprosy," and there is a wide-spread belief in its poisonous
+character; but modern naturalists incline to regard the belief as
+unfounded, and to place the gecko among reptiles which are absolutely
+harmless. [PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.]
+
+
+The asp of Egypt (_Coluber haje_) is a species of cobra. It is a large
+snake, varying from three to six feet in length, and is extremely
+venomous. It haunts gardens, where it is of great use, feeding on mice,
+frogs, and various small reptiles. It has the power of greatly dilating
+the skin of the neck, and this it does when angered in a way that is
+very remarkable. Though naturally irritable, it is easily tamed; and the
+serpent-charmers of the East make it the object of their art more often
+than any other species. [PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 2.] After extracting the
+fangs or burning out the poison-bag with a red-hot iron, the charmer
+trains the animal by the shrill sounds of a small flute, and it is soon
+perfectly docile.
+
+The cerastes is also employed occasionally by the snake-charmers. It
+has two long and thin excrescences above the eyes, whereto the name of
+"horns" has been given: they stand erect, leaning a little backwards;
+no naturalist has as yet discovered their use. The cerastes is of a
+very pale brown color, and is spotted with large, unequal, and
+irregularly-placed spots. Its bite is exceedingly dangerous, since it
+possesses a virulent poison; and, being in the habit of nearly burying
+itself in the sand, which is of the same color with itself, it is the
+more difficult of avoidance. Its size also favors its escaping notice,
+since in length it rarely much exceeds a foot. [PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 3.]
+
+The chameleon has in all ages attracted the attention of mankind. It is
+found in Egypt, and in many others parts of Africa, in Georgia, and in
+India. The power of changing color which it possesses is not really its
+most remarkable characteristic. Far more worthy of notice are its slow
+pace, extraordinary form, awkward movements, vivacity, and control of
+eye, and marvellous rapidity of tongue. It is the most grotesque of
+reptiles. With protruding and telescopic eyes, that move at will in
+the most opposite directions, with an ungainly head, a cold, dry,
+strange-looking skin, and a prehensile tail, the creature slowly steals
+along a branch or twig, scarcely distinguishable from the substance
+along which it moves, and scarcely seeming to move at all, until it has
+come within reach of its prey. Then suddenly, with a motion rapid as
+that of the most agile bird, the long cylindrical and readily extensile
+tongue is darted forth with unerring aim, and the prey is seized
+and swallowed in a single moment of time. The ordinary color of the
+chameleon is a pale olive-green. This sometimes fades to a sort of
+ashen-gray, while sometimes it warms to a yellowish-brown, on which
+are seen faint spots of red. Modern naturalists, for the most part,
+attribute the changes to the action of the lungs, which is itself
+affected chiefly by the emotions of anger, desire, and fear. [PLATE
+XXVIII., Fig. 5.]
+
+The great extent of the Empire caused its vegetable productions to
+include almost all the forms known to the ancient world. On the one
+hand, the more northern and more elevated regions bore pines, firs,
+larches, oaks, birch, beech, ash, ilex, and junipers, together with the
+shrubs and flowers of the cooler temperate regions; on the other
+hand, the southern tracts grew palms of various kinds, mangoes,
+tamarind-trees, lemons, oranges, jujubes, mimosas, and sensitive plants.
+Between these extremes of tropical and cold-temperate products, the
+Empire embraced an almost infinite variety of trees, shrubs, and
+flowers. The walnut and the Oriental plane grew to avast size in many
+places. Poplars, willows, fig-mulberries, konars, cedars, cypresses,
+acacias, were common. Bananas, egg-plants, locust-trees, banyans,
+terebinths, the gum-styrax, the gum-tragacanth, the assafoetida plant,
+the arbor vitse, the castor-oil plant, the Judas-tree, and other
+somewhat rare forms, sprang up side by side with the pomegranate,
+the oleander, the pistachio-nut, the myrtle, the bay, the laurel, the
+mulberry, the rhododendron, and the arbutus. The Empire grew all the
+known sorts of grain, and almost all the known fruits. Among its various
+productions of this class, it is only possible to select for notice
+a few which were especially remarkable either for their rarity or for
+their excellent quality.
+
+The ancients celebrated the wheat of AEolis, the dates of Babylon,
+the citrons of Media, the Persian peach, the grapes of Carmania,
+the Hyrcanian fig, the plum of Damascus, the cherries of Pontus, the
+mulberries of Egypt and of Cyprus, the silphium of Gyrene, the wine of
+Helbon, the wild-grape of Syria. It is not unlikely that to these
+might have been added as many other vegetable products of first-rate
+excellence, had the ancients possessed as good a knowledge of the
+countries included within the Empire as the moderns. At present, the
+mulberries of Khiva, the apricots of Bokhara, the roses of Mexar, the
+quinces and melons of Isfahan, the grapes of Kasvin and Shii-az, the
+pears of Natunz, the dates of Dalaki, have a wide-spread reputation,
+which appears in most cases to be well deserved. On the whole, it is
+certain that for variety and excellence the vegetable products of the
+Persian Empire will bear comparison with those of any other state or
+community that has as yet existed, either in the ancient or the modern
+world.
+
+Two only of these products seem to deserve a longer description. The
+Cyrenaic silphium, of which we hear so much, as constituting the main
+wealth of that province, was valued chiefly for its medicinal qualities.
+A decoction from its leaves was used to hasten the worst kind of labors;
+its root and a juice which flowed from it were employed in a variety
+of maladies. The plant, which is elaborately described by Theophrastus,
+appears to have been successfully identified by modern travellers in
+the Cyrenaica, who see it in the drias or derias of the Arabs, an
+umbelliferous plant, which grows to a height of about three feet, has a
+deleterious effect on the camels that browse on it, and bears a striking
+resemblance to the representations of the ancient silphium upon
+coins and medals. This plant grows only in the tract between Merj and
+Derna--the very heart of the old silphium country, while that it has
+medicinal properties is certain from its effects upon animals; there can
+thus be little doubt that it is the silphium of the ancients, somewhat
+degenerated, owing to want of cultivation.
+
+The Egyptian byblus or papyrus (_Cyperus papyrus_) was perhaps the
+most valuable of all the vegetables of the Empire. The plant was a
+tall smooth reed of a triangular shape. It grew to the height of ten or
+fifteen feet, and terminated in a tuft or plume of leaves and flowers.
+Though indigenous in the country, it was the subject of careful
+cultivation, and was grown in irrigated ground, or in such lands as were
+naturally marshy. The root of the plant was eaten, while from its stem
+was made the famous Egyptian paper. The manufacture of the papyrus was
+as follows; The outer rind having been removed, there was exposed a
+laminated interior, consisting of a number of successive layers of inner
+cuticle, generally about twenty. These were carefully separated from
+one another by the point of a needle, and thus were obtained a number
+of strips of the raw material, which were then arranged in rows, covered
+with a paste, and crossed at right angles by another set of strips
+placed over them, after which the whole was converted into paper by
+means of a strong pressure. A papyrus roll was made by uniting together
+a greater or less number of such sheets. The best paper was made
+from the inmost layers of cuticle. The outer rind of the papyrus was
+converted into ropes; and this fabric was found to be peculiarly adapted
+for immersion in water.
+
+The mineral treasures of the Empire were various and abundant. It has
+been noticed already that Persia Proper, if we include in it Carmania,
+possessed mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, red lead, orpiment, and
+salt, yielding also bitumen, naphtha, sulphur, and most probably common
+lead. We are further informed by ancient writers that Drangiana, or
+Sarangia, furnished the rare and valuable mineral tin, without which
+copper could not be hardened into bronze; that Armenia yielded emery, so
+necessary for the working and polishing of gems; that the mountains
+and mines of the Empire supplied almost all the varieties of useful and
+precious stones; and that thus there was scarcely a mineral known to and
+required by the ancients for the purposes of their life which the Great
+King could not command without having recourse to others than his own
+subjects. It may be likewise noticed that the more important were very
+abundant, being found in many places and in large quantities. Gold was
+furnished from the mountains and deserts of Thibet and India, from the
+rivers of Lydia, and probably from other places where it is still found,
+as Armenia, Cabul, and the neighborhood of Meshed. Silver, which was
+the general medium of exchange in Persia, must have been especially
+plentiful. It was probably yielded, not only by the Kerman mines,
+but also by those of Armenia, Asia Minor, and the Elburz. Copper was
+obtained in great abundance from Cyprus, as well as from Carmania; and
+it may have been also derived, as it is now in very large quantities,
+from Armenia. Iron, really the most precious of all metals, existed
+within the Persian territory in the shape of huge boulders, as well
+as in nodules and in the form of ironstone. Lead was procurable from
+Bactria, Armenia, Korman, and many parts of Affghanistan; orpiment
+from Bactria, Kerman, and the Hazareh country; antimony from Armenia,
+Affghanistan, and Media; hornblende, quartz, talc, and asbestos, from
+various places in the Taurus.
+
+Of all necessary minerals probably none was so plentiful and so widely
+diffused as salt. It was not only in Persia Proper that nature had
+bestowed this commodity with a lavish hand--there was scarcely
+a province of the Empire which did not possess it in superfluous
+abundance. Large tracts were covered by it in North Africa, in Media,
+in Carmania, and in Lower Babylonia. In Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria,
+Palestine, and other places, it could be obtained from lakes. In Kerman,
+and again in Palestine, it showed itself in the shape of large masses,
+not inappropriately termed "mountains." Finally, in India it was the
+chief material of a long mountain-range, which is capable of supplying
+the whole world with salt for many ages.
+
+Bitumen and naptha were also very widely diffused. At the eastern foot
+of the Caucasus, where it subsides into the Caspian Sea, at various
+points in the great Mesopotamian plain, in the Deshtistan or low country
+of Persia Proper, in the Bakh-tiyari mountains, and again in the distant
+Jordan valley, these two inseparable products are to be found, generally
+united with indications of volcanic action, present or recent. The
+bitumen is of excellent quality, and was largely employed by the
+ancients. The naphtha is of two kinds, black naphtha or petroleum, and
+white naphtha, which is much preferred to the other. The bitumen-pits
+also, in some places, yielded salt.
+
+Another useful mineral with which the Persians were very plentifully
+supplied, was sulphur. Sulphur is found in Persia Proper, in Carmania,
+on the coast of Mekran, in Azerbijan, in the Elburz, on the Iranian
+plateau, in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, and in very large quantities
+near Mosul. Here it is quarried in great blocks, which are conveyed to
+considerable distances.
+
+Excellent stone for building purposes was obtainable in most parts of
+the Empire. Egypt furnished an inexhaustible supply of the best possible
+granite; marbles of various kinds, compact sandstone, limestone, and
+other useful sorts were widely diffused; and basalt was procurable from
+some of the outlying ranges of Taurus. In the neighborhood of Nineveh,
+and in much of the Mesopotamian region, there was abundance of grey
+alabaster, and a better kind was quarried near Damascus. A gritty
+silicious rock on the banks of the Euphrates, a little above Hit, was
+suitable for mill-stones.
+
+The gems furnished by the various provinces of the Empire are too
+numerous for mention. They included, it must be remembered, all the
+kinds which have already been enumerated among the mineral products of
+the earlier Monarchies. Among them, a principal place must, one would
+think, have been occupied by the turquoise--the gem, par excellence, of
+modern Persia--although, strange to say, there is no certain mention
+of it among the literary remains of antiquity. This lovely stone
+is produced largely by the mines at Nishapur in the Elburz, and is
+furnished also in less abundance and less beauty by a mine in Kerman,
+and another near Khojend. It is noticed by an Arabian author as early as
+the twelfth century of our era. A modern writer on gems supposes that it
+is mentioned, though not named, by Theophrastus; but this view scarcely
+seems to be tenable.
+
+Among the gems of most value which the Empire certainly produced were
+the emerald, the green ruby, the red ruby, the opal, the sapphire, the
+amethyst, the carbuncle, the jasper, the lapis lazuli, the sard, the
+agate, and the topaz. Emeralds were found in Egypt, Media, and Cyprus;
+green rubies in Bactria; common or red rubies in Caria; opals in Egypt,
+Cyprus, and Asia Minor; sapphires in Cyprus; amethysts also in Cyprus,
+and moreover in Egypt, Galatia, and Armenia; carbuncles in Caria;
+jaspers in Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Persia Proper; the lapis lazuli in
+Cyprus, Egypt, and Media; the sard in Babylonia; the agate in Carmania,
+Susiana, and Armenia; and the topaz or chrysoprase in Upper Egypt.
+
+The tales which are told of enormous emeralds are undoubtedly fictions,
+the material which passed for that precious substance being really in
+these cases either green jasper or (more probably) glass. But lapis
+lazuli and agate seem to have existed within the Empire in huge masses.
+Whole cliffs of the former overhang the river Kashkar in Kaferistan; and
+the myrrhine vases of antiquity which were (it is probable) of agate,
+and came mainly from Carmania, seem to have been of a great size.
+
+We may conclude this review by noticing, among stones of less
+consequence produced within the Empire, jet, which was so called from
+being found at the mouth of the river Gagis in Lycia, garnets, which are
+common in Armenia, and beryl, which is a product of the same country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. CHARACTER, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, DRESS, ETC., OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+"I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the
+river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one
+was higher than the other, and the higher came up last."--Dan. viii. 3.
+
+
+The ethnic identity of the Persian people with the Medes, and the
+inclusion of both nations in that remarkable division of the human
+race which is known to ethnologers as the Ipanic or Arian, have been
+maintained in a former volume. To the arguments there adduced it seems
+unnecessary to add anything in this place, since at the present day
+neither of the two positions appears to be controverted. It is admitted
+generally, not only that the Persians were of the same stock with the
+Medes, but that they formed, together with the Medes and a few
+other tribes and peoples of less celebrity, a special branch of the
+Indo-European family--a branch to which the name of Arian may be
+assigned, not merely for convenience sake, but on grounds of actual
+tradition and history. Undistinguished in the earlier annals of their
+race, the Medes and Persians became towards the eighth or seventh
+century before our era, its leading and most important tribes. Closely
+united together, with the superiority now inclining to one, now to the
+other, they claimed and exercised a lordship over all the other members
+of the stock, and not only over them, but over various alien races
+also. They had qualities which raised them above their fellows, and a
+civilization, which was not, perhaps, very advanced, but was still not
+wholly contemptible. Such details as could be collected, either from
+ancient authors, or from the extant remains, of the character, mode of
+life, customs, etc., of the Medes, have already found a place in this
+work.
+
+The greater part of what was there said will apply also to the Persians.
+The information, however, which we possess, with respect to this latter
+people, is so much more copious than that which has come down to us with
+regard to the Medes, that, without repeating anything from the former
+place, our materials will probably enable us to give to the present
+chapter considerable dimensions.
+
+The woodcuts of the preceding volume will have made the reader
+sufficiently familiar with the physiognomy of the Persians, or, at any
+rate, with the representation of it which has come down to us upon the
+Persian monuments. It may be remarked that the type of face and head is
+uniform upon all of them, and offers a remarkable contrast to the type
+assigned to themselves by the Assyrians, from whom the Arians evidently
+adopted the general idea of bas-reliefs, as well as their general mode
+of treating subjects upon them. The novelty of the physiognomy is
+a strong argument in favor of its truthfulness; and this is further
+confirmed by the evidence which we have, that the Persian artists aimed
+at representing the varieties of the human race, and succeeded fairly
+in rendering them. Varieties of, physiognomy are represented upon the
+bas-reliefs with much care, and sometimes with remarkable success, as
+the annexed head of a negro, taken from one of the royal tombs, will
+sufficiently indicate. [PLATE XXIX., Fig.1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXIX.]
+
+
+According to Herodotus, the skulls of the Persians were extraordinarily
+thin and weak--a phenomenon for which he accounted by the national habit
+of always covering the head. There does not seem to be in reality any
+ground for supposing that such a practice would at all tend to produce
+such a result. If, therefore, we regard the fact of thinness as
+established, we can only view it as an original feature in the physical
+type of the race. Such a feature would imply, on the supposition that
+the heads were of the ordinary size, a large brain-cavity, and so
+an unusual volume of brain, which is generally a concomitant of high
+intellectual power.
+
+The Persians seem, certainly, to have been quick and lively,
+keen-witted, capable of repartee, ingenious, and, for Orientals,
+far-sighted. They had fancy and imagination, a relish for poetry and
+art, and they were not without a certain power of political combination.
+But we cannot justly ascribe to them any high degree of intellectual
+excellence. The religious ideas which they held in common with the Medes
+were, indeed, of a more elevated character than is usual with races not
+enlightened by special revelation; but these ideas were the common stock
+of the Iranic peoples, and were inherited by the Persians from a remote
+ancestry, not excogitated by themselves. Their taste for art, though
+marked, was neither pure nor high. We shall have to consider, in a
+future chapter, the architecture and mimetic art of the people to weigh
+their merits in these respects, and, at the same time, to note their
+deficiencies.
+
+Without anticipating the exact verdict then to be pronounced, we may say
+at once that there is nothing in the remains of the Persian architecture
+and sculpture that have come down to us indicative of any remarkable
+artistic genius; nothing that even places them on a par with the best
+works of the kind produced by Orientals. Again, if the great work of
+Firdausi represents to us, as it probably does, the true spirit of the
+ancient poetry of the Persians, we must conclude that, in the highest
+department of art, their efforts were but of moderate merit. A tone of
+exaggeration, an imagination exuberant and unrestrained, a preference
+for glitter over solid excellence, a love of far-fetched conceits,
+characterize the Shahnameh; and, though we may fairly ascribe something
+of this to the idiosyncrasy of the poet, still, after we have made all
+due allowance upon this score, the conviction presses upon us that there
+was a childish and grotesque character in the great mass of the old
+Persian poetry, which marks it as the creation of moderate rather than
+of high intellectual power, and prevents us from regarding it with the
+respect with which we view the labors of the Greeks and Romans, or,
+again, of the Hebrews, in this department. A want of seriousness, a
+want of reality, and, again, a want of depth, characterize the poetry
+of Iran, whose bards do not touch the chords which rouse what is noblest
+and highest in our nature. They give us sparkle, prettiness, quaint and
+ingenious fancies, grotesque marvels, an inflated kind of human heroism;
+but they have none of the higher excellencies of the poetic art, none of
+the divine fire which renders the true poet, and the true prophet, one.
+
+Among moral qualities, we must assign to the Persians as their most
+marked characteristics, at any rate in the earlier times, courage,
+energy, and a regard for truth. The valor of their troops in the great
+combats of Platsea and Thermopylae extorted the admiration of their
+enemies, who have left on record their belief that, "in boldness and
+warlike spirit, the Persians were not a whit behind the Greeks,"
+and that their defeat was "wholly owing to the inferiority of their
+equipment and training." Without proper shields, with little defensive
+armor, wielding only short swords and lances that were scarcely more
+than javelins, they dashed themselves upon the serried ranks of the
+Spartans, seizing the huge spear-shafts of these latter with their
+hands, striving to break them, and to force a way in. No conduct could
+have been braver than this, which the modern historian well compares
+with brilliant actions of the Romans and the Swiss. The Persians
+thoroughly deserved to be termed (as they are termed by AEschylus), a
+"valiant-minded people;" they had boldness, elan, dash, and considerable
+tenacity and stubbornness; no nation of Asia or Africa was able to stand
+against them; if they found their masters in the Greeks, it was owing,
+as the Greeks themselves tell us, to the superiority of Hellenic arms,
+equipment, and, above all, of Hellenic discipline, which together
+rendered the most desperate valor unavailing, when it lacked the support
+of scientific organization and united simultaneous movement.
+
+The energy of the Persians during the earlier years of their ascendancy
+is no less remarkable than their courage. AEschylus speaks of a
+mysterious fate which forced them to engage continually in a long series
+of wars, to take delight in combats of horse, and in the siege and
+overthrow of cities. Herodotus, in a tone that is not very different,
+makes Xerxes, soon after his accession, represent himself as bound by
+the examples of his forefathers to engage his country in some great
+enterprise, and not suffer the military spirit of his people to decay
+through want of employment. We shall find, when we come to consider the
+history of the Empire, that, for eighty years, under four sovereigns,
+the course indicated by these two writers was in fact pursued--that
+war followed on war, expedition on expedition--the active energy of
+sovereign and people carrying them on, without rest or pause, in a
+career of conquest that has few parallels in the history of Oriental
+nations. In the subsequent period, this spirit is less marked; but,
+at all times, a certain vigor and activity has characterized the race,
+distinguishing it in a very marked way from the dreamy and listless
+Hindus upon the one hand, and the apathetic Turks upon the other.
+
+The Persian love of truth was a favorite theme with the Greeks, who
+were, perhaps, the warmer in their praises from a latent consciousness
+of their own deficiency in the virtue. According to Herodotus, the
+attention of educators was specially directed to the point, and each
+young Persian was taught by his preceptors three main things:--"To
+ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth." We find that, in the
+Zendavesta, and more especially in its earliest and purest portions,
+truth is strenuously inculcated. Ahura-Mazda himself is "true,"
+"the father of all truth," and his worshippers are bound to conform
+themselves to his image. Darius, in his inscriptions, protests
+frequently against "lies," which he seems to regard as the embodiment
+of all evil. A love of finesse and intrigue is congenital to Orientals;
+and, in the later period of their sway, the Persians appear to have
+yielded to this natural inclination, and to have used freely in their
+struggle with the Greeks the weapons of cunning and deception; but,
+in the earlier period, a different spirit prevailed; lying was then
+regarded as the most disgraceful act of which a man could possibly be
+guilty truth was both admired and practised; Persian kings, entrapped
+into a promise, stood to it firmly, however much they might wish it
+recalled; foreign powers had never to complain that the terms of a
+treaty were departed from; the Persians thus form an honorable exception
+to the ordinary Asiatic character, and for general truthfulness and a
+faithful performance of their engagements compare favorably with the
+Greeks and Romans.
+
+The Persian, if we may trust Herodotus, was careful to avoid debt.
+He had a keen sense of the difficulty with which a debtor escapes
+subterfuge and equivocation--forms, slightly disguised, of lying. To buy
+and sell wares in a market place, to chaffer and haggle over prices,
+was distasteful to him, as apt to involve falsity and unfairness. He
+was free and open in speech, bold in act, generous, warm-hearted,
+hospitable. His chief faults were an addiction to self-indulgence and
+luxury, a passionate abandon to the feeling of the hour, whatever that
+might happen to be; and a tameness and subservience in all his relations
+towards his prince, which seem to moderns almost incompatible with real
+self-respect and manliness.
+
+The luxury of the Persians will be considered when we treat of
+their manners. In illustration of the two other weak points of their
+character, it may be observed that, in joy and in sorrow, they were
+alike immoderate; in the one transported beyond all reasonable bounds,
+and exhibiting their transports with entire unreserve and openness;
+in the other proportionately depressed, and quite unrestrained in
+the expression of their anxiety or misery. AEschylus' tragedy of the
+"Persae" is, in this respect, true to nature, and represents with
+accuracy the real habits of the nation. The Persian was a stranger
+to the dignified reserve which has commonly been affected by the more
+civilized among Western nations. He laughed and wept, shouted and
+shrieked, with the unrestraint of a child, who is not ashamed to lay
+bare his inmost feelings to the eyes of those about him. Lively and
+excitable, he loved to give vent to every passion that stirred his
+heart, and cared not how many witnessed his lamentations or his
+rejoicings.
+
+The feeling of the Persian towards his king is one of which moderns can
+with difficulty form a conception. In Persia the monarch was so much the
+State, that patriotism itself was, as it were, swallowed up in loyalty;
+and an absolute unquestioning submission, not only to the deliberate
+will, but to the merest caprice of the sovereign, was, by habit and
+education, so engrained into the nature of the people that a contrary
+spirit scarcely ever manifested itself. In war the safety of the
+sovereign was the first thought, and the principal care of all.
+The tales told of the self-devotion of individuals to secure the
+preservation of the monarch may not be true, but they indicate
+faithfully the actual tone of men's sentiments about the value of the
+royal person. If the king suffered, all was lost; if the king escaped,
+the greatest calamities seemed light, and could be endured with
+patience. Uncomplaining acquiescence in all the decisions of the
+monarch--cheerful submission to his will, whatever it might chance to
+be--characterized the conduct of the Persians in time of peace. It
+was here that their loyalty degenerated into parasitical tameness,
+and became a defect instead of a virtue. The voice of remonstrance, of
+rebuke, of warning, was unheard at the Court; and tyranny was allowed to
+indulge unchecked in the wildest caprices and extravagances. The
+father, whose innocent son was shot before his eyes by the king in pure
+wantonness, instead of raising an indignant protest against the
+crime, felicitated him on the excellence of his archery. Unfortunates,
+bastinadoed by the royal orders, declared themselves delighted, because
+his majesty had condescended to recollect them. A tone of sycophancy
+and servility was thus engendered, which, sapping self-respect, tended
+fatally to lower and corrupt the entire character of the people.
+
+In considering the manners and customs of the Persians, it will be
+convenient to follow the order already observed in treating of Assyria
+and Media--that is to say, to treat, in the first instance, of their
+warlike, and subsequently of their peaceful usages. On the latter the
+monuments throw considerable light; on the former, the information which
+they supply is comparatively scanty.
+
+The Persians, like the Medes, regarded chariots with disfavor, and
+composed their armies almost entirely of foot and horse. The ordinary
+dress of the foot-man was, in the earlier times, a tunic with long
+sleeves, made of leather, and fitting rather tightly to the frame, which
+it covered from the neck to the knee. Under this was worn a pair of
+trousers, also of leather, and tolerably tight-fitting, especially at
+the ankles, where they met a sort of high shoe, or low boot. The head
+was protected by a loose round cap, apparently of felt, which projected
+a little in front, and rose considerably above the top of the head.
+Round the waist was worn a double girdle or belt, from which depended a
+short sword. [PLATE XXVIII Fig. 4.]
+
+The offensive arms of the foot-man were, a sword, a spear, and a bow.
+The sword, which was called by the Persians _akinaces_, appears to
+have been a short, straight weapon, suited for stabbing rather than for
+cutting, and, in fact, not very much better than a dagger. [PLATE XXIX.,
+Fig. 2.] It was carried in a sheath, and was worn suspended from the
+girdle on the right side. From the Persepolitan sculptures it would
+seem not to have hung freely, but to have been attached to the right
+thigh by a thong which passed round the knee. The handle was short,
+and generally unprotected by a guard; but, in some specimens, we see a
+simple cross-bar between the hilt and the blade.
+
+The spear carried by the Persian foot-man was also short, or, at any
+rate, much shorter than the Greek. To judge by the representations of
+guardsmen on the Persepolitan sculptures, it was from six to six and a
+half or seven feet in length. The Grecian spear was sometimes as much as
+twenty-one feet. The Persian weapon had a short head, which appears to
+have been flattish, and which was strengthened by a bar or ridge down
+the middle. The shaft, which was of cornel wood, tapered gradually from
+bottom to top, and was ornamented at its lower extremity with a ball,
+sometimes carved in the shape of an apple or a pomegranate. [PLATE
+XXIX., Fig. 3.]
+
+The Persian bow, according to Herodotus and Xenophon, was of unusual
+size. According to the sculptures, it was rather short, certainly not
+exceeding four feet. It seems to have been carried strung, either on the
+left shoulder, with the arm passed through it, or in a bow-case slung at
+the left side. It was considerably bent in the middle, and had the ends
+slightly turned back. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 1.] The arrows, which were of
+reed, tipped with metal, and feathered, were carried in a quiver, which
+hung at the back near the left shoulder. To judge from the sculptures,
+their length must have been about two feet and a half. The arrow-heads,
+which were either of bronze or iron, seem to have been of various
+shapes, the most common closely resembling the arrow-heads of the
+Assyrians. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 3.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXX.]
+
+
+Other offensive weapons carried occasionally by the Persian foot-men
+were, a battle-axe, a sling, and a knife. The battle-axe, which appears
+in the sculptures only in one or two instances, is declared to have been
+a common Persian weapon by Xenophon, who, upon such a point, would seem
+to be trustworthy. The use of the sling by the Persian light-armed is
+quite certain. It is mentioned by Curtius and Strabo, no less than by
+Xenophon; and the last-named writer speaks with full knowledge on the
+subject, for he witnessed the effect of the weapon in the hands of
+Persian slingers during his return with the Ten Thousand. The only
+missiles which the Persian slingers threw were stones; they did not,
+like the Rhodians, make use of small lumps of lead.
+
+The knife seems also to have been a Persian weapon. Its blade appears to
+have been slightly curved, like that of a pruning-hook. It was worn in a
+sheath, and was probably thrust into the belt or girdle like the similar
+weapon, half knife, half dagger, of a modern Persian.
+
+The ordinary defence of the Persian against the weapons of his enemy was
+a shield of wicker-work, which covered him almost from head to foot,
+and which probably differed little from the wattled shield of the
+Assyrians. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 2.] This he commonly planted on the ground,
+supporting it, perhaps, with a crutch, while he shot his arrows from
+behind it. Occasionally, he added to this defence the protection of a
+coat of mail, composed either of scale armor, or of quilted linen, like
+the corselets of the Egyptians. Armor of the former kind was almost
+impenetrable, since the scales were of metal--iron, bronze, or sometimes
+gold--and overlapped one another like those of a fish.
+
+The Persian cavalry was armed, in the early times of the monarchy,
+almost exactly in the same manner as their infantry. Afterwards, however
+a considerable change seems to have been made. In the time of the
+younger Cyrus cavalry soldiers were very fully protected. They wore
+helmets on their heads, coats of mail about their bodies, and greaves
+on their legs. Their chief offensive arms seem, then, to have been the
+short sword, the javelin, and the knife. It is probable that they were
+without shields, being sufficiently defended by their armor, which (as
+we have seen) was almost complete.
+
+The javelin of the horseman, which was his special weapon, was a short
+strong spear or pike, with a shaft of cornel-wood, and an iron point. It
+was common for him to carry two such weapons, one of which he used as
+a missile, while he retained the other in order to employ it in
+hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. It was a stout manageable weapon,
+and though no match for the longer and equally strong spear of
+the Macedonian cavalry, was preferred by Xenophon to the long weak
+reed-lance commonly carried by horse-soldiers in his day.
+
+It was the practice of the later Persians to protect with armor, not
+only the horseman, but the horse. They selected for the service large
+and powerful animals, chiefly of the Nisaean breed, and cased them
+almost wholly in mail. The head was guarded by a frontlet, and the neck
+and chest by a breast-piece; the sides and flanks had their own special
+covering and cuisses defended the thighs. These defences were not
+merely, like those of the later Assyrian heavy cavalry, of felt or
+leather, but consisted, like the cuirasses worn by the riders, of some
+such material covered with metal scales. The weight which the horse had
+to sustain was thus very great, and the movements of the cavalry force
+were, in consequence, slow and hesitating. Flight was difficult; and, in
+a retreat, the weaker animals were apt to sink under their burdens, and
+to be trampled to death by the stronger ones.
+
+There can be no doubt that, besides these heavy horsemen, the Persians
+employed, even in the latest times, and much more in the earlier,
+a light and agile cavalry force. Such were the troops which, under
+Tissaphernes, harassed the Ten Thousand during their retreat; and such,
+it may be conjectured, was really at all times the great body of their
+cavalry. The education of the Persian, as we shall see hereafter, was
+directed to the formation of those habits of quickness and agility in
+the mounting and managing of horses, which have a military value only
+as furnishing a good training for the light-cavalry service; and the
+tendency of the race has at all times been, not to those forms of
+military organization which are efficient by means of solidity and
+strength, but to those lighter, more varied, and more elastic branches
+which compensate for a want of solidity by increased activity,
+readiness, and ease of movement.
+
+Though the Persians did not set any great store by chariots, as an arm
+of the military service, they nevertheless made occasional use of them.
+Not only were their kings and princes, when they commanded their troops
+in person, accustomed to direct their movements, both on the march and
+even inaction, from the elevation of a war-chariot, but now and then, in
+great battles, a considerable force of them was brought into the field,
+and important consequences were expected from their employment. The
+wheels of the war-chariots were armed with scythes; and these, when the
+chariot was set in motion, were regarded as calculated to inflict great
+damage on the ranks of opponents. Such hopes seem, however, to have
+been generally disappointed. As every chariot was drawn by at least
+two horses, and contained at least two persons--the charioteer and the
+warrior--a large mark was offered by each to the missiles of the light
+troops who were commonly stationed to receive them; and, as practically
+it was found that a single wound to either horse or man threw the whole
+equipage into confusion, the charge of a scythed chariot was commonly
+checked before it reached the line of battle of the enemy. Where this
+was not the case, the danger was escaped by opening the ranks and
+letting the chariots pass through them to the rear, a good account being
+speedily given of any adventurer who thus isolated himself from the
+support of his own party.
+
+The Persian war-chariot was, probably, somewhat loftier than the
+Assyrian. The wheels appear to have been from, three to four feet in
+diameter; and the body rose above them to a height from the ground of
+nearly five feet. The person of the warrior was thus protected up to his
+middle by the curved board which enclosed the chariot on three sides.
+The axle-tree is said to have been broad, since breadth afforded a
+security against being overturned, and the whole construction to have
+been strong and solid. The wheels had twelve spokes, which radiated from
+a nave of unusual size. The felloes were narrower than the Assyrian, but
+were still composed, like them, of two or three distinct layers of wood.
+The tires were probably of metal, and were indented like the edge of a
+saw. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXI.]
+
+
+No great ornamentation of the chariot appears to have been attempted.
+The body was occasionally patterned with a chequer-work, which maybe
+compared with a style common in Assyria, and the spokes of the wheels
+were sometimes of great elegance, but the general character of the
+workmanship was massive and plain. The pole was short, and terminated
+with a simple curve. From the evidence of the monuments it would seem
+that chariots were drawn by two horses only; but the classical writers
+assure us that the ordinary practice was to have teams of four. The
+harness used was exceedingly simple, consisting of a yoke, a belly-band,
+a narrow collar, a head-stall, a bit, and reins. When the charioteer
+left his seat, the reins could be attached to a loop or bar which
+projected from the front of the chariot-board.
+
+Chariots were constructed to contain two, or perhaps, in some instances,
+three persons. These consisted of the warrior, his charioteer, who stood
+beside him, and an attendant, whose place was behind, and whose business
+it was to open and shut the chariot doors. The charioteer wore a visor
+and a coat of mail, exposing nothing to the enemy but his eyes.
+
+The later Persians made use also of elephants in battle, but to a very
+small extent, and without any results worth mentioning.
+
+The chief points of Persian tactics were the following. The army was
+organized into three distinct services--those of the chariots, the
+horse, and the foot. In drawing up the line of battle, it was usual,
+where chariots were employed, to place them in the front rank, in front
+of the rest of the army. Behind the chariots were stationed the horse
+and the foot; the former generally massed upon the wings; the latter
+placed in the middle, drawn up according to nations, in a number of
+oblong squares, which touched, or nearly touched, one another. The
+bravest and best armed troops were placed in front; the ranks towards
+the rear being occupied by those of inferior quality. The depth of the
+ranks was usually very great, since Oriental troops cannot be trusted to
+maintain a firm front unless they are strongly supported from behind.
+No attempt, however, seems to have been made at forming a second line of
+battle in the rear of the first, nor does there even seem to have been
+any organized system of reserves. When the battle began, the chariots
+were first launched against the enemy, whose ranks it was hoped they
+would confuse, or, at any rate, disturb. After this the main line
+advanced to the attack, but without any inclination to come at once to
+close quarters. Planting their shields firmly on the ground in front of
+them, the Persian heavy-armed shot flight after flight of arrows against
+their foe, while the slingers and other light-armed in the rear sent
+clouds of missiles over the heads of their friends into the adverse
+ranks beyond them. It was usually the enemy which brought this phase of
+the battle to an end, by pressing onward and closing with the Persian
+main line in a hand:to-hand combat. Here the struggle was commonly
+brief--a very few minutes often decided the engagement. If the Persian
+line of battle was forced or broken, all was immediately regarded as
+lost--flight and rout followed. The cavalry, from its position on
+the wings, might attempt, by desperate charges on the flanks of the
+advancing foe, to stay his progress, and restore the fortune of the
+day, but such efforts were usually unavailing. Its line of battle
+once broken, a Persian army lost heart; its commander commonly set the
+example of flight, and there was a general rush of all arms from the
+battle-field.
+
+For success the Persians trusted mainly to their numbers, which enabled
+them, in some cases, to renew an attack time after time with fresh
+troops, in others to outflank and surround their adversary. Their best
+troops were undoubtedly their cavalry, both heavy and light. The heavy,
+armed in the old times with bows, and in the later with the javelins,
+highly distinguished itself on many important occasions. The weight of
+its charge must have been great; its offensive weapons were good; and
+its armor made it almost invulnerable to ordinary weapons. The
+light cavalry was celebrated for the quickness and dexterity of its
+manoeuvres. It had the loose organization of modern Bashi-Bazouks or
+Cossacks; it hung in clouds on the enemy--assailed, retreated, rallied,
+re-advanced--fled, and even in flight was formidable, since each rider
+was trained to discharge his arrows backwards with a sure aim.
+against the pursuing foe. The famous skill of the Parthians in their
+horse-combats was inherited from their Persian predecessors, who seem to
+have invented the practice which the later people carried to perfection.
+
+Though mainly depending for success on their numbers, the Persians did
+not wholly despise the use of contrivance and stratagem. At Arbela,
+Darius Codomannus had spiked balls strewn over the ground where he
+expected the Greek cavalry to make its attacks. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 5];
+and, at Sardis, Cyrus obtained his victory over the Lydian horse
+by frightening them with the grotesque and unfamiliar camel. Other
+instances will readily occur to the reader, whereby it appears that the
+art of war was studied, and ingenuity allowed its due place in military
+matters, by this people, who showed a fair share of Oriental subtlety in
+the devices which they employed against their enemies.
+
+It is doubtful whether we are to include among these devices the use of
+military engines. On the one hand, we have several distinct statements
+by the author of the "Cyrpoasdia," to the effect that engines were well
+known to the Persians; on the other, we remark an entire absence from
+the works of other ancient writers of any notice that they actually
+employed them, either in their battles or their sieges. The silence of
+Scripture, of Herodotus, of the inscriptions, of Quintus Curtius, of
+Arrian, may fairly be regarded as outweighing the unsupported authority
+of the romance-writer, Xenophon; and though it would be rash to decide
+that such things as siege-towers, battering rams, and balistce--all
+of which are found to have been in constant use under the Assyrian and
+Babylonian monarchies--were wholly discarded by, or unknown to,
+their successors in the government of Asia, yet a wise criticism will
+conclude, that they were, at any rate, unfamiliar to the Persians,
+rarely and sparingly (if at all) employed by them, other methods
+of accomplishing the ends whereto they served having more approved
+themselves to this ingenious people. In ordinary sieges it would seem
+that they trusted to the bank or mound, while sometimes they drove mines
+under the walls, and sought in this way to effect a breach. Where the
+place attacked was of great strength, they had recourse in general
+either to stratagem or to blockade. Occasionally they employed the
+destructive force of fire, and no doubt they often succeeded by the
+common method of escalade. On the whole, it must certainly be said that
+they were successful in their sieges, exhibiting in their conduct of
+them courage, activity, and considerable fertility of resource.
+
+A Persian army was usually, though not always, placed under a single
+commander. This commander was the monarch, if he was present; if not, it
+was a Persian, or a Mede, nominated by him. Under the commander-in-chief
+were a number of general officers, heads of corps or divisions, of whom
+we find, in one instance, as many as nine. Next in rank to these were
+the chiefs of the various ethnic contingents composing the army, who
+were, probably, in general the satraps of the different provinces. Thus
+far appointments were held directly from the crown; but beyond this the
+system was changed. The ethnic or satrapial commanders appointed the
+officers next below themselves, the captains over a thousand, and (if
+their contingent was large enough to admit it) the captains over ten
+thousand; who, again, nominated their subordinates, commanders of a
+hundred, and commanders of ten. Thus, in the main, a decimal scale
+prevailed. The lowest rank of officers commanded each ten men, the next
+lowest a hundred, the next to that a thousand, the next ten thousand.
+The officer over ten thousand was sometimes a divisional chief;
+sometimes he was subject to the commander of an ethnic contingent, who
+was himself under the orders of the head of a division. Altogether there
+were six ranks of officers, exclusive of the commander-in-chief.
+
+The proper position of the commander-in-chief was considered to be the
+centre of the line of battle. He was regarded as safer there than
+he would have been on either wing; and it was seen that, from such a
+position, his orders would be most rapidly conveyed to all parts of the
+battlefield. It was not, however, thought to be honorable that he should
+keep aloof from the fight, or avoid risking his own person. On the
+contrary, he was expected to take an active part in the combat; and
+therefore, though his place was not exactly in the very foremost ranks,
+it was towards the front, and the result followed that he was often
+exposed to imminent danger. The consequences of this arrangement
+were frequently disastrous in the extreme, the death or flight of the
+commander producing universal panic, stopping the further issue of any
+general order, and thus paralyzing the whole army.
+
+The numbers of a Persian army, though no doubt exaggerated by the
+Greeks, must have been very great, amounting, probably, on occasions,
+to more than a million of combatants. Troops were drawn from the entire
+empire, and were marshalled in the field according to nations,
+each tribe accoutred in its own fashion. Here were seen the gilded
+breastplates and scarlet kilts of the Persians and Medes; there the
+woollen shirt of the Arab, the leathern jerkin of the Berber, or the
+cotton dress of the native of Hindustan. Swart savage Ethiops from the
+Upper Nile, adorned with a war-paint of white and red, and scantily
+clad with the skins of leopards or lions, fought in one place with huge
+clubs, arrows tipped with stone, and spears terminating in the horn of
+an antelope. In another, Scyths, with their loose spangled trousers and
+their tall pointed caps, dealt death around from their unerring blows;
+while near them Assyrians, helmeted, and wearing corselets of quilted
+linen, wielded the tough spear, or the still more formidable iron mace.
+Rude weapons, like cane bows, unfeathered arrows, and stakes hardened at
+one end in the fire, were seen side by side with keen swords and
+daggers of the best steel, the finished productions of the workshops
+of Phoenicia and Greece. Here the bronze helmet was surmounted with
+the ears and horns of an ox; there it was superseded by a fox-skin, a
+leathern or wooden skull-cap, or a head-dress fashioned out of a horse's
+scalp. Besides horses and mules, elephants, camels, and wild asses,
+diversified the scene, and rendered it still more strange and wonderful
+to the eye of a European. One large body of cavalry was accustomed
+to enter the field apparently unarmed; besides the dagger, which the
+Oriental never lays aside, they had nothing but a long leathern thong.
+They used this, however, just as the lasso is used by the natives of
+Brazil, and the wretch at whom they aimed their deadly noose had small
+chance of escape. The Persians, like the Assyrians, usually avoided
+fighting during the winter, and marched out their armies against the
+enemy in early spring. With the great hosts which they moved a fixed
+order of march was most necessary; and we find evidence of so much
+attention being paid to this point that confusion and disorder seem
+scarcely ever to have arisen. When the march lay within their own
+country, it was usual to send on the baggage and the sumpter-beasts in
+advance, after which came about half the troops, moving slowly in a long
+and continuous column along the appointed line of route. At this point
+a considerable break occurred, in order that all might be clear for
+the most important part of the army, which was now to follow. A guard,
+consisting of a thousand horse and a thousand foot, picked men of the
+Persian people, prepared the way for what was most holy in the eyes of
+the nation--the emblems of their religion, and their king. The former
+consisted of sacred horses and cars; perhaps, in the later times, of
+silver altars also, bearing the perpetual and heaven-kindled fire,
+which was a special object of Persian religious regard, and which the
+superstition of the people viewed as a sort of palladium, sure to bring
+the blessings of heaven upon their arms. Behind the sacred emblems
+followed the Great King himself, mounted on a car drawn by Nissean
+steeds, and perhaps protected on either side by a select band of his
+relatives. Behind the royal chariot came a second guard, consisting,
+like the first, of a thousand foot and a thousand horse. Then followed
+ten thousand picked foot, probably the famous "Immortals;" then came
+a body of ten thousand picked Persian horsemen. After these a space of
+four hundred yards (nearly a quarter of a mile) was left vacant; then
+marched, in a second continuous column, the remainder of the host.
+
+On entering an enemy's country, or drawing near a hostile force in their
+own, certain alterations in these dispositions became necessary, and
+were speedily effected. The baggage-train was withdrawn, and instead of
+moving before the army, followed at some little distance in the rear.
+Horsemen were thrown out in front, to feel for the enemy and notify his
+arrival. Sometimes, if the host was large, a division of the troops
+was made, and several _corps d'armee_ advanced against the foe
+simultaneously by distinct routes. When this took place, the
+commander-in-chief was careful to accompany the central force, so as to
+find himself in his proper position if he was suddenly compelled to give
+battle.
+
+Night movements were seldom attempted by the Persians. They marched from
+sunrise to sunset, halting, probably, during the midday heat. In their
+most rapid marches they seldom accomplished more than from twenty to
+twenty-five miles in the day; and when this rate was attempted for any
+continuance, it was necessary to rest the men at intervals for as much
+as three days at a time. The great drag upon rapidity of movement was
+the baggage-train, which consisted ordinarily of a vast multitude of
+camels, horses, asses, mules, oxen, etc., in part carrying burthens upon
+their backs, in part harnessed to carts laden with provisions, tents,
+and other necessaries. The train also frequently comprised a number of
+litters, in which the wives or female companions of the chief men were
+luxuriously conveyed, amid a crowd of eunuchs and attendants, and with
+all the cumbrous paraphernalia of female wardrobes. Roads, it must be
+remembered, did not exist; rivers were not bridged, except occasionally
+by boats; the army marched on the natural ground along an established
+line of route which no art had prepared for the passage of man or beast.
+Portions of the route would often be soft and muddy; the carts and
+litters would become immovable, their wheels sinking into the mire up
+to the axles; all the efforts of the teams would be unavailing; it must
+have been imperative to halt the main line, and employ the soldiers in
+the release of the vehicles, which had to be lifted and carried forward
+till the ground was sufficiently firm to bear them. When a river crossed
+the line of route, a ford had to be sought, boats procured, or rafts
+extemporized. The Persians were skilful in the passage of streams, to
+which they became accustomed in their first campaigns under Cyrus; but
+the march was necessarily retarded by these and similar obstacles, and
+we cannot be surprised that the average rate of movement was slow.
+
+As evening approached the Persians sought a suitable place for their
+camp. An open plain was preferred for the purpose, and the vicinity of
+water was a necessity. If an enemy was thought to be at hand, a ditch
+was rapidly dug, and the earth thrown up inside; or if the soil was
+sandy, sacks were filled with it, and the camp was protected with
+sand-bags. Immediately within the rampart were placed the _gerrhophori_,
+or Persians armed with large wicker shields. The rest of the soldiers
+had severally their appointed places, the position assigned to the
+commander-in-chief being the centre. All the army had tents, which were
+pitched so as to face the east. The horses of the cavalry were tethered
+and hobbled in front of the tents of their owners.
+
+The Persians disliked encamping near to their enemy. They preferred an
+interval of seven or eight miles, which they regarded as a considerable
+security against a surprise. As their most important arm was the
+cavalry, and as it was impossible for the cavalry to unfasten and
+unhobble their steeds, to equip them properly, to arm themselves, and
+then to mount in a short space of time, when darkness and confusion
+reigned around, a night attack on the part of an enterprising enemy
+would have been most perilous to a Persian army. Hence the precaution
+which they observed against its occurrence--a precaution which was
+seldom or never omitted where they felt any respect for their foe,
+and which seems to have been effective, since we do not hear of their
+suffering any disaster of the kind which they so greatly feared.
+
+The Persians do not seem to have possessed any special corps of
+pioneers. When the nature of the country was such as to require the
+felling of timber or the removal of brushwood, the army was halted, and
+the work was assigned to a certain number of the regular soldiers. For
+the construction of bridges, however, in important places, and for
+other works on a grand scale intended to facilitate an expedition,
+preparations were made beforehand, the tasks being entrusted either to
+skilled workmen, or to the crews of ships, if they were tolerably easy
+of performance.
+
+Commissariat arrangements were generally made by the Persians on a
+large scale, and with the best possible results. An ample baggage-train
+conveyed corn sufficient to supply the host during some months and in
+cases where scarcity was apprehended, further precautions were taken.
+Ships laden with corn accompanied the expedition as closely as possible,
+and supplemented any deficiency that might arise from a failure on the
+part of the land transport department. Sometimes, too, magazines were
+established at convenient points along the intended line of march
+previously to the setting forth of the army, and stores were thus
+accumulated at places where it was probable they would be found of most
+service.
+
+Requisitions for supplies were also made upon the inhabitants of the
+towns and villages through which lay the route of the army. Whenever the
+host rested for a night at a place of any consequence, the inhabitants
+seem to have been required to furnish sufficient bread for a meal
+to each man, and, in addition, to provide a banquet for the king
+(or general) and his suite, which was always very numerous. Such
+requisitions, often intolerably burthensome to those upon whom they
+were laid, must have tended greatly to relieve the strain upon their own
+resources, which the sustentation of such enormous hosts as the Persian
+kings were in the habit of moving, cannot have failed to produce in many
+cases.
+
+The effectiveness of these various arrangements for the provisioning of
+troops upon a march was such that Persian armies were rarely, if ever,
+in any difficulty with respect to their subsistence. Once only in
+the entire course of their history do we hear of the Persian forces
+suffering to any considerable extent from a want of supplies. According
+to Herodotus, Cambyses, when he invaded Ethiopia, neglected the ordinary
+precautions and brought his army into such straits that his men began to
+eat each other. This caused the total failure of his expedition, and
+the loss of a great proportion of the troops employed in it. There
+is, however, reason to suspect that, even in this case, the loss and
+difficulty which occurred have been much exaggerated.
+
+The Persians readily gave quarter to the enemy who asked it, and
+generally treated their prisoners of war with much kindness. Personages
+of importance, as monarchs or princes, either preserved their titles
+and their liberty, with even a certain nominal authority, or received
+appanages in other parts of the Persian territory, or, finally, were
+retained about the Court as friends and table-companions of the Great
+King. Those of less rank were commonly given lands and houses in some
+province remote from their own country, and thenceforth held the same
+position as the great mass of the subject races. Exchanges of prisoners
+do not seem to have been thought of. In a few cases, persons, whom we
+should regard as prisoners of war, experienced some severities, but
+probably only when they were viewed by the Persians, not as fair
+enemies, but as rebels. Rebels were, of course, liable to any punishment
+which the king might think it right to inflict upon them, and there were
+occasions after a revolt when sentences of extreme rigor were passed
+upon the persons considered to have been most in fault. According to
+Herodotus, three thousand Babylonians were crucified by order of
+Darius, to punish their revolt from him; and, though this is probably an
+exaggeration, it is certain that sometimes, where an example was thought
+to be required, the Persians put to death, not only the leader of a
+rebellion, but a number of his chief adherents. Crucifixion, or, at
+any rate, impalement of some sort, was in such cases the ordinary
+punishment. Sometimes, before a rebel was executed, he was kept for a
+while chained at the king's door, in order that there might be no doubt
+of his capture.
+
+Among the minor punishments of rebellion were branding, and removal of
+the rebels _en masse_ from their own country, to some remote locality.
+In this latter case, they were merely treated in the same way as
+ordinary prisoners of war. In the former, they probably became royal
+slaves attached to the household of the monarch.
+
+Though the Persians were not themselves a nautical people, they were
+quite aware of the great importance of a navy, and spared no pains to
+provide themselves with an efficient one. The conquests of Phoenicia,
+Cyprus, Egypt, and the Greek islands were undertaken, it is probable,
+mainly with this object; and these parts of the Empire were always
+valued chiefly as possessing skilled seamen, vessels, and dockyards,
+from which the Great King could draw an almost inexhaustible supply of
+war-ships and transports. Persia at times had the complete command of
+the Mediterranean Sea, and bore undisputed sway in the Levant during
+almost the whole period of her existence as an empire.
+
+The war-ship preferred by the best naval powers during the whole period
+of the Persian rule was the trireme, or decked galley impelled by rowers
+sitting in three tiers, or banks, one above another. This vessel, the
+invention of the Corinthians, had been generally adopted by the nations
+bordering on the Mediterranean in the interval between B.C. 700 and B.C.
+525, when by the reduction of Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Egypt, the Persians
+obtained the command of the sea. Notwithstanding the invention of
+quadriremes by the Carthaginians before B.C. 400, and of quinqueremes by
+Dionysius the Elder soon after, the trireme stood its ground, and from
+first to last the Persian fleets were mainly composed of this class of
+vessels.
+
+The trireme was a vessel of a considerable size, and was capable of
+accommodating two hundred and thirty persons. Of these, two hundred
+constituted the crew, while the remaining thirty were men-at-arms,
+corresponding to our own "marines." By far the greater number of the
+crew consisted of the rowers, who probably formed at least nine-tenths
+of the whole, or one hundred and eighty out of the two hundred. The
+rowers sat, not on benches running right across the vessel, but on small
+seats attached to its side. They were arranged, as before stated, in
+three tiers, not, however, directly one over the head of another, but
+obliquely, each at once above and behind his fellow. Each rower had the
+sole management of a single oar, which he worked through a hole pierced
+in the side of the vessel. To prevent his oar from slipping he had a
+leathern strap, which he twisted round it, and fastened to the thole,
+probably by means of a button. The remainder of the crew comprised the
+captain, the steersman, the petty officers, and the sailors proper, or
+those whose office it was to trim the sails and look to the rigging.
+The trireme of Persian times had, in all cases, a mast, and at least one
+sail, which was of a square shape, hung across the mast by means of a
+yard or spar, like the "square-sail" of a modern vessel. The rudder
+was composed of two broad-bladed oars, one on either side of the stern,
+united, however, by a cross-bar, and managed by a single steersman. The
+central part of a trireme was always decked, and on this deck, which
+was generally level with the bulwarks, stood and fought the men-at-arms,
+whose business it was to engage the similar force of the enemy.
+
+The weapon of the trireme, with which she was intended chiefly to
+attack her foe, was the beak. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 3.] This consisted of
+a projection from the prow of the ship, either above or below the
+water-line, strongly shod with a casting of iron, and terminating either
+in the head of an animal, or in one or more sharp points. A trireme was
+expected, like a modern "ram," to use this implement against the sides
+of her adversary's vessels, so as to crush them in and cause the vessels
+to sink. Driven by the full force of her oars, which impelled her almost
+at the rate of a modern steamer, she was nearly certain, if she struck
+her adversary full, to send ship and men to the bottom. She might
+also, it is true, greatly damage herself; but, to preclude this, it was
+customary to make the whole prow of a trirene exceedingly strong, and,
+more particularly, to support it with beams at the side which tended to
+prevent the timbers from starting.
+
+Besides triremes, which constituted the bulk of the Persian navy, there
+were contained in their fleet various other classes of vessels, as
+triaconters, penteconters, cercuri, and others. Triaconters were long,
+sharp-keeled ships, shaped very much like a trireme, rowed by thirty
+rowers, who sat all upon a level, like the rowers in modern boats,
+fifteen on either side of the vessel. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 2.]
+Penteconters were very similar, the only difference being in the number
+of the oars and oarsmen. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 4.] Both these classes of
+vessels seem to have been frequently without sails. Cercuri were light
+boats, very long and swift. They are said to have been invented by the
+Cyprians, and were always peculiar to Asia.
+
+The transports of the Persians were either for the conveyance of horses
+or of food. Horse-transports were large clumsy vessels, constructed
+expressly for the service whereon they were used, possessing probably a
+special apparatus for the embarkation and disembarkation of the animals
+which they were built to carry. Corn-transports seem to have been of a
+somewhat lighter character. Probably, they varied very considerably in
+their size and burthen, including huge and heavy merchantmen on the one
+hand, and a much lighter and smaller craft on the other.
+
+The Persians used their ships of war, not only for naval engagements,
+but also for the conveyance of troops and the construction of bridges.
+Accustomed to pass the great streams which intersect Western Asia
+by bridges of boats, which were permanently established wherever an
+unfordable river crossed any of the regular routes connecting the
+provinces with the capital, the Persians, when they proceeded to carry
+their arms from Asia into Europe, conceived the idea of bridging the
+interval between the continents, which did not much exceed the width of
+one of the Mesopotamian streams, by constructions similar in principle
+and general character to those wherewith long use had made them familiar
+in their own country. Ranging a number of vessels side by side, at no
+great distance one from another, parallel with the course of the stream,
+which ran down the straits, anchoring each vessel stem and stern to keep
+it in place, and then laying upon these supports a long wooden platform,
+they made a floating bridge of considerable strength, reaching from
+the Asiatic to the European coast, on which not only men, but horses,
+camels, chariots, and laden carts passed over safely from the one
+continent to the other. Only, as the water which they had to cross was
+not a river, but an arm of the real salt sea, and might, therefore, in
+case of a storm, show a might and fury far beyond a river's power, they
+thought it necessary to employ, in lieu of boats, the strongest ships
+which they possessed, namely, triremes and pentecon-ters, as best
+capable of withstanding the force of an angry sea. Bridges of this
+kind were intended sometimes for temporary, sometimes for permanent
+constructions. In the latter case, great care and much engineering skill
+was lavished on their erection. The shore cables, which united the ships
+together, and sustained the actual bridge or platform, were made of most
+carefully selected materials, and must have been of enormous strength;
+the ships were placed in close proximity one to another; and by the
+substitution of a double for a single line--of two bridges, in fact, for
+one--the solidity of the work was very largely augmented. Yet, rare as
+was the skill shown, solid and compact as were the causeways thus
+thrown by human art over the sea, they were found inadequate to the end
+desired. The great work of Xerxes, far the most elaborate of its class,
+failed to withstand the fury of the elements for a single year; the
+bridge, constructed in one autumn, was utterly swept away in the next;
+and the army which had crossed into Europe by its aid had to embark as
+it best could, and return on board ship to Asia.
+
+As the furnishing of the Persian fleet was left wholly to the subject
+nations of the Empire, so was its manning intrusted to them almost
+entirely. Phoenicians, Syrians, Egyptians, Cypriots, Cilicians, Lycians,
+Pamphylians, Carians, Greeks, equipped in the several costumes of their
+countries, served side by side in their respective contingents of ships,
+thereby giving the fleet nearly the same motley appearance which
+was presented by the army. In one respect alone did the navy exhibit
+superior uniformity to their sister service--the _epibatae_, or
+"marines," who formed the whole fighting force of the fleet while it
+kept the sea, was a nearly homogeneous body, consisting of three races
+only (two of which were closely allied), namely, Persians, Medes, and
+Sacse. Every ship had thirty such men on board; all, it is probable,
+uniformly armed, and all animated by one and the same spirit. To this
+force the Persians must have owed it mainly that their great fleets
+were not mere congeries of mutually repellant atoms, but were capable of
+acting against an enemy with a fair amount of combination and singleness
+of purpose.
+
+When a fleet accompanied a land army upon an expedition, it was usually
+placed under the same commander. This commander, however, was not
+expected to adventure himself on board much less to take the direction
+of a sea-fight. He intrusted the fleet to an officer, or officers, whom
+he nominated, and was content himself with the conduct of operations
+ashore. Occasionally the land and sea forces were assigned to distinct
+commanders of co-ordinate authority--an arrangement which led naturally,
+to misunderstanding and quarrel.
+
+The tactics of a Persian fleet seem to have been of the simplest
+kind Confident in their numbers, until experience had taught them the
+fallaciousness of such a ground of hope, they were chiefly anxious
+that their enemy should not escape. To prevent this they endeavored to
+surround the ships opposed to them, advancing their line in a crescent
+form, so as to enclose their adversary's wings, or even detaching
+squadrons to cut off his retreat. They formed their line several ships
+deep and when the hour of battle came, advanced directly at their best
+speed against the enemy, endeavoring to run down his vessels by sheer
+force, and never showing any acquaintance with or predilection for
+manoeuvres of a skilful antagonist, who avoided or successfully
+withstood this first onset, they were apt through their very numbers to
+be thrown into disorder: the first line would become entangled with the
+second, the second with the third, and inextricable confusion would be
+the result. Confusion placed them at the mercy of their antagonist,
+who, retaining complete command over his own vessels, was able to strike
+theirs in vulnerable parts, and, in a short time, to cover the sea with
+shattered and sinking wrecks. The loss to the Persians in men as well
+as in material, was then sure to be very great; for their sailors seldom
+knew how to swim, and were consequently drowned, even when the shore was
+but a few yards distant.
+
+When, from deficiency in their numbers, or distrust of their own
+nautical skill in comparison with that of their enemy, the commanders of
+a Persian fleet wished to avoid an engagement, a plan sometimes adopted
+was to run the ships ashore upon a smooth soft beach, and, after drawing
+them together, to surround them with such a rampart as could be hastily
+made, and defend this rampart with the sailors. The crews of the Persian
+vessels were always more or less completely armed, in order that, if
+occasion arose, they might act as soldiers ashore, and were thus quite
+capable of fighting effectively behind a rampart. They might count, too,
+under such circumstances, upon assistance from such of their own land
+forces as might happen to be in the neighborhood, who would be sure to
+come with all speed to their aid, and might be expected to prove a sure
+protection.
+
+The subject nations who furnished the Persians with their fleet were,
+in the earlier times, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Cypriots, the
+Cilicians, the Syrians of Palestine, the Pamphylians, the Lycians, the
+Carians, and the Greeks of Asia Minor and the islands. The Greeks seem
+to have furnished the largest number of ships; the Phoenicians, the
+next largest; then the Egyptians; after them the Cypriots; then the
+Cilicians; then the Carians; next the Lycians; while the Pamphylians
+furnished the least. The best ships and the best sailors were the
+Phoenicians, especially those of Sidon. In later times, ships were drawn
+either from Phoenicia alone, or from Phoenicia, Cilicia, and Cyprus.
+
+The limits assigned to the present work forbid the further prosecution
+of this branch of our inquiry, and require us now to pass on from the
+consideration of the Persian usages in war, to that of their manners
+and customs, their habits and proceedings, in time of peace. And here
+it will once more be convenient to follow a division of the subject with
+which the reader is familiar, and to treat first of the public life of
+the King and Court, and next of the private life of the people.
+
+The Persian king held the same rank and position in the eyes of his
+subjects which the great monarch of Western Asia, whoever he might be,
+had always occupied from time immemorial. He was their lord and master,
+absolute disposer of their lives, liberties, and property; the
+sole fountain of law and right, incapable himself of doing wrong,
+irresponsible irresistable--a sort of God upon earth; one whose favor
+was happiness, at whose frown men trembled, before whom all bowed
+themselves down with the lowest and humblest obeisance.
+
+To a personage so exhalted, a state and pomp of the utmost magnificence
+was befitting. The king's ordinary dress in time of peace was the long
+flowing "Median garment," or _candys_--made in his case (it is probable)
+of richest silk, which, with its ample folds, its wide hanging sleeves,
+and its close fit about the neck and chest, gave dignity to almost any
+figure, and excellently set off the noble presence of an Achaemenian
+prince. The royal robe was either of purple throughout, or sometimes of
+purple embroidered with gold. It descended below the ankles; resting on
+the foot even when the monarch was seated. A broad girdle confined it at
+the waist. Under it was worn a tunic, or shirt, which reached from the
+neck to the knee, and had tight-fitting sleeves that covered the arm to
+the wrist. The tunic was purple in color, like the _candys_, or robe,
+but striped or mixed with white. The lower limbs were encased in
+trousers of a crimson hue. On his feet the the king wore shoes like
+those of the Medes, long and taper at the toe buttoned in front,
+and reaching very high up the instep: their color was deep yellow or
+saffron. [PLATE XXXII., Fig.1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXII.]
+
+
+Thus far the monarch's costume, though richer in material than the dress
+of the Persian nobles, and in some points different in color, was on the
+whole remarkably like that of the upper class of his subjects. It
+was, however, most important that his dress should possess some
+distinguishing feature, and that that feature should be one of
+very marked prominency. In an absolute monarchy the king must be
+unmistakable, at almost any distance, and almost in any light.
+Consequences of the gravest kind may follow from any mistake of the
+royal identity; and it is therefore essential to the comfort both of
+prince and subject that some very conspicuous badge shall mark and
+notify the monarch's presence. Accordingly, it appears that the Persian
+ruler was to be known by his headdress, which was peculiar alike
+in shape and in color, and was calculated to catch the eye in both
+respects. It bore the name _kitaris_ or _hidaris_, and was a tall stiff
+cap, slightly swelling as it ascended, flat at top, and terminating in a
+ring or circle which projected beyond the lines of the sides. Round
+it, probably near the bottom, was worn a fillet or band--the diadem
+proper--which was blue, spotted with white.
+
+As the other Persians wore either simple fillets round their heads, or
+soft, rounded, and comparatively low caps, with no band round them, the
+king's headdress, which would tower above theirs and attract attention
+by its color, could readily be distinguished even in the most crowded
+Court.
+
+It has been asserted that the _kidaris_, or tiara of the Persian kings,
+was "commonly adorned with gold and jewelry;" and this may possibly have
+been the case, but there is no evidence that it was so. Its material
+was probably either cloth or felt, and it was always of a bright color,
+though not (apparently) always of the same color. Its distinguishing
+features were its height, its stiffness, and the blue and white fillet
+which encircled it.
+
+Among other certain indications of the royal presence may be mentioned
+the golden sceptre, and the parasol. The sceptre, which is seen
+frequently in the king's hands, was a plain rod, about five feet in
+length, ornamented with a ball, or apple, at its upper end, and at its
+lower tapering nearly to a point. The king held it in his right hand,
+grasping it near, but not at, the thick end, and rested the thin end on
+the ground in his front. When he walked, he planted it upright before
+him, as a spearman would plant his spear. When he sate, he sloped it
+outwards, still, however, touching the ground with its point.
+
+The parasol, which has always been in the East a mark of dignity, seems
+in Persia, as in Assyria, to have been confined, either by law or usage,
+to the king. The Persian implement resembled the later Assyrian, except
+that it was not tasselled, and had no curtain or flap. It had the same
+tent-like shape, the same long thick stem, and the same ornament at the
+top. It only differed in being somewhat shallower, and in having the
+supports, which kept it open, curved instead of straight. It was held
+over the king's head on state occasions by an attendant who walked
+immediately behind him. [PLATE XXXII., Fig. 3.]
+
+The throne of the monarch was an elevated seat, with a high back, but
+without arms, cushioned, and ornamented with a fringe, and with moldings
+or carvings along the back and legs. The ornamentation consisted chiefly
+of balls and broad rings, and contained little that was artistic or
+elaborate. The legs, however, terminated in lions' feet, resting upon
+half balls, which were ribbed or fluted. The sides of the chair
+below the seat appear to have been panelled, like the thrones of the
+Assyrians, but were not adorned with any carving. The seat of the throne
+was very high from the ground, and without a rest the legs would have
+dangled. A footstool consequently was provided, which was plain, like
+the throne, but was supported on legs terminating in the feet of bulls.
+Thus the lion and the bull, so frequent in the symbolism of the East,
+were here again brought together, being represented as the supports of
+the throne.
+
+With respect to the material whereof the throne was composed, there
+can be no doubt that it was something splendid and costly. Late writers
+describe it as made of pure gold; but, as we hear of its having silver
+feet, we may presume that parts at least were of the less precious
+metal. Ivory is not said to have been used in its composition. We may,
+perhaps, conjecture, that the frame of the throne was wood, and that
+this was overlaid with plates of gold or silver, whereby the whole of
+the woodwork was concealed from view, and an appearance of solid metal
+presented.
+
+The person of the king was adorned with golden ornaments. He had
+earrings of gold in his ears, often inlaid with jewels he wore golden
+bracelets upon his wrists; and he had a chain or collar of gold about
+his neck. [PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 1.] In his girdle, which was also of
+gold, he carried a short sword, the sheath of which was formed of a
+single precious stone. The monuments, unfortunately, throw little light
+on the character and workmanship of these portions of the royal costume.
+We may gather from them, perhaps, that the bracelets had a large jewel
+set in their centre, and that the collars were of twisted work, worn
+loosely around the neck. The sword seems to have differed little from
+that of the ordinary Persians. It had a short straight blade, a mere
+crossbar for a guard, and a handle almost devoid of ornament. This
+plainness was compensated, if we may trust Curtius, by the magnificence
+of the sheath, which was, perhaps, of jasper, agate, or lapis lazuli.
+[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 2.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIII.]
+
+
+The officers in most close attendance on the monarch's person were,
+in war, his charioteer, his stool-bearer, his bow-bearer, and his
+quiver-bearer; in peace, his parasol-bearer, and his fan bearer, who
+was also privileged to carry what has been termed "the royal
+pocket-handkerchief."
+
+The royal charioteer is seemingly unarmed. His head is protected merely
+by a fillet. He sits in front of his master, and both his hands are
+fully occupied with the management of the reins. He has no whip, and
+seems to urge his horses forward simply by leaning forward himself, and
+slackening or shaking the reins over them. He was, no doubt, in every
+case a Persian of the highest rank, such near proximity to the Royal
+person being a privilege to which none but the very noblest could
+aspire. [PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 2.]
+
+The office of the stool-bearer, was to assist the king as he mounted his
+chariot or dismounted from it. He carried a golden stool, and followed
+the royal chariot closely, in order that he might be at hand whenever
+his master felt disposed to alight. On a march, the king was wont to
+vary the manner of his travelling, exchanging, when the inclination took
+him, his chariot for a litter, and riding in that more luxurious vehicle
+till he was tired of it, after which he returned to his chariot for
+a space. The services of the stool-bearer were thus in constant
+requisition, since it was deemed quite impossible that his Majesty could
+ascend or descend his somewhat lofty war-car without such aid.
+
+The rank of the bow-bearer was probably nearly as great as that of the
+driver of the chariot. He was privileged to stand immediately behind the
+monarch on grand occasions, so carrying in his left hand the weapon from
+which he derived his appellation. The quiver-bearer had the next place.
+Both wore the Median costume--the _candys_, or flowing robe, the girdle,
+the high shoe, and the stiff fluted cap, or, perhaps, occasionally the
+simple fillet. Sometimes the two offices would seem to have been held
+by the same person, unless we are to attribute this appearance, where
+it occurs, to the economy of the artist, who may have wished to save
+himself the trouble of drawing two separate figures. [PLATE XXXIII.,
+Fig. 5.]
+
+The parasol-bearer was attired as the bow and quiver bearers,
+except that he was wholly unarmed, and had the fillet for his proper
+head-dress. Though not a military officer, he accompanied the monarch in
+his expeditions, since in the midst of war there might be occasions of
+state when his presence would be convenient. The officer who bore the
+royal fan and handkerchief had generally the same costume; but sometimes
+his head was enveloped in a curious kind of cowl or muffler, which
+covered the whole of it except the forehead, the eyes, the nose, the
+mouth, and the upper portion of the cheeks. [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIV.]
+
+
+The fan, or fly-chaser, had a long straight handle, ornamented with
+a sort of beading, which held a brush of some springy fibrous matter.
+[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 4.] The bearer, whose place was directly behind the
+monarch, held his implement, which bent forward gracefully, nearly at
+arm's length over his master's head.
+
+It would seem that occasionally the bearer of the handkerchief
+laid aside his fly-chaser, and assumed in lieu of it a small bottle
+containing perfumery. [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 4.] In a sculptured tablet at
+Persepolis, given by Ker Porter, an attendant in the Median robe, with a
+fillet upon his head, who bears the handkerchief in the usual way in his
+left hand, carries in the palm of his right what seems to be a bottle,
+not-unlike the scent-bottle of a modern lady. It has always been an
+Oriental custom to wash the hands before meals, and the rich commonly
+mix some perfumery or other with the water. We may presume that this
+was the practice at the Persian Court, and that the Great King therefore
+took care to have an officer, who should at all times be ready to
+provide his guests, or himself, with the scent which was most rare or
+most fashionable.
+
+The Persians seem to have been connoisseurs in scents. We are told that,
+when the royal tiara was not in wear, it was laid up carefully with a
+mixture of myrrh and _labyzus_, to give it an agreeable odor. Unguents
+were thought to have been a Persian invention, and at any rate were most
+abundantly used by the upper classes of the nation. The monarch applied
+to his own person an ointment composed of the fat of lions, palm wine,
+saffron, and the herb helianthes, which was considered to increase the
+beauty of the complexion. He carried with him, even when he went to the
+wars, a case of choice unguents; and such a treasure fell into the hands
+of Alexander, with the rest of Darius's camp equipage, at Arbela. It may
+be suspected that the "royal ointment" of the Parthian kings, composed
+of cinnamon, spikenard, myrrh, cassia, gum styrax, saffron, cardamum,
+wine, honey, and sixteen other ingredients, was adopted from the
+Persians, who were far more likely than the rude Parthians to have
+invented so recondite a mixture. Nor were scents used only in this form
+by the ingenious people of whom we are speaking. Arabia was required
+to furnish annually to the Persian crown a thousand talents' weight of
+frankincense; and there is reason to believe that this rare spice was
+largely employed about the Court, since the walls of Persepolis have
+several representations of censers, which are sometimes carried in
+the hands of an attendant, while sometimes they stand on the ground
+immediately in front of the Great King.321 [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 2.]
+
+The box or vase in which the Persians commonly kept their unguents was
+of alabaster. This stone, which abounded in the country, was regarded as
+peculiarly suited for holding ointments, not only by the Persians, but
+also by the Egyptians, the Greeks, and (probably) the Assyrians. The
+Egyptian variety of stone seems to have been especially valued; and
+vases appear to have been manufactured in that country for the use of
+the Persian monarch, which were transmitted to the Court, and became
+part of the toilet furniture of the palace.330 [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 3.]
+
+Among the officers of the Court, less closely attached to the person of
+the monarch than those above enumerated, may be mentioned the steward
+of the household; the groom or master of the horse; the chief eunuch,
+or keeper of the women; the king's "eyes" and "ears," persons whose
+business it was to keep him informed on all matters of importance;
+his scribes or secretaries, who wrote his letters and his edicts; his
+messengers, who went his errands; his ushers, who introduced strangers
+to him; his "tasters," who tried the various dishes set before him lest
+they should be poisoned; his cupbearers who handed him his wine, and
+tasted it; his chamberlains, who assisted him to bed; and his musicians,
+who amused him with song and harp. Besides these, the Court comprised
+various classes of guards, and also doorkeepers, huntsmen, grooms,
+cooks, and other domestic servants in great abundance, together with
+a vast multitude of visitors and guests, princes, nobles, captives of
+rank, foreign refugees, ambassadors, travellers. We are assured that
+the king fed daily within the precincts of his palace as many as fifteen
+thousand persons, and that the cost of each day's food was four hundred
+talents. A thousand beasts were slaughtered for each repast, besides
+abundance of feathered game and poultry. The beasts included not only
+sheep, goats, and oxen, but also stags, asses, horses, and camels. Among
+the feathered delicacies were poultry, geese, and ostriches.
+
+The monarch himself rarely dined with his guests. For the most part he
+was served alone. Sometimes he admitted to his table the queen and two
+or three of his children. Sometimes, at a "banquet of wine," a certain
+number of privileged boon companions were received, who drank in the
+royal presence, not, however, of the same wine, nor on the same terms.
+
+The monarch reclined on a couch with golden feet, and sipped the rich
+wine of Helbon; the guests drank an inferior beverage, seated upon the
+floor. At a great banquet, it was usual to divide the guests into two
+classes. Those of lower degree were entertained in an outer court or
+chamber to which the public had access, while such as were of higher
+rank entered the private apartments, and drew near to the king. Here
+they were feasted in a chamber opposite to the king's chamber, which had
+a curtain drawn across the door, concealing him from their gaze, but not
+so thick as to hide them from their entertainer. Occasionally, on some
+very special occasion, as, perhaps, on the Royal birthday, or other
+great festival, the king presided openly at the banquet, drinking and
+discoursing with his lords, and allowing the light of his countenance to
+shine freely upon a large number of guests, whom, on these occasions,
+he treated as if they were of the same flesh and blood with himself.
+Couches of gold and silver were spread for all, and "royal wine in
+abundance" was served to them in golden goblets. On these, and, indeed,
+on all occasions, the guests, if they liked, carried away any portion
+of the food set before them which they did not consume at the time,
+conveying it to their homes, where it served to support their families.
+
+The architecture of the royal palace will be discussed in another
+chapter; but a few words may be said in this place with respect to its
+furniture and general appearance. The pillared courts and halls of
+the vast edifices which the Achaemenian monarchs raised at Susa and
+Persepolis would have had a somewhat bare and cold aspect, if it had not
+been for their internal fittings. The floors were paved with stones
+of various hues, blue, white, black, and red, arranged doubtless into
+patterns, and besides were covered in places with carpeting. The spaces
+between the pillars were filled with magnificent hangings, white green,
+and violet, which were fastened with cords of fine linen (?) and purple
+to silver rings and pillars of marble, screening the guests from sight,
+while they did not too much exclude the balmy summer breeze. The walls
+of the apartments were covered with plates of gold. All the furniture
+was rich and costly. The golden throne of the monarch stood under an
+embroidered canopy or awning supported by four pillars of gold inlaid
+with precious stones. [PLATE XXXV.] Couches resplendent with silver and
+gold filled the rooms. The private chamber of the monarch was adorned
+with a number of objects, not only rich and splendid, but valuable as
+productions of high art. Here, impending over the royal bed, was the
+golden vine, the work of Theodore of Samos, where the grapes were
+imitated by means of precious stones, each of enormous value. Here,
+probably, was the golden plane-tree, a worthy companion to the
+vine, though an uncourtly Greek declared it was too small to shade a
+grasshopper. Here, finally, was a bowl of solid gold, another work
+of the great Samian metallurgist, more precious for its artistic
+workmanship than even for its material.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXV.]
+
+
+Nothing has hitherto been said of the Royal harem or seraglio, which,
+however, as a feature of the Court always important, and ultimately
+preponderating over all others, claims a share of our attention. In the
+early times, it would appear that the Persian kings were content with
+three or four wives, and a moderate number of concubines. Of the wives
+there was always one who held the most exalted place, to whom alone
+appertained the title of "Queen," and who was regarded as "wife" in a
+different sense from the others. Such was Atossa to Darius Hystaspis,
+Amestris to Xerxes, Statira to Darius Codomannus. Such, too, were Vashti
+and Esther to the prince, whoever he was, whose deeds are recorded in
+Scripture under the name of Ahasuerus. The chief wife, or Queen-Consort,
+was privileged to wear on her head a royal tiara or crown. She was
+the acknowledged head of the female apartments or Gynaeceum, and the
+concubines recognized her dignity by actual prostration. On great
+occasions, when the king entertained the male part of the Court, she
+feasted all the females in her own part of the palace. She had a
+large revenue of her own, assigned her, not so much by the will of her
+husband, as by an established law or custom. Her dress was splendid,
+and she was able to indulge freely that love of ornament of which few
+Oriental women are devoid. Though legally subject to her husband as much
+as the meanest of his slaves, she could venture on liberties which would
+have been fatal to almost any one else, and often, by her influence over
+the monarch, possessed a very considerable share of power.
+
+The status of the other wives was very inferior to this; and it is
+difficult to see how such persons were really in a position much
+superior to that of the concubines. As daughters of the chief
+nobles--for the king could only choose a wife within a narrow
+circle--they had, of course, a rank and dignity independent of that
+acquired by marriage; but otherwise they must have been almost on a par
+with those fair inmates of the Gynaeceum who had no claim even to
+the name of consort. Each wife had probably a suite of apartments to
+herself, and a certain number of attendants--eunuchs, and tirewomen--at
+her disposal; but the inferior wives saw little of the king, being only
+summoned each in their turn to share his apartment, and had none of the
+privileges which made the position of chief wife so important.
+
+The concubines seem to have occupied a distinct part of the Gynaeceum,
+called "the second house of the women." They were in the special charge
+of one of the eunuchs, and were no doubt kept under strict surveillance.
+The Empire was continually searched for beautiful damsels to fill the
+harem, a constant succession being required, as none shared the royal
+couch more than once, unless she attracted the monarch's regard very
+particularly. In the later times of the Empire, the number of the
+concubines became enormous, amounting (according to one authority) to
+three hundred and twenty-nine, (according to another) to three hundred
+and sixty. They accompanied the king both in his wars and in his hunting
+expeditions. It was a part of their duty to sing and play for the royal
+delectation; and this task, according to one author, they had to perform
+during the whole of each night. It is a more probable statement that
+they entertained the king and queen with music while they dined, one of
+them leading, and the others singing and playing in concert.
+
+The Gynaeceum--in the Susa palace, at any rate--was a building distinct
+from the general edifice, separated from the "king's house" by a court.
+It was itself composed of at least three sets of apartments--viz.
+apartments for the virgins who had not yet gone into the king,
+apartments for the concubines, and apartments for the Queen-Consort and
+the other wives. These different portions were under the supervision
+of different persons. Two eunuchs of distinction had the charge
+respectively of the "first" and of the "second house of the women." The
+Queen-Consort was, at any rate nominally, paramount in the third, her
+authority extending over all its inmates, male and female.
+
+Sometimes there was in the Gynaeceum a personage even more exalted than
+any which have as yet been mentioned. The mother of the reigning prince,
+if she outlived his father, held a position at the Court of her son
+beyond that even of his Chief Wife. She kept the ensigns of royalty
+which she had worn during the reign of her husband; and wielded, as
+Queen-Mother, a far weightier and more domineering authority than she
+ever exercised as Queen-Consort. The habits of reverence and obedience,
+in which the boy had been reared, retained commonly their power over the
+man; and the monarch who in public ruled despotically over millions
+of men, succumbed, within the walls of the seraglio, to the yoke of a
+woman, whose influence he was too weak to throw off. The Queen-Mother
+had her seat at the royal table whenever the king dined with his wife;
+and, while the wife sat below, she sat above the monarch. She had a
+suite of eunuchs distinct from those of her son. Ample revenues were
+secured to her, and were completely at her disposal. She practically
+exercised--though she could not perhaps legally claim--a power of life
+and death. She screened offenders from punishment, procuring for them
+the royal pardon, or sheltering them in her own apartments; and she
+poisoned, or openly executed, those who provoked her jealousy or
+resentment.
+
+The service of the harem, so far as it could not be fitly performed by
+women, was committed to eunuchs. Each legitimate wife--as well as the
+Queen-Mother--had a number of these unfortunates among her attendants;
+and the king intrusted the house of the concubines, and also that of the
+virgins, to the same class of persons. His own attendants seem likewise
+to have been chiefly eunuchs. In the later times, the eunuchs acquired
+a vast political authority, and appear to have then filled all the chief
+offices of state. They were the king's advisers in the palace, and his
+generals in the field. They superintended the education of the young
+princes, and found it easy to make them their tools. The plots and
+conspiracies, the executions and assassinations, which disfigure the
+later portion of the Persian annals, maybe traced chiefly to their
+intrigues and ambition. But the early Persian annals are free from these
+horrors; and it is clear that the power of the eunuchs was, during this
+period, kept within narrow bounds. We hear little of them in authentic
+history till the reign of Xerxes. It is remarkable that the Persepolitan
+sculptures, abounding as they do in representations of Court life, of
+the officers and attendants who approached at all closely to the person
+of the monarch, contain not a single figure of a eunuch in their entire
+range. We may gather from this that there was at any rate a marked
+difference between the Assyrian and the early Persian Court in the
+position which eunuchs occupied at them respectively: we should not,
+however, be justified in going further and questioning altogether the
+employment of eunuchs by the Persian monarchs during the early period,
+since their absence from the sculptures may be accounted for on other
+grounds.
+
+It is peculiarly noticeable in the Persian sculptures and inscriptions
+that they carry to excess that reserve which Orientals have always
+maintained with regard to women. The inscriptions are wholly devoid
+of all reference to the softer sex, and the sculptures give us no
+representation of a female. In Persia, at the present day, it is
+regarded as a gross indecorum to ask a man after his wife; and anciently
+it would seem that the whole sex fell under a law of taboo, which
+required that, whatever the real power and influence of women, all
+public mention of them, as well as all representations of the female
+form, should be avoided. If this were so, it must of course still more
+have been the rule that the women--or, at any rate, those of the upper
+classes--should not be publicly seen. Hence the indignant refusal of
+Vashti to obey the command of King Aha-suerus to show herself to his
+Court. Hence, too, the law which made it a capital offence to address or
+touch one of the royal concubines or even to pass their litters upon
+the road. The litters of women were always curtained; and when the Queen
+Statira rode in hers with the curtains drawn, it was a novelty which
+attracted general attention, as a relaxation of the ordinary etiquette,
+though only females were allowed to come near her. Married women
+might not even see their nearest male relatives, as their fathers and
+brothers; the unmarried had, it is probable, a little more liberty.
+
+As the employment of eunuchs at the Persian Court was mainly in the
+harem, and in offices connected therewith, it is no wonder that
+they shared, to some extent, in the law of taboo, which forbade the
+representation of women. Their proper place was in the female courts and
+apartments, or in close attendance upon the litters, when members of
+the seraglio travelled, or took the air--not in the throne-room, or the
+antechambers, or the outer courts of the palace, which alone furnished
+the scenes regarded as suitable for representation.
+
+Of right, the position at the Persian Court immediately below that of
+the king belonged to the members of certain privileged families. Besides
+the royal family itself--or clan of the Achaemenidae--there were
+six great houses which had a rank superior to that of all the other
+grandees. According to Herodotus these houses derived their special
+dignity from the accident that their heads had been fellow-conspirators
+with Darius Hystaspis; but there is reason to suspect that the rank
+of the families was precedent to the conspiracy in question, certain
+families conspiring because they were great, and not becoming great
+because they conspired. At any rate, from the time of Darius I.,
+there seem to have been seven great families, including that of the
+Achaemenidae, whose chiefs had the privilege of free communication
+with the monarch, and from which he was legally bound to choose his
+legitimate wives. The chiefs appear to have been known as "the Seven
+Princes," or "the Seven Counsellors," of the king. They sat next to him
+at public festivals; they were privileged to tender him their advice,
+whenever they pleased; they recommended important measures of state, and
+were, in part, responsible for them; they could demand admission to the
+monarch's presence at any time, unless he were in the female apartments;
+they had precedence on all great occasions of ceremony, and enjoyed
+a rank altogether independent of office. Sometimes--perhaps most
+commonly--they held office; but they rather conferred a lustre on the
+position which they consented to fill, than derived any additional
+splendor from it.
+
+It does not appear that the chiefs of the seven great families had any
+peculiar insignia. Officers of the Court, on the contrary, seem to have
+always carried, as badges marking their position, either wands about
+three feet in length, or an ornament resembling a lotos blossom, which
+is sometimes seen in the hands of the monarch himself. Such officers
+wore, at their pleasure, either the long Median robe and the fluted cap,
+or the close-fitting Persian tunic and trousers, with the loose felt
+[Greek name]. All had girdles, in which sometimes a dagger was placed;
+and all had collars of gold about their necks, and earrings of gold in
+their ears. The Median robes were of various colors--scarlet, purple,
+crimson, dark gray, etc. Over the Persian tunic a sleeved cloak, or
+great coat, reaching to the ankles, was sometimes worn; this garment was
+fastened by strings in front, and descended loosely from the shoulders,
+no use being commonly made of the sleeves, which hung empty at the
+wearer's side. [PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVI.]
+
+
+An elaborate Court ceremonial was the natural accompaniment of the ideas
+with respect to royalty embodied in the Persian system. Excepting
+the "Seven Princes," no one could approach the royal person unless
+introduced by a Court usher, Prostration--the attitude of worship--was
+required of all as they entered the presence. The hands of the persons
+introduced had to be hidden in their sleeves so long as their audience
+lasted. In crossing the Palace Courts it was necessary to abstain
+carefully from touching the carpet which was laid for the king to walk
+on. Coming into the king's presence unsummoned was a capital crime,
+punished by the attendants with instant death, unless the monarch
+himself, as a sign that he pardoned the intrusion, held out towards the
+culprit the golden sceptre which he bore in his hands. It was also a
+capital offence to sit down, even unknowingly, upon the royal throne;
+and it was a grave misdemeanor to wear one of the king's cast-off
+dresses. Etiquette was almost as severe on the monarch himself as on
+his subjects. He was required to live chiefly in seclusion; to eat his
+meals, for the most part, alone; never to go on foot beyond the palace
+walls; never to revoke an order once given, however much he might regret
+it; never to draw back from a promise, whatever ill results he might
+anticipate from its performance. To maintain the quasi-divine character
+which attached to him it was necessary that he should seem infallible,
+immutable, and wholly free from the weakness of repentance.
+
+As some compensation for the restrictions laid upon him, the Persian
+king had the sole enjoyment of certain luxuries. The wheat of Assos was
+sent to the Court to furnish him with bread, and the vines of Helbon
+were cultivated for the special purpose of supplying him with wine.
+Water was conveyed to Susa for his use from distant streams regarded as
+specially sweet and pure; and in his expeditions he was accompanied, by
+a train of wagons, which were laden with silver flasks, filled from the
+clear stream of the Choaspes. The oasis of Ammon contributed the salt
+with which he seasoned his food. All the delicacies that the Empire
+anywhere produced were accumulated on his board, for the supply of which
+each province was proud to send its best and choicest products.
+
+The chief amusements in which the Great King indulged were hunting and
+playing at dice. Darius Hystaspis, who followed the chase with such
+ardor as on one occasion to dislocate his ankle in the pursuit of a wild
+beast, had himself represented on his signet-cylinder as engaged in a
+lion-hunt. From this representation, we learn that the Persian monarchs,
+like the Assyrian, pursued the king of beasts in their chariots, and
+generally despatched him by means of arrows. Seated in a light car,
+and attended by a single unarmed charioteer, they invaded the haunts of
+these fiercest of brutes, rousing them from their lairs--probably with
+Indian hounds, and chasing them at full speed if they fled, or, if they
+faced the danger, attacking them with arrows or with the javelin. [PLATE
+XXXVI., Fig. 2.] Occasionally the monarch might indulge in this sport
+alone; but generally he was (it seems) accompanied by some of his
+courtiers, who shared the pleasures of the chase with him on the
+condition that they never ventured to let fly their weapons before he
+had discharged his. If they disregarded this rule they were liable
+to capital punishment, and might esteem themselves fortunate if they
+escaped with exile.
+
+Besides lions, the Persian monarch chased, it is probable, stages,
+antelopes, wild asses, wild boars, bears, wild sheep, and leopards.
+[PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 3.] These animals all abounded in the neighborhood
+of the royal palaces, and they are enumerated by Xenophon among the
+beasts hunted by Cyrus. The mode of chasing the wild ass was for the
+horsemen to scatter themselves over the plain, and to pursue the
+animal in turns, one taking up the chase when the horse of another was
+exhausted. The speed of the creature is so great that no horse with
+a rider on his back can long keep pace with him; and thus relays were
+necessary to tire him out, and enable the hunters to bring him within
+the range of their weapons.
+
+When game was scarce in the open country, or when the kings were
+too indolent to seek it in its native haunts, they indulged their
+inclination for sport by chasing the animals which they kept in their
+own "paradises." These were walled enclosures of a large size, well
+wooded, and watered with sparkling streams, in which were bred or kept
+wild beasts of various kinds, chiefly of the more harmless sorts, as
+stags, antelopes, and wild sheep. These the kings pursued and shot with
+arrows, or brought down with the javelin; but the sport was regarded as
+tame, and not to be compared with hunting in the open field.
+
+Within the palace the Persian monarchs are said to have amused
+themselves with dice. They played, it is probable, chiefly with their
+near relatives, as their wives, or the Queen-Mother. The stakes, as was
+to be expected, ran high, as much as a thousand darics (nearly L 1100.)
+being sometimes set on a single throw. Occasionally they played for the
+persons of their slaves, eunuchs, and others, who, when lost, became the
+absolute property of the winner.
+
+Another favorite royal amusement was carving or planing wood. According
+to AElian, the Persian king, when he took a journey, always employed
+himself, as he sat in his carriage, in this way; and Ctesias speaks of
+the occupation as pursued also within the walls of the palace. Manual
+work of this kind has often been the refuge of those rulers, who, sated
+with pleasure and devoid of literary tastes, have found time hang heavy
+upon their hands.
+
+In literature a Persian king seems rarely to have taken any pleasure at
+all. Occasionally, to beguile the weary hours, a monarch may have had
+the "Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Persia and Media" read
+before him; but the kings themselves never opened a book, or studied any
+branch of science or learning. The letters, edicts, and probably even
+the inscriptions, of the monarch were the composition of the Court
+scribes, who took their orders from the king or his ministers, and
+clothed them in their own language. They did not even call upon their
+master to sign his name to a parchment; his seal, on which his name was
+engraved, sufficiently authenticated all proclamations and edicts.
+
+Among the more serious occupations of the monarch were the holding of
+councils, the reviewing of troops, the hearing of complaints, and the
+granting or refusing of redress, the assignment of rewards, perhaps, in
+some cases, the trying of causes, and, above all, the general direction
+of the civil administration and government of the Empire. An energetic
+king probably took care to hear all the reports which were sent up to
+the Court by the various officials employed in the actual government of
+the numerous provinces, as well as those sent in by the persons who from
+time to time inspected, on the part of the Crown, the condition of this
+or that satrapy. Having heard and considered these reports, and perhaps
+taken advice upon them, such a monarch would give clear directions as
+to the answers to be sent, which would be embodied in despatches by his
+secretaries, and then read over to him, before he affixed his seal to
+them. The concerns of an empire so vast as that of Persia would have
+given ample employment for the greater part of the day to any monarch
+who was determined not only to reign, but to govern. Among the Persian
+sovereigns there seems to have been a few who had sufficient energy and
+self-denial to devote themselves habitually to the serious duties of
+their office. Generally, however, the cares of government were devolved
+upon some favorite adviser, a relative, or a eunuch, who was entrusted
+by the monarch with the entire conduct of affairs, in order that he
+might give himself up to sensual pleasures, to the sports of the field,
+or to light and frivolous amusements.
+
+The passion for building, which we have found so strong in Assyria and
+Babylonia, possessed, but in a minor degree, a certain number of the
+Persian monarchs. The simplicity of their worship giving little scope
+for architectural grandeur in the buildings devoted to religion, they
+concentrated their main efforts upon the construction of palaces and
+tombs. The architectural character of these works will be considered in
+a later chapter. It is sufficient to note here that a good deal of the
+time and attention of many monarchs were directed to these objects; and
+particularly it is interesting to remark, that, notwithstanding their
+worldly greatness, and the flattering voices of their subjects, which
+were continually bidding them "live for ever," the Persian kings were
+quite aware of the frail tenure by which man holds his life, and, while
+they were still in vigorous health, constructed their own tombs.
+
+It was an important principle of the Magian religion that the body
+should not after death be allowed to mingle with, and so pollute, any
+one of the four elements. Either from a regard for this superstition, or
+from the mere instinctive desire to preserve the lifeless clay as long
+as possible, the Persians entombed their kings in the following way.
+The body was placed in a golden coffin, which was covered with a
+close-fitting lid, and deposited either in a massive building erected to
+serve at once as a tomb and a monument, or in a chamber cut out of some
+great mass of solid rock, at a considerable elevation above its base. In
+either case, the entrance into the tomb was carefully closed, after the
+body had been deposited in it, by a block or blocks of stone. [PLATE
+XXXVII., Fig. 1.] Inside the tomb were placed, together with the coffin,
+a number of objects, designed apparently for the king's use in the other
+world, as rich cloaks and tunics, trousers, purple robes, collars of
+gold, earrings of gold, set with gems, daggers, carpets, goblets,
+and hangings. Generally the tomb was ornamented with sculptures, and
+sometimes, though rarely, it had an inscription (or inscriptions) upon
+it, containing the name and titles of the monarch whose remains reposed
+within.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVII.]
+
+
+If the tomb were a building, and not rock-hewn, the ground in the
+vicinity was formed into a park or garden, which was planted with all
+manner of trees. Within the park, at some little distance from the
+tomb, was a house, which formed the residence of a body of priests, who
+watched over the safety of the sepulchre.
+
+The Greeks seem to have believed that divine honors were sometimes paid
+to a monarch after his decease; but the spirit of the Persian religion
+was so entirely opposed to any such observance that it is most probable
+the Greeks were mistaken. Observing that sacrifices were offered once a
+month in the vicinity of some of the royal tombs, they assumed that
+the object of the cult was the monarch himself, whereas it was no doubt
+really addressed either to Ormazd or to Mithras. The Persians cannot
+rightly be accused of the worship of dead men, a superstition from which
+both the Zoroastrian and the Magian systems were entirely free.
+
+From this account of the Persian monarchs and their Court, we may
+now turn to a subject which moderns regard as one of much greater
+interest--the general condition, manners, and customs of the Persian
+people. Our information on these points is unfortunately far less full
+than on the subject which we have been recently discussing, but still it
+is perhaps sufficient to give us a tolerably complete notion of the real
+character of the nation.
+
+The Persians, according to Herodotus, were divided into ten tribes, of
+which four were nomadic and three agricultural. The nomadic were the
+Dai, the Mardi, the Dropici, and the Sagartii; the agricultural were
+the Panthilaei, the Derusisei, and the Germanii, or Carmanians. What the
+occupation of the other three tribes was Herodotus does not state;
+but, as one of them--the Pasargadae--was evidently the ruling class,
+consisting, therefore (it is probable), of land owners, who did not
+themselves till the soil, we may perhaps assume that all three occupied
+this position, standing in Persia somewhat--as the three tribes of
+Dorians stood to the other Greeks in the Peloponnese. If this were the
+case, the population would have been really divided broadly into the two
+classes of settled and nomade, whereof the former class was subdivided
+into those who were the lords of the soil, and those who cultivated it,
+either as farmers or as laborers, under them.
+
+The ordinary dress of the poorer class, whether agricultural or nomade,
+was probably the tunic and trousers of leather which have been already
+mentioned as the true national costume of the people. The costume was
+completed by a loose felt cap upon the head, a strap or belt round the
+waist, and a pair of high shoes upon the feet, tied in front with a
+string. [PLATE XXXVIII., Fig. 2.] In later times a linen or muslin rag
+replaced the felt cap, and the tunic was lengthened so as to reach half
+way between the knee and the ankle.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVIII.]
+
+
+The richer classes seem generally to have adopted the Median costume
+which was so prevalent at the Court. They wore long purple or flowered
+robes with loose hanging sleeves, flowered tunics reaching to the knee,
+also sleeved, embroidered trousers, tiaras, and shoes of a more elegant
+shape than the ordinary Persian. Nor was this the whole of their dress.
+Under their trousers they wore drawers, under their tunics shirts, on
+their hands gloves, and under their shoes socks or stockings--luxuries
+these, one and all, little known in the ancient world. The Persians
+were also, like most Orientals, extremely fond of ornaments. Men of rank
+carried, almost as a matter of course, massive chains or collars of gold
+about their necks, and bracelets of gold upon their arms. The sheaths
+and handles of their swords and daggers were generally of gold,
+sometimes, perhaps, studded with gems. Many of them wore earrings. Great
+expense was lavished on the trappings of the horses which they rode or
+drove; the bridle, or at least the bit, was often of solid gold, and the
+rest of the equipment was costly. Among the gems which were especially
+affected, the pearl held the first place. Besides being set in the
+ordinary way, it was bored and strung, in order that it might be used
+for necklaces, bracelets, and ankles. Even children had sometimes golden
+ornaments, which were preferred when the gold was of a reddish color.
+
+Very costly and rich too was the furniture of the better class of
+houses. The tables were plated or inlaid with silver and gold. Splendid
+couches, spread with gorgeous coverlets, invited the inmates to repose
+at their ease; and, the better to insure their comfort, the legs of the
+couches were made to rest upon carpets, which were sufficiently elastic
+to act as a sort of spring, rendering the couches softer and more
+luxurious than they would otherwise have been. Gold and silver plate,
+especially in the shape of drinking-cups, was largely displayed in all
+the wealthy mansions, each household priding itself on the show which it
+could make of the precious metals.
+
+In respect of eating and drinking, the Persians, even better sort, were
+in the earlier times noted for their temperance and sobriety. Their
+ordinary food was wheaten bread, barley-cakes, and meat simply roasted
+or boiled, which they seasoned with salt and with bruised cress-seed, a
+substitute for mustard. The sole drink in which they indulged was water.
+Moreover, it was their habit to take one meal only each day. The poorer
+kind of people were contented with even a simpler diet, supporting
+themselves, to a great extent, on the natural products of the soil, as
+dates, figs, wild pears, acorns, and the fruit of the terebinth-tree.
+But these abstemious habits were soon laid aside, and replaced by luxury
+and self-indulgence, when the success of their arms had put it in their
+power to have the full and free gratification of all their desires and
+propensities. Then, although the custom of having but one meal in the
+day was kept up, the character of the custom was entirely altered by
+beginning the meal early and making it last till night. Not many sorts
+of meat were placed on the board, unless the occasion was a grand one;
+but course after course of the lighter kinds of food flowed on in
+an almost endless succession, intervals of some length being allowed
+between the courses to enable the guests to recover their appetites.
+Instead of water, wine became the usual beverage; each man prided
+himself on the quantity he could drink; and the natural result followed
+that most banquets terminated in general intoxication. Drunkenness even
+came to be a sort of institution. Once a year, at the feast of Mithras,
+the king of Persia, according to Duris, was bound to be drunk. A general
+practice arose of deliberating on all important affairs under the
+influence of wine, so that, in every household, when a family crisis
+impended, intoxication was a duty.
+
+The Persians ate, not only the meats which we are in the habit of
+consuming, but also the flesh of goats, horses, asses, and camels. The
+hump of the last-named animal is considered, even at the present day, a
+delicacy in many parts of the East; but in ancient Persia it would seem
+that the entire animal was regarded as fairly palatable. The horse
+and ass, which no one would touch in modern Persia, were thought,
+apparently, quite as good eating as the ox; and goats, which were far
+commoner than sheep, appeared, it is probable, oftener at table. The
+dietery of a grand house was further varied by the admission into it
+of poultry and game--the game including wild boars, stags, antelopes,
+bustards, and probably partridges; the poultry consisting of geese
+and chickens. Oysters and other fish were used largely as food by the
+inhabitants of the coast-region.
+
+Grades of society were strongly marked among the Persians; and the
+etiquette of the Court travelled down to the lowest ranks of the people.
+Well-known rules determined how each man was to salute his equal,
+his inferior, or his superior; and the observance of these rules was
+universal. Inferiors on meeting a decided superior prostrated themselves
+on the ground; equals kissed each other on the lips; persons nearly but
+not quite equals kissed each other's cheeks. The usual Oriental rules
+prevailed as to the intercourse of the sexes. Wives lived in strict
+seclusion within the walls of the Gynaeceum, or went abroad in litters,
+seeing no males except their sons, their husbands, and their husbands'
+eunuchs. Concubines had somewhat more freedom, appearing sometimes at
+banquets, when they danced, sang, and played to amuse the guests of
+their master.
+
+The Persian was allowed to marry several wives, and might maintain in
+addition as many concubines as he thought proper. Most of the richer
+class had a multitude of each, since every Persian prided himself on the
+number of his sons, and it is even said that an annual prize was given
+by the monarch to the Persian who could show most sons living. The
+concubines were not unfrequently Greeks, if we may judge by the case of
+the younger Cyrus, who took two Greek concubines with him when he made
+his expedition against his brother. It would seem that wives did
+not ordinarily accompany their husbands, when these went on military
+expeditions, but that concubines were taken to the wars by most Persians
+of consideration. Every such person had a litter at her disposal, and a
+number of female attendants, whose business it was to wait upon her and
+execute her orders.
+
+All the best authorities are agreed that great pains were taken by
+the Persians--or, at any rate, by those of the leading clans--in the
+education of their sons. During the first five years of his life the boy
+remained wholly with the women, and was scarcely, if at all, seen by his
+father. After that time his training commenced. He was expected to rise
+before dawn, and to appear at a certain spot, where he was exercised
+with other boys of his age in running, slinging stones, shooting with
+the bow, and throwing the javelin. At seven he was taught to ride, and
+soon afterwards he was allowed to begin to hunt. The riding included,
+not only the ordinary management of the horse, but the power of jumping
+on and off his back when he was at speed, and of shooting with the bow
+and throwing the javelin with unerring aim, while the horse was still at
+full gallop. The hunting was conducted by state-officers, who aimed at
+forming by its means in the youths committed to their charge all the
+qualities needed in war. The boys were made to bear extremes of heat
+and cold, to perform long marches, to cross rivers without wetting their
+weapons, to sleep in the open air at night, to be content with a single
+meal in two days, and to support themselves occasionally on the wild
+products of the country, acorns, wild pears, and the fruit of the
+terebinth-tree. On days when there was no hunting they passed their
+mornings in athletic exercises, and contests with the bow or the
+javelin, after which they dined simply on the plain food mentioned above
+as that of the men in the early times, and then employed themselves
+during the afternoon in occupations regarded as not illiberal--for
+instance, in the pursuits of agriculture, planting, digging for roots,
+and the like, or in the construction of arms and hunting implements,
+such as nets and springes. Hardy and temperate habits being secured
+by this training, the point of morals on which their preceptors mainly
+insisted was the rigid observance of truth. Of intellectual education
+they had but little. It seems to have been no part of the regular
+training of a Persian youth that he should learn to read. He was given
+religious notions and a certain amount of moral knowledge by means of
+legendary poems, in which the deeds of gods and heroes were set before
+him by his teachers, who recited or sung them in his presence, and
+afterwards required him to repeat what he had heard, or, at any rate,
+to give some account of it. This education continued for fifteen years,
+commencing when the boy was five, and terminating when he reached the
+age of twenty.
+
+The effect of this training was to render the Persian an excellent
+soldier and a most accomplished horseman. Accustomed from early boyhood
+to pass the greater part of every day in the saddle, he never felt so
+much at home as when mounted upon a prancing steed. On horseback he
+pursued the stag, the boar, the antelope, even occasionally the bear
+or the lion, and shot his arrows, or slung his stones, or hurled his
+javelin at them with deadly aim, never pausing for a moment in his
+career. [PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 2.] Only when the brute turned on his
+pursuers, and stood at bay, or charged them in its furious despair, they
+would sometimes descend from their coursers, and receive the attack,
+or deal the _coup de grace_ on foot, using for the purpose a short
+but strong hunting-spear. [PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 3.] The chase was the
+principal delight of the upper class of Persians, so long as the ancient
+manners were kept up, and continued an occupation in which the bolder
+spirits loved to indulge long after decline had set in, and the advance
+of luxury had changed, to a great extent, the character of the nation.
+
+At fifteen years of age the Persian was considered to have attained to
+manhood, and was enrolled in the ranks of the army, continuing liable to
+military service from that time till he reached the age of fifty. Those
+of the highest rank became the body-guard of the king, and these formed
+the garrison of the capital. They were a force of not less than fourteen
+or fifteen thousand men. Others, though liable to military service, did
+not adopt arms as their profession, but attached themselves to the Court
+and looked to civil employment, as satraps, secretaries, attendants,
+ushers, judges, inspectors, messengers. A portion, no doubt, remained
+in the country districts, and there followed those agricultural pursuits
+which the Zoroastrian religion regarded as in the highest degree
+honorable. But the bulk of the nation must, from the time of the great
+conquests, have passed their lives mainly, like the Roman legionaries
+under the Empire, in garrison duty in the provinces. The entire
+population of Persia Proper can scarcely have exceeded two millions. Not
+more than one fourth of this number would be males between the ages
+of fifteen and fifty. This body of 500,000 men, besides supplying the
+official class at the Court and throughout the provinces, and also
+furnishing to Persia Proper those who did the work of its cultivation,
+had to supply to the whole Empire those large and numerous garrisons on
+whose presence depended the maintenance of the Persian dominion in every
+province that had been conquered. According to Herodotus, the single
+country of Egypt contained, in his day, a standing army of 120,000
+Persians; and, although this was no doubt an exceptional case, Egypt
+being more prone to revolt than any other satrapy, yet there is abundant
+evidence that elsewhere, in almost every part of the Empire, large
+bodies of troops were regularly maintained; troops which are always
+characterized as "Persians." We may suspect that under the name were
+included the kindred nation of the Medes, and perhaps some other Arian
+races, as the Hyrcanians, and the Bactrians, for it is difficult to
+conceive that such a country as Persia Proper could alone have kept up
+the military force which the Empire required for its preservation;
+but to whatever extent the standing army was supplemented from these
+sources, Persia must still have furnished the bulk of it; and the
+demands of this service must have absorbed, at the very least, one third
+if not one half of the adult male population.
+
+For trade and commerce the Persians were wont to express extreme
+contempt. The richer classes made it their boast that they neither
+bought nor sold, being supplied (we must suppose) from their estates,
+and by their slaves and dependents, with all that they needed for the
+common purposes of life. Persians of the middle rank would condescend to
+buy, but considered it beneath them to sell; while only the very lowest
+and poorest were actual artisans and traders. Shops were banished
+from the more public parts of the towns; and thus such commercial
+transactions as took place were veiled in what was regarded as a decent
+obscurity. The reason assigned for this low estimation of trade was that
+shopping and bargaining involved the necessity of falsehood.
+
+According to Quintus Curtius, the Persian ladies had the same objection
+to soil their hands with work that the men had to dirty theirs with
+commerce. The labors of the loom, which no Grecian princess regarded
+as unbecoming her rank, were despised by all Persian women except the
+lowest; and we may conclude that the same idle and frivolous gossip
+which resounds all day in the harems of modern Iran formed the main
+occupation of the Persian ladies in the time of the Empire.
+
+With the general advance of luxury under Xerxes and his successors, of
+which something has been already said, there were introduced into the
+Empire a number of customs of an effeminate and demoralizing character.
+From the earliest times the Persians seem to have been very careful of
+their beards and hair, arranging the latter in a vast number of short
+crisp curls, and partly curling the former, partly training it to hang
+straight from the chin. After a while, not content with this degree
+of care for their personal appearance, they proceeded to improve it by
+wearing false hair in addition to the locks which nature had given them,
+by the use of cosmetics to increase the delicacy of their complexions,
+and by the application of a coloring matter to the upper and lower
+eyelids, for the purpose of giving to the eye an appearance of greater
+size and beauty. They employed a special class of servants to perform
+these operations of the toilet, whom the Greeks called "adorners". Their
+furniture increased, not merely in splendor, but in softness; their
+floors were covered with carpets, their beds with numerous and delicate
+coverlets; they could not sit upon the ground unless a cloth was first
+spread upon it; they would not mount a horse until he was so caparisoned
+that the seat on his back was softer even than their couches. At the
+same time they largely augmented the number and variety of their viands
+and of their sauces, always seeking after novel delicacies, and offering
+rewards to the inventors of "new pleasures." A useless multitude of lazy
+menials was maintained in all rich households, each servant confining
+himself rigidly to a single duty, and porters, bread-makers, cooks,
+cup-bearers, water-bearers, waiters at table, chamberlains, "awakers,"
+"adorners," all distinct from one another, crowded each noble mansion,
+helping forward the general demoralization. It was probably at this
+comparatively late period that certain foreign customs of a sadly
+lowering character were adopted by this plastic and impressible people,
+who learnt the vice of paederasty from the Greeks, and adopted from the
+Assyrians the worship of Beltis, with its accompaniment of religious
+prostitution.
+
+On the whole the Persians may seem to have enjoyed an existence free
+from care, and only too prosperous to result in the formation of a high
+and noble character. They were the foremost Asiatic people of their
+time, and were fully conscious of their pre-eminency. A small ruling
+class in a vast Empire, they enjoyed almost a monopoly of office, and
+were able gradually to draw to themselves much of the wealth of the
+provinces. Allowed the use of arms, and accustomed to lord it over the
+provincials, they themselves maintained their self-respect, and showed,
+even towards the close of their Empire, a spirit and an energy seldom
+exhibited by any but a free people. But there was nevertheless a dark
+side to the picture--a lurking danger which must have thrown a shadow
+over the lives of all the nobler and richer of the nation, unless
+they were utterly thoughtless. The irresponsible authority and cruel
+dispositions of the kings, joined to the recklessness with which they
+delegated the power of life and death to their favorites, made it
+impossible for any person of eminence in the whole Empire to feel sure
+that he might not any day be seized and accused of a crime, or even
+without the form of an accusation be taken and put to death, after
+suffering the most excruciating tortures. To produce this result, it was
+enough to have failed through any cause whatever in the performance of
+a set task, or to have offended, even by doing him too great a service,
+the monarch or one of his favorites. Nay, it was enough to have
+provoked, through a relation or a connection, the anger or jealousy of
+one in favor at Court; for the caprice of an Oriental would sometimes
+pass over the real culprit and exact vengeance from one quite
+guiltless--even, it may be, unconscious--of the offence given.
+Theoretically, the Persian was never to be put to death for a single
+crime; or at least he was not to suffer until the king had formally
+considered the whole tenor of his life, and struck a balance between his
+good and his evil deeds to see which outweighed the other. Practically,
+the monarch slew with his own hand any one whom he chose, or, if
+he preferred it, ordered him to instant execution, without trial
+or inquiry. His wife and his mother indulged themselves in the same
+pleasing liberty of slaughter, sometimes obtaining his tacit consent to
+their proceedings, sometimes without consulting him. It may be said
+that the sufferers could at no time be very many in number, and that
+therefore no very wide-spread alarm can have been commonly felt; but
+the horrible nature of many of the punishments, and the impossibility
+of conjecturing on whom they might next fall, must be set against their
+infrequency; and it must be remembered that an awful horror, from which
+no precautions can save a man, though it happen to few, is more terrible
+than a score of minor perils, against which it is possible to guard.
+Noble Persians were liable to be beheaded, to be stoned to death, to be
+suffocated with ashes, to have their tongues torn out by the roots, to
+be buried alive, to be shot in mere wantonness, to be flayed and then
+crucified, to be buried all but the head, and to perish by the lingering
+agony of "the boat." If they escaped these modes of execution, they
+might be secretly poisoned, or they might be exiled, or transported for
+life. Their wives and daughters might be seized and horribly mutilated,
+or buried alive, or cut into a number of fragments. With these perils
+constantly impending over their heads, the happiness of the nobles can
+scarcely have been more real than that of Damocles upon the throne of
+Dionysius.
+
+In conclusion, we may notice as a blot upon the Persian character and
+system, the cruelty and barbarity which was exhibited, not only in these
+abnormal acts of tyranny and violence, but also in the regular and legal
+punishments which were assigned to crimes and offences. The criminal
+code, which--rightly enough--made death the penalty of murder, rape,
+treason, and rebellion, instead of stopping at this point, proceeded
+to visit with a like severity even such offences as deciding a cause
+wrongfully on account of a bribe, intruding without permission on the
+king's privacy, approaching near to one of his concubines, seating
+oneself, even accidentally, on the throne, and the like. The modes of
+execution were also, for the most part, unnecessarily cruel. Poisoners
+were punished by having their heads placed upon a broad stone, and then
+having their faces crushed, and their brains beaten out by repeated
+blows with another stone. Ravishers and rebels were put to death by
+crucifixion. The horrible punishment of "the boat" seems to have been no
+individual tyrant's cruel conception, but a recognized and legal form of
+execution. The same may be said also of burying alive. Again the Persian
+secondary punishments were for the most part exceedingly barbarous.
+Xenophon tells us, as a proof of the good government maintained by the
+younger Cyrus, in his satrapy, that under his sway it was common to see
+along all the most frequented roads numbers of persons who had had
+their hands or feet cut off, or their eyes put out, as a punishment
+for thieving and rascality. And other writers relate that similar
+mutilations were inflicted on rebels, and even on prisoners of war.
+It would seem, indeed, that mutilation and scourging were the ordinary
+forms of secondary punishment used by the Persians, who employed
+imprisonment solely for the safe custody of an accused person between
+his arrest and his execution, while they had recourse to transportation
+and exile only in the case of political offenders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. LANGUAGE AND WRITING.
+
+
+It has been intimated in the account of the Median Empire which was
+given in a former-volume that the language of the Persians, which was
+identical, or almost identical, with that of the Medes, belonged to the
+form of speech known to moderns as Indo-European. The characteristics of
+that form of speech are a certain number of common, or at least
+widely spread, roots, a peculiar mode of inflecting, together with
+a resemblance in the inflections, and a similarity of syntax or
+construction. Of the old Persian language the known roots are, almost
+without exception, kindred forms to roots already familiar to the
+philologist through the Sanscrit, or the Zend, or both; while many are
+of that more general type of which we have spoken--forms common to all,
+or most of the varieties of the Indo-European stock. To instance in a
+few very frequently recurring words--"father" is in old Persian (as
+in Sanscrit) _pitar_, which differs only in the vocalization from the
+Zendic _patar_, the Greek [ ], and the Latin _pater_, and of which
+cognate forms are the Gothic _fadar_, the German voter, the English
+_father_, and the Erse _athair_.
+
+     [See the html version for the following pages of this
+     chapter which is a section with hundreds of Greek
+     words.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 365]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 366]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 367]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 368]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 369]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 370]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 371]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 372]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 373]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 374]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 375]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 376]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 377]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 378]
+
+
+The ordinary Persian writing was identical with that which has been
+described in the second volume of this work as Median. A cuneiform
+alphabet, consisting of some thirty-six or thirty-seven forms,
+expressive of twenty-three distinct sounds, sufficed for the wants of
+the people, whose language was simple and devoid of phonetic luxuriance.
+Writing was from left to right, as with the Arian nations generally.
+Words were separated from one another by an oblique wedge; and were
+divided at any point at which the writer happened to reach the end of
+a line. Enclitics were joined without any break to the words which they
+accompanied.
+
+The Persian writing which has come down to us is almost entirely upon
+stone. It comprises various rock tablets, a number of inscriptions upon
+buildings, and a few short legends upon vases and cylinders. It is in
+every case incised or cut into the material. The letters are of various
+sizes, some (as those at Elwend) reaching a length of about two inches,
+others (those, for instance, on the vases) not exceeding the sixth of
+an inch. The inscriptions cover a space of at least a hundred and eighty
+years, commencing with Cyrus, and terminating with Artaxerxes Ochus,
+the successor of Mnemon. The style of the writing is, on the whole,
+remarkably uniform, the latter inscriptions containing only two
+characters unknown to the earlier times. Orthography, however, and
+grammar are in these later inscriptions greatly changed, the character
+of the changes being indicative of corruption and decline, unless,
+indeed, we are to ascribe them to mere ignorance on the part of the
+engravers.
+
+There can be little doubt that, besides the cuneiform character, which
+was only suited for inscriptions, the Persians employed a cursive
+writing for common literary purposes. Ctesias informs us that the royal
+archives were written on parchment; and there is abundant evidence that
+writing was an art perfectly familiar to the educated Persian. It might
+have been supposed that the Pehlevi, as the lineal descendant of the
+Old Persian language, would have furnished valuable assistance towards
+solving the question of what character the Persians employed commonly;
+but the alphabetic type of the Pehlevi inscriptions is evidently
+Semitic; and it would thus seem that the old national modes of writing
+had been completely lost before the establishment by Ardeshir, son of
+Babek, of the new Persian Empire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. ARCHITECTURE AND OTHER ARTS.
+
+
+If in the old world the fame of the Persians, as builders and artists,
+fell on the whole below that of the Assyrians and Babylonians--their
+instructors in art, no less than in letters and science--it was not so
+much that they had not produced works worthy of comparison with those
+which adorned Babylon and Nineveh, as that, boasting less antiquity and
+less originality than those primitive races, they did not strike in the
+same way the imagination of the lively Greeks, who moreover could not
+but feel a certain jealousy of artistic successes, which had rewarded
+the efforts of a living and rival people. It happened, moreover, that
+the Persian masterpieces were less accessible to the Greeks than the
+Babylonian, and hence there was actually less knowledge of their real
+character in the time when Greek literature was at its best. Herodotus
+and Xenophon, who impressed on their countrymen true ideas of the
+grandeur and magnificence of the Mesopotamian structures, never
+penetrated to Persia Proper, and perhaps never beheld a real Persian
+building. Ctesias, it is true, as a resident at the Achaemenian Court
+for seventeen years, must certainly have seen Susa and Ecbatana, if not
+even Persepolis, and he therefore must have been well acquainted with
+the character of Persian palaces; but, so far as appears from the
+fragments of his work which have come down to us, he said but little
+on the subject of these edifices. It was not until Alexander led his
+cohorts across the chain of Zagros to the high plateau beyond, that a
+proper estimate of the great Persian buildings could be made; and then
+the most magnificent of them all was scarcely seen before it was laid
+in ruins. The barbarous act of the great Macedonian conqueror, in
+committing the palace of Persepolis to the flames, tended to prevent
+a full recognition of the real greatness of Persian art even after the
+Greeks had occupied the country; but we find from this time a certain
+amount of acknowledgment of its merits--a certain number of passages,
+which, like that which forms the heading to this chapter, admit alike
+its grandeur and its magnificence.
+
+If, however, the ancients did less than justice to the efforts of the
+Persians in architecture, sculpture, and the kindred arts, moderns have,
+on the contrary, given them rather an undue prominence. From the
+middle of the seventeenth century, when Europeans first began freely to
+penetrate the East, the Persian ruins, especially those of Persepolis,
+drew the marked attention of travellers; and in times when the site of
+Babylon had attracted but scanty notice, and that of Nineveh and the
+other great Assyrian cities was almost unknown, English, French, and
+German savans measured, described, and figured the Persian remains with
+a copiousness and exactness that left little to desire. Chardin, the
+elder Mebuhr, Le Brun, Ouseley, Ker Porter, exerted themselves with the
+most praiseworthy zeal to represent fully and faithfully the marvels of
+the Chehl Minar; and these persevering efforts were followed within no
+very lengthy period by the splendid and exhaustive works of the Baron
+Texier and of MM. Flandin and Coste. Persepolis rose again from its
+ashes in the superb and costly volumes of these latter writers, who
+represented on the grandest scale, and in the most finished way,
+not only the actual but the ideal--not only the present but the
+past--placing before our eyes at once the fullest and completest views
+of the existing ruins, and also restorations of the ancient structures,
+some of them warm with color and gilding, which, though to a certain
+extent imaginary, probably give to a modern the best notion that it is
+now possible to form of an old Persian edifice.
+
+It is impossible within the limits of the present work, and with the
+resources at the author's command, to attempt a complete description of
+the Persian remains, or to vie with writers who had at their disposal
+all the modern means of illustration. By the liberality of a well-known
+authority on architecture, he is able to present his readers with
+certain general views of the most important structures; and he also
+enjoys the advantage of illustrating some of the most curious of the
+details with engravings from a set of photographs recently taken. These
+last have, it is believed, an accuracy beyond that of any drawings
+hitherto made, and will give a better idea than words could possibly do
+of the merit of the sculptures. With these helps, and with the addition
+of reduced copies from some of MM. Flandin and Coste's plates, the
+author hopes to be able to make his account fairly intelligible, and to
+give his readers the opportunity of forming a tolerably correct judgment
+on the merit of the Persian art in comparison with that of Babylon and
+Assyria.
+
+Persian architectural art displayed itself especially in two forms of
+building--the palace and the tomb. Temples were not perhaps unknown in
+Persia, though much of the worship may always have been in the open
+air; but temples, at least until the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon, were
+insignificant, and neither attracted the attention of contemporaries,
+nor were of such a character as to leave traces of themselves to after
+times. The palaces of the Persian kings, on the other hand, and the
+sepulchres which they prepared for themselves, are noticed by many
+ancient writers as objects of interest; and, notwithstanding certain
+doubts which have been raised in recent years, it seems tolerably
+certain that they are to be recognized in the two chief classes of
+ancient ruins which still exist in the country.
+
+The Persian palatial buildings, of which traces remain, are four in
+number. One was situated at Ecbatana, the Median capital, and was a sort
+of adjunct to the old residence of the Median kings. Of this only a very
+few vestiges have been hitherto found; and we can merely say that it
+appears to have been of the same general character with the edifices
+which will be hereafter described. Another was built by Darius and
+his son Xerxes on the great mound of Susa; and of this we have the
+ground-plan, in a great measure, and various interesting details. A
+third stood within the walls of the city of Persepolis, but of this not
+much more is left than of the construction at Ecbatana. Finally, there
+was in the neighborhood of Persepolis, but completely distinct from the
+town, the Great Palace, which, as the chief residence, at any rate of
+the later kings, Alexander burnt, and of which the remains still to
+be seen are ample, constituting by far the most remarkable group of
+buildings now existing in this part of Asia.
+
+It is to this last edifice, or group of edifices, that the reader's
+attention will be specially directed in the following pages. Here the
+greatest of the Persian monarchs seem to have built the greatest of
+their works. Here the ravages of time and barbarism, sadly injurious
+as they may have been, have had least effect. Here, moreover, modern
+research has spent its chief efforts, excavations having been made,
+measurements effected, and ground-plans laid down with accuracy. In
+describing the Persepolitan buildings we have aids which mostly fail us
+elsewhere--charts, plans, drawings in extraordinary abundance and often
+of high artistic value, elaborate descriptions, even photographs. [PLATE
+XXXVIII., Fig. 3.] If the describer has still a task of some difficulty
+to perform, it is because an overplus of material is apt to cause almost
+as much embarrassment as too poor and scanty a supply.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.]
+
+
+The buildings at Persepolis are placed upon a vast platform. It was
+the practice of the Persians, as of the Assyrians and Babylonians, to
+elevate their palaces in this way. They thus made them at once more
+striking to the eye, more dignified, and more easy to guard. In
+Babylonia an elevated habitation was also more healthy and more
+pleasant, being raised above the reach of many insects, and laid open to
+the winds of heaven, never too boisterous in that climate. Perhaps the
+Assyrians and Persians in their continued use of the custom, to some
+extent followed a fashion, elevating their royal residences, not so much
+for security or comfort, as because it had come to be considered that a
+palace ought to have a lofty site, and to look down on the habitations
+of meaner men; but, however this may have been, the custom certainly
+prevailed, and at Persepolis we have, in an almost perfect condition,
+this first element of a Persian palace. [PLATE XXXIX.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIX.]
+
+
+The platform at Persepolis is built at the foot of a high range of
+rocky hills, on which it abuts towards the east. It is composed of solid
+masses of hewn stone, which were united by metal clamps, probably of
+iron or lead. The masses were not cut to a uniform size, nor even always
+to a right angle, but were fitted together with a certain amount
+of irregularity, which will be the best understood from the woodcut
+overleaf. Many of the blocks were of enormous size; and their
+quarrying, transport, and elevation to their present places, imply very
+considerable mechanical skill. They were laid so as to form a perfectly
+smooth perpendicular wall, the least height of which above the
+plain below is twenty feet. The outline of the platform was somewhat
+irregular. Speaking roughly, we may call it an oblong square, with a
+breadth about two thirds of its length; but this description, unless
+qualified, will give an idea of far greater uniformity than actually
+prevails. [PLATE XL., Fig. 1.] The most serious irregularity is on the
+north side, the general line of which is not parallel to the south side,
+nor at right angles with the western one, but forms with the general
+line of the western an angle of about eighty degrees. The cause of this
+deviation lay probably in the fact that, on this side, a low rocky
+spur ran out from the mountain-range in this direction, and that it
+was thought desirable to accommodate the line of the structure to the
+natural irregularities of the ground. In addition to the irregularity
+of general outline thus produced, there is another of such perpetual
+occurrence that it must be regarded as an essential element of the
+original design, and therefore probably as approving itself to the
+artistic notions of the builder. This is the occurrence of frequent
+angular projections and indentations, which we remark on all three sides
+of the platform equally, and which would therefore seem to have been
+regarded in Persia, no less than in Assyria, as ornamental.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XL.]
+
+
+The whole of the platform is not of a uniform height. On the contrary,
+it seems to have been composed, as originally built, of several quite
+distinct terraces. Three of these still remain, exhibiting towards the
+west a very marked difference of elevation. The lowest of the three is
+on the south side, and it may therefore be termed the Southern Terrace.
+It extends from east to west a distance of about 800 feet, with a width
+of about 170 or 180, and has an elevation above the plain of from twenty
+to twenty-three feet. Opposite to this, on the northern side of the
+platform, is a second terrace, more than three times the breadth of the
+southern one, which may be called, by way of distinction, the Northern
+Terrace. This has an elevation above the plain of thirty-five feet.
+Intermediate between these two is the great Central or Upper Terrace,
+standing forty-five feet above the plain, having a length of 770 feet
+along the west face of the platform, and a width of about 400. Upon
+this Upper Terrace were situated almost all the great and important
+buildings.
+
+The erection of a royal residence on a platform composed of several
+terraces involved the necessity of artificial ascents, which the
+Persian architects managed by means of broad and solid staircases. These
+staircases constitute one of the most remarkable features of the place,
+and seem to deserve careful and exact description. [PLATE XLI., Fig. 2.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLI.]
+
+
+The first, and grandest in respect of scale, is on the west front of the
+platform towards its northern end, and leads up from the plain to the
+summit of the northern terrace, furnishing the only means by which the
+platform can even now be ascended. It consists of two distinct sets of
+steps, each composed of two flights, with a broad landing-place between
+them, the steps themselves running at right angles to the platform wall,
+and the two lower flights diverging, while the two upper ones converge
+to a common landing-place on the top. The slope of the stairs is so
+gentle that, though each step has a convenient width, the height of a
+step is in no case more than from three to four inches. It is thus
+easy to ride horses both up and down the staircase, and travellers are
+constantly in the habit of ascending and descending it in this way.
+
+The width of the staircase is twenty-two feet--space sufficient to allow
+of ten horsemen ascending each flight of steps abreast. Altogether this
+ascent, which is on a plan unknown elsewhere, is pronounced to be the
+noblest example of a flight of stairs to be found in any part of the
+world. It does not project beyond the line of the platform whereto it
+leads, but is, as it were, taken out of it. [PLATE XLII.]
+
+
+[[Illustration: PLATE XLII.]
+
+
+The next, and in some respects the most remarkable of all the
+staircases, conducts from the level of the northern platform to that of
+the central or upper terrace. This staircase fronts northward, and opens
+on the view as soon as the first staircase (A on the plan) has been
+ascended, lying to the right of the spectator at the distance of about
+fifty or sixty yards. It consists of four single flights of steps, two
+of which are central, facing one another, and leading to a projecting
+landing-place (B), about twenty feet in width; while the two others
+are on either side of the central flights, distant from them about
+twenty-one yards. The entire length of this staircase is 212 feet;
+its greatest projection in front of the line of the terrace whereon it
+abuts, is thirty-six feet. The steps, which are sixteen feet wide, rise
+in the same gentle way as those of the lower or platform staircase. The
+height of each is under four inches; and thus there are thirty-one steps
+in an ascent of ten feet.
+
+The feature which specially distinguishes this staircase from the lower
+one already described is its elaborate ornamentation. The platform
+staircase is perfectly plain. The entire face which this staircase
+presents to the spectator is covered with sculptures. In the first
+place, on the central projection, which is divided perpendicularly into
+three compartments, are represented, in the spandrels on either side,
+a lion devouring a bull, and in the compartment between the spandrels
+eight colossal Persian guardsmen, armed with spears and either with
+sword or shield. Further, above the lion and bull, towards the edge of
+the spandrel where it slopes, forming a parapet to the steps, [PLATE
+XLIII., Fig. 1.] there was a row of cypress trees, while at the end of
+the parapet and along the whole of its inner face were a set of small
+figures, guardsmen habited like those in the central compartment, but
+carrying mostly a bow and quiver instead of a shield. Along the extreme
+edge of the parapet externally was a narrow border thickly set with
+rosettes. [PLATE XLIII., Fig. 2.] Next, in the long spaces between the
+central stairs and those on either side of them, the spandrels contain
+repetitions of the lion and bull sculpture, while between them and the
+central stairs the face of the wall is divided horizontally into three
+bands, each of which has been ornamented with a continuous row of
+figures. The highest row of the three is unfortunately mutilated, the
+upper portion of all the bodies being lost in consequence of their
+having been sculptured upon a parapet wall built originally to protect
+the edge of the terrace, but now fallen away. The middle and lowest rows
+are tolerably perfect, and possess considerable interest, as well as
+some artistic merit. The entire scene represented on the right side
+seems to be the bringing of tribute or presents to the monarch by the
+various nations under his sway. On the left-hand side this subject was
+continued to a certain extent; but the greater part of the space was
+occupied by representations of guards and officers of the court, the
+guards being placed towards the centre, and, as it were, keeping the
+main stairs, while the officers were at a greater distance. The three
+rows of figures were separated from one another by narrow bands, thickly
+set with rosettes.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIII.]
+
+
+The builder of this magnificent work was not content to leave it to
+history or tradition to connect his name with his construction, but
+determined to make the work itself the means of perpetuating his memory.
+In three conspicuous parts of the staircase, slabs were left clear of
+sculpture, undoubtedly to receive inscriptions commemorative of the
+founder. The places selected were the front of the middle staircase, the
+exact centre of the whole work, and the space adjoining the spandrels to
+the extreme right and the extreme left. In one instance alone, however,
+was this part of the work completed. On the right hand, or western
+extremity of the staircase, an inscription of thirty lines in the old
+Persian language informs us that the constructor was "Xerxes, the Great
+King, the King of Kings, the son of King Darius, the Achaemenian." The
+central and left-hand tablets, intended probably for Babylonian and
+Scythic translations of the Persian legend, were never inscribed, and
+remain blank to the present day.
+
+The remaining staircases will not require very lengthy or elaborate
+descriptions. They are six in number, and consist, in most instances,
+of a double flight of steps, similar to the central portion of the
+staircase which has been just described. Two of them (e and f) belonged
+to the building marked as the "Palace of Darius" on the plan, and gave
+entrance to it from the central platform above which it is elevated
+about fourteen or fifteen feet. Two others (c and d) belonged to the
+"Palace of Xerxes." These led up to a broad paved space in front of
+that building, which formed a terrace, elevated about ten feet above
+the general level of the central platform. Their position was at the two
+ends of the terrace, opposite to one another; but in other respects
+they cannot be said to have matched. The eastern, which consisted of two
+double flights, was similar in general arrangement to the staircase by
+which the platform was mounted from the plain, excepting that it was not
+recessed, but projected its full breadth beyond the line of the terrace.
+It was decidedly the more elegant of the two, and evidently formed the
+main approach. It was adorned with the usual bull and lion combats, with
+figures of guardsmen, and with attendants carrying articles needed for
+the table or the toilet. The inscriptions upon it declare it to be
+the work of Xerxes. [PLATE XLIV.] The western staircase was composed
+merely of two single flights, facing one another, with a narrow
+landing-place between them. It was ornamented like the eastern, but
+somewhat less elaborately.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIV.]
+
+
+A staircase, very similar to this last, but still one with certain
+peculiarities, was built by Artaxerxes Ochus, at the west side of the
+Palace of Darius, in order to give it a second entrance. [PLATE XLV.,
+Fig. 1.] There the spandrels have the usual figures of the lion and
+bull; but the intermediate space is somewhat unusually arranged. It is
+divided vertically and horizontally into eight squared compartments,
+three on either side, and two in the middle. The upper of these two
+contains nothing but a winged circle, the emblem of Divinity being thus
+placed reverently by itself. Below, in a compartment of double size, is
+an inscription of Ochus, barbarous in language, but very religious in
+tone. The six remaining compartments had each four figures, representing
+tribute-bearers introduced to the royal presence by a court officer.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLV.]
+
+
+The other, and original, staircase to this palace (f on the plan) was
+towards the north, and led up to the great portico, which was anciently
+its sole entrance. Two flights of steps, facing each other, conducted to
+a paved space of equal extent with the portico and projecting in front
+of it about five feet. On the base of the staircase were sculptures in
+a single line--the lion and bull in either spandrel--and between the
+spandrels eighteen colossal guardsmen, nine facing either way towards
+a central inscription, which was repeated in other languages on slabs
+placed between the guardsmen and the bulls. Above the spandrels, on
+the parapet which fenced the stairs, was a line of figures representing
+attendants bringing into the palace materials for the banquet. A similar
+line adorned the inner wall of the staircase.
+
+Opposite to this, at the distance of about thirty-two yards, was another
+very similar staircase, leading up to the portico of another
+building, erected (apparently) by Artaxerxes Ochus, which occupied the
+south-western corner of the upper platform. The sculptures here seem to
+have been of the usual character but they are so mutilated that no very
+decided opinion can be passed upon them.
+
+Last of all, a staircase of a very peculiar character, (h on the plan)
+requires notice. This is a flight of steps cut in the solid rock,
+which leads up from the southern terrace to the upper one, at a point
+intervening between the south-western edifice, or palace of Artaxerxes,
+and the palace of Xerxes, or central southern edifice. These steps are
+singular in facing the terrace to which they lead, instead of being
+placed sideways to it. They are of rude construction, being without a
+parapet, and wholly devoid of sculpture or other ornamentation.
+They furnish the only communication between the southern and central
+terraces.
+
+It is a peculiarity of the Persepolitan ruins that they are not
+continuous, but present to the modern inquirer the appearance, at
+any rate, of a number of distinct buildings. Of these the platform
+altogether contains ten, five of which are of large size, while the
+remainder are comparatively insignificant.
+
+Of the five large buildings four stand upon the central or upper
+terrace, while one lies east of that terrace, between it and the
+mountains. The four upon the central terrace comprise three buildings
+made up of several sets of chambers, together with one great open
+pillared hall, to which are attached no subordinate apartments. The
+three complex edifices will be here termed "palaces," and will take
+the names of their respective founders, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes
+Ochus: the fourth will be called the "Great Hall of Audience." The
+building between the upper terrace and the mountains will be termed the
+"Great Eastern Edifice."
+
+The "Palace of Darius," which is one of the most interesting of the
+Persepolitan buildings, stands near the western edge of the platform,
+midway between the "Great Hall of Audience" and the "Palace of
+Artaxerxes Ochus." [PLATE XLVI., Fig. 1.] It is a building about one
+hundred and thirty five feet in length, and in breadth a little short of
+a hundred. Of all the existing buildings on the platform it occupies
+the most exalted position, being elevated from fourteen to fifteen feet
+above the general level of the central terrace, and being thus four or
+five feet higher than the "Palace of Xerxes." It fronted towards the
+south, where it was approached by a double staircase of the usual
+character, which led up to a deep portico of eight pillars arranged in
+two rows. On either side of the portico were guard-rooms, which opened
+upon it, in length twenty-three feet, and in breadth thirteen. Behind
+the portico lay the main chamber, which was a square of fifty feet,
+having a roof supported by sixteen pillars, arranged in four rows of
+four, in line with the pillars of the portico. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 2.]
+The bases for the pillars alone remain; and it is thus uncertain whether
+their material was stone or wood. They were probably light and slender,
+not greatly interrupting the view. The hall was surrounded on all sides
+by walls from four to five feet in thickness, in which were doors,
+windows, and recesses, symmetrically arranged. The entrance from the
+portico was by a door in the exact centre of the front wall, on either
+side of which were two windows, looking into the portico. The
+opposite, or back, wall was pierced by two doors, which faced the
+intercolumniations of the side rows of pillars, as the front door faced
+the intercolumniation of the central rows. Between the two doors
+which pierced the back wall was a squared recess, and similar recesses
+ornamented the same wall on either side of the doors. The side walls
+were each pierced originally by a single doorway, between which and the
+front wall was a squared recess, while beyond, between the doorways
+and the back wall, were two recesses of the same character. Curiously
+enough, these side doorways and recesses fronted the pillars, not the
+intercolumniations.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVI.]
+
+
+No sculpture, so far as appears, adorned this apartment, excepting
+in the doorways, which however had in every case this kind of
+ornamentation. The doorways in the back wall exhibited on their jambs
+figures of the king followed by two attendants, one holding a cloth, and
+the other a fly-chaser. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 3.] These figures had in every
+case their faces turned towards the apartment. The front doorway showed
+on its jambs the monarch followed by the parasol-bearer and the bearer
+of the fly-chaser, with his back turned to the apartment, issuing forth,
+as it were, from it. On the jambs of the doors of the side apartments
+was represented the king in combat with a lion or a monster, the king
+here in every case facing outwards, and seeming to guard the entrances
+to the side chambers.
+
+At the back of the hall, and at either side, were chambers of very
+moderate dimensions. The largest were to the rear of the building,
+where there seems to have been one about forty feet by twenty-three, and
+another twenty-eight feet by twenty. The doorways here had sculptures,
+representing attendants bearing napkins and perfumes. The side chambers,
+five in number, were considerably smaller than those behind the great
+hall, the largest not exceeding thirty-four feet by thirteen.
+
+It seems probable that this palace was without any second story. There
+is no vestige in any part of it of a staircase--no indication of its
+height having ever exceeded from twenty-two to twenty-five feet. It was
+a modest building, simple and regular, covering less than half the space
+of an ordinary palace in Assyria. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 2.] Externally,
+it must have presented an appearance not very dissimilar to that of
+the simpler Greek temples; distinguished from them by peculiarities of
+ornamentation, but by no striking or important feature, excepting
+the grand and elaborately sculptured staircase. Internally, it was
+remarkable for the small number of its apartments, which seem not to
+have been more than twelve or thirteen, and for the moderate size of
+most of them. Even the grand central hall covered a less area than three
+out of the five halls in the country palace of Sargon. The effect
+of this room was probably fine, though it must have been somewhat
+over-crowded with pillars. If these were, however (as is probable),
+light wooden posts, plated with silver or with gold, and if the ceiling
+consisted (as it most likely did) of beams, crossing each other at right
+angles, with square spaces between them, all likewise coated with the
+precious metals; if moreover the cold stone walls, excepting where
+they were broken by a doorway, or a window, were similarly decked; if
+curtains of brilliant hues hung across the entrances; if the pavement
+was of many-colored stones, and in places covered with magnificent
+carpets; if an elevated golden throne, under a canopy of purple, adorned
+the upper end of the room, standing against the wall midway between the
+two doors--if this were in truth the arrangement and ornamentation of
+the apartment, we can well understand that the _coup d'oeil_ must
+have been effective, and the impression made on the spectator highly
+pleasing. A room fifty feet square, and not much more than twenty high,
+could not be very grand; but elegance of form, combined with richness
+of material and splendor of coloring, may have more than compensated for
+the want of that grandeur which results from mere size.
+
+If it be inquired how a palace of the dimensions described can have
+sufficed even for one of the early Persian kings, the reply must
+seemingly be that the building in question can only have contained
+the public apartments of the royal residence--the throne-room,
+banqueting-rooms, guard-rooms, etc.,--and that it must have been
+supplemented by at least one other edifice of a considerable size, the
+Gynaeceum or "House of the Women." There is ample room on the platform
+for such a building, either towards the east, where the ground is now
+occupied by a high mound of rubbish, or on the west, towards the edge of
+the platform, where traces of a large edifice were noted by Niebuhr. On
+the whole, this latter situation seems to be the more probable; and the
+position of the Gynaeceum in this quarter may account for the alteration
+made by Artaxerxes Ochus in the palace of Darius, which now seriously
+interferes with its symmetry. Artaxerxes cut a doorway in the outer
+western wall, and another opposite to it in the western wall of the
+great hall, adding at the same time a second staircase to the building,
+which thus became accessible from the west no less than from the south.
+It has puzzled the learned in architecture to assign a motive for this
+alteration. May we not find an adequate one in the desire to obtain a
+ready and comparatively private access to the Gynaeceum, which must have
+been somewhere on the platform, and which may well have lain in this
+direction?
+
+The minute account which has been now given of this palace will render
+unnecessary a very elaborate description of the remainder. Two grand
+palatial edifices seem to have been erected on the platform by later
+kings--one by Xerxes and the other by Artaxerxes Ochus; but the latter
+of these is in so ruined a condition, and the former is so like the
+palace of Darius, that but few remarks need be made upon either. The
+palace of Xerxes is simply that of Darius on a larger scale, the pillars
+in the portico being increased from two rows of four to two rows of six,
+and the great hall behind being a square of eighty instead of a square
+of fifty feet, with thirty-six instead of sixteen pillars to support
+its roof. On either side of the hall, and on either side of the portico,
+were apartments like those already described as abutting on the same
+portions of the older palace, differing from them chiefly in being
+larger and more numerous. The two largest, which were thirty-one feet
+square, had roofs supported on pillars, the numbers of such supports
+being in each case four. The only striking difference in the plans of
+the two buildings consisted in the absence from the palace of Xerxes of
+any apartments to the rear of the great hall. In order to allow space
+for an ample terrace in front, the whole edifice was thrown back so
+close to the edge of the upper platform that no room was left for any
+chambers at the back, since the hall itself was here brought almost to
+the very verge of the sheer descent from the central to the low southern
+terrace. In ornamentation the palaces also very closely resembled each
+other, the chief difference being that the combats of the king with
+lions and mythological monsters, which form the regular ornamentation
+of the side-chambers in the palace of Darius, occur nowhere in the
+residence of his son, where they are replaced by figures of attendants
+bringing articles for the toilet or the table, like those which adorn
+the main staircase of the older edifice. Figures of the same kind also
+ornament all the windows in the palace of Xerxes. A tone of mere sensual
+enjoyment is thus given to the later edifice, which is very far from
+characterizing the earlier; and the decline of morals at the Court,
+which history indicates as rapid about this period, is seen to
+have stamped itself, as such changes usually do, upon the national
+architecture.
+
+A small building, at the distance of about twenty or twenty-five yards
+from the eastern wall of the palace of Xerxes, possesses a peculiar
+interest, in consequence of its having some claims to be considered
+the most ancient structure upon the platform. It consists of a hall and
+portico, in size, proportions, and decoration almost exactly resembling
+the corresponding parts of Darius's palace, but unaccompanied by any
+trace of circumjacent chambers, and totally devoid of inscriptions. The
+building is low, on the level of the northern, rather than on that of
+the central terrace, and is indeed half buried in the rubbish which has
+accumulated at its base. Its fragments are peculiarly grand and massive,
+while its sculptures are in strong and bold relief. There can be little
+doubt but that it was originally, like the hall and portico of Darius,
+surrounded on three sides by chambers. These, however, have entirely
+disappeared, having probably been pulled down to furnish materials for
+more recent edifices. Like the palaces of Xerxes and Artaxerxes Ochus,
+and unlike the palace of Darius, the building faces to the north, which
+is the direction naturally preferred in such a climate. We may suppose
+it to have been the royal residence of the earlier times, the erection
+of Cyrus or Cambyses, and to have been intended especially for summer
+use, for which its position well fitted it. Darius, wishing for a winter
+palace at Persepolis, as well as a summer one, took probably this early
+palace for his model, and built one as nearly as possible resembling it,
+except that, for the sake of greater warmth, he made his new erection
+face southwards. Xerxes, dissatisfied with the size of the old summer
+palace, built a new one at its side of considerably larger dimensions,
+using perhaps some of the materials of the old palace in his new
+building. Finally, Artaxerxes Ochus made certain additions to the palace
+of Xerxes on its western side, and at the same time added a staircase
+and a doorway to the winter residence of Darius. Thus the Persepolitan
+palace, using the word in its proper sense of royal residence, attained
+its full dimensions, occupying the southern half of the great central
+platform, and covering with its various courts and buildings a space
+500 feet long by 375 feet wide, or nearly the space covered by the less
+ambitious of the palaces of Assyria.
+
+Besides edifices adapted for habitation, the Persepolitan platform
+sustained two other classes of buildings. These were propylaea, or
+gateways--places commanding the approach to great buildings, where a
+guard might be stationed to stop and examine all comers--and halls of a
+vast size, which were probably throne-rooms, where the monarch held
+his court on grand occasions, to exhibit himself in full state to his
+subjects. The propylaea upon the platform appear to have been four
+in number. One, the largest, was directly opposite the centre of the
+landing-place at the top of the great stairs which gave access to the
+platform from the plain. This consisted of a noble apartment, eighty-two
+feet square, with a roof supported by four magnificent columns, each
+between fifty and sixty feet high. The walls of the apartment were from
+sixteen to seventeen feet thick. Two grand portals, each twelve feet
+wide by thirty-six feet high, led into this apartment, one directly
+facing the head of the stairs, and the other opposite to it, towards the
+east. Both were flanked with colossal bulls, those towards the staircase
+being conventional representations of the real animal, while the
+opposite pair are almost exact reproductions of the winged and
+human-headed bulls, with which the Assyrian discoveries have made us so
+familiar. The accompanying illustration [PLATE XLVII., Fig. 1.], which
+is taken from a photograph, exhibits this inner pair in their present
+condition. The back of one of the other pair is also visible. Two of
+the pillars--which alone are still standings appear in their places,
+intervening between the front and the back gateway.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVII.]
+
+
+The walls which enclosed this chamber, notwithstanding their immense
+thickness, have almost entirely disappeared. On the southern side alone,
+where there seems to have been a third doorway, unornamented, are there
+any traces of them. We must conclude that they were either of burnt
+brick or of small blocks of stone, which the natives of the country
+in later times found it convenient to use as material for their own
+buildings.
+
+An edifice, almost exactly similar to this, but of very inferior
+dimensions, occupied a position due east of the palace of Darius, and
+a little to the north of the main staircase leading to the terrace in
+front of the palace of Xerxes. The bases of two pillars and the jambs
+of three doorways remain, from which it is easy to reconstruct the main
+building. Its position seems to mark it as designed to give entrance
+to the structure, whatever it was, which occupied the site of the great
+mound (M on the Plan) east of Darius's palace, and north of the palace
+of his son. The ornamentation, however, would rather connect it with
+the more eastern of the two great pillared halls, which will have to be
+described presently.
+
+A third edifice of the same kind stood in front of the great eastern
+hall, at the distance of about seventy yards from its portico. This
+building is more utterly ruined than either of the preceding, and its
+dimensions are open to some doubt. On the whole, it seems probable that
+it resembled the great propylaea at the head of the stairs leading from
+the plain rather than the central propylaea just described. Part of its
+ornamentation was certainly a colossal bull, though whether human-headed
+or not cannot be determined.
+
+The fourth of the propylaea was on the terrace whereon stood the palace
+of Xerxes, and directly fronting the landing-place at the head of its
+principal stairs, just as the propylaea first described fronted the
+great stairs leading up from the plain. Its dimensions were suited to
+those of the staircase which led to it, and of the terrace on which it
+was placed. It was less than one fourth the size of the great propylaea,
+and about half that of the propylaea which stood the nearest to it.
+The bases of the four pillars alone remain in situ; but, from the
+proportions thus obtained, the position of the walls and doorways is
+tolerably certain.
+
+We have now to pass to the most magnificent of the Perse-politan
+buildings--the Great Pillared Halls--which constitute the glory of Arian
+architecture, and which, even in their ruins, provoke the wonder and
+admiration of modern Europeans, familiar with all the triumphs of
+Western art, with Grecian temples, Roman baths and amphitheatres,
+Moorish palaces, Turkish mosques, and Christian cathedrals. Of these
+pillared halls, the Persepolitan platform supports two, slightly
+differing in their design, but presenting many points of agreement. They
+bear the character of an earlier and a later building--a first effort
+in the direction which circumstances compelled the architecture of the
+Persians to take, and the final achievement of their best artists in
+this kind of building.
+
+Nearly midway in the platform between its northern and its southern
+edges, and not very far from the boundary of rocky mountain on which
+the platform abuts towards the east, is the vast edifice which has been
+called with good reason the "Hall of a Hundred Columns," since its
+roof was in all probability supported by that number of pillars. This
+building consisted of a single magnificent chamber, with a portico, and
+probably guard-rooms, in front, of dimensions quite unequalled upon
+the platform. The portico was 183 feet long by 52 feet deep, and was
+sustained by sixteen pillars, about 33 feet high, arranged in two rows
+of eight. The great chamber behind was a square of 227 feet, and had
+therefore an area of about 51,000 feet. Over this vast space were
+distributed, at equal distances from one another, one hundred columns,
+each 35 feet high, arranged in ten rows of ten each, every pillar thus
+standing at a distance of nearly 20 feet from any other. The four walls
+which enclosed this great hall had a uniform thickness of 10 1/2 feet,
+and were each pierced at equal intervals by two doorways, the doorways
+being thus exactly opposite to one another, and each looking down an
+avenue of columns. In the spaces of wall on either side of the doorways,
+eastward, westward, and southward, were three niches, all square-topped,
+and bearing the ornamentation which is universal in the case of all
+niches, windows, and doorways in the Persepolitan ruins. [PLATE XLVII.,
+Fig. 2.] In the northern, or front, wall, the niches were replaced by
+windows looking upon the portico, excepting towards the angles of the
+building, where niches were retained, owing to a peculiarity in the
+plan of the edifice which has now to be noticed. The portico, instead
+of being, as in every other Persian instance, of the same width with the
+building which it fronted, was 44 feet narrower, its antce projecting
+from the front wall, not at either extremity, but at the distance of 11
+feet from the corner. While the porch was thus contracted, so that the
+pillars had to be eight in each row instead of ten, space was left on
+either side for a narrow guard-room opening on to the porch, indications
+of which are seen in the doorways placed at right angles to the front
+wall, which are ornamented with the usual figures of soldiers armed
+with spear and shield. It has been suggested that the hall was, like the
+smaller pillared chambers upon the platform, originally surrounded on
+three sides by a number of lesser apartments; and this is certainly
+possible: but no trace remains of any such buildings. The ornamentation
+which exists seems to show that the building was altogether of a public
+character. Instead of exhibiting attendants bringing articles for the
+toilet or the banquet, it shows on its doors the monarch, either engaged
+in the art of destroying symbolical monsters, or seated on his throne
+under a canopy, with the tiara on his head, and the golden sceptre in
+his right hand. The throne representations are of two kinds. On the
+jambs of the great doors leading out upon the porch, we see in the top
+compartment the monarch seated under the canopy, accompanied by five
+attendants, while below him are his guards, arranged in five rows of
+ten each, some armed with spears and shields, others with spears, short
+swords, bows and quivers. Thus the two portals together exhibit the
+figures of 200 Persian guardsmen in attendance on the person of the
+king. The doors at the back of the building present us with a still
+more curious sculpture. On these the throne appears elevated on a lofty
+platform, the stages of which, three in number, are upheld by figures
+in different costumes, representing apparently the natives of all the
+different provinces of the Empire. It is a reasonable conjecture that
+this great hall was intended especially for a throne-room, and that in
+the representations on these doorways we have figured a structure which
+actually existed under its roof (probably at t in the plan)--a platform
+reached by steps, whereon, in the great ceremonies of state, the royal
+throne was placed, in order that the monarch might be distinctly seen at
+one and the same time by the whole Court.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVIII.]
+
+
+The question of the lighting of this huge apartment presents some
+difficulties. On three sides, as already observed, the hall had (so
+far as appears) no windows--the places where windows might have been
+expected to occur being occupied by niches. The apparent openings are
+consequently reduced to some fifteen, viz., the eight doorways, and
+seven windows, which looked out upon the portico, and were therefore
+overhung and had a north aspect. It is clear that sufficient light could
+not have entered the apartment from these--the only visible--apertures.
+We must therefore suppose either that the walls above the niches were
+pierced with windows, which is quite possible, or else that light was in
+some way or other admitted from the roof. The latter is the supposition
+of those most competent to decide. M. Flandin conjectures that the roof
+had four apertures, placed at the points where the lines drawn from
+the northern to the southern, and those drawn from the eastern to the
+western, doors would intersect one another. He seems to suppose that
+these openings were wholly unprotected, in which case they would have
+admitted, in a very inconvenient way, both the sun and the rain. May we
+not presume that, if such openings existed, they were guarded by louvres
+such as have been regarded as probably lighting the Assyrian halls, and
+of which a representation has already been given?
+
+The portico of the Hall of a Hundred Columns was flanked on either side
+by a colossal bull, standing at the inner angle of the antes, and thus
+in some degree narrowing the entrance. Its columns were fluted, and
+had in every case the complex capital, which occurs also in the great
+propylaea and in the Hall of Xerxes. It was built of the same sort of
+massive blocks as the south-eastern edifice, or Ancient Palace--blocks
+often ten feet square by seven feet thick, and may be ascribed probably
+to the same age as that structure. Like that edifice, it is situated
+somewhat low; it has no staircase, and no inscription. We may fairly
+suppose it to have been the throne-room or great hall of audience of the
+early king who built the South-eastern Palace.
+
+We have now to describe the most remarkable of all the Persepolitan
+edifices--a building the remains of which stretch nearly 350 feet in one
+direction, while in the other they extend 246 feet. Its ruins consist
+almost entirely of pillars, which are divided into four groups. The
+largest of these was a square of thirty-six pillars, arranged in six
+rows of six, all exactly equidistant from one another, and covering
+an area of above 20,000 square feet. On three sides of this square,
+eastward, northward, and westward, were magnificent porches, each
+consisting of twelve columns, arranged in two rows, in line with the
+pillars of the central cluster. These porches stood at the distance of
+seventy feet from the main building, and have the appearance of having
+been entirely separate from it. They are 143 feet long, by thirty broad,
+and thus cover each an area of 4260 feet. The most astonishing feature
+in the whole building is the height of the pillars. These, according to
+the measurements of M. Flandin, had a uniform altitude throughout the
+building of sixty-four feet. Even in their ruin, they tower over every
+other erection upon the platform, retaining often, in spite of the
+effects of time, an elevation of sixty feet.
+
+The capitals of the pillars were of three kinds. Those of the side
+colonnades were comparatively simple: they consisted, in each case, of
+a single member, formed, in the eastern colonnade, of two half-griffins,
+with their heads looking in opposite directions [PLATE XLVII, Fig. 2];
+and, in the western colonnade, of two half-bulls, arranged in the
+same manner [PLATE XLVII., Fig. 3]. The capitals of the pillars in the
+northern colonnade, which faced the great sculptured staircase, and
+constituted the true front of the building, were of a very complex
+character. They may be best viewed as composed of three distinct
+members--first, a sort of lotos-bud, accompanied by pendent leaves;
+then, above that, a member, composed of volutes like those of the Ionic
+order, but placed in a perpendicular instead of a horizontal direction;
+and at the top, a member composed of two half-bulls, exactly similar to
+that which forms the complete capital of the western group of pillars.
+The pillars of the groat central cluster had capitals exactly like those
+of the northern colonnade.
+
+The bases of the colonnade pillars are of singular beauty. Bell-shaped,
+and ornamented with a double or triple row of pendent lotus-leaves, some
+rounded, some narrowed to a point; they are as graceful as they are rare
+in their forms, and attract the admiration of all beholders. Above them
+rise the columns, tapering gently as they ascend, but without any swell
+or entasis. They consist of several masses of stone, carefully joined
+together, and secured at the joints by an iron cramp in the direction of
+the column's axis. All are beautifully fluted along their entire length,
+the number of the incisions or flutings being from forty-eight to
+fifty-two in each pillar. They are arcs of circles smaller than
+semicircles, thus resembling those of the Doric, rather than those of
+the Ionic or Corinthian order. The cutting of all is very exact and
+regular.
+
+There can be little doubt but that both the porches, and the
+great central pillar-cluster, were roofed in. The double-bull and
+double-griffin capital are exactly suited to receive the ends of beams,
+which would stretch from pillar to pillar, and support a roof and an
+entablature. [PLATE L., Fig.1.] We may see in the entrances to the royal
+tombs the true use of pillars in a Persian building, and the character
+of the entablature which, they were intended to sustain, Assuming,
+then, that both the great central pillar phalanx and the three detached
+colonnades supported a roof, the question arises, were the colonnades
+in any way united with the main building, or did they stand completely
+detached from it? It has been supposed that they were all porticos _in
+antis_, connected with the main building by solid walls--that the great
+central column-cluster was surrounded on all sides by a wall of a very
+massive description, from the four corners of which similar barriers
+were carried down to the edge of the terrace, abutting in front upon
+the steps of the great sculptured staircase, and extending eastward and
+westward, so as to form the antce of an eastern and a western portico.
+In the two corners between the northern in _antae_ of the side porticos
+and the _antae_ of the portico in front are supposed to have been large
+guard-rooms, entirely filling up the two angles. The whole building is
+thus brought into close conformity with the "Palace of Xerxes," from
+which it is distinguished only by its superior size, its use of stone
+pillars, and the elongation of the tetrastyle chambers at the sides of
+that edifice into porticos of twelve pillars each.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE L.]
+
+
+The ingenuity of this conception is unquestionable; and one is tempted
+at first sight to accept a solution which removes so much that is
+puzzling, and establishes so remarkable a harmony between works whose
+outward aspect is so dissimilar. It seems like the inspiration of genius
+to discern so clearly the like in the unlike, and one inclines at first
+to believe that what is so clever cannot but be true. But a rigorous
+examination of the evidence leads to an opposite conclusion, and if it
+does not absolutely disprove Mr. Fergusson's theory, at any rate shows
+it to be in the highest degree doubtful. Such walls as he describes,
+with their _antae_ and their many doors and windows, should have left
+very marked traces of their existence in great squared pillars at the
+sides of porticos, in huge door-frames and window-frames, or at least
+in the foundations of walls, or, the marks of them, on some part of the
+paved terrace. Now the entire absence of squared pillars for the ends
+of antce, of door-frames, and window-frames, or even of such sculptured
+fragments as might indicate their former existence, is palpable and is
+admitted; nor is there any even supposed trace of the walls, excepting
+in one of the lines which by the hypothesis they would occupy. In front
+of the building, midway between the great pillar-cluster and the north
+colonnade, are the remains of four stone bases, parallel to one another,
+each seventeen feet long by five feet six inches wide. Mr. Fergusson
+regards these bases as marking the position of the doors in his front
+wall; and they are certainly in places where doors might have been
+looked for, if the building had a front wall, since the openings are
+exactly opposite the inter-columniations of the pillars, both in the
+portico and in the main cluster. But there are several objections to the
+notion of these bases being the foundations of the jambs of doors. In
+the first place, they are too wide apart, being at the distance from one
+another of seventeen feet, whereas no doorway on the platform exceeds a
+width of twelve or thirteen feet. In the second place, if these massive
+stone bases were prepared for the jambs of doors, it could only have
+been for massive stone jambs like those of the other palaces; but
+in that case, the jambs could not have disappeared. Thirdly, if the
+doorways on this side were thus marked, why were they not similarly
+marked on the other sides of the building? On the whole, the supposition
+of M. Flandin, that the bases were pedestals for ornamental statues,
+perhaps of bulls, seems more probable than that of Mr. Fergusson;
+though, no doubt, there are objections also to M. Flandin's hypothesis,
+and it would be perhaps best to confess that we do not know the use of
+these strange foundations, which have nothing that at all resembles them
+upon the rest of the platform.
+
+Another strong objection to Mr. Fergusson's theory, and one of which
+he, to a certain extent, admits the force, is the existence of drains,
+running exactly in the line of his side walls, which, if such walls
+existed, would be a curious provision on the part of the architect for
+undermining his own work. Mr. Fergusson supposes that they might be
+intended to drain the walls themselves and keep them dry. But as it is
+clear that they must have carried off the whole surplus water from
+the roof of the building, and as there is often much rain and snow
+at Persepolis, their effect on the foundations of such a wall as Mr.
+Fergusson imagines would evidently be disastrous in the extreme.
+
+To these minute and somewhat technical objections may be added the
+main one, whereof all alike can feel the force--namely, the entire
+disappearance of such a vast mass of building as Mr. Fergusson's
+hypothesis supposes. To account for this, Mr. Fergusson is obliged to
+lay it down, that in this magnificent structure, with its solid
+stone staircase, its massive pavement of the same material, and its
+seventy-two stone pillars, each sixty-four feet high, the walls were of
+mud. Can we believe in this incongruity? Can we imagine that a prince,
+who possessed an unbounded command of human labor, and an inexhaustible
+supply of stone in the rocky mountains close at hand, would have had
+recourse to the meanest of materials for the walls of an edifice which
+he evidently intended to eclipse all others upon the platform. And,
+especially, can we suppose this, when the very same prince used solid
+blocks of stone, in the walls of the very inferior edifice which he
+constructed in this same locality? Mr. Fergusson, in defence of
+his hypothesis, alleges the frequent combination of meanness with
+magnificence in the East, and softens down the meanness in the present
+case by clothing his mud walls with enamelled tiles, and painting them
+with all the colors of the rainbow. But here again the hypothesis is
+wholly unsupported by fact. Neither at Persepolis, nor at Pasargadae,
+nor at any other ancient Persian site, has a single fragment of an
+enamelled tile or brick been discovered. In Babylonia and Assyria, where
+the employment of such an ornamentation was common, the traces of it
+which remain are abundant. Must not the entire absence of such traces
+from all exclusively Persian ruins be held to indicate that this mode of
+adorning edifices was not adopted in Persia?
+
+If then we resign the notion of this remarkable building having been a
+walled structure, we must suppose that it was a summer throne-room,
+open to all the winds of heaven, except so far as it was protected by
+curtains. For the use of these by the Persians in pillared edifices, we
+have important historical authority in the statement already quoted from
+the Book of Esther. The Persian palace, to which that passage directly
+refers, contained a structure almost the exact counterpart of this
+at Persepolis; and it is probable that at both places the interstices
+between the outer pillars of, at any rate, the great central colonnade,
+were filled with "hangings of white and green and blue, fastened with
+cords of white and purple to silver rings," which were attached to the
+"pillars of marble;" and that by these means an undue supply of light
+and air, as well as an unseemly publicity, were prevented. A traveller
+in the country well observes, in allusion to this passage from Esther:
+Nothing could be more appropriate than this method at Susa and
+Persepolis, the spring residences of the Persian monarchs. It must be
+considered that these columnar halls were the equivalents of the modern
+throne-rooms, that here all public business was dispatched, and that
+here the king might sit and enjoy the beauties of the landscape. With
+the rich plains of Susa and Persepolis before him, he could well, after
+his winter's residence at Babylon, dispense with massive walls, which
+would only check the warm fragrant breeze from those verdant prairies
+adorned with the choicest flowers. A massive roof, covering the whole
+expanse of columns, would be too cold and dismal, whereas curtains
+around the central group would serve to admit both light and warmth.
+Nothing can be conceived better adapted to the climate or the season.
+
+If the central cluster of pillars was thus adapted to the purposes of
+a throne-room, equally well may the isolated colonnades have served as
+ante-chambers or posts for guards. Protected, perhaps, with curtains
+or awnings of their own, of a coarser material than those of the main
+chamber, or at any rate casting, when the sun was high, a broad and deep
+shadow, they would give a welcome shelter to those who had to watch
+over the safety of the monarch, or who were expecting but had not yet
+received their summons to the royal presence. Except in the very hottest
+weather, the Oriental does not love to pass his day within doors. Seated
+on the pavement in groups, under the deep shadows of these colonnades,
+which commanded a glorious view of the vast fertile plain of the
+Bendamir, of the undulating mountain-tract beyond, and of the
+picturesque hills known now as Koh-Istakhr, or Koh-Rhamgherd, the
+subjects of the Great King, who had business at Court, would wait,
+agreeably enough, till their turn came to approach the throne.
+
+Our survey of the Persepolitan platform is now complete; but, before we
+entirely dismiss the subject of Persian palaces, it seems proper to say
+a few words with respect to the other palatial remains of Achasmenian
+times, remains which exist in three places--at Murgab or Pasargadse, at
+Istakr, and at the great mound of Susa. The Murgab and Istakr ruins were
+carefully examined by MM. Coste and Flandin; while General Williams and
+Mr. Loftus diligently explored, and completely made out, the plan of the
+Susian edifice.
+
+The ruins at Murgab, which are probably the most ancient in Persia,
+comprise, besides the well-known "Tomb of Cyrus," two principal
+buildings. The largest of these was of an oblong-square shape, about 147
+feet long by 116 wide. It seems to have been surrounded by a lofty
+wall, in which were huge portals, consisting of great blocks of
+stone, partially hollowed out, to render them portable. There was an
+inscription on the jambs of each portal, containing the words, "I am
+Cyrus the King, the Achaemenian." Within the walled enclosure which may
+have been skirted internally by a colonnade was a pillared building, of
+much greater height than the surrounding walls, as is evident from the
+single column which remains. This shaft, which is perfectly plain, and
+shows no signs of a capital, has an altitude of thirty-six feet, with
+a diameter of three feet four inches at the base. On the area around,
+which was carefully paved, are the bases of seven other similar pillars,
+arranged in lines, and so situated as apparently to indicate an oblong
+hall, supported by twelve pillars, in three rows of four each. The
+chief peculiarity of the arrangement is, a variety in the width of the
+intercolumniations, which measure twenty-seven feet ten inches in one
+direction, but twenty-one feet only in the other. The smaller building,
+which is situated at only a short distance from the larger one, covers a
+space of 125 feet by fifty. It consists of twelve pillar bases, arranged
+in two rows of six each, the pillars being somewhat thicker than those
+of the other building, and placed somewhat closer together. [PLATE
+XLIX., Fig. 5.] The form of the base is very singular. It exhibits
+at the side a semicircular bulge, ornamented with a series of nine
+flutings, which are carried entirely round the base in parallel
+horizontal circles. [PLATE L., Fig. 2.] In front of the pillar bases,
+at the distance of about twenty-three feet from the nearest, is a square
+column, still upright, on which is sculptured a curious mythological
+figure, together with the same curt legend, which appears on the larger
+building--"I am Cyrus, the King, the Achaemenian."
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIX.]
+
+
+There are two other buildings at Murgab remarkable for their masonry.
+One is a square tower, with slightly projecting corners, built of
+hewn blocks of stone, very regularly laid, and carried to a height
+of forty-two feet. The other is a platform, exceedingly massive and
+handsome, composed entirely of squared stone, and faced with blocks
+often eight or ten feet long, laid in horizontal courses, and rusticated
+throughout in a manner that is highly ornamental. [PLATE L. Fig. 3.] The
+style resembles that of the substructions of the Temple of Jerusalem.
+It occurs occasionally, though somewhat rarely, in Greece; but there
+is said to exist nowhere so extensive and beautiful a specimen of it as
+that of the platform at this ancient site. [PLATE L., Fig. 4.]
+
+The palace at Istakr is in better preservation than either of the two
+pillared edifices at Murgab; but still, it is not in such a condition as
+to enable us to lay down with any certainty even its ground-plan. [PLATE
+LI., Fig. 1.] One pillar only remains erect; but the bases of eight
+others have been found in situ; the walls are partly to be traced,
+and the jambs of several doorways and niches are still standing. These
+remains show that in many respects, as in the character of the pillars,
+which were fluted and had capitals like those already described, in the
+massiveness of the door and window jambs, and in the thickness of
+the walls, the Istakr Palace resembled closely the buildings on the
+Persepolitan platform; but at the same time they indicate that its plan
+was wholly different, and thus our knowledge of the platform buildings
+in no degree enables us to complete, or even to carry forward to any
+appreciable extent, the ground-plan of the edifice derived from actual
+research. The height of the columns, which is inferior to that of the
+lowest at the great platform, would seem to indicate, either that the
+building was the first in which stone pillars were attempted, or that
+it was erected at a time when the Persians no longer possessed the
+mechanical skill required to quarry, transport, and raise into place the
+enormous blocks used in the best days of the nation.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LI.]
+
+
+The palace of Susa, exhumed by Mr. Loftus and General Williams,
+consisted of a great Hall or Throne-room, almost exactly a duplicate
+of the Chehl Minar at Persepolis, and of a few other very inferior
+buildings. It stood at the summit of the great platform, a quadrilateral
+mass of unburnt brick, which from a remote antiquity had supported the
+residence of the old Susian kings. It fronted a little west of north,
+and commanded a magnificent view over the Susianian plains to the
+mountains of Lauristan. An inscription, repeated on four of its
+pillar-bases, showed that it was originally built by Darius Hystaspis,
+and afterwards repaired by Artaxerxes Longimanus. As it was so exactly
+a reproduction of an edifice already minutely described, no further
+account of it need be here given.
+
+From the palaces of the Persian kings we may now pass to their tombs,
+remarkable structures which drew the attention of the ancients, and
+which have been very fully examined and represented in modern times.
+These tombs are eight in number, but present only two types, so that
+it will be sufficient to give in this place a detailed account of two
+tombs--one of each description.
+
+The most ancient, and, on the whole, the most remarkable of the tombs,
+is almost universally allowed to be that of the Great Cyrus. It is
+unique in design, totally different from all the other royal sepulchres;
+and, though it has been often described, demands, and must
+receive, notice in any account that is given of the ancient Persian
+constructions. The historian Arrian calls it "a house upon a pedestal;"
+and this brief description exactly expresses its general character. On a
+base, composed of huge blocks of the most beautiful white marble,1 which
+rises pyramidically in seven steps of different heights, there stands a
+small "house" of similar material, crowned with a stone roof, which
+is formed in front and rear into a pediment resembling that of a Greek
+temple. [PLATE LI., Fig.3.] The "house" has no window, but one of the
+end walls was pierced by a low and narrow doorway, which led into a
+small chamber or cell, about eleven feet long, seven broad, and seven
+high. Here, as ancient writers inform us, the body of the Great Cyrus
+was deposited in a golden coffin. Internally the chamber is destitute
+of any inscription, and indeed seems to have been left perfectly plain.
+Externally, there is a cornice of some elegance below the pediment, a
+good molding over the doorway, which is also doubly recessed--and two
+other very slight moldings, one at the base of the "house," and the
+other at the bottom of the second step. [PLATE LI., Fig. 2.] Except for
+these, the whole edifice is perfectly plain. Its present height above
+the ground is thirty-six feet, and it may originally have been a foot
+or eighteen inches higher, for the top of the roof is worn away. It
+measures at the base forty-seven feet by forty-three feet nine inches.
+
+The tomb stands within a rectangular area, marked out by pillars, the
+bases or broken shafts of which are still to be seen. They appear to
+have been twenty-four in number; all of them circular and smooth, not
+fluted; six pillars occupied each side of the rectangle, and they stood
+distant from each other about fourteen feet. It is probable that they
+originally supported a colonnade, which skirted internally a small
+walled court, within which the tomb was placed. The capitals of the
+pillars, if they had any, have wholly disappeared; and the researches
+conducted on the spot have failed to discover any trace of them.
+
+The remainder of the Persian royal sepulchres are rock-tombs,
+excavations in the sides of mountains, generally at a considerable
+elevation, so placed as to attract the eye of the beholder, while they
+are extremely difficult of approach. Of this kind of tomb there are
+four in the face of the mountain which bounds the Pulwar Valley on the
+north-west, while there are three others in the immediate vicinity of
+the Persepolitan platform, two in the mountain which overhangs it, and
+one in the rocks a little further to the south. The general shape of
+the excavations, as it presents itself to the eye of the spectator,
+resembles a Greek cross. [PLATE LII., Fig. 1.] This is divided by
+horizontal lines into three portions, the upper one (corresponding with
+the topmost limb of the cross) containing a very curious sculptured
+representation of the monarch worshipping Ormazd; the middle one, which
+comprises the two side limbs, together with the space between them,
+being carved architecturally so as to resemble a portico; and the third
+compartment (corresponding with the lowest limb of the cross) being left
+perfectly plain. In the centre of the middle compartment is sculptured
+on the face of the rock the similitude of a doorway, closely resembling
+those which still stand on the great platform; that is to say, doubly
+recessed, and ornamented at the top with lily-work. The upper portion of
+this doorway is filled with the solid rock, smoothed to a flat surface
+and crossed by three horizontal bars. The lower portion, to the height
+of four or five feet, is cut away; and thus entrance is given to the
+actual tomb, which is hollowed out in the rock behind.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LII.]
+
+
+Thus far the rock tombs, are, with scarcely an exception, of the same
+type. The excavations, however, behind their ornamental fronts, present
+some curious differences. In the simplest case of all, we find, on
+entering, an arched chamber, thirteen feet five inches long by seven
+feet two inches wide, from which there opens out, opposite to the door
+and at the height of about four feet from the ground, a deep horizontal
+recess, arched, like the chamber. Near the front of this recess is a
+further perpendicular excavation, in length six feet ten inches, in
+width three feet three inches, and in depth the same. This was the
+actual sarcophagus, and was covered, or intended to be covered, by a
+slab of stone. In the deeper part of the recess there is room for two
+other such sarcophagi; but in this case they have not been excavated,
+one burial only having, it would seem, taken place in this tomb. Other
+sepulchres present the same general features, but provide for a much
+greater number of interments. In that of Darius Hystaspis the sepulchral
+chamber contains three distinct recesses, in each of which are three
+sarcophagi, so that the tomb would hold nine bodies. It has, apparently,
+been cut originally for a single recess, on the exact plan of the tomb
+described above, but has afterwards been elongated towards the left.
+[PLATE LIII., Fig. 1.] Two of the tombs show a still more elaborate
+ground-plan--one in which curved lines take to some extent the place
+of straight ones. [PLATE LII., Fig. 2.] The tombs above the platform of
+Persepolis are more richly ornamented than the others, the lintels
+and sideposts of the doorways being covered with rosettes, and the
+entablature above the cornice bearing a row of lions, facing on either
+side towards the centre. [PLATE LIII., Fig. 2.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIII.]
+
+
+A curious edifice, belonging probably to the later Achaemenian times,
+stands immediately in front of the four royal tombs at Nakhsh-i-Eustam.
+This is a square tower, composed of large blocks of marble, cut with
+great exactness, and joined together without mortar or cement of
+any kind. The building is thirty-six feet high; and each side of it
+measures, as near as possible, twenty-four feet. It is ornamented with
+pilasters at the corners and with six recessed niches, or false windows,
+in three ranks, one over the other, on three out of its four faces. On
+the fourth face are two niches only, one over the other; and below
+them is a doorway with a cornice. The surface of the walls between the
+pilasters is also ornamented with a number of rectangular depressions,
+resembling the sunken ends of beams. The doorway, which looks north,
+towards the tombs, is not at the bottom of the building, but half-way up
+its side, and must have been reached either by a ladder or by a flight
+of steps. It leads into a square chamber, twelve feet wide by nearly
+eighteen high, extending to the top of the building, and roofed in with
+four large slabs of stone, which reach entirely across from side to
+side, being rather more than twenty-four feet long, six feet wide, and
+from eighteen inches to three feet in thickness. [PLATE LIII., Fig. 3.]
+On the top these slabs are so cut that the roof has every way a slight
+incline; at their edges they are fashioned between the pilasters, into
+a dentated cornice, like that which is seen on the tomb. Externally they
+were clamped together in the same careful way which we find to have been
+in use both at Persepolis and Parsargadae. The building seems to have
+been closed originally by two ponderous stone doors. [PLATE LIV., Fig.
+1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIV.]
+
+
+Another remarkable construction, which must belong to a very ancient
+period in the history of the country, is a gateway composed of enormous
+stones, which forms a portion of the ruins of Istakr. [PLATE LIV., Fig.
+2.] It has generally been regarded as one of the old gates of the city;
+but its position in the gorge between the town wall and the opposite
+mountain, and the fact that it lies directly across the road from
+Pasargadae into the plain of Merdasht, seem rather to imply that it was
+one of those fortified "gates," which we know to have been maintained by
+the Persians, at narrow points along their great routes, for the purpose
+of securing them, and stopping the advance of an enemy. On either
+side were walls of vast thickness, on the one hand abutting upon the
+mountain, on the other probably connected with the wall of the town,
+while between them were three massive pillars, once, no doubt, the
+supports of a tower, from which the defenders of the gate would engage
+its assailants at a great advantage.
+
+We have now described (so far as our data have rendered it possible)
+all the more important of the ancient edifices of the Persians, and
+may proceed to consider the next branch of the present inquiry, namely,
+their skill in the mimetic arts. Before, however, the subject of their
+architecture is wholly dismissed, a few words seem to be required on its
+general character and chief peculiarities.
+
+First, then, the simplicity and regularity of the style are worthy of
+remark. In the ground-plans of buildings the straight line only is used;
+all the angles are right angles; all the pillars fall into line; the
+intervals between pillar and pillar are regular, and generally equal;
+doorways are commonly placed opposite intercolumniations; where there is
+but one doorway, it is in the middle of the wall which it pierces; where
+there are two, they correspond to one another. Correspondence is the
+general law. Not only does door correspond to door, and pillar to
+pillar, but room to room, window to window, and even niche to niche.
+Most of the buildings are so contrived that one half is the exact
+duplicate of the other; and where this is not the case, the irregularity
+is generally either slight, or the result of an alteration, made
+probably for convenience sake. Travellers are impressed with the Grecian
+character of what they behold, though there is an almost entire absence
+of Greek forms. The regularity is not confined to single buildings, but
+extends to the relations of different edifices one to another. The sides
+of buildings standing on one platform, at whatever distance they may be,
+are parallel. There is, however, less consideration paid than we should
+have expected to the exact position, with respect to a main building,
+in which a subordinate one shall be placed. Propylaea, for instance,
+are not opposite the centre of the edifice to which they conduct, but
+slightly on one side of the centre. And generally, excepting in the
+parallelism of their sides, buildings seem placed with but slight regard
+to neighboring ones.
+
+For effect, the Persian architecture must have depended, firstly,
+upon the harmony that is produced by the observance of regularity and
+proportion; and, secondly, upon two main features of the style. These
+were the grand sculptured staircases which formed the approaches to all
+the principal buildings, and the vast groves of elegant pillars in and
+about the great halls. The lesser buildings were probably ugly, except
+in front. But such edifices as the Chehl Minar at Persepolis, and its
+duplicate at Susa--where long vistas of columns met the eye on every
+side, and the great central cluster was supported by lighter detached
+groups, combining similarity of form with some variety of ornament,
+where richly colored drapings contrasted with the cool gray stone of the
+building, and a golden roof overhung a pavement of many hues--must
+have been handsome, from whatever side they were contemplated, and for
+general richness and harmony of effect may have compared favorably
+with any edifices which, up to the time of their construction, had been
+erected in any country or by any people. If it may seem to some that
+they were wanting in grandeur, on account of their comparatively low
+height--a height which, including that of the platform, was probably in
+no case much more than a hundred feet--it must be remembered that the
+buildings of Greece and (except the Pyramids) those of Egypt, had the
+same defect, and that, until the constructive powers of the arch came to
+be understood, it was almost impossible to erect a building that should
+be at once lofty and elegant. Height, moreover, if the buildings are for
+use, implies inconvenience, a waste of time and power being involved
+in the ascent and descent of steps. The ancient architects, studying
+utility more than effect, preferred spreading out their buildings
+to piling them up, and rarely, unless in thickly-peopled towns, even
+introduced a second story.
+
+The spectator, however, was impressed with a sense of grandeur in
+another way. The use of huge blocks of stone, not only in platforms,
+but in the buildings themselves, in the shafts of pillars, the antae of
+porticos, the jambs of doorways, occasionally in roofs, and perhaps in
+epistylia, produced the same impression of power, and the same feeling
+of personal insignificance in the beholder, which is commonly effected
+by great size in the edifice, and particularly by height. The mechanical
+skill required to transport and raise into place the largest of these
+blocks must have been very considerable, and their employment causes not
+merely a blind admiration of those who so built on the part of ignorant
+persons, but a profound respect for them on the part of those who are by
+their studies and tastes best qualified for pronouncing on the relative
+and absolute merits of architectural masterpieces.
+
+Among the less pleasing peculiarities of the Persian architecture may be
+mentioned a general narrowness of doors in proportion to their height, a
+want of passages, a thickness of walls, which is architecturally clumsy,
+but which would have had certain advantages in such a climate, an
+inclination to place the doors of rooms near one corner, an allowance of
+two entrances into a great hall from under a single portico, a peculiar
+position of propylaea, and the very large employment of pillars in
+the interior of buildings. In many of these points, and also in the
+architectural use which was made of sculpture, the style of building
+resembled, to some extent, that of Assyria; the propylaea, however, were
+less Assyrian than Egyptian; while in the main and best features of the
+architecture, it was (so far as we can tell) original. The solid and
+handsome stone platforms, the noble staircases, and the profusion of
+light and elegant stone columns, which formed the true glory of
+the architecture--being the features on which its effect chiefly
+depended--have nowhere been discovered in Assyria; and all the
+evidence is against their existence. The Arians found in Mesopotamia an
+architecture of which the pillar was scarcely an element at all--which
+was fragile and unenduring--and which depended for its effect on a
+lavish display of partially colored sculpture and more richly tinted
+enamelled brick. Instead of imitating this, they elaborated for
+themselves, from the wooden buildings of their own mountain homes, a
+style almost exactly the reverse of that with which their victories had
+brought them into contact. Adopting, of main features, nothing but the
+platform, they imparted even to this a new character, by substituting
+in its construction the best for the worst of materials, and by further
+giving to these stone structures a massive solidity, from the employment
+of huge, blocks, which made them stand in the strongest possible
+contrast to the frail and perishable mounds of Babylonia and Assyria.
+Having secured in this way a firm and enduring basis, they proceeded to
+erect upon it buildings where the perpendicular line was primary and the
+horizontal secondary--buildings of almost, the same solid and massive
+character as the platform itself--forests of light but strong columns,
+supporting a wide-spreading roof, sometimes open to the air, sometimes
+enclosed by walls, according as they were designed for summer or winter
+use, or for greater or less privacy. To edifices of this character
+elaborate ornamentation was unnecessary; for the beauty of the column is
+such that nothing more is needed to set off a building. Sculpture
+would thus be dispensed with, or reserved for mere occasional use, and
+employed not so much on the palace itself as on its outer approaches;
+while brick enamelling could well be rejected altogether, as too poor
+and fragile a decoration for buildings of such strength and solidity.
+
+The origination of this columnar architecture must be ascribed to the
+Medes, who, dwelling in or near the more wooden parts of the Zagros
+range, constructed, during the period of their empire, edifices of
+considerable magnificence, whereof wooden pillars were the principal
+feature, the courts being surrounded by colonnades, and the chief
+buildings having porticos, the pillars in both cases being of wood. A
+wooden roof rested on these supports, protected externally by plates of
+metal. We do not know if the pillars had capitals, or if they supported
+an entablature; but probability is in favor of both these arrangements
+having existed. When the Persians succeeded the Medes in the
+sovereignty of Western Asia, they found Arian architecture in this
+condition. As stone, however, was the natural material of their country,
+which is but scantily wooded and is particularly barren towards the edge
+of the great plateau, where their chief towns were situated, and as
+they had from the first a strong desire of fame and a love for the
+substantial and the enduring, they almost immediately substituted for
+the cedar and cypress pillars of the Medes, stone shafts, plain or
+fluted, which they carried to a surprising height, and fixed with such
+firmness that many of them have resisted the destructive powers of
+time, of earthquakes, and of vandalism for more than three-and-twenty
+centuries, and still stand erect and nearly as perfect as when they
+received the last touch from the sculptor's hand more than 2000 years
+ago. It is the glory of the Persians in art to have invented this style,
+which they certainly did not learn from the Assyrians, and which
+they can scarcely be supposed to have adopted from Egypt, where the
+conception of the pillar and its ornamentation were wholly different.
+We can scarcely doubt that Greece received from this quarter the impulse
+which led to the substitution of the light and elegant forms which
+distinguish the architecture of her best period from the rude and clumsy
+work of the more ancient times.
+
+Of the mimetic art of the Persians we do not possess any great amount,
+or any great variety, of specimens. The existing remains consist of
+reliefs, either executed on the natural rock or on large slabs of hewn
+stone used in building, of impressions upon coins, and of a certain
+number of intaglios cut upon gems. We possess no Persian statues, no
+modelled figures, no metal castings, no carvings in ivory or in wood, no
+enamellings, no pottery even. The excavations on Persian sites have been
+singularly barren of those minor results which flowed so largely
+from the Mosopotamian excavations, and have yielded no traces of the
+furniture, domestic implements, or wall-ornamentation of the people;
+have produced, in fact, no small objects at all, excepting a few
+cylinders and some spear and arrow heads, thus throwing scarcely any
+light on the taste or artistic genius of the people.
+
+The nearest approach to statuary which we meet with among the Persian
+remains are the figures of colossal bulls, set to guard portals,
+or porticos, which are not indeed sculptures in the round, but are
+specimens of exceedingly high relief, and which, being carved in front
+as well as along the side, do not fall very far short of statues. Of
+such figures, we find two varieties--one representing the real animal,
+the other a monster with the body and legs of a bull, the head of a
+man, and the wings of an eagle. There is considerable merit in both
+representations. They are free from the defect of flatness, or want of
+breadth in comparison with the length, which characterizes the similar
+figures of Assyrian artists; and they are altogether grand, massive, and
+imposing. The general proportions of the bulls are good, the limbs are
+accurately drawn, the muscular development is well portrayed, and the
+pose of the figure is majestic. Even the monstrous forms of human-headed
+bulls have a certain air of quiet dignity, which is not without its
+effect on the beholder; and, although implying no great artistic merit,
+since they are little more than reproductions of Assyrian models,
+indicate an appreciation of some of the best qualities of Assyrian
+art--the combination of repose with strength, of great size with the
+most careful finish, and of strangeness with the absence of any approach
+to grotesqueness or absurdity. The other Persian reliefs may be divided
+under four heads:
+
+(1) Mythological representations of a man--the king apparently--engaged
+in combat with a lion, a bull, or a monster; (2) Processions of guards,
+courtiers, attendants, or tribute-bearers; (3) Representations of the
+monarch walking, seated upon his throne, or employed in the act of
+worship; and (4) Representations of lions and bulls, either singly or
+engaged in combat.
+
+On the jambs of doorways in three of the Persepolitan buildings, a human
+figure, dressed in the Median robe, but with the sleeve thrown back from
+the right arm, is represented in the act of killing either a lion, a
+bull, or a grotesque monster. In every case the animal is rampant, and
+assails his antagonist with three of his feet, while he stands on the
+fourth. The lion and bull have nothing about them that is very peculiar;
+but the monsters present most strange and unusual combinations. One
+of them has the griffin head, which we have already seen in use in
+the capitals of columns, a feathered crest and neck, a bird's wings,
+a scorpion's tail, and legs terminating in the claws of an eagle. The
+other has an eagle's head, ears like an ass, feathers on the neck, the
+breast, and the back, with the body, legs, and tail of a lion. [PLATE
+LV., Fig. 1.] Figures of equal grotesqueness, some of which possess
+certain resemblances to these, are common in the mythology of Assyria,
+and have been already represented in these volumes; but the Persian
+specimens are no servile imitations of these earlier forms. The idea of
+the Assyrian artist has, indeed, been borrowed; but Persian fancy has
+worked it out in its own way, adding, modifying, and subtracting in such
+a manner as to give to the form produced a quite peculiar, and (so to
+speak) native character.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LV.]
+
+
+Persian gems abound with monstrous forms, of equal, or even superior
+grotesqueness. As the Gothic architects indulged their imagination
+in the most wonderful combinations to represent evil spirits or the
+varieties of vice and sensualism, so the Persian gem-engravers seem
+to have allowed their fancy to run riot in the creation of monsters,
+representative of the Powers of Darkness or of different kinds of evil,
+The stones exhibit the king in conflict with a vast variety of monsters,
+some nearly resembling the Persepolitan, while others have strange
+shapes unseen elsewhere. Winged lions, with two tails and with the horns
+of a ram or an antelope, sphinxes and griffins of half a dozen different
+kinds, and various other nondescript creatures, appear upon the Persian
+gems and cylinders, furnishing abundant evidence of the quaint and
+prolific fancy of the designers.
+
+The processional subjects represented by the Persian artists are of
+three kinds. In the simplest and least interesting the royal guards, or
+the officers of the court, are represented in one or more lines of very
+similar figures, either moving in one direction, or standing in two
+bodies, one facing the other, in the attitude of quiet expectation. In
+these subjects there is a great sameness, and a very small amount of
+merit. The proportion of the forms is, indeed, fairly good, the heads
+and hands are well drawn, and there is some grace in certain of
+the figures, but the general effect is tame and somewhat heavy; the
+attitudes are stiff, and present little variety, while, nevertheless,
+they are sometimes impossible; there is a monotonous repetition of
+identically the same figure, which is tiresome, and a want of grouping
+which is very inartistic. If Persia had produced nothing better than
+this in sculpture, she would have had to be placed not only behind
+Assyria, but behind Egypt, as far as the sculptor's art is concerned.
+
+Processional scenes of a more attractive character are, however,
+tolerably frequent. Some exhibit to us the royal purveyors arriving at
+the palace with their train of attendants, and bringing with them the
+provisions required for the table of the monarch. Here we have some
+varieties of costume which are curious, and some representations
+of Persian utensils, which are not without a certain interest.
+Occasionally, too, we are presented with animal forms, as kids, which
+have considerable merit.
+
+But by far the most interesting of the processional scenes, are those
+which represent the conquered nations bringing to the monarch those
+precious products of their several countries which the Lord of Asia
+expected to receive annually, as a sort of free gift from his subjects,
+in addition to the fixed tribute which was exacted from them. Here we
+have a wonderful variety of costume and equipment, a happy admixture of
+animal with human forms, horses, asses, chariots, sheep, cattle, camels,
+interspersed among men, and the whole divided into groups by means of
+cypress-trees, which break the series into portions, and allow the eye
+to rest in succession upon a number of distinct pictures. Processions of
+this kind occurred on several of the Persepolitan staircases; but by far
+the most elaborate and complete is that on the grand steps in front of
+the Chehl Minar, or Great Hall of Audience, where we see above twenty
+such groups of figures, each with it own peculiar features, and all
+finished with the utmost care and delicacy. The illustration [PLATE LV.,
+Fig. 2], which is taken from a photograph, will give a tolerable idea
+of the general character of this relief; it shows the greater portion of
+six groups, whereof two are much injured by the fall of the parapet-wall
+on which they were represented, while the remaining four are in good
+preservation. It will be noticed that the animal forms--the Bactrian
+camel and the humped ox--are superior to the human, and have
+considerable positive merit as works of art. This relative superiority
+is observable throughout the entire series, which contains, besides
+several horses (some of which have been already represented in these
+volumes), a lioness, an excellent figure of the wild ass, and two
+tolerably well-drawn sheep. [PLATE LVI., Fig. 2 and 3.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LVI.]
+
+
+The representations of the monarch upon the reliefs are of three kinds.
+In the simplest, he is on foot, attended by the parasol-bearer and
+the napkin-bearer, or by the latter only, apparently in the act of
+proceeding from one part of the palace to another. In the more elaborate
+he is either seated on an elevated throne, which is generally supported
+by numerous caryatid figures, or he stands on a platform similarly
+upheld, in the act of worship before an altar. This latter is the
+universal representation upon tombs, while the throne scenes are
+reserved for palaces. In both representations the supporting figures
+are numerous; and it is here chiefly that we notice varieties of
+physiognomy, which are evidently intended to recall the differences
+in the physical type of the several races by which the Empire was
+inhabited. In one case, we have a negro very well portrayed; in others
+we trace the features of Scyths or Tatars. It is manifest that the
+artist has not been content to mark the nationality of the different
+figures by costume alone, but has aimed at reproducing upon the stone
+the physiognomic peculiarities of each race.
+
+The purely animal representations which the bas-reliefs bring before us
+are few in number, and have little variety of type. The most curious and
+the most artistic is one which is several times repeated at Persepolis,
+where it forms the usual ornamentation of the triangular spaces on the
+facades of stairs. This is a representation of a combat between a lion
+and a bull, or (perhaps, we should rather say) a representation of a
+lion seizing and devouring a bull; for the latter animal is evidently
+powerless to offer any resistance to the fierce beast which has sprung
+upon him from behind, and has fixed both fangs and claws in his body.
+[PLATE LVI., Fig. 4.] In his agony the bull rears up his fore-parts, and
+turns his head feebly towards his assailant, whose strong limbs and jaws
+have too firm a hold to be dislodged by such struggles as his unhappy
+victim is capable of making. In no Assyrian drawing is the massiveness
+and strength of the king of beasts more powerfully rendered than in
+this favorite group, which the Persian sculptors repeated without the
+slightest change from generation to generation. The contour of the lion,
+his vast muscular development, and his fierce countenance are really
+admirable, and the bold presentation of the face in full, instead of in
+profile, is beyond the ordinary powers of Oriental artists.
+
+Drawings of bulls and lions in rows, where each animal is the exact
+counterpart of all the others, are found upon the friezes of some of the
+tombs, and upon the representations of canopies over the royal throne.
+These drawings are fairly spirited, but have not any extraordinary
+merit. They reproduce forms well known in Assyria. A figure of a sitting
+lion seems also to have been introduced occasionally on the facades of
+staircases, occurring in the central compartment of the parapet-wall at
+top. These figures, in no case, remain complete; but enough is left
+to show distinctly what the attitude was, and this appears not to have
+resembled very closely any common Assyrian type. [PLATE LVII., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LVII.]
+
+
+The Persian gem-engravings have considerable merit, and need not fear a
+comparison with those of any other Oriental nation. They occur upon
+hard stones of many different kinds, as cornelian, onyx, rock-crystal,
+sapphirine, sardonyx, chalcedony, etc., and are executed for the most
+part with great skill and delicacy. The designs which they embody are in
+general of a mythological character; but sometimes scenes of real life
+occur upon them, and then the drawing is often good, and almost
+always spirited. In proof of this, the reader may be referred to the
+hunting-scenes already given, which are derived wholly from this source,
+as well as to the gems figured [PLATE LVI., Fig. 3], one of which is
+certainly, and the other almost certainly, of Persian workmanship. In
+the former we see the king, not struggling with a mythological lion but
+engaged apparently in the actual chase of the king of beasts Two lions
+have been roused from their lairs, and the monarch hastily places an
+arrow on the string, anxious to despatch one of his foes before the
+other can come to close quarters The eagerness of the hunter and the
+spirit and boldness of the animals are well represented. In the other
+gem, while there is less of artistic excellence, we have a scene of
+peculiar interest placed before us. A combat between two Persians and
+two Cythians seems to be represented. The latter marked by their peaked
+cap and their loose trousers, fight with the bow and the battle-axe,
+the former with the bow and the sword One Scyth is receiving his
+death-wound, the other is about to let loose a shaft, but seems at the
+same time half inclined to fly The steady confidence of the warriors
+on the one side contrasts well with the timidity and hesitancy of their
+weaker and smaller rivals. [PLATE LVII., Fig. 3.]
+
+The vegetable forms represented on the gems are sometimes graceful
+and pleasing. This is especially the case with palm-trees, a favorite
+subject of the artists, who delineated with remarkable success the
+feathery leaves, the pendant fruit and the rough bark of the
+stem. [PLATE LVIII., Fig 1.] The lion-hunter represented on the
+signet-cylinder of Darius Hystaspis takes place in a palm-grove, and
+furnishes the accompanying example of this form of vegetable life.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LVIII.]
+
+
+One gem, ascribed on somewhat doubtful grounds to the Persians of
+Achaemenian times, contains what appears to be a portrait. It is thought
+to be the bust of a satrap of Salamis in Cyprus, and is very carefully
+executed. If really of Persian workmanship, it would indicate a
+considerable advance in the power of representing the human countenance
+between the time of Darius Hystaspis and that of Alexander [PLATE LVII.
+Fig. 2.]
+
+Persian coins are of three principal types. The earliest have on the one
+side the figure of a monarch bearing the diadem and armed with the bow
+and javelin, while on the other there is an irregular indentation of the
+same nature with the _quadratum incusum_ of the Greeks. This rude form
+is replaced in later times by a second design, which is sometimes a
+horseman, sometimes the forepart of a ship, sometimes the king drawing
+an an arrow from his quiver. Another type exhibits on the obverse the
+monarch in combat with a lion while the reverse shows a galley, or a
+towered and battlemented city with two lions standing below it, back to
+back. The third common type has on the obverse the king in his chariot,
+with his charioteer in front of him, and (generally) an attendant
+carrying a fly-chaser behind. The reverse has either the trireme or the
+battlemented city. A specimen of each type is given. [PLATE LVII., Fig.
+4.]
+
+The artistic merit of these medals is not great. The relief is low,
+and the drawing generally somewhat rude. The head of the monarch in the
+early coins is greatly too large. The animal forms are, however, much
+superior to the human, and the horses which draw the royal chariot, the
+lions placed below the battlemented city, and the bulls which are found
+occasionally in the same position, must be pronounced truthful and
+spirited.
+
+Of the Persian taste in furniture, utensils, personal ornaments and the
+like, we need say but little. The throne and footstool of the monarch
+are the only pieces of furniture represented in the sculptures,
+and these, though sufficiently elegant in their forms, are not very
+remarkable. Costliness of material seems to have been more prized than
+beauty of shape; and variety appears to have been carefully eschewed,
+one single uniform type of each article occurring in all the
+representations. The utensils represented are likewise few in number,
+and limited to certain constantly repeated forms. The most elaborate is
+the censer, which has been already given. With this is usually seen
+a sort of pail or basket, shaped like a lady's reticule, in which the
+aromatic gums for burning were probably kept. [PLATE LVIII., Fig. 5.]
+A covered dish, and a goblet with an inverted saucer over it, are also
+forms of frequent occurrence in the hands of the royal attendants; and
+the tribute-bearers frequently carry, among their other offerings, bowls
+or basons, which, though not of Persian manufacture, were no doubt left
+at the court, and took their place among the utensils of the palace.
+[PLATE LVIII., Figs. 2 and 3.]
+
+In the matter of personal ornaments the taste of the Persians seems to
+have been peculiarly simple. Earrings were commonly plain rings of gold;
+bracelets mere bands of the same metal. Collars were circlets of gold
+twisted in a very inartificial fashion. There was nothing artistic
+in the sheaths or hilts of swords, though spear-shafts were sometimes
+adorned with the representation of an apple or a pomegranate. Dresses
+seem not to have been often patterned, but to have depended generally
+for their effect on make and color. In all these respects we observe
+a remarkable contrast between the Arian and the Semitic races,
+extreme simplicity characterizing the one, while the most elaborate
+ornamentation was affected by the other.
+
+Persia was not celebrated in antiquity for the production of any special
+fabrics. The arts of weaving and dyeing were undoubtedly practised in
+the dominant country, as well as in most of the subject provinces, and
+the Persian dyes seem even to have had a certain reputation; but none
+of the productions of their looms acquired a name among foreign nations.
+Their skill, indeed, in the mechanical arts generally was, it is
+probable, not more than moderate. It was their boast that they were
+soldiers, and had won a position by their good swords which gave them
+the command of all that was most exquisite and admirable, whether in the
+natural world or among the products of human industry. So long as the
+carpets of Babylon and Sardis, the shawls of Kashmir and India, the fine
+linen of Borsippa and Egypt, the ornamental metal-work of Greece,
+the coverlets of Damascus, the muslins of Babylonia, the multiform
+manufactures of the Phoenician towns, poured continually into Persia
+Proper in the way of tribute, gifts, or merchandise, it was needless for
+the native population to engage largely in industrial enterprise.
+
+To science the ancient Persians contributed absolutely nothing. The
+genius of the nation was adverse to that patient study and those
+laborious investigations from which alone scientific progress ensues.
+Too light and frivolous, too vivacious, too sensuous for such pursuits,
+they left them to the patient Babylonians, and the thoughtful, many-sided
+Greeks. The schools of Orchoe, Borsippa, and Miletus flourished under
+their sway, but without provoking their emulation, possibly without so
+much as attracting their attention. From first to last, from the dawn
+to the final close of their power, they abstained wholly from scientific
+studies. It would seem that they thought it enough to place before the
+world, as signs of their intellectual vigor, the fabric of their Empire
+and the buildings of Susa and Persepolis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. RELIGION.
+
+
+The original form of the Persian religion has been already described
+under the head of the third or Median monarchy. It was identical with
+the religion of the Medes in its early shape, consisting mainly in
+the worship of Ahura-Mazda, the acknowledgment of a principle of
+evil--Angro-Mainyus, and obedience to the precepts of Zoroaster. When
+the Medes, on establishing a wide-spread Empire, chiefly over races by
+whom Magism had been long professed, allowed the creed of their subjects
+to corrupt their own belief, accepted the Magi for their priests, and
+formed the mixed religious system of which an account has been given in
+the second volume of this work, the Persians in their wilder country,
+less exposed to corrupting influences, maintained their original faith
+in undiminished purity, and continued faithful to their primitive
+traditions. The political dependence of their country upon Media during
+the period of the Median sway made no difference in this respect; for
+the Medes were tolerant, and did not seek to interfere with the creed of
+their subjects. The simple Zoroastrian belief and worship, overlaid by
+Magism in the now luxurious Media, found a refuge in the rugged Persian
+uplands, among the hardy shepherds and cultivators of that unattractive
+region, was professed by the early Achaemenian princes, and generally
+acquiesced in by the people.
+
+The main feature of the religion daring this first period was the
+acknowledgment and the worship of a single supreme God--"the Lord God of
+Heaven"--"the giver (i.e. maker) of heaven and earth"--the disposer of
+thrones, the dispenser of happiness. The foremost place in inscriptions
+and decrees was assigned, almost universally, to the "great god,
+Ormazd." Every king, of whom we have an inscription more than two lines
+in length, speaks of Ormazd as his upholder; and the early monarchs
+mention by name no other god. All rule "by the grace of Ormazd." From
+Ormazd come victory, conquest, safety, prosperity, blessings of every
+kind. The "law of Ormazd" is the rule of life. The protection of Ormazd
+is the one priceless blessing for which prayer is perpetually offered.
+
+While, however, Ormazd holds this exalted and unapproachable position,
+there is still an acknowledgment made, in a general way, of "other
+gods." Ormazd is "the greatest of the gods" (_mathista baganam_). It is
+a usual prayer to ask for the protection of Ormazd, together with that
+of these lesser powers (_hada bagaibish_). Sometimes the phrase is
+varied, and the petition is for the special protection of a certain
+class of Deities--the _Dii familiares_--or "deities who guard the
+house."
+
+The worship of Mithra, or the Sun, does not appear in the inscriptions
+until the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, the victor of Cunaxa. It is,
+however, impossible to doubt that it was a portion of the Persian
+religion, at least as early as the date of Herodotus. Probably it
+belongs, in a certain sense, to primitive Zoroastrianism, but was kept
+in the background during the early period, when a less materialistic
+worship prevailed than suited the temper of later times.
+
+Nor can it be doubted that the Persians held during this early period
+that Dualistic belief which has been the distinguishing feature of
+Zoroastrianism from a time long anterior to the commencement of the
+Median Empire down to the present day. It was not to be expected
+that this belief would show itself in the inscriptions, unless in the
+faintest manner; and it can therefore excite no surprise that they are
+silent, or all but silent, on the point in question. Nor need we wonder
+that this portion of their creed was not divulged by the Persians to
+Herodotus or to Xenophon, since it is exactly the sort of subject on
+which reticence was natural and might have been anticipated. Neither the
+lively Halicarnassian, nor the pleasant but somewhat shallow Athenian,
+had the gift of penetrating very deeply into the inner mind of a
+foreign people; added to which, it is to be remembered that they were
+unacquainted with Persia Proper, and drew their knowledge of Persian
+opinions and customs either from hearsay or from the creed and practices
+of the probably mixed garrisons which held Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.
+
+Persian worship, in these early times, was doubtless that enjoined by
+the Zendavesta, comprising prayer and thanksgiving to Ormazd and the
+good spirits of his creation, the recitation of Gathas or hymns, the
+performance of sacrifice, and participation in the Soma ceremony.
+Worship seems to have taken place in temples, which are mentioned
+(according to the belief of most cuneiform scholars) in the Behistun
+inscription. Of the character of these buildings we can say nothing.
+It has been thought that those two massive square towers so similar in
+construction, which exist in a more or less ruined condition at Murgab
+and Nakhsh-i-Rustam, are Persian temples of the early period, built to
+contain an altar on which the priests offered victims. But the absence
+of any trace of an altar from both, the total want of religious emblems,
+and the extremely small size of the single apartment which each tower
+contains, make strongly against the temple theory; not to mention that a
+much more probable use may be suggested for the buildings.
+
+With respect to the altars upon which sacrifice was offered, we are not
+left wholly without evidence. The Persian monarchs of the early period,
+including Darius Hystaspis, represented themselves on their tombs in the
+act of worship. Before them, at the distance of a few feet, stands an
+altar, elevated on three steps, and crowned with the sacrificial fire.
+Its form is square, and its only ornaments are a sunken squared recess,
+and a strongly projecting cornice at top. The height of the altar,
+including the steps, was apparently about four and a half feet. [PLATE
+LVIII., Fig. 4.]
+
+The Persians' favorite victim was the horse; but they likewise
+sacrificed cattle, sheep, and goats. Human sacrifices seem to have been
+almost, if not altogether, unknown to them, and were certainly alien to
+the entire spirit of the Zoroastrian system. The flesh of the victim was
+probably merely shown to the sacred fire, after which it was eaten by
+the priests, the sacrificer, and those whom the latter associated with
+himself in the ceremony.
+
+The spirit of the Zendavesta is wholly averse to idolatry, and we may
+fully accept the statement of Herodotus that images of the gods were
+entirely unknown to the Persians. Still, they did not deny themselves a
+certain use of symbolic representations of their deities, nor did
+they even scruple to adopt from idolatrous nations the forms of their
+religious symbolism. The winged circle, with or without the addition of
+a human figure, which was in Assyria the emblem of the chief Assyrian
+deity, Asshur, became with the Persians the ordinary representation of
+the Supreme God, Ormazd, and, as such, was placed in most conspicuous
+positions on their rock tombs and on their buildings. [PLATE LVIII.,
+Fig. 7.] Nor was the general idea only of the emblem adopted, but all
+the details of the Assyrian model were followed, with one exception. The
+human figure of the Assyrian original wore the close-fitting tunic, with
+short sleeves, which was the ordinary costume in Assyria, and had on
+its head the horned cap which marked a god or a genius. In the Persian
+counterpart this costume was exchanged for the Median robe, and a tiara,
+which was sometimes that proper to the king,23 sometimes that worn with
+the Median robe by court officers. [PLATE LVIII., Fig. 7.]
+
+Mithra, or the Sun, is represented in Persian sculptures by a disk or
+orb, which is not four-rayed like the Assyrian, but perfectly plain
+and simple. In sculptures where the emblems of Ormazd and Mithra occur
+together, the position of the former is central, that of the latter
+towards the right hand of the tablet. The solar emblem is universal on
+sculptured tombs, but is otherwise of rare occurrence.
+
+Spirits of good and evil, the Ahuras and Devas of the mythology, were
+represented by the Persians under human, animal, or monstrous forms.
+There can be little doubt that it is a good genius--perhaps the
+"well-formed, swift, tall Serosh"--who appears on one of the square
+pillars set up by Cyrus at Pasargadae. This figure is that of a colossal
+man, from whose shoulders issue four wings, two of which spread upwards
+above his head, while the other two droop and reach nearly to his feet.
+[PLATE LIX.] It stands erect, in profile, with both arms raised and the
+hands open. The costume of the figure is remarkable. It consists of a
+long fringed robe reaching from the neck to the ankles--apparently of
+a stiff material, which conceals the form--and of a very singular
+head-dress. This is a striped cap, closely fitting the head,
+overshadowed by an elaborate ornament, of a character purely Egyptian.
+First there rise from the top of the cap two twisted horns, which,
+spreading right and left, become a sort of basis for the other forms to
+rest upon. These consist of two grotesque human-headed figures, one at
+either side, and of a complex triple ornament between them, clumsily
+imitated from a far more elegant Egyptian model. [PLATE LX., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIX.]
+
+
+The winged human-headed bulls, which the Persians adopted from the
+Assyrians, with very slight modifications, were also, it is probable,
+regarded as emblems of some god or good genius. They would scarcely
+otherwise have been represented on Persian cylinders as upholding the
+emblem of Ormazd in the same way that human-headed bulls uphold the
+similar emblem of Asshur on Assyrian cylinders. [PLATE LX., Fig. 2.]
+Their position, too, at Persepolis, where they kept watch over the
+entrance to the palace, accords with the notion that they represented
+guardian spirits, objects of the favorable regard of the Persians. Yet
+this view is not wholly free from difficulty. The bull appears in
+the bas-reliefs of Persepolis among the evil, or at any rate hostile,
+powers, which the king combats and slays; and though in these
+representations the animal is not winged or human-headed, yet on some
+cylinders apparently Persian, the monarch contends with bulls of exactly
+the same type as that which is assigned in other cylinders to the
+upholders of Ormazd. It would seem therefore that in this case the
+symbolism was less simple than usual, the bull in certain combinations
+and positions representing a god or a good spirit, while in others he
+was the type of a deva or evil genius.
+
+
+[[Illustration: PLATE LX.]
+
+
+The most common representatives of the Evil Powers of the mythology
+were lions, winged or unwinged, and monsters of several different
+descriptions. At Persepolis the lions which the king stabs or strangles
+are of the natural shape, and this type is found also upon gems and
+cylinders; but on these last the king's antagonist is often a winged,
+while sometimes he is a winged and horned, lion. [PLATE LX., Fig. 3.]
+The monsters are of two principal types. In both the forms of a bird and
+a beast are commingled; but in the one the bird, and in the other the
+beast predominates. Specimens are given [PLATE LX., Fig. 4] taken from
+Persian gems and cylinders.
+
+Such seems to have been, in outline, the purer and more ancient form
+of the Persian religion. During its continuance a fierce iconoclastic
+spirit animated the princes of the Empire, who took every opportunity of
+showing their hatred and contempt for the idolatries of the neighboring
+nations, burning temples, confiscating or destroying images, scourging
+or slaying idolatrous priests, putting a stop to festivals,
+disturbing tombs, smiting with the sword animals believed to be divine
+incarnations. Within their own dominions the fear of stirring up
+religious wars compelled them to be moderately tolerant, unless it
+were after rebellion, when a province lay at their mercy; but when they
+invaded foreign countries, they were wont to exhibit in the most open
+and striking way their aversion to materialistic religions. In Greece,
+during the great invasion, they burned every temple that they came near;
+in Egypt, on their first attack, they outraged every religious feeling
+of the people.
+
+It was during this time of comparative purity, when the anti-idolatrous
+spirit was in full force, that a religious sympathy seems to have drawn
+together the two nations of the Persians and the Jews. Cyrus evidently
+identified Jehovah with Ormazd, and, accepting as a divine command the
+prophecy of Isaiah, undertook to rebuild their temple for a people who,
+like his own, allowed no image of God to defile the sanctuary. Darius,
+similarly, encouraged the completion of the work, after it had been
+interrupted by the troubles which followed the death of Cambyses. The
+foundation was thus laid for that friendly intimacy between the two
+peoples, of which we have abundant evidence in the books of Ezra,
+Nehemiah, and Esther, a friendly intimacy which caused the Jews to
+continue faithful to Persia to the last, and to brave the conqueror
+of Issus rather than desert masters who had shown them kindness and
+sympathy.
+
+The first trace that we have of a corrupting influence being brought
+to bear on the Persian religion is connected with the history of the
+pseudo-Smerdis. According to Herodotus, Cambyses, when he set out on
+his Egyptian expedition, left a Magus, Patizeithes, at the capital, as
+comptroller of the royal household. The conferring of an office of such
+importance on the priest of an alien religion is the earliest indication
+which we have of a diminution of zeal for their ancestral creed on the
+part of the Achaemenian kings, and the earliest historical proof of the
+existence of Magism beyond the limits of Media. Magism was really, it
+is probable, an older creed than Zoroastrianism in the country where the
+Persians were settled; but it now, for the first time since the Persian
+conquest, began to show itself, to thrust itself into high places, and
+to attract general notice. From being the religion of the old Scythic
+tribes whom the Persians had conquered and whom they held in subjection,
+it had passed into being the religion of great numbers of the Persians
+themselves. The same causes which had corrupted Zoroastrianism in Media
+soon after the establishment of the Empire, worked also, though more
+slowly, in Persia, and a large section of the nation was probably weaned
+from its own belief, and won over to Magism, before Cambyses went
+into Egypt. His prolonged absence in that country brought matters to
+a crisis. The Magi took advantage of it to attempt a substitution
+of Magism for Zoroastrianism as the religion of the state. When
+this attempt failed, there was no doubt a reaction for a time, and
+Zoroastrianism thought itself triumphant. But a foe is generally most
+dangerous when he is despised. Magism, repulsed in its attempt to oust
+the rival religion, derived wisdom from the lesson, and thenceforth set
+itself to sap the fortress which it could not storm. Little by little
+it crept into favor, mingling itself with the old Arian creed, not
+displacing it, but only adding to it. In the later Persian system the
+Dualism of Zoroaster and the Magian elemental worship were jointly
+professed--the Magi were accepted as the national priests--the rights
+and ceremonies of the two religions were united--a syncretism not
+unusual in the ancient world blended into one two creeds originally
+quite separate and distinct, but in few respects antagonistic--and the
+name of Zoroaster being still fondly cherished in the memory of the
+nation, while in their practical religion Magian rites predominated,
+the mixed religion acquired the name, by which it was known to the later
+Greeks, of "the Magism of Zoroaster."
+
+The Magian rites have been described in the chapter on the Median
+Religion. Their leading feature was the fire-worship, which is still
+cherished among those descendants of the ancient Persians who did
+not submit to the religion of Islam. On lofty spots in the high
+mountain-chain which traversed both Media and Persia, fire-altars were
+erected, on which burnt a perpetual flame, watched constantly lest it
+should expire, and believed to have been kindled from heaven. Over the
+altar in most instances a shrine or temple was built; and on these
+spots day after day the Magi chanted their incantations, displayed
+their barsoms or divining-rods, and performed their choicest ceremonies.
+Victims were not offered on these fire-altars. When a sacrifice took
+place, a fire was laid hard-by with logs of dry wood, stript of their
+bark, and this was lighted from the flame which burned on the altar.
+On the fire thus kindled was consumed a small part of the fat of the
+victim; but the rest was cut into joints, boiled, and eaten or sold
+by the worshipper. The true offering, which the god accepted, was,
+according to the Magi, the soul of the animal.
+
+If human victims were ever really offered by the Persians as sacrifices,
+it is to Magian influence that the introduction of this horrid practice
+must be attributed, since it is utterly opposed to the whole spirit of
+Zoroaster's teaching. An instance of the practice is first reported in
+the reign of Xerxes, when Magism, which had been sternly repressed by
+Darius Hystaspis, began once more to lift its head, crept into favor
+at Court, and obtained a status which it never afterwards forfeited.
+According to Herodotus, the Persians, on their march into Greece,
+sacrificed, at Ennea Hodoi on the Strymon river, nine youths and nine
+maidens of the country, by burying them alive. Herodotus seems to have
+viewed the act as done in propitiation of a god resembling the Grecian
+Pluto; but it is not at all certain that he interpreted it correctly.
+Possibly he mistook a vengeance for a religious ceremony. The Brygi, who
+dwelt at this time in the vicinity of Ennea Hodoi, had given Mardonius
+a severe defeat on a former occasion; and the Persians were apt to
+treasure up such wrongs, and visit them, when occasion offered, with
+extreme severity.
+
+When the Persians had once yielded to the syncretic spirit so far as to
+unite the Magian tenets and practices with their primitive belief, they
+were naturally led on to adopt into their system such portions of the
+other religions, with which they were brought into close contact, as
+possessed an attraction for them. Before the date of Herodotus they had
+borrowed from the Babylonians the worship of a Nature-Goddess, whom the
+Greeks identified at one time with Aphrodite, at another with Artemis,
+at another (probably) with Here, and had thus made a compromise with one
+of the grossest of the idolatries which, theoretically, they despised
+and detested. The Babylonian Venus, called in the original dialect of
+her native country Nana, was taken into the Pantheon of the Persians,
+under the name of Nansea, Anaea, Anaitis, or Tanata, and became in a
+little while one of the principal objects of Persian worship. At first
+idolatry, in the literal sense, was avoided; but Artaxerxes Mnemon, the
+conqueror of Cunaxa, an ardent devotee of the goddess, not content with
+the mutilated worship which he found established, resolved to show his
+zeal by introducing into all the chief cities of the Empire the image
+of his patroness. At Susa, at Persepolis, at Babylon, at Ecbatana, at
+Damascus, at Sardis, at Bactra, images of Anaitis were set up by his
+authority for the adoration of worshippers. It is to be feared that at
+this time, if not before, the lascivious rites were also adopted, which
+throughout the East constituted the chief attraction of the cult of
+Venus.
+
+With the idolatry thus introduced, another came soon to be joined.
+Mithra, so long an object of reverence, if not of actual worship, to
+the Zoroastrians, was in the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, honored, like
+Anaitis, with a statue, and advanced into the foremost rank of deities.
+The exact form which the image took is uncertain; but probability is in
+favor of the well-known type of a human figure slaying a prostrate bull,
+which was to the Greeks and Romans the essential symbol of the Mithraic
+worship. The intention of this oft-repeated group has been well
+explained by Hyde, who regards it as a representation of the Sun
+quitting the constellation of Taurus, the time when in the East his
+fructifying power is the greatest. The specimens which we possess of
+this group belong to classical art and to times later than Alexander;
+but we can scarcely suppose the idea to have been Occidental. The
+Western artists would naturally adopt the symbolism of those from whom
+they took the rites, merely modifying its expression in accordance with
+their own aesthetic notions.
+
+Towards the close of the Empire two other gods emerged from the
+obscurity in which the lower deities of the Zoroastrian system were
+shrouded during the earlier and purer period. Vohu-manu, or Bah-man,
+and Amerdat, or Amendat, two of the councillors of Ormazd, became the
+objects of a worship, which was clearly of an idolatrous character.
+Shrines were built in their honor, and were frequented by companies
+of Magi, who chanted their incantations, and performed their rites
+of divination in these new edifices as willingly as in the old
+Fire-temples. The image of Bah-man was of wood, and was borne in
+procession on certain occasions.
+
+Thus as time went on, the Persian religion continually assimilated
+itself more and more to the forms of belief and worship which prevailed
+in the neighboring parts of Asia. Idolatries of several kinds came
+into vogue, some adopted from abroad, others developed out of their
+own system. Temples, some of which had a character of extraordinary
+magnificence, were erected to the honor of various gods; and the
+degenerate descendants of pure Zoroastrian spiritualists bowed down to
+images, and entangled themselves in the meshes of a sensualistic and
+most debasing Nature-worship. Still, amid whatsoever corruptions, the
+Dualistic faith was maintained. The supremacy of Ormazd was from first
+to last admitted. Ahriman retained from first to last the same character
+and position, neither rising into an object of worship, nor sinking into
+a mere personification of evil. The inquiries which Aristotle caused to
+be made, towards the very close of the Empire, into the true nature of
+the Persian Religion, showed him Ormazd and Ahriman still recognized
+as Principles, still standing in the same hostile and antithetical
+attitude, one towards the other, which they occupied when the first
+Fargard of the Vendidad was written, long anterior to the rise of the
+Persian Power.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY.
+
+
+"I saw the man pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so
+that no beast might stand before him, neither was there any that could
+deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became
+great."--Daniel, viii. 4.
+
+
+The history of the Persian Empire dates from the conquest of Astyages by
+Cyrus, and therefore commences with the year B.C. 558. But the present
+inquiry must be carried considerably further back, since in this, as
+in most other cases, the Empire grew up out of a previously existing
+monarchy. Darius Hystaspis reckons that there had been eight Persians
+kings of his race previously to himself; and though it is no doubt
+possible that some of the earlier names may be fictitious, yet we can
+scarcely suppose that he was deceived, or that he wished to deceive, as
+to the fact that long anterior to his own reign, or that of his elder
+contemporary, Cyrus, Persia had been a monarchy, governed by a line of
+princes of the same clan, or family, with himself. It is our business in
+this place, before entering upon the brilliant period of the Empire, to
+cast a retrospective glance over the earlier ages of obscurity, and
+to collect therefrom such scattered notices as are to be found of the
+Persians and their princes or kings before they suddenly attracted
+the general attention of the civilized world by their astonishing
+achievements under the great Cyrus.
+
+The more ancient of-the sacred books of the Jews, while distinctly
+noticing the nation of the Medes, contain no mention at all of Persia
+or the Persians. The Zendavesta, the sacred volume of the people
+themselves, is equally silent on the subject. The earliest appearance
+of the Persians in history is in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings,
+which begin to notice them about the middle of the ninth century B.C.
+At this time Shalmaneser II. found them in south-western Armenia, where
+they were in close contact with the Medes, of whom, however, they seem
+to have been wholly independent. Like the modern Kurds in this same
+region, they owned no subjection to a single head, but were under the
+government of numerous petty chieftains, each the lord of a single town
+or of a small mountain district. Shalmaneser informs us that he took
+tribute from twenty-five such chiefs. Similar tokens of submission were
+paid also to his son and grandson. After this the Assyrian records are
+silent as to the Persians for nearly a century, and it is not until the
+reign of Sennacherib that we once more find them brought into contact
+with the power which aspired to be mistress of Asia. At the time of
+their reappearance they are no longer in Armenia, but have descended the
+line of Zagros and reached the districts which lie north and north-east
+of Susiana, or that part of the Bakhtiyari chain which, if it is not
+actually within Persia Proper, at any rate immediately adjoins upon it.
+Arrived thus far, it was easy for them to occupy the region to which
+they have given permanent name; for the Bakhtiyari mountains command it
+and give a ready access to its valleys and plains.
+
+The Persians would thus appear not to have completed their migrations
+till near the close of the Assyrian period, and it is probable that
+they did not settle into an organized monarchy much before the fall of
+Nineveh. At any rate we hear of no Persian ruler of note or name in the
+Assyrian records, and the reign of petty chiefs would seem therefore to
+have continued at least to the time of Asshur-bani-pal, up to which date
+we have ample records. The establishment, however, about the year
+B.C. 660, or a little later, of a powerful monarchy in the kindred and
+neighboring Media, could not fail to attract attention, and might well
+provoke imitation in Persia; and the native tradition appears to have
+been that about this time. Persian royalty began in the person of a
+certain Achaemenes (Hakhamanish), from whom all their later monarchs,
+with one possible exception, were proud to trace their descent.
+
+The name Achaemenes cannot fail to arouse some suspicion. The Greek
+genealogies render us so familiar with heroes eponymi--imaginary
+personages, who owe their origin to the mere fact of the existence
+of certain tribe or race names, to account for which they were
+invented--that whenever, even in the history of other nations, we
+happen upon a name professedly personal, which stands evidently in close
+connection with a tribal designation, we are apt at once to suspect it
+of being fictitious. But in the East tribal and even ethnic names
+were certainly sometimes derived from actual persons; and it may be
+questioned whether the Persians, or the Iranic stock generally, had the
+notion of inventing personal eponyms. The name Achaemenes, therefore,
+in spite of its connection with the royal clan name of Achaemenidae, may
+stand as perhaps that of a real Persian king, and, if so, as probably
+that of the first king, the original founder of the monarchy, who united
+the scattered tribes in one, and thus raised Persia into a power of
+considerable importance.
+
+The immediate successor of Achaemenes appears to have been his son,
+Teispes. Of him and of the next three monarchs, the information that
+we possess is exceedingly scanty. The very names of one or two in the
+series are uncertain. One tradition assigns either to the second or the
+fourth king of the list the establishment of friendly relations with
+a certain Pharnaces, King of Cappadocia, by an intermarriage between a
+Persian princess, Atossa, and the Cappadocian monarch. The existence
+of communication at this time between petty countries politically
+unconnected, and placed at such a distance from one another as
+Cappadocia and Persia, is certainly what we should not have expected;
+but our knowledge of the general condition of Western Asia at the period
+is too slight to justify us in a positive rejection of the story, which
+indicates, if it be true, that even during this time of comparative
+obscurity, the Persian monarchs were widely known, and that their
+alliance was thought a matter of importance.
+
+The political condition of Persia under these early monarchs is a more
+interesting question than either the names of the kings or the foreign
+alliances which they attracted. According to Herodotus, that condition
+was one of absolute and unqualified subjection to the sway of the Medes,
+who conquered Persia and imposed their yoke upon the people before
+the year B.C. 634. The native records, however, and the accounts which
+Xenophon preferred, represent Persia as being at this time a separate
+and powerful state, either wholly independent of Media, or, at any
+rate, held in light bonds of little more than nominal dependence. On the
+whole, it appears most probable that the true condition of the country
+was that which this last phrase expresses. It maybe doubted whether
+there had ever been a conquest; but the weaker and less developed of
+the two kindred states owned the suzerainty of the stronger, and though
+quite unshackled in her internal administration, and perhaps not very
+much interfered with in her relations towards foreign countries, was,
+formally, a sort of Median fief, standing nearly in the position in
+which Egypt now stands to Turkey. The position was irksome to the
+sovereigns rather than unpleasant to the people. It detracted from the
+dignity of the Persian monarchs, and injured their self-respect; it
+probably caused them occasional inconvenience, since from time to time
+they would have to pay their court to their suzerain; and it seems
+towards the close of the Median period to have involved an obligation
+which must have been felt, if not as degrading, at any rate as very
+disagreeable. The monarch appears to have been required to send his
+eldest son as a sort of hostage to the Court of his superior, where he
+was held in a species of honorable captivity, not being allowed to
+quit the Court and return home without leave, but being otherwise well
+treated. The fidelity of the father was probably supposed to be in this
+way secured while it might be hoped that the son would be conciliated,
+and made an attached and willing dependent.
+
+When Persian history first fairly opens upon us in the pages of Xenophon
+and of Nicolaus Damascenus, this is the condition of things which we
+find existing. Cambyses, the father of Cyrus the Great--called Atradates
+by the Syrian writer--is ruler of Persia, and resides in his native
+country, while his son Cyrus is permanently, or at any rate usually,
+resident at the Median Court, where he is in high favor with the
+reigning monarch, Astyages. According to Xenophon, who has here the
+support of Herodotus, he is Astyages' grandson, his father, Cambyses,
+being married to Mandane, that monarch's daughter. According to
+Nicolaus, who in this agrees with Ctesias, he is no way related to
+Astyages, who retains him at his court because he is personally attached
+to him. In the narrative of the latter writer, which has already been
+preferred in these volumes, the young prince, while at the Court,
+conceives the idea of freeing his own country by a revolt, and enters
+into secret communication with his father for the furtherance of his
+object. His father somewhat reluctantly assents, and preparations are
+made, which lead to the escape of Cyrus and the commencement of a war
+of independence. The details of the struggle, as they are related by
+Nicolaus, have been already given. After repeated defeats, the Persians
+finally make a stand at Pasargadae, their capital, where in two great
+battles they destroy the power of Astyages, who himself remains a
+prisoner in the hands of his adversary.
+
+In the course of the struggle the father of Cyrus had fallen, and its
+close, therefore, presented Cyrus himself before the eyes of the Western
+Asiatics as the undisputed lord of the great Arian Empire which had
+established itself on the ruins of the Semitic. Transfers of sovereignty
+are easily made in the East, where independence is little valued,
+and each new conqueror is hailed with acclamations from millions. It
+mattered nothing to the bulk of Astyages' subjects whether they were
+ruled from Ecbatana or Pasargadae, by Median or Persian masters. Fate
+had settled that a single lord was to bear sway over the tribes and
+nations dwelling between the Persian Gulf and the Euxine; and the
+arbitrament of the sword had now decided that this single lord should be
+Cyrus. We may readily believe the statement of Nicolaus that the nations
+previously subject to the Medes vied with each other in the celerity
+and zeal with which they made their submission to the Persian conqueror.
+Cyrus succeeded at once to the full inheritance of which he had
+dispossessed Astyages, and was recognized as king by all the tribes
+between the Halys and the desert of Khorassan.
+
+He was at this time, if we may trust Dino, exactly forty years of age,
+and was thus at that happy period in life when the bodily powers
+have not yet begun to decay, while the mental are just reaching their
+perfection. Though we may not be able to trust implicitly the details of
+the war of independence which have come down to us, yet there can be no
+doubt that he had displayed in its course very remarkable courage and
+conduct. He had intended, probably, no more than to free his country
+from the Median yoke; by the force of circumstances he had been led on
+to the destruction of the Median power, and to the establishment of a
+Persian Empire in its stead. With empire had come an enormous accession
+of wealth. The accumulated stores of ages, the riches of the Ninevite
+kings--the "gold," the "silver," and the "pleasant furniture" of those
+mighty potentates, of which there was "none end"--together with all the
+additions made to these stores by the Median monarchs, had fallen into
+his hands, and from comparative poverty he had come per saltum into the
+position of one of the wealthiest--if not of the very wealthiest--of
+princes. An ordinary Oriental would have been content with such a
+result, and have declined to tempt fortune any more. But Cyrus was
+no ordinary Oriental. Confident in his own powers, active, not to say
+restless, and of an ambition that nothing could satiate, he viewed,
+the position which he had won simply as a means of advancing himself to
+higher eminence. According to Ctesias, he was scarcely seated upon the
+throne, when he led an expedition to the far north-east against the
+renowned Bactrians and Sacans; and at any rate, whether this be true or
+no--and most probably it is an anticipation of later occurrences--it
+is certain that, instead of folding his hands, Cyrus proceeded with
+scarcely a pause on a long career of conquest, devoting his whole life
+to the carrying out of his plans of aggression, and leaving a portion
+of his schemes, which were too extensive for one life to realize, as a
+legacy to his successor. The quarter to which he really first turned
+his attention seems to have been the north-west. There, in the somewhat
+narrow but most fertile tract between the river Halys and the Egean Sea,
+was a state which seemed likely to give him trouble--a state which had
+successfully resisted all the efforts of the Medes to reduce it, and
+which recently, under a warlike prince, had shown a remarkable power
+of expansion. An instinct of danger warned the scarce firmly-settled
+monarch to fix his eye at once upon Lydia; in the wealthy and successful
+Croesus, the Lydian king, he saw one whom dynastic interests might
+naturally lead to espouse the quarrel of the conquered Mede, and whose
+power and personal qualities rendered him a really formidable rival.
+
+The Lydian monarch, on his side, did not scruple to challenge a contest.
+The long strife which his father had waged with the great Cyaxares
+had terminated in a close alliance, cemented by a marriage, which made
+Croesus and Astyages brothers. The friendship of the great power of
+Western Asia, secured by this union, had set Lydia free to pursue
+a policy of self-aggrandizement in her own immediate, neighborhood.
+Rapidly, one after another, the kingdoms of Asia Minor had been reduced;
+and, excepting the mountain districts of Lycia and Cilicia, all Asia
+within the Halys now owned the sway of the Lydian king. Contented with
+his successes, and satisfied that the tie of relationship secured him
+from attack on the part of the only power which he had need to fear,
+Croesus had for some years given himself up to the enjoyment of his
+gains and to an ostentatious display of his magnificence. It was a rude
+shock to the indolent and self-complacent dreams of a sanguine optimism,
+which looked that "to-morrow should be as to-day, only much more
+abundant," when tidings came that revolution had raised its head in the
+far south-east, and that an energetic prince, in the full vigor of life,
+and untrammelled by dynastic ties, had thrust the aged Astyages from
+his throne, and girt his own brows with the Imperial diadem. Croesus,
+according to the story, was still in deep grief on account of the
+untimely death of his eldest son, when the intelligence reached
+him. Instantly rousing himself from his despair, he set about his
+preparations for the struggle, which his sagacity saw to be inevitable.
+After consultation of the oracles of Greece, he allied himself with the
+Grecian community, which appeared to him on the whole to be the most
+powerful. At the same time he sent ambassadors to Babylon and Memphis,
+to the courts of Labynetus and Amasis, with proposals for an alliance
+offensive and defensive between the three secondary powers of the
+Eastern world against that leading power whose superior strength and
+resources were felt to constitute a common danger. His representations
+were effectual. The kings of Babylon and Egypt, alive to their own
+peril, accepted his proposals; and a joint league was formed between the
+three monarchs and the republic of Sparta for the purpose of resisting
+the presumed aggressive spirit of the Medo-Persians.
+
+Cyrus, meanwhile, was not idle. Suspecting that a weak point in his
+adversary's harness would be the disaffection of some of his more
+recently conquered subjects, he sent emissaries into Asia Minor to sound
+the dispositions of the natives. These emissaries particularly addressed
+themselves to the Asiatic Greeks, who, coming of a freedom-loving stock,
+and having been only very lately subdued, would it was thought, be
+likely to catch at an opportunity of shaking off the yoke of their
+conqueror. But, reasonable as such hopes must have seemed, they were in
+this instance doomed to disappointment. The Ionians, instead of hailing
+Cyrus as a liberator, received his overtures with suspicion. They
+probably thought that they were sure not to gain, and that they might
+possibly lose, by a change of masters. The yoke of Croesus had not,
+perhaps, been very oppressive; at any rate it seemed to them preferable
+to "bear the ills they had," rather than "fly to others" which might
+turn out less tolerable.
+
+Disappointed in this quarter, the Persian prince directed his efforts to
+the concentration of a large army, and its rapid advance into a position
+where it would be excellently placed both for defence and attack. The
+frontier province of Cappadocia, which was only separated from the
+dominions of the Lydian monarch by a stream of moderate size, the
+Halys, was a most defensible country, extremely fertile and productive,
+abounding in natural fastnesses, and inhabited by a brave and warlike
+population. Into this district Cyrus pushed forward his army with all
+speed, taking, as it would seem, not the short route through Diarbekr,
+Malatiyah, and Gurun, along which the "Royal Road" afterwards ran,
+but the more circuitous one by Erzerum, which brought him into Northern
+Cappadocia, or Pontus, as it was called by the Romans. Here, in a
+district named Pteria, which cannot have been very far from the coast,
+he found his adversary, who had crossed the Halys, and taken several
+Cappadocian towns, among which was the chief city of the Pterians.
+Perceiving that his troops considerably outnumbered those of Crcesus, he
+lost no time in giving him battle. The action was fought in the Pterian
+country, and was stoutly contested, terminating at nightfall without any
+decisive advantage to either party. The next day neither side made any
+movement; and Crcesus, concluding from his enemy's inaction that, though
+he had not been able to conquer him, he had nothing to fear from
+his desire of vengeance or his spirit of enterprise, determined on
+a retreat. He laid the blame of his failure, we are told, on the
+insufficient number of his troops, and purposed to call for the
+contingents of his allies, and renew the war with largely augmented
+forces in the ensuing spring.
+
+Cyrus, on his part, allowed the Lydians to retire unmolested, thus
+confirming his adversary in the mistaken estimate which he had formed of
+Persian courage and daring. Anticipating the course which Croesus would
+adopt under the circumstances, he kept his army well in hand, and, as
+soon as the Lydians were clean gone, he crossed the Halys, and marched
+straight upon Sardis. Croesus, deeming himself safe from molestation,
+had no sooner reached his capital than he had dismissed the bulk of
+his troops to their homes for the winter, merely giving them orders to
+return in the spring, when he hoped to have received auxiliaries
+from Sparta, Babylon, and Egypt. Left thus almost without defence, he
+suddenly heard that his audacious foe had followed on his steps, had
+ventured into the heart of his dominions, and was but a short distance
+from the capital. In this crisis he showed a spirit well worthy of
+admiration. Putting himself at the head of such an army of native
+Lydians as he could collect at a few hours' notice, he met the advancing
+foe in the rich plain a little to the east of Sardis, and gave him
+battle immediately. It is possible that even under these disadvantageous
+circumstances he might in fair fight have been victorious, for the
+Lydian cavalry were at this time excellent, and decidedly superior
+to the Persian. But Cyrus, aware of their merits, had recourse to
+stratagem, and by forming his camels in front, so frightened the Lydian
+horses that they fled from the field. The riders dismounted and fought
+on foot, but their gallantry was unavailing. After a prolonged and
+bloody combat the Lydian army was defeated, and forced to take refuge
+behind the walls of the capital.
+
+Croesus now in hot haste sent off fresh messengers to his allies,
+begging them to come at once to his assistance. He had still a good hope
+of maintaining himself till their arrival, for his city was defended
+by walls, and was regarded by the natives as impregnable. An attempt to
+storm the defences failed; and the siege must have been turned into
+a blockade but for an accidental discovery. A Persian soldier had
+approached to reconnoitre the citadel on the side where it was strongest
+by nature, and therefore guarded with least care, when he observed one
+of the garrison descend the rock after his helmet, which had fallen from
+his head, pick it up, and return with it. Being an expert climber, he
+attempted the track thus pointed out to him, and succeeded in reaching
+the summit. Several of his comrades followed in his steps; the citadel
+was surprised, and the town taken and plundered.
+
+Thus fell the greatest city of Asia Minor after a siege of fourteen
+days. The Lydian monarch, it is said, narrowly escaped with his life
+from the confusion of the sack; but, being fortunately recognized
+in time, was made prisoner, and brought before Cyrus. Cyrus at first
+treated him with some harshness, but soon relented, and, with that
+clemency which was a common characteristic of the earlier Persian kings,
+assigned him a territory for his maintenance, and gave him an honorable
+position at Court, where he passed at least thirty years, in high favor,
+first with Cyrus, and then with Cambyses. Lydia itself was absorbed at
+once into the Persian Empire, together with most of its dependencies,
+which submitted as soon as the fall of Sardis was known. There still,
+however, remained a certain amount of subjugation to be effected. The
+Greeks of the coast, who had offended the Great King by their refusal of
+his overtures, were not to be allowed to pass quietly into the condition
+of tributaries; and there were certain native races in the south-western
+corner of Asia Minor which declined to submit without a struggle to
+the new conqueror. But these matters were not regarded by Cyrus as
+of sufficient importance to require his own personal superintendence.
+Having remained at Sardis for a few weeks, during which time he received
+an insulting message from Sparta, whereto he made a menacing reply, and
+having arranged for the government of the newly-conquered province and
+the transmission of its treasures to Ecbatana, he quitted Lydia for
+the interior, taking Croesus with him, and proceeded towards the
+Median capital. He was bent on prosecuting without delay his schemes
+of conquest in other quarters--schemes of a grandeur and a
+comprehensiveness unknown to any previous monarch.
+
+Scarcely, however, was he departed when Sardis became the scene of an
+insurrection. Pactyas, a Lydian, who had been entrusted with the duty
+of conveying the treasures of Croesus and his more wealthy subjects to
+Ecbatana, revolted against Tabalus, the Persian commandant of the town,
+and being joined by the native population and numerous mercenaries,
+principally Greeks, whom he hired with the treasure that was in his
+hands, made himself master of Sardis, and besieged Tabalus in the
+citadel. The news reached Cyrus while he was upon his march; but,
+estimating the degree of its importance aright, he did not suffer it to
+interfere with his plans. He judged it enough to send a general with
+a strong body of troops to put down the revolt, and continued his own
+journey eastward. Mazares, a Mede, was the officer selected for
+the service. On arriving before Sardis, he found that Pactyas had
+relinquished his enterprise and fled to the coast, and that the revolt
+was consequently at an end. It only remained to exact vengeance. The
+rebellious Lydians were disarmed. Pactyas was pursued with unrelenting
+hostility, and demanded, in succession, of the Cymaeans, the
+Mytilenseans, and the Chians, of whom the last-mentioned surrendered
+him. The Greek cities which had furnished Pactyas with auxiliaries were
+then attacked, and the inhabitants of the first which fell, Priene, were
+one and all sold as slaves.
+
+Mazares soon afterwards died, and was succeeded by Ha-pagus, another
+Mede, who adopted a somewhat milder policy towards the unfortunate
+Greeks. Besieging their cities one by one, and taking them by means
+of banks or mounds piled up against the walls, he, in some instances,
+connived at the inhabitants escaping in their ships, while, in others,
+he allowed them to take up the ordinary position of Persian subjects,
+liable to tribute and military service, but not otherwise molested. So
+little irksome were such terms to the Ionians of this period that even
+those who dwelt in the islands off the coast, with the single exception
+of the Samians--though they ran no risk of subjugation, since the
+Persians did not possess a fleet--accepted voluntarily the same
+position, and enrolled themselves among the subjects of Cyrus.
+
+One Greek continental town alone suffered nothing during this time of
+trouble. When Cyrus refused the offers of submission, which reached him
+from the Ionian and AEolian Greeks after his capture of Sardis, he made
+an exception in favor of Miletus, the most important of all the Grecian
+cities in Asia. Prudence, it is probable, rather than clemency, dictated
+this course, since to detach from the Grecian cause the most powerful
+and influential of the states was the readiest way of weakening the
+resistance they would be able to make. Miletus singly had defied the
+arms of four successive Lydian kings, and had only succumbed at last
+to the efforts of the fifth, Croesus. If her submission had been now
+rejected, and she had been obliged to take counsel of her despair, the
+struggle between the Greek cities and the Persian generals might have
+assumed a different character.
+
+Still more different might have been the result, if the cities
+generally had had the wisdom to follow a piece of advice which the great
+philosopher and statesman of the time, Thales, the Milesian, is said
+to have given them. Thales suggested that the Ionians should form
+themselves into a confederation, to be governed by a congress which
+should meet at Teos, the several cities retaining their own laws and
+internal independence, but being united for military purposes into a
+single community. Judged by the light which later events, the great
+Ionian revolt especially, throw upon it, this advice is seen to have
+been of the greatest importance. It is difficult to say what check, or
+even reverse, the arms of Persia might not have at this time sustained,
+if the spirit of Thales had animated his Asiatic countrymen generally;
+if the loose Ionic Amphictyony, which in reality left each state in
+the hour of danger to its own resources, had been superseded by a
+true federal union, and the combined efforts of the thirteen Ionian
+communities had been directed to a steady resistance of Persian
+aggression and a determined maintenance of their own independence.
+Mazares and Harpagus would almost certainly have been baffled, and the
+Great King himself would probably have been called off from his eastern
+conquests to undertake in person a task which after all he might have
+failed to accomplish.
+
+The fall of the last Ionian town left Harpagus free to turn his
+attention to the tribes of the south-west which had not yet made their
+submission--the Carians, the Dorian Greeks, the Caunians, and the people
+of Lycia. Impressing the services of the newly-conquered Ionians and
+AEolians, he marched first against Caria, which offered but a feeble
+resistance. The Dorians of the continent, Myndians, Halicarnassians, and
+Cnidians. submitted still more tamely, without any struggle at all; but
+the Caunians and Lycians showed a different spirit. These tribes, which
+were ethnically allied, and of a very peculiar type, had never yet, it
+would seem, been subdued by any conqueror. Prizing highly the liberty
+they had enjoyed so long, they defended themselves with desperation.
+When they were defeated in the field they shut themselves up within
+the walls of their chief cities, Caunus and Xanthus, where, finding
+resistance impossible, they set fire to the two places with their own
+hands, burned their wives, children, slaves, and valuables, and then
+sallying forth, sword in hand, fell on the besiegers' lines, and fought
+till they were all slain.
+
+Meanwhile Cyrus was pursuing a career of conquest in the far east. It
+was now, according to Herodotus, who is, beyond all question, a better
+authority than Ctesias for the reign of Cyrus, that the reduction of the
+Bactrians and the Sacans, the chief nations of what is called by moderns
+Central Asia, took place. Bactria was a country which enjoyed the
+reputation of having been great and glorious at a very early date. In
+one of the most ancient portions of the Zendavesta it was celebrated
+as "Bahhdi eredhwo-drafsha," or "Bactria" with the lofty banner; and
+traditions not wholly to be despised made it the native country of
+Zoroaster. There is good reason to believe that, up to the date of
+Cyras, it had maintained its independence, or at any rate that it had
+been untouched by the great monarchies which for above seven hundred
+years had borne sway in the western parts of Asia. Its people were
+of the Iranic stock, and retained in their remote and somewhat savage
+country the simple and primitive habits of the race. Though their arms
+were of indifferent character, they were among the best soldiers to
+be found in the East, and always showed themselves a formidable enemy.
+According to Ctesias, when Cyrus invaded them, they fought a pitched
+battle with his army, in which the victory was with neither party.
+They were not, he said, reduced by force of arms at all, but submitted
+voluntarily when they found that Cyrus had married a Median princess.
+Herodotus, on the contrary, seems to include the Bactrians among the
+nations which Cyrus subdued, and probability is strongly in favor of
+this view of the matter. So warlike a nation is not likely to have
+submitted unless to force; nor is there any ground to believe that a
+Median marriage, had Cyrus contracted one, would have made him any the
+more acceptable to the Bactrians.
+
+On the conquest of Bactria followed, we may be tolerably sure, an attack
+upon the Sacae. This people, who must certainly have bordered on the
+Bactrians, dwelt probably either on the Pamir Steppe, or on the high
+plain of Chinese Tartary, east of the Bolar range--the modern districts
+of Kashgar and Yarkand. They were reckoned excellent soldiers. They
+fought with the bow, the dagger, and the battle-axe, and were equally
+formidable on horseback and on foot. In race they were probably Tatars
+or Turanians, and their descendants or their congeners are to be seen
+in the modern inhabitants of these regions. According to Ctesias, their
+women took the field in almost equal numbers with their men; and the
+mixed army which resisted Cyrus amounted, including both sexes, to half
+a million. The king who commanded them was a certain Amorges, who was
+married to a wife called Sparethra. In an engagement with the Persians
+he fell into the enemy's hands, whereupon Sparethra put herself at the
+head of the Sacan forces, defeated Cyrus, and took so many prisoners
+of importance that the Persian monarch was glad to release Amorges in
+exchange for them. The Sacse, however, notwithstanding this success,
+were reduced, and became subjects and tributaries of Persia.
+
+Among other countries subdued by Cyrus in this neighborhood, probably
+about the same period, may be named Hyrcania, Parthia, Chorasmia,
+Sogdiana, Aria (or Herat), Drangiana, Arachosia, Sattagydia, and
+Gandaria. The brief epitome which we possess of Ctesias omits to make
+any mention of these minor conquests, while Herodotus sums them all
+up in a single line; but there is reason to believe that the Cnidian
+historian gave a methodized account of their accomplishment, of which
+scattered notices have come down to us in various writers. Arrian
+relates that there was a city called Cyropolis, situated on the
+Jaxartes, a place of great strength defended by very lofty walls, which
+had been founded by the Great Cyrus. This city belonged to Sogdiana.
+Pliny states that Capisa, the chief city of Capisene, which lay not far
+from the upper Indus, was destroyed by Cyrus. This place is probably
+Kafshan, a little to the north of Kabul. Several authors tell us that
+the Ariaspse, a people of Drangiana, assisted Cyrus with provisions when
+he was warring in their neighborhood, and received from him in return a
+new name, which the Greeks rendered by "Euergetse"--"Benefactors." The
+Ariaspae must have dwelt near the Hamoon, or Lake of Seistan. We have
+thus traces of the conqueror's presence in the extreme north on the
+Jaxartes, in the extreme east in Affghanistan, and towards the south as
+far as Seistan and the Helmend; nor can there be any reasonable doubt
+that he overran and reduced to subjection the whole of that vast tract
+which lies between the Caspian on the west, the Indus valley and the
+desert of Tartary towards the east, the Jaxartes or Sir Deria on the
+north, and towards the south the Great Deserts of Seistan and Khorassan.
+
+More uncertainty attaches to the reduction of the tract lying south
+of these deserts. Tradition said that Cyrus had once penetrated into
+Gedrosia on an expedition against the Indians, and had lost his entire
+army in the waterless and trackless desert; but there is no evidence at
+all that he reduced the country. It appears to have been a portion of
+the Empire in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, but whether that monarch,
+or Cambyses, or the great founder of the Persian power conquered it,
+cannot at present be determined.
+
+The conquest of the vast tract lying between the Caspian and the
+Indus, inhabited (as it was) by a numerous, valiant, and freedom-loving
+population, may well have occupied Cyrus for thirteen or fourteen years.
+Alexander the Great spent in the reduction of this region, after the
+inhabitants had in a great measure lost their warlike qualities, as
+much as five years, or half the time occupied by his whole series of
+conquests. Cyrus could not have ventured on prosecuting his enterprises,
+as did the Macedonian prince, continuously and without interruption,
+marching straight from one country to another without once revisiting
+his capital. He must from time to time have returned to Ecbatana or
+Pasargadae; and it is on the whole most probable that, like the Assyrian
+monarchs, he marched out from home on a fresh expedition almost every
+year. Thus it need cause us no surprise that fourteen years were
+consumed in the subjugation of the tribes and nations beyond the Iranic
+desert to the north and the north-east, and that it was not till B.C.
+539, when he was nearly sixty years of age, that the Persian monarch
+felt himself free to turn his attention to the great kingdom of the
+south.
+
+The expedition of Cyrus against Babylon has been described already.
+Its success added to the Empire the rich and valuable provinces of
+Babylonia, Susiana, Syria, and Palestine, thus augmenting its size by
+about 240,000 or 250,000 square miles. Far more important, however,
+than this geographical increase was the removal of the last formidable
+rival--the complete destruction of a power which represented to the
+Asiatics the old Semitic civilization, which with reason claimed to be
+the heir and the successor of Assyria, and had a history stretching back
+for a space of nearly two thousand years. So long as Babylon, "the
+glory of kingdoms," "the praise of the whole earth," retained her
+independence, with her vast buildings, her prestige of antiquity, her
+wealth, her learning, her ancient and grand religious system, she could
+scarcely fail to be in the eyes of her neighbors the first power in the
+world, if not in mere strength, yet in honor, dignity, and reputation.
+Haughty and contemptuous herself to the very last, she naturally imposed
+on men's minds, alike by her past history and her present pretensions;
+nor was it possible for the Persian monarch to feel that he stood before
+his subjects as indisputably the foremost man upon the earth until he
+had humbled in the dust the pride and arrogance of Babylon. But, with
+the fall of the Great City, the whole fabric of Semetic greatness was
+shattered. Babylon became "an astonishment and a hissing"--all her
+prestige vanished--and Persia stepped manifestly into the place, which
+Assyria had occupied for so many centuries, of absolute and unrivalled
+mistress of Western Asia.
+
+The fall of Babylon was also the fall of an ancient, widely spread,
+and deeply venerated religious system. Not of course, that the religion
+suddenly disappeared or ceased to have votaries, but that, from a
+dominant system, supported by all the resources of the state, and
+enforced by the civil power over a wide extent of territory, it became
+simply one of many tolerated beliefs, exposed to frequent rebuffs and
+insults, and at all times overshadowed by a new and rival system--the
+comparatively pure creed of Zoroastrianism, The conquest of Babylon by
+Persia was, practically, if not a death-blow, at least a severe wound,
+to that sensuous idol-worship which had for more than twenty centuries
+been the almost universal religion in the countries between the
+Mediterranean and the Zagros mountain range. The religion never
+recovered itself--was never reinstated. It survived, a longer or a
+shorter time, in places. To a slight extent it corrupted Zoroastrianism;
+but, on the whole, from the date of the fall of Babylon it declined.
+"Bel bowed down; Nebo stooped;" "Merodach was broken in pieces."
+Judgment was done upon the Babylonian graven images; and the system, of
+which they formed a necessary part, having once fallen from its proud
+pre-eminence, gradually decayed and vanished.
+
+Parallel with the decline of the old Semitic idolatry was the advance
+of its direct antithesis, pure spiritual Monotheism. The same blow which
+laid the Babylonian religion in the dust struck off the fetters from
+Judaism. Purified and refined by the precious discipline of adversity,
+the Jewish system, which Cyrus, feeling towards it a natural sympathy,
+protected, upheld, and replaced in its proper locality, advanced from
+this time in influence and importance, leavening little by little the
+foul mass of superstition and impurity which came in contact with it.
+Proselytism grew more common. The Jews spread themselves wider. The
+return from, the captivity, which Cyrus authorized almost immediately
+after the capture of Babylon, is the starting point from which we may
+trace a gradual enlightenment of the heathen world by the dissemination
+of Jewish beliefs and practices--such dissemination being greatly helped
+by the high estimation in which the Jewish system was held by the civil
+authority, both while the empire of the Persians lasted, and when power
+passed to the Macedonians.
+
+On the fall of Babylon its dependencies seem to have submitted to
+the conqueror, with a single exception. Phoenicia, which had never
+acquiesced contentedly either in Assyrian or in Babylonian rule, saw,
+apparently, in the fresh convulsion that was now shaking the East, an
+opportunity for recovering autonomy. It was nearly half a century since
+her last struggle to free herself had terminated unsuccessfully. A new
+generation had grown up since that time--a generation which had seen
+nothing of war, and imperfectly appreciated its perils. Perhaps some
+reliance was placed on the countenance and support of Egypt, which, it
+must have been felt, would view with satisfaction any obstacle to the
+advance of a power wherewith she was sure, sooner or later, to come into
+collision. At any rate, it was resolved to make the venture. Phoenicia,
+on the destruction of her distant suzerain, quietly resumed her freedom;
+abstained from making any act of submission to the conqueror; while,
+however, at the same time, she established friendly relations for
+commercial purposes with one of the conqueror's vassals, the prince who
+had been sent into Palestine to re-establish the Jews at Jerusalem.
+
+It might have been expected that Cyrus, after his conquest of Babylon,
+would have immediately proceeded towards the south-west. The reduction
+of Egypt had, according to Herodotus, been embraced in the designs which
+he formed fifteen years earlier. The non-submission of Phoenicia
+must have been regarded as an act of defiance which deserved signal
+chastisement. It has been suspected that the restoration of the Jews was
+prompted, at least in part, by political motives, and that Cyrus, when
+he re-established them in their country, looked to finding them of use
+to him in the attack which he was meditating upon Egypt. At any rate it
+is evident that their presence would have facilitated his march through
+Palestine, and given him a _point d'appui_, which could not but have
+been of value. These considerations make it probable that an Egyptian
+expedition would have been determined on, had not circumstances occurred
+to prevent it.
+
+What the exact circumstances were, it is impossible to determine.
+According to Herodotus, a sudden desire seized Cyrus to attack the
+Massagetae, who bordered his Empire to the north-east. He led his troops
+across the Araxes (Jaxartes?), defeated the Massagetae by stratagem in
+a great battle, but was afterwards himself defeated and slain, his body
+falling into the enemy's hands, who treated it with gross indignity.
+According to Ctesias, the people against whom he made his expedition
+were the Derbices, a nation bordering upon India, Assisted by Indian
+allies, who lent them a number of elephants, this people engaged Cyrus,
+and defeated him in a battle, wherein he received a mortal wound.
+Reinforced, however, by a body of Sacae, the Persians renewed the
+struggle, and gained a complete victory, which was followed by the
+submission of the nation. Cyrus, however, died of his wound on the third
+day after the first battle.
+
+This conflict of testimony clouds with uncertainty the entire closing
+scene of the life of Cyrus. All that we can lay down as tolerably well
+established is, that instead of carrying out his designs against Egypt,
+he engaged in hostilities with one of the nations on his north-eastern
+frontier, that he conducted the war with less than his usual success,
+and in the course of it received a wound of which he died (B.C. 529),
+after he had reigned nine-and-twenty years. That his body did not fall
+into the enemy's hands appears, however, to be certain from the fact
+that it was conveyed into Persia Proper, and buried at Pasargadae.
+
+It may be suspected that this expedition, which proved so disastrous to
+the Persian monarch, was not the mere wanton act which it appears to be
+in the pages of our authorities. The nations of the north-east were at
+all times turbulent and irritable, with difficulty held in check by the
+civilized power that bore rule in the south and west. The expedition
+of Cyrus, whether directed against the Massagetae or the Derbices, was
+probably intended to strike terror into the barbarians of these regions,
+and was analogous to those invasions which were undertaken under the
+wisest of the Roman Emperors, across the Rhine and Danube, against
+Germans, Goths, and Sarmatae. The object of such inroads was not to
+conquer, but to alarm--it was hoped by an imposing display of organized
+military force to deter the undisciplined hordes of the prolific North
+from venturing across the frontier and carrying desolation through large
+tracts of the Empire. Defensive warfare has often an aggressive look. It
+may have been solely with the object of protecting his own territories
+from attack that Cyrus made his last expedition across the Jaxertes, or
+towards the upper Indus.
+
+The character of Cyrus, as represented to us by the Greeks, is the
+most favorable that we possess of any early Oriental monarch. Active,
+energetic, brave, fertile in stratagems, he has all the qualities
+required to form a successful military chief. He conciliates his people
+by friendly and familiar treatment, but declines to spoil them by
+yielding to their inclinations when they are adverse to their true
+interests. He has a ready humor, which shows itself in smart sayings and
+repartees, that take occasionally the favorite Oriental turn of parable
+or apologue. He is mild in his treatment of the prisoners that fall into
+his hands, and ready to forgive even the heinous crime of rebellion. He
+has none of the pride of the ordinary eastern despot, but converses on
+terms of equality with those about him. We cannot be surprised that the
+Persians, contrasting him with their later monarchs, held his memory
+in the highest veneration, and were even led by their affection for
+his person to make his type of countenance their standard of physical
+beauty.
+
+The genius of Cyrus was essentially that of a conqueror, not of an
+administrator. There is no trace of his having adopted anything like a
+uniform system for the government of the provinces which he subdued.
+In Lydia he set up a Persian governor, but assigned certain important
+functions to a native; in Babylon he gave the entire direction of
+affairs into the hands of a Mede, to whom he allowed the title and style
+of king; in Judaea he appointed a native, but made him merely "governor"
+or "deputy;" in Sacia he maintained as tributary king the monarch who
+had resisted his arms. Policy may have dictated the course pursued
+in each instance, which may have been suited to the condition of the
+several provinces; but the variety allowed was fatal to consolidation,
+and the monarchy, as Cyrus left it, had as little cohesion as any of
+those by which it was preceded.
+
+Though originally a rude mountain-chief, Cyrus, after he succeeded to
+empire, showed himself quite able to appreciate the dignity and value
+of art. In his constructions at Pasargadae he combined massiveness
+with elegance, and manifested a taste at once simple and refined. He
+ornamented his buildings with reliefs of an ideal character. It is
+probably to him that we owe the conception of the light tapering stone
+shaft, which is the glory of Persian architecture. If the more massive
+of the Persepolitan buildings are to be ascribed to him, we must regard
+him as haying fixed the whole plan and arrangement which was afterwards
+followed in all Persian palatial edifices.
+
+In his domestic affairs Cyrus appears to have shown the same moderation
+and simplicity which we observe in his general conduct. He married, as
+it would seem, one wife only, Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes,
+who was a member of the royal family. By her he had issue two sons
+and at least three daughters. The sons were Cambyses and Smerdis;
+the daughters Atossa, Artystone, and one whose name is unknown to us.
+Cassandane died before her husband, and was deeply mourned by him.
+Shortly before his own death he took the precaution formally to settle
+the succession. Leaving the general inheritance of his vast dominions to
+his elder son, Cambyses, he declared it to be his will that the younger
+should be entrusted with the actual government of several large and
+important provinces. He thought by this plan to secure the well-being of
+both the youths, never suspecting that he was in reality consigning
+both to untimely ends, and even preparing the way for an extraordinary
+revolution.
+
+The ill effect of the unfortunate arrangement thus made appeared almost
+immediately. Cambyses was scarcely settled upon the throne before he
+grew jealous of his brother, and ordered him to be privately put to
+death. His cruel orders were obeyed, and with so much secrecy that
+neither the mode of the death, nor even the fact, was known to more than
+a few. Smerdis was generally believed to be still alive; and thus an
+opportunity was presented for personation--a form of imposture very
+congenial to Orientals, and one which has often had very disastrous
+consequences. We shall find in the sequel this opportunity embraced, and
+results follow of a most stirring and exciting character.
+
+It required time, however, to bring to maturity the fruits of the crime
+so rashly committed. Cambyses, in the meanwhile, quite unconscious of
+danger, turned his attention to military matters, and determined on
+endeavoring to complete his father's scheme of conquest by the reduction
+of Egypt. Desirous of obtaining a ground of quarrel less antiquated
+than the alliance, a quarter of a century earlier, between Amasis and
+Croesus, he demanded that a daughter of the Egyptian king should be sent
+to him as a secondary wife. Amasis, too timid to refuse, sent a damsel
+named Nitetis, who was not his daughter; and she, soon after her
+arrival, made Cambyses acquainted with the fraud. A ground of quarrel
+was thus secured, which might be put forward when it suited his purpose;
+and meanwhile every nerve was being strained to prepare effectually
+for the expedition. The difficulty of a war with Egypt lay in her
+inaccessibility. She was protected on all sides by seas or deserts; and,
+for a successful advance upon her from the direction of Asia, it was
+desirable both to obtain a quiet passage for a large army through the
+desert of El-Tij, and also to have the support of a powerful fleet in
+the Mediterranean. This latter was the paramount consideration. An army
+well supplied with camels might carry its provisions and water through
+the desert, and might intimidate or overpower the few Arab tribes which
+inhabited it; but, unless the command of the sea was gained and the
+navigation of the Nile closed, Memphis might successfully resist
+attack. Cambyses appears to have perceived with sufficient clearness
+the conditions on which victory depended, and to have applied himself at
+once to securing them. He made a treaty with the Arab Sheikh who had the
+chief influence over the tribes of the desert; and at the same time
+he set to work to procure the services of a powerful naval force. By
+menaces or negotiations he prevailed upon the Phoenicians to submit
+themselves to his yoke, and having thus obtained a fleet superior to
+that of Egypt, he commenced hostilities by robbing her of a dependency
+which possessed considerable naval strength, in this way still further
+increasing the disparity between his own fleet and that of his enemy.
+Against the combined ships of Phoenicia, Cyprus, Ionia, and AEolis,
+Egypt was powerless, and her fleets seem to have quietly yielded the
+command of the sea. Cambyses was thus able to give his army the support
+of a naval force, as it marched along the coast, from Carmel probably
+to Pelusium; and when, having defeated the Egyptians at the last-named
+place, he proceeded against Memphis, he was able to take possession of
+the Nile, and to blockade the Egyptian capital both by land and water.
+
+It appears that four years were consumed by the Persian monarch in his
+preparations for his Egyptian expedition. It was not until B.C. 525 that
+he entered Egypt at the head of his troops, and fought the great battle
+which decided the fate of the country. The struggle was long and bloody.
+Psammenitus, who had succeeded his father Amasis, had the services, not
+only of his Egyptian subjects, but a large body of mercenaries besides,
+Greeks and Carians. These allies were zealous in his cause, and are said
+to have given him a horrible proof of their attachment. One of
+their body had deserted to the Persians some little time before the
+expedition, and was believed to have given important advice to the
+invader. He had left his children behind in Egypt; and these his former
+comrades now seized, and led out in front of their lines, where they
+slew them before their father's eyes, and, having so done, mixed their
+blood in a bowl with water and wine, and drank, one and all, of the
+mixture. The battle followed immediately after; but, in spite of their
+courage and fanaticism, the Egyptian army was completely defeated.
+According to Ctesias, fifty thousand fell on the vanquished side, while
+the victors lost no more than seven thousand. Psammenitus, after his
+defeat, threw himself into Memphis, but, being blockaded by land
+and prevented from receiving supplies from the sea, after a stout
+resistance, he surrendered. The captive monarch received the respectful
+treatment which Persian clemency usually accorded to fallen sovereigns.
+Herodotus even goes so far as to intimate that, if he had abstained from
+conspiracy, he would probably have been allowed to continue ruler
+of Egypt, exchanging, of course, his independent sovereignty for a
+delegated kingship held at the pleasure of the Lord of Asia.
+
+The conquest of Egypt was immediately followed by the submission of the
+neighboring tribes. The Libyans of the desert tract which borders the
+Nile valley to the west, and even the Greeks of the more remote Barca
+and Cyrene, sent gifts to the conqueror and consented to become his
+tributaries. But Cambyses placed little value on such petty accessions
+to his power. Inheriting the grandeur of view which had characterized
+his father, he was no sooner master of Egypt than he conceived the idea
+of a magnificent series of conquests in this quarter, whereby he hoped
+to become Lord of Africa no less than of Asia, or at any rate to leave
+himself without a rival of any importance on the vast continent which
+his victorious arms had now opened to him. Apart from Egypt, Africa
+possessed but two powers capable, by their political organization and
+their military strength, of offering him serious resistance. These were
+Ethiopia and Carthage--the one the great power of the South, the equal,
+if not even the superior, of Egypt--the other the great power of the
+West--remote, little known, but looming larger for, the obscurity in
+which she was shrouded, and attractive from her reputed wealth. The
+views of Cambyses comprised the reduction of both these powers, and
+also the conquest of the oasis of Ammon. As a good Zoroastrian, he was
+naturally anxious to exhibit the superiority of Ormazd to all the
+"gods of the nations;" and, as the temple of Ammon in the oasis had the
+greatest repute of all the African shrines, this design would be best
+accomplished by its pillage and destruction. It is probable that he
+further looked to the subjugation of all the tribes on the north coast
+between the Nile valley and the Carthaginian territory; for he would
+undoubtedly have sent an army along the shore to act in concert with his
+fleet, had he decided ultimately on making the expedition. An unexpected
+obstacle, however, arose to prevent him. The Phoenicians, who formed
+the main strength of his navy, declined to take any part in an attack
+on Carthage, since the Carthaginians were their colonists, and the
+relations between the two people had always been friendly. Cambyses
+did not like to force their inclinations, on account of their recent
+voluntary submission; and as, without their aid, his navy was manifestly
+unequal to the proposed service, he felt obliged to desist from the
+undertaking.
+
+While the Carthaginian scheme was thus nipped in the bud, the
+enterprises which Cambyses attempted to carry out led to nothing but
+disaster. An army, fifty thousand strong, despatched from Thebes against
+Ammon, perished to a man amid the sands of the Libyan desert. A still
+more numerous force, led by Cambyses himself towards the Ethiopian
+frontier, found itself short of supplies on its march across Nubia, and
+was forced to return, without glory, after suffering considerable loss.
+It became evident that the abilities of the Persian monarch were
+not equal to his ambition--that he insufficiently appreciated the
+difficulties and dangers of enterprises--while a fatal obstinacy
+prevented him from acknowledging and retrieving an error while retrieval
+was possible. The Persians, we may be sure, grew dispirited under such
+a leader; and the Egyptians naturally took heart. It seems to have
+been shortly after the return of Cambyses from his abortive expedition
+against Ethiopia that symptoms of an intention to revolt began to
+manifest themselves in Egypt. The priests declared an incarnation of
+Apis, and the whole country burst out into rejoicings. It was probably
+now that Psammenitus, who had hitherto been kindly treated by his
+captor, was detected in treasonable intrigues, condemned to death, and
+executed. At the same time, the native officers who had been left in
+charge of the city of Memphis were apprehended and capitally punished.
+Such stringent measures had all the effect that was expected from them;
+they wholly crushed the nascent rebellion; they left, however, behind
+them a soreness, felt alike by the conqueror and the conquered, which
+prevented the establishment of a good understanding between the Great
+King and his new subjects. Cambyses knew that he had been severe, and
+that his severity had made him many enemies; he suspected the people,
+and still more suspected the priests, their natural leaders; he soon
+persuaded himself that policy required in Egypt a departure from the
+principles of toleration which were ordinarily observed towards their
+subjects by the Persians, and a sustained effort on the part of the
+civil power to bring the religion, and its priests, into contempt.
+Accordingly, he commenced a serious of acts calculated to have this
+effect. He stabbed the sacred calf, believed to be incarnate Apis; he
+ordered the body of priests who had the animal in charge to be publicly
+scourged; he stopped the Apis festival by making participation in it a
+capital offence; he opened the receptacles of the dead, and curiously
+examined the bodies contained in them, he intruded himself into the
+chief sanctuary at Memphis, and publicly scoffed at the grotesque
+image of Phtha; finally, not content with outraging in the same way the
+inviolable temple of the Cabeiri, he wound up his insults by ordering
+that their images should be burnt. These injuries and indignities
+rankled in the minds of the Egyptians, and probably had a large share in
+producing that bitter hatred of the Persian yoke which shows itself in
+the later history on so many occasions; but for the time the policy was
+successful: crushed beneath the iron heel of the conqueror--their faith
+in the power of their gods shaken, their spirits cowed, their hopes
+shattered--the Egyptian subjects of Cambyses made up their minds to
+submission. The Oriental will generally kiss the hand that smites him,
+if it only smite hard enough. Egypt became now for a full generation the
+obsequious slave of Persia, and gave no more trouble to her subjugator
+than the weakest or the most contented of the provinces.
+
+The work of subjection completed, Cambyses, having been absent from his
+capital longer than was at all prudent, prepared to return home. He had
+proceeded on his way as far as Syria, when intelligence reached him of
+a most unexpected nature. A herald suddenly entered his camp and
+proclaimed, in the hearing of the whole army, that Cambyses, son of
+Cyrus, had ceased to reign, and that the allegiance of all Persian
+subjects was henceforth to be paid to Smerdis, son of Cyrus. At first,
+it is said, Cambyses thought that his instrument had played him false,
+and that his brother was alive and had actually seized the throne; but
+the assurances of the suspected person, and a suggestion which he made,
+convinced him of the contrary, and gave him a clue to the real solution
+of the mystery. Prexaspes, the nobleman inculpated, knew that the
+so-called Smerdis must be an impostor, and suggested his identity with
+a certain Magus, whose brother had been intrusted by Cambyses with the
+general direction of his household and the care of the palace. He was
+probably led to make the suggestion by his knowledge of the resemblance
+borne by this person to the murdered prince, which was sufficiently
+close to make personation possible. Cambyses was thus enabled to
+appreciate the gravity of the crisis, and to consider whether he could
+successfully contend with it or no. Apparently, he decided in the
+negative. Believing that he could not triumph over the conspiracy
+which had decreed his downfall, and unwilling to descend to a private
+station--perhaps even uncertain whether his enemies would spare his
+life--he resolved to fly to the last refuge of a dethroned king, and
+to end all by suicide. Drawing his short sword from its sheath, he gave
+himself a wound, of which he died in a few days.
+
+It is certainly surprising that the king formed this resolution. He
+was at the head of an army, returning from an expedition, which, if
+not wholly successful, had at any rate added to the empire an important
+province. His father's name was a tower of strength; and if he could
+only have exposed the imposture that had been practised on them,
+he might have counted confidently on rallying the great mass of the
+Persians to his cause. How was it that he did not advance on the
+capital, and at least strike one blow for empire? No clear and decided
+response can be made to this inquiry; but we may indistinctly discern
+a number of causes which may have combined to produce in the monarch's
+mind the feeling of despondency whereto he gave way. Although he
+returned from Egypt a substantial conqueror, his laurel wreath was
+tarnished by ill-success; his army, weakened by its losses, and
+dispirited by its failures, was out of heart; it had no trust in
+his capacity as a commander, and could not be expected to fight with
+enthusiasm on his behalf. There is also reason to believe that he was
+generally unpopular on account of his haughty and tyrannical temper,
+and his contempt of law and usage, where they interfered with the
+gratification of his desires. Though we should do wrong to accept as
+true all the crimes laid to his charge by the Egyptians, who detested
+his memory, we cannot doubt the fact of his incestuous marriage with his
+sister, Atossa, which was wholly repugnant to the religious feelings of
+his nation. Nor can we well imagine that there was no foundation at
+all for the stories of the escape of Croesus, the murder of the son
+of Prexaspes, and the execution in Egypt on a trivial charge of twelve
+noble Persians. His own people called Cambyses a "despot" or "master,"
+in contrast with Cyrus, whom they regarded as a "father," because, as
+Herodotus says, he was "harsh and reckless," whereas his father was
+mild and beneficent. Further, there was the religious aspect of the
+revolution, which had taken place, in the background. Cambyses may have
+known that in the ranks of his army there was much sympathy with Magism,
+and may have doubted whether, if the whole conspiracy were laid bare,
+he could count on anything like a general adhesion of his troops to the
+Zoroastrian cause. These various grounds, taken together, go far
+towards accounting for a suicide which at first sight strikes us as
+extraordinary, and is indeed almost unparalleled.
+
+Of the general character of Cambyses little more need be said. He
+was brave, active, and energetic, like his father: but he lacked his
+father's strategic genius, his prudence, and his fertility in resources.
+Born in the purple, he was proud and haughty, careless of the feelings
+of others, and impatient of admonition or remonstrance. His pride made
+him obstinate in error; and his contempt of others led on naturally
+to harshness, and perhaps even to cruelty. He is accused of "habitual
+drunkenness," and was probably not free from the intemperance which
+was a common Persian failing; but there is not sufficient ground for
+believing that his indulgence was excessive, much less that it proceeded
+to the extent of affecting his reason. The "madness of Cambyses,"
+reported to and believed in by Herodotus, was a fiction of the Egyptian
+priests, who wished it to be thought that their gods had in this way
+punished his impiety. The Persians had no such tradition, but merely
+regarded him as unduly severe and selfish. A dispassionate consideration
+of all the evidence on the subject leads to the conclusion that Cambyses
+lived and died in the possession of his reason, having neither destroyed
+it through inebriety nor lost it by the judgment of Heaven.
+
+The death of Cambyses (B.C. 522) left the conspirators, who had
+possession of the capital, at liberty to develop their projects, and
+to take such steps as they thought best for the consolidation and
+perpetuation of their power. The position which they occupied was one
+of peculiar delicacy. On the one hand, the impostor had to guard against
+acting in any way which would throw suspicion on his being really
+Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. On the other, he had to satisfy the Magian
+priests, to whom he was well known, and on whom he mainly depended for
+support, if his imposture should be detected. These priests must have
+desired a change of the national religion, and to effect this must have
+been the true aim and object of the revolution. But it was necessary to
+proceed with the utmost caution. An open proclamation that Magism was
+to supersede Zoroastrianism would have seemed a strange act in an
+Achaemenian prince, and could scarcely have failed to arouse doubts
+which might easily terminate in discovery. The Magian brothers shrank
+from affronting this peril, and resolved, before approaching it, to
+obtain for the new government an amount of general popularity which
+would make its overthrow in fair fight difficult. Accordingly the new
+reign was inaugurated by a general remission of tribute and military
+service for the space of three years--a measure which was certain to
+give satisfaction to all the tribes and nations of the Empire, except
+the Persians. Persia Proper was at all times exempt from tribute, and
+was thus, so far, unaffected by the boon granted, while military service
+was no doubt popular with the ruling nation, for whose benefit the
+various conquests were effected. Still Persia could scarcely take
+umbrage at an inactivity which was to last only three years, while
+to the rest of the Empire the twofold grace accorded must have been
+thoroughly acceptable.
+
+Further to confirm his uncertain hold upon the throne, the
+Pseudo-Smerdis took to wife all the widows of his predecessor. This is
+a practice common in the East; and there can be no doubt that it gives a
+new monarch a certain prestige in the eyes of his people. In the present
+case, however, it involved a danger. The wives of the late king were
+likely to be acquainted with the person of the king's brother; Atossa,
+at any rate, could not fail to know him intimately. If the Magus allowed
+them to associate together freely, according to the ordinary practice,
+they would detect his imposture and probably find a way to divulge it.
+He therefore introduced a new system into the seraglio. Instead of the
+free intercourse one with another which the royal consorts had enjoyed
+previously, he established at once the principle of complete isolation.
+Each wife was assigned her own portion of the palace; and no visiting
+of one wife by another was permitted. Access to them from without was
+altogether forbidden, even to their nearest relations; and the wives
+were thus cut off wholly from the external world, unless they could
+manage to communicate with it by means of secret messages. But
+precautions of this kind, though necessary, were in themselves
+suspicious; they naturally suggested an inquiry into their cause and
+object. It was a possible explanation of them that they proceeded from
+an extreme and morbid jealousy; but the thought could not fail to occur
+to some that they might be occasioned by the fear of detection.
+
+However, as time went on, and no discovery was actually made, the Magus
+grew bolder, and ventured to commence that reformation of religion which
+he and his order had so much at heart. He destroyed the Zoroastrian
+temples in various places, and seems to have put down the old worship,
+with its hymns in praise of the Zoroastrian deities. He instituted
+Magian rites in lieu of the old ceremonies, and established his
+brother Magians as the priest-caste of the Persian nation. The changes
+introduced were no doubt satisfactory to the Medes, and to many of
+the subject races throughout the Empire. They were even agreeable to a
+portion of the Persian people, who leant towards a more material worship
+and a more gorgeous ceremonial than had contented their ancestors. If
+the faithful worshippers of Ormazd saw them with dismay, they were too
+timid to resist, and tacitly acquiesced in the religious revolution.
+
+In one remote province the change gave a fresh impulse to a religious
+struggle which was there going on, adding strength to the side of
+intolerance. The Jews had now been engaged for fifteen or sixteen years
+in the restoration of their temple, according to the permission granted
+them by Cyrus. Their enterprise was distasteful to the neighboring
+Samaritans, who strained every nerve to prevent its being brought to a
+successful issue, and as each new king mounted the Persian throne,
+made a fresh effort to have the work stopped by authority. Their
+representations had had no effect upon Cambyses; but when they were
+repeated on the accession of the Pseudo-Smerdis, the result was
+different. An edict was at once sent down to Palestine, reversing the
+decree of Cyrus, and authorizing the inhabitants of Samaria to interfere
+forcibly in the matter, and compel the Jews to desist from building.
+Armed with this decree, the Samaritan authorities hastened to Jerusalem,
+and "made the Jews to cease by force and power."
+
+These revelations of a leaning towards a creed diverse from that of the
+Achaemenian princes, combined with the system of seclusion adopted in
+the palace--a system not limited to the seraglio, but extending also
+to the person of the monarch, who neither quitted the palace precincts
+himself, nor allowed any of the Persian nobles to enter them--must have
+turned the suspicions previously existing into a general belief and
+conviction that the monarch seated on the throne was not Smerdis the son
+of Cyrus, but an impostor. Yet still there was for a while no outbreak.
+It mattered nothing to the provincials who ruled them, provided that
+order was maintained, and that the boons granted them at the opening of
+the new reign were not revoked or modified. Their wishes were no doubt
+in favor of the prince who had remitted their burthens; and in Media a
+peculiar sympathy would exist towards one who had exalted Magism. Such
+discontent as was felt would be confined to Persia, or to Persia and a
+few provinces of the north-east, where the Zoroastrian faith may have
+maintained itself.
+
+At last, among the chief Persians, rumors began to arise. These were
+sternly repressed at the outset, and a reign of terror was established,
+during which men remained silent through fear. But at length some of
+the principal nobles, convinced of the imposture, held secret council
+together, and discussed the measures proper to be adopted under the
+circumstances. Nothing, however, was done until the arrival at the
+capital of a personage felt by all to be the proper leader of the nation
+in the existing crisis. This was Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a
+prince of the blood royal who probably stood in the direct line of the
+succession, failing the issue of Cyrus. At the early age of twenty he
+had attracted the attention of that monarch, who suspected him even then
+of a design to seize the throne. He was now about twenty-eight years
+of age, and therefore at a time of life suited for vigorous enterprise;
+which was probably the reason why his father, Hystaspes, who was still
+alive, sent him to the capital, instead of proceeding thither in person.
+Youth and vigor were necessary qualifications for success in a struggle
+against the holders of power; and Hystaspes no longer possessed those
+advantages. He therefore yielded to his son that headship of the
+movement to which his position would have entitled him; and, with the
+leadership in danger, he yielded necessarily his claim to the first
+place, when the time of peril should be past and the rewards of victory
+should come to be apportioned.
+
+Darius, on his arrival at the capital, was at once accepted as head of
+the conspiracy, and with prudent boldness determined on pushing matters
+to an immediate decision. Overruling the timidity of a party among the
+conspirators, who urged delay, he armed his partisans, and proceeded,
+without a moment's pause, to the attack. According to the Greek
+historians, he and his friends entered the palace in a body, and
+surprised the Magus in his private apartments, where they slew him
+after a brief struggle. But the authority of Darius discredits the Greek
+accounts, and shows us, though with provoking brevity, that the course
+of events must have been very different. The Magus was not slain in the
+privacy of his palace, at Susa or Ecbatana, but met his death in a small
+and insignificant fort in the part of Media called "the Maesan plain,"
+or, more briefly, "Nisaea," whither he appears to have fled with a band
+of followers. Whether he was first attacked in the capital, and escaping
+threw himself into this stronghold, or receiving timely warning of his
+danger withdrew to it before the outbreak occurred, or merely happened
+to be at the spot when the conspirators decided to make their attempt,
+we have no means of determining. We only know that the scene of the
+last struggle was Sictachotes, in Media; that Darius made the attack
+accompanied by six Persian nobles of high rank; and that the contest
+terminated in the slaughter of the Magus and of a number of his
+adherents, who were involved in the fall of their master.
+
+Nor did the vengeance of the successful conspirators stop here.
+Speeding to the capital, with the head of the Magus in their hands, and
+exhibiting everywhere this proof at once of the death of the late king
+and of his imposture, they proceeded to authorize and aid in carrying
+out, a general massacre of the Magian priests, the abettors of the later
+usurpation. Every Magus who could be found was poniarded by the enraged
+Persians; and the caste would have been well-nigh exterminated, if it
+had not been for the approach of night. Darkness brought the carnage
+to an end; and the sword, once sheathed, was not again drawn. Only, to
+complete the punishment of the ambitious religionists who had insulted
+and deceived the nation, the day of the massacre was appointed to be
+kept annually as a solemn festival, under the name of the Magophonia;
+and a law was passed that on that day no Magus should leave his house.
+
+The accession of Darius to the vacant throne now took place (Jan. 1,
+B.C. 521). According to Herodotus it was preceded by a period of debate
+and irresolution, during which the royal authority was, as it were, in
+commission among the Seven; and in this interval he places not only the
+choice of a king, but an actual discussion on the subject of the proper
+form of government to be established. Even his contemporaries, however,
+could see that this last story was unworthy of credit and it may be
+questioned whether any more reliance ought to be placed on the remainder
+of the narrative. Probably the true account of the matter is, that,
+having come to a knowledge of the facts of the case, the heads of the
+seven great Persian clans or families met together in secret conclave
+and arranged all their proceedings beforehand. No government but the
+monarchical could be thought of for a moment, and no one could assert
+any claim to be king but Darius. Darius went into the conspiracy as a
+pretender to the throne: the other six were simply his "faithful men,"
+his friends and well-wishers. While, however, the six were far from
+disputing Darius's right, they required and received for themselves a
+guarantee of certain privileges, which may either have belonged to them
+previously, by law or custom, as the heads of the great clans, or may
+have been now for the first time conceded. The king-bound himself to
+choose his wives from among the families of the conspirators only, and
+sanctioned their claim to have free access to his person at all times
+without asking his permission. One of their number, Otanes, demanded and
+obtained even more. He and his house were to remain "free," and were to
+receive yearly a magnificent kaftan, or royal present. Thus, something
+like a check on unbridled despotism was formally and regularly
+established; an hereditary nobility was acknowledged; the king became
+to some extent dependent on his grandees; he could not regard himself as
+the sole fountain of honor; six great nobles stood round the throne
+as its supports; but their position was so near the monarch that they
+detracted somewhat from his prestige and dignity.
+
+The guarantee of these privileges was, we may be sure, given, and the
+choice of Darius as king made, before the attack upon the. Magus began.
+It would have been madness to allow an interval of anarchy. When
+Darius reached the capital, with the head of the Pseudo-Smerdis in his
+possession, he no doubt proceeded at once to the palace and took his
+seat upon the vacant throne. No opposition was offered to him. The
+Persians gladly saw a scion of their old royal stock installed in power.
+The provincials were too far off to interfere. Such malcontents as
+might be present would be cowed by the massacre that was going on in the
+streets. The friends and intimates of the fallen monarch would be only
+anxious to escape notice. The reign of the new king no doubt commenced
+amid those acclamations which are never wanting in the East when a
+sovereign first shows himself to his subjects.
+
+The measures with which the new monarch inaugurated his reign had for
+their object the re-establishment of the old worship. He rebuilt the
+Zoroastrian temples which the Magus had destroyed, and probably restored
+the use of the sacred chants and the other accustomed ceremonies. It may
+be suspected that his religious zeal proceeded often to the length of
+persecution, and that the Magian priests were not the only persons who,
+under the orders which he issued, felt the weight of the secular arm.
+His Zoroastrian zeal was soon known through the provinces; and the Jews
+forthwith resumed the building of their temple, trusting that their
+conduct would be consonant with his wishes. This trust was not
+misplaced: for, when the Samaritans once more interfered and tried to
+induce the new king to put a stop to the work, the only result was
+a fresh edict, confirming the old decree of Cyrus, forbidding
+interference, and assigning a further grant of money, cattle,
+corn, etc., from the royal stores, for the furtherance of the pious
+undertaking. Its accomplishment was declared to be for the advantage of
+the king and his house, since, when the temple was finished, sacrifices
+would be offered in it to "the God of Heaven," and prayer would be made
+"for the life of the king and of his sons." Such was the sympathy which
+still united pure Zoroastrianism with the worship of Jehovah. But the
+reign, which, so far, might have seemed to be auspiciously begun,
+was destined ere long to meet opposition, and even to encounter armed
+hostility, in various quarters. In the loosely organized empires of
+the early type, a change of sovereign, especially if accompanied
+by revolutionary violence, is always regarded as an opportunity for
+rebellion. Doubt as to the condition of the capital paralyzes the
+imperial authority in the provinces; and bold men, taking advantage
+of the moment of weakness, start up in various places, asserting
+independence, and seeking to obtain for themselves kingdoms out of
+the chaos which they see around them. The more remote provinces are
+especially liable to be thus affected, and often revolt successfully on
+such an occasion. It appears that the circumstances under which Darius
+obtained the throne were more than usually provocative of the spirit
+of disaffection and rebellion. Not only did the governors of remote
+countries, like Egypt and Lydia, assume an attitude incompatible with
+their duty as subjects, but everywhere, even in the very heart of the
+Empire, insurrection raised its head; and for six long years the new
+king was constantly employed in reducing one province after another to
+obedience. Susiana, Babylonia, Persia itself, Media, Assyria, Armenia,
+Hyrcania, Parthia, Margiana, Sagartia, and Sacia, all revolted during
+this space, and were successively chastised and recovered. It may
+be suspected that the religious element entered into some of these
+struggles, and that the unusual number of the revolts and the obstinate
+character of many of them were connected with the downfall of Magism and
+the restoration of the pure Zoroastrian faith, which Darius was bent on
+effecting. But this explanation can only be applied partially. We must
+suppose, besides, a sort of contagion of rebellion--an awakening of
+hopes, far and wide, among the subject nations, as the rumor that
+serious troubles had broken out reached them, and a resolution to take
+advantage of the critical state of things, spreading rapidly from one
+people to another.
+
+A brief sketch of these various revolts must now be given. They
+commenced with a rising in Susiana, where a certain Atrines assumed
+the name and state of king, and was supported by the people. Almost
+simultaneously a pretender appeared in Babylon, who gave out that he was
+the son of the late king, Nabonidus, and bore the world-renowned name
+of Nebuchadnezzar. Darius, regarding this second revolt as the more
+important of the two, while he dispatched a force to punish the
+Susianians, proceeded in person against the Babylonian pretender. The
+rivals met at the river Tigris, which the Babylonians held with a naval
+force, while their army was posted on the right bank, ready to dispute
+the passage. Darius, however, crossed the river in their dispute, and,
+defeating the troops of his antagonist, pressed forward against the
+capital. He had nearly reached it, when the pretender gave him battle
+for the second time at a small town on the banks of the Euphrates.
+Fortune again declared in favor of the Persians, who drove the host of
+their enemy into the water and destroyed great numbers. The soi-disant
+Nebuchadnezzar escaped with a few horsemen and threw himself into
+Babylon; but the city was ill prepared for a siege, and was soon taken,
+the pretender falling into the hands of his enemy, who caused him to be
+executed.
+
+Meanwhile, in Susiana, Atrines, the original leader of the rebellion,
+had been made prisoner by the troops sent against him, and, being
+brought to Darius while he was on his march against Babylon, was put to
+death. But this severity had little effect. A fresh leader appeared in
+the person of a certain Martes, a Persian who, taking example from the
+Babylonian rebel, assumed a name which connected him with the old kings
+of the country, and probably claimed to be their descendant, but the
+hands of Darius were now free by the termination of the Babylonian
+contest, and he was able to proceed towards Susiana himself. This
+movement, apparently, was unexpected; for when the Susianians heard of
+it they were so alarmed that they laid hands on the pretender and slew
+him.
+
+A more important rebellion followed. Three of the chief provinces of
+the empire, Media, Armenia, and Assyria, revolted in concert. A Median
+monarch was set up, who called himself Xathrites, and claimed descent
+from the great Oyaxares; and it would seem that the three countries
+immediately acknowledged his sway. Darius, seeing how formidable the
+revolt was, determined to act with caution. Settling himself at the
+newly-conquered city of Babylon, he resolved to employ his generals
+against the rebels, and in this way to gauge the strength of the
+outbreak, before adventuring his own person into the fray. Hydarnes,
+one of the Seven conspirators, was sent into Media with an army, while
+Dadarses, an Armenian, was dispatched into Armenia, and Vomises, a
+Persian, was ordered to march through Assyria into the same country.
+All three generals were met by the forces of the pretender, and several
+battles were fought, with results that seem not to have been very
+decisive. Darius claims the victory on each occasion for his own
+generals; but it is evident that his arms made little progress, and
+that, in spite of several small defeats, the rebellion maintained a bold
+front, and was thought not unlikely to be successful. So strong was
+this feeling that two of the eastern provinces, Hyrcania and Parthia,
+deserted the Persian cause in the midst of the struggle, and placed
+themselves under the rule of Xathrites. Either this circumstance, or the
+general position of affairs, induced Darius at length to take the field
+in person. Quitting Babylon, he marched into Media, and being met by the
+pretender near a town called Kudrus, he defeated him in a great battle.
+This is no doubt the engagement of which Herodotus speaks, and which he
+rightly regards as decisive. The battle of Kudrus gave Ecbatana into the
+hands of Darius, and made the Median prince an outcast and a fugitive.
+He fled towards the East, probably intending to join his partisans in
+Hyrcania and Parthia, but was overtaken in the district of Rhages and
+made prisoner by the troops of Darius. The king treated his captive with
+extreme severity. Having cut off his nose, ears, and tongue, he kept
+him for some time chained to the door of his palace, in order that there
+might be no doubt of his capture. When this object had been sufficiently
+secured, the wretched sufferer was allowed to end his miserable
+existence. He was crucified in his capital city, Ecbatana, before the
+eyes of those who had seen his former glory.
+
+The rebellion was thus crushed in its original seat, but it had still to
+be put down in the countries whereto it had extended itself. Parthia
+and Hyrcania, which had embraced the cause of the pretender, were still
+maintaining a conflict with their former governor, Hystaspes, Darius's
+father. Darius marched as far as Rhages to his father's assistance, and
+dispatched from that point a body of Persian troops to reinforce him.
+With this important aid Hystaspes once more gave the rebels battle, and
+succeeded in defeating them so entirely that they presently made their
+submission.
+
+Troubles, meanwhile, had broken out in Sagartia. A native chief, moved
+probably by the success which had for a while attended the Median rebel
+who claimed to rule as the descendant and representative of Cyaxares,
+came forward with similar pretensions, and was accepted by the
+Sargartians as their monarch. This revolt, however, proved unimportant.
+Darius suppressed it with the utmost facility by means of a mixed
+army of Persians and Medes, whom he placed under a Median leader,
+Tachamaspates. The pretender was captured and treated almost exactly
+in the same way as the Mede whose example he had followed. His nose and
+ears were cut off; he was chained for a while at the palace door; and
+finally he was crucified at Arbela.
+
+Another trifling revolt occurred about the same time in Margiana. The
+Margians rebelled and set up a certain Phraates, a native, to be their
+king. But the satrap of Bactria, within whose province Margiana lay,
+quelled the revolt almost immediately.
+
+Hitherto, however thickly troubles had come upon him, Darius could have
+the satisfaction of feeling that he was contending with foreigners,
+and that his own nation at any rate was faithful and true. But now
+this consolation was to be taken from him. During his absence in
+the provinces of the north-east Persia itself revolted against his
+authority, and acknowledged for king an impostor, who, undeterred by the
+fate of Gomates, and relying on the obscurity which still hung over
+the end of the real Smerdis, assumed his name, and claimed to be the
+legitimate occupant of the throne. The Persians at home were either
+deceived a second time, or were willing to try a change of ruler; but
+the army of Darius, composed of Persians and Medes, adhered to the
+banner under which they had so often marched to victory, and enabled
+Darius, after a struggle of some duration, to re-establish his sway.
+The impostor suffered two defeats at the hands of Artabardes, one
+of Darius's generals, while a force which he had detached to excite
+rebellion in Arachosia was engaged by the satrap of that province and
+completely routed. The so-called Smerdis was himself captured, and
+suffered the usual penalty of unsuccessful revolt, crucifixion.
+
+Before, however, these results were accomplished--while the fortune of
+war still hung in the balance--a fresh danger threatened. Encouraged
+by the disaffection which appeared to be so general, and which had at
+length reached the very citadel of the Empire, Babylon revolted for the
+second time. A man, named Aracus, an Armenian by descent, but settled
+in Babylonia, headed the insurrection, and, adopting the practice
+of personation so usual at the time, assumed the name and style of
+"Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus." Less alarmed on this occasion than
+at the time of the first revolt, the king was content to send a
+Median general against the new pretender. This officer, who is called
+Intaphres, speedily chastised the rebels, capturing Babylon, and taking
+Aracus prisoner. Crucifixion was again the punishment awarded to the
+rebel leader.
+
+A season of comparative tranquillity seems now to have set in; and it
+may have been in this interval that Darius found time to chastise
+the remoter governors, who without formally declaring themselves
+independent, or assuming the title of king, had done acts savoring of
+rebellion. Oroetes, the governor of Sardis, who had comported himself
+strangely even under Cambyses, having ventured to entrap and put to
+death an ally of that monarch's, Polycrates of Samos, had from the
+time of the Magian revolution assumed an attitude quite above that of a
+subject. Having a quarrel with Mitrobates, the governor of a neighboring
+province, he murdered him and annexed his territory. When Darius sent a
+courier to him with a message the purport of which he disliked, he set
+men to waylay and assassinate him. It was impossible to overlook such
+acts; and Darius must have sent an army into Asia Minor, if one of
+his nobles had not undertaken to remove Oroetes in another way. Arming
+himself with several written orders bearing the king's seal, he went
+to Sardis, and gradually tried the temper of the guard which the satrap
+kept round his person. When he found them full of respect for the royal
+authority and ready to do whatever the king commanded, he produced
+an order for the governor's execution, which they carried into effect
+immediately.
+
+The governor of Egypt, Aryandes, had shown a guilty ambition in a more
+covert way. Understanding that Darius had issued a gold coinage of
+remarkable purity, he, on his own authority and without consulting the
+king, issued a silver coinage of a similar character. There is reason to
+believe that he even placed his name upon his coins; an act which to
+the Oriental mind distinctly implied a claim of independent sovereignty.
+Darius taxed him with a design to revolt, and put him to death on the
+charge, apparently without exciting any disturbance.
+
+Still, however, the Empire was not wholly tranquillized. A revolt in
+Susiana, suppressed by the conspirator Gobryas, and another among the
+Sacse of the Tigris, quelled by Darius in person, are recorded on the
+rock of Behistun, in a supplementary portion of the Inscription. We
+cannot date, unless it be by approximation, these various troubles; but
+there is reason to believe that they were almost all contained within
+a space not exceeding five or six years. The date of the Behistun
+Inscription is fixed by internal evidence to about B.C. 516-515--in
+other words, to the fifth or sixth year of the reign of Darius. Its
+erection seems to mark the termination of the first period of the reign,
+or that of disturbance, and the commencement of the second period, or
+that of tranquillity, internal progress, and patronage of the fine arts
+by the monarch.
+
+It was natural that Darius, having with so much effort and difficulty
+reduced the revolted provinces to obedience, should proceed to consider
+within himself how the recurrence of such a time of trouble might be
+prevented. His experience had shown him how weak were the ties which had
+hitherto been thought sufficient to hold the Empire together, and how
+slight an obstacle they opposed to the tendency, which all great empires
+have, to disruption. But, however natural it might be to desire a remedy
+for the evils which afflicted the State, it was not easy to devise one.
+Great empires had existed in Western Asia for above seven hundred years,
+and had all suffered more or less from the same inherent weakness; but
+no one had as yet invented a cure, or even (so far as appears) conceived
+the idea of improving on the rude system of imperial sway which the
+first conqueror had instituted. It remained for Darius, not only to
+desire, but to design--not only to design, but to bring into action--an
+entirely new form and type of government. He has been well called "the
+true founder of the Persian state." He found the Empire a crude and
+heterogeneous mass of ill-assorted elements, hanging loosely together by
+the single tie of subjection to a common head; he left it a compact
+and regularly organized body, united on a single well-ordered system,
+permanently established everywhere.
+
+On the nature and details of this system it will be necessary to speak
+at some length. It was the first, and probably the best, instance of
+that form of government which, taking its name from the Persian word
+for provincial ruler, is known generally as the system of "satrapial"
+administration. Its main principles were, in the first place, the
+reduction of the whole Empire to a quasi-uniformity by the substitution
+of one mode of governing for several; secondly, the substitution of
+fixed and definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable and
+uncertain calls; and thirdly, the establishment of a variety of checks
+and counterpoises among the officials to whom it was necessary that the
+crown should delegate its powers, which tended greatly to the security
+of the monarch and the stability of the kingdom. A consideration of the
+modes in which these three principles were applied will bring before us
+in a convenient form the chief points of the system.
+
+Uniformity, or a near approach to it, was produced, not so much by the
+abolition of differences as by superadding one and the same governmental
+machinery in all parts of the Empire. It is an essential feature of
+the satrapial system that it does not aim at destroying differences, or
+assimilating to one type the various races and countries over which
+it is extended. On the contrary, it allows, and indeed encourages, the
+several nations to retain their languages, habits, manners, religion,
+laws, and modes of local government. Only it takes care to place above
+all these things a paramount state authority, which is one and the same
+everywhere, whereon the unity of the kingdom is dependent. The authority
+instituted by Darius was that of his satraps. He divided the whole
+empire into a number of separate governments--a number which must have
+varied at different times, but which seems never to have fallen short
+of twenty. Over each government he placed a satrap, or supreme civil
+governor, charged with the collection and transmission of the revenue,
+the administration of justice, the maintenance of order, and the general
+supervision of the territory. These satraps were nominated by the king
+at his pleasure from any class of his subjects, and held office for no
+definite term, but simply until recalled, being liable to deprivation
+or death at any moment, without other formality than the presentation
+of the royal firman. While, however, they remained in office they were
+despotic--they represented the Great King, and were clothed with a
+portion of his majesty--they had palaces, Courts, body-guards, parks
+or "paradises," vast trains of eunuchs and attendants, well-filled,
+seraglios. They wielded the power of life and death. They assessed the
+tribute on the several towns and villages within their jurisdiction
+at their pleasure, and appointed deputies--called sometimes, like
+themselves, satraps--over cities or districts within their province,
+whose office was regarded as one of great dignity. They exacted from
+the provincials, for their own support and that of their Court, over and
+above the tribute due to the crown, whatever sum they regarded them as
+capable of furnishing. Favors, and even justice, had to be purchased
+from them by gifts. They were sometimes guilty of gross outrages on the
+persons and honor of their subjects. Nothing restrained their tyranny
+but such sense of right as they might happen to possess, and the fear of
+removal or execution if the voice of complaint reached the monarch.
+
+Besides this uniform civil administration, the Empire was pervaded
+throughout by one and the same military system. The services of the
+subject nations as soldiers were, as a general rule, declined, unless
+upon rare and exceptional cases. Order was maintained by large and
+numerous garrisons of foreign troops--Persians and Medes--quartered
+on the inhabitants, who had little sympathy with those among whom they
+lived, and would be sure to repress sternly any outbreak. All places of
+much strength were occupied in this way; and special watch was kept upon
+the great capitals, which were likely to be centres of disaffection.
+Thus a great standing army, belonging to the conquering race, stood
+everywhere on guard throughout the Empire, offending the provincials no
+doubt by their pride, their violence, and their contemptuous bearing,
+but rendering a native revolt under ordinary circumstances hopeless.
+
+Some exceptions to the general uniformity had almost of necessity to be
+made in so vast and heterogeneous an empire as the Persian. Occasionally
+it was thought wise to allow the continuance of a native dynasty in a
+province; and the satrap had in such a case to share with the native
+prince a divided authority. This was certainly the case in Cilicia, and
+probably in Paphlagonia and Phoenicia. Tribes also, included within
+the geographical limits of a satrapy, were sometimes recognized as
+independent; and petty wars were carried on between these hordes and
+their neighbors. Robber bands in many places infested the mountains,
+owing no allegiance to any one, and defied alike the satrap and the
+standing army.
+
+The condition of Persia Proper was also purely exceptional. Persia paid
+no tribute, and was not counted as a satrapy. Its inhabitants were,
+however, bound, when the king passed through their country, to bring him
+gifts according to their means. This burthen may have been felt sensibly
+by the rich, but it pressed very lightly on the poor, who, if they could
+not afford an ox or a sheep, might bring a little milk or cheese, a
+few dates, or a handful of wild fruit. On the other hand, the king was
+bound, whenever he visited Pasargadae, to present to each Persian woman
+who appeared before him a sum equal to twenty Attic drachmas, or about
+sixteen shillings of our money. This custom commemorated the service
+rendered by the sex in the battle wherein Cyrus first repulsed the
+forces of Astyages.
+
+The substitution of definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable
+and uncertain charges was aimed at, rather than effected, by the new
+arrangement of the revenue which is associated with the name of Darius.
+This arrangement consisted in fixing everywhere the amount of tribute
+in money and in kind which each satrapy was to furnish to the crown. A
+definite money payment, varying, in ordinary satrapies, from 170 to
+1000 Babylonian silver talents,330 or from L42,000. to L250,000. of our
+money, and amounting, in the exceptional case of the Indian satrapy, to
+above a million sterling, was required annually by the sovereign,
+and had to be remitted by the satrap to the capital. Besides this, a
+payment, the nature and amount of which was also fixed, had to be made
+in kind, each province being required to furnish that commodity, or
+those commodities, for which it was most celebrated. This latter burthen
+must have pressed very unequally on different portions of the Empire,
+if the statement of Herodotus be true that Babylonia and Assyria paid
+one-third of it. The payment seems to have been very considerable
+in amount. Egypt had to supply grain sufficient for the nutriment of
+120,000 Persian troops quartered in the country. Media had to contribute
+100,000 sheep, 4000 mules, and 3000 horses; Cappadocia, half the above
+number of each kind of animal; Armenia furnished 20,000 colts; Cilicia
+gave 360 white horses and a sum of 140 talents (L35,000.) in lieu
+of further tribute in kind. Babylonia, besides corn, was required to
+furnish 500 boy eunuchs. These charges, however, were all fixed by the
+crown, and may have been taken into consideration in assessing the money
+payment, the main object of the whole arrangement evidently being to
+make the taxation of each province proportionate to its wealth and
+resources.
+
+The assessment of the taxation upon the different portions of his
+province was left to the satrap. We do not know on what principles he
+ordinarily proceeded, or whether any uniform principles at all were
+observed throughout the Empire. But we find some evidence that, in
+places at least, the mode of exaction and collection was by a land-tax.
+The assessment upon individuals, and the actual collection from them,
+devolved, in all probability, on the local authorities, who distributed
+the burthen imposed upon their town, village, or district as they
+thought proper. Thus the foreign oppressor did not come into direct
+contact with the mass of the conquered people, who no doubt paid the
+calls made upon them with less reluctance through the medium of their
+own proper magistrates.
+
+If the taxation of the subject had stopped here, he would have had
+no just ground of complaint against his rulers. The population of the
+Empire cannot be estimated at less than forty millions of souls. The
+highest estimate of the value of the entire tribute, both in money and
+kind, will scarcely place it at more than ten millions sterling. Thus
+far, then, the burthen of taxation would certainly not have exceeded
+five shillings a head per annum. Perhaps it would not have reached half
+that amount. But, unhappily, neither was the tribute the sole tax which
+the crown exacted from its subjects, nor had the crown the sole right
+of exacting taxation. Persian subjects in many parts of the Empire paid,
+besides their tribute, a water-rate, which is expressly said to have
+been very productive. The rivers of the Empire were the king's; and when
+water was required for irrigation, a state officer superintended the
+opening of the sluices, and regulated the amount of the precious fluid
+which might be drawn off by each tribe or township. For the opening of
+the sluices a large sum was paid to the officer, which found its way
+into the coffers of the state. Further, it appears that such things
+as fisheries--and if so, probably salt-works, mines, quarries, and
+forests--were regarded as crown property, and yielded large sums to the
+revenue. They appear to have been farmed to responsible persons, who
+undertook to pay at a certain fixed rate, and made what profit they
+could by the transaction. The price of commodities thus farmed would be
+greatly enhanced to the consumer.
+
+By these means the actual burthen of taxation upon the subject was
+rendered to some extent uncertain and indefinite, and the benefits of
+the fixed tribute system were diminished. But the chief drawback upon
+it has still to be mentioned. While the claims of the crown upon its
+subjects were definite and could not be exceeded, the satrap was at
+liberty to make any exactions that he pleased beyond them. There
+is every reason to believe that he received no stipend, and that,
+consequently, the burthen of supporting him, his body-guard, and his
+Court was intended to fall on the province which had the benefit of his
+superintendence. Like a Roman proconsul, he was to pay himself out of
+the pockets of his subjects; and, like that class of persons, he took
+care to pay himself highly. It has been calculated that one satrap of
+Babylon drew from his province annually in actual coin a sum equal to
+L100,000. of our money. We can scarcely doubt that the claims made by
+the provincial governors were, on the average, at least equal to
+those of the crown; and they had the disadvantage of being irregular,
+uncertain, and purely arbitrary.
+
+Thus, what was gained by the new system was not so much the relief of
+the subject from uncertain taxation as the advantage to the crown of
+knowing beforehand what the revenue would be, and being able to regulate
+its expenditure accordingly. Still a certain amount of benefit did
+undoubtedly accrue to the provincials from the system; since it gave
+them the crown for their protector. So long as the payments made to the
+state were irregular, it was, or at least seemed to be, for the interest
+of the crown to obtain from each province as much as it could anyhow
+pay. When the state dues were once fixed, as the crown gained nothing by
+the rapacity of its officers, but rather lost, since the province became
+exhausted, it was interested in checking greed, and seeing that the
+provinces were administered by wise and good satraps.
+
+The control of its great officers is always the main difficulty of a
+despotic government, when it is extended over a large space of territory
+and embraces many millions of men. The system devised by Darius for
+checking and controlling his satraps was probably the best that has
+ever yet been brought into operation. His plan was to establish in every
+province at least three officers holding their authority directly from
+the crown, and only responsible to it, who would therefore act as checks
+one upon another. These were the satrap, the military commandant, and
+the secretary. The satrap was charged with the civil administration, and
+especially with the department of finance. The commandant was supreme
+over the troops. The office of the secretary is less clearly defined;
+but it probably consisted mainly in keeping the Court informed by
+despatches of all that went on in the province. Thus, if the satrap
+were inclined to revolt, he had, in the first place, to persuade the
+commandant, who would naturally think that, if he ran the risk, it might
+as well be for himself; and, further, he had to escape the lynx eyes of
+the secretary, whose general right of superintendence gave him entrance
+everywhere, and whose prospects of advancement would probably depend a
+good deal upon the diligence and success with which he discharged the
+office of "King's Eye" and "Ear." So, if the commandant were ambitious
+of independent sway, he must persuade the satrap, or he would have no
+money to pay his troops; and he too must blind the secretary, or else
+bribe him into silence. As for the secretary, having neither men
+nor money at his command, it was impossible that he should think of
+rebellion.
+
+But the precautions taken against revolt did not end here. Once a year,
+according to Xenophon, or more probably at irregular intervals, an
+officer came suddenly down from the Court with a commission to inspect
+a province. Such persons were frequently of royal rank, brothers or sons
+of the king. They were accompanied by an armed force, and were empowered
+to correct whatever was amiss in the province, and in case of necessity
+to report to the crown the insubordination or incompetency of its
+officers. If this system had been properly maintained, it is evident
+that it would have acted as a most powerful check upon misgovernment,
+and would have rendered revolt almost impossible.
+
+Another mode by which it was sought to secure the fidelity of the
+satraps and commandants was by choosing them from among the king's blood
+relations, or else attaching them to the crown by marriage with one of
+the princesses. It was thought that the affection of sons and brothers
+would be a restraint upon their ambition, and that even connections by
+marriage would feel that they had an interest in upholding the power and
+dignity of the great house with which they had been thought worthy of
+alliance. This system, which was entensively followed by Darius, had on
+the whole good results, and was at any rate preferable to that barbarous
+policy of prudential fratricide which has prevailed widely in Oriental
+governments.
+
+The system of checks, while it was effectual for the object at which it
+specially aimed, had one great disadvantage. It weakened the hands of
+authority in times of difficulty. When danger, internal or external,
+threatened, it was an evil that the powers of government should be
+divided, and the civil authority lodged in the hands of one officer, the
+military in those of another. Concentration of power is needed for rapid
+and decisive action, for unity of purpose, and secrecy both of plan and
+of execution. These considerations led to a modification of the original
+idea of satrapial government, which was adopted partially at first--in
+provinces especially exposed to danger, internal or external--but which
+ultimately became almost universal. The offices of satrap, or civil
+administrator, and commandant, or commander of the troops, were vested
+in the same person, who came in this way to have that full and complete
+authority which is possessed by Turkish pashas and modern Persian
+khans or beys--an authority practically uncontrolled. This system was
+advantageous for the defence of a province against foes; but it was
+dangerous to the stability of the Empire, since it led naturally to the
+occurrence of formidable rebellions.
+
+Two minor points in the scheme of Darius remain to be noticed, before
+this account of his governmental system can be regarded as complete.
+These are his institution of posts, and his coinage of money.
+
+In Darius's idea of government was included rapidity of communication.
+Regarding it as of the utmost importance that the orders of the Court
+should be speedily transmitted to the provincial governors, and that
+their reports and those of the royal secretaries should be received
+without needless delay, he established along the lines of routes already
+existing between the chief cities of the Empire a number of post-houses,
+placed at regular intervals, according to the estimated capacity of a
+horse to gallop at his best speed without stopping. At each post-house
+were maintained, at the cost of the state, a number of couriers and
+several relays of horses. When a despatch was to be forwarded it was
+taken to the first post-house along the route, where a courier received
+it, and immediately mounting on horseback galloped with it to the next
+station. Here it was delivered to a new courier, who, mounted on a fresh
+horse, took it the next stage on its journey; and thus it passed from
+hand to hand till it reached its destination. According to Xenophon, the
+messengers travelled by night as well as by day; and the conveyance was
+so rapid that some even compared it to the flight of birds. Excellent
+inns or caravanserais were to be found at every station; bridges or
+ferries were established upon all the streams; guard-houses occurred
+here and there, and the whole route was kept secure from the brigands
+who infested the Empire. Ordinary travellers were glad to pursue so
+convenient a line of march; it does not appear, however, that they could
+obtain the use of post-horses even when the government was in no need
+of them. The coinage of Darius consisted, it is probable, both of a gold
+and silver issue. It is not perhaps altogether certain that he was
+the first king of Persia who coined money; but, if the term "daric" is
+really derived from his name, that alone would be a strong argument in
+favor of his claim to priority. In any case, it is indisputable that
+he was the first Persian king who coined on a large scale, and it is
+further certain that his gold coinage was regarded in later times as of
+peculiar value on account of its purity. His gold darics appear to have
+contained, on an average, not quite 124 grains of pure metal, which
+would make their value about twenty two shillings of our money.
+They were of the type usual at the time both in Lydia and in
+Greece--flattened lumps of metal, very thick in comparison with the size
+of their surface, irregular, and rudely stamped. The silver darics
+were similar in general character, but exceeded the gold in size. Their
+weight was from 224 to 230 grains, and they would thus have been worth
+not quite three shillings of our money. It does not appear that any
+other kinds of coins besides these were ever issued from the Persian
+mint. They must, therefore, it would seem, have satisfied the commercial
+needs of the people.
+
+From this review of the governmental system of Darius we must now return
+to the actions of his later life. The history of an Oriental monarchy
+must always be composed mainly of a series of biographies; for, as the
+monarch is all in all in such communities, his sayings, doings, and
+character, not only determine, but constitute, the annals of the State.
+In the second period of his reign, that which followed on the time of
+trouble and disturbance, Darius (as has been already observed)
+appears to have pursued mainly the arts of peace. Bent on settling and
+consolidating his Empire, he set up everywhere the satrapial form of
+government, organized and established his posts, issued his coinage,
+watched over the administration of justice, and in various ways
+exhibited a love of order and method, and a genius for systematic
+arrangement. At the same time he devoted considerable attention to
+ornamental and architectural works, to sculpture, and to literary
+composition. He founded the royal palace at Susa, which was the main
+residence of the later kings. At Persepolis he certainly erected one
+very important building; and it is on the whole most probable that he
+designed--if he did not live to execute--the Chehl Minor itself--the
+chief of the magnificent structures upon the great central platform. The
+massive platform itself, with its grand and stately steps, is certainly
+of his erection, for it is inscribed with his name. He gave his works
+all the solidity and strength that is derivable from the use of huge
+blocks of a good hard material. He set the example of ornamenting the
+stepped approached to a palace with elaborate bas-reliefs. He designed
+and caused to be constructed in his own lifetime the rock-tomb at
+Nakhsh-i-Rustam, in which his remains were afterwards laid. The
+rock-sculpture at Behistun was also his work. In attention to the
+creation of permanent historical records he excelled all the Persian
+kings, both before him and after him. The great Inscription of Behistun
+has no parallel in ancient times for length, finish, and delicacy
+of execution, unless it be in Assyria or in Egypt. The only really
+historical inscription at Persepolis is one set up by Darius. He was the
+only Persian king, except perhaps one, who placed an inscription upon
+his tomb. The later monarchs in their records do little more than repeat
+certain religious phrases and certain forms of self-glorification which
+occur in the least remarkable inscriptions of their great predecessor.
+He alone oversteps those limits, and presents us with geographical
+notices and narratives of events profoundly interesting to the
+historian.
+
+During this period of comparative peace, which may have extended
+from about B.C. 516 to B.C. 508 or 507, the general tranquillity was
+interrupted by at least one important expedition. The administrational
+merits of Darius are so great that they have obscured his military
+glories, and have sent him down to posterity with the character of an
+unwarlike monarch--if not a mere "peddler," as his subjects said, yet,
+at any rate, a mere consolidator and arranger. But the son of Hystaspes
+was no carpet prince. He had not drawn the sword against his domestic
+foes to sheath it finally and forever when his triumph over them was
+completed. On the contrary, he regarded it as incumbent on him to carry
+on the aggressive policy of Cyrus and Cambyses, his great predecessors,
+and like them to extend in one direction or another the boundaries of
+the Empire. Perhaps he felt that aggression was the very law of the
+Empire's being, since if the military spirit was once allowed to become
+extinct in the conquering nation, they would lose the sole guarantee of
+their supremacy. At any rate, whatever his motive, we find him, after
+he had snatched a brief interval of repose, engaging in great wars
+both towards his eastern and his western frontier--wars which in both
+instances had results of considerable importance.
+
+The first grand expedition was towards the East. Cyrus, as we have seen,
+had extended the Persian sway over the mountains of Affghanistan and the
+highlands from which flow the tributaries of the Upper Indus. From these
+eminences the Persian garrisons looked down on a territory possessing
+every quality that could attract a powerful conqueror. Fertile,
+well-watered, rich in gold, peopled by an ingenious yet warlike race,
+which would add strength no less than wealth to its subjugators, the
+Punjab lay at the foot of the Sufeid Koh and Suliman ranges, inviting
+the attack of those who could swoop down when they pleased upon the low
+country. It was against this region that Darius directed his first great
+aggressive effort. Having explored the course of the Indus from Attock
+to the sea by means of boats, and obtained, we may suppose, in this way
+some knowledge of the country and its inhabitants, he led or sent an
+expedition into the tract, which in a short time succeeded in completely
+reducing it. The Punjab, and probably the whole valley of the Indus, was
+annexed, and remained subject till the later times of the Empire. The
+results of this conquest were the acquisition of a brave race, capable
+of making excellent soldiers, an enormous increase of the revenue, a
+sudden and vast influx of gold into Persia, which led probably to the
+introduction of the gold coinage, and the establishment of commercial
+relations with the natives, which issued in a regular trade carried
+on by coasting-vessels between the mouths of the Indus and the Persian
+Gulf.
+
+The next important expedition--one probably of still greater
+magnitude--took exactly the opposite direction. The sea which bounded
+the Persian dominion to the west and the north-west narrowed in two
+places to dimensions not much exceeding those of of the greater Asiatic
+rivers. The eye which looked across the Thracian Bosphorus or the
+Hellespont seemed to itself to be merely contemplating the opposite
+bank of a pretty wide stream. Darius, consequently being master of
+Asia Minor, and separated by what seemed to him so poor a barrier
+from fertile tracts of vast and indeed indefinite extent, such as were
+nowhere else to be found on the borders of his empire, naturally turned
+his thoughts of conquest to this quarter. His immediate desire was,
+probably, to annex Thrace; but he may have already entertained wider
+views, and have looked to embracing in his dominions the lovely isles
+and coasts of Greece also, so making good the former threats of Cyrus.
+The story of the voyage and escape of Democedes, related by Herodotus
+with such amplitude of detail, and confirmed to some extent from other
+sources, cannot be a mere myth without historical foundation. Nor is
+it probable that the expedition was designed merely for the purpose of
+"indulging the exile with a short visit to his native country," or of
+collecting "interesting information." If by the king's orders a vessel
+was fitted out at Sidon to explore the coasts of Greece under the
+guidance of Democedes, which proceeded as far as Crotona in Magna
+Grsecia, we may be tolerably sure that a political object lay at the
+bottom of the enterprise. It would have exactly the same aim and end as
+the eastern voyage of Scylax, and would be intended, like that, to pave
+the way for a conquest. Darius was therefore, it would seem, already
+contemplating the reduction of Greece Proper, and did not require
+to have it suggested to him by any special provocation. Mentally, or
+actually, surveying the map of the world, so far as it was known to
+him, he saw that in this direction only there was an attractive country
+readily accessible. Elsewhere his Empire abutted on seas, sandy deserts,
+or at best barren steppes; here, and here only, was there a rich prize
+close at hand and (as it seemed) only waiting to be grasped.
+
+But if the aggressive force of Persia was to be turned in this
+direction, if the stream of conquest was to be set westward along the
+flanks of Rhodope and Haemus, it was essential to success, and even to
+safety, that the line of communication with Asia should remain intact.
+Now, there lay on the right flank of an army marching into Europe a vast
+and formidable power, known to be capable of great efforts, which, if
+allowed to feel itself secure from attack, might be expected at any
+time to step in, to break the line of communication between the east
+and west, and to bring the Persians who should be engaged in conquering
+Pseonia, Macedonia, and Greece, into imminent danger. It is greatly to
+the credit of Darius that he saw this peril--saw it and took effectual
+measures to guard against it. The Scythian expedition was no insane
+project of a frantic despot, burning for revenge, or ambitious of an
+impossible conquest. It has all the appearance of being a well-laid
+plan, conceived by a moderate and wise prince, for the furtherance of
+a great design, and the permanent advantage of his empire. The lord of
+South-Western Asia was well aware of the existence beyond his northern
+frontier of a standing menace to his power. A century had not sufficed
+to wipe out the recollection of that terrible time when Scythian hordes
+had carried desolation far and wide over the fairest of the regions that
+were now under the Persian dominion. What had occurred once might recur.
+Possibly, as a modern author suggests, "the remembrance of ancient
+injuries may have been revived by recent aggressions." It was at any
+rate essential to strike terror into the hordes of the Steppe Region in
+order that Western Asia might attain a sense of security. It was still
+more essential to do so if the north-west was to become the scene
+of war, and the Persians were to make a vigorous effort to establish
+themselves permanently in Europe. Scythia, it must be remembered,
+reached to the banks of the Danube. An invader, who aspired to the
+conquest even of Thrace, was almost forced into collision with her next
+neighbor.
+
+Darius, having determined on his course, prefaced his expedition by a
+raid, the object of which was undoubtedly to procure information. He
+ordered Ariaramnes, satrap of Cappadocia, to cross the Euxine with a
+small fleet, and, descending suddenly upon the Scythian coast, to carry
+off a number of prisoners. Ariaramnes executed the commission skilfully,
+and was so fortunate as to make prize of a native of high rank, the
+brother of a Scythian chief or king. From this person and his companions
+the Persian monarch was able to obtain all the information which he
+required. Thus enlightened, he proceeded to make his preparations.
+Collecting a fleet of 600 ships, chiefly from the Greeks of Asia, and
+an army estimated at from 700,000 to 800,000 men, which was made up
+of contingents from all the nations under his rule, he crossed the
+Bosphorus by a bridge of boats constructed by Mandrocles a Samian;
+marched through Thrace along the line of the Little Balkan, receiving
+the submission of the tribes as he went; crossed the Great Balkan;
+conquered the Getae, who dwelt between that range and the Danube; passed
+the Danube by a bridge, which the Ionian Greeks had made with their
+vessels just above the apex of the Delta; and so invaded Scythia. The
+natives had received intelligence of his approach, and had resolved not
+to risk a battle. They retired as he advanced, and endeavored to bring
+his army into difficulties by destroying the forage, driving off the
+cattle, and filling in the wells. But the commissariat of the Persians
+was, as usual, well arranged. Darius remained for more than two months
+in Scythia without incurring any important losses. He succeeded in
+parading before the eyes of the whole nation the immense military power
+of his empire. He no doubt inflicted considerable damage on the hordes,
+whose herds he must often have captured, and whose supplies of forage he
+curtailed. It is difficult to say how far he penetrated. Herodotus was
+informed that he marched east to the Tanais (Don), and thence north to
+the country of the Budini, where he burnt the staple of Gelonus, which
+cannot well have been below the fiftieth parallel, and was probably
+not far from Voronej. It is certainly astonishing that he should have
+ventured so far inland, and still more surprising that, having done
+so, he should have returned with his army well-nigh intact. But we can
+scarcely suppose the story that he destroyed the staple of the Greek
+trade a pure fiction. He would be glad to leave his mark in the country,
+and might make an extraordinary effort to reach the only town that was
+to be found in the whole steppe region. Having effected his purpose by
+its destruction, he would retire, falling back probably upon the coast,
+where he could obtain supplies from his fleet. It is beyond dispute that
+he returned with the bulk of his army, having suffered no loss but
+that of a few invalid troops whom he sacrificed. Attempts had been made
+during his absence to induce the Greeks, who guarded the bridge over
+the Danube, to break it, and so hinder his return; but they were
+unsuccessful. Darius recrossed the river after an interval of somewhat
+more than two months, victorious according to his own notions, and
+regarded himself as entitled thenceforth to enumerate among the subject
+races of his empire "the Scyths beyond the sea." On his return march
+through Thrace, he met, apparently, with no opposition. Before passing
+the Bosphorus, he gave a commission to one of his generals, a certain
+Megabazus, to complete the reduction of Thrace, and assigned him for the
+purpose a body of 80,000 men, who remained in Europe while Darius and
+the rest of his army crossed into Asia.
+
+Megabazus appears to have been fully worthy of the trust reposed in him.
+In a single campaign (B.C. 506) he overran and subjugated the entire
+tract between the Propontis and the Strymon, thus pushing forward the
+Persian dominion to the borders of Macedonia. Among the tribes which he
+conquered were the Perinthians, Greeks; the Pseti, Cicones, Bistones,
+Sapaei, Dersaei and Edoni, Thracians; and the Paeoplae and Siripasones,
+Pseonians. These last, to gratify a whim of Darius, were transported
+into Asia. The Thracians who submitted were especially those of the
+coast, no attempt, apparently, being made to penetrate the mountain
+fastnesses and bring under subjection the tribes of the interior.
+
+The first contact between Persia and Macedonia possesses peculiar
+interest from the circumstances of the later history. An ancestor of
+Alexander the Great sat upon the throne of Macedon when the general of
+Darius was brought in his career of conquest to the outskirts of the
+Macedonian power. The kingdom was at this time comparatively small, not
+extending much beyond Mount Bermius on the one hand, and not reaching
+very far to the east of the Axius on the other. Megabazus saw in it,
+we may be sure, not the fated destroyer of the Empire which he was
+extending, but a petty state which the mere sound of the Persian
+name would awe into subjection. He therefore, instead of invading the
+country, contented himself with sending an embassy, with a demand
+for earth and water, the symbols, according to Persian custom, of
+submission. Amyntas, the Macedonian king, consented, to the demand
+at once; and though, owing to insolent conduct on the part of the
+ambassadors, they were massacred with their whole retinue, yet this
+circumstance did not prevent the completion of Macedonian vassalage.
+When a second embassy was sent to inquire into the fate of the first,
+Alexander, the son of Amyntas, who had arranged the massacre, contrived
+to have the matter hushed up by bribing one of the envoys with a large
+sum of money and the hand of his sister, Gygsea. Macedonia took up the
+position of a subject kingdom, and owned for her true lord the great
+monarch of Western Asia.
+
+Megabazus, having accomplished the task assigned him, proceeded to
+Sardis, where Darius had remained almost, if not quite, a full year His
+place was taken by Otanes, the son of Sisamnes, a different person from
+the conspirator, who rounded off the Persian conquests in these parts
+by reducing, probably in B.C. 505, the cities of Byzantium, Chalcedon,
+Antandrus, and Lamponium, with the two adjacent islands of Letnnos and
+Imbrus. The inhabitants of all were, it appears, taxable, either with
+having failed to give contingents towards the Scythian expedition,
+or with having molested it on its return--crimes these, which Otanes
+thought it right to punish by their general enslavement.
+
+Darius, meanwhile, had proceeded to the seat of government, which
+appears at this time to have been Susa. He had perhaps already built
+there the great palace, whose remains have been recently disinterred
+by English enterprise; or he may have wished to superintend the work of
+construction. Susa, which was certainly from henceforth the main Persian
+capital, possessed advantages over almost any other site. Its climate
+was softer than that of Ecbatana and Persepolis, less sultry than that
+of Babylon. Its position was convenient for communicating both with
+the East and with the West. Its people were plastic, and probably
+more yielding and submissive than the Medes or the Persians. The king,
+fatigued with his warlike exertions, was glad for a while to rest and
+recruit himself at Susa, in the tranquil life of the Court. For some
+years he appears to have conceived no new aggressive project; and he
+might perhaps have forgotten his designs upon Greece altogether, had not
+his memory been stirred by a signal and extraordinary provocation.
+
+The immediate circumstances which led to the Ionian Revolt belong to
+Greek rather than to Persian history, and have been so fully treated of
+by the historians of the Hellenic race that a knowledge of them may be
+assumed as already possessed by the reader. What is chiefly remarkable
+about them is, that they are so purely private and personal. A chance
+quarrel between Aristagoras of Miletus and the Persian Megabates,
+pecuniary difficulties pressing on the former, and the natural desire
+of Histiseus, father-in-law of Aristagoras, to revisit his native place,
+were undoubtedly the direct and immediate causes of what became a
+great national outbreak. That there must have been other and wider
+predisposing causes can scarcely be doubted. Among them two may be
+suggested. The presence of Darius in Asia Minor, and his friendliness
+towards the tyrants who bore sway in most of the Greek cities, were
+calculated to elate those persons in their own esteem, and to encourage
+in them habits and acts injurious or offensive to their subjects. Their
+tyranny under these circumstances would become more oppressive and
+galling. At the same time the popular mind could not fail to associate
+together the native despot and the foreign lord, who (it was clear to
+all) supported and befriended each other. If the Greeks of Asia, like so
+many of their brethren in Europe, had grown weary of their tyrants
+and were desirous of rising against them, they would be compelled to
+contemplate the chances of a successful resistance to the Persians.
+And here there were circumstances in the recent history calculated
+to inspirit them and give them hopes. Six hundred Greek ships, manned
+probably by 120,000 men, had been lately brought together, and had
+formed a united fleet. The fate of the Persian land-army had depended
+on their fidelity. It is not surprising that a sense of strength should
+have been developed, and something like a national spirit should have
+grown up in such a condition of things.
+
+If this were the state of feeling among the Greeks, the merit of
+Aristagoras would be, that he perceived it, and, regardless of all class
+prejudices, determined to take advantage of the chance which it gave
+him of rising superior to his embarrassments. Throwing himself on the
+popular feeling, the strength of which he had estimated aright, he by
+the same act gave freedom to the cities, and plunged his nation into
+a rebellion against Persia. It was easy for reason to show, when the
+matter was calmly debated, that the probabilities of success against
+the might of Darius were small. But the arrest of the tyrants by
+Aristagoras, and his deliverance of them into the hands of their
+subjects, was an appeal to passion against which reason was powerless.
+No state could resist the temptation of getting rid of the tyranny under
+which it groaned. But the expulsion of the vassal committed those who
+took part in it to resist in arms the sovereign lord.
+
+In the original revolt appear to have been included only the cities
+of Ionia and AEolis. Aristagoras felt that some further strength was
+needed, and determined to seek it in European Greece. Repulsed from
+Sparta, which was disinclined to so distant an expedition, he applied
+for aid to cities on which he had a special claim. Miletus counted
+Athens as her mother state; and Eretria was indebted to her for
+assistance in her great war with Chalcis. Applying in these quarters
+Aristagoras succeeded better, but still obtained no very important help.
+Athens voted him twenty ships, Eretria five and with the promise of
+these succors he hastened back to Asia.
+
+The European contingent soon afterwards arrived; and Aristagoras,
+anxious to gain some signal success which should attract men to his
+cause, determined on a most daring enterprise. This was no less than an
+attack on Sardis, the chief seat of the Persian power in these parts,
+and by far the most important city of Asia Minor. Sailing to Ephesus, he
+marched up the valley of the Cayster, crossed Mount Tmolus, and took
+the Lydian capital at the first onset. Artaphernes, the satrap, was only
+able to save the citadel; the invaders began to plunder the town, and in
+the confusion it caught fire and was burnt. Aristagoras and his troops
+hastily retreated, but were overtaken before they could reach Ephesus by
+the Persians quartered in the province, who fell upon them and gave
+them a severe defeat. The expedition then broke up; the Asiatic Greeks
+dispersed among their cities; the Athenians and Eretrians took ship and
+sailed home.
+
+Results followed that could scarcely have been anticipated. The failure
+of the expedition was swallowed up in the glory of its one achievement.
+It had taken Sardis--it had burnt one of the chief cities of the Great
+King. The news spread like wildfire on every side, and was proclaimed
+aloud in places where the defeat of Ephesus was never even whispered.
+Everywhere revolt burst out. The Greeks of the Hellespont--not only
+those of Asia but likewise those of Europe--the Carians and Caunians of
+the south-western coast--even the distant Cyprians broke into rebellion;
+the Scythians took heart and made a plundering raid through the Great
+King's Thracian territories;4 vassal monarchs, like Miltiades, assumed
+independence, and helped themselves to some of the fragments of the
+Empire that seemed falling to pieces. If a great man, a Miltiades or
+a Leondias, had been at the head of the movement, and if it had been
+decently supported from the European side, a successful issue might
+probably have been secured.
+
+But Aristagoras was unequal to the occasion; and the struggle for
+independence, which had promised so fair, was soon put down. Despite a
+naval victory gained by the Greeks over the Phoenician fleet off Cyprus,
+that island was recovered by the Persians within a year. Despite a
+courage and a perseverance worthy of a better fate, the Carians were
+soon afterwards forced to succumb. The reduction of the Hellespontine
+Greeks and of the AEolians followed. The toils now closed around Ionia,
+and her cities began to be attacked one by one; whereupon the incapable
+Aristagoras, deserting the falling cause, betook himself to Europe,
+where a just Nemesis pursued him: he died by a Thracian sword. After
+this the climax soon arrived. Persia concentrated her strength upon
+Miletus, the cradle of the revolt, and the acknowledged chief of the
+cities; and though her sister states came gallantly to her aid, and a
+fleet was collected which made it for a while doubtful which way victory
+might incline, yet all was of no avail. Laziness and insubordination
+began and treachery completed the work which all the force of Persia
+might have failed to accomplish; the combined Ionian fleet was totally
+defeated in the battle of Lade; and soon after Miletus herself fell.
+The bulk of her inhabitants were transported into inner Asia and settled
+upon the Persian Gulf. The whole Ionian coast was ravaged, and the
+cities punished by the loss of their most beautiful maidens and youths.
+The islands off the coast were swept of their inhabitants. The cities on
+the Hellespont and Sea of Marmora were burnt. Miltiades barely escaped
+from the Chersonese with the loss of his son and his kingdom. The flames
+of rebellion were everywhere ruthlessly trampled out; and the power
+of the Great King was once more firmly established over the coasts and
+islands of the Propontis and the Egean Sea.
+
+It remained, however, to take vengeance upon the foreigners who had
+dared to lend their aid to the king's revolted subjects, and had borne
+a part in the burning of Sardis. The pride of the Persians felt such
+interference as an insult of the grossest kind: and the tale may well be
+true that Darius, from the time that he first heard the news, employed
+an officer to bid him daily "remember Athens." The schemes which he had
+formerly entertained with respect to the reduction of Greece recurred
+with fresh force to his mind; and the task of crushing the revolt was no
+sooner completed than he proceeded to attempt their execution.
+Selecting Mardonius, son of Gobryas the conspirator, and one of his
+own sons-in-law, for general, he gave him the command of a powerful
+expedition, which was to advance by way of Thrace, Macedonia, and
+Thessaly, against Eretria and Athens. At the same time, with a wisdom
+which we should scarcely have expected in an Oriental, he commissioned
+him, ere he quitted Asia, to depose the tyrants who bore rule in the
+Greek cities, and to allow the establishment of democracies in their
+stead. Such a measure was excellently calculated to preserve the
+fidelity of the Hellenic population and to prevent any renewal of
+disturbance. It gave ample employment to unquiet spirits by opening to
+them a career in their own states--and it removed the grievance which,
+more than anything else, had produced the recent rebellion.
+
+Mardonius having effected this change proceeded into Europe. He had a
+large land force and a powerful navy, and at first was successful both
+by land and sea. The fleet took Thasos, an island valuable for its
+mines; and the army forced the Macedonians to exchange their position
+of semi-independence for that of full Persian subjects, liable to both
+tribute and military service. But this fair dawn was soon overcast. As
+the fleet was rounding Athos a terrible tempest arose which, destroyed
+300 triremes and more than 20,000 men, some of whom were devoured by
+sea-monsters, while the remainder perished by drowning. On shore,
+a night attack of the Brygi, a Thracian tribe dwelling in the tract
+between the Strymon and the Axius, brought disaster upon the land force,
+numbers of which were slain, while Mardonius himself received a wound.
+This disgrace, indeed, was retrieved by subsequent operations, which
+forced the Brygi to make their submission; but the expedition found
+itself in no condition to advance further, and Mardonius retreated into
+Asia.
+
+Darius, however, did not allow failure to turn him from his purpose.
+The attack of Mardonius was followed within two years by the well-known
+expedition under Datis (B.C. 490), which, avoiding the dangers of Athos,
+sailed direct to its object, crossing the Egean by the line of the
+Cyclades, and falling upon Eretria and Attica. Eretria's punishment
+warned the Athenians to resist to the uttermost; and the skill of
+Miltiades, backed by the valor of his countrymen, gave to Athens the
+great victory of Marathon. Datis fell back upon Asia, having suffered
+worse disasters than his predecessor, and bore to the king the
+melancholy tidings that his vast force of from 100,000 to 200,000 men
+had been met and worsted by 20,000 Athenians and Plataeans.
+
+Still Darius was not shaken in his resolution. He only issued fresh
+orders for the collection of men, ships, and materials. For three years
+Asia resounded with the din of preparation; and it is probable that in
+the fourth year a fresh expedition would have been led into Greece, had
+not an important occurrence prevented it. Egypt, always discontented
+with its subject position under a race which despised its religion, and
+perhaps occasionally persecuted it, broke out into open revolt (B.C.
+487). Darius, it seems, determined to divide his forces, and proceed
+simultaneously against both enemies; he even contemplated leading one
+of the two expeditions in person; but before his preparations were
+completed his vital powers failed. He died in the year following the
+Egyptian revolt (B.C. 486), in the sixty-third year of his age, and
+the thirty-sixth of his reign, leaving his crown to his eldest son by
+Atossa, Xerxes.
+
+The character of Darius will have revealed itself with tolerable
+clearness in the sketch which has been here given of the chief events
+of his reign. But a brief summary of some of its main points may not be
+superfluous. Darius Hystaspis was, next to Cyrus, the greatest of the
+Persian kings; and he was even superior to Cyrus in some particulars.
+His military talent has been underrated. Though not equal to the founder
+of the Empire in this respect, he deserves the credit of energy, vigor,
+foresight, and judicious management in his military expeditions, of
+promptness in resolving and ability in executing, of discrimination in
+the selection of generals, and of a power of combination not often found
+in Oriental commanders. He was personally brave, and quite willing to
+expose himself, even in his old age, to dangers and hardships. But
+he did not unnecessarily thrust himself into peril. He was content to
+employ generals, where the task to be accomplished did not seem to be
+beyond their powers; and he appears to have been quite free from an
+unworthy jealousy of their successes. He was a man of kindly and warm
+feeling--strongly attached to his friends; he was clement and even
+generous towards conquered foes. When he thought the occasion required
+it, he could be severe but his inclination was towards mildness and
+indulgence. He excelled all the other Persian kings in the arts of
+peace. To him, and him alone, the Empire owed its organization. He was
+a skilful administrator, a good financier, and a wise and far-seeing
+ruler. Of all the Persian princes he is the only one who can be called
+"many-sided." He was organizer, general, statesman, administrator,
+builder, patron of arts and literature, all in one. Without him Persia
+would probably have sunk as rapidly as she rose, and would be known to
+us only as one of the many meteor powers which have shot athwart the
+horizon of the East.
+
+Xerxes, the eldest son of Darius by Atossa, succeeded his father by
+virtue of a formal act of choice. It was a Persian custom that the king,
+before he went out of his dominions on an expedition, should nominate a
+successor. Darius must have done this before his campaign in Thrace
+and Scythia; and if Xerxes was then, as is probable, a mere boy, it is
+impossible that he should have received the appointment. Artobazanes,
+the eldest of all Darius's sons, whose mother, a daughter of Gobryas,
+was married to Darius before he became king, was most likely then
+nominated, and was thenceforth regarded as the heir-apparent. When,
+however, towards the close of his reign Darius again proposed to head
+a foreign expedition, an opportunity occurred of disturbing this
+arrangement, of which Atossa, Darius's favorite wife, whose influence
+over her husband was unbounded, determined to take advantage. According
+to the law, a fresh signification of the sovereign's will was now
+requisite; and Atossa persuaded Darius to make it in favor of Xerxes.
+The pleas put forward were, first, that he was the eldest son of the
+king, and secondly, that he was descended from Cyrus. This latter
+argument could not fail to have weight. Backed by the influence of
+Atossa, it prevailed over all other considerations; and hence Xerxes
+obtained the throne.
+
+If we may trust the informants of Herodotus, it was the wish of Xerxes
+on his accession to discontinue the preparations against Greece, and
+confine his efforts to the re-conquest of Egypt. Though not devoid of
+ambition, he may well have been distrustful of his own powers; and,
+having been nurtured in luxury, he may have shrunk from the perils of a
+campaign in unknown regions. But he was surrounded by advisers who had
+interests opposed to his inclinations, and who worked on his facile
+temper till they prevailed on him to take that course which seemed best
+calculated to promote their designs. Mardonius was anxious to retrieve
+his former failure, and expected, if Greece were conquered, that the
+rich prize would become his own satrapy. The refugee princes of the
+family of Pisistratus hoped to be reinstated under Persian influence as
+dependent despots of Athens. Demaratus of Sparta probably cherished
+a similar expectation with regard to that capital. The Persian nobles
+generally, who profited by the spoils of war, and who were still full of
+the military spirit, looked forward with pleasure to an expedition
+from which they anticipated victory, plunder, and thousands of valuable
+captives. The youthful king was soon persuaded that the example of his
+predecessors required him to undertake some fresh conquest, while the
+honor of Persia absolutely demanded that the wrongs inflicted upon her
+by Athens should be avenged. Before, however, turning his arms against
+Greece, two revolts required his attention. In the year B.C. 485--the
+second of his reign--he marched into Egypt, which he rapidly reduced to
+obedience and punished by increasing its burthens. Soon afterwards he
+seems to have provoked a rebellion of the Babylonians by acts which they
+regarded as impious, and avenged by killing their satrap, Zopyrus, and
+proclaiming their independence. Megabyzus, the son of Zopyrus, recovered
+the city, which was punished by the plunder and ruin of its famous
+temple and the desolation of many of its shrines.
+
+Xerxes was now free to bend all his efforts against Greece, and,
+appreciating apparently to the full the magnitude and difficulty of the
+task, resolved that nothing should be left undone which could possibly
+be done in order to render success certain. The experience of former
+years had taught some important lessons. The failure of Datis had proved
+that such an expedition as could be conveyed by sea across the Egean
+would be insufficient to secure the object sought, and that the only
+safe road for a conqueror whose land force constituted his real strength
+was along the shores of the European continent. But if a large army
+took this long and circuitous route, it must be supported by a powerful
+fleet; and this involved a new danger. The losses of Mardonius off Athos
+had shown the perils of Egean navigation, and taught the lesson that the
+naval force must be at first far more than proportionate to the needs
+of the army, in order that it might still be sufficient notwithstanding
+some considerable disasters. At the same time they had indicated one
+special place of danger, which might be avoided, if proper measures
+were taken. Xerxes, in the four years which followed on the reduction of
+Egypt, continued incessantly to make the most gigantic preparations
+for his intended attack upon Greece, and among them included all the
+precautions which a wise foresight could devise in order to ward off
+every conceivable peril. A general order was issued to all the satraps
+throughout the Empire, calling on them to levy the utmost force of their
+province for the new war; while, as the equipment of Oriental troops
+depends greatly on the purchase and distribution of arms by their
+commander, a rich reward was promised to the satrap whose contingent
+should appear at the appointed place and time in the most gallant array.
+Orders for ships and transports of different kinds were given to the
+maritime states, with such effect that above 1200 triremes and 3000
+vessels of an inferior description were collected together. Magazines
+of corn were formed at various points along the intended line of route.
+Above all, it was determined to bridge the Hellespont by a firm and
+compact structure, which it was thought would secure the communication
+of the army from interruption by the elements; and at the same time it
+was resolved to cut through the isthmus which joined Mount Athos to the
+continent, in order to preserve the fleet from disaster at that most
+perilous part of the proposed voyage. These remarkable works, which made
+a deep impression on the minds of the Greeks, have been ascribed to
+a mere spirit of ostentation on the part of Xerxes; the vain-glorious
+monarch wished, it is supposed, to parade his power, and made a useless
+bridge and an absurd cutting merely for the purpose of exhibiting to
+the world the grandeur of his ideas and the extent of his resources. But
+there is no necessity for travelling beyond the line of ordinary human
+motive in order to discover a reason for the works in question. The
+bridge across the Hellespont was a mere repetition of the construction
+by which Darius had passed into Europe when he made his Scythian
+expedition, and probably seemed to a Persian not a specially dignified
+or very wonderful way of crossing so narrow a strait, but merely the
+natural mode of passage. The only respect in which the bridge of Xerxes
+differed from constructions with which the Persians were thoroughly
+familiar, was in its superior solidity and strength. The shore-cables
+were of unusual size and weight, and apparently of unusual materials;
+the formation of a double line--of two bridges, in fact, instead of
+one--was almost without a parallel; and the completion of the work by
+laying on the ordinary plank-bridge a solid causeway composed of earth
+and brushwood, with a high bulwark on either side, was probably, if not
+unprecedented, at any rate very uncommon. Boat-bridges were usually,
+as they are even now in the East, somewhat rickety constructions, which
+animals unaccustomed to them could with difficulty be induced to cross.
+The bridge of Xerxes was a high-road, as AEschylus calls it along, which
+men, horses, and vehicles might pass with as much comfort and facility
+as they could move on shore.
+
+The utility of such a work is evident. Without it Xerxes must have been
+reduced to the necessity of embarking in ships, conveying across the
+strait, and disembarking, not only his entire host, but all its stores,
+tents, baggage, horses, camels, and sumpter-beasts. If the numbers of
+his army approached even the lowest estimate that has been formed of
+them, it is not too much to say that many weeks must have been spent in
+this operation. As it was, the whole expedition marched across in seven
+days. In the case of ship conveyance, continual accidents would have
+happened: the transport would from time to time have been interrupted by
+bad weather; and great catastrophes might have occurred. By means of the
+bridge the passage was probably effected without any loss of either man
+or beast. Moreover, the bridge once established, there was a safe
+line of communication thenceforth between the army in Europe and the
+headquarters of the Persian power in Asia, along which might pass
+couriers, supplies, and reinforcements, if they should be needed.
+Further, the grandeur, massiveness, and apparent stability of the work
+was calculated to impose upon the minds of men, and to diminish their
+power of resistance by impressing them strongly with a sense of the
+irresistible greatness and strength of the invader.
+
+The canal of Athos was also quite a legitimate and judicious
+undertaking. [PLATE LXI.] No portion of the Greek coast is so dangerous
+as that about Athos. Greek boatmen even at the present day refuse to
+attempt the circumnavigation; and probably any government less apathetic
+than that of the Turks would at once re-open the old cutting. The work
+was one of very little difficulty, the breadth of the isthmus being less
+than a mile and a half, the material sand and marl, and the greatest
+height of the natural ground above the level of the sea about fifty
+feet. The construction of a canal in such a locality was certainly
+better than the formation of a ship-groove or Diolcus--the substitute
+for it proposed by Ferodotus, [PLATE LXI.] not to mention that it is
+doubtful whether at the time that this cutting was made ship-grooves
+were known even to the Greeks.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXI.]
+
+
+Xerxes, having brought his preparations into a state of forwardness,
+having completed his canal and his bridge--after one failure with the
+latter, for which the constructors and the sea were punished--proceeded,
+in the year B.C. 481, along the "Royal Road" from Susa to Sardis, and
+wintered at the Lydian capital. His army is said to have accompanied
+him; but more probably it joined him in the spring, flocking in,
+contingent after contingent, from the various provinces of his vast
+Empire. Forty-nine nations, according to Herodotus, served under his
+standard; and their contingents made up a grand total of eighteen
+hundred thousand men. Of these, eighty thousand were cavalry, while
+twenty thousand rode in chariots or on camels; the remainder served on
+foot. There are no sufficient means of testing these numbers. Figures
+in the mouth of an Oriental are vague and almost unmeaning; armies are
+never really counted: there is no such thing as a fixed and definite
+"strength" of a division or a battalion. Herodotus tells us that a rough
+attempt at numbering the infantry of the host was made on this occasion;
+but it was of so rude and primitive a description that little dependence
+can be placed on the results obtained by it. Ten thousand men were
+counted, and were made to stand close together; a line was then drawn
+round them, and a wall built on the line to the height of a man's waist;
+within the enclosure thus made all the troops in turn entered, and each
+time that the enclosure appeared to be full, ten thousand were supposed
+to be within it. Estimated in this way, the infantry was regarded as
+amounting to 1,700,000. It is clear that such mode of counting was of
+the roughest kind, and might lead to gross exaggeration. Each commander
+would wish his troops to be thought more numerous than they really were,
+and would cause the enclosure to appear full when several thousands
+more might still have found room within it. Nevertheless there would be
+limits beyond which exaggeration could not go; and if Xerxes was made to
+believe that the land force which he took with him into Europe amounted
+to nearly two millions of men, it is scarcely doubtful but that it must
+have exceeded one million.
+
+The motley composition of such a host has been described in a former
+chapter. Each nation was armed and equipped after its own fashion, and
+served in a body, often under a distinct commander. The army marched
+through Asia in a single column, which was not, however, continuous,
+but was broken into three portions. The first portion consisted of the
+baggage animals and about half of the contingents of the nations; the
+second was composed wholly of native Persians, who preceded and followed
+the emblems of religion and the king; the third was made up of the
+remaining national contingents. The king himself rode alternately in
+a chariot and in a litter. He was preceded immediately by ten sacred
+horses, and a sacred chariot drawn by eight milk-white steeds. Round
+him and about him were the choicest troops of the whole army, twelve
+thousand horse and the same number of foot, all Persians, and those too
+not taken at random, but selected carefully from the whole mass of the
+native soldiery. Among them seem to have been the famous "Immortals"--a
+picked body of 10,000 footmen, always maintained at exactly the same
+number, and thence deriving their appellation.
+
+The line of march from Sardis to Abydos was only partially along the
+shore. The army probably descended the valley of the Hermus nearly to
+its mouth, and then struck northward into the Caicus vale, crossing
+which it held on its way, with Mount Kara-dagh (Cane) on the left,
+across the Atarnean plain, and along the coast to Adramytium (Adramyti)
+and Antandros, whence it again struck inland, and, crossing the ridge
+of Ida, descended into the valley of the Scamander. Some losses were
+incurred from the effects of a violent thunderstorm amid the mountains;
+but they cannot have been of a any great consequence. On reaching the
+Scamander the army found its first difficulty with respect to water.
+That stream was probably low, and the vast host of men and animals
+were unable to obtain from it a supply sufficient for their wants. This
+phenomenon, we are told, frequently recurred afterwards; it surprises
+the English reader, but is not really astonishing, since, in hot
+countries, even considerable streams are often reduced to mere threads
+of water during the summer.
+
+Rounding the hills which skirt the Scamander valley upon the east, the
+army marched past Rhoeteum, Ophrynium, and Dardanus to Abydos. Here
+Xerxes, seated upon a marble throne, which the people of Abydos had
+erected for him on the summit of a hill, was able to see at one glance
+his whole, armament, and to feast his eyes with the sight. It is not
+likely that any misgivings occurred to him at such a moment. Before him
+lay his vast host, covering with its dense masses the entire low ground
+between the hills and the sea; beyond was the strait, and to his left
+the open sea, white with the sails of four thousand ships; the green
+fields of the Chersonese smiled invitingly a little further on; while,
+between him and the opposite shore, the long lines of his bridges lay
+darkling upon the sea, like a yoke placed upon the neck of a captive.
+Having seen all, the king gave his special attention to the fleet, which
+he now perhaps beheld in all its magnitude for the first time. Desirous
+of knowing which of his subjects were the best sailors, he gave orders
+for a sailing-match, which were at once carried out. The palm was borne
+off by the Phoenicians of Sidon, who must have beaten not only their own
+countrymen of Tyre, but the Greeks of Asia and the islands.
+
+On the next day the passage took place. It was accompanied by religious
+ceremonies. Waiting for the sacred hour of sunrise, the leader of the
+host, as the first rays appeared, poured a libation from a golden goblet
+into the sea, and prayed to Mithra that he might effect the conquest of
+Europe. As he prayed he cast into the sea the golden goblet, and with it
+a golden bowl and a short Persian sword. Meanwhile the multitude strewed
+all the bridge with myrtle boughs, and perfumed it with clouds of
+incense. The "Immortals" crossed first, wearing garlands on their
+heads. The king, with the sacred chariot and horses passed over on the
+second day. For seven days and seven nights the human stream flowed
+on without intermission across one bridge, while the attendants and the
+baggage-train made use of the other. The lash was employed to quicken
+the movements of laggards. At last the whole army was in Europe, and the
+march resumed its regularity.
+
+It is unnecessary to follow in detail the advance of the host along the
+coast of Thrace, across Chalcidice, and round the Thermaic Gulf into
+Pieria. If we except the counting of the fleet and army at Doriscus no
+circumstances of much interest diversified this portion of the march,
+which lay entirely through territories that had previously submitted
+to the Great King. The army spread itself over a wide tract of country,
+marching generally in three divisions, which proceeded by three parallel
+lines--one along the coast, another at some considerable distance
+inland, and a third, with which was Xerxes himself, midway between them.
+At every place where Xerxes stopped along his line of route the natives
+had, besides furnishing corn for his army, to entertain him and his
+suite at a great banquet, the cost of which was felt as a heavy burthen.
+Contributions of troops or ships were also required from all the cities
+and tribes; and thus both fleet and army continually swelled as they
+advanced onward. In crossing the track between the Strymon and the Axius
+some damage was suffered by the baggage-train from lions, which came
+down from the mountains during the night and devoured many of the
+camels; but otherwise the march was effected without loss, and the fleet
+and army reached the borders of Thessaly intact, and in good condition.
+Here it was found that there was work for the pioneers, and a
+reconnaissance of the enemy's country before entering it was probably
+also thought desirable. The army accordingly halted some days in Pieria,
+while preparations were being made for crossing the Olympic range into
+the Thessalian lowland.
+
+During the halt intelligence arrived which seemed to promise the invader
+an easy conquest. Xerxes, while he was staying at Sardis, had sent
+heralds to all the Grecian states, excepting Athens and Sparta, with a
+demand for earth and water, the recognized symbols of submission. His
+envoys now returned, and brought him favorable replies from at least
+one-third of the continental Greeks--from the Perrhaebians, Thessalians,
+Dolopians, Magnetians, Achaeans of Phthiotis, Enianians, Malians,
+Locrians, and from most of the Boeotians. Unless it were the
+insignificant Phocis, no hostile country seemed to intervene between the
+place where his army lay and the great object of the expedition, Attica.
+Xerxes, therefore, having first viewed the pass of Tempe, and seen with
+his own eyes that no enemy lay encamped beyond, passed over the Olympic
+range by a road cut through the woods by his army, and proceeded
+southwards across Thessaly and Achaea Phthiotis into Malis, the fertile
+plain at the mouth of the Spercheius river. Here, having heard that a
+Greek force was in the neighborhood, he pitched his camp not far from
+the small town of Trachis.
+
+Thus far had the Greeks allowed the invader to penetrate their country
+without offering him any resistance. Originally there had been an
+intention of defending Thessaly, and an army under Evsenetus, a Spartan
+polemarch, and Themistocles, the great Athenian, had proceeded to Tempe,
+in order to cooperate with the Thessalians in guarding the pass. But the
+discovery that the Olympic range could be crossed in the,place where
+the army of Xerxes afterwards passed it had shown that the position was
+untenable; and it had been then resolved that the stand should be
+made at the next defensible position, Thermopylae. [PLATE LXII.] Here,
+accordingly, a force was found--small, indeed, if it be compared with
+the number of the assailants, but sufficient to defend such a position
+as that where it was posted against the world in arms. Three hundred
+Spartans, with their usual retinue of helots, 700 Lacedaemonians, other
+Peloponnesians to the number of 2800, 1000 Phocians, the same number
+of Locrians, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, formed an army of 9000
+men--quite as numerous a force as could be employed with any effect in
+the defile they were sent to guard. The defile was a long and narrow
+pass shut in between a high mountain, Callidromus, and the sea, and
+crossed at one point by a line of wall in which was a single gateway.
+Unless the command of the sea were gained, or another mode of crossing
+the mountains discovered, the pass could scarcely be forced.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXII.]
+
+
+Xerxes, however, confident in his numbers--after waiting four days at
+Trachis, probably in the hope that his fleet would join him--proceeded
+on the fifth day to the assault. First the Medes and Cissians, then
+the famous "Immortals" were sent into the jaws of the pass against the
+immovable foe; but neither detachment could make any impression. The
+long spears, large shields, and heavy armor of the Greeks, their skilful
+tactics, and steady array, were far more than a match for the inferior
+equipments and discipline of the Asiatics. Though the attack was made
+with great gallantry, both on this day and the next, it failed to
+produce the slightest effect. Very few of the Greeks were either slain
+or wounded; and it seemed as if the further advance of a million of men
+was to be stopped by a force less than a hundredth part of their number.
+
+But now information reached Xerxes which completely changed the face
+of affairs. There was a rough mountain-path leading from Trachis up
+the gorge of the Asopus and across Callidromus to the rear of the Greek
+position, which had been unknown to the Greeks when they decided on
+making their first stand at Thermopylae, and which they only discovered
+when their plans no longer admitted of alteration. It was, perhaps,
+not much more than a goat-track, and apparently they had regarded it as
+scarcely practicable, since they had thought its defence might be safely
+entrusted to a thousand Phocians. Xerxes, however, on learning the
+existence of the track, resolved at once to make trial of it. His
+Persian soldiers were excellent mountaineers. He ordered Hydarnes to
+take the "Immortals," and, guided by a native, to proceed along the path
+by night, and descend with early dawn into the rear of the Greeks, who
+would then be placed between two fires. The operation was performed with
+complete success. The Phocian guard, surprised at the summit, left the
+path free while they sought a place of safety. The Greeks in the pass
+below, warned during the night of their danger, in part fled, in part
+resolved on death. When morning came, Leonidas, at the head of about
+half his original army, moved forward towards the Malian plain, and
+there met the advancing Persians. A bloody combat ensued, in which the
+Persians lost by far the greater number; but the ranks of the Greeks
+were gradually thinned, and they were beaten back step by step into the
+narrowest part of the pass, where finally they all perished, except the
+four hundred Thebans, who submitted and were made prisoners.
+
+So terminated the first struggle on the soil of Greece, between the
+invaders and the invaded. It seemed to promise that, though at vast
+cost, Persia would be victorious. If her loss in the three days' combat
+was 20,000 men, as Herodotus states, yet, as that of her enemy was 4000,
+the proportionate advantage was on her side.
+
+But, for the conquest of such a country as Greece, it was requisite, not
+only that the invader should succeed on land, but also that he should be
+superior at sea. Xerxes had felt this, and had brought with him a fleet,
+calculated, as he imagined, to sweep the Greek navy from the Egean. As
+far as the Pagasaean Gulf, opposite the northern extremity of Euboea,
+his fleet had advanced without meeting an enemy. It had encountered one
+terrible storm off the coast of Magnesia, and had lost 400 vessels; but
+this loss was scarcely felt in so vast an armament. When from Aphetse,
+at the mouth of the gulf, the small Greek fleet, amounting to no more
+than 271 vessels, was seen at anchor off Artemisium, the only fear which
+the Persian commanders entertained was lest it should escape them. They
+at once detached 200 vessels to sail round the Coast coast of Euboea,
+and cut off the possibility of retreat. When, however, these vessels
+were all lost in a storm, and when in three engagements on three
+successive days, the Greek fleet showed itself fully able to contend
+against the superior numbers of its antagonist, the Persians themselves
+could not fail to see that their naval supremacy was more than doubtful.
+The fleet at Artemisium was not the entire Greek naval force; on another
+occasion it might be augumented, while their own could scarcely expect
+to receive reinforcements. The fights at Artemisium foreshadowed a day
+when the rival fleets would no longer meet and part on equal terms, but
+Persia would have to acknowledge herself inferior.
+
+Meanwhile, however, the balance of advantage rested with the invaders.
+The key of Northern Greece was won, and Phocis, Locris, Boeotia, Attica,
+and the Megarid lay open to the Persian army. The Greek fleet could gain
+nothing by any longer maintaining the position of Artemisium, and fell
+back towards the south, while its leaders anxiously considered where it
+should next take up its station. The Persians pressed on both by land
+and sea. A rapid march through Phocis and Boeotia brought Xerxes to
+Athens, soon after the Athenians, knowing that resistance would be vain,
+had evacuated it. The Acropolis, defended by a few fanatics, was taken
+and burnt. One object of the expedition was thus accomplished. Athens
+lay in ruins; and the whole of Attica was occupied by the conqueror.
+The Persian fleet, too, finding the channel of the Euripus clear, sailed
+down it, and rounding Sunium, came to anchor in the bay of Phalerum.
+
+In the councils of the Greeks all was doubt and irresolution. The
+army, which ought to have mustered in full force at Thermopylae and
+Callidromus, and which, after those passes were forced, might have
+defended Cithseron and Parnes, had never ventured beyond the Isthmus
+of Corinth, and was there engaged in building a wall across the neck of
+land from sea to sea. The fleet lay off Salamis, where it was detained
+by the entreaties of the Athenians, who had placed in that island the
+greater part of the non-combatant population; but the inclination was
+strong on the part of many to withdraw westward and fight the next
+battle, if a battle must be fought, in the vicinity of the land force,
+which would be a protection in case of defeat. Could Xerxes have had
+patience for a few days, the combined fleet would have broken up. The
+Peloponnesian contingents would have withdrawn to the isthmus; and the
+Athenians, despairing of success, would probably have sailed away to
+Italy. But the Great King, when he saw the vast disproportion
+between his own fleet and that of the enemy, could not believe in the
+possibility of the Greeks offering a successful resistance. Like a
+modern emperor, who imagined that, if only he could have been with his
+fleet, all would necessarily have gone well, Xerxes supposed that by
+having the sea-fight under his own eye he would be sure of victory. Thus
+again, as at Artemisium, the only fear felt was lest the Greeks should
+fly, and in that way escape chastisement. Orders were therefore issued
+to the Persian fleet to close up at once, and blockade the eastern end
+of the Salaminian strait, while a detachment repeated the attempted
+manoeuvre at Euboea, and sailed round the island to guard the channel at
+its western outlet.
+
+These movements were executed late in the day on which the Persian
+fleet arrived at Phalerum. During the night intelligence reached the
+commanders that the retreat of the Greeks was about to commence at once;
+whereupon the Persian right wing was pushed forward into the strait,
+and carried beyond the Greek position so as to fill the channel where
+it opens into the bay of Eleusis. The remainder of the night passed
+in preparations for the battle on both sides. At daybreak both fleets
+advanced from their respective shores, the Persians being rather the
+assailants. Their thousand vessels were drawn up in three lines, and
+charged their antagonists with such spirit that the general inclination
+on the part of the Greeks was at first to retreat. Some of their ships
+had almost touched the shore, when the bold example of one of the
+captains, or a cry of reproach from unknown lips, produced a revulsion
+of feeling, and the whole line advanced in good order. The battle was
+for a short time doubtful; but soon the superiority of Greek naval
+tactics began to tell. The Persian vessels became entangled one with
+another, and crashing together broke each other's oars. The triple
+line increased their difficulties. If a vessel, overmatched, sought to
+retreat, it necessarily came into collision with the ships stationed
+in its rear. These moreover pressed too eagerly forward, since their
+captains were anxious to distinguish themselves in order to merit the
+approval of Xerxes. The Greeks found themselves able to practice
+with good effect their favorite manoeuvre of the _periplus_, and thus
+increased the confusion. It was not long before the greater part of
+the Persian fleet became a mere helpless mass of shattered or damaged
+vessels. Five hundred are said to have been sunk--the majority by the
+enemy, but some even by their own friends. The sea was covered with
+wrecks, and with wretches who clung to them, till the ruthless enemy
+slew them or forced them to let go their hold.
+
+This defeat was a death-blow to the hopes of Xerxes, and sealed the fate
+of the expedition. From the moment that he realized to himself the fact
+of the entire inability of his fleet to cope with that of the Greeks,
+Xerxes made up his mind to return with all haste to Asia. From
+over-confidence he fell into the opposite extreme of despair, and made
+no effort to retrieve his ill fortune. His fleet was ordered to sail
+straight for the Hellespont, and to guard the bridges until he reached
+them with his army. He himself retreated hastily along the same road
+by which he had advanced, his whole army accompanying him as far as
+Thessaly, where Marnonius was left with 260,000 picked men, to prevent
+pursuit, and to renew the attempt against Greece in the ensuing year.
+Xerxes pressed on to the Hellespont, losing vast numbers of his troops
+by famine and sickness on the way, and finally returned into Asia, not
+by his magnificent bridge, which a storm had destroyed, but on board a
+vessel, which, according to some, narrowly escaped shipwreck during the
+passage. Even in Asia disaster pursued him. Between Abydos and Sardis
+his army suffered almost as much from over-indulgence as it had
+previously suffered from want; and of the mighty host which had gone
+forth from the Lydian capital in the spring not very many thousands can
+have re-entered it in the autumn.
+
+Still, however, there was a possibility that the success which his
+own arms had failed to achieve might reward the exertions of his
+lieutenants. Mardonius had expressed himself confident that with 300,000
+picked soldiers he could overpower all resistance, and make Greece
+a satrapy of Persia. Xerxes had raised his forces to that amount by
+sending Artabazus back from Sestos at the head of a _corps d'armee_
+numbering 40,000 men. The whole army of 300,000 wintered in Thessaly;
+and Mardonius, when spring came, having vainly endeavored to detach the
+Athenians from the Grecian ranks, marched through Boeotia in Attica, and
+occupied Athens for the second time. Hence he proceeded to menace the
+Peloponnese, where he formed an alliance with the Argives, who promised
+him that they would openly embrace the Persian cause. At the same time
+the Athenians, finding that Sparta took no steps to help them, began to
+waver in their resistance, and to contemplate accepting the terms which
+Mardonius was still willing to grant them. The fate of Greece trembled
+in the balance, and apparently was determined by the accident of a death
+and a succession, rather than by any wide-spread patriotic feeling or
+any settled course of policy. Cleombrotus, regent for the young son
+of Leonidas, died, and his brother Pausanias--a brave, clever, and
+ambitious man--took his place. We can scarcely be wrong in ascribing--at
+least in part--to this circumstance the unlooked-for change of policy,
+which electrified the despondent ambassadors of Athens almost as soon as
+Pausanias was installed in power. It was suddenly announced that
+Sparta would take the offensive. Ten thousand hoplites and 400,000
+light-armed--the largest army that she ever levied--took the field,
+and, joined at the isthmus by above 25,000 Peloponnesians, and soon
+afterwards by almost as many Athenians and Megarians, proceeded to seek
+the foreigners, first in Attica, and then in the position to which they
+had retired in Boeotia. On the skirts of Citheeron, near Platsea, a
+hundred and eight thousand Greeks confronted more than thrice their
+number of Persians and Persian subjects; and now at length the trial
+was to be made whether, in fair and open fight on land, Greece or Persia
+would be superior. A suspicion of what the result would be might have
+been derived from Marathon. But there the Persians had been taken at a
+disadvantage, when the cavalry, their most important arm, was absent.
+Here the error of Datis was not likely to be repeated. Mardonius had a
+numerous and well-armed cavalry, which he handled with no little skill.
+It remained to be seen, when the general engagement came, whether, with
+both arms brought fully into play, the vanquished at Marathon would be
+the victors.
+
+The battle of Plataea was brought on under circumstances very
+unfavorable to the Greeks. Want of water and a difficulty about
+provisions had necessitated a night movement on their part. The
+cowardice of all the small contingents, and the obstinacy of an
+individual Spartan, disconcerted the whole plan of the operation, and
+left the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians at daybreak separated from
+each other, and deserted by the whole body of their allies. Mardonius
+attacked at once, and prevented the junction of the two allies, so that
+two distinct and separate engagements went on at the same time. In both
+the Greeks were victorious. The Spartans repulsed the Persian horse and
+foot, slew Mardonius and were the first to assail the Persian camp. The
+Athenians defeated the _medizing_ Greeks, and effected a breach in
+the defences of the camp, on which the Spartans had failed to make any
+impression. A terrible carnage followed. The contingent of 40,000 troops
+under Artabazus alone drew off in good order.
+
+The remainder were seized with panic, and were either slaughtered like
+sheep or fled in complete disarray. Seventy thousand Greeks not only
+defeated but destroyed the army of 300,000 barbarians, which melted
+away and disappeared making no further stand anywhere. The disaster of
+Marathon was repeated on a larger scale, and without the resource of
+an embarkation. Henceforth the immense superiority of Greek troops to
+Persian was well known on both sides; and nothing but the distance from
+Greece of her vital parts, and the quarrels of the Greek states among
+themselves, preserved for nearly a century and a half the doomed empire
+of Persia.
+
+The immediate result of the defeats of Salamis and Platsea was a
+contraction of the Persian boundary towards the west. Though a few
+Persian garrisons maintained themselves for some years on the further
+side of the straits, soothing thereby the wounded vanity of the Great
+King, who liked to think that he had still a hold on Europe; yet there
+can be no doubt that, after the double flight of Xerxes and Artabazus,
+Macedonia, Pseonia, and Thrace recovered their independence. Persia lost
+her European provinces, and began the struggle to retain those of Asia.
+Terminus receded, and having once receded never advanced again in this
+quarter. The Greeks took the offensive. Sailing to Asia, they not only
+liberated from their Persian bondage the islands which lay along the
+coast, but landing their men on the continent, attacked and defeated
+an army of 60,000 Persians at Mycale, and destroyed the remnant of the
+ships that had escaped from Salamis. Could they have made up their minds
+to maintain a powerful fleet permanently on the coast of Asia, they
+might at once have deprived Persia of her whole sea-hoard on the
+Propontis and the Egean; but neither of the two great powers of Greece
+was prepared for such a resolve. Sparta disliked distant expeditions;
+and Athens did not as yet see her way to undertaking the protection
+of the continental Greeks. She had much to do at home, and had not
+yet discovered those weak points in her adversary's harness, which
+subsequently enabled her to secure by treaty the freedom of the Greek
+cities upon the mainland. For the present, therefore, Persia only lost
+the bulk of her European possessions, and the islands of the Propontis
+and the Egean.
+
+The circumstances which caused a renewal of Greek agressions upon Asia
+towards the close of the reign of Xerxes are not very clearly narrated
+by the authors who speak of them. It appears, however, that after twelve
+years of petty operations, during which Eion was recovered, and Doriscus
+frequently attacked, but without effect, the Athenians resolved, in B.C.
+466, upon a great expedition to the eastward. Collecting a fleet of
+300 vessels, which was placed under the command of Cimon, the son of
+Miltiades, they sailed to the coast of Caria and Lycia, where they drove
+the Persian garrisons out of the Greek towns, and augmenting their
+navy by fresh contingents at every step, proceeded along the shores of
+Pamphylia as far as the mouth of the river Eurymedon, where they found
+a Phoenician fleet of 340 vessels, and a Persian army, stationed to
+protect the territory. Engaging first the fleet they defeated it, and
+drove it ashore, after which they disembarked and gained a victory
+over the Persian army. As many as two hundred triremes were taken
+or destroyed. They then sailed on towards Cyprus, where they met and
+destroyed a squadron of eighty ships, which was on its way to reinforce
+the fleet at the Eurymedon. Above a hundred vessels, 20,000 captives,
+and a vast amount of plunder were the prize of this war; which had,
+however, no further effect on the relations of the two powers.
+
+In the following year the reign of Xerxes came to an end abruptly.
+With this monarch seems to have begun those internal disorders of the
+seraglio, which made the Court during more than a hundred and forty
+years a perpetual scene of intrigues, assassinations, executions, and
+conspiracies. Xerxes, who appears to have only one wife, Amestris,
+the daughter (or grand-daughter) of the conspirator, Otanes, permitted
+himself the free indulgence of illicit passion among the princesses
+of the Court, the wives of his own near relatives. The most horrible
+results followed. Amestris vented her jealous spite on those whom she
+regarded as guilty of stealing from her the affections of her husband;
+and to prevent her barbarities from producing rebellion, it was
+necessary to execute the persons whom she had provoked, albeit they were
+near relations of the monarch. The taint of incontinence spread among
+the members of the royal family; and a daughter of the king, who was
+married to one of the most powerful nobles, became notorious for
+her excesses. Eunuchs rose into power, and fomented the evils which
+prevailed. The king made himself bitter enemies among those whose
+position was close to his person. At last, Artabanus, chief of the
+guard, a courtier of high rank, and Aspamitres, a eunuch, who held the
+office of chamberlain, conspired against their master, and murdered him
+in his sleeping apartment, after he had reigned twenty years.
+
+The character of Xerxes falls below that of any preceding monarch.
+Excepting that he was not wholly devoid of a certain magnanimity, which
+made him listen patiently to those who opposed his views or gave him
+unpalatable advice and which prevented him from exacting vengeance on
+some occasions, he had scarcely a trait whereon the mind can rest with
+any satisfaction. Weak and easily led, puerile in his gusts of passion
+and his complete abandonment of himself to them--selfish, fickle,
+boastful, cruel, superstitious, licentious--he exhibits to us the
+Oriental despot in the most contemptible of all his aspects--that
+wherein the moral and the intellectual qualities are equally in defect,
+and the career is one unvarying course of vice and folly. From Xerxes we
+have to date at once the decline of the Empire in respect of territorial
+greatness and military strength, and likewise its deterioration in
+regard to administrative vigor and national spirit. With him commenced
+the corruption of the Court--the fatal evil, which almost universally
+weakens and destroys Oriental dynasties. His expedition against Greece
+exhausted and depopulated the Empire; and though, by abstaining from
+further military enterprises, he did what lay in his power to recruit
+its strength, still the losses which his expedition caused were
+certainly not repaired in his lifetime.
+
+As a builder, Xerxes showed something of the same grandeur of conception
+which is observable in his great military enterprise and in the works by
+which it was accompanied. His Propylaea, and the sculptured staircase in
+front of the Chebl Minar, which is undoubtedly his work, are among the
+most magnificent erections upon the Persepolitan platform; and are quite
+sufficient to place him in the foremost rank of Oriental builders. If
+we were to ascribe the Chehl Minar itself to him, we should have to give
+him the palm above all other kings of Persia; but on the whole it
+is most probable that that edifice and its duplicate at Susa were
+conceived, and in the main, constructed, by Darius.
+
+Xerxes left behind him three sons--Darius, Hystaspes, and
+Artaxerxes--and two daughters, Amytis and Rhodogune. Hystaspes was
+satrap of Bactria, and at the time of their father's death, only Darius
+and Artaxerxes were at the Court.
+
+Fearing the eldest son most, Artabanus persuaded Artaxerxes that the
+assassination of Xerxes was the act of his brother, whereupon Artaxerxes
+caused him to be put to death, and himself ascended the throne (B.C.
+465).
+
+Troubles, as usual, accompanied this irregular accession. Artabanus, not
+content with exercising an influence under Artaxerxes such as has
+caused some authors to speak of him as king, aimed at removing the
+young prince, and making himself actual monarch. But his designs being
+betrayed to Artaxerxes by Megabyzus, and at the same time his
+former crimes coming to light, he was killed, together with his tool
+Aspamitres, seven months after the murder of Xerxes. The sons of
+Artabanus sought to avenge his death, but were defeated by Megabyzus in
+an engagement, wherein they lost their lives.
+
+Meanwhile, in Bactria, Hystaspes, who had a rightful claim to the
+throne, raised the standard of revolt. Artaxerxes marched against him
+in person, and engaged him in two battles, the first of which was
+indecisive, while in the second the Bactrians suffered defeat, chiefly
+(according to Ctesias) because the wind blew violently in their faces.
+So signal was victory, that Bactria at once submitted. Hystaspes' fate
+is uncertain.
+
+Not long after the reduction of Bactria, Egypt suddenly threw off the
+Persian yoke (B.C. 460). Inarus, a king of the wild African tribes who
+bordered the Nile valley on the west, but himself perhaps a descendant
+of the old monarchs of Egypt, led the insurrection, and, in conjunction
+with an Egyptian, named Amyrtseus, attacked the Persian troops stationed
+in the country, who were commanded by Achaemenes, the satrap. A battle
+was fought near Papremis in the Delta, wherein the Persians were
+defeated, and Achaemenes fell by the hand of Inarus himself. The
+Egyptians generally now joined in the revolt; and the remnant of the
+Persian army was shut up in Memphis. Inarus had asked the aid of Athens;
+and an Athenian fleet of 200 sail was sent to his assistance. This fleet
+sailed up the Nile, defeated a Persian squadron, and took part in the
+capture of Memphis and the siege of its citade (White Castle). When
+the Persian king first learned what had happened, he endeavored to rid
+himself of his Athenian enemies by inducing the Spartans to invade their
+country; but, failing in his attempt, he had recourse to arms, and,
+levying a vast host, which he placed under the command of Megabyzus,
+sent that officer to recover the revolted province. Megabyzus marched
+upon Memphis, defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a great battle,
+relieved the citadel of Memphis from its siege, and recovered the rest
+of the town. The Athenians fled to the tract called Prosopitis, which
+was a a portion of the Delta, completely surrounded by two branch
+streams of the Nile. Here they were besieged for eighteen months, till
+Megabyzus contrived to turn the water from one of the two streams,
+whereby the Athenian ships were stranded, and the Persian troops were
+able to march across the river bed, and overwhelm the Athenians with
+their numbers. A few only escaped to Cyrene. The entire fleet fell into
+the enemy's hands; and a reinforcement of fifty more ships, arriving
+soon after the defeat, was attacked unawares after it had entered the
+river, and lost more than half its number. Inarus was betrayed by some
+of his own men, and, being carried prisoner to Persia, suffered death by
+crucifixion. Amyrtseus fled to the fens, where for a while he maintained
+his independence. Egypt, however, was with this exception recovered to
+the Empire (B.C. 455); and Athens was taught that she could not always
+invade the dominions of the Great King with impunity.
+
+Six years after this, the Athenians resolved on another effort. A fleet
+of 200 ships was equipped and placed under the command of the victor
+of the Eurymedon, Cimon, with orders to proceed into the Eastern
+Mediterranean, and seek to recover the laurels lost in Egypt. Cimon
+sailed to Cyprus, where he received a communication from Amyrtseus,
+which induced him to dispatch sixty ships to Egypt, while with the
+remaining one hundred and forty he commenced the siege of Citium. Here
+he died, either of disease or from the effects of a wound; and his
+armament, pressed for provisions, was forced soon afterwards to raise
+the siege, and address itself to some other enterprise. Sailing past
+Salamis, it found there a Cilician and Phoenician fleet, consisting of
+300 vessels, which it immediately attacked and defeated, notwithstanding
+the disparity of number. Besides the ships which were sunk, a hundred
+triremes were taken; and the sailors then landed and gained a victory
+over a Persian army upon the shore. Artaxerxes, upon this, fearing lest
+he should lose Cyprus altogether, and thinking that, if Athens became
+mistress of this important island, she would always be fomenting
+insurrection in Egypt, made overtures for peace to the generals who were
+now in command. His propositions were favorably received. Peace was made
+on the following terms:--Athens agreed to relinquish Cyprus, and recall
+her squadron from Egypt; while the king consented to grant freedom to
+all the Greek cities on the Asiatic continent, and not to menace them
+either by land or water. The sea was divided between the two powers,
+Persian ships of war were not to sail to the west of Phaselis in the
+Levant, or of the Cyanean islands in the Euxine; and Greek war-ships, we
+may assume, were not to show themselves east of those limits. On these
+conditions there was to be peace and amity between the Greeks and the
+Persians, and neither nation was to undertake any expeditions against
+the territories of the other. Thus terminated the first period of
+hostility between Greece and Persia, a period of exactly half a century,
+commencing B.C. 499 and. ending B.C. 449, in the seventeenth year of
+Artaxerxes.
+
+It was probably not many years after the conclusion of this peace that
+a rebellion broke out in Syria. Megabyzus, the satrap of that important
+province, offended at the execution of Inarus, in violation of the
+promise which he had himself made to him, raised a revolt against
+his sovereign, defeated repeatedly the armies sent to reduce him to
+obedience, and finally treated with Artaxerxes as to the terms on which
+he would consent to be reconciled. Thus was set an example, if not of
+successful insurrection, yet at any rate of the possibility of rebelling
+with impunity--an example which could not fail to have a mischievous
+effect on the future relations of the monarch with his satraps. It
+would have been better for the Empire had Megabyzus suffered the fate
+of Oroetes, instead of living to a good old age in high favor with the
+monarch whose power he had weakened and defied.
+
+Artaxerxes survived the "Peace of Callias" twenty-four years. His
+relations with the Greeks continued friendly till his demise, though,
+on the occasion of the revolt of Samos (B.C. 440), Pissuthnes, satrap of
+Sardis, seems to have transgressed the terms of the treaty, and to
+have nearly brought about a renewal of hostilities. It was probably
+in retaliation for the aid given to the revolted Samians, that the
+Athenians, late in the reign of Artaxerxes, made an expedition against
+Caunus, which might have had important consequences, if the Caunians
+had not been firm in their allegiance. A revolt of Lycia and Caria under
+Zopyrus, the son of Megabyzus, assisted by the Greeks, might have proved
+even more difficult to subdue than the rebellion of Syria under his
+father. Persia, however, escaped this danger; and Artaxerxes, no doubt,
+saw with pleasure a few years later the Greeks turn their arms against
+each other--Athens, his great enemy, being forced into a contest for
+existence with the Peloponnesian confederacy under Sparta.
+
+The character of Artaxerxes, though it receives the approval of Plutarch
+and Diodorus, must be pronounced on the whole poor and contemptible.
+His ready belief of the charge brought by Artabanus against his brother,
+Darius, admits perhaps of excuse, owing to his extreme youth; but his
+surrender of Inarus to Amestris on account of her importunity, his
+readiness to condone the revolt of Megabyzus, and his subjection
+throughout almost the whole of his life to the evil influence of Amytis,
+his sister, and Amestris, his mother--both persons of ill-regulated
+lives--are indications of weakness and folly quite unpardonable in
+a monarch. That he was mild in temperament, and even kind and
+good-natured, is probable. But he had no other quality that deserves the
+slightest commendation. In the whole course of his long reign he seems
+never once to have adventured himself in the field against an enemy.
+He made not a single attempt at conquest in any direction. We have no
+evidence that he patronized either literature or the arts. His peace
+with Athens was necessary perhaps, but disgraceful to Persia. The
+disorders of the Court increased under his reign, from the license
+(especially) which he allowed the Queen-mother, who sported with the
+lives of his subjects. The decay of the Empire received a fatal impulse
+from the impunity which he permitted to Megabyzus.
+
+Like his father, Artaxerxes appears to have had but one legitimate wife.
+This was a certain Damaspia, of whom nothing is known, except that she
+died on the same day as her husband, and was the mother of his only
+legitimate son, Xerxes. Seventeen other sons, who survived him, were
+the issue of various concubines, chiefly--it would appear--Babylonians.
+Xerxes II. succeeded to the throne on the death of his father (B.C.
+425), but reigned forty-five days only, being murdered after a festival,
+in which he had indulged too freely, by his half-brother, Secydianus or
+Sogdianus. Secydianus enjoyed the sovereignty for little more than half
+a year, when he was in his turn put to death by another, brother, Ochus,
+who on ascending the throne took the name of Darius, and became known to
+the Greeks as Darius Nothus.
+
+Darius Nothus had in his father's lifetime been made satrap of Hyrcania,
+and had married his aunt, Parysatis, a daughter of Xerxes. He had
+already two children at his accession,--a daughter, Amestris, and a
+son, Arsaces, who succeeded him as Artaxerxes. His reign, which lasted
+nineteen years, was a constant scene of insurrections and revolts, some
+of which were of great importance, since they had permanent and
+very disastrous consequences. The earliest of all was raised by his
+full-brother, Arsites, who rebelled in conjunction with a son of
+Megabyzus, and, obtaining the support of a number of Greek mercenaries,
+gained two victories over the forces dispatched against him by the king.
+At last, however, the fortune of war changed. Persian gold was used
+to corrupt the mercenaries; and the rebels being thus reduced to
+extremities, were forced to capitulate, yielding themselves on the
+condition that their lives should be spared. Parysatis induced her
+husband to disregard the pledges given and execute both Arsites and his
+fellow-conspirator--thus proclaiming to the world that, unless by the
+employment of perfidy, the Empire was incapable of dealing with those
+who rebelled against its authority.
+
+The revolt of Pissuthnes, satrap of Lydia, was the next important
+outbreak. Its exact date is uncertain; but it seems not to have very
+long preceded the Athenian disasters in Sicily. Pissuthnes, who had held
+his satrapy for more than twenty years, was the son of a Hystaspes, and
+probably a member of the royal family. His wealth--the accumulations of
+so long a term of office--enabled him to hire the services of a body of
+Greek mercenaries, who were commanded by an Athenian, called Lycon. On
+these troops he placed his chief dependence; but they failed him in the
+hour of need. Tissaphernes, the Persian general sent against him, bribed
+Lycon and his men, who thereupon quitted Pissuthnes and made common
+cause with his adversaries. The unfortunate satrap could no longer
+resist, and therefore surrendered upon terms, and accompanied
+Tissaphernes to the Court. Darius, accustomed now to disregard the
+pledged word of his officers, executed him forthwith, and made over his
+satrapy to Tissaphernes, as a reward for his zeal. Lycon, the Athenian
+traitor, received likewise a handsome return for his services, the
+revenues of several towns and districts being assigned him by the Great
+King.
+
+The rebellion, however, was not wholly crushed by the destruction of
+its author, Amorges, a bastard son of Pissuthnes, continued to maintain
+himself in Caria, where he was master of the strong city of Iasus, on
+the north coast of the Sinus Iasicus, and set the power of Tissaphernes
+at defiance. Having probably inherited the wealth of his father, he
+hired a number of Peloponnesian mercenaries, and succeeded in maintaining
+himself as an independent monarch for some years.
+
+Such was the condition of things in Asia Minor, when intelligence
+arrived of the fearful disasters which had befallen the Athenians in
+Sicily--disasters without a parallel since those of Salamis--sudden,
+unexpected, overwhelming. The news, flying through Asia, awoke
+everywhere a belief that the power of Athens was broken, and that her
+hostility need no longer be dreaded. The Persian monarch considered that
+under the altered circumstances it would be safe to treat the Peace of
+Callias as a dead letter, and sent down orders to the satraps of Lydia
+and Bithynia that they were once more to demand and collect the tribute
+of the Greek cities within their provinces. The satraps began to
+speculate on the advantages which they might derive from alliance with
+the enemies of Athens, and looked anxiously to see a Peloponnesian fleet
+appear off the coast of Asia. Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus vied with
+each other in the tempting offers which they made to Sparta, and it was
+not long before a formal treaty was concluded between that state
+and Persia, by which the two powers bound themselves to carry on war
+conjointly against Athens.
+
+Thus the contest between Persia and her rival entered upon a new phase.
+Henceforth until the liberties of Greece were lost, the Great King could
+always count on having for his ally one of the principal Grecian powers.
+His gold was found to possess attractions which the Greeks were quite
+unable to resist. At one time Sparta, at another Athens, at another
+Thebes yielded to the subtle influence; Greek generals commanded the
+Persian armies; Greek captains manoeuvered the Persian fleets; the very
+rank and file of the standing army came to be almost as much Greek as
+Persian. Acting on the maxim, _Divide et impera_, Persia prolonged for
+eighty years her tottering Empire, by the skilful use which she made of
+the mutual jealousies and divisions of the Hellenic states.
+
+It scarcely belongs to the history of Persia to trace in detail the
+fortunes of the contending powers during the latter portion of the
+Peloponnesian war. We need only observe that the real policy of the
+Court of Susa, well understood, and, on the whole, tolerably well
+carried out by the satraps, was to preserve the balance of power
+between Athens and Sparta, to allow neither to obtain too decided a
+preponderance, to help each in turn, and encourage each to waste the
+other's strength, but to draw back whenever the moment came for striking
+a decisive blow against either side. This policy skilfully pursued
+by Tissaphernes (who had a genius for intrigue and did not require
+an Alcibiades to give him lessons in state-craft), more clumsily
+by Pharnabazus, whose character was comparatively sincere and
+straightforward, prevailed until the younger Cyrus made his appearance
+upon the scene, when a disturbing force came into play which had
+disastrous effects both on the fortunes of Greece and on those of
+Persia. The younger Cyrus had personal views of self-aggrandizement
+which conflicted with the true interests of his nation, and was so bent
+on paving the way for his own ascent to sovereign power that he did not
+greatly care whether he injured his country or no. As the accomplishment
+of his designs depended mainly on his obtaining a powerful land-force,
+he regarded a Spartan as preferable to an Athenian alliance; and, having
+once made his choice, he lent his ally such effectual aid that in
+two years from the time of his coming down to the coast the war was
+terminated. Persian gold manned and partly built the fleet which
+conquered at AEgos-Potami; perhaps it contributed in a still more
+decisive manner to the victory. Cyrus, by placing his stores at the
+entire command of Lysander, deserved and acquired the cordial good-will
+of Sparta and the Peloponnesians generally--an advantage of which we
+shall find him in the sequel making good use.
+
+The gain to Persia from the dominion which she had reacquired over the
+Greeks of Asia was more than counter-balanced by a loss of territory in
+another quarter, which seems to have occurred during the reign of Darius
+Nothus, though in what exact year is doubtful. The revolt of Egypt is
+placed by Heeren and Clinton in B.C. 414, by Eusebius in B.C. 411, by
+Manetho in the last year of Darius Nothus, or B.C. 405. The earlier
+dates depend on the view that the Amyrtseus of Manetho's twenty-eighth
+dynasty was the leader of the rebellion, and had a reign of six years
+at this period--a view which is perhaps unsound. Manetho probably
+represented Nepherites (Nefaorot) as the leader; and it is quite clear
+that he placed the re-establishment of the old throne of the Pharaohs in
+the year that Darius Nothus died. As his authority is the best that we
+can obtain upon this obscure point, we may regard the last days of
+the Persian monarch as clouded by news of a rebellion, which had been
+perhaps for some time contemplated, but which did not break out until he
+was known to be in a moribund condition.
+
+A few years earlier, B.C. 408 or 409, the Medes had made an unsuccessful
+attempt to recover their independence. The circumstances of this revolt,
+which is mentioned by no writer but Xenophon, are wholly unknown, but we
+may perhaps connect it with the rebellion of Terituchmes, a son-in-law
+of the king. The story of Terituchmes, which belongs to this period,
+deserves at any rate to be told, as illustrating, in a very remarkable
+way, the corruption, cruelty, and dissoluteness of the Persian Court at
+the time to which we have now come. Terituchmes was the son of Idernes,
+a Persian noble of high rank, probably a descendant of the conspirator
+Hydarnes. On the death of his father, he succeeded to his satrapy, as
+to a hereditary fief, and being high in favor with Darius Nothus, he
+received in marriage that monarch's daughter, Amestris. Having, however,
+after his marriage become enamored of his own half-sister, Roxana, and
+having persuaded her to an incestuous commerce, he grew to detest his
+wife, and as he could not rid himself of her without making an enemy of
+the king, he entered into a conspiracy with 300 others, and planned to
+raise a rebellion. The bond of a common crime, cruel and revolting in
+its character, was to secure the fidelity of the rebels one to another.
+Amestris was to be placed in a sack, and each conspirator in turn was
+to plunge his sword into her body. It is not clear whether this intended
+murder was executed or no. Hoping to prevent it, Darius commissioned
+a certain Udiastes, who was in the service of Terituchmes, to save his
+daughter by any means that might be necessary; and Udiastes, collecting
+a band, set upon Terituchmes and slew him after a strenuous resistance.
+After this, his mother, brothers, and sisters were apprehended by the
+order of Parysatis, the queen, who caused Roxana to be hewn in pieces,
+and the other unfortunates to be buried alive. It was with great
+difficulty that Arsaces, the heir-apparent, afterwards Artaxerxes
+Mnemon, preserved his own wife, Statira, from the massacre. It happened
+that she was sister to Terituchmes, and, though wholly innocent of his
+offence, she would have been involved in the common destruction of her
+family had not her husband with tears and entreaties begged her life of
+his parents. The son of Terituchmes maintained himself for a while in
+his father's government; but Parysatis succeeded in having him taken off
+by poison.
+
+The character of Darius Nothus is seen tolerably clearly in the account
+of his reign which has been here given. He was at once weak and wicked.
+Contrary to his sworn word, he murdered his brothers, Secydianus and
+Arsites. He broke faith with Pissuthnes. He sanctioned the wholesale
+execution of Terituchmes' relatives. Under him the eunuchs of the palace
+rose to such power that one of them actually ventured to aspire to the
+sovereignty. Parysatis, his wife, one of the most cruel and malignant
+even of Oriental women, was in general his chosen guide and counsellor.
+His severities cannot, however, in all eases be ascribed to her
+influence, for he was anxious that she should put the innocent Statira
+to death, and, when she refused, reproached her with being foolishly
+lenient. In his administration of the Empire he was unsuccessful; for,
+if he gained some tracts of Asia Minor, he lost the entire African
+satrapy. Under him we trace a growing relaxation of the checks by which
+the great officers of the state were intended to have been held
+under restraint. Satraps came to be practically uncontrolled in their
+provinces, and the dangerous custom arose of allowing sons to succeed,
+almost as a matter of course, to the governments of their fathers.
+Powers unduly large were lodged in the hands of a single officer, and
+actions, that should have brought down upon their perpetrators sharp
+and signal punishment, were timorously or negligently condoned by the
+supreme authority. Cunning and treachery were made the weapons wherewith
+Persia contended with her enemies. Manly habits were laid aside, and the
+nation learned to trust more and more to the swords of mercenaries.
+
+Shortly before the death of Darius there seems to have been a doubt
+raised as to the succession. Parysatis, who preferred her second son to
+her first-born, imagined that her influence was sufficient to induce her
+husband to nominate Cyrus, instead of Arsaces, to succeed him; and Cyrus
+is said to have himself expected to be preferred above his brother. He
+had the claim, if claim it can be called, that he was the first son
+born to his father after he became king; but his main dependence was
+doubtless on his mother. Darius, however, proved less facile in his
+dying moments than he had been during most of his life, and declined
+to set aside the rights of the eldest son on the frivolous pretence
+suggested to him. His own feelings may have inclined him towards
+Arsaces, who resembled him far more than Cyrus did in character; and
+Cyrus, moreover, had recently offended him, and been summoned to court,
+to answer a very serious charge. Arsaces, therefore, was nominated, and
+took the name of Artaxerxes--as one of a king who had reigned long, and,
+on the whole, prosperously.
+
+An incident of ill omen accompanied the commencement of the new reign
+(B.C. 405). The inauguration of the monarch was a religious ceremony,
+and took place in a temple at Pasargadae, the old capital, to which
+a peculiar sanctity was still regarded as attaching. Artaxerxes had
+proceeded to this place, and was about to engage in the ceremonies, when
+he was interrupted by Tissaphernes, who informed him that his life was
+in danger. Cyrus, he said, proposed to hide himself in the temple,
+and assassinate him as he changed his dress, a necessary part of the
+formalities. One of the officiating priests--a Magus, as it would
+seem--confirmed the charge. Cyrus was immediately arrested, and would
+have been put to death on the spot, had not his mother interfered, and,
+embracing him in her arms, made it impossible for the executioner to
+perform his task. With some difficulty she persuaded Artaxerxes to spare
+his brother's life and allow him to return to his government, assuring
+him, and perhaps believing, that the charges made against her favorite
+were without foundation.
+
+Cyrus returned to Asia Minor with the full determination of attacking
+his brother at the earliest opportunity. He immediately began the
+collection of a mercenary force, composed wholly of Greeks, on whose
+arms he was disposed to place far more reliance than on those of
+Orientals. As Tissaphernes had returned to the coast with him, and was
+closely watching all his proceedings, it was necessary to exercise great
+caution, lest his intentions should become known before he was ready to
+put them into execution. He therefore had recourse to three different
+devices. Having found a cause of quarrel with Tissaphernes in the
+ambiguous terms of their respective commissions, he pressed it on to
+an actual war, which enabled him to hire troops openly, as against this
+enemy; and in this way he collected from 5000 to 6000 Greeks--chiefly
+Peloponnesians. He further gave secret commissions to Greek officers,
+whose acquaintance he had made when he was previously in these parts,
+to collect men for him, whom they were to employ in their own quarrels
+until he needed their services. From 3000 to 4000 troops were gathered
+for him by these persons. Finally, when he found himself nearly ready
+to commence his march, he discovered a new foe in the Pisidians of
+the Western Taurus, and proceeded to levy a force against them, which
+amounted to some thousands more. In all, he had in readiness 11,000
+heavy-armed and about 2000 light-armed Greeks before his purpose became
+so clear that Tissaphernes could no longer mistake it, and therefore
+started off to carry his somewhat tardy intelligence to the capital.
+
+The aims of Cyrus were different from those of ordinary rebel satraps;
+and we must go back to the times of Darius Hystaspis in order to find a
+parallel to them. Instead of seeking to free a province from the Persian
+yoke, or to carve out for himself an independent sovereignty in some
+remote corner of the Empire, his intention was to dethrone his brother,
+and place on his own brows the diadem of his great namesake. It was
+necessary for him therefore to assume the offensive. Only by a bold
+advance, and by taking his enemy to some extent unprepared, and so at a
+disadvantage, could he hope to succeed in his audacious project. It is
+not easy to see that he could have had any considerable party among
+the Persians, or any ground for expecting to be supported by any of
+the subject nations. His following must have been purely personal; and
+though it may be true that he was of a character to win more admiration
+and affection than his brother, yet Artaxerxes himself was far from
+being unpopular with his subjects, whom he pleased by a familiarity and
+a good-nature to which they were little accustomed. Cyrus knew that
+his principal dependence must be on himself, on his Greeks, and on the
+carelessness and dilatoriness of his adversary, who was destitute of
+military talent and was even thought to be devoid of personal bravery.
+
+Thus it was important to advance as soon as possible. Cyrus therefore
+quitted Sardis before all his troops were collected (B.C. 401), and
+marched through Lydia and Phrygia, by the route formally followed in the
+reverse direction by the army of Xerxes, as far as Celsense, where
+the remainder of his mercenaries joined him. With his Greek force thus
+raised to 13,000 men, and with a native army not much short of 100,000,
+he proceeded on through Phrygia and Lycaonia to the borders of Cilicia,
+having determined on taking the shortest route to Babylon, through the
+Cilician and Syrian passes, and then along the course of the Euphrates.
+At Caystrupedion he was met by Epyaxa, consort of Syennesis, the
+tributary king of Cilicia, who brought him a welcome supply of money,
+and probably assured him of the friendly disposition of her husband, who
+was anxious to stand well with both sides. In Lycaonia, Cyrus divided
+his forces, and sending a small body of troops under Menon to escort
+Epyaxa across the mountains and enter Cilicia by the more western of the
+two practicable passes he proceeded himself with the bulk of his troops
+to the famous Pylae Cilicias, where he probably knew that Syennesis
+would only make a feint of resistance. He found the pass occupied; but
+it was evacuated the next day, on the receipt of intelligence that Menon
+had already entered the country and that the fleet of Cyrus--composed
+partly of his own ships, partly of a squadron furnished to him by
+Sparta--had appeared off the coast and threatened a landing. Cyrus
+thus crossed the most difficult and dangerous of all the passes that
+separated him from the heart of the Empire, without the loss of a man.
+
+Thus far it would appear that Cyrus had to a certain extent masked his
+plans. The Greek captains must have guessed, if they had not actually
+learnt, his intentions; but to the bulk of the soldiery they had been
+hitherto absolutely unknown. It was only in Cilicia that the light broke
+in upon them, and they began to suspect that they were being marched
+into the interior of Asia, there to engage in a contest with the entire
+power of the Great King. Something of the horror which is ascribed to
+Cleomenes, when it was suggested to him a century earlier that he should
+conduct his Spartans the distance of a three months' journey from the
+sea, appears to have taken possession of the minds of the mercenaries
+on their awaking to this conviction. They at once refused to proceed. It
+was only by the most skilful management on the part of their captains,
+joined to a judicious liberality on the part of Cyrus, that they were
+induced to forego their intention of returning home at once, and so
+breaking up the expedition. A perception of the difficulty of effecting
+a retreat, together with an increase of pay, extorted a reluctant assent
+to continue the march, of which the real term and object were even now
+not distinctly avowed. Cyrus said he proposed to attack the army of
+Abrocomas, which he believed to be posted on the Euphrates. If he did
+not find it there, a fresh consultation might be held to consider any
+further movement.
+
+The march now proceeded rapidly. The gates of Syria--a narrow pass on
+the east coast of the Gulf of Issus, shut in, like Thermopylae,
+between the mountains and the sea, and strengthened moreover by
+fortifications--were left unguarded by Abrocomas; and the army, having
+traversed them without loss, crossed the Amanus range by the pass of
+Beilan, and in twenty-nine days from Tarsus reached Thapsacus on
+the Euphrates. The forces of Artaxerxes had nowhere made their
+appearance--Abrocomas, though he had 300,000 men at his disposal, had
+weakly or treacherously abandoned all these strong and easily defensible
+positions; he does not seem even to have wasted the country; but,
+having burnt the boats at Thapsacus, he was content to fall back upon
+Phoenicia, and left the way to Babylon and Susa open. At Thapsacus there
+was little difficulty in persuading the Greeks, who had no longer the
+sea before their eyes, to continue the march; they only stipulated for a
+further increase of pay, which was readily promised them by the sanguine
+prince, who believed himself on the point of obtaining by their aid the
+inexhaustible treasures of the Empire. The river, which happened to be
+unusually low for the time of year, was easily forded. Cyrus entered
+Mesopotamia, and continued his march down the left bank of the Euphrates
+at the quickest rate that it was possible to move a hundred thousand
+Orientals. In thirty-three days he had accomplished above 600 miles, and
+had approached within 120 miles of Babylon without seeing any traces
+of an enemy. His only difficulties were from the nature of the country,
+which, after the Khabour is passed, becomes barren, excepting close
+along the river. From want of fodder there was a great mortality among
+the baggage-animals; the price of grain rose; and the Greeks had to
+subsist almost entirely upon meat. At last, when the Babylonian alluvium
+was reached, with its abundance of fodder and corn, signs of the enemy
+began to be observed. Artaxerxes, who after some doubts and misgivings
+had finally determined to give his enemy battle in the plain, was
+already on his way from Babylon, with an army reckoned at 900,000 men
+and had sent forward a body of horse, partly to reconnoitre, partly
+to destroy the crops, in order to prevent Cyrus and his troops from
+benefiting by them. Cyrus now advanced slowly and cautiously, at the
+rate of about fourteen miles a day, expecting each morning to fight a
+general engagement before evening came. On the third night, believing
+the battle to be imminent, he distributed the commands and laid down a
+plan of operations. But morning brought no appearance of the enemy, and
+the whole day passed tranquilly. In the course of it, he came upon a
+wide and deep trench cut through the plain for a distance of above forty
+miles--a recent work, which Artaxerxes had intended as a barrier to stop
+the progress of his enemy. But the trench was undefended and incomplete,
+a space of twenty feet being left between its termination and the
+Euphrates. Cyrus, having passed it, began to be convinced that his
+brother would not risk a battle in the plain, but would retreat to the
+mountains and make his stand at Persepolis or Ecbatana. He therefore
+continued his march negligently. His men piled their arms on the wagons
+or laid them, across the beasts of burthen; while he himself exchanged
+the horse which he usually rode for a chariot, and proceeded on his way
+leisurely, having about his person a small escort, which preserved
+their ranks, while all the rest of the troops were allowed to advance in
+complete disarray.
+
+Suddenly, as the army was proceeding in this disorderly manner through
+the plain, a single horseman was perceived advancing at full gallop from
+the opposite quarter, his steed all flecked with foam. As he drew near,
+he shouted aloud to those whom he met, addressing some in Greek, others
+in Persian, and warning them that the Great King, with his whole force,
+was close at hand, and rapidly approaching in order of battle. The news
+took every one by surprise, and at first all was hurry and confusion.
+The Greeks, however, who were on the right, rapidly marshalled their
+line, resting it upon the river; while Cyrus put on his armor, mounted
+his horse, and arranged the ranks of his Asiatics. Ample time was given
+for completing all the necessary dispositions; since three hours, at the
+least, must have elapsed from the announcement of the enemy's approach
+before he actually appeared. Then a white cloud of dust arose towards
+the verge of the horizon, below which a part of the plain began soon to
+darken; presently gleams of light were seen to flash out from the dense
+mass which was advancing, the serried lines of spears came into view,
+and the component parts of the huge army grew to be discernible. On the
+extreme left was a body of horsemen with white cuirasses, commanded by
+Tissaphernes; next came infantry, carrying the long wicker shield, or
+_gerrhum_ then a solid square of Egyptians, heavily armed, and bearing
+wooden shields that reached to the feet; then the contingents of many
+different nations, some on foot, some on horseback, armed with bows
+and other weapons. The line stretched away to the east further than the
+Greeks, who were stationed on the right, could see, extending (as it
+would seem) more than twice the distance which was covered by the
+army of Cyrus. Artaxerxes was in the centre of his line, on horseback,
+surrounded by a mounted guard of 6000 Persians. In front of the line,
+towards the river, were drawn up at wide intervals a hundred and fifty
+scythed chariots, which were designed to carry terror and confusion into
+the ranks of the Greeks.
+
+On the other side, Cyrus had upon the extreme right a thousand
+Paphlagonian cavalry with the more lightly armed of the Greeks;
+next, the Greek heavy-armed, under Clearchus; and then his Asiatics,
+stretching in a line to about the middle of his adversary's army, his
+own special command being in the centre; and his left wing being led
+by the satrap, Ariaeus. With Ariseus was posted the great mass of the
+cavalry; but a band of six hundred, clad in complete armor, with their
+horses also partially armed, waited on Cyrus himself, and accompanied
+him wherever he went. As the enemy drew near, and Cyrus saw how much he
+was outflanked upon the left, he made an attempt to remedy the evil by
+ordering Clearchus to move with his troops from the extreme right to
+the extreme left of the line, where he would be opposite to Artaxerxes
+himself. This, no doubt, would have been a hazardous movement to make in
+the face of a superior enemy; and Clearchus, feeling this, and regarding
+the execution of the order as left to his discretion, declined to move
+away from the river. Cyrus, who trusted much to the Greek general's
+judgment, did not any further press the change, but prepared to fight
+the battle as he stood.
+
+The combat began upon the right. When the enemy had approached within
+six or seven hundred yards, the impatience of the Greeks to engage could
+not be restrained. They sang the paean and started forwards at a pace
+which in a short time became a run. The Persians did not await their
+charge. The drivers leaped from their chariots, the line of battle
+behind them wavered, and then turned and fled without striking a blow.
+One Greek only was wounded by an arrow. As for the scythed chariots,
+they damaged their own side more than the Greeks; for the frightened
+horses in many cases, carried the vehicles into the thick of the
+fugitives, while the Greeks opened their ranks and gave passage to such
+as charged in an opposite direction. Moderating their pace so as to
+preserve their tactical arrangement, but still advancing with great
+rapidity, the Greeks pressed on the flying enemy, and pursued him a
+distance of two or three miles, never giving a thought to Cyrus, who,
+they supposed, would conquer those opposed to him with as much ease as
+themselves.
+
+But the prince meanwhile was in difficulties. Finding himself
+outnumbered and outflanked, and fearing that his whole army would be
+surrounded, and even the victorious Greeks attacked in the rear, he set
+all upon one desperate cast and charged with his Six Hundred against
+the six thousand horse who protected his brother. Artagerses, their
+commander, who met him with a Homeric invective, he slew with his own
+hand. The six thousand were routed and took to flight; the person of the
+king was exposed to view; and Cyrus, transported at the sight, rushed
+forward shouting, "I see the man," and hurling his javelin, struck him
+straight upon the breast, with such force that the cuirass was pierced
+and a slight flesh-wound inflicted. The king fell from his horse; but at
+the same moment Cyrus received a wound beneath the eye from the javelin
+of a Persian, and in the melee which followed he was slain with eight of
+his followers. The Six Hundred could lend no effectual aid, because they
+had rashly dispersed in pursuit of the flying enemy.
+
+As the whole contest was a personal one, the victory was now decided.
+Fighting, however, continued till nightfall. On learning the death of
+their leader, the Asiatic troops under Ariseus fled--first to their
+camp, and then, when Artaxerxes attacked them there, to the last night's
+station. The Grecian camp was assaulted by Tissaphernes, who at the
+beginning of the battle had charged through the Greek light-armed,
+without however, inflicting on them any loss, and had then pressed on,
+thinking to capture the Grecian baggage. But the guard defended their
+camp with success, and slew many of the assailants. Tissaphernes and
+the king drew off after a while, and retraced their steps, in order to
+complete the victory by routing the troops of Clearchus. Clearchus was
+at the same time returning from his pursuit, having heard that his camp
+was in danger, and as the two bodies of troops approached, he found
+his right threatened by the entire host of the enemy, which might have
+lapped round it and attacked it in front, in flank, and in rear. To
+escape this peril he was about to wheel his line and make it rest
+alone its whole extent upon the river, when the Persians passed him and
+resumed the position which they had occupied at the beginning of the
+battle. They were then about to attack, when once more the Greeks
+anticipated them and charged. The effect was again ludicrous. The
+Persians would not abide the onset, but fled faster than before. The
+Greeks pursued them to a village, close by which was a knoll or mound,
+whither the fugitives had betaken themselves. Again the Greeks made a
+movement in advance, and immediately the flight recommenced. The last
+rays of the setting sun fell on scattered masses of Persian horse and
+foot flying in all directions over the plain from the little band of
+Greeks.
+
+The battle of Cunaxa was a double blow to the Persian power. By the
+death of Cyrus there was lost the sole chance that existed of such a
+re-invigoration of the Empire as might have enabled it to start again
+on a new lease of life, with ability to held its own, and strength to
+resume once more the aggressive attitude of former times. The talents of
+Cyrus have perhaps been overrated, but he was certainly very superior
+to most Orientals; and there can be no doubt that the Empire would have
+greatly gained by the substitution of his rule for that of his brother.
+He was active, energetic, prompt indeed, ready in speech, faithful in
+the observance of his engagements, brave, liberal--he had more foresight
+and more self-contro than most Asiatics; he knew how to deal with
+different classes of men; he had a great power of inspiring affection
+and retaining it; he was free from the folly of national prejudice,
+and could appreciate as they deserved both the character and the
+institutions of foreigners. It is likely that he would have proved a
+better administrator and ruler than any king of Persia since Darius
+Hystaspis. He would, therefore, undoubtedly have raised his country
+to some extent. Whether he could really have arrested its decline, and
+enabled it to avenge the humiliations of Marathon, Salamis, and the
+peace of Callias, is, however, exceedingly doubtful. For Cyrus, though
+he had considerable merits, was not without great and grievous defects.
+As the Tartar is said always to underlie the Russ, so the true Oriental
+underlay that coating of Grecian manners and modes of thought and act,
+with which a real admiration of the Hellenic race induced Cyrus to
+conceal his native barbarism. When he slew his cousins for an act which
+he chose to construe as disrespect, and when he executed Orontes for
+contemplated desertion, secretly and silently, so that no one knew
+his fate, when transported with jealous rage he rushed madly upon his
+brother, exposing to hazard the success of all his carefully formed
+plans, and in fact ruining his cause, the acquired habits of the
+Phil-Hellene gave way, and the native ferocity of the Asiatic came
+to the surface. We see Cyrus under favorable circumstances, while
+conciliation, tact, and self-restraint were necessities of his position,
+without which he could not possibly gain his ends--we do not know what
+effect success and the possession of supreme power might have had upon
+his temper and conduct; but from the acts above-mentioned we may at any
+rate suspect that the result would have been very injurious.
+
+Again, intellectually, Cyrus is only great for an Asiatic. He has more
+method, more foresight, more power of combination, more breadth of mind
+than the other Asiatics of his day, or than the vast mass of Asiatics of
+any day. But he is not entitled to the praise of a great administrator
+or of a great general. His three years' administration of Asia Minor
+was chiefly marked by a barbarous severity towards criminals, and by a
+lavish expenditure of the resources of his government, which left him in
+actual want at the moment when he was about to commence his expedition.
+His generalship failed signally at the battle of Cunaxa, for the loss of
+which he is far more to be blamed than Clearchus. As he well knew that
+Artaxerxes was sure to occupy the centre of his line of battle, he
+should have placed his Greeks in the middle of his own line, not at
+one extremity. When he saw how much his adversary outflanked him on the
+left--a contingency which was so probable that it ought to have occurred
+to him beforehand--he should have deployed his line in that direction,
+instead of ordering such a movement as Clearchus, not unwisely, declined
+to execute. He might have trusted the Greeks to fight in line, as they
+had fought at Marathon; and by expanding their ranks, and moving off
+his Asiatics to the left, he might, have avoided the danger of being
+outflanked and surrounded. But his capital error was the wildness
+and abandon of his charge with the Six Hundred--a charge which it was
+probably right to make under the circumstances, but which required a
+combination of coolness and courage that the Persian prince evidently
+did not possess when his feelings were excited. Had he kept his
+Six Hundred well in hand, checked their pursuit, and abstained from
+thrusting his own person into unnecessary danger, he might have joined
+the Greeks as they returned from their first victory and participated
+in their final triumph. At the same time, Clearchus cannot but be blamed
+for pushing his suit too far. If, when the enemy in his front fled, he
+had at once turned against those who were engaging Cyrus, taking them
+on their left flank, which must have been completely uncovered, he might
+have been in time to prevent the fatal results of the rash charge made
+by his leader.
+
+Thus the death of Cyrus, though a calamity to Persia, was scarcely the
+great loss which it has been represented. A far worse result of the
+Cyreian expedition was the revelation which it made of the weakness of
+Persia, and of the facility with which a Greek force might penetrate
+to the very midst of the Empire, defeat the largest army that could be
+brought against it, and remain, or return, as it might think proper.
+Hitherto Babylon and Susa had been, even to the mind of a Greek
+statesman, remote localities, which it would be the extreme of rashness
+to attempt to reach by force of arms, and from which it would be
+utter folly to suppose that a single man could return alive except by
+permission of the Great King. Henceforth these towns were looked upon
+as prizes quite within the legitimate scope of Greek ambition, and their
+conquest came to be viewed as little more than a question of time. The
+opinion of inaccessibility, which had been Persia's safeguard hitherto,
+was gone, and in its stead grew up a conviction that the heart of the
+Empire might be reached with very little difficulty.
+
+It required, however, for the production of this whole change, not
+merely that the advance to Cunaxa should have been safely made, and the
+immeasurable superiority of Greek to Asiatic soldiers there exhibited,
+but also that the retreat should have been effected, as it was effected,
+without disaster. Had the Ten Thousand perished under the attacks of the
+Persian horse, or even under the weapons of the Kurds, or amid the
+snows of Armenia, the opinion of Persian invulnerability would have been
+strengthened rather than weakened by the expedition. But the return to
+Greece of ten thousand men, who had defeated the hosts of the Great King
+in the centre of his dominions, and fought their way back to the
+sea without suffering more than the common casualties of war, was an
+evidence of weakness which could not but become generally known, and of
+which all could feel the force. Hence the retreat was as important as
+the battle. If in late autumn and mid-winter a small Greek army, without
+maps or guides, could make its way for a thousand miles through Asia,
+and encounter no foe over whom it could not easily triumph, it was clear
+that the fabric of Persian power was rotten, and would collapse on the
+first serious attack.
+
+Still, it will not be necessary to trace in detail the steps of the
+retreat. It was the fact of the return, rather than the mode of its
+accomplishment, which importantly affected the subsequent history of
+Persia. We need only note that the retreat was successfully conducted in
+spite, not merely of the military power of the Empire, but of the most
+barefaced and cruel treachery--a fact which showed clearly the strong
+desire that there was to hinder the invaders' escape. Persia did not
+set much store by her honor at this period; but she would scarcely have
+pledged her word and broken it, without the slightest shadow of excuse,
+unless she had regarded the object to be accomplished as one of vast
+importance, and seen no other way which offered any prospect of the
+desired result. Her failure, despite the success of her treachery,
+places her military weakness in the strongest possible light. The
+Greeks, though deprived of their leaders, deceived, surprised, and
+hemmed in by superior numbers, amid terrific mountains, precipices,
+and snows, forced their way by sheer dogged perseverance through all
+obstacles, and reached Trebizond with the loss of not one fourth of
+their original number.
+
+There was also another discovery made during the return which partly
+indicated the weakness of the Persian power, and partly accounted for
+it. The Greeks had believed that the whole vast space enclosed between
+the Black Sea, Caucasus, Caspian, and Jaxartes on the one hand, and the
+Arabian Desert, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean on the other, was bound
+together into one single centralized monarchy, all the resources of
+which were wielded by a single arm. They now found that even towards the
+heart of the empire, on the confines of Media and Assyria, there existed
+independent tribes which set the arms of Persia at defiance; while
+towards the verge of the old dominion whole provinces, once certainly
+held in subjection, had fallen away from the declining State, and
+succeeded in establishing their freedom. The nineteenth satrapy of
+Herodotus existed no more; in lieu of it was a mass of warlike and
+autonomous tribes--Chalybes, Taochi, Chaldeans, Macronians, Scythians,
+Colchians, Mosynoecians, Tibarenians--whose services, if he needed them,
+the King of Persia had to buy, while ordinarily their attitude towards
+him was one of distrust and hostility. Judging of the unknown from the
+known, the Greeks might reasonably conclude that in all parts of
+the Empire similar defections had occurred, and that thus both
+the dimensions and the resources of the state had suffered serious
+diminution, and fell far below the conception which they had been
+accustomed to form of them.
+
+The immediate consequence of the Cyreian expedition was a rupture
+between Persia and Sparta. Sparta had given aid to Cyrus, and thus
+provoked the hostility of the Great King. She was not inclined to
+apologize or to recede. On the contrary, she saw in the circumstances
+of the expedition strong grounds for anticipating great advantages
+to herself from a war with so weak an antagonist. Having, therefore,
+secured the services of the returned Ten Thousand, she undertook the
+protection of the Asiatic Greeks against Persia, and carried on a war
+upon the continent against the satraps of Lydia and Phrygia for the
+space of six years (B.C. 399 to B.C. 394). The disorganization of the
+Persian Empire became very manifest during this period. So jealous were
+the two satraps of each other, that either was willing at any time
+to make a truce with the Spartans on condition that they proceeded to
+attack the other; and, on one occasion, as much as thirty silver talents
+was paid by a satrap on the condition that the war should be transferred
+from his own government to that, of his rival. At the same time the
+native tribes were becoming more and more inclined to rebel. The Mysians
+and Pisidians had for a long time been practically independent. Now the
+Bithynians showed a disposition to shake off the Persian yoke, while
+in Paphlagonia the native monarchs boldly renounced their allegiance.
+Agesilaus, who carried on the war in Asia Minor for three years, knew
+well how to avail himself of all these advantageous circumstances;
+and it is not unlikely that he would have effected the separation
+from Persia of the entire peninsula, had he been able to continue the
+struggle a few years longer. But the league between Argos, Thebes, and
+Corinth, which jealousy of Sparta caused and Persian gold promoted,
+proved so formidable, that Agesilaus had to be summoned home: and
+after his departure, Conon, in alliance with Pharnabazus, recovered the
+supremacy of the sea for Athens, and greatly weakened Spartan influence
+in Asia. Not content with this result, the two friends, in the year B.C.
+393, sailed across the Egean, and the portentous spectacle of a Persian
+fleet in Greek waters was once more seen--this time in alliance with
+Athens! Descents were made upon the coasts of the Peloponnese, and the
+island of Cythera was seized and occupied. The long walls of Athens were
+rebuilt with Persian money, and all the enemies of Sparta were richly
+subsidized. Sparta was made to feel that if she had been able at one
+time to make the Great King tremble for his provinces, or even for
+his throne, the King could at another reach her across the Egean, and
+approach Sparta as nearly as she had, with the Cyreians, approached
+Babylon.
+
+The lesson of the year B.C. 393 was not thrown away on the Spartan
+government. The leading men became convinced that unless they could
+secure the neutrality of the Persians, Sparta must succumb to the
+hostility of her Hellenic enemies. Under these circumstances they
+devised, with much skill, a scheme likely to be acceptable to the
+Persians, which would weaken their chief rivals in Greece--Athens and
+Thebes--while it would leave untouched their own power. They proposed
+a general peace, the conditions of which should be the entire
+relinquishment of Asia to the Persians, and the complete autonomy of all
+the Greek States in Europe. The first attempt to procure the acceptance
+of these terms failed (B.C. 393); but six years later, after Antalcidas
+had explained them at the Persian Court, Artaxerxes sent down an
+ultimatum to the disputants, modifying the terms slightly as regarded
+Athens, extending them as regarded himself so as to include the islands
+of Clazomenae and Cyprus, and requiring their acceptance by all the
+belligerents, on pain of their incurring his hostility. To this threat
+all yielded. A Persian king may be excused if he felt it a proud
+achievement thus to dictate a peace to the Greeks--a peace, moreover,
+which annulled the treaty of Callias, and gave back absolutely into
+his hands a province which had ceased to belong to his Empire more than
+sixty years previously.
+
+It was the more important to Artaxerxes that his relations with the
+European Greeks should be put upon a peaceful footing, since all the
+resources of the Empire were wanted for the repression of disturbances
+which had some years previously broken out in Cyprus. The exact date
+of the Cyprian revolt under Evagoras, the Greek tyrant of Salamis, is
+uncertain; but there is evidence that, at least as early as B.C. 391, he
+was at open war with the power of Persia, and had made an alliance
+with the Athenians, who both in that year and in B.C. 388 sent him aid.
+Assisted also by Achoris, independent monarch of Egypt, and Hecatomnus,
+vassal king of Caria, he was able to take the offensive, to conquer
+Tyre, and extend his revolt into Cilicia and Idumaea. An expedition
+undertaken against him by Autophradates, satrap of Lydia, seems to have
+failed. It was the first object of the Persians, after concluding the
+"Peace of Antalcidas," to crush Evagoras. They collected 300 vessels,
+partly from the Greeks of Asia, and brought together an army of 300,000
+men. The fleet of Evagoras numbered 200 triremes, and with these he
+ventured on an attack, but was completely defeated by Tiribazus, who
+shut him up in Salamis, and, after a struggle which continued for at
+least six years, compelled him to submit to terms (B.C. 380 or 379).
+More fortunate than former rebels, he obtained not merely a promise of
+pardon, which would probably have been violated, but a recognition of
+his title, and permission to remain in his government, with the single
+obligation of furnishing to the Great King a certain annual tribute.
+
+During the continuance of this war, Artaxerxes was personally engaged in
+military operations in another part of his dominions. The Cadusians,
+who inhabited the low and fertile tract between the Elburz range and the
+Caspian, having revolted against his authority, Artaxerxes invaded their
+territory at the head of an army which is estimated at 300,000 foot and
+10,000 horse. The land was little cultivated, rugged, and covered with
+constant fogs; the men were brave and warlike, and having admitted him
+into their country, seem to have waylaid and intercepted his convoys.
+His army was soon reduced to great straits, and forced to subsist on the
+cavalry horses and the baggage-animals. A most disastrous result must
+have followed, had not Tiribazus, who had been recalled from Cyprus
+on charges preferred against him by the commander of the land force,
+Orontes, contrived very artfully to induce the rebels to make their
+submission. Artaxerxes was thus enabled to withdraw from the country
+without serious disaster, having shown in his short campaign that he
+possessed the qualities of a soldier, but was entirely deficient in
+those of a general.
+
+A time of comparative tranquillity seems to have followed the Cadusian
+campaign. Artaxerxes strengthened his hold upon the Asiatic Greeks by
+razing some of their towns and placing garrisons in others. His satraps
+even ventured to commence the absorption of the islands off the coast;
+and there is evidence that Sanaos, at any rate, was reduced and added
+to the Empire. Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Idumaea were doubtless recovered
+soon after the great defeat of Evagoras. There remained only one
+province in this quarter which still maintained its revolt, and enjoyed,
+under native monarchs, the advantages of independence. This was Egypt,
+which had now continued free for above thirty years, since it shook off
+the yoke of Darius Nothus. Artaxerxes, anxious to recover this portion
+of his ancestral dominions, applied in B.C. 375 to Athens for the
+services of her great general, Iphicrates. His request was granted, and
+in the next year a vast armament was assembled at Acre under Iphicrates
+and Pharnabazus, which effected a successful landing in the Delta at the
+Mendesian mouth of the Nile, stormed the town commanding this branch of
+the river, and might have taken Memphis, could the energetic advice of
+the Athenian have stirred to action the sluggish temper of his Persian
+colleague. But Pharnabazus declined to be hurried, and preferred to
+proceed leisurely and according to rule. The result was that the season
+for hostilities passed and nothing had been done. The Nile rose as the
+summer drew on, and flooded most of the Delta; the expedition could
+effect nothing, and had to return. Pharnabazus and Iphicrates parted
+amid mutual recriminations; and the reduction of Egypt was deferred for
+above a quarter of a century.
+
+In Greece, however, the Great King still retained that position of
+supreme arbiter with which he had been invested at the "Peace of
+Antalcidas." In B.C. 372 Antalcidas was sent by Sparta a second time up
+to Susa, for the purpose of obtaining an imperial rescript, prescribing
+the terms on which the then existing hostilities among the Greeks should
+cease. In B.C. 367 Pelopidas and Ismenias proceeded with the same object
+from Thebes to the Persian capital. In the following year a rescript,
+more in their favor than former ones, was obtained by Athens. Thus every
+one of the leading powers of Greece applied in turn to the Great King
+for his royal mandate, so erecting him by common consent into a sort of
+superior, whose decision was to be final in all cases of Greek quarrel.
+
+But this external acknowledgment of the imperial greatness of Persia
+did not, and could not, check the internal decay and tendency to
+disintegration, which was gradually gaining head, and threatening the
+speedy dissolution of the Empire. The long reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon
+was now verging towards its close. He was advanced in years, and
+enfeebled in mind and body, suspicious of his sons and of his nobles,
+especially of such as showed more than common ability. Under these
+circumstances, revolts on the part of satraps grew frequent. First
+Ariobarzanes, satrap of Phrygia, renounced his allegiance (B.C. 366),
+and defended himself with success against Autophradates, satrap of
+Lydia, and Mausolus, native king of Caria under Persia, to whom the
+task of reducing him had been entrusted. Then Aspis, who held a part
+of Cappadocia, revolted and maintained himself by the help of the
+Pisidians, until he was overpowered by Datames. Next Datames himself,
+satrap of the rest of Cappadocia, understanding that Artaxerxes' mind
+was poisoned against him, made a treaty with Ariobarzanes, and assumed
+an independent attitude in his own province. In this position he
+resisted all the efforts of Autophradates to reduce him to obedience;
+and Artaxerxes condescended first to make terms with him and then to
+remove him by treachery. Finally (B.C. 362), there seems to have been
+something like a general revolt of the western provinces, in which the
+satraps of Mysia, Phrygia, and Lydia, Mausolus, prince of Caria, and the
+people of Lycia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Syria, and Phoenicia participated.
+Tachos, king of Egypt, fomented the disturbances, which were also
+secretly encouraged by the Spartans. A terrible conflict appeared to be
+imminent; but it was avoided by the ordinary resources of bribery and
+treachery. Orontes, satrap of Phrygia, and Rheomithras, one of the
+revolted generals, yielding to the attractions of Persian gold, deserted
+and betrayed their confederates. The insurrection was in this way
+quelled, but it had raised hopes in Egypt, which did not at once
+subside. Tachos, the native king, having secured the services of
+Agesilaus as general, and of Chabrias, the Athenian, as admiral of his
+fleet, boldly advanced into Syria, was well received by the Phoenicians,
+and commenced the siege of some of the Syrian cities. Persia might
+have suffered considerable loss in this quarter, had not the internal
+quarrels of the Egyptians among themselves proved a better protection to
+her than her own armies. Two pretenders to the throne sprang up as soon
+as Tachos had quitted the country, and he was compelled to return to
+Egypt in order to resist them. The force intended to strike a vigorous
+blow against the power of Artaxerxes was dissipated in civil conflicts;
+and Persia had once more to congratulate herself on the intestine
+divisions of her adversaries. A few years after this, Artaxerxes died,
+having reigned forty-six years, and lived, if we may trust Plutarch,
+ninety-four. Like most of the later Persian kings, he was unfortunate
+in his domestic relations. To his original queen, Statira, he was indeed
+fondly attached; and she appears to have merited and returned his love,
+but in all other respects his private life was unhappy. Its chief curse
+was Parysatis, the queen-mother. This monster of cruelty held Artaxerxes
+in a species of bondage during almost the whole of his long reign, and
+acted as if she were the real sovereign of the country. She encouraged
+Cyrus in his treason, and brought to most horrible ends all those who
+had been prominent in frustrating it. She poisoned Statira out of hatred
+and jealousy, because she had a certain degree of influence over her
+husband. She encouraged Artaxerxes to contract an incestuous marriage
+with his daughter Atossa, a marriage which proved a fertile source
+of further calamities. Artaxerxes had three sons by Statira--Darius,
+Ariaspes, and Ochus. Of these Darius, as the eldest, was formally
+declared the heir. But Ochus, ambitious of reigning, intrigued with
+Atossa, and sought to obtain the succession by her aid. So good seemed
+to Darius the chances of his brother's success that he took the rash
+step of conspiring against the life of his father, as the only way of
+securing the throne. His conspiracy was detected, and he was seized and
+executed, Ariaspes thereby becoming the eldest son, and so the natural
+heir. Ochus then persuaded Ariaspes that he had offended his father,
+and was about to be put to a cruel and ignominious death, whereupon that
+prince in despair committed suicide. His elder brothers thus removed,
+there still remained one rival, whom Ochus feared. This was Arsames, one
+of his half-brothers, an illegitimate son of Artaxerxes, who stood high
+in his favor. Assassination was the weapon employed to get rid of this
+rival. It is said that this last blow was too much for the aged and
+unhappy king, who died of grief on receiving intelligence of the murder.
+
+Artaxerxes was about the weakest of all the Persian monarchs. He was
+mild in temperament, affable in demeanor, goodnatured, affectionate
+and well-meaning. But, possessing no strength of will, he allowed the
+commission of the most atrocious acts, the most horrible cruelties, by
+those about him, who were bolder and more resolute than himself. The
+wife and son, whom he fondly loved, were plotted against before his
+eyes; and he had neither the skill to prevent nor the courage to avenge
+their fate. Incapable of resisting entreaty and importunity, he granted
+boons which he ought to have refused, and condoned offences which it
+would have been proper to punish. He could not maintain long the most
+just resentment, but remitted punishments even when they were far milder
+than the crime deserved. He was fairly successful in the management
+of his relations with foreign countries, and in the suppression of
+disturbances within his own dominions; but he was quite incapable
+of anything like a strenuous and prolonged effort to renovate and
+re-invigorate the Empire. If he held together the territories which he
+inherited, and bequeathed them to his successor augmented rather than
+diminished, it is to be attributed more to his good fortune than to his
+merits, and to the mistakes of his opponents than to his own prudence or
+sagacity.
+
+Ochus, who obtained the crown in the manner related above, was the most
+cruel and sanguinary of all the Persian kings. He is indeed the only
+monarch of the Achaemenian line who appears to have been bloodthirsty
+by temperament. His first act on finding himself acknowledged king (B.C.
+359) was to destroy, so far as he could, all the princes of the blood
+royal, in order that he might have no rival to fear. He even, if we may
+believe Justin, involved in this destruction a number of the princesses,
+whom any but the most ruthless of despots would have spared. Having
+taken these measures for his own security, he proceeded to show himself
+more active and enterprising than any monarch since Longimanus. It was
+now nearly half a century since one of the important provinces of the
+Empire--Egypt--had successfully asserted its independence and restored
+the throne of its native kings. General after general had been employed
+in vain attempts to reduce the rebels to obedience. Ochus determined
+to attempt the recovery of the revolted province in person. Though
+a rebellion had broken out in Asia Minor, which being supported by
+Thebes, threatened to become serious, he declined to be diverted from
+his enterprise. Levying a vast army, he marched into Egypt, and engaged
+Noctanebo, the king, in a contest for existence. Nectanebo, however,
+having obtained the services of two Greek generals, Diophantus, an
+Athenian, and Lamius, a citizen of Sparta, boldly met his enemy in the
+field, defeated him, and completely repulsed his expedition. Hereupon
+the contagion of revolt spread. Phoenicia assumed independence under the
+leadership of Sidon, expelled or massacred the Persian garrisons, which
+held her cities, and formed an alliance with Egypt. Her example was
+followed by Cyprus, where the kings of the nine principal towns assumed
+each a separate sovereignty.
+
+The chronology of this period is somewhat involved; but it seems
+probable that the attack and failure of Ochus took place about B.C. 351;
+that the revolts occurred in the next year, B.C. 350; while it was not
+till B.C. 346, or four years later, that Ochus undertook his second
+expedition into these regions. He had, however, in the meanwhile,
+directed his generals or feudatories, to attack the rebels, and bring
+them into subjection. The Cyprian war he had committed to Idrieus,
+prince of Caria, who employed on the service a body of 8000 Greek
+mercenaries, commanded by Phocion, the Athenian, and Evagoras, son of
+the former Evagoras, the Cyprian monarch; while he had committed to
+Belesys, satrap of Syria, and Mezseus, satrap of Cilicia, the task of
+keeping the Phoenicians in check. Idrieus succeeded in reducing Cyprus;
+but the two satraps suffered a single defeat at the hands of Tennes, the
+Sidonian king, who was aided by 40,000 Greek mercenaries, sent him by
+Nectanebo, and commanded by Mentor the Rhodian. The Persian forces were
+driven out of Phoenicia; and Sidon had ample time to strengthen its
+defences and make preparations for a desperate resistance. The approach,
+however, of Ochus, at the head of an army of 330,000 men, shook the
+resolution of the Phoenician monarch, who endeavored to purchase his
+own pardon by treacherously delivering up a hundred of the principal
+citizens of Sidon into the hands of the Persian king, and then admitting
+him within the defences of the town. Ochus, with the savage cruelty
+which was his chief characteristic, caused the hundred citizens to be
+transfixed with javelins, and when 500 more came out as suppliants to
+entreat his mercy, relentlessly consigned them to the same fate. Nor did
+the traitor Tennes derive any advantage from his guilty bargain.
+Ochus, having obtained from him all he needed, instead of rewarding his
+desertion, punished his rebellion with death. Hereupon the Sidonians,
+understanding that they had nothing to hope from submission, formed the
+dreadful resolution of destroying themselves and their town. They had
+previously, to prevent the desertion of any of their number, burnt their
+ships. Now they shut themselves up in their houses, and set fire each
+to his own dwelling. Forty thousand persons lost their lives in the
+conflagration; and the city was reduced to a heap of ruins, which Ochus
+sold for a large sum. Thus ended the Phoenician revolt. Among its most
+important results was the transfer of his services to the Persian king
+on the part of Mentor the Rhodian, who appears to have been the ablest
+of the mercenary leaders of whom Greece at this time produced so many.
+
+The reduction of Sidon was followed closely by the invasion of
+Egypt. Ochus, besides his 330,000 Asiatics, had now a force of 14,000
+Greeks--6000 furnished by the Greek cities of Asia Minor; 4000 under
+Mentor, consisting of the troops which he had brought to the aid of
+Tennes from Egypt; 3000 sent by Argos; and 1000 from Thebes. He divided
+his numerous armament into three bodies, and placed at the head of
+each two generals--one Persian and one Greek. The Greek commanders were
+Lacrates of Thebes, Mentor of Rhodes, and Nicostratus of Argos, a man
+of enormous strength, who regarded himself as a second Hercules, and
+adopted the traditional costume of that hero--a club and a lion's skin.
+The Persians were Rhossaces, Aristazanes, and Bagoas, the chief of the
+eunuchs. Nectanebo was only able to oppose to this vast array an army
+less than one third of the size. Twenty thousand, however, out of the
+100,000 troops at his disposal were Greeks; he occupied the Nile and
+its various branches with a numerous navy the character of the country,
+intersected by numerous canals, and full of strongly fortified towns,
+was in his favor; and he might have been expected to make a prolonged,
+if not even a successful, resistance. But he was deficient in generals,
+and over-confident in his own powers of command: the Greek captains
+out-manoeuvred him; and no sooner did he find one line of his defences
+forced than his ill-founded confidence was exchanged for an alarm
+as little reasonable. He hastily fell back upon Memphis, leaving the
+fortified towns to the defence of their garrisons. These consisted of
+mixed troops, partly Greek and partly Egyptian; between whom jealousies
+and suspicions were easily sown by the Persian leaders, who by these
+means rapidly reduced the secondary cities of Lower Egypt, and were
+advancing upon Memphis, when Nectanebo in despair quitted the country
+and fled southwards to Ethiopia. All Egypt submitted to Ochus, who
+demolished the walls of the cities, plundered the temples, and after
+amply rewarding his mercenaries, returned to his own capital with an
+immense booty, and with the glory of having successfully carried through
+a most difficult and important enterprise.
+
+It has been well observed that "the reconquest of Egypt by Ochus must
+have been one of the most impressive events of the age," and that it
+"exalted the Persian Empire in force and credit to a point nearly as
+high as it had ever occupied before." Ochus not only redeemed by means
+of it his former failure, but elevated himself in the opinions of men to
+a pitch of glory such as no previous Persian king had reached, excepting
+Cyrus, Cambyses, and the first Darius. Henceforth we hear of no more
+revolts or rebellions. Mentor and Bagoas, the two generals who had most
+distinguished themselves in the Egyptian campaign, were advanced by the
+gratitude of Ochus to posts of the highest importance, in which their
+vigor and energy found ample room to display themselves. Mentor, who was
+governor of the entire Asiatic sea-board, exerted himself successfully
+to reduce to subjection the many chiefs who during the recent troubles
+had assumed an independent authority, and in the course of a few
+years brought once more the whole coast into complete submission and
+dependence. Bagoas, carried with him by Ochus to the capital, became
+the soul of the internal administration, and maintained tranquillity
+throughout the rest of the Empire. The last six years of the reign of
+Ochus form an exceptional period of vigorous and successful government,
+such as occurs nowhere else in the history of the later Persian
+monarchy. The credit of bringing about such a state of things may be due
+especially to the king's officers, Bagoas and Mentor; but a portion of
+it must reflect upon himself, as the person who selected them, assigned
+them their respective tasks, and permanently maintained them in office.
+
+It was during this period of vigor and renewed life, when the Persian
+monarchy seemed to have recovered almost its pristine force and
+strength, that the attention of its rulers was called to a small cloud
+on the distant horizon, which some were wise enough to see portended
+storm and tempest. The growing power of Macedon, against which
+Demosthenes was at this time in vain warning the careless Athenians,
+attracted the consideration of Ochus or of his counsellors; and orders
+went forth from the Court that Persian influence was to be used to check
+and depress the rising kingdom. A force was consequently despatched to
+assist the Thracian prince, Cersobleptes, to maintain his independence;
+and such effectual aid was given to the city of Perinthus that the
+numerous and well-appointed army with which Philip had commenced its
+siege was completely baffled and compelled to give up the attempt (B.C.
+340). The battle of Chseroneia had not yet been fought, and Macedonia
+was still but one of the many states which disputed for supremacy over
+Greece; but it is evident that she had already awakened the suspicions
+of Persia, which saw a rival and a possible assailant in the rapidly
+growing monarchy.
+
+Greater and more systematic efforts might possibly have been made, and
+the power of Macedon might perhaps have been kept within bounds, had not
+the inveterate evil of conspiracy and revolution once more shown itself
+at the Court, and paralyzed for a time the action of the Empire on
+communities beyond its borders. Ochus, while he was a vigorous ruler
+and administrator, was harsh and sanguinary. His violence and cruelty
+rendered him hateful to his subjects; and it is not unlikely that they
+caused even those who stood highest in his favor to feel insecure.
+Bagoas may have feared that sooner or later he would himself be one
+of the monarch's victims, and have been induced by a genuine alarm
+to remove the source of his terrors. In the year B.C. 338 he poisoned
+Ochus, and placed upon the throne his youngest son, Arses, at the same
+time assassinating all the brothers of the new monarch. It was evidently
+his aim to exercise the supreme power himself, as counsellor to a prince
+who owed his position to him, and who was moreover little more than a
+boy. But Arses, though subservient for a year or two, began, as he grew
+older, to show that he had a will of his own, and was even heard to
+utter threats against his benefactor whereupon Bagoas, accustomed now to
+crime, secured himself by a fresh series of murders. He caused Arses and
+his infant children to be assassinated, and selected one of his friends,
+Codomannus, the son of Arsanes, to fill the vacant throne. About the
+same time (B.C. 336), Philip of Macedon was assassinated by the incensed
+Pausanias; and the two new monarchs--Codomannus, who took the name
+of Darius, and Alexander the Great--assumed their respective sceptres
+almost simultaneously.
+
+Codomannus, the last of the Persian kings, might with some reason have
+complained, like Plato, that nature had brought him in the world too
+late. Personally brave, as he proved himself into the Cadusian war,
+tall and strikingly handsome, amiable in temper, capable of considerable
+exertion, and not altogether devoid of military capacity, he would have
+been a fairly good ruler in ordinary times, and might, had he fallen
+upon such times, have held an honorable place among the Persian
+monarchs. But he was unequal to the difficulties of such a position as
+that in which he found himself. Raised to the throne after the victory
+of Chaeroneia had placed Philip at the head of Greece, and when a
+portion of the Macedonian forces had already passed into Asia, he was
+called upon to grapple at once with a danger of the most formidable
+kind, and had but little time for preparation. It is true that Philip's
+death soon after his own accession gave him a short breathing-space:
+but at the same time it threw him off his guard. The military talents of
+Alexander were untried, and of course unknown; the perils which he had
+to encounter were patent. Codomannus may be excused if for some months
+after Alexander's accession he slackened his preparations for defence,
+uncertain whether the new monarch would maintain himself, whether
+he would overpower the combinations which were formed against him in
+Greece, whether he would inherit his father's genius for war, or adopt
+his ambitious projects. It would have been wiser, no doubt, as the event
+proved, to have joined heart and soul with Alexander's European enemies,
+and to have carried the war at once to the other side of the Egean. But
+no great blame attaches to the Persian monarch for his brief inaction.
+As soon as the Macedonian prince had shown by his campaigns in Thrace,
+Illyria, and Boeotia that he was a person to be dreaded, Darius
+Codomannus renewed the preparations which he had discontinued, and
+pushed them forward with all the speed that was possible. A fleet was
+rapidly got ready: the satraps of Asia Minor were reinforced with troops
+of good quality from the interior of the Empire, and were ordered to
+raise a strong force of mercenaries; money was sent into Greece to the
+Lacedaemonians and others in order to induce them to create disturbances
+in Europe; above all, Memnon the Rhodian, a brother of Mentor, and a
+commander of approved skill, was sent to the Hellespont, at the head of
+a body of Greeks in Persian pay, with an authority co-ordinate to that
+of the satraps.
+
+A certain amount of success at first attended these measures. Memnon
+was able to act on the offensive in North-Western Asia. He marched upon
+Cyzicus and was within a little of surprising it, obtaining from the
+lands and villas without the walls an immense booty. He forced Parmenio
+to raise the seige of Pitane; and when Callas, one of the Macedonian
+leaders, endeavored to improve the condition of things by meeting the
+Persian forces in the open field, he suffered a defeat and was compelled
+to throw himself into Rhoeteum.
+
+These advantages, however, were detrimental rather than serviceable to
+the Persian cause; since they encouraged the Persian satraps to regard
+the Macedonians as an enemy no more formidable than the various tribes
+of Greeks with whom they had now carried on war in Asia Minor for
+considerably more than a century. The intended invasion of Alexander
+seemed to them a matter of no great moment--to be classed with
+expeditions like those of Thimbron and Agesilaus, not to need, as it
+really did, to be placed in a category of its own. Accordingly, they
+made no efforts to dispute the passage of the Hellespont, or to oppose
+the landing of the expedition on the Asiatic shore. Alexander was
+allowed to transport a force of 30,000 foot and 4000 or 5000 horse from
+the Chersonese to Mysia without the slightest interference on the part
+of the enemy, notwithstanding that his naval power was weak and that
+of the Persians very considerable. This is one of those pieces of
+remissness in the Persian conduct of military matters, whereof we have
+already had to note signal instances, and which constantly caused the
+failure of very elaborate and judicious preparations to meet a danger.
+Great efforts had been made to collect and equip a numerous fleet, and
+a few weeks later it was all-powerful in the Egean. But it was absent
+exactly at the time when it was wanted. Alexander's passage and landing
+were unopposed, and the Persians thus admitted within the Empire without
+a struggle the enemy who was fated to destroy it.
+
+When the Persian commanders heard that Alexander was in Asia, they
+were anxious to give him battle. One alone, the Rhodian Greek, Memnon,
+proposed and urged a wholly different plan of operations. Memnon advised
+that a general engagement should be avoided, that the entire country
+should be laid waste, and even the cities burnt, while the army
+should retire, cut off stragglers, and seek to bring the enemy into
+difficulties. At the same time he recommended that the fleet should be
+brought up, a strong land force embarked on board it, and an effort made
+to transfer the war into Europe. But Memnon's colleagues, the satraps
+and commandants of the north-western portion of Asia Minor, could not
+bring themselves to see that circumstances required a line of action
+which they regarded as ignominious. It is not necessary to attribute to
+them personal or selfish motives. They probably thought honestly that
+they were a match for Alexander with the troops at their disposal, and
+viewed retreat before an enemy numerically weaker than themselves as
+a disgrace not to be endured unless its necessity was palpable.
+Accordingly they determined to give the invader battle. Supposing that
+Alexander, having crossed into Asia at Abydos, would proceed to attack
+Dascyleium, the nearest satrapial capital, they took post on the
+Granicus, and prepared to dispute the further advance of the Macedonian
+army. They had collected a force of 20,000 cavalry of the best quality
+that the Empire afforded, and nearly the same number of infantry,
+who were chiefly, if not solely, Greek mercenaries. With these
+they determined to defend the passage of the small stream above
+mentioned--one of the many which flow from the northern flank of Ida
+into the Propontis.
+
+The battle thus offered was eagerly accepted by the Macedonian. If he
+could not defeat with ease a Persian force not greatly exceeding his
+own, he had miscalculated the relative goodness of the soldiers on
+either side, and might as well desist from the expedition. Accordingly,
+he no sooner came to the bank of the river, and saw the enemy drawn up
+on the other side, than, rejecting the advice of Parmenio to wait till
+the next day, he gave orders that the whole army should enter the stream
+and advance across it. The Granicus was in most places fordable; but
+there were occasional deeper parts, which had to be avoided; and there
+was thus some difficulty in reaching the opposite bank in line. That
+bank itself was generally steep and precipitous, but offered also
+several gentle slopes where a landing was comparatively easy. The
+Persians had drawn up their cavalry along the line of the river close to
+the water's edge, and had placed their infantry in the rear. Alexander
+consequently attacked with his cavalry. The engagement began upon the
+right. Amytas and Ptolemy, who were the first to reach the opposite
+bank, met with a strenuous resistance and were driven back into the
+stream by the forces of Memnon and his sons. The battle, however, on
+this side was restored by Alexander himself, who gradually forced the
+Persians back after a long hand-to-hand fight, in which he received
+a slight wound, and slew with his own hand several noble Persians.
+Elsewhere the resistance was less determined. Parmenio crossed on the
+left with comparative ease, by his advance relieving Alexander. The
+Persians found the long spears of the Macedonians and their intermixture
+of light-armed foot with heavy-armed cavalry irresistible. The
+Macedonians seem to have received orders to strike at their adversaries'
+faces--a style of warfare which was as unpleasant to the Persians as it
+was to the soldiers of Pompey at Pharsalia. Their line was broken
+where it was opposed to Alexander and his immediate companions; but the
+contagion of disorder rapidly spread, and the whole body of the cavalry
+shortly quitted the field, after having lost a thousand of their number.
+Only the infantry now remained. Against these the Macedonian phalanx was
+brought up in front, while the cavalry made repeated charges on
+either flank with overwhelming effect. Deserted by their horse, vastly
+outnumbered, and attacked on all sides, the brave mercenaries stood
+firm, fought with desperation, and were mostly slaughtered where they
+stood. Two thousand out of the 20,000--probably wounded men--were made
+prisoners. The rest perished, except a few who lay concealed among the
+heaps of slain.
+
+The Persians lost by the battle 20,000 of their best footmen, and one or
+two thousand horse. Among their slain the proportion of men of rank
+was unusually large. The list included Spithridates, satrap of Lydia,
+Mithrobarzanes, governor of Cappadocia, Pharnaces, a brother-in-law, and
+Mithridates, a son-in-law of Darius, Arbupales, a grandson of Artaxerxes
+Mnemon, Omares, the commander of the mercenaries, Niphates, Petines,
+and Ehoesaces, generals. The Greek loss is said to have been exceedingly
+small. Aristobulus made the total number of the slain thirty-four;
+Arrian gives it as one hundred and fifteen, or a little over. It has
+been suspected that even the latter estimate is below the truth; but the
+analogy furnished by the other great victories of the Greeks over the
+Persians tends rather to confirm Arrian's statement.
+
+The battle of the Granicus threw open to Alexander the whole of Asia
+Minor. There was no force left in the entire country that could venture
+to resist him, unless protected by walls. Accordingly, the Macedonian
+operations for the next twelve months, or during nearly the whole
+space that intervened between the battles of the Granicus and of Issus,
+consist of little more than a series of marches and sieges. The reader
+of Persian history will scarcely wish for an account of these operations
+in detail. Suffice it to say that Alexander rapidly overran Lydia,
+Ionia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Phrygia, besieged and took
+Miletus, Halicarnassus, Marmareis, and Sagalassus, and received the
+submission of Dascyleium, Sardis, Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, the Lycian
+Telmisseis, Pinara, Xanthus, Patara, Phaselis, Side, Aspendus, Celaenee,
+and Gordium. This last city was the capital of Phrygia; and there the
+conqueror for the first time since his landing gave himself and his army
+a few months' rest during the latter part of the winter.
+
+With the first breath of spring his forces were again in motion.
+Hitherto anxious with respect to the state of things on the coast and in
+Greece, he had remained in the western half of Asia Minor, within call
+of his friends in Macedonia, at no time distant more than about 200
+miles from the sea. Now intelligence reached him which made him feel at
+liberty to advance into the interior of Asia. Memnon the Rhodian fell
+sick and died in the early spring of B.C. 333. It is strange that so
+much should have depended on a single life; but it certainly seems that
+there was no one in the Persian service who, on Memnon's death, could
+replace him--no one fitted for the difficult task of uniting Greeks and
+Asiatics together, capable of influencing and managing the one while he
+preserved the confidence of the other. Memnon's death disconcerted all
+the plans of the Great King, who till it occurred had fully intended to
+carry the war into his enemy's country. It induced Darius even to give
+up the notion of maintaining a powerful fleet, and to transfer to the
+land service the most efficient of his naval forces. At the same time it
+set Alexander free to march wherever he liked, liberating him from the
+keen anxiety, which he had previously felt, as to the maintenance of the
+Macedonian power in Europe.
+
+It now became the object of the Persian king to confront the daring
+invader of his Western provinces with an army worthy of the Persian
+name and proportionate to the vastness of the Empire. He had long been
+collecting troops from many of the most warlike nations, and had got
+together a force of several hundred thousand men. Forgetting the lessons
+of his country's previous history, he flattered himself that the host
+which he had brought together was irresistible, and became anxious to
+hurry on a general engagement. Starting from Babylon, probably about the
+time that Alexander left Gordium in Phrygia, he marched up the valley of
+the Euphrates, and took up a position at Sochi, which was situated in
+a large open plain, not far from the modern Lake of Antioch. On his
+arrival there he heard that Alexander was in Cilicia at no great
+distance; and the Greeks in his service assured him that it would not
+be long before the Macedonian monarch would seek him out and accept his
+offer of battle. But a severe attack of illness detained Alexander at
+Tarsus, and when he was a little recovered, troubles in Western Cilicia,
+threatening his communications with Greece, required his presence;
+so that Darius grew impatient, and, believing that his enemy had no
+intention of advancing further than Cilicia, resolved to seek him in
+that country. Quitting the open plain of Sochi, he marched northwards,
+having the range of Amanus on his left, almost as far as the
+thirty-seventh parallel, when turning sharply to the west, he crossed
+the chain, and descended upon Issus, in the inner recess of the gulf
+which bore the same name. Here he came upon Alexander's hospitals, and
+found himself to his surprise in the rear of his adversary, who, while
+Darius was proceeding northwards along the eastern flank of Amanus, had
+been marching southwards between the western flank of the same range and
+the sea. Alexander had crossed the Pylse, or narrowest portion of the
+pass, and had reached Myriandrus--a little beyond Iskonderum--when news
+reached him that Darius had occupied Issus in his rear, and had put
+to death all the sick and wounded Macedonians whom he had found in the
+town. At first he could not credit the intelligence; but when it was
+confirmed by scouts, whom he sent out, he prepared instantly to retrace
+his steps, and to fight his first great battle with the Persian king
+under circumstances which he felt to be favorable beyond anything that
+he could have hoped. The tract of flat land between the base of the
+mountains and the sea on the borders of the Gulf of Issus was nowhere
+broader than about a mile and a half. The range of Amanus on the
+east rose up with rugged and broken hills, so that on this side the
+operations of cavalry were impracticable. It would be impossible to
+form a line of battle containing in the front rank more than about 4000
+men,1048 and difficult for either party to bring into action as many as
+30,000 of their soldiers. Thus the vast superiority of numbers on the
+Persian side became in such a position absolutely useless, and even
+Alexander had more troops than he could well employ. No wonder that the
+Macedonian should exclaim, that "God had declared Himself on the Grecian
+side by putting it into the heart of Darius to execute such a movement."
+It may be that Alexander's superior generalship would have made him
+victorious even on the open plain of Sochi; but in the defile of Issus
+success was certain, and generalship superfluous.
+
+Darius had started from Issus in pursuit of his adversary, and had
+reached the banks of the Pinarus, a small stream flowing westward from
+Amanus into the Mediterranean, when he heard that Alexander had hastened
+to retrace his stops, and was coming to meet him. Immediately he
+prepared for battle. Passing a force of horse and foot across the stream
+in his front, to keep his adversary in check if he advanced too rapidly,
+he drew up his best troops along the line of the river in a continuous
+solid mass, the ranks of which must have been at least twenty deep.
+Thirty thousand Greek mercenaries formed the centre of the line, while
+on either side of them were an equal number of Asiatic "braves"--picked
+probably from the mass of the army. Twenty thousand troops of a lighter
+and inferior class were placed upon the rough hills on the left, the
+outskirts of the Amanian range, where the nature of the ground allowed
+them to encircle the Macedonian right, which, to preserve its ranks
+unbroken, kept the plain. The cavalry, to the number of 30,000, was
+massed upon the other wing, near the sea.
+
+The battle began by certain movements of Alexander against the flank
+force which menaced his right. These troops, assailed by the Macedonian
+light-armed, retreated at once to higher ground, and by their manifest
+cowardice freed Alexander from all anxiety on their account. Leaving 300
+horse to keep the 20,000 in check, he moved on his whole line at a slow
+pace towards the Pinarus till it came within bow-shot of the enemy, when
+he gave the order to proceed at a run. The line advanced as commanded;
+but before it could reach the river, the Persian horse on the extreme
+right, unable to restrain themselves any longer, dashed across the
+shallow stream, and assailed Alexander's left, where they engaged in a
+fierce battle with the Thessalian cavalry, in which neither attained any
+decided advantage. The infantry, meanwhile, came into conflict along
+the rest of the line. Alexander himself, with the right and the
+right-centre, charged the Asiatic troops on Darius's left, who, like
+their brethren at Cunaxa, instantly broke and fled. Parmenio, with the
+left-centre, was less successful. The north bank of the Pinarus was in
+this part steep and defended by stakes in places; the Greek mercenaries
+were as brave as the Macedonians, and fought valiantly. It was not till
+the troops which had routed the Persian right began, to act against
+their centre, assailing it upon the flank, while it was at the same time
+engaged in front, that the mercenaries were overpowered and gave way.
+Seeing their defeat, the horse likewise fled, and thus the rout became
+general.
+
+It is not quite clear what part Darius took in the battle, or how far
+he was answerable for its untoward result. According to Arrian, he was
+struck with a sudden panic on beholding the flight of his left wing, and
+gave orders to his charioteer instantly to quit the field. But Curtius
+and Diodorus represent him as engaged in a long struggle against
+Alexander himself, and as only flying when he was in imminent danger of
+falling into the enemy's hands. Justin goes further, and states that
+he was actually wounded. The character gained by Darius in his earlier
+years makes it improbable that he would under any circumstances have
+exhibited personal cowardice. On the whole it would seem to be most
+probable that the flight of the Persian monarch occurred, not when the
+left wing fled, but when the Greek mercenaries among whom he had placed
+himself began to give way before the irresistible phalanx and the
+impetuous charges of Alexander. Darius, not unwisely, accepted the
+defeat of his best troops as the loss of the battle, and hastily retired
+across Amanus by the pass which had brought him to Issus, whence
+he hurried on through Sochi to the Euphrates, anxious to place that
+obstacle between himself and his victorious enemy. His multitudinous
+host, entangled in the defiles of the mountains, suffered by its own
+weight and size, the stronger fugitives treading down the weaker, while
+at the same time it was ruthlessly slaughtered by the pursuing enemy,
+so long as the waning light allowed. As many as 100,000--90,000 foot and
+10,000 horse--are said to have fallen. The ravines were in places choked
+with the dead bodies, and Ptolemy the son of Lagus related that in one
+instance he and Alexander crossed a gully on a bridge of this kind.
+Among the slain were Sabaces, satrap of Egypt, Bubaces, a noble of high
+rank, and Arsames, Rheomithres, and Atizyes, three of the commanders
+at the Granicus. Forty thousand prisoners were made. The whole of the
+Persian camp and camp-equipage fell into the enemy's hands, who found in
+the royal pavilion the mother, wife, and sister of the king, an
+infant son, two daughters, and a number of female attendants, wives of
+noblemen. The treasure captured amounted to 3000 silver talents. Among
+the trophies of victory were the chariot, bow, shield, and robe of the
+king, which he had abandoned in his hurried flight.
+
+The loss on the side of the Macedonians was trivial. The highest
+estimate places it at 450 killed, the lowest at 182. Besides these,
+504 were wounded. Thus Alexander had less than 1000 men placed hors de
+combat. He himself received a slight wound in the thigh from a sword,
+which, used a little more resolutely, might have changed the fortunes of
+the world.
+
+The defeat of the Persians at Issus seems to have been due simply to the
+fact that, practically, the two adversaries engaged with almost equal
+numbers, and that the troops of Alexander were of vastly superior
+quality to those of Darhis. The Asiatic infantry--notwithstanding their
+proud title of "braves"--proved to be worthless; the Greek mercenaries
+were personally courageous, but their inferior arms and training
+rendered them incapable of coping with the Macedonian phalanx. The
+cavalry was the only arm in which the Persians were not greatly at a
+disadvantage; and cavalry alone cannot gain, or even save a battle.
+When Darius put himself into a position where he lost all the advantages
+derivable from superiority of numbers, he made his own defeat and his
+adversary's triumph certain.
+
+It remained, therefore, before the Empire could be considered as
+entirely lost, that this error should be corrected, this false step
+retrieved. All hope for Persia was not gone, so long as her full force
+had not been met and defeated in a fair and open field. When Darius fled
+from Issus, it was not simply to preserve for a few months longer his
+own wretched life; it was to make an effort to redeem the past--to give
+his country that last chance of maintaining her independence which she
+had a right to claim at his hands--to try what the award of battle
+would be under the circumstances which he had fair grounds for
+regarding as the most favorable possible to his own side and the most
+disadvantageous to his adversary. Before the heart of the Empire
+could be reached from the West, the wide Mesopotamian plain had to be
+traversed--there, in those vast flats, across which the enemy must come,
+a position might be chosen where there would be room for the largest
+numbers that even his enormous Empire could furnish--where cavalry and
+even chariots would be everywhere free to act--where consequently he
+might engage the puny force of his antagonist to the greatest advantage,
+outflank it, envelop it, and perhaps destroy it. Darius would have
+been inexcusable had he given up the contest without trying this last
+chance--the chance of a battle in the open field with the full collected
+force of Persia.
+
+His adversary gave him ample time to prepare for this final struggle.
+The battle of Issus was fought in November, B.C. 333. It was not till
+the summer of B.C. 331, twenty months later that the Macedonian forces
+were set in motion towards the interior of the Empire. More than a year
+and a half was consumed in the reduction of Phoenicia, the siege of
+Gaza, and the occupation of Egypt. Alexander, apparently, was confident
+of defeating Darius in a pitched battle, whenever and under whatever
+circumstances they should again meet; and regarded as the only
+serious dangers which threatened him, a possible interruption of his
+communications with Greece, and the employment of Persian gold and
+Persian naval force in the raising of troubles on the European side of
+the Egean. He was therefore determined, before he plunged into the depth
+of the Asiatic continent, to isolate Persia from Greece, to destroy her
+naval power, and to cripple her pecuniary resources. The event showed
+that his decision was a wise one. By detaching from Persia and bringing
+under his own sway the important countries of Syria, Phoenicia,
+Palestine, Idumsea, and Egypt, he wholly deprived Persia of her navy,
+and transferred to himself the complete supremacy of the sea, he greatly
+increased his own resources while he diminished those of the enemy, and
+he shut out Persia altogether from communication with Greece, excepting
+through his territories. He could therefore commence his march into the
+interior with a feeling of entire security as to his communications and
+his rear. No foe was left on the coast capable of causing him a moment's
+uneasiness. Athens and Sparta might chafe and even intrigue; but without
+the Persian "archers," it was impossible that any force should be raised
+which could in the slightest degree imperil his European dominions.
+
+From Babylon, whither Darius proceeded straight from Issus, he appears
+to have made two ineffectual attempts at negotiating with his enemy. The
+first embassy was despatched soon after his arrival, and, according
+to Arrian, was instructed merely to make proposals for peace, and to
+request the restitution of the Queen, the Queen-mother, Sisygambis, the
+infant prince, and the two princesses, captured by Alexander. To this
+Alexander replied, in haughty and contemptuous terms, that if Darius
+would acknowledge him as Lord of Asia, and deliver himself into his
+power, he should receive back his relatives: if he intended still to
+dispute the sovereignty, he ought to come and fight out the contest, and
+not run away.
+
+The second embassy was sent six or eight months later, while Alexander
+was engaged in the siege of Tyre. Darius now offered, as a ransom for
+the members of his family held in captivity by Alexander, the large sum
+of ten thousand talents (L240,000.), and was willing to purchase peace
+by the cession of all the provinces lying west of the Euphrates, several
+of which were not yet in Alexander's possession. At the same time he
+proposed that Alexander should marry his daughter, Statira, in order
+that the cession of territory might be represented as the bestowal of a
+dowry. The reply of Alexander was, if possible, ruder and haughtier than
+before. "What did Darius mean by offering money and territory? All his
+treasure and all his territory were Alexander's already. As for the
+proposed marriage, if he (Alexander) liked to marry a daughter of
+Darius, he should of course do so, whether her father consented or not.
+If Darius wanted merciful treatment, he had better come and deliver
+himself up at once."
+
+The terms of this reply rendered further negotiation impossible.
+Darius had probably not hoped much from his pacific overtures, and was
+therefore not greatly concerned at their rejection. He knew that the
+members of his family were honorably and even kindly treated by their
+captor, and that, so far at any rate, Alexander had proved himself a
+magnanimous conqueror. He can scarcely have thought that a lasting peace
+was possible between himself and his young antagonist, who had only just
+fleshed his maiden sword, and was naturally eager to pursue his career
+of conquest. Indeed, he seems from the moment of his defeat at Issus to
+have looked forward to another battle as inevitable, and to have been
+unremitting in his efforts to collect and arm a force which might
+contend, with a good hope of victory, against the Macedonians. He
+replaced the panoplies lost at Issus with fresh ones; he armed his
+forces anew with swords and spears longer than the Persians had been
+previously accustomed to employ, on account of the great length of the
+Macedonian weapons; he caused to be constructed 200 scythed chariots; he
+prepared spiked balls to use against his enemy's cavalry; above all, he
+laid under contribution for the supply of troops all the provinces,
+even the most remote, of his extensive Empire, and asked and obtained
+important aid from allies situated beyond his borders. The forces which
+he collected for the final struggle comprised--besides Persians, Medes,
+Babylonians, and Susianians from the centre of the Empire--Syrians from
+the banks of the Orontes, Armenians from the neighborhood of Ararat,
+Cappadocians and Albanians from the regions bordering on the Euxine,
+Cadusians from the Caspian, Bactrians from the Upper Oxus, Sogdians from
+the Jaxartes, Arachosians from Cabul, Arians from Herat, Indians from
+Punjab, and even Sacse from the country about Kashgar and Yarkand, on
+the borders of the Great Desert of Gobi. Twenty-five nations followed
+the standard of the Great King, and swelled the ranks of his vast army,
+which amounted (according to the best authorities) to above a million of
+men. Every available resource that the Empire possessed was brought
+into play. Besides the three arms of cavalry, infantry, and chariots,
+elephants were, for perhaps the first time in the history of military
+science, marshalled in the battle-field, to which they added an unwonted
+element of grotesqueness and savagery.
+
+The field of battle was likewise selected with great care, and
+artificially prepared for the encounter. Darius, it would seem, had
+at last become convinced that his enemy would seek him out wherever he
+might happen to be, and that consequently the choice of ground rested
+wholly with himself. Leaving, therefore, the direct road to Babylon
+by the line of the Euphrates undefended, he selected a position which
+possessed all the advantages of the Mesopotamian plain, being open,
+level, fertile, and well supplied with water, while its vicinity to the
+eastern and northern provinces, made it convenient for a rendezvous.
+This position was on the left or east bank of the Tigris, in the heart
+of the ancient Assyria, not more than thirty miles from the site of
+Nineveh. Here, in the region called by the Greeks Adiabene, extended
+between the Tigris and the river Zab or Lycus, a vast plain broken by
+scarcely any elevations, and wholly bare of both shrubs and trees. The
+few natural inequalities which presented themselves were levelled by
+order of Darius, who made the entire plain in his front practicable not
+only for cavalry but for chariots. At the same time he planted, in the
+places where Alexander's cavalry was likely to charge, spiked balls to
+damage the feet of the horses.
+
+Meanwhile, Alexander had quitted Egypt, and after delaying some months
+in Syria while his preparations were being completed, had crossed the
+Euphrates at Thapsacus and marched through northern Mesopotamia along
+the southern flank of the Mons Masius, a district in which provisions,
+water, and forage were abundant, to the Tigris, which he must have
+reached in about lat. 36� 30', thirty or forty miles above the site of
+Nineveh. No resistance was made to his advance; even the passage of
+the great rivers was unopposed. Arrived on the east bank of the Tigris,
+Alexander found himself in Assyria Proper, with the stream upon his
+right and the mountains of Gordyene Kurdistan at no great distance upon
+his left. But the plain widened as he advanced, and became, as he drew
+near the position of his enemy, a vast level, nowhere less than thirty
+miles in breadth, between the outlying ranges of hills and the great
+river. Darius, whose headquarters had been at Arbela, south of the Zab,
+on learning Alexander's approach, had crossed that stream and taken post
+on the prepared ground to the north, in the neighborhood of a small town
+or village called Gaugamela. Here he drew up his forces in the order
+which he thought best, placing the scythed chariots in front, with
+supports of horse--Scythian, Bactrian, Armenian, and Cappadocian--near
+to them; then, the main line of battle, divided into a centre and two
+wings, and composed of horse and foot intermixed; and finally a reserve
+of Babylonians. Sitaceni, and others, massed in heavy column in the
+rear. His own post was, according to invariable Persian custom, in
+the centre; and about him were grouped the best troops--the Household
+brigade, the Melophori or Persian foot-guards, the Mardian archers, some
+Albanians and Carians, the entire body of Greek mercenaries, and the
+Indians with their elephants.
+
+Alexander, on his side, determined to leave nothing to chance. Advancing
+leisurely, resting his troops at intervals, carefully feeling his way by
+means of scouts, and gradually learning from the prisoners whom he
+took, and the deserters who came over to him, all the dispositions and
+preparations of the enemy, he arrived opposite the position of Darius on
+the ninth day after his passage of the Tigris. His officers were eager
+to attack at once; but with great judgment he restrained them, gave his
+troops a night's rest, and obtained time to reconnoitre completely the
+whole position of the enemy and the arrangement which he had made of his
+forces. He then formed his own dispositions. The army with which he
+was to attack above a million of men consisted of 40,300 foot and 7000
+horse. Alexander drew them up in three lines:
+
+The first consisted of light-armed troops, horse and foot, of good
+quality, which were especially intended to act against the enemy's
+chariots. The next was the main line of battle, and contained the
+phalanx with the rest of the heavy infantry in the centre, the heavy
+cavalry upon the two wings. The third line consisted of light troops,
+chiefly horse, and was instructed to act against such of the Persians as
+should outflank the Macedonian main line and so threaten their rear.
+As at Issus, Alexander took the command of the right wing himself, and
+assigned the left to Parmenio.
+
+As the two armies drew near, Alexander, who found himself greatly
+outflanked on both wings, and saw in front of him smooth ground
+carefully prepared for the operations of chariots and cavalry, began a
+diagonal movement towards the right, which tended at once to place him
+beyond the levelled ground, and to bring him in contact with his enemy's
+left wing rather than with his direct front. The movement greatly
+disconcerted his adversary, who sought to prevent it by extending and
+advancing his own left, which was soon engaged with Alexander's right
+in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict. Alexander still pressed his slanting
+movement, and in resisting it Darius's left became separated from his
+centre, while at the same time he was forced to give the signal for
+launching the chariots against the foe sooner than he had intended, and
+under circumstances that were not favorable. The effect of the operation
+was much the same as at Cunaxa. Received by the Macedonian light-armed,
+the chariots were mostly disabled before the enemy's main line was
+reached; the drivers were dragged from the chariot-boards; and the
+horses were cut to pieces. Such as escaped this fate and charged the
+Macedonian line, were allowed to pass through the ranks, which opened to
+receive them, and were then dealt with by grooms and others in the rear
+of the army.
+
+No sooner had the chariot attack failed, and the space between the two
+lines of battle become clear, than Alexander, with the quick eye of a
+true general, saw his opportunity: to resist his flank movement, the
+Bactrians and Sacae with the greater part of the left wing had broken
+off from the main Persian line, and in pressing towards the left
+had made a gap between their ranks and the centre. Into this gap the
+Macedonian king, at the head of the "Companion" cavalry and a portion of
+the phalanx, plunged. Here he found himself in the near neighborhood
+of Darius, whereupon he redoubled the vigor of his assault, knowing the
+great importance of any success gained in this quarter. The Companions
+rushed on with loud cries, pressing with all their weight, and thrusting
+their spears into the faces of their antagonists--the phalanx, bristling
+with its thick array of lances, bore them down. Alexander found himself
+sufficiently near Darius to hurl a spear at him, which transfixed his
+charioteer. The cry arose that the king had fallen, and the ranks at
+once grew unsteady. The more timid instantly began to break and fly;
+the contagion of fear spread; and Darius was in a little while almost
+denuded of protection on one side. Seeing this, and regarding the battle
+as lost, since his line was broken, his centre and left wing defeated,
+while only his right wing remained firm, the Persian monarch yielded to
+his alarm, and hastily quitting the field, made his way to Arbela. The
+centre and left fled with him. The right, which was under the command
+of the Syrian satrap, Mazseus, made a firmer stand. On this side the
+chariots had done some damage, and the horse was more than a match for
+the Thessalian cavalry. Parmenio found himself in difficulties about the
+time when the Persian king fled. His messengers detained a part of the
+phalanx, which was about to engage in the pursuit, and even recalled
+Alexander, who was hastening upon the track of Darius. The careful
+prince turned back, but before he could make his way through the crowd
+of fugitives to the side of his lieutenant, victory had declared in
+favor of the Macedonians in this part of the field also. Mazseus and his
+troops, learning that the king was fled, regarded further resistance as
+useless, and quitted the field. The Persian army hurriedly recrossed
+the Zab, pursued by the remorseless conquerors, who slew the unresisting
+fugitives till they were weary of slaughter. Arrian says that 300,000
+fell, while a still larger number were taken prisoners. Other writers
+make the loss considerably less. All, however, agree that the army was
+completely routed and dispersed, that it made no attempt to rally, and
+gave no further trouble to the conqueror.
+
+The conduct of Darius in this--the crisis of his fate--cannot be
+approved; but it admits of palliation, and does not compel us to
+withdraw from him that respectful compassion which we commonly accord
+to great misfortunes. After Issus, it was his duty to make at least one
+more effort against the invader. To this object he addressed himself
+with earnestness and diligence. The number and quality of the troops
+collected at Arbela attests at once the zeal and success of his
+endeavors. His choice and careful preparation of the field of battle
+are commendable; in his disposition of his forces there is nothing with
+which to find fault. Every arm of the service had full room to act; all
+were brought into play; if Alexander conquered, it was because he was a
+consummate general, while at the same time he commanded the best troops
+in the world. Arbela was not, like Issus, won by mere fighting. It was
+the leader's victory, rather than the soldiers. Alexander's diagonal
+advance, the confusion which it caused, the break in the Persian line,
+and its prompt occupation by some of the best cavalry and a portion
+of the phalanx, are the turning-points of the engagement. All the
+rest followed as a matter of course. Far too much importance has been
+assigned to Darius's flight, which was the effect rather than the cause
+of victory. When the centre of an Asiatic army is so deeply penetrated
+that the person of the monarch is exposed and his near attendants begin
+to fall, the battle is won. Darius did not--indeed he could not--"set
+the example of flight." Hemmed in by vast masses of troops, it was not
+until their falling away from him on his left flank at once exposed
+him to the enemy and gave him room to escape, that he could extricate
+himself from the melee.
+
+No doubt it would have been nobler, finer, more heroic, had the Persian
+monarch, seeing that all was lost, and that the Empire of the Persians
+was over, resolved not to outlive the independence of his country. Had
+he died in the thick of the fight, a halo of glory would have surrounded
+him. But, because he lacked, in common with many other great kings and
+commanders, the quality of heroism, we are not justified in affixing to
+his memory the stigma of personal cowardice. Like Pompey, like
+Napoleon, he yielded in the crisis of his fate to the instinct of
+self-preservation. He fled from the field where he had lost his crown,
+not to organize a new army, not to renew the contest, but to prolong for
+a few weeks a life which had ceased to have any public value.
+
+It is needless to pursue further the dissolution of the Empire.
+The fatal blow was struck at Arbela--all the rest was but the long
+death-agony. At Arbela the crown of Cyrua passed to the Macedonian;
+the Fifth Monarchy came to an end. The HE-GOAT, with the notable horn
+between his eyes, had come from the west to the ram which had two horns,
+and had run into him with the fury of his power. He had come close to
+him, and, moved with choler, had smitten the ram and broken his two
+horns--there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he had
+cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him--and there was none to
+deliver the ram out of his hand.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The
+Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia, by George Rawlinson
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+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>
+      The Seven Great Monarchies, by George Rawlinson, The Fifth Monarchy, Part
+      A.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 2em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 20%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 25%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    pre     { font-family: Times; font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
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+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient
+Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia, by George Rawlinson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia
+       The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea,
+              Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian
+              or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
+
+Author: George Rawlinson
+
+Illustrator: George Rawlinson
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2005 [EBook #16165]
+Last Updated: September 6, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      OF THE ANCIENT EASTERN WORLD; OR, THE HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, AND ANTIQUITIES
+      OF CHALDAEA, ASSYRIA BABYLON, MEDIA, PERSIA, PARTHIA, AND SASSANIAN, OR
+      NEW PERSIAN EMPIRE. <b> BY </b> <b> GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., </b> CAMDEN
+      PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN THREE VOLUMES.
+      VOLUME II. WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+        <h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+        <p><a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EXTENT OF THE
+        EMPIRE.</p>
+
+				<p><a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CLIMATE
+        AND PRODUCTIONS.</p>
+
+				<p><a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CHARACTER,
+        MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.</p>
+
+				<p><a href="#linkB2HCH0002"> CHAPTER IV.</a>
+        &nbsp;&nbsp;LANGUAGE AND WRITING.</p>
+
+				<p><a href="#linkB2HCH0003">
+        CHAPTER V.</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;ARCHITECTURE AND OTHER ARTS.</p>
+
+				<p><a href="#linkB2HCH0004"> CHAPTER VI.</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION.</p>
+
+        <p><a href="#linkC2HCH0002"> CHAPTER VII.</a> &nbsp;CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY.</p>
+        </blockquote>
+      <hr />
+      <p>
+        <br /> <br />
+      </p>
+
+        <h4>Illustrations</h4>
+      <blockquote>
+
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0001"> Map </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0002"> Plate XXVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0003"> Plate XXVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0004"> Plate XXVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0005"> Plate XXIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0006"> Plate XXX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0007"> Plate XXXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0008"> Plate XXXII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0009"> Plate XXXIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0010"> Plate XXXIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0011"> Plate XXXV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0012"> Plate XXXVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0013"> Plate XXXVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0014"> Plate XXXVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0001"> Map </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0002"> Page 365 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0003"> Page 366 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0004"> Page 367 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0005"> Page 368 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0006"> Page 369 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0007"> Page 370 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0008"> Page 371 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0009"> Page 372 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0010"> Page 373 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0011"> Page 374 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0012"> Page 375 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0013"> Page 376 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0014"> Page 377 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0015"> Page 378 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0016"> Plate XXXVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0017"> Plate XXXIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0018"> Plate XL. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0019"> Plate XLI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkplate042"> Plate XLII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0020"> Plate XLIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0021"> Plate XLIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0022"> Plate XLV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0023"> Plate XLVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0024"> Plate XLVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0025"> Plate XLVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0027"> Plate XLIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0026"> Plate L. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0028"> Plate LI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0029"> Plate LII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0030"> Plate LIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0031"> Plate LIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0032"> Plate LV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0033"> Plate LVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0034"> Plate LVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0035"> Plate LVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0036"> Plate LIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0038"> Plate LX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0001"> Map </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0002"> Plate LXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0003"> Plate LXII. </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTERS I. TO III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA PROPER.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/map_persia.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="map_persia_th (188K)" src="images/map_persia_th.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE FIFTH MONARCHY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The geographical extent of the Fifth Monarchy was far greater than that of
+      any one of the four which had preceded it. While Persia Proper is a
+      comparatively narrow and poor tract, extending in its greatest length only
+      some seven or eight degrees (less than 500 miles), the dominions of the
+      Persian kings covered a space fifty-six degrees long, and in places more
+      than twenty degrees wide. The boundaries of their empire were the desert
+      of Thibet, the Sutlej, and the Indus, on the east; the Indian Sea, the
+      Persian Gulf, the Arabian and Nubian deserts, on the south; on the west,
+      the Greater Syrtis, the Mediterranean, the Egean, and the Strymon river;
+      on the north, the Danube, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian, and
+      the Jaxartes. Within these limits lay a territory, the extent of which
+      from east to west was little less than 3000 miles, while its width varied
+      between 500 and 1500 miles. Its entire area was probably not less than,
+      two millions of square miles&mdash;or more than half that of modern
+      Europe. It was thus at least eight times as large as the Babylonian Empire
+      at its greatest extent, and was probably more than four times as large as
+      the Assyrian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The provinces included within the Empire may be conveniently divided into
+      the Central, the Western, and the Eastern. The Central are Persia Proper,
+      Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the coast tract of the Caspian, and
+      Sagartia, or the Great Desert. The Western are Paeonia, Thrace, Asia
+      Minor, Armenia, Iberia, Syria and Phoenicia, Palestine, Egypt, and the
+      Cyrenaica. The Eastern are Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria, Chorasmia, Sogdiana,
+      Bactria, Scythia, Gandaria, Sattagydia, India, Paricania, the Eastern
+      AEthiopia, and Mycia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of these countries a considerable number have been already described in
+      these volumes. Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the Caspian coast,
+      Armenia, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, belong to this class; and it may
+      be assumed that the reader is sufficiently acquainted with their general
+      features. It would therefore seem to be enough in the present place to
+      give an account of the regions which have not yet occupied our attention,
+      more especially of Persia Proper&mdash;the home of the dominant race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persia Proper seems to have corresponded nearly to that province of the
+      modern Iran, which still bears the ancient name slightly modified, being
+      called Farsistan or Fars. The chief important difference between the two
+      is, that whereas in modern times the tract called Herman is regarded as a
+      distinct and separate region, Carmania anciently was included within the
+      limits of Persia. Persia Proper lay upon the gulf to which it has given
+      name, extending from the mouth of the Tab (Oroatis) to the point where the
+      gulf joins the Indian Ocean. It was bounded on the west by Susiana, on the
+      north by Media Magna, on the east by Mycia, and on the south by the sea.
+      Its length seems to have been about 450, and its average width about 250
+      miles. It thus contained an area of rather more than 100,000 square miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In modern times it is customary to divide the province of Fars into the <i>ghermsir</i>,
+      or, &ldquo;warm district,&rdquo; and the <i>serdsir</i>, or &ldquo;cold region&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      the physical character of the country must have made such a division
+      thoroughly appropriate at every period. The &ldquo;warm district&rdquo; is a tract of
+      sandy plain, often impregnated with salt, which extends between the
+      mountains and the sea the whole length of the province, being a
+      continuation of the flat region of Susiana, but falling very much short of
+      that region in all the qualities which constitute physical excellence. The
+      soil is poor, consisting of alternate sand and clay&mdash;it is
+      ill-watered, the entire tract possessing scarcely a single stream worthy
+      of the name of river&mdash;and, lying only just without the northern
+      Tropic, the district is by its very situation among the hottest of western
+      Asia. It forms, however, no very large portion of the ancient Persia,
+      being in general a mere strip of land, from ten to fifty miles wide, and
+      thus not constituting more than an eighth part of the territory in
+      question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remaining seven eighths belong to the serdsir, or &ldquo;cold region.&rdquo; The
+      mountain-range which under various names skirts on the east the
+      Mesopotamian lowland, separating off that depressed and generally fertile
+      region from the bare high plateau of Iran, and running continuously in a
+      direction parallel to the course of the Mesopotamian streams&mdash;i.e.
+      from the north-west to the south-east&mdash;changes its course as it
+      approaches the sea, sweeping gradually round between long. 50° and 55°,
+      and becoming parallel to the coast-line, while at the same time it
+      broadens out, till it covers a space of nearly three degrees, or above two
+      hundred miles. Along the high tract thus created lay the bulk of the
+      ancient Persia, consisting of alternate mountain, plain, and narrow
+      valley, curiously intermixed, and as yet very incompletely mapped. This
+      region is of varied character. In places richly, fertile, picturesque, and
+      romantic almost beyond imagination, with lovely wooded dells, green
+      mountain-sides, and broad plains suited for the production of almost any
+      crops, it has yet on the whole a predominant character of sterility and
+      barrenness, especially towards its more northern and eastern portions. The
+      supply of water is everywhere scanty. Scarcely any of the streams are
+      strong enough to reach the sea. After short courses they are either
+      absorbed by the sand or end in small salt lakes, from which the
+      superfluous water is evaporated. Much of the country is absolutely without
+      streams, and would be uninhabitable were it not for the <i>kanats</i>, or
+      <i>karizes</i>, subterranean channels of spring-water, described at length
+      in a former volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only rivers of the district which deserve any attention are the Tab
+      (or Oroatis), whereof a description has been already given, the Kur or
+      Bendamir (called anciently Araxes), with its tributary, the Pulwar (or
+      Cyrus), and the Khoonazaberni or river of Khisht.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Bendamir rises in the mountains of the Bakhtiyari chain, in lat. 30°
+      35&rsquo;, long. 51° 50&rsquo; nearly, and runs with a course which is generally
+      south-east, past the ruins of Persepolis, to the salt lake of Neyriz or
+      Kheir, which it enters in long. 53° 30&rsquo;. It receives, where it approaches
+      nearest to Persepolis, the Pulwar or Kur-ab, a small stream coming from
+      the north-east and flowing by the ruins of both Pasargadae and Persepolis.
+      A little below its junction with this stream the Bendamir is crossed by a
+      bridge of five arches, and further down, on the route between Shiraz and
+      Herman, by another of twelve. Here its waters are to a great extent drawn
+      off by means of canals, and are made to fertilize a large tract of rich
+      flat country on either bank, after which the stream pursues its course
+      with greatly diminished volume to the salt lake in which it ends. The
+      entire course, including only main windings, may be estimated at 140 or
+      150 miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Khoonazaberni or river of Khisht rises near the ruins of Shapur, at a
+      short distance from Kazerun, on the route between Bushire and Shiraz, and
+      flows in a broad valley between lofty mountains towards the south-west,
+      entering the Persian Gulf by three mouths, the chief of which is at
+      Rohilla, twenty miles north of Bushire, where the stream has a breadth of
+      sixty yards, and a depth of about four feet. Above Khisht the river is
+      already thirty yards wide. Its chief tributary is the Dalaki stream, which
+      enters it from the east, nearly in long. 51°. The entire course of the
+      Khisht river may be about 95 or 100 miles. Its water is brackish except
+      near the source.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal lakes are the Lake of Neyriz and the Deriah-i-Nemek. The
+      Deriah-i-Nemek is a small basin distant about ten miles from Shiraz, which
+      receives the waters of the streams that supply that town. It has a length
+      of about fifteen and a breadth of about three or three and a half miles.
+      The lake of Neyriz or Kheir is of far larger size, being from fifty to
+      sixty miles long and from three to six broad, though in the summer season
+      it is almost entirely dried up. Salt is then obtained from the lake in
+      large quantities, and forms an important feature in the commerce of the
+      district. Smaller lakes, also salt or brackish, exist in other parts of
+      the country, as Lake Famur, near Kazerun, which is about six miles in
+      length, and from half a mile to a mile across.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most remarkable feature of the country consists in the extraordinary
+      gorges which pierce the great mountain-chain, and render possible the
+      establishment of routes across that tremendous barrier. Scarped rocks rise
+      almost perpendicularly on either side of the mountain-streams, which
+      descend rapidly with frequent cascades and falls. Along the slight
+      irregularities of these rocks the roads are carried in zigzags, often
+      crossing the streams from side to side by bridges of a single arch, which
+      are thrown over profound chasms where the waters chafe and roar many
+      hundred feet below. <a href="#linkimage-0002">[PLATE XXVI.]</a> The roads
+      have for the most part been artificially cut in the sides of the
+      precipices, which rise from the streams sometimes to the height of 2000
+      feet. In order to cross from the Persian Gulf to the high plateau of Iran,
+      no fewer than three or four of these kotuls, or strange gorge-passes, have
+      to be traversed successively. Thus the country towards the edge of the
+      plateau is peculiarly safe from attack, being defended on the north and
+      east by vast deserts, and on the south by a mountain-barrier of unusual
+      strength and difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate026.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxvi. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      It is in these regions, which combine facility of defence with
+      pleasantness of climate, that the principal cities of the district have at
+      all times been placed. The earliest known capital of the region was
+      Pasargadae, or Persagadae, as the name is sometimes written, of which the
+      ruins still exist near Murgab, in lat. 30° 15&rsquo; long. 53° 17&rsquo;. Here is the
+      famous tomb of Cyrus, whereof a description will be given hereafter; and
+      here are also other interesting remains of the old Persian architecture.
+      Neither the shape nor the extent of the town can be traced. The situation
+      was a plain amid mountains, watered by small streams which found their way
+      to a river of some size (the Pulwar) flowing at a little distance to the
+      west. <a href="#linkimage-0003">[PLATE XXVII Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate027.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxvii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      At the distance of thirty miles from Pasargadae, or of more than forty by
+      the ordinary road, grew up the second capital, Persepolis, occupying a
+      more southern position than the primitive seat of power, but still
+      situated towards the edge of the plateau, having the mountain-barrier to
+      the south-west and the desert at no great distance to the north-east. Like
+      its predecessor, Persepolis was situated in a plain, but in a plain of
+      much larger dimensions and of far greater fertility. The plain of Merdasht
+      is one of the most productive in Persia, being watered by the two streams
+      of the Bendamir and the Pulwar, which unite a few miles below the site of
+      the ancient city. From these two copious and unfailing rivers a plentiful
+      supply of the precious fluid can at all times be obtained; and in Persia
+      such a supply will always create the loveliest verdure, the most abundant
+      crops, and the richest and thickest foliage. The site of Persopolis is
+      naturally far superior to that in which the modern provincial capital,
+      Shiraz, has grown up, at about the same distance from Persepolis as that
+      is from Pasargadae. and in the same&mdash;i.e. in a south-west&mdash;direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides Persepolis and Pasargadse, Persia Proper contained but few cities
+      of any note or name. If we include Carmania in Persia, Carmana, the
+      capital of that country, may indeed be mentioned as a third Persian town
+      of some consequence; but otherwise the names which occur in ancient
+      authors are insignificant, and designate villages rather than towns of any
+      size. Carmana, however, which is mentioned by Ptolemy and Ammianus as the
+      capital of those parts, seems to have been a place of considerable
+      importance. It may be identified with the modern Kerman, which lies in
+      lat. 39° 55&rsquo;, long. 56° 13&rsquo;, and is still one of the chief cities of
+      Persia. Situated, like Pasargadae and Persepolis, in a capacious plain
+      surrounded by mountains, which furnish sufficient water for cultivation to
+      be carried on by means of kanats in most parts of the tract enclosed by
+      them, and occupying a site through which the trade of the country almost
+      of necessity passes, Kerman must always be a town of no little
+      consequence. Its inland and remote position, however, caused it to be
+      little known to the Greeks; and, apparently, the great Alexandrian
+      geographer was the first who made them acquainted with its existence and
+      locality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian towns or villages upon the coast of the Gulf were chiefly
+      Armuza (which gave name to the district of Ar-muzia), opposite the modern
+      island of Ormuz; Sisidona, which must have been near Cape Jerd; Apostana,
+      probably about Shewar; Gogana, no doubt the modern Kongoon; and Taoce on
+      the Granis, famous as having in its neighborhood a royal palace, which we
+      may perhaps place near Dalaki, Taoce itself occupying the position of
+      Rohilla, at the mouth of the Khisht river. Of the inland towns the most
+      remarkable, after Persepolis, Pasargadse, and Carmana, were Gabae, near
+      Pasar-gadae, also the site of a palace; Uxia, or the Uxian city, which may
+      have occupied the position of Mai-Amir, Obroatis, Tragonice, Ardea,
+      Portospana, Hyrba, etc., which it is impossible to locate unless by the
+      merest conjecture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chief districts into which the territory was divided were Paraetacene,
+      a portion of the Bakhtiyari mountain-chain, which some, however, reckoned
+      to Media; Mardyene, or the country of the Mardi, also one of the hill
+      tracts; Taocene, the district about Taoce, part of the low sandy coast
+      region; Ciribo, the more northern portion of the same region; and
+      Carmania, the entire eastern territory. These districts were not divided
+      from one another by any marked natural features, the only division of the
+      country to which such a character attached being the triple one into the
+      high sandy plains north of the mountains, the mountain region, and the
+      Deshtistan, or low hot tract along the coast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this account it will be easy to understand how Persia Proper acquired
+      and maintained the character of &ldquo;a scant land and a rugged,&rdquo; which we find
+      attaching to it in ancient authors. The entire area, as has been already
+      observed was about 100,000 square miles&mdash;little more than half that
+      of Spain, and about one fifth of the area of modern Persia. Even of this
+      space nearly one half was uninhabitable, consisting either of barren stony
+      mountain or of scorching sandy plain, ill supplied with water, and often
+      impregnated with salt, the habitable portion consisted of the valleys and
+      plains among the mountains and along their skirts, together with certain
+      favored spots upon the banks of streams in the flat regions. These flat
+      regions themselves were traversed in many places by rocky ridges of a
+      singularly forbidding aspect. The whole appearance of the country was dry,
+      stony, sterile. As a modern writer observes, &ldquo;the livery of the land is
+      constantly brown or gray; water is scanty; plains and mountains are
+      equally destitute of wood. When the traveller, after toiling over the
+      rocky mountains that separate the plains looks down from the pass he has
+      won with toil and difficulty upon the country below, his eye wanders
+      unchecked and unrested over an uniform brown expanse losing itself in
+      distance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still this character, though predominant, is not universal. Wherever there
+      is water, vegetation springs up. The whole of the mountain region is
+      intersected by valleys and plains which are more or less fertile. The line
+      of country between Bebahan and Shiraz is for above sixty miles &ldquo;covered
+      with wood and verdure,&rdquo; in East of Shiraz, on the route between that city
+      and Kerman the country is said to be in parts &ldquo;picturesque and romantic,&rdquo;
+       consisting of &ldquo;low luxuriant valleys or; plains separated by ranges of low
+      mountains, green to their very summits with beautiful turf.&rdquo; The plains of
+      Khubbes, Merdasht, Ujan, Shiraz, Kazerun, and others, produce abundantly
+      under a very inefficient system of cultivation. Even in the most arid
+      tracts there is generally a time of greenness immediately after the spring
+      rains, when the whole country smiles with verdure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been already remarked that the Empire, which, commencing from
+      Persia Proper, spread itself towards the close of the sixth century before
+      Christ, over the surrounding tracts, included a number of countries not
+      yet described in these volumes, since they formed no part of any of the
+      four Empires which preceded the Persian. To complete, therefore, the
+      geographical survey proper to our subject, it will be necessary to give a
+      sketch of the tracts in question. They will fall naturally into three
+      groups, an eastern, a north-western, and a southwestern&mdash;the eastern
+      extending from the skirts of Mount Zagros to the Indian Desert, the
+      north-western from the Caspian to the Propontis, and the south-western
+      from the borders of Palestine to the shores of the Greater Syrtis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inside the Zagros and Elburz ranges, bounded on the north and west by
+      those mountain-lines, on the east by the ranges of Suliman and Hala, and
+      on the south by the coast-chain which runs from Persia Proper nearly to
+      the Indus, lies a vast tableland, from 3000 to 5000 feet above the
+      sea-level, known to modern geographers as the Great Plateau of Iran. Its
+      shape is an irregular rectangle, or trapezium, extending in its greatest
+      length, which is from west to east, no less than twenty degrees, or above
+      1100 miles, while the breadth from north to south varies from seven
+      degrees, or 480 miles (which is its measure along the line of Zagros), to
+      ten degrees, or 690 miles, where it abuts upon the Indus valley. The area
+      of the tract is probably from 500,000 to 600,000 square miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is calculated that two thirds of this elevated region are absolutely
+      and entirely desert. The rivers which flow from the mountains surrounding
+      it are, with a single exception&mdash;that of the Etymandrus or Helmend&mdash;insignificant,
+      and their waters almost always lose themselves, after a course
+      proportioned to their volume, in the sands of the interior. Only two, the
+      Helmend and the river of Ghuzni, have even the strength to form lakes; the
+      others are absorbed by irrigation, or sucked up by the desert.
+      Occasionally a river, rising within the mountains, forces its way through
+      the barrier, and so contrives to reach the sea. This is the case,
+      especially, on the south, where the coast chain is pierced by a number of
+      streams, some of which have their sources at a considerable distance
+      inland. On the north the Heri-rud, or River of Herat, makes its escape in
+      a similar way from the plateau, but only to be absorbed, after passing
+      through two mountain chains, in the sands of the Kharesm. Thus by far the
+      greater portion of this region is desert throughout the year, while, as
+      the summer advances, large tracts, which in the spring were green, are
+      burnt up&mdash;the rivers shrink back towards their sources&mdash;the
+      whole plateau becomes dry and parched&mdash;and the traveller wonders that
+      any portion of it should be inhabited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must not be supposed that the entire plateau of which we have been
+      speaking is to the eye a single level and unbroken plain. In the western
+      portion of the region the plains are constantly intersected by &ldquo;brown,
+      irregular, rocky ridges,&rdquo; rising to no great height, but serving to
+      condense the vapors held in the air, and furnishing thereby springs and
+      wells of inestimable value to the inhabitants. In the southern and eastern
+      districts &ldquo;immense&rdquo; ranges of mountains are said to occur; and the
+      south-eastern as well as the north-eastern corners of the plateau are
+      little else than confused masses of giant elevations. Vast flats, however,
+      are found. In the Great Salt Desert, which extends from Kashan and Koum to
+      the Deriah or &ldquo;Sea&rdquo; in which the Helmend terminates, and in the sandy
+      desert of Seistan, which lies east and south-east of that lake, reaching
+      from near Furrah to the Mekran mountains, plains of above a hundred miles
+      in extent appear to occur, sometimes formed of loose sand, which the wind
+      raises into waves like those of the sea, sometimes hard and gravelly, or
+      of baked and indurated clay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tract in question, which at the present day is divided between
+      Afghanistan, Beloochistan, and Iran, contained, at the time when the
+      Persian Empire arose, the following nations: the Sagartians, the
+      Cossseans, the Parthians, the Hariva or Arians, the Gandarians, the
+      Sattagydians, the Arachotians, the Thamanseans, the Sarangae, and the
+      Paricanians. The Sagartians and Cossseans dwelt in the western portion of
+      the tract, the latter probably about the Siah-Koh mountains, the former
+      scattered over the whole region from the borders of Persia Proper to the
+      Caspian Gates and the Elburz range. Along its northern edge, east of the
+      Sagartians, were the Parthians, the Arians, and the Gandarians. occurring
+      in that order as we proceed from west to east. The Parthians held the
+      country known now as the Atak or &ldquo;Skirt,&rdquo; the flat tract at the southern
+      base of the Elburz from about Shahrud to Khaff, together with a portion of
+      the mountain region adjoining. This is a rich and valuable territory, well
+      watered by a number of small streams, which, issuing from the ravines and
+      valleys of the Elburz, spread fertility around, but lose themselves after
+      a short, course in the Salt Desert. Adjoining the Parthians upon the east
+      were the Haroyu, Hariva, or Arians, an Iranic race of great antiquity, who
+      held the country along the southern skirts of the mountains from the
+      neighborhood of Khaff to the point where the Heri-rud (Arius) issues from
+      the Paropamisan mountains. The character of this country closely resembles
+      that of Parthia, whereof it is a continuation; but the copious stream of
+      the Heri-rud renders it even more productive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Gandarians held Kabul, and the mountain tract on both sides of the
+      Kabul river as far as the upper course of the Indus, thus occupying the
+      extreme north-eastern corner of the plateau, the region where its
+      elevation is the greatest. Lofty mountain-ridges, ramifying in various
+      directions but tending generally to run east and west, deep gorges, narrow
+      and tremendous passes, like the Khyber, characterize this district. Its
+      soil is generally rocky and barren; but many of the valleys are fertile,
+      abounding with enchanting scenery and enjoying a delightful climate. More
+      especially is this the case in the neighborhood of the city of Kabul,
+      which is perhaps the Caspatyrus of Herodotus, where Darius built the fleet
+      which descended the Indus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      South of Aria and Gandaria, in the tract between the Great Desert and the
+      Indus valley, the plateau was occupied by four nations&mdash;the
+      Thamanseans, the Sarangians, the Sattagydians, and the Arachotians. The
+      Thamanaean country appears to have been that which lies south and
+      south-east of Aria (Herat), reaching from the Haroot-rud or river of
+      Subzawar to the banks of the Helmend about Ghirisk. This is a varied
+      region, consisting on the north and the north-east of several high
+      mountain chains which ramify from a common centre, having between them
+      large tracts of hills and downs, while towards the south and the
+      south-west the country is comparatively low and flat, descending to the
+      level of the desert about the thirty second parallel. Here the Thamanseans
+      were adjoined upon by the Sarangians, who held the land about the lake in
+      which the Helmend terminates&mdash;the Seistan of Modern Persia. Seistan
+      is mainly desert. One third of the surface of the soil is composed of
+      moving sands, and the other two thirds of a compact sand, mixed with a
+      little clay, but very rich in vegetable matter. It is traversed by a
+      number of streams, as the Haroot-rud, the river of Furrah, the river of
+      Khash, the Helmend, and others, and is very productive along their banks,
+      which are fertilized by annual inundations; but the country between the
+      streams is for the most part an arid desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sattagydians and Arachotians divided between them the remainder of
+      Afghanistan, the former probably occupying south-eastern Kabul, from the
+      Ghuzni river and its tributaries to the valley of the Indus, while the
+      latter were located in the modern Candahar, upon the Urghand-ab and Turnuk
+      rivers. The character of these tracts is similar to that of north-western
+      Kabul, but somewhat less rugged and mountainous. Hills and downs alternate
+      with rocky ranges and fairly fertile vales. There is a scantiness of
+      water, but still a certain number of moderate-sized rivers, tolerably well
+      supplied with affluents. The soil, however, is either rocky or sandy; and
+      without a careful system of irrigation great portions of the country
+      remain of necessity barren and unproductive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The south-eastern corner of the plateau, below the countries of the
+      Sarangians and the Arachotians, was occupied by a people, called
+      Paricanians by Herodotus, perhaps identical with the Gedrosians of later
+      writers. This district, the modern Beloochistan, is still very imperfectly
+      known, but appears to be generally mountainous, to have a singularly
+      barren soil, and to be deficient in rivers. The nomadic life is a
+      necessity in the greater part of the region, which is in few places
+      suitable for cultivation, but has good pastures in the mountains or the
+      plains according to the season of the year. The rivers of the country are
+      for the most part mere torrents, which carry a heavy body of water after
+      rains, but are often absolutely dry for several months in succession.
+      Water, however, is generally obtainable by digging wells in their beds;
+      and the liquid procured in this way suffices, not only for the wants of
+      man and beast, but also for a limited irrigation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Great Plateau which has been here described is bordered everywhere,
+      except at its north-eastern and north-western corners, by low regions. On
+      the north the lowland is at first a mere narrow strip intervening between
+      the Elburz range and the Caspian, a strip which has been already described
+      in the account given of the Third Monarchy. Where, however, the Caspian
+      ends, its shore trending away to the northward, there succeeds to this
+      mere strip of territory a broad and ample tract of sandy plain, extending
+      from about the 54th to the 68th degree of east longitude&mdash;a distance
+      of 760 miles&mdash;and reaching from the 36th to the 50th parallel of
+      north latitude&mdash;a distance not much short of a thousand miles! This
+      tract which comprises the modern Khanats of Khiva and Bokhara, together
+      with a considerable piece of Southern Asiatic Russia, is for the most part
+      a huge trackless desert, composed of loose sand, black or red, which the
+      wind heaps up into hills. Scarcely any region on the earth&rsquo;s surface is
+      more desolate. The boundless plain lies stretched before the traveller
+      like an interminable sea, but dead, dull, and motionless. Vegetation, even
+      the most dry and sapless, scarcely exists. For three or four hundred miles
+      together he sees no running stream. Water, salt, slimy, and discolored,
+      lies Occasionally in pools, or is drawn from wells, which yield however
+      only a scanty supply. For anything like a drinkable beverage the traveller
+      has to trust to the skies, which give or withhold their stores with a
+      caprice that is truly tantalizing. Occasionally, but only at long
+      intervals, out of the low sandy region there issues a rocky range, or a
+      plateau of moderate eminence, where the soil is firm, the ground smooth,
+      and vegetation tolerably abundant. The most important of the ranges are
+      the Great and Little Balkan, near the Caspian Sea, between the 39th and
+      40th parallels, the Khalata and Urta Tagh, north-west, of Bokhara, and the
+      Kukuth; still further to the north-west in latitude 42° nearly. The chief
+      plateau is that of Ust-Urt, between the Caspian and the Sea of Aral, which
+      is perhaps not more than three or four hundred feet above the sandy plain,
+      but is entirely different in character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This desolate region of low sandy plain would be wholly uninhabitable,
+      were it not for the rivers. Two great streams, the Amoo or Jyhun
+      (anciently the Oxus), and the Sir or Synuti (anciently the Jaxartes),
+      carry their waters across the desert, and pour them into the basin of the
+      Aral. Several others of less volume, as the Murg-ab, or river of Merv, the
+      Abi Meshed or Tejend, the Heri-rud, the river of Maymene, the river of
+      Balkh, the river of Khulm, the Shehri-Sebz, the Ak Su or river of Bokhara,
+      the Kizil Deria, etc., flow down from the high ground into the plain,
+      where their waters either become lost in the sands, or terminate in small
+      salt pools. Along the banks of these streams the soil is fertile, and
+      where irrigation is employed the crops are abundant. In the vicinity of
+      Khiva, at Kermineh on the Bokhara river, at Samarcand, at Balkh&mdash;and
+      in a few other places, the vegetation is even luxuriant; gardens, meadows,
+      orchards, and cornfields fringe the river-bank; and the natives see in
+      such favored spots resemblances of Paradise! Often, however, even the
+      river-banks themselves are uncultivated, and the desert creeps up to their
+      very edge; but this is in default, not in spite, of human exertion. A
+      well-managed system of irrigation could, in almost every instance, spread
+      on either side of the streams a broad strip of verdure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the time of the Fifth Monarchy, the tract which has been here described
+      was divided among three nations. The region immediately to the east of the
+      Caspian, bounded on the north by the old course of the Oxus and extending
+      eastward to the neighborhood of Merv, though probably not including that
+      city, was Chorasmia, the country of the Chorasmians. Across the Oxus to
+      the north-east was Sogdiana (or Sugd), reaching thence to the Jaxartes,
+      which was the Persian boundary in this direction. South of Sogdiana,
+      divided from it by the Middle and Upper Oxus, was Bactria, the country of
+      the Bakhtars or Bactrians. The territory of this people reached southward
+      to the foot of the Paropamisus, adjoining Chorasmia and Aria on the west,
+      and on the south Sattagydia and Gandaria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      East of the table-land lies the valley of the Indus and its tributaries,
+      at first a broad tract, 350 miles from west to east, but narrowing as it
+      descends, and in places not exceeding sixty or seventy miles, across. The
+      length of the valley is not less than 800 miles. Its area is probably
+      about a hundred thousand square miles. We may best regard it as composed
+      of two very distinct tracts&mdash;one the broad triangular plain towards
+      the north, to which, from the fact of its being watered by five main
+      streams, he natives have given the name of Punj-ab, the other the long and
+      comparatively narrow valley of the single Indus river, which, deriving its
+      appellation from that noble stream, is known in modern geography as Sinde.
+      The Punjab, which contains an area of above fifty thousand square miles,
+      is mountainous towards the north, where it adjoins on Kashmeer and Thibet,
+      but soon sinks down into a vast plain, with a soil which is chiefly either
+      sand or clay, immensely productive under irrigation, but tending to become
+      jungle or desert if left without human care. Sinde, or the Indus valley
+      below the Punjab, is a region of even greater fertility. It is watered,
+      not only by the main stream of the Indus, but by a number of branch
+      channels which the river begins to throw off from about the 28th parallel.
+      It includes, on the right bank of the stream, the important tract called
+      Cutchi Gandava, a triangular plain at the foot of the Suliman and Hala
+      ranges, containing about 7000 square miles of land which is all capable of
+      being made into a garden. The soil is here for the most part rich, black,
+      and loamy; water is abundant; and the climate suitable for the growth of
+      all kinds of grain. Below Cutchi Gandava the valley of the Indus is narrow
+      for about a hundred miles, but about Tatta it expands and a vast delta is
+      formed. This is a third triangle, containing above a thousand square miles
+      of the richest alluvium, which is liable however to floods and to vast
+      changes in the river beds, whereby often whole fields are swept away. Much
+      of this tract is moreover low and swampy; the climate is trying; and rice
+      is almost the only product that can be advantageously cultivated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The low region lying south of the Great Plateau is neither extensive nor
+      valuable. It consists of a mere strip of land along the coast of the
+      Indian Ocean, extending a distance of about nine degrees (550 miles) from
+      the mouth of the Persian Gulf to Cape Monze, near Kurrachee, but in width
+      not exceeding ten or, at the most, twenty miles. This tract was occupied
+      in ancient times mainly by a race which Herodotus called Ethiopians and
+      the historians of Alexander Ichthyophagi (Fish-Eaters). It is an arid,
+      sultry, and unpleasant region, scarcely possessing a perennial stream, and
+      depending for its harvests entirely upon the winter rains, and for its
+      water during the summer on wells which are chiefly brackish. Tolerable
+      pasturage is, however, obtainable in places even during the hottest part
+      of the year, and between Cape Jask and Gwattur the crops produced are far
+      from contemptible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small tract of coast, a continuation of the territory just described,
+      intervening between it and Kerman, was occupied in the early Persian times
+      by a race known to the Persians as Maka, and to the Greeks as Mycians.
+      This district, reaching from about Cape Jask to Gombroon, is one of
+      greater fertility than is usual in these regions, being particularly
+      productive in dates and grain. This fertility seems, however, to be
+      confined to the vicinity of the sea-shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To complete the description of the Eastern provinces two other tracts must
+      be mentioned. The mountain-chain which skirts the Great Plateau on the
+      north, distinguished in these pages by the name of Elburz, broadens out
+      after it passes the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea till it covers
+      a space of nearly three degrees (more than 200 miles). Instead of the
+      single lofty ridge which separates the Salt Desert from the low Caspian
+      region, we find between the fifty-fourth and fifty-ninth degrees of east
+      longitude three or four distinct ranges, all nearly parallel to one
+      another, having a general direction of east and west. Broad and rich
+      valleys are enclosed between these latitudinal ranges which are watered by
+      rivers of a considerable size, as more especially the Ettrek and the
+      Gurgan. Thus a territory is formed capable of supporting a largish
+      population, a territory which possesses a natural unity, being shut in on
+      three sides by mountains, and on the fourth by the Caspian. Here in
+      Persian times was settled a people called Hyrcani; and from them the tract
+      derived the name of Hyrcania (Vehrkana), while the lake on which it
+      adjoined came to be known as &ldquo;the Hyrcanian Sea.&rdquo; The fertility of the
+      region, its broad plains, shady woods and lofty mountains were celebrated
+      by the ancient writers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Further to the east, beyond the low sandy plain, and beyond the mountains
+      in which its great rivers have their source&mdash;on the other side of the
+      &ldquo;Roof of the World,&rdquo; as the natives name this elevated region&mdash;lay a
+      tract unimportant in itself, but valuable to the Persians as the home of a
+      people from whom they obtained excellent soldiers. The plain of Chinese
+      Tartary, the district about Kashgar and Yarkand, seems to have been in
+      possession of certain Sacans or Scythians, who in the flourishing times of
+      the empire acknowledged subjection to the Persian crown. These Sacans, who
+      call themselves Huma-varga or Amyrgians, furnished some of the best and
+      bravest of the Persian troops. Westward they bordered on Sogdiana and
+      Bactria; northward they extended probably to the great mountain-chain of
+      the Tien-chan; on the east they were shut in by the vast desert of Gobi or
+      Shamoo; while southward they must have touched Gandaria and perhaps India.
+      A portion of this country&mdash;that towards the north and west&mdash;was
+      well watered and fairly productive; but the southern and eastern part of
+      it must have been arid and desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this consideration of the Eastern provinces of the Empire, we pass on
+      naturally to those which lay towards the North-West. The Caspian Sea alone
+      intervened between these two groups, which thus approached each other
+      within a distance of some 250 or 260 miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost immediately to the west of the Caspian there rises a high
+      table-land diversified by mountains, which stretches eastward for more
+      than eighteen degrees between the 37th and 41st parallels. This highland
+      may properly be regarded as a continuation of the great Iranean plateau,
+      with which it is connected at its south-eastern corner. It comprises a
+      portion of the modern Persia, the whole of Armenia, and most of Asia
+      Minor. Its principal mountain-ranges are latitudinal or from west to east,
+      only the minor ones taking the opposite or longitudinal direction. Of the
+      latitudinal chains the most important is the Taurus, which, commencing at
+      the southwestern corner of Asia Minor in longitude 29° nearly, bounds the
+      great table-land upon the south, running parallel with the shore at the
+      distance of sixty or seventy miles as far as the Pylse Cilicise, near
+      Tarsus, and then proceeding in a direction decidedly north of east to the
+      neighborhood of Lake Van, where it unites with the line of Zagros. The
+      elevation of this range, though not equal to that of some in Asia, is
+      considerable. In Asia Minor the loftiest of the Taurus peaks seem to
+      attain a height of about 9000 or 10,000 feet. Further to the east the
+      elevation appears to be even greater, the peaks of Ala Dagh, Sapan,
+      Nimrud, and Mut Khan in the tract about Lake Van being all of them
+      considerably above the line of perpetual snow, and therefore probably
+      11,000 or 12,000 feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the opposite side of the table-land, bounding it towards the north,
+      there runs under various names a second continuous range of inferior
+      elevation, which begins near Brusa, in the Keshish Dagh or Mysian Olympus,
+      and proceeds in a line nearly parallel with the northern coast to the
+      vicinity of Kars. Between this and Taurus are two other important ridges,
+      which run westward from the neighborhood of Ararat to about the 34th
+      degree of east longitude, after which they subside into the plain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heart of the mountain-region, the tract extending from the district of
+      Erivan on the east to the upper course of the Kizil-Irmak river and the
+      vicinity of Sivas upon the west, was, as it still is, Armenia. Amidst
+      these natural fastnesses, in a country of lofty ridges, deep and narrow
+      valleys, numerous and copious streams, and occasional broad plains&mdash;a
+      country of rich pasture grounds, productive orchards, and abundant
+      harvests&mdash;this interesting people has maintained itself almost
+      unchanged from the time of the early Persian kings to the present day.
+      Armenia was one of the most valuable portions of the Persian Empire,
+      furnishing, as it did, besides stone and timber, and several most
+      important minerals, an annual supply of 20,000 excellent horses to the
+      stud of the Persian king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The highland west of Armenia, the plateau of Asia Minor, from the
+      longitude of Siwas (37° E.) to the sources of the Meander and the Hermus,
+      was occupied by the two nations of the Cappadocians and Phrygians, whose
+      territories were separated by the Kizil-Irmak or Halys river. This tract,
+      though diversified by some considerable ranges, and possessing one really
+      lofty mountain, that of Argseus, was, compared with Armenia, champaign and
+      level. Its broad plains afforded the best possible pasturage for sheep,
+      while at the same time they bore excellent crops of wheat. The entire
+      region was well-watered; it enjoyed a delightful climate; and besides corn
+      and cattle furnished many products of value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the plateau on the north, on the north-east, on the west, and on
+      the south, lie territories which, in comparison with the high region
+      whereon they adjoined, may be called lowlands. The north-eastern lowland,
+      the broad and rich valley of the Kur, which corresponds closely with the
+      modern Russian province of Georgia, was in the possession of a people
+      called by Herodotus Saspeires or Sapeires, whom we may identify with the
+      Iberians of later writers. Adjoining upon them towards the south, probably
+      in the country about Erivan, and so in the neighborhood of Ararat, were
+      the Alarodians, whose name must be connected with that of the great
+      mountain. On the other side of the Sapeirian country, in the tracts now
+      known as Mingrelia and Imeritia, regions of a wonderful beauty and
+      fertility, were the Colchians&mdash;dependants, but not exactly subjects,
+      of Persia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The northern lowland, which consisted of a somewhat narrow strip of land
+      between the plateau and the Euxine, was a rich and well-wooded region, 630
+      miles in length, and in breadth from forty to a hundred. It was inhabited
+      by a large number of rude and barbarous tribes, each of whom possessed a
+      small portion of the sea-board. These tribes, enumerated in the order of
+      their occurrence from east to west, were the following: the Moschi, the
+      Macrones (or Tzani), the Mosy-noeci, the Mares, the Tibareni, the
+      Chalybes, the Paphlagones, the Mariandyni, the Bithyni, and the Thyni. The
+      Moschi, Macrones, Mosynoeci, Mares, and Tibareni dwelt towards the east,
+      occupying the coast from Batoum to Ordou. The Chalybes inhabited the tract
+      immediately adjoining on Sinope. The Paphlagonians held the rest of the
+      coast from the mouth of the Kizil-Irmak to Cape Baba, where they were
+      succeeded by the Mariandyni, who owned the small tract between Cape Baba
+      and the mouth of the Sakkariyeh (Sangarius). From the Sangarius to the
+      canal of Constantinople dwelt the Thynians and Bithynians intermixed, the
+      former however affecting the coast and the latter the interior of the
+      country. The entire tract was of a nearly uniform character, consisting of
+      wooded spurs from the northern mountain-chain, with, valleys of greater or
+      less width between them. Streams were numerous, and vegetation was
+      consequently rich; but it may be doubted whether the climate was healthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The western lowland comprised the inland regions of Mysia, Lydia, and
+      Caria, together with the coast-tracts which had been occupied by immigrant
+      Greeks, and which were known as Juolis, Doris, and Ionia. The broad and
+      rich plains, the open valleys, the fair grassy mountains, the noble trees,
+      the numerous and copious rivers of this district are too well known to
+      need description here. The western portion of Asia Minor is a terrestrial
+      paradise, well deserving the praises which Herodotus with patriotic
+      enthusiasm bestowed upon it. The climate is delightful, only that it is
+      somewhat too luxurious; the soil is rich and varied in quality; the
+      vegetable productions are abundant; and the mountains, at any rate
+      anciently, possessed mineral treasures of great value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lowland upon the south is narrower and more mountainous than either of
+      the others. It comprised three countries only&mdash;Lycia, Pamphylia, and
+      Cilicia. The tract is chiefly occupied by spurs from Taurus, between which
+      lie warm and richly wooded valleys. In Lycia, however, the mountain-ridges
+      embrace some extensive uplands, on a level not much inferior to that of
+      the central plateau itself, while in Pamphylia and Cilicia are two or
+      three low alluvial plains of tolerable extent and of great fertility. Of
+      these the most remarkable is that near Tarsus, formed by the three streams
+      of the Cydnus, the Sarus, and the Pyramus, which extends along the coast a
+      distance of forty miles and reaches inland about thirty, the region which
+      gave to the tract where it occurs the name of Cilicia Campestris or
+      Pedias.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian dominion in this quarter was not bounded by sea. Opposite to
+      Cilicia lay the large and important island of Cyprus, which was included
+      in the territories of the Great King from the time of Cambyses to the
+      close of the Empire. Further to the west, Rhodes, Cos, Samos, Chios,
+      Lesbos, Tenedos, Lemnus, Imbrus, Samothrace, Thasos, and most of the
+      islands of the Egean were for a time Persian, but were never grasped with
+      such firmness as to be a source of real strength to their conquerors. The
+      same may be said of Thrace and Pseonia, subjugated under Darius, and held
+      for some twenty or thirty years, but not assimilated, not brought into the
+      condition of provinces, and therefore rather a drain upon the Empire than
+      an addition to its resources. It seems unnecessary to lengthen out this
+      description of the Persian territories by giving an account of countries
+      and islands, whose connection with the Empire was at once so slight and so
+      temporary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few words must, however, be said respecting Cyprus. This island, which
+      is 140 miles long from Bafa (Paphos) to Cape Andrea, with an average width
+      for two thirds of its length of thirty-five, and for the remaining third
+      of about six or seven miles, is a mountainous tract, picturesque and
+      varied, containing numerous slopes, and a few plains, well fitted for
+      cultivation. According to Eratosthenes it was in the more ancient times
+      richly wooded, but was gradually cleared by human labor. Its soil was
+      productive, and particularly well suited for the vine and the olive. It
+      grew also sufficient corn for its own use. But its special value arose
+      from its mineral products. The copper mines near Tamasus were enormously
+      productive, and the ore thence derived so preponderated over all other
+      supplies that the later Romans came to use the word Cyprium for the metal
+      generally&mdash;whence the names by which it is even now known in most of
+      the languages of modern Europe. On the whole Cyprus was considered
+      inferior to no known island. Besides its vegetable and mineral products,
+      it furnished a large number of excellent sailors to the Persian fleet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It remains to notice briefly those provinces of the south-west which had
+      not been included within any of the preceding monarchies, and which are
+      therefore as yet undescribed in these volumes. These provinces are the
+      African, and may be best considered under the three heads of Egypt, Libya,
+      and the Cyrenaica.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Egypt, if we include under the name not merely the Nile valley and the
+      Delta, but the entire tract interposed between the Libyan Desert on the
+      one side and the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea on the other, is a country of
+      nearly the size of Italy. It measures 520 miles from Elephantine to the
+      Mediterranean, and has an average width of 150 or 160 miles. It must thus
+      contain an area of about 80,000 square miles. Of this space, however, at
+      least three fourths is valueless, consisting of bare rocky mountain or dry
+      sandy plain. It is only along the course of the narrow valley in which the
+      Nile flows from the Cataracts to beyond Cairo, in the tract known as the
+      Faioum, and in the broad region of the Delta, that cultivation is
+      possible. Even in the Delta itself there are large spaces which are arid,
+      and others which are permanent marshes, so that considerable portions of
+      its surface are unfitted for husbandry. But if the quantity of cultivable
+      land is thus limited in Egypt, the quality is so excellent, in consequence
+      of the alluvial character of the soil, that the country was always in
+      ancient times a sort of granary of the world. The noble river, bringing
+      annually a fresh deposit of the richest soil, and furnishing a supply of
+      water, which is sufficient, if carefully husbanded, to produce a
+      succession of luxuriant crops throughout the year, makes Egypt&mdash;what
+      it is even at the present day&mdash;one of the most fertile portions of
+      the earth&rsquo;s surface&mdash;a land of varied products, all excellent&mdash;but
+      especially a land of corn, to which the principal nations of the world
+      looked for their supplies, either regularly, or at any rate in times of
+      difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      West of Egypt was a dry and sandy tract, dotted with oases, but otherwise
+      only habitable along the shore, which in the time of the Persian Empire
+      was occupied by a number of wild tribes who were mostly in the lowest
+      condition to which savage man is capable of sinking. The geographical
+      extent of this tract was large, exceeding considerably that of Egypt; but
+      its value was slight. Naturally, it produced nothing but dates and hides.
+      The inhumanity of the inhabitants made it, however, further productive of
+      a commodity, which, until the world is christianized, will probably always
+      be regarded as one of high value&mdash;the commodity of negro slaves,
+      which were procured in the Sahara by slave-hunts, and perhaps by purchase
+      in Nigritia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still further to the west, and forming the boundary of the Empire in this
+      direction, lay the district of the Cyrenaica, a tract of singular
+      fertility and beauty. Between Benghazi, in east longitude 20°, and the Ras
+      al Tynn (long. 23° 15&rsquo;), there rises above the level of the adjacent
+      regions an extensive table land, which, attracting the vapors that float
+      over the Mediterranean, condenses them, and so abounds with springs and
+      rills. A general freshness and greenness, with rich vegetation in places,
+      is the consequence. Olives, figs, carobs, junipers, oleanders, cypresses,
+      cedars, myrtles, arbutus-trees, cover the flanks of the plateau and the
+      hollows which break its surface, while the remainder is suitable alike for
+      the cultivation of cereals and for pasturage. Nature has also made the
+      region a special gift in the laserpitium or silphium, which was regarded
+      by the ancients as at once a delicacy and a plant of great medicinal
+      power, and which added largely to the value of the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the geographical extent of the Persian Empire, and such were the
+      chief provinces which it contained besides those previously comprised in
+      the empires of Media or Babylon. Territorially, the great mass of the
+      Empire lay towards the east, between long. 50° and 75°, or between the
+      Zagros range and the Indian Desert. But its most important provinces were
+      the western ones. East of Persepolis, the only regions of much value were
+      the valleys of the Indus and the Oxus. Westward lay Susiana, Babylonia,
+      Assyria, Media, Armenia, Iberia, Cappadocia, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Syria,
+      Palestine, Egypt, the Cyrenaica&mdash;all countries of great, or at least
+      considerable, productiveness. The two richest grain tracts of the ancient
+      world, the best pasture regions, the districts which produced the most
+      valuable horses, the most abundant of known gold-fields, were included
+      within the limits of the Empire, which may be looked upon as
+      self-sufficing, containing within it all that man in those days required,
+      not only for his necessities, but even for his most cherished luxuries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The productiveness of the Empire was the natural result of its possessing
+      so many and such large rivers. Six streams of the first class, having
+      courses exceeding a thousand miles in length, helped to fertilize the
+      lands which owned the sway of the Great King. These were the Nile, the
+      Indus, the Euphrates, the Jaxartes, the Oxus, and the Tigris. Two of the
+      six have been already described in these volumes, and therefore will not
+      need to detain us here; but a few words must be said with respect to each
+      of the remaining four, if our sketch of the geography of the Empire is to
+      make any approach to completeness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Nile was only in the latter part of its course a Persian stream.
+      Flowing, as we now know that it does, from within a short distance of the
+      equator, it had accomplished more than three fourths of its course before
+      it entered a Persian province. It ran, however, through Persian territory
+      a distance of about six hundred miles, and conferred on the tract through
+      which it passed immeasurable benefits. The Greeks sometimes maintained
+      that &ldquo;Egypt was the gift of the river;&rdquo; and, though this was very far from
+      being a correct statement in the sense intended, there is a meaning of the
+      words in which we may accept them as expressing a fact. Egypt is only what
+      she is through her river. The Nile gives her all that makes her valuable.
+      This broad, ample, and unfailing stream not only by its annual inundation
+      enriches the soil and prepares it for tillage in a manner that renders
+      only the lightest further labor necessary, but serves as a reservoir from
+      which inexhaustible supplies of the precious fluid can be obtained
+      throughout the whole of the year. The water, which rises towards the end
+      of June, begins to subside early in October, and for half the year&mdash;from
+      December till June&mdash;Egypt is only cultivable through irrigation. She
+      produces, however, during this period, excellent crops&mdash;even at the
+      present day, when there are few canals&mdash;from the facility with which
+      water is obtained, by means of a very simple engine, out of the channel of
+      the Nile. This unfailing supply enabled the cultivator to obtain a second,
+      a third, and even sometimes a fourth crop from the same land within the
+      space of a year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The course of the Nile from Elephantine, where it entered Egypt, to
+      Cercasorus, near Heliopolis, where it bifurcated, was in general north,
+      with, however, a certain tendency westward. It entered Egypt nearly in
+      long. 33°, and at Neapolis (more than two degrees further north) it was
+      still within 15° of the same meridian; then, however, it took a westerly
+      bend, crossed the 32nd and 31st meridians, and in lat. 28° 23 reached west
+      as far as long. 30° 43&rsquo;. After this it returned a little eastward,
+      recrossed the 31st meridian, and having reached long. 31° 22&rsquo; near
+      Aphroditopolis (lat.29° 25), it proceeded almost due north to Cercasorus
+      in lat. 30° 7&rsquo;. The course of the river up to this point was, from its
+      entry into the country, about 540 miles. At Cercasorus the Delta began.
+      The river threw out two branches, which flowed respectively to the
+      north-east and the north-west, while between them was a third channel, a
+      continuation of the previous course of the stream, which pierced the Delta
+      through its centre, flowing almost due north. Lower down, further branch
+      channels were thrown out, some natural, some artificial, and the
+      triangular tract between the two outer arms of the river was intersected
+      by at least five, and (in later times) by fourteen large streams. The
+      right and left arms appear to have been of about equal in length, and may
+      be estimated at 150 or 160 miles; the central arm had a shorter course,
+      not exceeding 110 miles. The volume of water which the Nile pours into the
+      Mediterranean during a day and night is estimated at from 150,000 millions
+      to 700,000 millions of cubic metres. It was by far the largest of all the
+      rivers of the Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Indus, which was the next largest of the Persian rivers to the Nile,
+      rose (like the Nile) outside the Persian territory. Its source is in the
+      region north of the Himalaya range, about lat. 31°, long. 82° 30&rsquo;. It
+      begins by flowing to the north-west, in a direction parallel to that of
+      the Western Himalayas, along the northern flank of which it continues in
+      this line a distance of about 700 miles, past Ladak, to long. 75° nearly.
+      Here it is met by the Bolor chain, which prevents its further progress in
+      this direction and causes it to turn suddenly nearly at a right angle to
+      the south-west. Entering a transverse valley, it finds a way (which is
+      still very imperfectly known) through the numerous ridges of the Himalaya
+      to the plain at its southern base, on which it debouches about thirty
+      miles above Attock. It is difficult to say at what exact point it crossed
+      the Persian frontier, but probably at least the first 700 miles of its
+      course were through territory not Persian. From Attock to the sea the
+      Indus is a noble river. It runs for 900 miles in a general direction of
+      S.S.W. through the plain in one main stream (which is several hundred
+      yards in width), while on its way it throws off also from time to time
+      small side streamlets, which are either consumed in irrigation or rejoin
+      the main channel. A little below Tatta its Delta begins&mdash;a Delta,
+      however, much inferior in size to that of the Nile. The distance from the
+      apex to the sea is not more than sixty miles, and the breadth of the tract
+      embraced between the two arms does not exceed seventy miles. The entire
+      course of the Indus is reckoned at 1960 miles, of which probably 1260 were
+      through Persian territory. The volume of the stream is always
+      considerable, while in the rainy season it is very great. The Indus is
+      said then to discharge into the Indian ocean 446,000 cubic feet per
+      second, or 4280 millions of cubic yards in the twenty-four hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Oxus rises from an Alpine lake, lying on the western side of the Bolor
+      chain in lat. 37° 40&rsquo;, long. 73° 50&rsquo;. After a rapid descent from the high
+      elevation of the lake, during which it pursues a somewhat serpentine
+      course, it debouches from the hills upon the plain about long. 69° 20&rsquo;,
+      after receiving the river of Fyzabad, and then proceeds, first west and
+      afterwards north-west, across the Great Kharesmian Desert to the Sea of
+      Aral. During the first 450 miles of its course, while it runs among the
+      hills, it receives from both sides numerous and important tributaries; but
+      from the meridian of Balkh those fail entirely, and for above 800 miles
+      the Oxus pursues its solitary way, unaugmented by a single affluent,
+      across the waste of Tartary, rolling through the desert a wealth of
+      waters, which must diminish, but which does not seem very sensibly to
+      diminish, by evaporation. At Kilef, sixty miles north-west of Balkh, the
+      width of the river is 350 yards; at Khodja Salih, thirty miles lower down,
+      it is 823 yards with a depth of twenty feet; at Kerki, seventy miles below
+      Khodja Salih, it is &ldquo;twice the width of the Danube at Buda-Pesth,&rdquo; or
+      about 940 yards; at Betik, on the route between Bokhara and Merv, its
+      width has diminished to 650 yards, but its depth has increased to
+      twenty-nine feet. Finally, at Gorlen Hezaresp near Khiva, the breadth of
+      the Oxus is so great that both banks are hardly distinguishable at the
+      same time; but the stream is here comparatively shallow, ceasing to be
+      navigable at about this point. The present course of the Oxus from its
+      rise in Lake Sir-i-Kol to its termination in the Sea of Aral is estimated
+      at 1400 miles. Anciently its course must have been still longer. The Oxus,
+      in the time of the Achaemenian kings, fell into the Caspian by a channel
+      which can even now be traced. Its length was thus increased by at least
+      450 miles, and, exceeding that of the Jaxartes, fell but little short of
+      the length of the Indus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Oxus, like the Nile and the Indus, has a periodical swell, which lasts
+      from May to October. It does not, however, overflow its hanks. Under a
+      scientific system of irrigation it is probable that a considerable belt of
+      land on either side of its course might be brought under cultivation. But
+      at present the extreme limit to which culture is carried, except in the
+      immediate vicinity of Khiva, seems to be four miles; while often, in the
+      absence of human care, the desert creeps up to the very brink of the
+      river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Jaxartes, or Sir-Deria, rises from two sources in the Thian-chan
+      mountain chain, the more remote of which is in long. 79° nearly. The two
+      streams both flow to the westward in almost parallel valleys, uniting
+      about long. 71°. After their junction the course of the stream is still to
+      the westward for two degrees; but between Khokand and Tashkend the river
+      sweeps round in a semicircle and proceeds to run first due north and then
+      north-west, skirting the Kizil Koum desert to Otrar, where it resumes its
+      original westerly direction and flows with continually diminishing volume
+      across the desert to the Sea of Aral. The Jaxartes is a smaller stream
+      than the Oxus. At Otrar, after receiving its last tributary, it is no more
+      than 250 yards wide. Below this point it continually dwindles, partly from
+      evaporation, partly from the branch stream which it throws off right and
+      left, of which the chief are the Cazala and the Kuvan Deria. On its way
+      through the desert it spreads but little fertility along its banks, which
+      are in places high and arid, in others depressed and swampy. The branch
+      streams are of some service for irrigation; and it is possible that a
+      scientific system might turn the water of the main channel to good
+      account, and by its means redeem from the desert large tracts which have
+      never yet been cultivated. But no such system has hitherto been applied to
+      the Sir, and it is doubtful whether success would attend it. The Sir,
+      where it falls into the Sea of Aral, is very shallow, seldom even in the
+      flood season exceeding four feet. The length of the stream was till
+      recently estimated at more than 1208 miles; but the latest explorations
+      seem to require an enlargement of this estimate by at least 200 or 250
+      miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In rivers of the second class the Persian Empire was so rich that it will
+      be impossible, within the limits prescribed for the present work, to do
+      more than briefly enumerate them. The principal were, in Asia Minor, the
+      Hermus (Ghiediz Chai), and the Maeander (Mendere) on the west, the
+      Sangarius (Sakka-riyeh), the Halys (Kizil Irmak), and the Iris (Yechil
+      Irmak) on the north, the Cydnus (Tersoos Chai), Sarus (Cilician Syhun),
+      and Pyramus (Cilician Jyhun) on the south; in Armenia and the adjacent
+      regions, the Araxes (Aras), Cyrus (Kur), and Phasis (Eion); on the Iranic
+      plateau, the Sefid-rud, the Zenderud or river of Isfahan, the Etymandrus
+      (Helmend), and the Arius (Heri-rud); in the low country east of the
+      Caspian, the Gurgan and Ettrek, rivers of Hyrcania, the Margus Churghab
+      (or river of Merv), the Delias or river of Balkh, the Ak Su or Bokhara
+      river, and the Kizil Deria, a stream in the Khanat of Kokand; in
+      Afghanistan and India, the Kabul river, the Hydaspes (Jelum), the Aoesines
+      (Chenab), the Hydraotes (Ravee), and the Hyphasis (Sutlej or Gharra); in
+      Persia Proper, the Oroatis (Hindyan or Tab), and the Bendamir; in Susiana,
+      the Pasitigris (Kuran), the Hedypnus (Jerahi), the Choaspes (Kerkhah), and
+      the Eulsenus (a branch of the same); in the Upper Zagros region, the
+      Gyndes (Diyaleh), and the Greater and Lesser Zabs; in Mesopotamia, the
+      Chaboras (Kha-bour), and Bilichus (Belik); finally, in Syria and
+      Palestine, the Orontes or river of Antioch (Nahr-el-asy), the Jordan, and
+      the Barada or river of Damascus. Thus, besides the six great rivers of the
+      Empire, forty other considerable streams fertilized and enriched the
+      territories of the Persian monarch, which, though they embraced many arid
+      tracts, where cultivation was difficult, must be pronounced upon the whole
+      well-watered, considering their extent and the latitude in which they lay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Empire possessed, besides its rivers, a number of important lakes.
+      Omitting the Caspian and the Aral, which lay upon its borders, there were
+      contained within the Persian territories the following important basins:
+      the Urumiyeh, Lake Van, and Lake Goutcha or Sivan in Armenia; Lakes
+      Touz-Ghieul, Egerdir, Bey-Shehr, Chardak, Soghla, Buldur, Ghieul-Hissar,
+      Iznik, Abullionte, Maniyas, and many others in Asia Minor; the Sabakhah,
+      the Bahr-el-Melak, and the Lake of Antioch in Northern Syria; the Lake of
+      Hems in the Coele-Syrian valley; the Damascus lakes, the Lake of Merom,
+      the Sea of Tiberias, and the Dead Sea in Southern Syria and Palestine;
+      Lake Moeris and the Natron lakes in Egypt; the Bahr-i-Nedjif in Babylonia;
+      Lake Neyriz in Persia Proper; the Lake of Seistan in the Iranic Desert;
+      and Lake Manchur in the In dus valley. Several of these have been already
+      described in these volumes. Of the remainder the most important were the
+      Lake of Van, the Touz-Ghieul, the great lake of Seistan, and Lake Moeris.
+      These cannot be dismissed without a brief description.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lake Van is situated at a very unusual elevation, being more than 5400
+      feet above the sea level. It is a triangular basin, of which the three
+      sides front respectively S.S.E., N.N.E., and N.W. by W. The sides are all
+      irregular, being broken by rocky promontories; but the chief projection
+      lies to the east of the lake, where a tract is thrown out which suddenly
+      narrows the expanse from about fifty miles to less than five. The greatest
+      length of the basin is from N.E. to S.W., where it extends a distance of
+      eighty miles between Amis and Tadvan; its greatest width is between Aklat
+      and Van, where it measures across somewhat more than fifty miles. The
+      scenery which surrounds it is remarkable for its beauty. The lake is
+      embosomed amid high mountains, picturesque in outline, and all reaching in
+      places the level of perpetual snow. Its waters, generally placid, but
+      sometimes lashed into high waves, are of the deepest blue; while its banks
+      exhibit a succession of orchards, meadows, and gardens which have scarcely
+      their equals in Asia. The lake is fed by a number of small streams flowing
+      down from the lofty ridges which surround it, and, having no outlet, is of
+      course salt, though far less so than the neighboring lake of Urumiyeh.
+      Gulls and cormorants float upon its surface fish can live in it; and it is
+      not distasteful to cattle. Set in the expanse of waters are a few small
+      islets, whose vivid green contrasts well with the deep azure which
+      surrounds them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Touz-Ghieul is a basin of a very different character. Situated on the
+      upland of Phrygia, in lat. 39°, long. 33°, 30&rsquo;, its elevation is not more
+      than 2500 feet. Low hills of sandstone and conglomerate encircle it, but
+      generally at some distance, so that a tract of plain, six or seven miles
+      in width, intervenes between their base and the shore. The shape of the
+      lake is an irregular oval, with the greater axis running nearly due north
+      and south. Its greatest length is estimated at forty-five miles, its width
+      varies, but is generally from ten to sixteen miles. At one point, however,
+      nearly opposite to Kodj Hissar, the lake narrows to a distance of no more
+      than five miles; and here a causeway has been constructed from shore to
+      shore, which, though ruined, still affords a dry pathway in the summer.
+      The water of the Touz-Ghieul is intensely salt, containing at some seasons
+      of the year no less than thirty-two per cent of saline matter, which is
+      considerably more than the amount of such matter in the water of the Dead
+      Sea. The surrounding plain is barren, in places marshy, and often covered
+      with an incrustation of salt. The whole scene is one of desolation. The
+      acrid waters support no animal organization; birds shun them; the plain
+      grows nothing but a few stunted and sapless shrubs. The only signs of life
+      which greet the traveller are the carts of the natives, which pass him
+      laden with the salt that is obtained with ease from the saturated water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Zerreh or Sea of Seistan&mdash;called sometimes the Hamun, or
+      &ldquo;expanse&rdquo;&mdash;is situated in the Seistan Desert on the Great Iranic
+      plateau, and consequently at an elevation of (probably) 3000 feet. It is
+      formed by the accumulation of the waters brought down by the Helmend, the
+      Haroot-rud, the river of Khash, the Furrah-rud and other streams, which
+      flow from the mountains of Afghanistan, with converging courses to the
+      south-west. It is an extensive basin, composed of two arms, an eastern and
+      a western. The western arm, which is the larger of the two, has its
+      greatest length from N.N.E. to S.S.W., and extends in this direction about
+      ninety miles. Its greatest width is about twenty-five miles. The eastern
+      arm is rather more than forty miles long, and from ten to twenty broad. It
+      is shaped much like a fish&rsquo;s tail. The two arms are connected by a strait
+      seven or eight miles in width, which joins them near their northern
+      extremities. The water of the lake, though not salt, is black and has a
+      bad taste. Fish support life in it with difficulty, and never grow to any
+      great size. The lake is shallow, not much exceeding a depth of three or
+      four feet. It contracts greatly in the summer, at which time the strait
+      connecting the two arms is often absolutely dry. The edges of the lake are
+      clothed with tamarisk and other trees; and where the rivers enter it,
+      sometimes by several branches, the soil is rich and cultivation
+      productive; but elsewhere the sand of the desert creeps up almost to the
+      margin of the water, clothed only with some sickly grass and a few
+      scattered shrubs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Birket-el-Keroun, or Lake Moaris of the classical writers, is a
+      natural basin&mdash;not, as Herodotus imagined, an artificial one&mdash;situated
+      on the western side of the Nile valley, in a curious depression which
+      nature has made among the Libyan hills. This depression&mdash;the modern
+      district of the Faioom&mdash;is a circular plain, which sinks gradually
+      towards the north-west, descending till it is more than 100 feet below the
+      surface of the Nile at low water. The Northern and northwestern portion of
+      the depression is occupied by the lake, a sheet of brackish water shaped
+      like a horn (whence the modern name) measuring about thirty-five or
+      thirty-six miles from end to end, and attaining in the middle a width of
+      between five and six miles. The area of the lake is estimated roughly at
+      150 square miles, its circumference at about ninety miles. It has a depth
+      varying from twelve to twenty-four feet. Though the water is somewhat
+      brackish, yet the Birket contains several species of fresh-water fish; and
+      in ancient times its fisheries are said to have been exceedingly
+      productive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal cities of the Empire were, besides Pesargadae and
+      Persepolis, Susa&mdash;the chief city of Susiana&mdash;which became the
+      capital; Babylon, Ecbatana, Rhages, Zadracarta, Bactra (now Balkh),
+      Maracanda (now Samarcand), Aria, or Artacoana (Herat), Caspatyrus on the
+      Upper Indus,Taxila (Attock?), Pura (perhaps Bunpoor), Carmana (Kerman),
+      Arbela, Nisibis, Amida (now Diarbekr); Mazaca in Cappadocia; Trapezus
+      (Trebizond), Sinope, Dascyleium, Sardis, Ephesus, Miletus, Gordium, Perga,
+      and Tarsus in Asia Minor: Damascus, Jerusalem, Sidon, Tyre, Azotus or
+      Ashdod, and Gaza in Syria; Memphis and Thebes in Egypt; Cyrene and Barca
+      in the Cyrenaica. Of these, while Susa had from the time of Darius
+      Hystaspis a decided pre-eminence as the main residence of the court, and
+      consequently as the usual seat of government, there were three others
+      which could boast the distinction of being royal abodes from time to time,
+      either regularly at certain seasons, or occasionally at the caprice of the
+      monarch. These were Babylon, Ecbatana, and Persepolis, the capitals
+      respectively of Chaldaea, Media, and Persia Proper, all great and ancient
+      cities, accustomed to the presence of Courts, and all occupying positions
+      sufficiently central to render them not ill-suited for the business of
+      administration. Next to these in order of dignity may be classed the
+      satrapial residences, often the chief cities of old monarchies, such as
+      Sardis, the capital city of Lydia, Dascyleium of Bithynia, Memphis of
+      Egypt, Bactra of Bactria, and the like; while the third rank was held by
+      the towns, where there was no Court, either royal or satrapial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before this chapter is concluded a few words must be said with respect to
+      the countries which bordered upon the Persian Empire. The Empire was
+      surrounded, for the most part, either by seas or deserts. The
+      Mediterranean, the Egean, the Propontis, the Euxine, the Caspian, the
+      Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Gulf or Bed Sea washed its
+      shores, bounding almost all its western, and much of its northern and
+      southern sides; while the sands of the Sahara, the deserts of Arabia and
+      Syria of India and Thibet, filled up the greater part of the intervening
+      spaces. The only countries of importance which can be viewed as in any
+      sense neighbors of Persia are European and Asiatic Scythia, Hindustan,
+      Arabia, Ethiopia, and Greece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where the Black Sea, curving round to the north, ceased to furnish to the
+      Empire the advantage of a water barrier, a protection of almost equal
+      strength was afforded to it by the mountain-chain of the Caucasus.
+      Excepting on the extreme east, where it slopes gently to the Caspian, this
+      range is one of great elevation, possessing but few passes, and very
+      difficult to traverse. Its fastnesses have always been inhabited by wild
+      tribes, jealous of their freedom; and these tribes may have caused
+      annoyance, but they could at no time have been a serious danger to the
+      Empire. They were weak in numbers, divided in nationality and in
+      interests, and quite incapable of conducting any distant expedition. Like
+      their modern successors, the Circassians, Abassians, and Lesghians, their
+      one and only desire was to maintain themselves in possession of their
+      beloved mountains; and this desire would cause them to resist all attempts
+      that might be made to traverse their country, whether proceeding from the
+      north or from the south, from the inhabitants of Europe or from those of
+      Asia. Persia was thus strongly protected in this quarter; but still she
+      could not feel herself altogether safe. Once at least within historic
+      memory the barrier of the Caucasus had proved to be surmountable. From the
+      vast Steppe which stretches northwards from its base, in part salt, in
+      part grassy, had crossed into Asia&mdash;through its passes or round its
+      eastern flank&mdash;a countless host, which had swept all before it, and
+      brought ruin upon flourishing empires. The Scythian and Samaritan hordes
+      of the steppe-country between the Wolga and the Dnieper were to the
+      monarchies of Western Asia a permanent, if a somewhat distant, peril. It
+      could not be forgotten that they had proved themselves capable of
+      penetrating the rocky barrier which would otherwise have seemed so sure a
+      protection, or that when they swarmed across it in the seventh century
+      before our era, their strength was at first irresistible. The Persians
+      knew, what the great nations of the earth afterwards forgot, that along
+      the northern horizon there lay a black cloud, which might at any time
+      burst, carrying desolation to their homes and bringing ruin upon their
+      civilization. We shall find the course of their history importantly
+      affected by a sense of this danger, and we shall have reason to admire the
+      wisdom of their measures of precaution against it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not only to the west of the Caspian that the danger threatened.
+      East of that sea also was a vast steppe-region&mdash;rolling plains of
+      sand or grass&mdash;the home of nomadic hordes similar in character to
+      those who drank the waters of the Don and Wolga. The Sacse, Massagetse,
+      and Dahse of this country, who dwelt about the Caspian, the Aral, and the
+      Lower Jaxartes, were an enemy scarcely less formidable than the Sarmatians
+      and the Scyths of the West. As the modern Iran now suffers from the
+      perpetual incursions of Uzbegs and Turcomans, so the north-eastern
+      provinces of the ancient Persia were exposed to the raids of the Asiatic
+      Scythians and the Massagetse, who were confined by no such barrier as the
+      Caucasus, having merely to cross a river, probably often fordable during
+      the summer, in order to be in Persia. Hyrcania and Parthia had indeed a
+      certain amount of protection from the Kharesmian Desert; but the upper
+      valleys of the great streams&mdash;the satrapies of Sogdiana and Bactria&mdash;must
+      have suffered considerable annoyance from such attacks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the side of India, the Empire enjoyed a twofold security. From the
+      shores of the Indian Ocean in the vicinity of the Runn of Cutch to the
+      31st parallel of north latitude&mdash;a distance of above 600 miles&mdash;there
+      extends a desert, from one to two hundred miles across, which effectually
+      shuts off the valley of the Indus from the rest of Hindustan. It is only
+      along the skirts of the mountains, by Lahore, Umritsir, and Loodiana, that
+      the march of armies is possible&mdash;by this line alone can the Punjabis
+      threaten Central India, or the inhabitants of Central India attack the
+      Punjab. Hence in this quarter there was but a very narrow tract to guard;
+      and the task of defence was still further lightened by the political
+      condition of the people. The Gangetic Indians, though brave and powerful,
+      were politically weak, from their separation into a number of distinct
+      states under petty Rajahs, who could never hope to contend successfully
+      against the forces of a mighty Empire. Persia, consequently, was safe upon
+      this side, in the division of her adversaries. Nor had she neglected the
+      further security which was obtainable by an interposition between her own
+      actual frontier and her enemies&rsquo; dominions of a number of half-subject
+      dependencies. Native princes were allowed to bear sway in the Punjab
+      region, who acknowledged the suzerainty of Persia, and probably paid her a
+      fixed tribute, but whose best service was that they prevented a collision
+      between the Power of whom they held their crowns and the great mass of
+      their own nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Great Arabian Peninsula, which lay due south of the most central part
+      of the Empire, and bordered it on this side for about thirteen degrees, or
+      (if we follow the line of the boundary) for above a thousand miles, might
+      seem to have been the most important of all the adjacent countries, since
+      it contains an area of a million of square miles, and is a nursery of
+      brave and hardy races. Politically, however, Arabia is weak, as has been
+      shown in a former volume; while geographically she presents to the north
+      her most arid and untraversable regions, so that it is rarely, and only
+      under very exceptional circumstances, that she menaces seriously her
+      northern neighbors. Persia seems never to have experienced any alarm of an
+      Arab invasion; her relations with the tribes that came into closest
+      contact with her were friendly; and she left the bulk of the nation in
+      unmolested enjoyment of their independence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another country adjoining the Persian Empire on the south, and one which
+      might have been expected to cause some trouble, was Ethiopia. To Egypt
+      Ethiopia had always proved an unquiet, and sometimes even a dangerous,
+      neighbor; she was fertile, rich, populous; her inhabitants were tall,
+      strong, and brave; she had a ready means of marching into Egypt down the
+      fertile valley of the Nile; and her hosts had frequently ravaged, and even
+      held for considerable terms of years, that easily subjected country. It is
+      remarkable that during the whole time of the Persian dominion Ethiopia
+      seems to have abstained from any invasion of the Egyptian territory.
+      Apparently, she feared to provoke the power which had seated itself on the
+      throne of the Pharaohs, and preferred the quiet enjoyment of her own
+      wealth and resources to the doubtful issues of a combat with the mistress
+      of Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On her western horizon, clearly discernible from the capes and headlands
+      of the Asiatic coast, but separated from her, except in one or two places,
+      by a tolerably broad expanse of sea, and so&mdash;as it might have seemed&mdash;less
+      liable to come in contact with her than her neighbors upon the land, lay
+      the shores and isles of Greece&mdash;lovely and delightful regions, in
+      possession of a brave and hardy race, as yet uncorrupted by luxury, though
+      in the enjoyment of a fair amount of civilization. As the eye looked
+      across the Egean waters, resting with pleasure on the varied and graceful
+      forms of Sporades and Cyclades, covetous thoughts might naturally arise in
+      the beholder&rsquo;s heart; and the idea might readily occur of conquering and
+      annexing the fair tracts which lay so temptingly near and possessed such
+      numerous attractions. The entire region, continent and islands included,
+      was one of diminutive size&mdash;not half so large as an ordinary Persian
+      satrapy; it was well peopled, but its population could not have amounted
+      to that of the Punjab or of Egypt, countries which Persia had overrun in a
+      single campaign; its inhabitants were warlike, but they were comparatively
+      poor, and the true sinews of war are money; moreover, they were divided
+      amongst themselves, locally split up by the physical conformation of their
+      country, and politically repugnant to anything like centralization or
+      union. A Persian king like Cambyses or Darius might be excused if, when
+      his thoughts turned to Greece, he had a complacent feeling that no danger
+      could threaten him from that quarter&mdash;that the little territory on
+      his western border was a prey which he might seize at any time that it
+      suited his convenience or seemed good to his caprice; so opening without
+      any risk a new world to his ambition. It required a knowledge that the
+      causes of military success and political advance lie deeper than
+      statistics can reach&mdash;that they have their roots in the moral nature
+      of man, in the grandeur of his ideas and the energy of his character&mdash;in
+      order to comprehend the fact, that the puny power upon her right flank was
+      the enemy which Persia had most to fear, the foe who would gradually sap
+      her strength, and finally deal her the blow that would lay her prostrate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It is evident that an Empire which extended over more than twenty degrees
+      of latitude, touching on the one hand the tropic of Cancer, while it
+      reached upon the other to the parallel of Astrakan, and which at the same
+      time varied in elevation, from 20,000 feet above to 1300 below the sea
+      level, must have comprised within it great differences of climate, and
+      have boasted an immense variety of productions. No general description can
+      be applicable to such a stretch of territory; and it will therefore be
+      necessary to speak of the various parts of the Empire successively in
+      order to convey to the reader a true idea of the climatic influences to
+      which it was subject, and the animals, vegetables, and minerals which it
+      produced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Commencing with Persia Proper, the original seat and home of the race with
+      whose history we are specially concerned at present, we may observe that
+      it was regarded by the ancients as possessing three distinct climates&mdash;one
+      along the shore, dry and scorchingly hot; another in the mountain region
+      beyond, temperate and delightful; and a third in the tract further inland,
+      which was thought to be disagreeably cold and wintry. Moderns, on the
+      contrary, find two climates only in Fars&mdash;one that of the Desbistan
+      or &ldquo;low country,&rdquo; extremely hot and dry, with frequent scorching and
+      oppressive winds from the south and the south-east; the other, that of the
+      highlands, which is cold in winter, but in summer pleasant and enjoyable.
+      In the Deshistan snow never falls, and there is but little rain; heavy
+      dews, however, occur at night, so that the mornings are often fresh and
+      cool; but the middle of the day is almost always hot, and from March to
+      November the temperature at noon ranges from 90° to 100° of Fahrenheit.
+      Occasionally it reaches 125°, and is then fearfully oppressive. Fierce
+      gusts laden with sand sweep over the plain, causing vegetation to droop or
+      disappear, and the animal world to hide itself. Man with difficulty
+      retains life at these trying times, feeling a languor and a depression of
+      spirits which are barely supportable.10 All who can do so quit the plains
+      and betake themselves to the upland region till the great heats are past,
+      and the advance of autumn brings at any rate cool nights and mornings. The
+      climate of the uplands is severe in winter. Much snow falls, and the
+      thermometer often marks from ten to fifteen degrees of frost. From time to
+      time there are furious gales, and, as the spring advances, a good deal of
+      wet falls; but the summer and autumn are almost rainless. The heat towards
+      midday is often considerable, but it is tempered by cool winds, and even
+      at the worst is not relaxing. The variations of temperature are great in
+      the twenty-four hours, and the climate is, so far, trying; but, on the
+      whole, it seems to be neither disagreeable nor unhealthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A climate resembling that of the Deshtistan prevailed along the entire
+      southern coast of the Empire, from the mouth of the Tigris to that of the
+      Indus. It was exchanged in the lower valleys of the great streams for a
+      damp close heat, intolerably stifling and oppressive. The upper valleys of
+      these streams and the plains into which they expanded were at once less
+      hot and less moist, but were subject to violent storms, owing to the near
+      vicinity of the mountains. In the mountains themselves, in Armenia and
+      Zagros, and again in the Elburz, the climate was of a more rigorous
+      character&mdash;intensely cold in winter, but pleasant in the summer time.
+      <a href="#linkimage-0003">[PLATE XXVII., Fig. 3.]</a> Asia Minor enjoyed
+      generally a warmer climate than the high mountain regions; and its western
+      and southern coasts, being fanned by fresh breezes from the sea, or from
+      the hills of the interior, and cooled during the whole of the summer by
+      frequent showers, were especially charming. In Syria and Egypt the heats
+      of summer were somewhat trying, more especially in the Ghor or depressed
+      Jordan valley, and in the parts of Egypt adjoining on Ethiopia; but the
+      winters were mild, and the springs and autumns delightful. The rarity of
+      rain in Egypt was remarkable, and drew the attention of foreigners, who
+      recorded, in somewhat exaggerated terms, the curious meteorological
+      phenomenon. In the Cyrenaica there was a delicious summer climate&mdash;an
+      entire absence of rain, with cool breezes from the sea, cloudy skies, and
+      heavy dews at night, these last supplying the moisture which through the
+      whole of summer covered the ground with the freshest and loveliest
+      verdure. The autumn and winter rains were, however, violent; and terrific
+      storms were at that time of no unusual occurrence. The natives regarded it
+      as a blessing, that over this part of Africa the sky was &ldquo;pierced,&rdquo; and
+      allowed moisture to fall from the great reservoir of &ldquo;waters above the
+      firmament;&rdquo; but the blessing must have seemed one of questionable value at
+      the time of the November monsoon, when the country is deluged with rain
+      for several weeks in succession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the opposite side of the Empire, towards the north and the north-east,
+      in Azerbijan, on the Iranian plateau, in the Afghan plains, in the high
+      flat region east of the Bolor, and again in the low plain about the Aral
+      lake and the Caspian, a severe climate prevailed during the winter, while
+      the summer combined intense heat during the day with extraordinary cold&mdash;the
+      result of radiation&mdash;at night. Still more bitter weather was
+      experienced in the mountain regions of these parts&mdash;in the Bolor, the
+      Thian Chan, the Himalaya, and the Paropamisus or Hindu Kush&mdash;where
+      the winters lasted more than half the year, deep snow covering the ground
+      almost the whole of the time, and locomotion being rendered almost
+      impossible; while the summers were only moderately hot. On the other hand,
+      there was in this quarter, at the very extreme east of the Empire, one of
+      the most sultry and disagreeable of all climates&mdash;namely, that of the
+      Indus valley, which is either intolerably hot and dry, with fierce
+      tornadoes of dust that are unspeakably oppressive, or close and moist,
+      swept by heavy storms, which, while they somewhat lower the temperature,
+      increase the unhealthiness of the region. The worst portion of the valley
+      is its southern extremity, where the climate is only tolerable during
+      three months of the year. From March to November the heat is excessive;
+      dust-storms prevail; there are dangerous dews at night; and with the
+      inundation, which commences in April, a sickly time sets in, which causes
+      all the wealthier classes to withdraw from the country till the stagnant
+      water, which the swell always leaves behind it, has dried up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the whole, the climate of the Empire belonged to the warmer class of
+      the climates which are called temperate. In a few parts only, indeed, as
+      in the Indus valley, along the coast from the mouth of the Indus to that
+      of the Tigris, in Lower Babylonia and the adjoining portion of Susiana, in
+      Southern Palestine, and in Egypt, was frost absolutely unknown; while in
+      many places, especially in the high mountainous regions, the winters were
+      bitterly severe; and in all the more elevated portions of the Empire, as
+      in Phrygia and Cappadocia, in Azerbijan, on the great Iranian plateau, and
+      again in the district about Kashgar and Yarkand, there was a prolonged
+      period of sharp and bracing weather. But the summer warmth of almost the
+      whole Empire was great, the thermometer probably ranging in most places
+      from 90° to 120° during the months of June, July, August, and September.
+      The springs and autumns were, except in the high mountain tracts, mild and
+      enjoyable; the Empire had few very unhealthy districts; while the range of
+      the thermometer was in most of the provinces considerable, and the
+      variations in the course of a single day and night were unusually great,
+      there was in the climate, speaking generally, nothing destructive of human
+      vigor&mdash;nothing even inimical to longevity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The vegetable productions of Persia Proper in ancient times (so far as we
+      have direct testimony on the subject) were neither numerous nor very
+      remarkable. The low coast tract supplied dates in tolerable plenty, and
+      bore in a few favored spots, corn, vines, and different kinds of
+      fruit-trees; but its general character was one of extreme barrenness. In
+      the mountain region there was an abundance of rich pasture, excellent
+      grapes were grown, and fruit-trees of almost every sort, except the olive,
+      flourished. One fruit-tree, regarded as indigenous in the country,
+      acquired a special celebrity, and was known to the Romans as the persica,
+      whence the German Pfirsche, the French peche, and our &ldquo;peach.&rdquo; Citrons,
+      which grew in few places, were also a Persian fruit. Further, Persia
+      produced a coarse kind of silphium or assafoetida; it was famous for its
+      walnuts, which were distinguished by the epithet of &ldquo;royal&rdquo;; and it
+      supplied to the pharmacopeia of Greece and Rome a certain number of herbs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The account of Persian vegetable products which we derive from antiquity
+      is no doubt very incomplete; and it is necessary to supplement it from the
+      observations of modern travellers. These persons tell us that, while Fars
+      and Kerman are ill-supplied with forest-trees, they yet produce in places
+      oaks, planes, chenars or sycamores, poplars, willows, pinasters,
+      cypresses, acacias, fan-palms, konars, and junipers. Among shrubs, they
+      bear the wild fig, the wild almond, the tamarisk, the myrtle, the box, the
+      rhododendron, the camel&rsquo;s thorn, the gum tragacanth, the caper plant, the
+      benneh, the blackberry, and the liquorice-plant. They boast a great
+      abundance of fruit-trees&mdash;as date-bearing palms, lemons, oranges,
+      pomegranates, vines, peaches, nectarines, apricots, quinces, pears,
+      apples, plums, figs, cherries, mulberries, barberries, walnuts, almonds,
+      and pistachio-nuts. The kinds of grain chiefly cultivated are wheat,
+      barley, millet, rice, and Indian corn or maize, which has been imported
+      into the country from America. Pulse, beans, sesame, madder, henna,
+      cotton, opium, tobacco, and indigo, are also grown in some places. The
+      three last-named, and maize or Indian corn, are of comparatively recent
+      introduction; but of the remainder it may be doubted whether there is a
+      single one which was unknown to the ancient inhabitants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among Persian indigenous animals may be enumerated the lion, the bear, the
+      wild ass, the stag, the antelope, the ibex or wild goat, the wild boar,
+      the hyena, the jackal, the wolf, the fox, the hare, the porcupine, the
+      otter, the jerboa, the ichneumon, and the marmot. The lion appears to be
+      rare, occurring only in some parts of the mountains. The ichneumon is
+      confined to the Deshtistan. The antelope, the wild boar, the wolf, the
+      fox, the jackal, the porcupine, and the jerboa are common. Wild asses are
+      found only on the northern side of the mountains, towards the salt desert.
+      In this tract they are frequently seen, both singly and in herds, and are
+      hunted by the natives, who regard their flesh as a great delicacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most remarkable of the Persian birds are the eagle, the vulture, the
+      cormorant, the falcon, the bustard, the pheasant, the heath-cock, the
+      red-legged partridge, the small gray partridge, the pin tailed grouse, the
+      sand-grouse, the francolin, the wild swan, the flamingo, the stork, the
+      bittern, the oyster-catcher, the raven, the hooded crow, and the cuckoo.
+      Besides these, the lakes boast all the usual kinds of water-fowl, as
+      herons, ducks, snipe, teal, etc.; the gardens and groves abound with
+      blackbirds, thrushes, and nightingales; curlews and peewits are seen
+      occasionally; while pigeons, starlings, crows, magpies, larks, sparrows,
+      and swallows are common. The francolin is hunted by men on foot in the
+      country between Shiraz and Kerman, and is taken by the hand after a few
+      flights. The oyster-catcher, which is a somewhat rare bird, has been
+      observed only on Lake Neyriz. The bustard occurs both in the low plain
+      along the coast, and on the high plateau, where it is captured by means of
+      hawks. The pheasant and the heath-cock (the latter a black species spotted
+      with white) are found in the woods near Failyun. The sand-grouse and the
+      pin-tailed grouse belong to the eastern portion of the country, the
+      portion known anciently as Carmania or &ldquo;the hot region.&rdquo; The other kinds
+      are diffused pretty generally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shores and rivers of Persia Proper supplied the people very
+      plentifully with fish. The ancient writers tell us that the inhabitants of
+      the coast tract lived almost wholly on a fish diet. The Indian Sea appears
+      in those days to have abounded with whales, which were not unfrequently
+      cast upon the shores, affording a mine of wealth to the natives. The great
+      ribs were used as beams in the formation of huts, while the jaws served as
+      doors and the smaller bones as planking. Dolphins also abounded in the
+      Persian waters; together with many other fish of less bulk, which were
+      more easy to capture. On these smaller fish, which they caught in nets,
+      the maritime inhabitants subsisted principally. They had also an unfailing
+      resource in the abundance of oysters, and other shell-fish along their
+      coast&mdash;the former of excellent quality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the interior, though the lakes, being salt or brackish, had no
+      piscatory stores, the rivers were, for the most part, it would seem, well
+      provided; at least, good fish are still found in many of the streams, both
+      small and large; and in some they are exceedingly plentiful. Modern
+      travellers fail to distinguish the different kinds; but we may presume
+      that they are not very unlike those of the adjoining Media, which appear
+      to be trout, carp, barbel, dace, bleak, and gudgeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reptiles of Persia Proper are not numerous. They are chiefly
+      tortoises, lizards, frogs, land-snakes, and water-snakes. The land-snakes
+      are venomous, but their poison is not of a very deadly character; and
+      persons who have been bitten by them, if properly treated, generally
+      recover. The lizards are of various sizes, some quite small, others more
+      than three feet long, and covered with a coarse rough skin like that of a
+      toad. They have the character of being venomous, and even dangerous to
+      life; but it may be doubted whether they are not, like our toads and
+      newts, in reality perfectly harmless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The traveller in Persia suffers less from reptiles than from insects.
+      Scorpions abound in all parts of the country, and, infesting houses,
+      furniture, and clothes, cause perpetual annoyance. Mosquitoes swarm in
+      certain places and seasons, preventing sleep and irritating the traveller
+      almost beyond endurance. A poisonous spider, a sort of tarantula, is said
+      to occur in some localities; and Chardin further mentions a kind of
+      centipede, the bite of which, according to him, is fatal. To the
+      sufferings which these creatures cause, must be added a constant annoyance
+      from those more vulgar forms of insect life which detract from the
+      delights of travel even in Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persia, moreover, suffers no less than Babylonia and Media, from the
+      ravages of locusts. Constantly, when the wind is from the south-east,
+      there cross from the Arabian coast clouds of these destructive insects,
+      whose numbers darken the air as they move, in flight after flight, across
+      the desert to the spots where nature or cultivation has clothed the earth
+      with verdure. The Deshtistan, or low country, is, of course, most exposed
+      to their attacks, but they are far from being confined to that region. The
+      interior, as far as Shiraz itself, suffers terribly from this scourge,
+      which produces scarcity, or even famine, when (as often happens) it is
+      repeated year after year. The natives at such times are reduced to feeding
+      on the locusts themselves; a diet which they do not relish, but to which
+      necessity compels them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The locusts of Persia Proper are said to be of two kinds. One, which is
+      regarded as bred in the country, bears the name of <i>missri</i>, being
+      identified with the locust of Egypt. The other, which is thought to be
+      blown over from Arabia, and thus to cross the sea, is known as the <i>melelch
+      deriai</i>, or &ldquo;sea-locust.&rdquo; The former is regarded as especially
+      destructive to the crops, the latter to the shrubs and trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The domestic animals in use at the present day within the provinces of
+      Fars and Kerman are identical with those employed in the neighboring
+      country of Media, and will need only a very few words of notice here. The
+      ordinary horse of the country is the Turcoman, a large, strong, but
+      somewhat clumsy animal, possessed of remarkable powers of endurance; but
+      in the Deshtistan the Arabian breed prevails, and travellers tell us that
+      in this region horses are produced which fall but little short of the most
+      admired coursers of Nejd. Cows and oxen are somewhat rare, beef being
+      little eaten, and such cattle being only kept for the supply of the dairy,
+      and for purposes of agriculture. Sheep and goats are abundant, and
+      constitute the chief wealth of the inhabitants; the goat is, on the whole,
+      preferred, and both goats and sheep are generally of a black or brown
+      color. The sheep of Kerman are small and short-legged; they produce a wool
+      of great softness and delicacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is probable that in ancient times the domestic animals of the country
+      were nearly the same as at the present day. The statement of Xenophon,
+      that anciently a horse was a rarity in Persia Proper, is contradicted by
+      the great bulk of the early writers, who tell us that the Persians were
+      from the first expert riders, and that their country was peculiarly well
+      fitted for the breeding of horses. Their camels, sheep, goats, asses, and
+      oxen, are also expressly mentioned by the Greeks, who even indicate a
+      knowledge of the fact that goats were preferred to sheep by the herdsmen
+      of the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mineral treasures of the country appear to have been considerable,
+      though to what extent they were known and made use of in ancient times is
+      open to some question. Mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, red lead, and
+      orpiment are said to have been actually worked under the Persian kings;
+      and some of the other minerals were so patent and obvious, that we can
+      scarcely suppose them to have been neglected. Salt abounded in the region
+      in several shapes. It appeared in some places as rock salt, showing itself
+      in masses of vast size and various colors. In other places it covered the
+      surface of the ground for miles together with a thick incrustation, and
+      could be gathered at all seasons with little labor. It was deposited by
+      the waters of several lakes within the territory, and could be collected
+      round their edges at certain times of the year. Finally, it was held in
+      solution, both in the lakes and in many of the streams; from whose waters
+      it might have been obtained by evaporation. Bitumen and naphtha were
+      yielded by sources near Dalaki, which were certainly known to the
+      ancients. Sulphur was deposited upon the surface of the ground in places.
+      Some of the mountains contained ordinary lead; but it is not unlikely that
+      this metal escaped notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ancient Persia produced a certain number of gems. The pearls of the Gulf,
+      which have still so great a reputation, had attracted the attention of
+      adventurers before the time of Alexander, whose naval captains found a
+      regular fishery established in one of the islands. The Orientals have
+      always set a high value on this commodity; and it appears that in ancient
+      times the Gulf pearls were more highly esteemed than any others. Of hard
+      stones the only kinds that can be distinctly assigned to Persia Proper are
+      the iritis, a species of rock-crystal; the atizoe, a white stone which had
+      a pleasant odor; the mithrax, a gem of many hues, the nipparene, which
+      resembled ivory; and the the lycardios or mule, which was in special favor
+      among the natives of the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this account of the products of Persia Proper we have now to pass to
+      those of the Empire in general&mdash;a wide subject, which it will be
+      impossible to treat here with any completeness, owing to the limits to
+      which the present work is necessarily confined. In order to bring the
+      matter within reasonable compass, the reader may be referred in the first
+      instance to the account which was given in a former volume of the products
+      of the empire of Babylon; and the enquiry may then be confined to those
+      regions which were subject to Persia, but not contained within the limits
+      of the Fourth Monarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the animals belonging to these regions, the following are especially
+      noticeable:&mdash;The tiger, the elephant, the hippopotamus, the
+      crocodile, the monitor, the two-humped camel, the Angora goat, the elk,
+      the monkey, and the spotted hysena, or <i>Felis chaus</i>. The tiger,
+      which is entirely absent from Mesopotamia, and unknown upon the plateau of
+      Iran, abounds in the low tract between the Elburz and the Caspian, in the
+      flat region about the Sea of Aral, and in the Indus valley. The elephant
+      was, perhaps, anciently an inhabitant of Upper Egypt, where the island of
+      Elephantine remained an evidence of the fact. It was also in Persian times
+      a denizen of the Indus valley, though perhaps only in a domesticated
+      state. The hippopotamus, unknown in India, was confined to the single
+      province of Egypt, where it was included among the animals which were the
+      objects of popular worship. The crocodile&mdash;likewise a sacred animal
+      to the Egyptians&mdash;frequented both the Nile and the Indus. Monitors,
+      which are a sort of diminutive crocodiles, were of two kinds: one, the <i>Lacerta
+      Nilotica</i>, was a water animal, and was probably found only in Egypt;
+      the other, <i>Lacerta scincus</i>, frequented dry and sandy spots, and
+      abounded in North Africa and Syria, as well as in the Nile valley. The
+      two-humped camel belonged to Bactria, where he was probably indigenous,
+      but was widely spread over the Empire, on account of his great strength
+      and powers of endurance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Angora goat is, perhaps, scarcely a distinct species. If not identical
+      with the ordinary wild goat of Persia and Mesopotamia (<i>Capra cegagrus</i>),
+      he is at any rate closely allied to it; and it is possible that all his
+      peculiar characteristics may be the effect of climate. He has a soft,
+      white, silky fleece, very long, divided down the back by a strong line of
+      separation, and falling on either side in beautiful spiral ringlets; his
+      fleece weighs from two to four pounds. It is of nearly uniform, length,
+      and averages from five to five and a half inches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elk is said to inhabit Armenia, Affghanistan, and the lower part of
+      the valley of the Indus; but it is perhaps not certain that he is really
+      to be found in the two latter regions. Monkeys abound in Eastern Oabul and
+      the adjoining parts of India. They may have also existed formerly in Upper
+      Egypt. The spotted hyena, <i>Felis chaus</i> (<i>Canis crocuta</i> of
+      Linnaeus), is an Egyptian animal, inhabiting principally the hills on the
+      western side of the Nile. In appearance it is like a large cat, with a
+      tuft of long black hair at the extremities of its ears&mdash;a feature
+      which it has in common with the lynx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the rarer birds of the Empire may be mentioned the ostrich, which
+      occurred in Mesopotamia; parrots, which were found in Cabul and the
+      Punjab; ibises, which abounded in Egypt, and in the Delta of the Indus,
+      the great vulture (Vultur cinereus), which inhabited the Taurus, the
+      Indian owl (<i>Athena Indica</i>), the spoonbill (<i>Platalea nudifrons</i>);
+      the benno (<i>Ardea bubulcus</i>), and the sicsac (<i>Charadrius
+      melanocephalus</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most valuable of the fish belonging to the Persian seas and rivers
+      were the pearl oyster of the Gulf, and the murex of the Mediterranean,
+      which furnished the famous purple dye of Tyre. After these may be placed
+      the sturgeon and sterlet of the Caspian, the silurus of the Sea of Aral,
+      the Aleppo eel, and the palla, a small but excellent fish, which is
+      captured in the Indus during the flood season. The Indian Ocean and the
+      Persian Gulf, as we have seen, were visited by whales; dolphins,
+      porpoises, cod, and mullet abounded in the same seas; the large rivers
+      generally contained barbel and carp; while some of them, together with
+      many of the smaller streams, supplied trout of a good flavor. The Nile had
+      some curious fish peculiar to itself, as the oxyrinchus, the lepidotus,
+      the Perca Nilotica, the Silurus Schilbe Niloticus, the Silurus carmuth and
+      others. Great numbers of fish, mostly of the same species with those of
+      the Nile, were also furnished by the Lake Moeris; and from these a
+      considerable revenue was derived by the Great Kings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the more remarkable of the reptiles which the Empire comprised
+      within its limits may be noticed&mdash;besides the great saurians already
+      mentioned among the larger animals&mdash;the Nile and Euphrates turtles (<i>Trionyx
+      Egypticus</i> and <i>Trionyx Euphraticus</i>), iguanas (<i>Stellio
+      vulgaris</i> and <i>Stellio spinipes</i>), geckos, especially the Egyptian
+      house gecko (<i>O. lobatus</i>), snakes, such as the asp (<i>Coluber haje</i>)
+      and the horned snake (<i>Coluber cerastes</i>), and the chameleon. The
+      Egyptian turtle is a large species, sometimes exceeding three feet in
+      length. It is said to feed on the young of the crocodile. Both it and the
+      Euphrates turtle are of the soft kind, i.e., of the kind which has not the
+      shell complete, but unites the upper and under portions by a coriaceous
+      membrane. The turtle of the Euphrates is of moderate size, not exceeding a
+      a length of two feet. It lives in the river, and on warm days suns itself
+      on the sandbanks with which the stream abounds. It is active, strong,
+      violent, and passionate. When laid on its back it easily recovers itself.
+      If provoked, it will snap at sticks and other objects, and endeavor to
+      tear them to pieces. It is of an olive-green color, with large irregular
+      greenish black spots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Iguanas are found in Egypt, in Syria, and elsewhere. The most common kind
+      (<i>Stellio vulgaris</i>) does not exceed a foot in length, and is of an
+      olive color, shaded with black. It is persecuted and killed by the
+      Mahometans, because they regard its favorite attitude as a derisive
+      imitation of their own attitude of prayer. There is another species, also
+      Egyptian, which is of a much larger size, and of a grass-green color. This
+      is called <i>Stellio spinipes</i>: it has a length of from two to three
+      feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gecko is a kind of nocturnal lizard. Its eyes are large, and the pupil
+      is extremely contractile. It hides itself during the day, and is lively
+      only at nights. It haunts rooms, especially kitchens, in Egypt, where it
+      finds the insects which form its ordinary food. Its feet constitute its
+      most marked characteristic. The five toes are enlarged and furnished with
+      an apparatus of folds, which, by some peculiar action, enable it to adhere
+      to perfectly smooth surfaces, to ascend perpendicular walls, cross
+      ceilings, or hang suspended for hours on the under side of leaves. The
+      Egyptians called it the abu burs, or &ldquo;father of leprosy,&rdquo; and there is a
+      wide-spread belief in its poisonous character; but modern naturalists
+      incline to regard the belief as unfounded, and to place the gecko among
+      reptiles which are absolutely harmless. <a href="#linkimage-0004">[PLATE
+      XXVIII., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate028.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxviii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The asp of Egypt (<i>Coluber haje</i>) is a species of cobra. It is a
+      large snake, varying from three to six feet in length, and is extremely
+      venomous. It haunts gardens, where it is of great use, feeding on mice,
+      frogs, and various small reptiles. It has the power of greatly dilating
+      the skin of the neck, and this it does when angered in a way that is very
+      remarkable. Though naturally irritable, it is easily tamed; and the
+      serpent-charmers of the East make it the object of their art more often
+      than any other species. <a href="#linkimage-0004">[PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 2.]</a>
+      After extracting the fangs or burning out the poison-bag with a red-hot
+      iron, the charmer trains the animal by the shrill sounds of a small flute,
+      and it is soon perfectly docile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cerastes is also employed occasionally by the snake-charmers. It has
+      two long and thin excrescences above the eyes, whereto the name of &ldquo;horns&rdquo;
+       has been given: they stand erect, leaning a little backwards; no
+      naturalist has as yet discovered their use. The cerastes is of a very pale
+      brown color, and is spotted with large, unequal, and irregularly-placed
+      spots. Its bite is exceedingly dangerous, since it possesses a virulent
+      poison; and, being in the habit of nearly burying itself in the sand,
+      which is of the same color with itself, it is the more difficult of
+      avoidance. Its size also favors its escaping notice, since in length it
+      rarely much exceeds a foot. <a href="#linkimage-0004">[PLATE XXVIII., Fig.
+      3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chameleon has in all ages attracted the attention of mankind. It is
+      found in Egypt, and in many others parts of Africa, in Georgia, and in
+      India. The power of changing color which it possesses is not really its
+      most remarkable characteristic. Far more worthy of notice are its slow
+      pace, extraordinary form, awkward movements, vivacity, and control of eye,
+      and marvellous rapidity of tongue. It is the most grotesque of reptiles.
+      With protruding and telescopic eyes, that move at will in the most
+      opposite directions, with an ungainly head, a cold, dry, strange-looking
+      skin, and a prehensile tail, the creature slowly steals along a branch or
+      twig, scarcely distinguishable from the substance along which it moves,
+      and scarcely seeming to move at all, until it has come within reach of its
+      prey. Then suddenly, with a motion rapid as that of the most agile bird,
+      the long cylindrical and readily extensile tongue is darted forth with
+      unerring aim, and the prey is seized and swallowed in a single moment of
+      time. The ordinary color of the chameleon is a pale olive-green. This
+      sometimes fades to a sort of ashen-gray, while sometimes it warms to a
+      yellowish-brown, on which are seen faint spots of red. Modern naturalists,
+      for the most part, attribute the changes to the action of the lungs, which
+      is itself affected chiefly by the emotions of anger, desire, and fear. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0004">[PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 5.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great extent of the Empire caused its vegetable productions to include
+      almost all the forms known to the ancient world. On the one hand, the more
+      northern and more elevated regions bore pines, firs, larches, oaks, birch,
+      beech, ash, ilex, and junipers, together with the shrubs and flowers of
+      the cooler temperate regions; on the other hand, the southern tracts grew
+      palms of various kinds, mangoes, tamarind-trees, lemons, oranges, jujubes,
+      mimosas, and sensitive plants. Between these extremes of tropical and
+      cold-temperate products, the Empire embraced an almost infinite variety of
+      trees, shrubs, and flowers. The walnut and the Oriental plane grew to
+      avast size in many places. Poplars, willows, fig-mulberries, konars,
+      cedars, cypresses, acacias, were common. Bananas, egg-plants,
+      locust-trees, banyans, terebinths, the gum-styrax, the gum-tragacanth, the
+      assafoetida plant, the arbor vitse, the castor-oil plant, the Judas-tree,
+      and other somewhat rare forms, sprang up side by side with the
+      pomegranate, the oleander, the pistachio-nut, the myrtle, the bay, the
+      laurel, the mulberry, the rhododendron, and the arbutus. The Empire grew
+      all the known sorts of grain, and almost all the known fruits. Among its
+      various productions of this class, it is only possible to select for
+      notice a few which were especially remarkable either for their rarity or
+      for their excellent quality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ancients celebrated the wheat of AEolis, the dates of Babylon, the
+      citrons of Media, the Persian peach, the grapes of Carmania, the Hyrcanian
+      fig, the plum of Damascus, the cherries of Pontus, the mulberries of Egypt
+      and of Cyprus, the silphium of Gyrene, the wine of Helbon, the wild-grape
+      of Syria. It is not unlikely that to these might have been added as many
+      other vegetable products of first-rate excellence, had the ancients
+      possessed as good a knowledge of the countries included within the Empire
+      as the moderns. At present, the mulberries of Khiva, the apricots of
+      Bokhara, the roses of Mexar, the quinces and melons of Isfahan, the grapes
+      of Kasvin and Shii-az, the pears of Natunz, the dates of Dalaki, have a
+      wide-spread reputation, which appears in most cases to be well deserved.
+      On the whole, it is certain that for variety and excellence the vegetable
+      products of the Persian Empire will bear comparison with those of any
+      other state or community that has as yet existed, either in the ancient or
+      the modern world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two only of these products seem to deserve a longer description. The
+      Cyrenaic silphium, of which we hear so much, as constituting the main
+      wealth of that province, was valued chiefly for its medicinal qualities. A
+      decoction from its leaves was used to hasten the worst kind of labors; its
+      root and a juice which flowed from it were employed in a variety of
+      maladies. The plant, which is elaborately described by Theophrastus,
+      appears to have been successfully identified by modern travellers in the
+      Cyrenaica, who see it in the drias or derias of the Arabs, an
+      umbelliferous plant, which grows to a height of about three feet, has a
+      deleterious effect on the camels that browse on it, and bears a striking
+      resemblance to the representations of the ancient silphium upon coins and
+      medals. This plant grows only in the tract between Merj and Derna&mdash;the
+      very heart of the old silphium country, while that it has medicinal
+      properties is certain from its effects upon animals; there can thus be
+      little doubt that it is the silphium of the ancients, somewhat
+      degenerated, owing to want of cultivation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptian byblus or papyrus (<i>Cyperus papyrus</i>) was perhaps the
+      most valuable of all the vegetables of the Empire. The plant was a tall
+      smooth reed of a triangular shape. It grew to the height of ten or fifteen
+      feet, and terminated in a tuft or plume of leaves and flowers. Though
+      indigenous in the country, it was the subject of careful cultivation, and
+      was grown in irrigated ground, or in such lands as were naturally marshy.
+      The root of the plant was eaten, while from its stem was made the famous
+      Egyptian paper. The manufacture of the papyrus was as follows; The outer
+      rind having been removed, there was exposed a laminated interior,
+      consisting of a number of successive layers of inner cuticle, generally
+      about twenty. These were carefully separated from one another by the point
+      of a needle, and thus were obtained a number of strips of the raw
+      material, which were then arranged in rows, covered with a paste, and
+      crossed at right angles by another set of strips placed over them, after
+      which the whole was converted into paper by means of a strong pressure. A
+      papyrus roll was made by uniting together a greater or less number of such
+      sheets. The best paper was made from the inmost layers of cuticle. The
+      outer rind of the papyrus was converted into ropes; and this fabric was
+      found to be peculiarly adapted for immersion in water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mineral treasures of the Empire were various and abundant. It has been
+      noticed already that Persia Proper, if we include in it Carmania,
+      possessed mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, red lead, orpiment, and
+      salt, yielding also bitumen, naphtha, sulphur, and most probably common
+      lead. We are further informed by ancient writers that Drangiana, or
+      Sarangia, furnished the rare and valuable mineral tin, without which
+      copper could not be hardened into bronze; that Armenia yielded emery, so
+      necessary for the working and polishing of gems; that the mountains and
+      mines of the Empire supplied almost all the varieties of useful and
+      precious stones; and that thus there was scarcely a mineral known to and
+      required by the ancients for the purposes of their life which the Great
+      King could not command without having recourse to others than his own
+      subjects. It may be likewise noticed that the more important were very
+      abundant, being found in many places and in large quantities. Gold was
+      furnished from the mountains and deserts of Thibet and India, from the
+      rivers of Lydia, and probably from other places where it is still found,
+      as Armenia, Cabul, and the neighborhood of Meshed. Silver, which was the
+      general medium of exchange in Persia, must have been especially plentiful.
+      It was probably yielded, not only by the Kerman mines, but also by those
+      of Armenia, Asia Minor, and the Elburz. Copper was obtained in great
+      abundance from Cyprus, as well as from Carmania; and it may have been also
+      derived, as it is now in very large quantities, from Armenia. Iron, really
+      the most precious of all metals, existed within the Persian territory in
+      the shape of huge boulders, as well as in nodules and in the form of
+      ironstone. Lead was procurable from Bactria, Armenia, Korman, and many
+      parts of Affghanistan; orpiment from Bactria, Kerman, and the Hazareh
+      country; antimony from Armenia, Affghanistan, and Media; hornblende,
+      quartz, talc, and asbestos, from various places in the Taurus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all necessary minerals probably none was so plentiful and so widely
+      diffused as salt. It was not only in Persia Proper that nature had
+      bestowed this commodity with a lavish hand&mdash;there was scarcely a
+      province of the Empire which did not possess it in superfluous abundance.
+      Large tracts were covered by it in North Africa, in Media, in Carmania,
+      and in Lower Babylonia. In Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria, Palestine, and
+      other places, it could be obtained from lakes. In Kerman, and again in
+      Palestine, it showed itself in the shape of large masses, not
+      inappropriately termed &ldquo;mountains.&rdquo; Finally, in India it was the chief
+      material of a long mountain-range, which is capable of supplying the whole
+      world with salt for many ages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bitumen and naptha were also very widely diffused. At the eastern foot of
+      the Caucasus, where it subsides into the Caspian Sea, at various points in
+      the great Mesopotamian plain, in the Deshtistan or low country of Persia
+      Proper, in the Bakh-tiyari mountains, and again in the distant Jordan
+      valley, these two inseparable products are to be found, generally united
+      with indications of volcanic action, present or recent. The bitumen is of
+      excellent quality, and was largely employed by the ancients. The naphtha
+      is of two kinds, black naphtha or petroleum, and white naphtha, which is
+      much preferred to the other. The bitumen-pits also, in some places,
+      yielded salt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another useful mineral with which the Persians were very plentifully
+      supplied, was sulphur. Sulphur is found in Persia Proper, in Carmania, on
+      the coast of Mekran, in Azerbijan, in the Elburz, on the Iranian plateau,
+      in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, and in very large quantities near Mosul.
+      Here it is quarried in great blocks, which are conveyed to considerable
+      distances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Excellent stone for building purposes was obtainable in most parts of the
+      Empire. Egypt furnished an inexhaustible supply of the best possible
+      granite; marbles of various kinds, compact sandstone, limestone, and other
+      useful sorts were widely diffused; and basalt was procurable from some of
+      the outlying ranges of Taurus. In the neighborhood of Nineveh, and in much
+      of the Mesopotamian region, there was abundance of grey alabaster, and a
+      better kind was quarried near Damascus. A gritty silicious rock on the
+      banks of the Euphrates, a little above Hit, was suitable for mill-stones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gems furnished by the various provinces of the Empire are too numerous
+      for mention. They included, it must be remembered, all the kinds which
+      have already been enumerated among the mineral products of the earlier
+      Monarchies. Among them, a principal place must, one would think, have been
+      occupied by the turquoise&mdash;the gem, par excellence, of modern Persia&mdash;although,
+      strange to say, there is no certain mention of it among the literary
+      remains of antiquity. This lovely stone is produced largely by the mines
+      at Nishapur in the Elburz, and is furnished also in less abundance and
+      less beauty by a mine in Kerman, and another near Khojend. It is noticed
+      by an Arabian author as early as the twelfth century of our era. A modern
+      writer on gems supposes that it is mentioned, though not named, by
+      Theophrastus; but this view scarcely seems to be tenable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the gems of most value which the Empire certainly produced were the
+      emerald, the green ruby, the red ruby, the opal, the sapphire, the
+      amethyst, the carbuncle, the jasper, the lapis lazuli, the sard, the
+      agate, and the topaz. Emeralds were found in Egypt, Media, and Cyprus;
+      green rubies in Bactria; common or red rubies in Caria; opals in Egypt,
+      Cyprus, and Asia Minor; sapphires in Cyprus; amethysts also in Cyprus, and
+      moreover in Egypt, Galatia, and Armenia; carbuncles in Caria; jaspers in
+      Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Persia Proper; the lapis lazuli in Cyprus, Egypt,
+      and Media; the sard in Babylonia; the agate in Carmania, Susiana, and
+      Armenia; and the topaz or chrysoprase in Upper Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tales which are told of enormous emeralds are undoubtedly fictions,
+      the material which passed for that precious substance being really in
+      these cases either green jasper or (more probably) glass. But lapis lazuli
+      and agate seem to have existed within the Empire in huge masses. Whole
+      cliffs of the former overhang the river Kashkar in Kaferistan; and the
+      myrrhine vases of antiquity which were (it is probable) of agate, and came
+      mainly from Carmania, seem to have been of a great size.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We may conclude this review by noticing, among stones of less consequence
+      produced within the Empire, jet, which was so called from being found at
+      the mouth of the river Gagis in Lycia, garnets, which are common in
+      Armenia, and beryl, which is a product of the same country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. CHARACTER, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, DRESS, ETC., OF THE PEOPLE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river
+      a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher
+      than the other, and the higher came up last.&rdquo;&mdash;Dan. viii. 3.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ethnic identity of the Persian people with the Medes, and the
+      inclusion of both nations in that remarkable division of the human race
+      which is known to ethnologers as the Ipanic or Arian, have been maintained
+      in a former volume. To the arguments there adduced it seems unnecessary to
+      add anything in this place, since at the present day neither of the two
+      positions appears to be controverted. It is admitted generally, not only
+      that the Persians were of the same stock with the Medes, but that they
+      formed, together with the Medes and a few other tribes and peoples of less
+      celebrity, a special branch of the Indo-European family&mdash;a branch to
+      which the name of Arian may be assigned, not merely for convenience sake,
+      but on grounds of actual tradition and history. Undistinguished in the
+      earlier annals of their race, the Medes and Persians became towards the
+      eighth or seventh century before our era, its leading and most important
+      tribes. Closely united together, with the superiority now inclining to
+      one, now to the other, they claimed and exercised a lordship over all the
+      other members of the stock, and not only over them, but over various alien
+      races also. They had qualities which raised them above their fellows, and
+      a civilization, which was not, perhaps, very advanced, but was still not
+      wholly contemptible. Such details as could be collected, either from
+      ancient authors, or from the extant remains, of the character, mode of
+      life, customs, etc., of the Medes, have already found a place in this
+      work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The greater part of what was there said will apply also to the Persians.
+      The information, however, which we possess, with respect to this latter
+      people, is so much more copious than that which has come down to us with
+      regard to the Medes, that, without repeating anything from the former
+      place, our materials will probably enable us to give to the present
+      chapter considerable dimensions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woodcuts of the preceding volume will have made the reader
+      sufficiently familiar with the physiognomy of the Persians, or, at any
+      rate, with the representation of it which has come down to us upon the
+      Persian monuments. It may be remarked that the type of face and head is
+      uniform upon all of them, and offers a remarkable contrast to the type
+      assigned to themselves by the Assyrians, from whom the Arians evidently
+      adopted the general idea of bas-reliefs, as well as their general mode of
+      treating subjects upon them. The novelty of the physiognomy is a strong
+      argument in favor of its truthfulness; and this is further confirmed by
+      the evidence which we have, that the Persian artists aimed at representing
+      the varieties of the human race, and succeeded fairly in rendering them.
+      Varieties of, physiognomy are represented upon the bas-reliefs with much
+      care, and sometimes with remarkable success, as the annexed head of a
+      negro, taken from one of the royal tombs, will sufficiently indicate. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0005">[PLATE XXIX., Fig.1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate029.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxix. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      According to Herodotus, the skulls of the Persians were extraordinarily
+      thin and weak&mdash;a phenomenon for which he accounted by the national
+      habit of always covering the head. There does not seem to be in reality
+      any ground for supposing that such a practice would at all tend to produce
+      such a result. If, therefore, we regard the fact of thinness as
+      established, we can only view it as an original feature in the physical
+      type of the race. Such a feature would imply, on the supposition that the
+      heads were of the ordinary size, a large brain-cavity, and so an unusual
+      volume of brain, which is generally a concomitant of high intellectual
+      power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians seem, certainly, to have been quick and lively, keen-witted,
+      capable of repartee, ingenious, and, for Orientals, far-sighted. They had
+      fancy and imagination, a relish for poetry and art, and they were not
+      without a certain power of political combination. But we cannot justly
+      ascribe to them any high degree of intellectual excellence. The religious
+      ideas which they held in common with the Medes were, indeed, of a more
+      elevated character than is usual with races not enlightened by special
+      revelation; but these ideas were the common stock of the Iranic peoples,
+      and were inherited by the Persians from a remote ancestry, not excogitated
+      by themselves. Their taste for art, though marked, was neither pure nor
+      high. We shall have to consider, in a future chapter, the architecture and
+      mimetic art of the people to weigh their merits in these respects, and, at
+      the same time, to note their deficiencies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without anticipating the exact verdict then to be pronounced, we may say
+      at once that there is nothing in the remains of the Persian architecture
+      and sculpture that have come down to us indicative of any remarkable
+      artistic genius; nothing that even places them on a par with the best
+      works of the kind produced by Orientals. Again, if the great work of
+      Firdausi represents to us, as it probably does, the true spirit of the
+      ancient poetry of the Persians, we must conclude that, in the highest
+      department of art, their efforts were but of moderate merit. A tone of
+      exaggeration, an imagination exuberant and unrestrained, a preference for
+      glitter over solid excellence, a love of far-fetched conceits,
+      characterize the Shahnameh; and, though we may fairly ascribe something of
+      this to the idiosyncrasy of the poet, still, after we have made all due
+      allowance upon this score, the conviction presses upon us that there was a
+      childish and grotesque character in the great mass of the old Persian
+      poetry, which marks it as the creation of moderate rather than of high
+      intellectual power, and prevents us from regarding it with the respect
+      with which we view the labors of the Greeks and Romans, or, again, of the
+      Hebrews, in this department. A want of seriousness, a want of reality,
+      and, again, a want of depth, characterize the poetry of Iran, whose bards
+      do not touch the chords which rouse what is noblest and highest in our
+      nature. They give us sparkle, prettiness, quaint and ingenious fancies,
+      grotesque marvels, an inflated kind of human heroism; but they have none
+      of the higher excellencies of the poetic art, none of the divine fire
+      which renders the true poet, and the true prophet, one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among moral qualities, we must assign to the Persians as their most marked
+      characteristics, at any rate in the earlier times, courage, energy, and a
+      regard for truth. The valor of their troops in the great combats of
+      Platsea and Thermopylae extorted the admiration of their enemies, who have
+      left on record their belief that, &ldquo;in boldness and warlike spirit, the
+      Persians were not a whit behind the Greeks,&rdquo; and that their defeat was
+      &ldquo;wholly owing to the inferiority of their equipment and training.&rdquo; Without
+      proper shields, with little defensive armor, wielding only short swords
+      and lances that were scarcely more than javelins, they dashed themselves
+      upon the serried ranks of the Spartans, seizing the huge spear-shafts of
+      these latter with their hands, striving to break them, and to force a way
+      in. No conduct could have been braver than this, which the modern
+      historian well compares with brilliant actions of the Romans and the
+      Swiss. The Persians thoroughly deserved to be termed (as they are termed
+      by AEschylus), a &ldquo;valiant-minded people;&rdquo; they had boldness, elan, dash,
+      and considerable tenacity and stubbornness; no nation of Asia or Africa
+      was able to stand against them; if they found their masters in the Greeks,
+      it was owing, as the Greeks themselves tell us, to the superiority of
+      Hellenic arms, equipment, and, above all, of Hellenic discipline, which
+      together rendered the most desperate valor unavailing, when it lacked the
+      support of scientific organization and united simultaneous movement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The energy of the Persians during the earlier years of their ascendancy is
+      no less remarkable than their courage. AEschylus speaks of a mysterious
+      fate which forced them to engage continually in a long series of wars, to
+      take delight in combats of horse, and in the siege and overthrow of
+      cities. Herodotus, in a tone that is not very different, makes Xerxes,
+      soon after his accession, represent himself as bound by the examples of
+      his forefathers to engage his country in some great enterprise, and not
+      suffer the military spirit of his people to decay through want of
+      employment. We shall find, when we come to consider the history of the
+      Empire, that, for eighty years, under four sovereigns, the course
+      indicated by these two writers was in fact pursued&mdash;that war followed
+      on war, expedition on expedition&mdash;the active energy of sovereign and
+      people carrying them on, without rest or pause, in a career of conquest
+      that has few parallels in the history of Oriental nations. In the
+      subsequent period, this spirit is less marked; but, at all times, a
+      certain vigor and activity has characterized the race, distinguishing it
+      in a very marked way from the dreamy and listless Hindus upon the one
+      hand, and the apathetic Turks upon the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian love of truth was a favorite theme with the Greeks, who were,
+      perhaps, the warmer in their praises from a latent consciousness of their
+      own deficiency in the virtue. According to Herodotus, the attention of
+      educators was specially directed to the point, and each young Persian was
+      taught by his preceptors three main things:&mdash;&ldquo;To ride, to draw the
+      bow, and to speak the truth.&rdquo; We find that, in the Zendavesta, and more
+      especially in its earliest and purest portions, truth is strenuously
+      inculcated. Ahura-Mazda himself is &ldquo;true,&rdquo; &ldquo;the father of all truth,&rdquo; and
+      his worshippers are bound to conform themselves to his image. Darius, in
+      his inscriptions, protests frequently against &ldquo;lies,&rdquo; which he seems to
+      regard as the embodiment of all evil. A love of finesse and intrigue is
+      congenital to Orientals; and, in the later period of their sway, the
+      Persians appear to have yielded to this natural inclination, and to have
+      used freely in their struggle with the Greeks the weapons of cunning and
+      deception; but, in the earlier period, a different spirit prevailed; lying
+      was then regarded as the most disgraceful act of which a man could
+      possibly be guilty truth was both admired and practised; Persian kings,
+      entrapped into a promise, stood to it firmly, however much they might wish
+      it recalled; foreign powers had never to complain that the terms of a
+      treaty were departed from; the Persians thus form an honorable exception
+      to the ordinary Asiatic character, and for general truthfulness and a
+      faithful performance of their engagements compare favorably with the
+      Greeks and Romans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian, if we may trust Herodotus, was careful to avoid debt. He had
+      a keen sense of the difficulty with which a debtor escapes subterfuge and
+      equivocation&mdash;forms, slightly disguised, of lying. To buy and sell
+      wares in a market place, to chaffer and haggle over prices, was
+      distasteful to him, as apt to involve falsity and unfairness. He was free
+      and open in speech, bold in act, generous, warm-hearted, hospitable. His
+      chief faults were an addiction to self-indulgence and luxury, a passionate
+      abandon to the feeling of the hour, whatever that might happen to be; and
+      a tameness and subservience in all his relations towards his prince, which
+      seem to moderns almost incompatible with real self-respect and manliness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The luxury of the Persians will be considered when we treat of their
+      manners. In illustration of the two other weak points of their character,
+      it may be observed that, in joy and in sorrow, they were alike immoderate;
+      in the one transported beyond all reasonable bounds, and exhibiting their
+      transports with entire unreserve and openness; in the other
+      proportionately depressed, and quite unrestrained in the expression of
+      their anxiety or misery. AEschylus&rsquo; tragedy of the &ldquo;Persae&rdquo; is, in this
+      respect, true to nature, and represents with accuracy the real habits of
+      the nation. The Persian was a stranger to the dignified reserve which has
+      commonly been affected by the more civilized among Western nations. He
+      laughed and wept, shouted and shrieked, with the unrestraint of a child,
+      who is not ashamed to lay bare his inmost feelings to the eyes of those
+      about him. Lively and excitable, he loved to give vent to every passion
+      that stirred his heart, and cared not how many witnessed his lamentations
+      or his rejoicings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The feeling of the Persian towards his king is one of which moderns can
+      with difficulty form a conception. In Persia the monarch was so much the
+      State, that patriotism itself was, as it were, swallowed up in loyalty;
+      and an absolute unquestioning submission, not only to the deliberate will,
+      but to the merest caprice of the sovereign, was, by habit and education,
+      so engrained into the nature of the people that a contrary spirit scarcely
+      ever manifested itself. In war the safety of the sovereign was the first
+      thought, and the principal care of all. The tales told of the
+      self-devotion of individuals to secure the preservation of the monarch may
+      not be true, but they indicate faithfully the actual tone of men&rsquo;s
+      sentiments about the value of the royal person. If the king suffered, all
+      was lost; if the king escaped, the greatest calamities seemed light, and
+      could be endured with patience. Uncomplaining acquiescence in all the
+      decisions of the monarch&mdash;cheerful submission to his will, whatever
+      it might chance to be&mdash;characterized the conduct of the Persians in
+      time of peace. It was here that their loyalty degenerated into parasitical
+      tameness, and became a defect instead of a virtue. The voice of
+      remonstrance, of rebuke, of warning, was unheard at the Court; and tyranny
+      was allowed to indulge unchecked in the wildest caprices and
+      extravagances. The father, whose innocent son was shot before his eyes by
+      the king in pure wantonness, instead of raising an indignant protest
+      against the crime, felicitated him on the excellence of his archery.
+      Unfortunates, bastinadoed by the royal orders, declared themselves
+      delighted, because his majesty had condescended to recollect them. A tone
+      of sycophancy and servility was thus engendered, which, sapping
+      self-respect, tended fatally to lower and corrupt the entire character of
+      the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In considering the manners and customs of the Persians, it will be
+      convenient to follow the order already observed in treating of Assyria and
+      Media&mdash;that is to say, to treat, in the first instance, of their
+      warlike, and subsequently of their peaceful usages. On the latter the
+      monuments throw considerable light; on the former, the information which
+      they supply is comparatively scanty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians, like the Medes, regarded chariots with disfavor, and
+      composed their armies almost entirely of foot and horse. The ordinary
+      dress of the foot-man was, in the earlier times, a tunic with long
+      sleeves, made of leather, and fitting rather tightly to the frame, which
+      it covered from the neck to the knee. Under this was worn a pair of
+      trousers, also of leather, and tolerably tight-fitting, especially at the
+      ankles, where they met a sort of high shoe, or low boot. The head was
+      protected by a loose round cap, apparently of felt, which projected a
+      little in front, and rose considerably above the top of the head. Round
+      the waist was worn a double girdle or belt, from which depended a short
+      sword. <a href="#linkimage-0004">[PLATE XXVIII Fig. 4.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The offensive arms of the foot-man were, a sword, a spear, and a bow. The
+      sword, which was called by the Persians <i>akinaces</i>, appears to have
+      been a short, straight weapon, suited for stabbing rather than for
+      cutting, and, in fact, not very much better than a dagger. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0005">[PLATE XXIX., Fig. 2.]</a> It was carried in a
+      sheath, and was worn suspended from the girdle on the right side. From the
+      Persepolitan sculptures it would seem not to have hung freely, but to have
+      been attached to the right thigh by a thong which passed round the knee.
+      The handle was short, and generally unprotected by a guard; but, in some
+      specimens, we see a simple cross-bar between the hilt and the blade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spear carried by the Persian foot-man was also short, or, at any rate,
+      much shorter than the Greek. To judge by the representations of guardsmen
+      on the Persepolitan sculptures, it was from six to six and a half or seven
+      feet in length. The Grecian spear was sometimes as much as twenty-one
+      feet. The Persian weapon had a short head, which appears to have been
+      flattish, and which was strengthened by a bar or ridge down the middle.
+      The shaft, which was of cornel wood, tapered gradually from bottom to top,
+      and was ornamented at its lower extremity with a ball, sometimes carved in
+      the shape of an apple or a pomegranate. <a href="#linkimage-0005">[PLATE
+      XXIX., Fig. 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian bow, according to Herodotus and Xenophon, was of unusual size.
+      According to the sculptures, it was rather short, certainly not exceeding
+      four feet. It seems to have been carried strung, either on the left
+      shoulder, with the arm passed through it, or in a bow-case slung at the
+      left side. It was considerably bent in the middle, and had the ends
+      slightly turned back. <a href="#linkimage-0006">[PLATE XXX., Fig. 1.]</a>
+      The arrows, which were of reed, tipped with metal, and feathered, were
+      carried in a quiver, which hung at the back near the left shoulder. To
+      judge from the sculptures, their length must have been about two feet and
+      a half. The arrow-heads, which were either of bronze or iron, seem to have
+      been of various shapes, the most common closely resembling the arrow-heads
+      of the Assyrians. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 3.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate030.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxx. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Other offensive weapons carried occasionally by the Persian foot-men were,
+      a battle-axe, a sling, and a knife. The battle-axe, which appears in the
+      sculptures only in one or two instances, is declared to have been a common
+      Persian weapon by Xenophon, who, upon such a point, would seem to be
+      trustworthy. The use of the sling by the Persian light-armed is quite
+      certain. It is mentioned by Curtius and Strabo, no less than by Xenophon;
+      and the last-named writer speaks with full knowledge on the subject, for
+      he witnessed the effect of the weapon in the hands of Persian slingers
+      during his return with the Ten Thousand. The only missiles which the
+      Persian slingers threw were stones; they did not, like the Rhodians, make
+      use of small lumps of lead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The knife seems also to have been a Persian weapon. Its blade appears to
+      have been slightly curved, like that of a pruning-hook. It was worn in a
+      sheath, and was probably thrust into the belt or girdle like the similar
+      weapon, half knife, half dagger, of a modern Persian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ordinary defence of the Persian against the weapons of his enemy was a
+      shield of wicker-work, which covered him almost from head to foot, and
+      which probably differed little from the wattled shield of the Assyrians.
+      <a href="#linkimage-0006">[PLATE XXX., Fig. 2.]</a> This he commonly
+      planted on the ground, supporting it, perhaps, with a crutch, while he
+      shot his arrows from behind it. Occasionally, he added to this defence the
+      protection of a coat of mail, composed either of scale armor, or of
+      quilted linen, like the corselets of the Egyptians. Armor of the former
+      kind was almost impenetrable, since the scales were of metal&mdash;iron,
+      bronze, or sometimes gold&mdash;and overlapped one another like those of a
+      fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian cavalry was armed, in the early times of the monarchy, almost
+      exactly in the same manner as their infantry. Afterwards, however a
+      considerable change seems to have been made. In the time of the younger
+      Cyrus cavalry soldiers were very fully protected. They wore helmets on
+      their heads, coats of mail about their bodies, and greaves on their legs.
+      Their chief offensive arms seem, then, to have been the short sword, the
+      javelin, and the knife. It is probable that they were without shields,
+      being sufficiently defended by their armor, which (as we have seen) was
+      almost complete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The javelin of the horseman, which was his special weapon, was a short
+      strong spear or pike, with a shaft of cornel-wood, and an iron point. It
+      was common for him to carry two such weapons, one of which he used as a
+      missile, while he retained the other in order to employ it in hand-to-hand
+      combat with the enemy. It was a stout manageable weapon, and though no
+      match for the longer and equally strong spear of the Macedonian cavalry,
+      was preferred by Xenophon to the long weak reed-lance commonly carried by
+      horse-soldiers in his day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the practice of the later Persians to protect with armor, not only
+      the horseman, but the horse. They selected for the service large and
+      powerful animals, chiefly of the Nisaean breed, and cased them almost
+      wholly in mail. The head was guarded by a frontlet, and the neck and chest
+      by a breast-piece; the sides and flanks had their own special covering and
+      cuisses defended the thighs. These defences were not merely, like those of
+      the later Assyrian heavy cavalry, of felt or leather, but consisted, like
+      the cuirasses worn by the riders, of some such material covered with metal
+      scales. The weight which the horse had to sustain was thus very great, and
+      the movements of the cavalry force were, in consequence, slow and
+      hesitating. Flight was difficult; and, in a retreat, the weaker animals
+      were apt to sink under their burdens, and to be trampled to death by the
+      stronger ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There can be no doubt that, besides these heavy horsemen, the Persians
+      employed, even in the latest times, and much more in the earlier, a light
+      and agile cavalry force. Such were the troops which, under Tissaphernes,
+      harassed the Ten Thousand during their retreat; and such, it may be
+      conjectured, was really at all times the great body of their cavalry. The
+      education of the Persian, as we shall see hereafter, was directed to the
+      formation of those habits of quickness and agility in the mounting and
+      managing of horses, which have a military value only as furnishing a good
+      training for the light-cavalry service; and the tendency of the race has
+      at all times been, not to those forms of military organization which are
+      efficient by means of solidity and strength, but to those lighter, more
+      varied, and more elastic branches which compensate for a want of solidity
+      by increased activity, readiness, and ease of movement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the Persians did not set any great store by chariots, as an arm of
+      the military service, they nevertheless made occasional use of them. Not
+      only were their kings and princes, when they commanded their troops in
+      person, accustomed to direct their movements, both on the march and even
+      inaction, from the elevation of a war-chariot, but now and then, in great
+      battles, a considerable force of them was brought into the field, and
+      important consequences were expected from their employment. The wheels of
+      the war-chariots were armed with scythes; and these, when the chariot was
+      set in motion, were regarded as calculated to inflict great damage on the
+      ranks of opponents. Such hopes seem, however, to have been generally
+      disappointed. As every chariot was drawn by at least two horses, and
+      contained at least two persons&mdash;the charioteer and the warrior&mdash;a
+      large mark was offered by each to the missiles of the light troops who
+      were commonly stationed to receive them; and, as practically it was found
+      that a single wound to either horse or man threw the whole equipage into
+      confusion, the charge of a scythed chariot was commonly checked before it
+      reached the line of battle of the enemy. Where this was not the case, the
+      danger was escaped by opening the ranks and letting the chariots pass
+      through them to the rear, a good account being speedily given of any
+      adventurer who thus isolated himself from the support of his own party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian war-chariot was, probably, somewhat loftier than the Assyrian.
+      The wheels appear to have been from, three to four feet in diameter; and
+      the body rose above them to a height from the ground of nearly five feet.
+      The person of the warrior was thus protected up to his middle by the
+      curved board which enclosed the chariot on three sides. The axle-tree is
+      said to have been broad, since breadth afforded a security against being
+      overturned, and the whole construction to have been strong and solid. The
+      wheels had twelve spokes, which radiated from a nave of unusual size. The
+      felloes were narrower than the Assyrian, but were still composed, like
+      them, of two or three distinct layers of wood. The tires were probably of
+      metal, and were indented like the edge of a saw. <a href="#linkimage-0007">[PLATE
+      XXXI., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate031.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxi. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      No great ornamentation of the chariot appears to have been attempted. The
+      body was occasionally patterned with a chequer-work, which maybe compared
+      with a style common in Assyria, and the spokes of the wheels were
+      sometimes of great elegance, but the general character of the workmanship
+      was massive and plain. The pole was short, and terminated with a simple
+      curve. From the evidence of the monuments it would seem that chariots were
+      drawn by two horses only; but the classical writers assure us that the
+      ordinary practice was to have teams of four. The harness used was
+      exceedingly simple, consisting of a yoke, a belly-band, a narrow collar, a
+      head-stall, a bit, and reins. When the charioteer left his seat, the reins
+      could be attached to a loop or bar which projected from the front of the
+      chariot-board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chariots were constructed to contain two, or perhaps, in some instances,
+      three persons. These consisted of the warrior, his charioteer, who stood
+      beside him, and an attendant, whose place was behind, and whose business
+      it was to open and shut the chariot doors. The charioteer wore a visor and
+      a coat of mail, exposing nothing to the enemy but his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The later Persians made use also of elephants in battle, but to a very
+      small extent, and without any results worth mentioning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chief points of Persian tactics were the following. The army was
+      organized into three distinct services&mdash;those of the chariots, the
+      horse, and the foot. In drawing up the line of battle, it was usual, where
+      chariots were employed, to place them in the front rank, in front of the
+      rest of the army. Behind the chariots were stationed the horse and the
+      foot; the former generally massed upon the wings; the latter placed in the
+      middle, drawn up according to nations, in a number of oblong squares,
+      which touched, or nearly touched, one another. The bravest and best armed
+      troops were placed in front; the ranks towards the rear being occupied by
+      those of inferior quality. The depth of the ranks was usually very great,
+      since Oriental troops cannot be trusted to maintain a firm front unless
+      they are strongly supported from behind. No attempt, however, seems to
+      have been made at forming a second line of battle in the rear of the
+      first, nor does there even seem to have been any organized system of
+      reserves. When the battle began, the chariots were first launched against
+      the enemy, whose ranks it was hoped they would confuse, or, at any rate,
+      disturb. After this the main line advanced to the attack, but without any
+      inclination to come at once to close quarters. Planting their shields
+      firmly on the ground in front of them, the Persian heavy-armed shot flight
+      after flight of arrows against their foe, while the slingers and other
+      light-armed in the rear sent clouds of missiles over the heads of their
+      friends into the adverse ranks beyond them. It was usually the enemy which
+      brought this phase of the battle to an end, by pressing onward and closing
+      with the Persian main line in a hand:to-hand combat. Here the struggle was
+      commonly brief&mdash;a very few minutes often decided the engagement. If
+      the Persian line of battle was forced or broken, all was immediately
+      regarded as lost&mdash;flight and rout followed. The cavalry, from its
+      position on the wings, might attempt, by desperate charges on the flanks
+      of the advancing foe, to stay his progress, and restore the fortune of the
+      day, but such efforts were usually unavailing. Its line of battle once
+      broken, a Persian army lost heart; its commander commonly set the example
+      of flight, and there was a general rush of all arms from the battle-field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For success the Persians trusted mainly to their numbers, which enabled
+      them, in some cases, to renew an attack time after time with fresh troops,
+      in others to outflank and surround their adversary. Their best troops were
+      undoubtedly their cavalry, both heavy and light. The heavy, armed in the
+      old times with bows, and in the later with the javelins, highly
+      distinguished itself on many important occasions. The weight of its charge
+      must have been great; its offensive weapons were good; and its armor made
+      it almost invulnerable to ordinary weapons. The light cavalry was
+      celebrated for the quickness and dexterity of its manoeuvres. It had the
+      loose organization of modern Bashi-Bazouks or Cossacks; it hung in clouds
+      on the enemy&mdash;assailed, retreated, rallied, re-advanced&mdash;fled,
+      and even in flight was formidable, since each rider was trained to
+      discharge his arrows backwards with a sure aim. against the pursuing foe.
+      The famous skill of the Parthians in their horse-combats was inherited
+      from their Persian predecessors, who seem to have invented the practice
+      which the later people carried to perfection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though mainly depending for success on their numbers, the Persians did not
+      wholly despise the use of contrivance and stratagem. At Arbela, Darius
+      Codomannus had spiked balls strewn over the ground where he expected the
+      Greek cavalry to make its attacks. <a href="#linkimage-0006">[PLATE XXX.,
+      Fig. 5]</a>; and, at Sardis, Cyrus obtained his victory over the Lydian
+      horse by frightening them with the grotesque and unfamiliar camel. Other
+      instances will readily occur to the reader, whereby it appears that the
+      art of war was studied, and ingenuity allowed its due place in military
+      matters, by this people, who showed a fair share of Oriental subtlety in
+      the devices which they employed against their enemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is doubtful whether we are to include among these devices the use of
+      military engines. On the one hand, we have several distinct statements by
+      the author of the &ldquo;Cyrpoasdia,&rdquo; to the effect that engines were well known
+      to the Persians; on the other, we remark an entire absence from the works
+      of other ancient writers of any notice that they actually employed them,
+      either in their battles or their sieges. The silence of Scripture, of
+      Herodotus, of the inscriptions, of Quintus Curtius, of Arrian, may fairly
+      be regarded as outweighing the unsupported authority of the
+      romance-writer, Xenophon; and though it would be rash to decide that such
+      things as siege-towers, battering rams, and balistce&mdash;all of which
+      are found to have been in constant use under the Assyrian and Babylonian
+      monarchies&mdash;were wholly discarded by, or unknown to, their successors
+      in the government of Asia, yet a wise criticism will conclude, that they
+      were, at any rate, unfamiliar to the Persians, rarely and sparingly (if at
+      all) employed by them, other methods of accomplishing the ends whereto
+      they served having more approved themselves to this ingenious people. In
+      ordinary sieges it would seem that they trusted to the bank or mound,
+      while sometimes they drove mines under the walls, and sought in this way
+      to effect a breach. Where the place attacked was of great strength, they
+      had recourse in general either to stratagem or to blockade. Occasionally
+      they employed the destructive force of fire, and no doubt they often
+      succeeded by the common method of escalade. On the whole, it must
+      certainly be said that they were successful in their sieges, exhibiting in
+      their conduct of them courage, activity, and considerable fertility of
+      resource.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A Persian army was usually, though not always, placed under a single
+      commander. This commander was the monarch, if he was present; if not, it
+      was a Persian, or a Mede, nominated by him. Under the commander-in-chief
+      were a number of general officers, heads of corps or divisions, of whom we
+      find, in one instance, as many as nine. Next in rank to these were the
+      chiefs of the various ethnic contingents composing the army, who were,
+      probably, in general the satraps of the different provinces. Thus far
+      appointments were held directly from the crown; but beyond this the system
+      was changed. The ethnic or satrapial commanders appointed the officers
+      next below themselves, the captains over a thousand, and (if their
+      contingent was large enough to admit it) the captains over ten thousand;
+      who, again, nominated their subordinates, commanders of a hundred, and
+      commanders of ten. Thus, in the main, a decimal scale prevailed. The
+      lowest rank of officers commanded each ten men, the next lowest a hundred,
+      the next to that a thousand, the next ten thousand. The officer over ten
+      thousand was sometimes a divisional chief; sometimes he was subject to the
+      commander of an ethnic contingent, who was himself under the orders of the
+      head of a division. Altogether there were six ranks of officers, exclusive
+      of the commander-in-chief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The proper position of the commander-in-chief was considered to be the
+      centre of the line of battle. He was regarded as safer there than he would
+      have been on either wing; and it was seen that, from such a position, his
+      orders would be most rapidly conveyed to all parts of the battlefield. It
+      was not, however, thought to be honorable that he should keep aloof from
+      the fight, or avoid risking his own person. On the contrary, he was
+      expected to take an active part in the combat; and therefore, though his
+      place was not exactly in the very foremost ranks, it was towards the
+      front, and the result followed that he was often exposed to imminent
+      danger. The consequences of this arrangement were frequently disastrous in
+      the extreme, the death or flight of the commander producing universal
+      panic, stopping the further issue of any general order, and thus
+      paralyzing the whole army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The numbers of a Persian army, though no doubt exaggerated by the Greeks,
+      must have been very great, amounting, probably, on occasions, to more than
+      a million of combatants. Troops were drawn from the entire empire, and
+      were marshalled in the field according to nations, each tribe accoutred in
+      its own fashion. Here were seen the gilded breastplates and scarlet kilts
+      of the Persians and Medes; there the woollen shirt of the Arab, the
+      leathern jerkin of the Berber, or the cotton dress of the native of
+      Hindustan. Swart savage Ethiops from the Upper Nile, adorned with a
+      war-paint of white and red, and scantily clad with the skins of leopards
+      or lions, fought in one place with huge clubs, arrows tipped with stone,
+      and spears terminating in the horn of an antelope. In another, Scyths,
+      with their loose spangled trousers and their tall pointed caps, dealt
+      death around from their unerring blows; while near them Assyrians,
+      helmeted, and wearing corselets of quilted linen, wielded the tough spear,
+      or the still more formidable iron mace. Rude weapons, like cane bows,
+      unfeathered arrows, and stakes hardened at one end in the fire, were seen
+      side by side with keen swords and daggers of the best steel, the finished
+      productions of the workshops of Phoenicia and Greece. Here the bronze
+      helmet was surmounted with the ears and horns of an ox; there it was
+      superseded by a fox-skin, a leathern or wooden skull-cap, or a head-dress
+      fashioned out of a horse&rsquo;s scalp. Besides horses and mules, elephants,
+      camels, and wild asses, diversified the scene, and rendered it still more
+      strange and wonderful to the eye of a European. One large body of cavalry
+      was accustomed to enter the field apparently unarmed; besides the dagger,
+      which the Oriental never lays aside, they had nothing but a long leathern
+      thong. They used this, however, just as the lasso is used by the natives
+      of Brazil, and the wretch at whom they aimed their deadly noose had small
+      chance of escape. The Persians, like the Assyrians, usually avoided
+      fighting during the winter, and marched out their armies against the enemy
+      in early spring. With the great hosts which they moved a fixed order of
+      march was most necessary; and we find evidence of so much attention being
+      paid to this point that confusion and disorder seem scarcely ever to have
+      arisen. When the march lay within their own country, it was usual to send
+      on the baggage and the sumpter-beasts in advance, after which came about
+      half the troops, moving slowly in a long and continuous column along the
+      appointed line of route. At this point a considerable break occurred, in
+      order that all might be clear for the most important part of the army,
+      which was now to follow. A guard, consisting of a thousand horse and a
+      thousand foot, picked men of the Persian people, prepared the way for what
+      was most holy in the eyes of the nation&mdash;the emblems of their
+      religion, and their king. The former consisted of sacred horses and cars;
+      perhaps, in the later times, of silver altars also, bearing the perpetual
+      and heaven-kindled fire, which was a special object of Persian religious
+      regard, and which the superstition of the people viewed as a sort of
+      palladium, sure to bring the blessings of heaven upon their arms. Behind
+      the sacred emblems followed the Great King himself, mounted on a car drawn
+      by Nissean steeds, and perhaps protected on either side by a select band
+      of his relatives. Behind the royal chariot came a second guard,
+      consisting, like the first, of a thousand foot and a thousand horse. Then
+      followed ten thousand picked foot, probably the famous &ldquo;Immortals;&rdquo; then
+      came a body of ten thousand picked Persian horsemen. After these a space
+      of four hundred yards (nearly a quarter of a mile) was left vacant; then
+      marched, in a second continuous column, the remainder of the host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On entering an enemy&rsquo;s country, or drawing near a hostile force in their
+      own, certain alterations in these dispositions became necessary, and were
+      speedily effected. The baggage-train was withdrawn, and instead of moving
+      before the army, followed at some little distance in the rear. Horsemen
+      were thrown out in front, to feel for the enemy and notify his arrival.
+      Sometimes, if the host was large, a division of the troops was made, and
+      several <i>corps d&rsquo;armee</i> advanced against the foe simultaneously by
+      distinct routes. When this took place, the commander-in-chief was careful
+      to accompany the central force, so as to find himself in his proper
+      position if he was suddenly compelled to give battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Night movements were seldom attempted by the Persians. They marched from
+      sunrise to sunset, halting, probably, during the midday heat. In their
+      most rapid marches they seldom accomplished more than from twenty to
+      twenty-five miles in the day; and when this rate was attempted for any
+      continuance, it was necessary to rest the men at intervals for as much as
+      three days at a time. The great drag upon rapidity of movement was the
+      baggage-train, which consisted ordinarily of a vast multitude of camels,
+      horses, asses, mules, oxen, etc., in part carrying burthens upon their
+      backs, in part harnessed to carts laden with provisions, tents, and other
+      necessaries. The train also frequently comprised a number of litters, in
+      which the wives or female companions of the chief men were luxuriously
+      conveyed, amid a crowd of eunuchs and attendants, and with all the
+      cumbrous paraphernalia of female wardrobes. Roads, it must be remembered,
+      did not exist; rivers were not bridged, except occasionally by boats; the
+      army marched on the natural ground along an established line of route
+      which no art had prepared for the passage of man or beast. Portions of the
+      route would often be soft and muddy; the carts and litters would become
+      immovable, their wheels sinking into the mire up to the axles; all the
+      efforts of the teams would be unavailing; it must have been imperative to
+      halt the main line, and employ the soldiers in the release of the
+      vehicles, which had to be lifted and carried forward till the ground was
+      sufficiently firm to bear them. When a river crossed the line of route, a
+      ford had to be sought, boats procured, or rafts extemporized. The Persians
+      were skilful in the passage of streams, to which they became accustomed in
+      their first campaigns under Cyrus; but the march was necessarily retarded
+      by these and similar obstacles, and we cannot be surprised that the
+      average rate of movement was slow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As evening approached the Persians sought a suitable place for their camp.
+      An open plain was preferred for the purpose, and the vicinity of water was
+      a necessity. If an enemy was thought to be at hand, a ditch was rapidly
+      dug, and the earth thrown up inside; or if the soil was sandy, sacks were
+      filled with it, and the camp was protected with sand-bags. Immediately
+      within the rampart were placed the <i>gerrhophori</i>, or Persians armed
+      with large wicker shields. The rest of the soldiers had severally their
+      appointed places, the position assigned to the commander-in-chief being
+      the centre. All the army had tents, which were pitched so as to face the
+      east. The horses of the cavalry were tethered and hobbled in front of the
+      tents of their owners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians disliked encamping near to their enemy. They preferred an
+      interval of seven or eight miles, which they regarded as a considerable
+      security against a surprise. As their most important arm was the cavalry,
+      and as it was impossible for the cavalry to unfasten and unhobble their
+      steeds, to equip them properly, to arm themselves, and then to mount in a
+      short space of time, when darkness and confusion reigned around, a night
+      attack on the part of an enterprising enemy would have been most perilous
+      to a Persian army. Hence the precaution which they observed against its
+      occurrence&mdash;a precaution which was seldom or never omitted where they
+      felt any respect for their foe, and which seems to have been effective,
+      since we do not hear of their suffering any disaster of the kind which
+      they so greatly feared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians do not seem to have possessed any special corps of pioneers.
+      When the nature of the country was such as to require the felling of
+      timber or the removal of brushwood, the army was halted, and the work was
+      assigned to a certain number of the regular soldiers. For the construction
+      of bridges, however, in important places, and for other works on a grand
+      scale intended to facilitate an expedition, preparations were made
+      beforehand, the tasks being entrusted either to skilled workmen, or to the
+      crews of ships, if they were tolerably easy of performance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Commissariat arrangements were generally made by the Persians on a large
+      scale, and with the best possible results. An ample baggage-train conveyed
+      corn sufficient to supply the host during some months and in cases where
+      scarcity was apprehended, further precautions were taken. Ships laden with
+      corn accompanied the expedition as closely as possible, and supplemented
+      any deficiency that might arise from a failure on the part of the land
+      transport department. Sometimes, too, magazines were established at
+      convenient points along the intended line of march previously to the
+      setting forth of the army, and stores were thus accumulated at places
+      where it was probable they would be found of most service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Requisitions for supplies were also made upon the inhabitants of the towns
+      and villages through which lay the route of the army. Whenever the host
+      rested for a night at a place of any consequence, the inhabitants seem to
+      have been required to furnish sufficient bread for a meal to each man,
+      and, in addition, to provide a banquet for the king (or general) and his
+      suite, which was always very numerous. Such requisitions, often
+      intolerably burthensome to those upon whom they were laid, must have
+      tended greatly to relieve the strain upon their own resources, which the
+      sustentation of such enormous hosts as the Persian kings were in the habit
+      of moving, cannot have failed to produce in many cases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effectiveness of these various arrangements for the provisioning of
+      troops upon a march was such that Persian armies were rarely, if ever, in
+      any difficulty with respect to their subsistence. Once only in the entire
+      course of their history do we hear of the Persian forces suffering to any
+      considerable extent from a want of supplies. According to Herodotus,
+      Cambyses, when he invaded Ethiopia, neglected the ordinary precautions and
+      brought his army into such straits that his men began to eat each other.
+      This caused the total failure of his expedition, and the loss of a great
+      proportion of the troops employed in it. There is, however, reason to
+      suspect that, even in this case, the loss and difficulty which occurred
+      have been much exaggerated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians readily gave quarter to the enemy who asked it, and generally
+      treated their prisoners of war with much kindness. Personages of
+      importance, as monarchs or princes, either preserved their titles and
+      their liberty, with even a certain nominal authority, or received
+      appanages in other parts of the Persian territory, or, finally, were
+      retained about the Court as friends and table-companions of the Great
+      King. Those of less rank were commonly given lands and houses in some
+      province remote from their own country, and thenceforth held the same
+      position as the great mass of the subject races. Exchanges of prisoners do
+      not seem to have been thought of. In a few cases, persons, whom we should
+      regard as prisoners of war, experienced some severities, but probably only
+      when they were viewed by the Persians, not as fair enemies, but as rebels.
+      Rebels were, of course, liable to any punishment which the king might
+      think it right to inflict upon them, and there were occasions after a
+      revolt when sentences of extreme rigor were passed upon the persons
+      considered to have been most in fault. According to Herodotus, three
+      thousand Babylonians were crucified by order of Darius, to punish their
+      revolt from him; and, though this is probably an exaggeration, it is
+      certain that sometimes, where an example was thought to be required, the
+      Persians put to death, not only the leader of a rebellion, but a number of
+      his chief adherents. Crucifixion, or, at any rate, impalement of some
+      sort, was in such cases the ordinary punishment. Sometimes, before a rebel
+      was executed, he was kept for a while chained at the king&rsquo;s door, in order
+      that there might be no doubt of his capture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the minor punishments of rebellion were branding, and removal of the
+      rebels <i>en masse</i> from their own country, to some remote locality. In
+      this latter case, they were merely treated in the same way as ordinary
+      prisoners of war. In the former, they probably became royal slaves
+      attached to the household of the monarch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the Persians were not themselves a nautical people, they were quite
+      aware of the great importance of a navy, and spared no pains to provide
+      themselves with an efficient one. The conquests of Phoenicia, Cyprus,
+      Egypt, and the Greek islands were undertaken, it is probable, mainly with
+      this object; and these parts of the Empire were always valued chiefly as
+      possessing skilled seamen, vessels, and dockyards, from which the Great
+      King could draw an almost inexhaustible supply of war-ships and
+      transports. Persia at times had the complete command of the Mediterranean
+      Sea, and bore undisputed sway in the Levant during almost the whole period
+      of her existence as an empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The war-ship preferred by the best naval powers during the whole period of
+      the Persian rule was the trireme, or decked galley impelled by rowers
+      sitting in three tiers, or banks, one above another. This vessel, the
+      invention of the Corinthians, had been generally adopted by the nations
+      bordering on the Mediterranean in the interval between B.C. 700 and B.C.
+      525, when by the reduction of Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Egypt, the Persians
+      obtained the command of the sea. Notwithstanding the invention of
+      quadriremes by the Carthaginians before B.C. 400, and of quinqueremes by
+      Dionysius the Elder soon after, the trireme stood its ground, and from
+      first to last the Persian fleets were mainly composed of this class of
+      vessels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trireme was a vessel of a considerable size, and was capable of
+      accommodating two hundred and thirty persons. Of these, two hundred
+      constituted the crew, while the remaining thirty were men-at-arms,
+      corresponding to our own &ldquo;marines.&rdquo; By far the greater number of the crew
+      consisted of the rowers, who probably formed at least nine-tenths of the
+      whole, or one hundred and eighty out of the two hundred. The rowers sat,
+      not on benches running right across the vessel, but on small seats
+      attached to its side. They were arranged, as before stated, in three
+      tiers, not, however, directly one over the head of another, but obliquely,
+      each at once above and behind his fellow. Each rower had the sole
+      management of a single oar, which he worked through a hole pierced in the
+      side of the vessel. To prevent his oar from slipping he had a leathern
+      strap, which he twisted round it, and fastened to the thole, probably by
+      means of a button. The remainder of the crew comprised the captain, the
+      steersman, the petty officers, and the sailors proper, or those whose
+      office it was to trim the sails and look to the rigging. The trireme of
+      Persian times had, in all cases, a mast, and at least one sail, which was
+      of a square shape, hung across the mast by means of a yard or spar, like
+      the &ldquo;square-sail&rdquo; of a modern vessel. The rudder was composed of two
+      broad-bladed oars, one on either side of the stern, united, however, by a
+      cross-bar, and managed by a single steersman. The central part of a
+      trireme was always decked, and on this deck, which was generally level
+      with the bulwarks, stood and fought the men-at-arms, whose business it was
+      to engage the similar force of the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weapon of the trireme, with which she was intended chiefly to attack
+      her foe, was the beak. <a href="#linkimage-0007">[PLATE XXXI., Fig. 3.]</a>
+      This consisted of a projection from the prow of the ship, either above or
+      below the water-line, strongly shod with a casting of iron, and
+      terminating either in the head of an animal, or in one or more sharp
+      points. A trireme was expected, like a modern &ldquo;ram,&rdquo; to use this implement
+      against the sides of her adversary&rsquo;s vessels, so as to crush them in and
+      cause the vessels to sink. Driven by the full force of her oars, which
+      impelled her almost at the rate of a modern steamer, she was nearly
+      certain, if she struck her adversary full, to send ship and men to the
+      bottom. She might also, it is true, greatly damage herself; but, to
+      preclude this, it was customary to make the whole prow of a trirene
+      exceedingly strong, and, more particularly, to support it with beams at
+      the side which tended to prevent the timbers from starting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides triremes, which constituted the bulk of the Persian navy, there
+      were contained in their fleet various other classes of vessels, as
+      triaconters, penteconters, cercuri, and others. Triaconters were long,
+      sharp-keeled ships, shaped very much like a trireme, rowed by thirty
+      rowers, who sat all upon a level, like the rowers in modern boats, fifteen
+      on either side of the vessel. <a href="#linkimage-0007">[PLATE XXXI., Fig.
+      2.]</a> Penteconters were very similar, the only difference being in the
+      number of the oars and oarsmen. <a href="#linkimage-0007">[PLATE XXXI.,
+      Fig. 4.]</a> Both these classes of vessels seem to have been frequently
+      without sails. Cercuri were light boats, very long and swift. They are
+      said to have been invented by the Cyprians, and were always peculiar to
+      Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The transports of the Persians were either for the conveyance of horses or
+      of food. Horse-transports were large clumsy vessels, constructed expressly
+      for the service whereon they were used, possessing probably a special
+      apparatus for the embarkation and disembarkation of the animals which they
+      were built to carry. Corn-transports seem to have been of a somewhat
+      lighter character. Probably, they varied very considerably in their size
+      and burthen, including huge and heavy merchantmen on the one hand, and a
+      much lighter and smaller craft on the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians used their ships of war, not only for naval engagements, but
+      also for the conveyance of troops and the construction of bridges.
+      Accustomed to pass the great streams which intersect Western Asia by
+      bridges of boats, which were permanently established wherever an
+      unfordable river crossed any of the regular routes connecting the
+      provinces with the capital, the Persians, when they proceeded to carry
+      their arms from Asia into Europe, conceived the idea of bridging the
+      interval between the continents, which did not much exceed the width of
+      one of the Mesopotamian streams, by constructions similar in principle and
+      general character to those wherewith long use had made them familiar in
+      their own country. Ranging a number of vessels side by side, at no great
+      distance one from another, parallel with the course of the stream, which
+      ran down the straits, anchoring each vessel stem and stern to keep it in
+      place, and then laying upon these supports a long wooden platform, they
+      made a floating bridge of considerable strength, reaching from the Asiatic
+      to the European coast, on which not only men, but horses, camels,
+      chariots, and laden carts passed over safely from the one continent to the
+      other. Only, as the water which they had to cross was not a river, but an
+      arm of the real salt sea, and might, therefore, in case of a storm, show a
+      might and fury far beyond a river&rsquo;s power, they thought it necessary to
+      employ, in lieu of boats, the strongest ships which they possessed,
+      namely, triremes and pentecon-ters, as best capable of withstanding the
+      force of an angry sea. Bridges of this kind were intended sometimes for
+      temporary, sometimes for permanent constructions. In the latter case,
+      great care and much engineering skill was lavished on their erection. The
+      shore cables, which united the ships together, and sustained the actual
+      bridge or platform, were made of most carefully selected materials, and
+      must have been of enormous strength; the ships were placed in close
+      proximity one to another; and by the substitution of a double for a single
+      line&mdash;of two bridges, in fact, for one&mdash;the solidity of the work
+      was very largely augmented. Yet, rare as was the skill shown, solid and
+      compact as were the causeways thus thrown by human art over the sea, they
+      were found inadequate to the end desired. The great work of Xerxes, far
+      the most elaborate of its class, failed to withstand the fury of the
+      elements for a single year; the bridge, constructed in one autumn, was
+      utterly swept away in the next; and the army which had crossed into Europe
+      by its aid had to embark as it best could, and return on board ship to
+      Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the furnishing of the Persian fleet was left wholly to the subject
+      nations of the Empire, so was its manning intrusted to them almost
+      entirely. Phoenicians, Syrians, Egyptians, Cypriots, Cilicians, Lycians,
+      Pamphylians, Carians, Greeks, equipped in the several costumes of their
+      countries, served side by side in their respective contingents of ships,
+      thereby giving the fleet nearly the same motley appearance which was
+      presented by the army. In one respect alone did the navy exhibit superior
+      uniformity to their sister service&mdash;the <i>epibatae</i>, or
+      &ldquo;marines,&rdquo; who formed the whole fighting force of the fleet while it kept
+      the sea, was a nearly homogeneous body, consisting of three races only
+      (two of which were closely allied), namely, Persians, Medes, and Sacse.
+      Every ship had thirty such men on board; all, it is probable, uniformly
+      armed, and all animated by one and the same spirit. To this force the
+      Persians must have owed it mainly that their great fleets were not mere
+      congeries of mutually repellant atoms, but were capable of acting against
+      an enemy with a fair amount of combination and singleness of purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a fleet accompanied a land army upon an expedition, it was usually
+      placed under the same commander. This commander, however, was not expected
+      to adventure himself on board much less to take the direction of a
+      sea-fight. He intrusted the fleet to an officer, or officers, whom he
+      nominated, and was content himself with the conduct of operations ashore.
+      Occasionally the land and sea forces were assigned to distinct commanders
+      of co-ordinate authority&mdash;an arrangement which led naturally, to
+      misunderstanding and quarrel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tactics of a Persian fleet seem to have been of the simplest kind
+      Confident in their numbers, until experience had taught them the
+      fallaciousness of such a ground of hope, they were chiefly anxious that
+      their enemy should not escape. To prevent this they endeavored to surround
+      the ships opposed to them, advancing their line in a crescent form, so as
+      to enclose their adversary&rsquo;s wings, or even detaching squadrons to cut off
+      his retreat. They formed their line several ships deep and when the hour
+      of battle came, advanced directly at their best speed against the enemy,
+      endeavoring to run down his vessels by sheer force, and never showing any
+      acquaintance with or predilection for manoeuvres of a skilful antagonist,
+      who avoided or successfully withstood this first onset, they were apt
+      through their very numbers to be thrown into disorder: the first line
+      would become entangled with the second, the second with the third, and
+      inextricable confusion would be the result. Confusion placed them at the
+      mercy of their antagonist, who, retaining complete command over his own
+      vessels, was able to strike theirs in vulnerable parts, and, in a short
+      time, to cover the sea with shattered and sinking wrecks. The loss to the
+      Persians in men as well as in material, was then sure to be very great;
+      for their sailors seldom knew how to swim, and were consequently drowned,
+      even when the shore was but a few yards distant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, from deficiency in their numbers, or distrust of their own nautical
+      skill in comparison with that of their enemy, the commanders of a Persian
+      fleet wished to avoid an engagement, a plan sometimes adopted was to run
+      the ships ashore upon a smooth soft beach, and, after drawing them
+      together, to surround them with such a rampart as could be hastily made,
+      and defend this rampart with the sailors. The crews of the Persian vessels
+      were always more or less completely armed, in order that, if occasion
+      arose, they might act as soldiers ashore, and were thus quite capable of
+      fighting effectively behind a rampart. They might count, too, under such
+      circumstances, upon assistance from such of their own land forces as might
+      happen to be in the neighborhood, who would be sure to come with all speed
+      to their aid, and might be expected to prove a sure protection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The subject nations who furnished the Persians with their fleet were, in
+      the earlier times, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Cypriots, the
+      Cilicians, the Syrians of Palestine, the Pamphylians, the Lycians, the
+      Carians, and the Greeks of Asia Minor and the islands. The Greeks seem to
+      have furnished the largest number of ships; the Phoenicians, the next
+      largest; then the Egyptians; after them the Cypriots; then the Cilicians;
+      then the Carians; next the Lycians; while the Pamphylians furnished the
+      least. The best ships and the best sailors were the Phoenicians,
+      especially those of Sidon. In later times, ships were drawn either from
+      Phoenicia alone, or from Phoenicia, Cilicia, and Cyprus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The limits assigned to the present work forbid the further prosecution of
+      this branch of our inquiry, and require us now to pass on from the
+      consideration of the Persian usages in war, to that of their manners and
+      customs, their habits and proceedings, in time of peace. And here it will
+      once more be convenient to follow a division of the subject with which the
+      reader is familiar, and to treat first of the public life of the King and
+      Court, and next of the private life of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian king held the same rank and position in the eyes of his
+      subjects which the great monarch of Western Asia, whoever he might be, had
+      always occupied from time immemorial. He was their lord and master,
+      absolute disposer of their lives, liberties, and property; the sole
+      fountain of law and right, incapable himself of doing wrong, irresponsible
+      irresistable&mdash;a sort of God upon earth; one whose favor was
+      happiness, at whose frown men trembled, before whom all bowed themselves
+      down with the lowest and humblest obeisance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a personage so exhalted, a state and pomp of the utmost magnificence
+      was befitting. The king&rsquo;s ordinary dress in time of peace was the long
+      flowing &ldquo;Median garment,&rdquo; or <i>candys</i>&mdash;made in his case (it is
+      probable) of richest silk, which, with its ample folds, its wide hanging
+      sleeves, and its close fit about the neck and chest, gave dignity to
+      almost any figure, and excellently set off the noble presence of an
+      Achaemenian prince. The royal robe was either of purple throughout, or
+      sometimes of purple embroidered with gold. It descended below the ankles;
+      resting on the foot even when the monarch was seated. A broad girdle
+      confined it at the waist. Under it was worn a tunic, or shirt, which
+      reached from the neck to the knee, and had tight-fitting sleeves that
+      covered the arm to the wrist. The tunic was purple in color, like the <i>candys</i>,
+      or robe, but striped or mixed with white. The lower limbs were encased in
+      trousers of a crimson hue. On his feet the the king wore shoes like those
+      of the Medes, long and taper at the toe buttoned in front, and reaching
+      very high up the instep: their color was deep yellow or saffron. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0008">[PLATE XXXII., Fig.1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate032.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Thus far the monarch&rsquo;s costume, though richer in material than the dress
+      of the Persian nobles, and in some points different in color, was on the
+      whole remarkably like that of the upper class of his subjects. It was,
+      however, most important that his dress should possess some distinguishing
+      feature, and that that feature should be one of very marked prominency. In
+      an absolute monarchy the king must be unmistakable, at almost any
+      distance, and almost in any light. Consequences of the gravest kind may
+      follow from any mistake of the royal identity; and it is therefore
+      essential to the comfort both of prince and subject that some very
+      conspicuous badge shall mark and notify the monarch&rsquo;s presence.
+      Accordingly, it appears that the Persian ruler was to be known by his
+      headdress, which was peculiar alike in shape and in color, and was
+      calculated to catch the eye in both respects. It bore the name <i>kitaris</i>
+      or <i>hidaris</i>, and was a tall stiff cap, slightly swelling as it
+      ascended, flat at top, and terminating in a ring or circle which projected
+      beyond the lines of the sides. Round it, probably near the bottom, was
+      worn a fillet or band&mdash;the diadem proper&mdash;which was blue,
+      spotted with white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the other Persians wore either simple fillets round their heads, or
+      soft, rounded, and comparatively low caps, with no band round them, the
+      king&rsquo;s headdress, which would tower above theirs and attract attention by
+      its color, could readily be distinguished even in the most crowded Court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been asserted that the <i>kidaris</i>, or tiara of the Persian
+      kings, was &ldquo;commonly adorned with gold and jewelry;&rdquo; and this may possibly
+      have been the case, but there is no evidence that it was so. Its material
+      was probably either cloth or felt, and it was always of a bright color,
+      though not (apparently) always of the same color. Its distinguishing
+      features were its height, its stiffness, and the blue and white fillet
+      which encircled it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among other certain indications of the royal presence may be mentioned the
+      golden sceptre, and the parasol. The sceptre, which is seen frequently in
+      the king&rsquo;s hands, was a plain rod, about five feet in length, ornamented
+      with a ball, or apple, at its upper end, and at its lower tapering nearly
+      to a point. The king held it in his right hand, grasping it near, but not
+      at, the thick end, and rested the thin end on the ground in his front.
+      When he walked, he planted it upright before him, as a spearman would
+      plant his spear. When he sate, he sloped it outwards, still, however,
+      touching the ground with its point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The parasol, which has always been in the East a mark of dignity, seems in
+      Persia, as in Assyria, to have been confined, either by law or usage, to
+      the king. The Persian implement resembled the later Assyrian, except that
+      it was not tasselled, and had no curtain or flap. It had the same
+      tent-like shape, the same long thick stem, and the same ornament at the
+      top. It only differed in being somewhat shallower, and in having the
+      supports, which kept it open, curved instead of straight. It was held over
+      the king&rsquo;s head on state occasions by an attendant who walked immediately
+      behind him. <a href="#linkimage-0008">[PLATE XXXII., Fig. 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The throne of the monarch was an elevated seat, with a high back, but
+      without arms, cushioned, and ornamented with a fringe, and with moldings
+      or carvings along the back and legs. The ornamentation consisted chiefly
+      of balls and broad rings, and contained little that was artistic or
+      elaborate. The legs, however, terminated in lions&rsquo; feet, resting upon half
+      balls, which were ribbed or fluted. The sides of the chair below the seat
+      appear to have been panelled, like the thrones of the Assyrians, but were
+      not adorned with any carving. The seat of the throne was very high from
+      the ground, and without a rest the legs would have dangled. A footstool
+      consequently was provided, which was plain, like the throne, but was
+      supported on legs terminating in the feet of bulls. Thus the lion and the
+      bull, so frequent in the symbolism of the East, were here again brought
+      together, being represented as the supports of the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With respect to the material whereof the throne was composed, there can be
+      no doubt that it was something splendid and costly. Late writers describe
+      it as made of pure gold; but, as we hear of its having silver feet, we may
+      presume that parts at least were of the less precious metal. Ivory is not
+      said to have been used in its composition. We may, perhaps, conjecture,
+      that the frame of the throne was wood, and that this was overlaid with
+      plates of gold or silver, whereby the whole of the woodwork was concealed
+      from view, and an appearance of solid metal presented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The person of the king was adorned with golden ornaments. He had earrings
+      of gold in his ears, often inlaid with jewels he wore golden bracelets
+      upon his wrists; and he had a chain or collar of gold about his neck. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0009">[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 1.]</a> In his girdle, which
+      was also of gold, he carried a short sword, the sheath of which was formed
+      of a single precious stone. The monuments, unfortunately, throw little
+      light on the character and workmanship of these portions of the royal
+      costume. We may gather from them, perhaps, that the bracelets had a large
+      jewel set in their centre, and that the collars were of twisted work, worn
+      loosely around the neck. The sword seems to have differed little from that
+      of the ordinary Persians. It had a short straight blade, a mere crossbar
+      for a guard, and a handle almost devoid of ornament. This plainness was
+      compensated, if we may trust Curtius, by the magnificence of the sheath,
+      which was, perhaps, of jasper, agate, or lapis lazuli. [PLATE XXXIII.,
+      Fig. 2.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate033.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate033a (59K)" src="images/plate033a.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The officers in most close attendance on the monarch&rsquo;s person were, in
+      war, his charioteer, his stool-bearer, his bow-bearer, and his
+      quiver-bearer; in peace, his parasol-bearer, and his fan bearer, who was
+      also privileged to carry what has been termed &ldquo;the royal
+      pocket-handkerchief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The royal charioteer is seemingly unarmed. His head is protected merely by
+      a fillet. He sits in front of his master, and both his hands are fully
+      occupied with the management of the reins. He has no whip, and seems to
+      urge his horses forward simply by leaning forward himself, and slackening
+      or shaking the reins over them. He was, no doubt, in every case a Persian
+      of the highest rank, such near proximity to the Royal person being a
+      privilege to which none but the very noblest could aspire. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0009">[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 2.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The office of the stool-bearer, was to assist the king as he mounted his
+      chariot or dismounted from it. He carried a golden stool, and followed the
+      royal chariot closely, in order that he might be at hand whenever his
+      master felt disposed to alight. On a march, the king was wont to vary the
+      manner of his travelling, exchanging, when the inclination took him, his
+      chariot for a litter, and riding in that more luxurious vehicle till he
+      was tired of it, after which he returned to his chariot for a space. The
+      services of the stool-bearer were thus in constant requisition, since it
+      was deemed quite impossible that his Majesty could ascend or descend his
+      somewhat lofty war-car without such aid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rank of the bow-bearer was probably nearly as great as that of the
+      driver of the chariot. He was privileged to stand immediately behind the
+      monarch on grand occasions, so carrying in his left hand the weapon from
+      which he derived his appellation. The quiver-bearer had the next place.
+      Both wore the Median costume&mdash;the <i>candys</i>, or flowing robe, the
+      girdle, the high shoe, and the stiff fluted cap, or, perhaps, occasionally
+      the simple fillet. Sometimes the two offices would seem to have been held
+      by the same person, unless we are to attribute this appearance, where it
+      occurs, to the economy of the artist, who may have wished to save himself
+      the trouble of drawing two separate figures. <a href="#linkimage-0009">[PLATE
+      XXXIII., Fig. 5.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The parasol-bearer was attired as the bow and quiver bearers, except that
+      he was wholly unarmed, and had the fillet for his proper head-dress.
+      Though not a military officer, he accompanied the monarch in his
+      expeditions, since in the midst of war there might be occasions of state
+      when his presence would be convenient. The officer who bore the royal fan
+      and handkerchief had generally the same costume; but sometimes his head
+      was enveloped in a curious kind of cowl or muffler, which covered the
+      whole of it except the forehead, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and the
+      upper portion of the cheeks. <a href="#linkimage-0010">[PLATE XXXIV., Fig.
+      1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate034.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxiv. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The fan, or fly-chaser, had a long straight handle, ornamented with a sort
+      of beading, which held a brush of some springy fibrous matter. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0009">[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 4.]</a> The bearer, whose
+      place was directly behind the monarch, held his implement, which bent
+      forward gracefully, nearly at arm&rsquo;s length over his master&rsquo;s head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would seem that occasionally the bearer of the handkerchief laid aside
+      his fly-chaser, and assumed in lieu of it a small bottle containing
+      perfumery. <a href="#linkimage-0010">[PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 4.]</a> In a
+      sculptured tablet at Persepolis, given by Ker Porter, an attendant in the
+      Median robe, with a fillet upon his head, who bears the handkerchief in
+      the usual way in his left hand, carries in the palm of his right what
+      seems to be a bottle, not-unlike the scent-bottle of a modern lady. It has
+      always been an Oriental custom to wash the hands before meals, and the
+      rich commonly mix some perfumery or other with the water. We may presume
+      that this was the practice at the Persian Court, and that the Great King
+      therefore took care to have an officer, who should at all times be ready
+      to provide his guests, or himself, with the scent which was most rare or
+      most fashionable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians seem to have been connoisseurs in scents. We are told that,
+      when the royal tiara was not in wear, it was laid up carefully with a
+      mixture of myrrh and <i>labyzus</i>, to give it an agreeable odor.
+      Unguents were thought to have been a Persian invention, and at any rate
+      were most abundantly used by the upper classes of the nation. The monarch
+      applied to his own person an ointment composed of the fat of lions, palm
+      wine, saffron, and the herb helianthes, which was considered to increase
+      the beauty of the complexion. He carried with him, even when he went to
+      the wars, a case of choice unguents; and such a treasure fell into the
+      hands of Alexander, with the rest of Darius&rsquo;s camp equipage, at Arbela. It
+      may be suspected that the &ldquo;royal ointment&rdquo; of the Parthian kings, composed
+      of cinnamon, spikenard, myrrh, cassia, gum styrax, saffron, cardamum,
+      wine, honey, and sixteen other ingredients, was adopted from the Persians,
+      who were far more likely than the rude Parthians to have invented so
+      recondite a mixture. Nor were scents used only in this form by the
+      ingenious people of whom we are speaking. Arabia was required to furnish
+      annually to the Persian crown a thousand talents&rsquo; weight of frankincense;
+      and there is reason to believe that this rare spice was largely employed
+      about the Court, since the walls of Persepolis have several
+      representations of censers, which are sometimes carried in the hands of an
+      attendant, while sometimes they stand on the ground immediately in front
+      of the Great King. <a href="#linkimage-0010">[PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 2.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The box or vase in which the Persians commonly kept their unguents was of
+      alabaster. This stone, which abounded in the country, was regarded as
+      peculiarly suited for holding ointments, not only by the Persians, but
+      also by the Egyptians, the Greeks, and (probably) the Assyrians. The
+      Egyptian variety of stone seems to have been especially valued; and vases
+      appear to have been manufactured in that country for the use of the
+      Persian monarch, which were transmitted to the Court, and became part of
+      the toilet furniture of the palace.330 <a href="#linkimage-0010">[PLATE
+      XXXIV., Fig. 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the officers of the Court, less closely attached to the person of
+      the monarch than those above enumerated, may be mentioned the steward of
+      the household; the groom or master of the horse; the chief eunuch, or
+      keeper of the women; the king&rsquo;s &ldquo;eyes&rdquo; and &ldquo;ears,&rdquo; persons whose business
+      it was to keep him informed on all matters of importance; his scribes or
+      secretaries, who wrote his letters and his edicts; his messengers, who
+      went his errands; his ushers, who introduced strangers to him; his
+      &ldquo;tasters,&rdquo; who tried the various dishes set before him lest they should be
+      poisoned; his cupbearers who handed him his wine, and tasted it; his
+      chamberlains, who assisted him to bed; and his musicians, who amused him
+      with song and harp. Besides these, the Court comprised various classes of
+      guards, and also doorkeepers, huntsmen, grooms, cooks, and other domestic
+      servants in great abundance, together with a vast multitude of visitors
+      and guests, princes, nobles, captives of rank, foreign refugees,
+      ambassadors, travellers. We are assured that the king fed daily within the
+      precincts of his palace as many as fifteen thousand persons, and that the
+      cost of each day&rsquo;s food was four hundred talents. A thousand beasts were
+      slaughtered for each repast, besides abundance of feathered game and
+      poultry. The beasts included not only sheep, goats, and oxen, but also
+      stags, asses, horses, and camels. Among the feathered delicacies were
+      poultry, geese, and ostriches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monarch himself rarely dined with his guests. For the most part he was
+      served alone. Sometimes he admitted to his table the queen and two or
+      three of his children. Sometimes, at a &ldquo;banquet of wine,&rdquo; a certain number
+      of privileged boon companions were received, who drank in the royal
+      presence, not, however, of the same wine, nor on the same terms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monarch reclined on a couch with golden feet, and sipped the rich wine
+      of Helbon; the guests drank an inferior beverage, seated upon the floor.
+      At a great banquet, it was usual to divide the guests into two classes.
+      Those of lower degree were entertained in an outer court or chamber to
+      which the public had access, while such as were of higher rank entered the
+      private apartments, and drew near to the king. Here they were feasted in a
+      chamber opposite to the king&rsquo;s chamber, which had a curtain drawn across
+      the door, concealing him from their gaze, but not so thick as to hide them
+      from their entertainer. Occasionally, on some very special occasion, as,
+      perhaps, on the Royal birthday, or other great festival, the king presided
+      openly at the banquet, drinking and discoursing with his lords, and
+      allowing the light of his countenance to shine freely upon a large number
+      of guests, whom, on these occasions, he treated as if they were of the
+      same flesh and blood with himself. Couches of gold and silver were spread
+      for all, and &ldquo;royal wine in abundance&rdquo; was served to them in golden
+      goblets. On these, and, indeed, on all occasions, the guests, if they
+      liked, carried away any portion of the food set before them which they did
+      not consume at the time, conveying it to their homes, where it served to
+      support their families.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The architecture of the royal palace will be discussed in another chapter;
+      but a few words may be said in this place with respect to its furniture
+      and general appearance. The pillared courts and halls of the vast edifices
+      which the Achaemenian monarchs raised at Susa and Persepolis would have
+      had a somewhat bare and cold aspect, if it had not been for their internal
+      fittings. The floors were paved with stones of various hues, blue, white,
+      black, and red, arranged doubtless into patterns, and besides were covered
+      in places with carpeting. The spaces between the pillars were filled with
+      magnificent hangings, white green, and violet, which were fastened with
+      cords of fine linen (?) and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble,
+      screening the guests from sight, while they did not too much exclude the
+      balmy summer breeze. The walls of the apartments were covered with plates
+      of gold. All the furniture was rich and costly. The golden throne of the
+      monarch stood under an embroidered canopy or awning supported by four
+      pillars of gold inlaid with precious stones. <a href="#linkimage-0011">[PLATE
+      XXXV.]</a> Couches resplendent with silver and gold filled the rooms. The
+      private chamber of the monarch was adorned with a number of objects, not
+      only rich and splendid, but valuable as productions of high art. Here,
+      impending over the royal bed, was the golden vine, the work of Theodore of
+      Samos, where the grapes were imitated by means of precious stones, each of
+      enormous value. Here, probably, was the golden plane-tree, a worthy
+      companion to the vine, though an uncourtly Greek declared it was too small
+      to shade a grasshopper. Here, finally, was a bowl of solid gold, another
+      work of the great Samian metallurgist, more precious for its artistic
+      workmanship than even for its material.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate035.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxv. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Nothing has hitherto been said of the Royal harem or seraglio, which,
+      however, as a feature of the Court always important, and ultimately
+      preponderating over all others, claims a share of our attention. In the
+      early times, it would appear that the Persian kings were content with
+      three or four wives, and a moderate number of concubines. Of the wives
+      there was always one who held the most exalted place, to whom alone
+      appertained the title of &ldquo;Queen,&rdquo; and who was regarded as &ldquo;wife&rdquo; in a
+      different sense from the others. Such was Atossa to Darius Hystaspis,
+      Amestris to Xerxes, Statira to Darius Codomannus. Such, too, were Vashti
+      and Esther to the prince, whoever he was, whose deeds are recorded in
+      Scripture under the name of Ahasuerus. The chief wife, or Queen-Consort,
+      was privileged to wear on her head a royal tiara or crown. She was the
+      acknowledged head of the female apartments or Gynaeceum, and the
+      concubines recognized her dignity by actual prostration. On great
+      occasions, when the king entertained the male part of the Court, she
+      feasted all the females in her own part of the palace. She had a large
+      revenue of her own, assigned her, not so much by the will of her husband,
+      as by an established law or custom. Her dress was splendid, and she was
+      able to indulge freely that love of ornament of which few Oriental women
+      are devoid. Though legally subject to her husband as much as the meanest
+      of his slaves, she could venture on liberties which would have been fatal
+      to almost any one else, and often, by her influence over the monarch,
+      possessed a very considerable share of power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The status of the other wives was very inferior to this; and it is
+      difficult to see how such persons were really in a position much superior
+      to that of the concubines. As daughters of the chief nobles&mdash;for the
+      king could only choose a wife within a narrow circle&mdash;they had, of
+      course, a rank and dignity independent of that acquired by marriage; but
+      otherwise they must have been almost on a par with those fair inmates of
+      the Gynaeceum who had no claim even to the name of consort. Each wife had
+      probably a suite of apartments to herself, and a certain number of
+      attendants&mdash;eunuchs, and tirewomen&mdash;at her disposal; but the
+      inferior wives saw little of the king, being only summoned each in their
+      turn to share his apartment, and had none of the privileges which made the
+      position of chief wife so important.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The concubines seem to have occupied a distinct part of the Gynaeceum,
+      called &ldquo;the second house of the women.&rdquo; They were in the special charge of
+      one of the eunuchs, and were no doubt kept under strict surveillance. The
+      Empire was continually searched for beautiful damsels to fill the harem, a
+      constant succession being required, as none shared the royal couch more
+      than once, unless she attracted the monarch&rsquo;s regard very particularly. In
+      the later times of the Empire, the number of the concubines became
+      enormous, amounting (according to one authority) to three hundred and
+      twenty-nine, (according to another) to three hundred and sixty. They
+      accompanied the king both in his wars and in his hunting expeditions. It
+      was a part of their duty to sing and play for the royal delectation; and
+      this task, according to one author, they had to perform during the whole
+      of each night. It is a more probable statement that they entertained the
+      king and queen with music while they dined, one of them leading, and the
+      others singing and playing in concert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Gynaeceum&mdash;in the Susa palace, at any rate&mdash;was a building
+      distinct from the general edifice, separated from the &ldquo;king&rsquo;s house&rdquo; by a
+      court. It was itself composed of at least three sets of apartments&mdash;viz.
+      apartments for the virgins who had not yet gone into the king, apartments
+      for the concubines, and apartments for the Queen-Consort and the other
+      wives. These different portions were under the supervision of different
+      persons. Two eunuchs of distinction had the charge respectively of the
+      &ldquo;first&rdquo; and of the &ldquo;second house of the women.&rdquo; The Queen-Consort was, at
+      any rate nominally, paramount in the third, her authority extending over
+      all its inmates, male and female.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes there was in the Gynaeceum a personage even more exalted than
+      any which have as yet been mentioned. The mother of the reigning prince,
+      if she outlived his father, held a position at the Court of her son beyond
+      that even of his Chief Wife. She kept the ensigns of royalty which she had
+      worn during the reign of her husband; and wielded, as Queen-Mother, a far
+      weightier and more domineering authority than she ever exercised as
+      Queen-Consort. The habits of reverence and obedience, in which the boy had
+      been reared, retained commonly their power over the man; and the monarch
+      who in public ruled despotically over millions of men, succumbed, within
+      the walls of the seraglio, to the yoke of a woman, whose influence he was
+      too weak to throw off. The Queen-Mother had her seat at the royal table
+      whenever the king dined with his wife; and, while the wife sat below, she
+      sat above the monarch. She had a suite of eunuchs distinct from those of
+      her son. Ample revenues were secured to her, and were completely at her
+      disposal. She practically exercised&mdash;though she could not perhaps
+      legally claim&mdash;a power of life and death. She screened offenders from
+      punishment, procuring for them the royal pardon, or sheltering them in her
+      own apartments; and she poisoned, or openly executed, those who provoked
+      her jealousy or resentment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The service of the harem, so far as it could not be fitly performed by
+      women, was committed to eunuchs. Each legitimate wife&mdash;as well as the
+      Queen-Mother&mdash;had a number of these unfortunates among her
+      attendants; and the king intrusted the house of the concubines, and also
+      that of the virgins, to the same class of persons. His own attendants seem
+      likewise to have been chiefly eunuchs. In the later times, the eunuchs
+      acquired a vast political authority, and appear to have then filled all
+      the chief offices of state. They were the king&rsquo;s advisers in the palace,
+      and his generals in the field. They superintended the education of the
+      young princes, and found it easy to make them their tools. The plots and
+      conspiracies, the executions and assassinations, which disfigure the later
+      portion of the Persian annals, maybe traced chiefly to their intrigues and
+      ambition. But the early Persian annals are free from these horrors; and it
+      is clear that the power of the eunuchs was, during this period, kept
+      within narrow bounds. We hear little of them in authentic history till the
+      reign of Xerxes. It is remarkable that the Persepolitan sculptures,
+      abounding as they do in representations of Court life, of the officers and
+      attendants who approached at all closely to the person of the monarch,
+      contain not a single figure of a eunuch in their entire range. We may
+      gather from this that there was at any rate a marked difference between
+      the Assyrian and the early Persian Court in the position which eunuchs
+      occupied at them respectively: we should not, however, be justified in
+      going further and questioning altogether the employment of eunuchs by the
+      Persian monarchs during the early period, since their absence from the
+      sculptures may be accounted for on other grounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is peculiarly noticeable in the Persian sculptures and inscriptions
+      that they carry to excess that reserve which Orientals have always
+      maintained with regard to women. The inscriptions are wholly devoid of all
+      reference to the softer sex, and the sculptures give us no representation
+      of a female. In Persia, at the present day, it is regarded as a gross
+      indecorum to ask a man after his wife; and anciently it would seem that
+      the whole sex fell under a law of taboo, which required that, whatever the
+      real power and influence of women, all public mention of them, as well as
+      all representations of the female form, should be avoided. If this were
+      so, it must of course still more have been the rule that the women&mdash;or,
+      at any rate, those of the upper classes&mdash;should not be publicly seen.
+      Hence the indignant refusal of Vashti to obey the command of King
+      Aha-suerus to show herself to his Court. Hence, too, the law which made it
+      a capital offence to address or touch one of the royal concubines or even
+      to pass their litters upon the road. The litters of women were always
+      curtained; and when the Queen Statira rode in hers with the curtains
+      drawn, it was a novelty which attracted general attention, as a relaxation
+      of the ordinary etiquette, though only females were allowed to come near
+      her. Married women might not even see their nearest male relatives, as
+      their fathers and brothers; the unmarried had, it is probable, a little
+      more liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the employment of eunuchs at the Persian Court was mainly in the harem,
+      and in offices connected therewith, it is no wonder that they shared, to
+      some extent, in the law of taboo, which forbade the representation of
+      women. Their proper place was in the female courts and apartments, or in
+      close attendance upon the litters, when members of the seraglio travelled,
+      or took the air&mdash;not in the throne-room, or the antechambers, or the
+      outer courts of the palace, which alone furnished the scenes regarded as
+      suitable for representation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of right, the position at the Persian Court immediately below that of the
+      king belonged to the members of certain privileged families. Besides the
+      royal family itself&mdash;or clan of the Achaemenidae&mdash;there were six
+      great houses which had a rank superior to that of all the other grandees.
+      According to Herodotus these houses derived their special dignity from the
+      accident that their heads had been fellow-conspirators with Darius
+      Hystaspis; but there is reason to suspect that the rank of the families
+      was precedent to the conspiracy in question, certain families conspiring
+      because they were great, and not becoming great because they conspired. At
+      any rate, from the time of Darius I., there seem to have been seven great
+      families, including that of the Achaemenidae, whose chiefs had the
+      privilege of free communication with the monarch, and from which he was
+      legally bound to choose his legitimate wives. The chiefs appear to have
+      been known as &ldquo;the Seven Princes,&rdquo; or &ldquo;the Seven Counsellors,&rdquo; of the
+      king. They sat next to him at public festivals; they were privileged to
+      tender him their advice, whenever they pleased; they recommended important
+      measures of state, and were, in part, responsible for them; they could
+      demand admission to the monarch&rsquo;s presence at any time, unless he were in
+      the female apartments; they had precedence on all great occasions of
+      ceremony, and enjoyed a rank altogether independent of office. Sometimes&mdash;perhaps
+      most commonly&mdash;they held office; but they rather conferred a lustre
+      on the position which they consented to fill, than derived any additional
+      splendor from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It does not appear that the chiefs of the seven great families had any
+      peculiar insignia. Officers of the Court, on the contrary, seem to have
+      always carried, as badges marking their position, either wands about three
+      feet in length, or an ornament resembling a lotos blossom, which is
+      sometimes seen in the hands of the monarch himself. Such officers wore, at
+      their pleasure, either the long Median robe and the fluted cap, or the
+      close-fitting Persian tunic and trousers, with the loose felt [Greek
+      name]. All had girdles, in which sometimes a dagger was placed; and all
+      had collars of gold about their necks, and earrings of gold in their ears.
+      The Median robes were of various colors&mdash;scarlet, purple, crimson,
+      dark gray, etc. Over the Persian tunic a sleeved cloak, or great coat,
+      reaching to the ankles, was sometimes worn; this garment was fastened by
+      strings in front, and descended loosely from the shoulders, no use being
+      commonly made of the sleeves, which hung empty at the wearer&rsquo;s side. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0012">[PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate036.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxvi. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      An elaborate Court ceremonial was the natural accompaniment of the ideas
+      with respect to royalty embodied in the Persian system. Excepting the
+      &ldquo;Seven Princes,&rdquo; no one could approach the royal person unless introduced
+      by a Court usher, Prostration&mdash;the attitude of worship&mdash;was
+      required of all as they entered the presence. The hands of the persons
+      introduced had to be hidden in their sleeves so long as their audience
+      lasted. In crossing the Palace Courts it was necessary to abstain
+      carefully from touching the carpet which was laid for the king to walk on.
+      Coming into the king&rsquo;s presence unsummoned was a capital crime, punished
+      by the attendants with instant death, unless the monarch himself, as a
+      sign that he pardoned the intrusion, held out towards the culprit the
+      golden sceptre which he bore in his hands. It was also a capital offence
+      to sit down, even unknowingly, upon the royal throne; and it was a grave
+      misdemeanor to wear one of the king&rsquo;s cast-off dresses. Etiquette was
+      almost as severe on the monarch himself as on his subjects. He was
+      required to live chiefly in seclusion; to eat his meals, for the most
+      part, alone; never to go on foot beyond the palace walls; never to revoke
+      an order once given, however much he might regret it; never to draw back
+      from a promise, whatever ill results he might anticipate from its
+      performance. To maintain the quasi-divine character which attached to him
+      it was necessary that he should seem infallible, immutable, and wholly
+      free from the weakness of repentance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As some compensation for the restrictions laid upon him, the Persian king
+      had the sole enjoyment of certain luxuries. The wheat of Assos was sent to
+      the Court to furnish him with bread, and the vines of Helbon were
+      cultivated for the special purpose of supplying him with wine. Water was
+      conveyed to Susa for his use from distant streams regarded as specially
+      sweet and pure; and in his expeditions he was accompanied, by a train of
+      wagons, which were laden with silver flasks, filled from the clear stream
+      of the Choaspes. The oasis of Ammon contributed the salt with which he
+      seasoned his food. All the delicacies that the Empire anywhere produced
+      were accumulated on his board, for the supply of which each province was
+      proud to send its best and choicest products.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chief amusements in which the Great King indulged were hunting and
+      playing at dice. Darius Hystaspis, who followed the chase with such ardor
+      as on one occasion to dislocate his ankle in the pursuit of a wild beast,
+      had himself represented on his signet-cylinder as engaged in a lion-hunt.
+      From this representation, we learn that the Persian monarchs, like the
+      Assyrian, pursued the king of beasts in their chariots, and generally
+      despatched him by means of arrows. Seated in a light car, and attended by
+      a single unarmed charioteer, they invaded the haunts of these fiercest of
+      brutes, rousing them from their lairs&mdash;probably with Indian hounds,
+      and chasing them at full speed if they fled, or, if they faced the danger,
+      attacking them with arrows or with the javelin. <a href="#linkimage-0012">[PLATE
+      XXXVI., Fig. 2.]</a> Occasionally the monarch might indulge in this sport
+      alone; but generally he was (it seems) accompanied by some of his
+      courtiers, who shared the pleasures of the chase with him on the condition
+      that they never ventured to let fly their weapons before he had discharged
+      his. If they disregarded this rule they were liable to capital punishment,
+      and might esteem themselves fortunate if they escaped with exile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides lions, the Persian monarch chased, it is probable, stages,
+      antelopes, wild asses, wild boars, bears, wild sheep, and leopards. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0012">[PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 3.]</a> These animals all
+      abounded in the neighborhood of the royal palaces, and they are enumerated
+      by Xenophon among the beasts hunted by Cyrus. The mode of chasing the wild
+      ass was for the horsemen to scatter themselves over the plain, and to
+      pursue the animal in turns, one taking up the chase when the horse of
+      another was exhausted. The speed of the creature is so great that no horse
+      with a rider on his back can long keep pace with him; and thus relays were
+      necessary to tire him out, and enable the hunters to bring him within the
+      range of their weapons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When game was scarce in the open country, or when the kings were too
+      indolent to seek it in its native haunts, they indulged their inclination
+      for sport by chasing the animals which they kept in their own &ldquo;paradises.&rdquo;
+       These were walled enclosures of a large size, well wooded, and watered
+      with sparkling streams, in which were bred or kept wild beasts of various
+      kinds, chiefly of the more harmless sorts, as stags, antelopes, and wild
+      sheep. These the kings pursued and shot with arrows, or brought down with
+      the javelin; but the sport was regarded as tame, and not to be compared
+      with hunting in the open field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within the palace the Persian monarchs are said to have amused themselves
+      with dice. They played, it is probable, chiefly with their near relatives,
+      as their wives, or the Queen-Mother. The stakes, as was to be expected,
+      ran high, as much as a thousand darics (nearly L 1100.) being sometimes
+      set on a single throw. Occasionally they played for the persons of their
+      slaves, eunuchs, and others, who, when lost, became the absolute property
+      of the winner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another favorite royal amusement was carving or planing wood. According to
+      AElian, the Persian king, when he took a journey, always employed himself,
+      as he sat in his carriage, in this way; and Ctesias speaks of the
+      occupation as pursued also within the walls of the palace. Manual work of
+      this kind has often been the refuge of those rulers, who, sated with
+      pleasure and devoid of literary tastes, have found time hang heavy upon
+      their hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In literature a Persian king seems rarely to have taken any pleasure at
+      all. Occasionally, to beguile the weary hours, a monarch may have had the
+      &ldquo;Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Persia and Media&rdquo; read before him;
+      but the kings themselves never opened a book, or studied any branch of
+      science or learning. The letters, edicts, and probably even the
+      inscriptions, of the monarch were the composition of the Court scribes,
+      who took their orders from the king or his ministers, and clothed them in
+      their own language. They did not even call upon their master to sign his
+      name to a parchment; his seal, on which his name was engraved,
+      sufficiently authenticated all proclamations and edicts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the more serious occupations of the monarch were the holding of
+      councils, the reviewing of troops, the hearing of complaints, and the
+      granting or refusing of redress, the assignment of rewards, perhaps, in
+      some cases, the trying of causes, and, above all, the general direction of
+      the civil administration and government of the Empire. An energetic king
+      probably took care to hear all the reports which were sent up to the Court
+      by the various officials employed in the actual government of the numerous
+      provinces, as well as those sent in by the persons who from time to time
+      inspected, on the part of the Crown, the condition of this or that
+      satrapy. Having heard and considered these reports, and perhaps taken
+      advice upon them, such a monarch would give clear directions as to the
+      answers to be sent, which would be embodied in despatches by his
+      secretaries, and then read over to him, before he affixed his seal to
+      them. The concerns of an empire so vast as that of Persia would have given
+      ample employment for the greater part of the day to any monarch who was
+      determined not only to reign, but to govern. Among the Persian sovereigns
+      there seems to have been a few who had sufficient energy and self-denial
+      to devote themselves habitually to the serious duties of their office.
+      Generally, however, the cares of government were devolved upon some
+      favorite adviser, a relative, or a eunuch, who was entrusted by the
+      monarch with the entire conduct of affairs, in order that he might give
+      himself up to sensual pleasures, to the sports of the field, or to light
+      and frivolous amusements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The passion for building, which we have found so strong in Assyria and
+      Babylonia, possessed, but in a minor degree, a certain number of the
+      Persian monarchs. The simplicity of their worship giving little scope for
+      architectural grandeur in the buildings devoted to religion, they
+      concentrated their main efforts upon the construction of palaces and
+      tombs. The architectural character of these works will be considered in a
+      later chapter. It is sufficient to note here that a good deal of the time
+      and attention of many monarchs were directed to these objects; and
+      particularly it is interesting to remark, that, notwithstanding their
+      worldly greatness, and the flattering voices of their subjects, which were
+      continually bidding them &ldquo;live for ever,&rdquo; the Persian kings were quite
+      aware of the frail tenure by which man holds his life, and, while they
+      were still in vigorous health, constructed their own tombs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an important principle of the Magian religion that the body should
+      not after death be allowed to mingle with, and so pollute, any one of the
+      four elements. Either from a regard for this superstition, or from the
+      mere instinctive desire to preserve the lifeless clay as long as possible,
+      the Persians entombed their kings in the following way. The body was
+      placed in a golden coffin, which was covered with a close-fitting lid, and
+      deposited either in a massive building erected to serve at once as a tomb
+      and a monument, or in a chamber cut out of some great mass of solid rock,
+      at a considerable elevation above its base. In either case, the entrance
+      into the tomb was carefully closed, after the body had been deposited in
+      it, by a block or blocks of stone. <a href="#linkimage-0013">[PLATE
+      XXXVII., Fig. 1.]</a> Inside the tomb were placed, together with the
+      coffin, a number of objects, designed apparently for the king&rsquo;s use in the
+      other world, as rich cloaks and tunics, trousers, purple robes, collars of
+      gold, earrings of gold, set with gems, daggers, carpets, goblets, and
+      hangings. Generally the tomb was ornamented with sculptures, and
+      sometimes, though rarely, it had an inscription (or inscriptions) upon it,
+      containing the name and titles of the monarch whose remains reposed
+      within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate037.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate037a (290K)" src="images/plate037a.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      If the tomb were a building, and not rock-hewn, the ground in the vicinity
+      was formed into a park or garden, which was planted with all manner of
+      trees. Within the park, at some little distance from the tomb, was a
+      house, which formed the residence of a body of priests, who watched over
+      the safety of the sepulchre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Greeks seem to have believed that divine honors were sometimes paid to
+      a monarch after his decease; but the spirit of the Persian religion was so
+      entirely opposed to any such observance that it is most probable the
+      Greeks were mistaken. Observing that sacrifices were offered once a month
+      in the vicinity of some of the royal tombs, they assumed that the object
+      of the cult was the monarch himself, whereas it was no doubt really
+      addressed either to Ormazd or to Mithras. The Persians cannot rightly be
+      accused of the worship of dead men, a superstition from which both the
+      Zoroastrian and the Magian systems were entirely free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this account of the Persian monarchs and their Court, we may now turn
+      to a subject which moderns regard as one of much greater interest&mdash;the
+      general condition, manners, and customs of the Persian people. Our
+      information on these points is unfortunately far less full than on the
+      subject which we have been recently discussing, but still it is perhaps
+      sufficient to give us a tolerably complete notion of the real character of
+      the nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians, according to Herodotus, were divided into ten tribes, of
+      which four were nomadic and three agricultural. The nomadic were the Dai,
+      the Mardi, the Dropici, and the Sagartii; the agricultural were the
+      Panthilaei, the Derusisei, and the Germanii, or Carmanians. What the
+      occupation of the other three tribes was Herodotus does not state; but, as
+      one of them&mdash;the Pasargadae&mdash;was evidently the ruling class,
+      consisting, therefore (it is probable), of land owners, who did not
+      themselves till the soil, we may perhaps assume that all three occupied
+      this position, standing in Persia somewhat&mdash;as the three tribes of
+      Dorians stood to the other Greeks in the Peloponnese. If this were the
+      case, the population would have been really divided broadly into the two
+      classes of settled and nomade, whereof the former class was subdivided
+      into those who were the lords of the soil, and those who cultivated it,
+      either as farmers or as laborers, under them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ordinary dress of the poorer class, whether agricultural or nomade,
+      was probably the tunic and trousers of leather which have been already
+      mentioned as the true national costume of the people. The costume was
+      completed by a loose felt cap upon the head, a strap or belt round the
+      waist, and a pair of high shoes upon the feet, tied in front with a
+      string. <a href="#linkimage-0014">[PLATE XXXVIII., Fig. 2.]</a> In later
+      times a linen or muslin rag replaced the felt cap, and the tunic was
+      lengthened so as to reach half way between the knee and the ankle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate038.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxviii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The richer classes seem generally to have adopted the Median costume which
+      was so prevalent at the Court. They wore long purple or flowered robes
+      with loose hanging sleeves, flowered tunics reaching to the knee, also
+      sleeved, embroidered trousers, tiaras, and shoes of a more elegant shape
+      than the ordinary Persian. Nor was this the whole of their dress. Under
+      their trousers they wore drawers, under their tunics shirts, on their
+      hands gloves, and under their shoes socks or stockings&mdash;luxuries
+      these, one and all, little known in the ancient world. The Persians were
+      also, like most Orientals, extremely fond of ornaments. Men of rank
+      carried, almost as a matter of course, massive chains or collars of gold
+      about their necks, and bracelets of gold upon their arms. The sheaths and
+      handles of their swords and daggers were generally of gold, sometimes,
+      perhaps, studded with gems. Many of them wore earrings. Great expense was
+      lavished on the trappings of the horses which they rode or drove; the
+      bridle, or at least the bit, was often of solid gold, and the rest of the
+      equipment was costly. Among the gems which were especially affected, the
+      pearl held the first place. Besides being set in the ordinary way, it was
+      bored and strung, in order that it might be used for necklaces, bracelets,
+      and ankles. Even children had sometimes golden ornaments, which were
+      preferred when the gold was of a reddish color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very costly and rich too was the furniture of the better class of houses.
+      The tables were plated or inlaid with silver and gold. Splendid couches,
+      spread with gorgeous coverlets, invited the inmates to repose at their
+      ease; and, the better to insure their comfort, the legs of the couches
+      were made to rest upon carpets, which were sufficiently elastic to act as
+      a sort of spring, rendering the couches softer and more luxurious than
+      they would otherwise have been. Gold and silver plate, especially in the
+      shape of drinking-cups, was largely displayed in all the wealthy mansions,
+      each household priding itself on the show which it could make of the
+      precious metals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In respect of eating and drinking, the Persians, even better sort, were in
+      the earlier times noted for their temperance and sobriety. Their ordinary
+      food was wheaten bread, barley-cakes, and meat simply roasted or boiled,
+      which they seasoned with salt and with bruised cress-seed, a substitute
+      for mustard. The sole drink in which they indulged was water. Moreover, it
+      was their habit to take one meal only each day. The poorer kind of people
+      were contented with even a simpler diet, supporting themselves, to a great
+      extent, on the natural products of the soil, as dates, figs, wild pears,
+      acorns, and the fruit of the terebinth-tree. But these abstemious habits
+      were soon laid aside, and replaced by luxury and self-indulgence, when the
+      success of their arms had put it in their power to have the full and free
+      gratification of all their desires and propensities. Then, although the
+      custom of having but one meal in the day was kept up, the character of the
+      custom was entirely altered by beginning the meal early and making it last
+      till night. Not many sorts of meat were placed on the board, unless the
+      occasion was a grand one; but course after course of the lighter kinds of
+      food flowed on in an almost endless succession, intervals of some length
+      being allowed between the courses to enable the guests to recover their
+      appetites. Instead of water, wine became the usual beverage; each man
+      prided himself on the quantity he could drink; and the natural result
+      followed that most banquets terminated in general intoxication.
+      Drunkenness even came to be a sort of institution. Once a year, at the
+      feast of Mithras, the king of Persia, according to Duris, was bound to be
+      drunk. A general practice arose of deliberating on all important affairs
+      under the influence of wine, so that, in every household, when a family
+      crisis impended, intoxication was a duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians ate, not only the meats which we are in the habit of
+      consuming, but also the flesh of goats, horses, asses, and camels. The
+      hump of the last-named animal is considered, even at the present day, a
+      delicacy in many parts of the East; but in ancient Persia it would seem
+      that the entire animal was regarded as fairly palatable. The horse and
+      ass, which no one would touch in modern Persia, were thought, apparently,
+      quite as good eating as the ox; and goats, which were far commoner than
+      sheep, appeared, it is probable, oftener at table. The dietery of a grand
+      house was further varied by the admission into it of poultry and game&mdash;the
+      game including wild boars, stags, antelopes, bustards, and probably
+      partridges; the poultry consisting of geese and chickens. Oysters and
+      other fish were used largely as food by the inhabitants of the
+      coast-region.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grades of society were strongly marked among the Persians; and the
+      etiquette of the Court travelled down to the lowest ranks of the people.
+      Well-known rules determined how each man was to salute his equal, his
+      inferior, or his superior; and the observance of these rules was
+      universal. Inferiors on meeting a decided superior prostrated themselves
+      on the ground; equals kissed each other on the lips; persons nearly but
+      not quite equals kissed each other&rsquo;s cheeks. The usual Oriental rules
+      prevailed as to the intercourse of the sexes. Wives lived in strict
+      seclusion within the walls of the Gynaeceum, or went abroad in litters,
+      seeing no males except their sons, their husbands, and their husbands&rsquo;
+      eunuchs. Concubines had somewhat more freedom, appearing sometimes at
+      banquets, when they danced, sang, and played to amuse the guests of their
+      master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian was allowed to marry several wives, and might maintain in
+      addition as many concubines as he thought proper. Most of the richer class
+      had a multitude of each, since every Persian prided himself on the number
+      of his sons, and it is even said that an annual prize was given by the
+      monarch to the Persian who could show most sons living. The concubines
+      were not unfrequently Greeks, if we may judge by the case of the younger
+      Cyrus, who took two Greek concubines with him when he made his expedition
+      against his brother. It would seem that wives did not ordinarily accompany
+      their husbands, when these went on military expeditions, but that
+      concubines were taken to the wars by most Persians of consideration. Every
+      such person had a litter at her disposal, and a number of female
+      attendants, whose business it was to wait upon her and execute her orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the best authorities are agreed that great pains were taken by the
+      Persians&mdash;or, at any rate, by those of the leading clans&mdash;in the
+      education of their sons. During the first five years of his life the boy
+      remained wholly with the women, and was scarcely, if at all, seen by his
+      father. After that time his training commenced. He was expected to rise
+      before dawn, and to appear at a certain spot, where he was exercised with
+      other boys of his age in running, slinging stones, shooting with the bow,
+      and throwing the javelin. At seven he was taught to ride, and soon
+      afterwards he was allowed to begin to hunt. The riding included, not only
+      the ordinary management of the horse, but the power of jumping on and off
+      his back when he was at speed, and of shooting with the bow and throwing
+      the javelin with unerring aim, while the horse was still at full gallop.
+      The hunting was conducted by state-officers, who aimed at forming by its
+      means in the youths committed to their charge all the qualities needed in
+      war. The boys were made to bear extremes of heat and cold, to perform long
+      marches, to cross rivers without wetting their weapons, to sleep in the
+      open air at night, to be content with a single meal in two days, and to
+      support themselves occasionally on the wild products of the country,
+      acorns, wild pears, and the fruit of the terebinth-tree. On days when
+      there was no hunting they passed their mornings in athletic exercises, and
+      contests with the bow or the javelin, after which they dined simply on the
+      plain food mentioned above as that of the men in the early times, and then
+      employed themselves during the afternoon in occupations regarded as not
+      illiberal&mdash;for instance, in the pursuits of agriculture, planting,
+      digging for roots, and the like, or in the construction of arms and
+      hunting implements, such as nets and springes. Hardy and temperate habits
+      being secured by this training, the point of morals on which their
+      preceptors mainly insisted was the rigid observance of truth. Of
+      intellectual education they had but little. It seems to have been no part
+      of the regular training of a Persian youth that he should learn to read.
+      He was given religious notions and a certain amount of moral knowledge by
+      means of legendary poems, in which the deeds of gods and heroes were set
+      before him by his teachers, who recited or sung them in his presence, and
+      afterwards required him to repeat what he had heard, or, at any rate, to
+      give some account of it. This education continued for fifteen years,
+      commencing when the boy was five, and terminating when he reached the age
+      of twenty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect of this training was to render the Persian an excellent soldier
+      and a most accomplished horseman. Accustomed from early boyhood to pass
+      the greater part of every day in the saddle, he never felt so much at home
+      as when mounted upon a prancing steed. On horseback he pursued the stag,
+      the boar, the antelope, even occasionally the bear or the lion, and shot
+      his arrows, or slung his stones, or hurled his javelin at them with deadly
+      aim, never pausing for a moment in his career. <a href="#linkimage-0013">[PLATE
+      XXXVII., Fig. 2.]</a> Only when the brute turned on his pursuers, and
+      stood at bay, or charged them in its furious despair, they would sometimes
+      descend from their coursers, and receive the attack, or deal the <i>coup
+      de grace</i> on foot, using for the purpose a short but strong
+      hunting-spear. <a href="#linkimage-0013">[PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 3.]</a> The
+      chase was the principal delight of the upper class of Persians, so long as
+      the ancient manners were kept up, and continued an occupation in which the
+      bolder spirits loved to indulge long after decline had set in, and the
+      advance of luxury had changed, to a great extent, the character of the
+      nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At fifteen years of age the Persian was considered to have attained to
+      manhood, and was enrolled in the ranks of the army, continuing liable to
+      military service from that time till he reached the age of fifty. Those of
+      the highest rank became the body-guard of the king, and these formed the
+      garrison of the capital. They were a force of not less than fourteen or
+      fifteen thousand men. Others, though liable to military service, did not
+      adopt arms as their profession, but attached themselves to the Court and
+      looked to civil employment, as satraps, secretaries, attendants, ushers,
+      judges, inspectors, messengers. A portion, no doubt, remained in the
+      country districts, and there followed those agricultural pursuits which
+      the Zoroastrian religion regarded as in the highest degree honorable. But
+      the bulk of the nation must, from the time of the great conquests, have
+      passed their lives mainly, like the Roman legionaries under the Empire, in
+      garrison duty in the provinces. The entire population of Persia Proper can
+      scarcely have exceeded two millions. Not more than one fourth of this
+      number would be males between the ages of fifteen and fifty. This body of
+      500,000 men, besides supplying the official class at the Court and
+      throughout the provinces, and also furnishing to Persia Proper those who
+      did the work of its cultivation, had to supply to the whole Empire those
+      large and numerous garrisons on whose presence depended the maintenance of
+      the Persian dominion in every province that had been conquered. According
+      to Herodotus, the single country of Egypt contained, in his day, a
+      standing army of 120,000 Persians; and, although this was no doubt an
+      exceptional case, Egypt being more prone to revolt than any other satrapy,
+      yet there is abundant evidence that elsewhere, in almost every part of the
+      Empire, large bodies of troops were regularly maintained; troops which are
+      always characterized as &ldquo;Persians.&rdquo; We may suspect that under the name
+      were included the kindred nation of the Medes, and perhaps some other
+      Arian races, as the Hyrcanians, and the Bactrians, for it is difficult to
+      conceive that such a country as Persia Proper could alone have kept up the
+      military force which the Empire required for its preservation; but to
+      whatever extent the standing army was supplemented from these sources,
+      Persia must still have furnished the bulk of it; and the demands of this
+      service must have absorbed, at the very least, one third if not one half
+      of the adult male population.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For trade and commerce the Persians were wont to express extreme contempt.
+      The richer classes made it their boast that they neither bought nor sold,
+      being supplied (we must suppose) from their estates, and by their slaves
+      and dependents, with all that they needed for the common purposes of life.
+      Persians of the middle rank would condescend to buy, but considered it
+      beneath them to sell; while only the very lowest and poorest were actual
+      artisans and traders. Shops were banished from the more public parts of
+      the towns; and thus such commercial transactions as took place were veiled
+      in what was regarded as a decent obscurity. The reason assigned for this
+      low estimation of trade was that shopping and bargaining involved the
+      necessity of falsehood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      According to Quintus Curtius, the Persian ladies had the same objection to
+      soil their hands with work that the men had to dirty theirs with commerce.
+      The labors of the loom, which no Grecian princess regarded as unbecoming
+      her rank, were despised by all Persian women except the lowest; and we may
+      conclude that the same idle and frivolous gossip which resounds all day in
+      the harems of modern Iran formed the main occupation of the Persian ladies
+      in the time of the Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the general advance of luxury under Xerxes and his successors, of
+      which something has been already said, there were introduced into the
+      Empire a number of customs of an effeminate and demoralizing character.
+      From the earliest times the Persians seem to have been very careful of
+      their beards and hair, arranging the latter in a vast number of short
+      crisp curls, and partly curling the former, partly training it to hang
+      straight from the chin. After a while, not content with this degree of
+      care for their personal appearance, they proceeded to improve it by
+      wearing false hair in addition to the locks which nature had given them,
+      by the use of cosmetics to increase the delicacy of their complexions, and
+      by the application of a coloring matter to the upper and lower eyelids,
+      for the purpose of giving to the eye an appearance of greater size and
+      beauty. They employed a special class of servants to perform these
+      operations of the toilet, whom the Greeks called &ldquo;adorners&rdquo;. Their
+      furniture increased, not merely in splendor, but in softness; their floors
+      were covered with carpets, their beds with numerous and delicate
+      coverlets; they could not sit upon the ground unless a cloth was first
+      spread upon it; they would not mount a horse until he was so caparisoned
+      that the seat on his back was softer even than their couches. At the same
+      time they largely augmented the number and variety of their viands and of
+      their sauces, always seeking after novel delicacies, and offering rewards
+      to the inventors of &ldquo;new pleasures.&rdquo; A useless multitude of lazy menials
+      was maintained in all rich households, each servant confining himself
+      rigidly to a single duty, and porters, bread-makers, cooks, cup-bearers,
+      water-bearers, waiters at table, chamberlains, &ldquo;awakers,&rdquo; &ldquo;adorners,&rdquo; all
+      distinct from one another, crowded each noble mansion, helping forward the
+      general demoralization. It was probably at this comparatively late period
+      that certain foreign customs of a sadly lowering character were adopted by
+      this plastic and impressible people, who learnt the vice of paederasty
+      from the Greeks, and adopted from the Assyrians the worship of Beltis,
+      with its accompaniment of religious prostitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the whole the Persians may seem to have enjoyed an existence free from
+      care, and only too prosperous to result in the formation of a high and
+      noble character. They were the foremost Asiatic people of their time, and
+      were fully conscious of their pre-eminency. A small ruling class in a vast
+      Empire, they enjoyed almost a monopoly of office, and were able gradually
+      to draw to themselves much of the wealth of the provinces. Allowed the use
+      of arms, and accustomed to lord it over the provincials, they themselves
+      maintained their self-respect, and showed, even towards the close of their
+      Empire, a spirit and an energy seldom exhibited by any but a free people.
+      But there was nevertheless a dark side to the picture&mdash;a lurking
+      danger which must have thrown a shadow over the lives of all the nobler
+      and richer of the nation, unless they were utterly thoughtless. The
+      irresponsible authority and cruel dispositions of the kings, joined to the
+      recklessness with which they delegated the power of life and death to
+      their favorites, made it impossible for any person of eminence in the
+      whole Empire to feel sure that he might not any day be seized and accused
+      of a crime, or even without the form of an accusation be taken and put to
+      death, after suffering the most excruciating tortures. To produce this
+      result, it was enough to have failed through any cause whatever in the
+      performance of a set task, or to have offended, even by doing him too
+      great a service, the monarch or one of his favorites. Nay, it was enough
+      to have provoked, through a relation or a connection, the anger or
+      jealousy of one in favor at Court; for the caprice of an Oriental would
+      sometimes pass over the real culprit and exact vengeance from one quite
+      guiltless&mdash;even, it may be, unconscious&mdash;of the offence given.
+      Theoretically, the Persian was never to be put to death for a single
+      crime; or at least he was not to suffer until the king had formally
+      considered the whole tenor of his life, and struck a balance between his
+      good and his evil deeds to see which outweighed the other. Practically,
+      the monarch slew with his own hand any one whom he chose, or, if he
+      preferred it, ordered him to instant execution, without trial or inquiry.
+      His wife and his mother indulged themselves in the same pleasing liberty
+      of slaughter, sometimes obtaining his tacit consent to their proceedings,
+      sometimes without consulting him. It may be said that the sufferers could
+      at no time be very many in number, and that therefore no very wide-spread
+      alarm can have been commonly felt; but the horrible nature of many of the
+      punishments, and the impossibility of conjecturing on whom they might next
+      fall, must be set against their infrequency; and it must be remembered
+      that an awful horror, from which no precautions can save a man, though it
+      happen to few, is more terrible than a score of minor perils, against
+      which it is possible to guard. Noble Persians were liable to be beheaded,
+      to be stoned to death, to be suffocated with ashes, to have their tongues
+      torn out by the roots, to be buried alive, to be shot in mere wantonness,
+      to be flayed and then crucified, to be buried all but the head, and to
+      perish by the lingering agony of &ldquo;the boat.&rdquo; If they escaped these modes
+      of execution, they might be secretly poisoned, or they might be exiled, or
+      transported for life. Their wives and daughters might be seized and
+      horribly mutilated, or buried alive, or cut into a number of fragments.
+      With these perils constantly impending over their heads, the happiness of
+      the nobles can scarcely have been more real than that of Damocles upon the
+      throne of Dionysius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In conclusion, we may notice as a blot upon the Persian character and
+      system, the cruelty and barbarity which was exhibited, not only in these
+      abnormal acts of tyranny and violence, but also in the regular and legal
+      punishments which were assigned to crimes and offences. The criminal code,
+      which&mdash;rightly enough&mdash;made death the penalty of murder, rape,
+      treason, and rebellion, instead of stopping at this point, proceeded to
+      visit with a like severity even such offences as deciding a cause
+      wrongfully on account of a bribe, intruding without permission on the
+      king&rsquo;s privacy, approaching near to one of his concubines, seating
+      oneself, even accidentally, on the throne, and the like. The modes of
+      execution were also, for the most part, unnecessarily cruel. Poisoners
+      were punished by having their heads placed upon a broad stone, and then
+      having their faces crushed, and their brains beaten out by repeated blows
+      with another stone. Ravishers and rebels were put to death by crucifixion.
+      The horrible punishment of &ldquo;the boat&rdquo; seems to have been no individual
+      tyrant&rsquo;s cruel conception, but a recognized and legal form of execution.
+      The same may be said also of burying alive. Again the Persian secondary
+      punishments were for the most part exceedingly barbarous. Xenophon tells
+      us, as a proof of the good government maintained by the younger Cyrus, in
+      his satrapy, that under his sway it was common to see along all the most
+      frequented roads numbers of persons who had had their hands or feet cut
+      off, or their eyes put out, as a punishment for thieving and rascality.
+      And other writers relate that similar mutilations were inflicted on
+      rebels, and even on prisoners of war. It would seem, indeed, that
+      mutilation and scourging were the ordinary forms of secondary punishment
+      used by the Persians, who employed imprisonment solely for the safe
+      custody of an accused person between his arrest and his execution, while
+      they had recourse to transportation and exile only in the case of
+      political offenders. and exile only in the case of political offenders.
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linkB2HCH0001" id="linkB2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTERS IV. TO VI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2H_4_0002" id="linkB2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA PROPER.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0001" id="linkBimage-0001">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/map_persia.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="map_persia_th (188K)" src="images/map_persia_th.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2H_4_0003" id="linkB2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE FIFTH MONARCHY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2H_4_0004" id="linkB2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2HCH0002" id="linkB2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. LANGUAGE AND WRITING.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It has been intimated in the account of the Median Empire which was given
+      in a former-volume that the language of the Persians, which was identical,
+      or almost identical, with that of the Medes, belonged to the form of
+      speech known to moderns as Indo-European. The characteristics of that form
+      of speech are a certain number of common, or at least widely spread,
+      roots, a peculiar mode of inflecting, together with a resemblance in the
+      inflections, and a similarity of syntax or construction. Of the old
+      Persian language the known roots are, almost without exception, kindred
+      forms to roots already familiar to the philologist through the Sanscrit,
+      or the Zend, or both; while many are of that more general type of which we
+      have spoken&mdash;forms common to all, or most of the varieties of the
+      Indo-European stock. To instance in a few very frequently recurring words&mdash;&ldquo;father&rdquo;
+       is in old Persian (as in Sanscrit) <i>pitar</i>, which differs only in the
+      vocalization from the Zendic <i>patar</i>, the Greek [ ], and the Latin <i>pater</i>,
+      and of which cognate forms are the Gothic <i>fadar</i>, the German voter,
+      the English <i>father</i>, and the Erse <i>athair</i>.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [See the html version for the following pages of this
+     chapter which is a section with hundreds of Greek
+     words.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0002" id="linkBimage-0002">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0365.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 365 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0003" id="linkBimage-0003">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0366.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 366 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0004" id="linkBimage-0004">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0367.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 367 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0005" id="linkBimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0368.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 368 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0006" id="linkBimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0369.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 369 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0007" id="linkBimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0370.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 370 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0008" id="linkBimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0371.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 371 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0009" id="linkBimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0372.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 372 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0010" id="linkBimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0373.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 373 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0011" id="linkBimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0374.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 374 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0012" id="linkBimage-0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0375.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 375 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0013" id="linkBimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0376.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 376 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0014" id="linkBimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0377.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 377 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0015" id="linkBimage-0015">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0378.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 378 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The ordinary Persian writing was identical with that which has been
+      described in the second volume of this work as Median. A cuneiform
+      alphabet, consisting of some thirty-six or thirty-seven forms, expressive
+      of twenty-three distinct sounds, sufficed for the wants of the people,
+      whose language was simple and devoid of phonetic luxuriance. Writing was
+      from left to right, as with the Arian nations generally. Words were
+      separated from one another by an oblique wedge; and were divided at any
+      point at which the writer happened to reach the end of a line. Enclitics
+      were joined without any break to the words which they accompanied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian writing which has come down to us is almost entirely upon
+      stone. It comprises various rock tablets, a number of inscriptions upon
+      buildings, and a few short legends upon vases and cylinders. It is in
+      every case incised or cut into the material. The letters are of various
+      sizes, some (as those at Elwend) reaching a length of about two inches,
+      others (those, for instance, on the vases) not exceeding the sixth of an
+      inch. The inscriptions cover a space of at least a hundred and eighty
+      years, commencing with Cyrus, and terminating with Artaxerxes Ochus, the
+      successor of Mnemon. The style of the writing is, on the whole, remarkably
+      uniform, the latter inscriptions containing only two characters unknown to
+      the earlier times. Orthography, however, and grammar are in these later
+      inscriptions greatly changed, the character of the changes being
+      indicative of corruption and decline, unless, indeed, we are to ascribe
+      them to mere ignorance on the part of the engravers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There can be little doubt that, besides the cuneiform character, which was
+      only suited for inscriptions, the Persians employed a cursive writing for
+      common literary purposes. Ctesias informs us that the royal archives were
+      written on parchment; and there is abundant evidence that writing was an
+      art perfectly familiar to the educated Persian. It might have been
+      supposed that the Pehlevi, as the lineal descendant of the Old Persian
+      language, would have furnished valuable assistance towards solving the
+      question of what character the Persians employed commonly; but the
+      alphabetic type of the Pehlevi inscriptions is evidently Semitic; and it
+      would thus seem that the old national modes of writing had been completely
+      lost before the establishment by Ardeshir, son of Babek, of the new
+      Persian Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2HCH0003" id="linkB2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. ARCHITECTURE AND OTHER ARTS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="page0379 (16K)" src="images/page0379.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If in the old world the fame of the Persians, as builders and artists,
+      fell on the whole below that of the Assyrians and Babylonians&mdash;their
+      instructors in art, no less than in letters and science&mdash;it was not
+      so much that they had not produced works worthy of comparison with those
+      which adorned Babylon and Nineveh, as that, boasting less antiquity and
+      less originality than those primitive races, they did not strike in the
+      same way the imagination of the lively Greeks, who moreover could not but
+      feel a certain jealousy of artistic successes, which had rewarded the
+      efforts of a living and rival people. It happened, moreover, that the
+      Persian masterpieces were less accessible to the Greeks than the
+      Babylonian, and hence there was actually less knowledge of their real
+      character in the time when Greek literature was at its best. Herodotus and
+      Xenophon, who impressed on their countrymen true ideas of the grandeur and
+      magnificence of the Mesopotamian structures, never penetrated to Persia
+      Proper, and perhaps never beheld a real Persian building. Ctesias, it is
+      true, as a resident at the Achaemenian Court for seventeen years, must
+      certainly have seen Susa and Ecbatana, if not even Persepolis, and he
+      therefore must have been well acquainted with the character of Persian
+      palaces; but, so far as appears from the fragments of his work which have
+      come down to us, he said but little on the subject of these edifices. It
+      was not until Alexander led his cohorts across the chain of Zagros to the
+      high plateau beyond, that a proper estimate of the great Persian buildings
+      could be made; and then the most magnificent of them all was scarcely seen
+      before it was laid in ruins. The barbarous act of the great Macedonian
+      conqueror, in committing the palace of Persepolis to the flames, tended to
+      prevent a full recognition of the real greatness of Persian art even after
+      the Greeks had occupied the country; but we find from this time a certain
+      amount of acknowledgment of its merits&mdash;a certain number of passages,
+      which, like that which forms the heading to this chapter, admit alike its
+      grandeur and its magnificence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, however, the ancients did less than justice to the efforts of the
+      Persians in architecture, sculpture, and the kindred arts, moderns have,
+      on the contrary, given them rather an undue prominence. From the middle of
+      the seventeenth century, when Europeans first began freely to penetrate
+      the East, the Persian ruins, especially those of Persepolis, drew the
+      marked attention of travellers; and in times when the site of Babylon had
+      attracted but scanty notice, and that of Nineveh and the other great
+      Assyrian cities was almost unknown, English, French, and German savans
+      measured, described, and figured the Persian remains with a copiousness
+      and exactness that left little to desire. Chardin, the elder Mebuhr, Le
+      Brun, Ouseley, Ker Porter, exerted themselves with the most praiseworthy
+      zeal to represent fully and faithfully the marvels of the Chehl Minar; and
+      these persevering efforts were followed within no very lengthy period by
+      the splendid and exhaustive works of the Baron Texier and of MM. Flandin
+      and Coste. Persepolis rose again from its ashes in the superb and costly
+      volumes of these latter writers, who represented on the grandest scale,
+      and in the most finished way, not only the actual but the ideal&mdash;not
+      only the present but the past&mdash;placing before our eyes at once the
+      fullest and completest views of the existing ruins, and also restorations
+      of the ancient structures, some of them warm with color and gilding,
+      which, though to a certain extent imaginary, probably give to a modern the
+      best notion that it is now possible to form of an old Persian edifice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is impossible within the limits of the present work, and with the
+      resources at the author&rsquo;s command, to attempt a complete description of
+      the Persian remains, or to vie with writers who had at their disposal all
+      the modern means of illustration. By the liberality of a well-known
+      authority on architecture, he is able to present his readers with certain
+      general views of the most important structures; and he also enjoys the
+      advantage of illustrating some of the most curious of the details with
+      engravings from a set of photographs recently taken. These last have, it
+      is believed, an accuracy beyond that of any drawings hitherto made, and
+      will give a better idea than words could possibly do of the merit of the
+      sculptures. With these helps, and with the addition of reduced copies from
+      some of MM. Flandin and Coste&rsquo;s plates, the author hopes to be able to
+      make his account fairly intelligible, and to give his readers the
+      opportunity of forming a tolerably correct judgment on the merit of the
+      Persian art in comparison with that of Babylon and Assyria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persian architectural art displayed itself especially in two forms of
+      building&mdash;the palace and the tomb. Temples were not perhaps unknown
+      in Persia, though much of the worship may always have been in the open
+      air; but temples, at least until the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon, were
+      insignificant, and neither attracted the attention of contemporaries, nor
+      were of such a character as to leave traces of themselves to after times.
+      The palaces of the Persian kings, on the other hand, and the sepulchres
+      which they prepared for themselves, are noticed by many ancient writers as
+      objects of interest; and, notwithstanding certain doubts which have been
+      raised in recent years, it seems tolerably certain that they are to be
+      recognized in the two chief classes of ancient ruins which still exist in
+      the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian palatial buildings, of which traces remain, are four in
+      number. One was situated at Ecbatana, the Median capital, and was a sort
+      of adjunct to the old residence of the Median kings. Of this only a very
+      few vestiges have been hitherto found; and we can merely say that it
+      appears to have been of the same general character with the edifices which
+      will be hereafter described. Another was built by Darius and his son
+      Xerxes on the great mound of Susa; and of this we have the ground-plan, in
+      a great measure, and various interesting details. A third stood within the
+      walls of the city of Persepolis, but of this not much more is left than of
+      the construction at Ecbatana. Finally, there was in the neighborhood of
+      Persepolis, but completely distinct from the town, the Great Palace,
+      which, as the chief residence, at any rate of the later kings, Alexander
+      burnt, and of which the remains still to be seen are ample, constituting
+      by far the most remarkable group of buildings now existing in this part of
+      Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is to this last edifice, or group of edifices, that the reader&rsquo;s
+      attention will be specially directed in the following pages. Here the
+      greatest of the Persian monarchs seem to have built the greatest of their
+      works. Here the ravages of time and barbarism, sadly injurious as they may
+      have been, have had least effect. Here, moreover, modern research has
+      spent its chief efforts, excavations having been made, measurements
+      effected, and ground-plans laid down with accuracy. In describing the
+      Persepolitan buildings we have aids which mostly fail us elsewhere&mdash;charts,
+      plans, drawings in extraordinary abundance and often of high artistic
+      value, elaborate descriptions, even photographs. <a href="#linkBimage-0016">[PLATE
+      XXXVIII., Fig. 3.]</a> If the describer has still a task of some
+      difficulty to perform, it is because an overplus of material is apt to
+      cause almost as much embarrassment as too poor and scanty a supply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0016" id="linkBimage-0016">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate038.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxviii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The buildings at Persepolis are placed upon a vast platform. It was the
+      practice of the Persians, as of the Assyrians and Babylonians, to elevate
+      their palaces in this way. They thus made them at once more striking to
+      the eye, more dignified, and more easy to guard. In Babylonia an elevated
+      habitation was also more healthy and more pleasant, being raised above the
+      reach of many insects, and laid open to the winds of heaven, never too
+      boisterous in that climate. Perhaps the Assyrians and Persians in their
+      continued use of the custom, to some extent followed a fashion, elevating
+      their royal residences, not so much for security or comfort, as because it
+      had come to be considered that a palace ought to have a lofty site, and to
+      look down on the habitations of meaner men; but, however this may have
+      been, the custom certainly prevailed, and at Persepolis we have, in an
+      almost perfect condition, this first element of a Persian palace. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0017">[PLATE XXXIX.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0017" id="linkBimage-0017">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate039.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxix. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The platform at Persepolis is built at the foot of a high range of rocky
+      hills, on which it abuts towards the east. It is composed of solid masses
+      of hewn stone, which were united by metal clamps, probably of iron or
+      lead. The masses were not cut to a uniform size, nor even always to a
+      right angle, but were fitted together with a certain amount of
+      irregularity, which will be the best understood from the woodcut overleaf.
+      Many of the blocks were of enormous size; and their quarrying, transport,
+      and elevation to their present places, imply very considerable mechanical
+      skill. They were laid so as to form a perfectly smooth perpendicular wall,
+      the least height of which above the plain below is twenty feet. The
+      outline of the platform was somewhat irregular. Speaking roughly, we may
+      call it an oblong square, with a breadth about two thirds of its length;
+      but this description, unless qualified, will give an idea of far greater
+      uniformity than actually prevails. <a href="#linkBimage-0018">[PLATE XL.,
+      Fig. 1.]</a> The most serious irregularity is on the north side, the
+      general line of which is not parallel to the south side, nor at right
+      angles with the western one, but forms with the general line of the
+      western an angle of about eighty degrees. The cause of this deviation lay
+      probably in the fact that, on this side, a low rocky spur ran out from the
+      mountain-range in this direction, and that it was thought desirable to
+      accommodate the line of the structure to the natural irregularities of the
+      ground. In addition to the irregularity of general outline thus produced,
+      there is another of such perpetual occurrence that it must be regarded as
+      an essential element of the original design, and therefore probably as
+      approving itself to the artistic notions of the builder. This is the
+      occurrence of frequent angular projections and indentations, which we
+      remark on all three sides of the platform equally, and which would
+      therefore seem to have been regarded in Persia, no less than in Assyria,
+      as ornamental.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0018" id="linkBimage-0018">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate040.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xl. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The whole of the platform is not of a uniform height. On the contrary, it
+      seems to have been composed, as originally built, of several quite
+      distinct terraces. Three of these still remain, exhibiting towards the
+      west a very marked difference of elevation. The lowest of the three is on
+      the south side, and it may therefore be termed the Southern Terrace. It
+      extends from east to west a distance of about 800 feet, with a width of
+      about 170 or 180, and has an elevation above the plain of from twenty to
+      twenty-three feet. Opposite to this, on the northern side of the platform,
+      is a second terrace, more than three times the breadth of the southern
+      one, which may be called, by way of distinction, the Northern Terrace.
+      This has an elevation above the plain of thirty-five feet. Intermediate
+      between these two is the great Central or Upper Terrace, standing
+      forty-five feet above the plain, having a length of 770 feet along the
+      west face of the platform, and a width of about 400. Upon this Upper
+      Terrace were situated almost all the great and important buildings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The erection of a royal residence on a platform composed of several
+      terraces involved the necessity of artificial ascents, which the Persian
+      architects managed by means of broad and solid staircases. These
+      staircases constitute one of the most remarkable features of the place,
+      and seem to deserve careful and exact description. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0019">[PLATE XLI., Fig. 2.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0019" id="linkBimage-0019">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate041a.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate041a (193K)" src="images/plate041.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The first, and grandest in respect of scale, is on the west front of the
+      platform towards its northern end, and leads up from the plain to the
+      summit of the northern terrace, furnishing the only means by which the
+      platform can even now be ascended. It consists of two distinct sets of
+      steps, each composed of two flights, with a broad landing-place between
+      them, the steps themselves running at right angles to the platform wall,
+      and the two lower flights diverging, while the two upper ones converge to
+      a common landing-place on the top. The slope of the stairs is so gentle
+      that, though each step has a convenient width, the height of a step is in
+      no case more than from three to four inches. It is thus easy to ride
+      horses both up and down the staircase, and travellers are constantly in
+      the habit of ascending and descending it in this way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The width of the staircase is twenty-two feet&mdash;space sufficient to
+      allow of ten horsemen ascending each flight of steps abreast. Altogether
+      this ascent, which is on a plan unknown elsewhere, is pronounced to be the
+      noblest example of a flight of stairs to be found in any part of the
+      world. It does not project beyond the line of the platform whereto it
+      leads, but is, as it were, taken out of it. <a href="#linkplate042">[PLATE
+      XLII.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkplate042" id="linkplate042"></a> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate042 (129K)" src="images/plate042.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next, and in some respects the most remarkable of all the staircases,
+      conducts from the level of the northern platform to that of the central or
+      upper terrace. This staircase fronts northward, and opens on the view as
+      soon as the first staircase (A on the plan) has been ascended, lying to
+      the right of the spectator at the distance of about fifty or sixty yards.
+      It consists of four single flights of steps, two of which are central,
+      facing one another, and leading to a projecting landing-place (B), about
+      twenty feet in width; while the two others are on either side of the
+      central flights, distant from them about twenty-one yards. The entire
+      length of this staircase is 212 feet; its greatest projection in front of
+      the line of the terrace whereon it abuts, is thirty-six feet. The steps,
+      which are sixteen feet wide, rise in the same gentle way as those of the
+      lower or platform staircase. The height of each is under four inches; and
+      thus there are thirty-one steps in an ascent of ten feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The feature which specially distinguishes this staircase from the lower
+      one already described is its elaborate ornamentation. The platform
+      staircase is perfectly plain. The entire face which this staircase
+      presents to the spectator is covered with sculptures. In the first place,
+      on the central projection, which is divided perpendicularly into three
+      compartments, are represented, in the spandrels on either side, a lion
+      devouring a bull, and in the compartment between the spandrels eight
+      colossal Persian guardsmen, armed with spears and either with sword or
+      shield. Further, above the lion and bull, towards the edge of the spandrel
+      where it slopes, forming a parapet to the steps, <a href="#linkBimage-0020">[PLATE
+      XLIII., Fig. 1.]</a> there was a row of cypress trees, while at the end of
+      the parapet and along the whole of its inner face were a set of small
+      figures, guardsmen habited like those in the central compartment, but
+      carrying mostly a bow and quiver instead of a shield. Along the extreme
+      edge of the parapet externally was a narrow border thickly set with
+      rosettes. <a href="#linkBimage-0020">[PLATE XLIII., Fig. 2.]</a> Next, in
+      the long spaces between the central stairs and those on either side of
+      them, the spandrels contain repetitions of the lion and bull sculpture,
+      while between them and the central stairs the face of the wall is divided
+      horizontally into three bands, each of which has been ornamented with a
+      continuous row of figures. The highest row of the three is unfortunately
+      mutilated, the upper portion of all the bodies being lost in consequence
+      of their having been sculptured upon a parapet wall built originally to
+      protect the edge of the terrace, but now fallen away. The middle and
+      lowest rows are tolerably perfect, and possess considerable interest, as
+      well as some artistic merit. The entire scene represented on the right
+      side seems to be the bringing of tribute or presents to the monarch by the
+      various nations under his sway. On the left-hand side this subject was
+      continued to a certain extent; but the greater part of the space was
+      occupied by representations of guards and officers of the court, the
+      guards being placed towards the centre, and, as it were, keeping the main
+      stairs, while the officers were at a greater distance. The three rows of
+      figures were separated from one another by narrow bands, thickly set with
+      rosettes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0020" id="linkBimage-0020">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate043.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xliii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The builder of this magnificent work was not content to leave it to
+      history or tradition to connect his name with his construction, but
+      determined to make the work itself the means of perpetuating his memory.
+      In three conspicuous parts of the staircase, slabs were left clear of
+      sculpture, undoubtedly to receive inscriptions commemorative of the
+      founder. The places selected were the front of the middle staircase, the
+      exact centre of the whole work, and the space adjoining the spandrels to
+      the extreme right and the extreme left. In one instance alone, however,
+      was this part of the work completed. On the right hand, or western
+      extremity of the staircase, an inscription of thirty lines in the old
+      Persian language informs us that the constructor was &ldquo;Xerxes, the Great
+      King, the King of Kings, the son of King Darius, the Achaemenian.&rdquo; The
+      central and left-hand tablets, intended probably for Babylonian and
+      Scythic translations of the Persian legend, were never inscribed, and
+      remain blank to the present day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remaining staircases will not require very lengthy or elaborate
+      descriptions. They are six in number, and consist, in most instances, of a
+      double flight of steps, similar to the central portion of the staircase
+      which has been just described. Two of them (e and f) belonged to the
+      building marked as the &ldquo;Palace of Darius&rdquo; on the plan, and gave entrance
+      to it from the central platform above which it is elevated about fourteen
+      or fifteen feet. Two others (c and d) belonged to the &ldquo;Palace of Xerxes.&rdquo;
+       These led up to a broad paved space in front of that building, which
+      formed a terrace, elevated about ten feet above the general level of the
+      central platform. Their position was at the two ends of the terrace,
+      opposite to one another; but in other respects they cannot be said to have
+      matched. The eastern, which consisted of two double flights, was similar
+      in general arrangement to the staircase by which the platform was mounted
+      from the plain, excepting that it was not recessed, but projected its full
+      breadth beyond the line of the terrace. It was decidedly the more elegant
+      of the two, and evidently formed the main approach. It was adorned with
+      the usual bull and lion combats, with figures of guardsmen, and with
+      attendants carrying articles needed for the table or the toilet. The
+      inscriptions upon it declare it to be the work of Xerxes. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0021">[PLATE XLIV.]</a> The western staircase was
+      composed merely of two single flights, facing one another, with a narrow
+      landing-place between them. It was ornamented like the eastern, but
+      somewhat less elaborately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0021" id="linkBimage-0021">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate044.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xliv. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      A staircase, very similar to this last, but still one with certain
+      peculiarities, was built by Artaxerxes Ochus, at the west side of the
+      Palace of Darius, in order to give it a second entrance. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0022">[PLATE XLV., Fig. 1.]</a> There the spandrels have
+      the usual figures of the lion and bull; but the intermediate space is
+      somewhat unusually arranged. It is divided vertically and horizontally
+      into eight squared compartments, three on either side, and two in the
+      middle. The upper of these two contains nothing but a winged circle, the
+      emblem of Divinity being thus placed reverently by itself. Below, in a
+      compartment of double size, is an inscription of Ochus, barbarous in
+      language, but very religious in tone. The six remaining compartments had
+      each four figures, representing tribute-bearers introduced to the royal
+      presence by a court officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0022" id="linkBimage-0022">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate045.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xlv. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The other, and original, staircase to this palace (f on the plan) was
+      towards the north, and led up to the great portico, which was anciently
+      its sole entrance. Two flights of steps, facing each other, conducted to a
+      paved space of equal extent with the portico and projecting in front of it
+      about five feet. On the base of the staircase were sculptures in a single
+      line&mdash;the lion and bull in either spandrel&mdash;and between the
+      spandrels eighteen colossal guardsmen, nine facing either way towards a
+      central inscription, which was repeated in other languages on slabs placed
+      between the guardsmen and the bulls. Above the spandrels, on the parapet
+      which fenced the stairs, was a line of figures representing attendants
+      bringing into the palace materials for the banquet. A similar line adorned
+      the inner wall of the staircase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Opposite to this, at the distance of about thirty-two yards, was another
+      very similar staircase, leading up to the portico of another building,
+      erected (apparently) by Artaxerxes Ochus, which occupied the south-western
+      corner of the upper platform. The sculptures here seem to have been of the
+      usual character but they are so mutilated that no very decided opinion can
+      be passed upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Last of all, a staircase of a very peculiar character, (h on the plan)
+      requires notice. This is a flight of steps cut in the solid rock, which
+      leads up from the southern terrace to the upper one, at a point
+      intervening between the south-western edifice, or palace of Artaxerxes,
+      and the palace of Xerxes, or central southern edifice. These steps are
+      singular in facing the terrace to which they lead, instead of being placed
+      sideways to it. They are of rude construction, being without a parapet,
+      and wholly devoid of sculpture or other ornamentation. They furnish the
+      only communication between the southern and central terraces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a peculiarity of the Persepolitan ruins that they are not
+      continuous, but present to the modern inquirer the appearance, at any
+      rate, of a number of distinct buildings. Of these the platform altogether
+      contains ten, five of which are of large size, while the remainder are
+      comparatively insignificant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the five large buildings four stand upon the central or upper terrace,
+      while one lies east of that terrace, between it and the mountains. The
+      four upon the central terrace comprise three buildings made up of several
+      sets of chambers, together with one great open pillared hall, to which are
+      attached no subordinate apartments. The three complex edifices will be
+      here termed &ldquo;palaces,&rdquo; and will take the names of their respective
+      founders, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes Ochus: the fourth will be called
+      the &ldquo;Great Hall of Audience.&rdquo; The building between the upper terrace and
+      the mountains will be termed the &ldquo;Great Eastern Edifice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;Palace of Darius,&rdquo; which is one of the most interesting of the
+      Persepolitan buildings, stands near the western edge of the platform,
+      midway between the &ldquo;Great Hall of Audience&rdquo; and the &ldquo;Palace of Artaxerxes
+      Ochus.&rdquo; <a href="#linkBimage-0023">[PLATE XLVI., Fig. 1.]</a> It is a
+      building about one hundred and thirty five feet in length, and in breadth
+      a little short of a hundred. Of all the existing buildings on the platform
+      it occupies the most exalted position, being elevated from fourteen to
+      fifteen feet above the general level of the central terrace, and being
+      thus four or five feet higher than the &ldquo;Palace of Xerxes.&rdquo; It fronted
+      towards the south, where it was approached by a double staircase of the
+      usual character, which led up to a deep portico of eight pillars arranged
+      in two rows. On either side of the portico were guard-rooms, which opened
+      upon it, in length twenty-three feet, and in breadth thirteen. Behind the
+      portico lay the main chamber, which was a square of fifty feet, having a
+      roof supported by sixteen pillars, arranged in four rows of four, in line
+      with the pillars of the portico. <a href="#linkBimage-0022">[PLATE XLV.,
+      Fig. 2.]</a> The bases for the pillars alone remain; and it is thus
+      uncertain whether their material was stone or wood. They were probably
+      light and slender, not greatly interrupting the view. The hall was
+      surrounded on all sides by walls from four to five feet in thickness, in
+      which were doors, windows, and recesses, symmetrically arranged. The
+      entrance from the portico was by a door in the exact centre of the front
+      wall, on either side of which were two windows, looking into the portico.
+      The opposite, or back, wall was pierced by two doors, which faced the
+      intercolumniations of the side rows of pillars, as the front door faced
+      the intercolumniation of the central rows. Between the two doors which
+      pierced the back wall was a squared recess, and similar recesses
+      ornamented the same wall on either side of the doors. The side walls were
+      each pierced originally by a single doorway, between which and the front
+      wall was a squared recess, while beyond, between the doorways and the back
+      wall, were two recesses of the same character. Curiously enough, these
+      side doorways and recesses fronted the pillars, not the
+      intercolumniations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0023" id="linkBimage-0023">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate046a.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate046a (149K)" src="images/plate046.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      No sculpture, so far as appears, adorned this apartment, excepting in the
+      doorways, which however had in every case this kind of ornamentation. The
+      doorways in the back wall exhibited on their jambs figures of the king
+      followed by two attendants, one holding a cloth, and the other a
+      fly-chaser. <a href="#linkBimage-0022">[PLATE XLV., Fig. 3.]</a> These
+      figures had in every case their faces turned towards the apartment. The
+      front doorway showed on its jambs the monarch followed by the
+      parasol-bearer and the bearer of the fly-chaser, with his back turned to
+      the apartment, issuing forth, as it were, from it. On the jambs of the
+      doors of the side apartments was represented the king in combat with a
+      lion or a monster, the king here in every case facing outwards, and
+      seeming to guard the entrances to the side chambers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the back of the hall, and at either side, were chambers of very
+      moderate dimensions. The largest were to the rear of the building, where
+      there seems to have been one about forty feet by twenty-three, and another
+      twenty-eight feet by twenty. The doorways here had sculptures,
+      representing attendants bearing napkins and perfumes. The side chambers,
+      five in number, were considerably smaller than those behind the great
+      hall, the largest not exceeding thirty-four feet by thirteen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems probable that this palace was without any second story. There is
+      no vestige in any part of it of a staircase&mdash;no indication of its
+      height having ever exceeded from twenty-two to twenty-five feet. It was a
+      modest building, simple and regular, covering less than half the space of
+      an ordinary palace in Assyria. <a href="#linkBimage-0022">[PLATE XLV.,
+      Fig. 2.]</a> Externally, it must have presented an appearance not very
+      dissimilar to that of the simpler Greek temples; distinguished from them
+      by peculiarities of ornamentation, but by no striking or important
+      feature, excepting the grand and elaborately sculptured staircase.
+      Internally, it was remarkable for the small number of its apartments,
+      which seem not to have been more than twelve or thirteen, and for the
+      moderate size of most of them. Even the grand central hall covered a less
+      area than three out of the five halls in the country palace of Sargon. The
+      effect of this room was probably fine, though it must have been somewhat
+      over-crowded with pillars. If these were, however (as is probable), light
+      wooden posts, plated with silver or with gold, and if the ceiling
+      consisted (as it most likely did) of beams, crossing each other at right
+      angles, with square spaces between them, all likewise coated with the
+      precious metals; if moreover the cold stone walls, excepting where they
+      were broken by a doorway, or a window, were similarly decked; if curtains
+      of brilliant hues hung across the entrances; if the pavement was of
+      many-colored stones, and in places covered with magnificent carpets; if an
+      elevated golden throne, under a canopy of purple, adorned the upper end of
+      the room, standing against the wall midway between the two doors&mdash;if
+      this were in truth the arrangement and ornamentation of the apartment, we
+      can well understand that the <i>coup d&rsquo;oeil</i> must have been effective,
+      and the impression made on the spectator highly pleasing. A room fifty
+      feet square, and not much more than twenty high, could not be very grand;
+      but elegance of form, combined with richness of material and splendor of
+      coloring, may have more than compensated for the want of that grandeur
+      which results from mere size.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If it be inquired how a palace of the dimensions described can have
+      sufficed even for one of the early Persian kings, the reply must seemingly
+      be that the building in question can only have contained the public
+      apartments of the royal residence&mdash;the throne-room, banqueting-rooms,
+      guard-rooms, etc.,&mdash;and that it must have been supplemented by at
+      least one other edifice of a considerable size, the Gynaeceum or &ldquo;House of
+      the Women.&rdquo; There is ample room on the platform for such a building,
+      either towards the east, where the ground is now occupied by a high mound
+      of rubbish, or on the west, towards the edge of the platform, where traces
+      of a large edifice were noted by Niebuhr. On the whole, this latter
+      situation seems to be the more probable; and the position of the Gynaeceum
+      in this quarter may account for the alteration made by Artaxerxes Ochus in
+      the palace of Darius, which now seriously interferes with its symmetry.
+      Artaxerxes cut a doorway in the outer western wall, and another opposite
+      to it in the western wall of the great hall, adding at the same time a
+      second staircase to the building, which thus became accessible from the
+      west no less than from the south. It has puzzled the learned in
+      architecture to assign a motive for this alteration. May we not find an
+      adequate one in the desire to obtain a ready and comparatively private
+      access to the Gynaeceum, which must have been somewhere on the platform,
+      and which may well have lain in this direction?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The minute account which has been now given of this palace will render
+      unnecessary a very elaborate description of the remainder. Two grand
+      palatial edifices seem to have been erected on the platform by later kings&mdash;one
+      by Xerxes and the other by Artaxerxes Ochus; but the latter of these is in
+      so ruined a condition, and the former is so like the palace of Darius,
+      that but few remarks need be made upon either. The palace of Xerxes is
+      simply that of Darius on a larger scale, the pillars in the portico being
+      increased from two rows of four to two rows of six, and the great hall
+      behind being a square of eighty instead of a square of fifty feet, with
+      thirty-six instead of sixteen pillars to support its roof. On either side
+      of the hall, and on either side of the portico, were apartments like those
+      already described as abutting on the same portions of the older palace,
+      differing from them chiefly in being larger and more numerous. The two
+      largest, which were thirty-one feet square, had roofs supported on
+      pillars, the numbers of such supports being in each case four. The only
+      striking difference in the plans of the two buildings consisted in the
+      absence from the palace of Xerxes of any apartments to the rear of the
+      great hall. In order to allow space for an ample terrace in front, the
+      whole edifice was thrown back so close to the edge of the upper platform
+      that no room was left for any chambers at the back, since the hall itself
+      was here brought almost to the very verge of the sheer descent from the
+      central to the low southern terrace. In ornamentation the palaces also
+      very closely resembled each other, the chief difference being that the
+      combats of the king with lions and mythological monsters, which form the
+      regular ornamentation of the side-chambers in the palace of Darius, occur
+      nowhere in the residence of his son, where they are replaced by figures of
+      attendants bringing articles for the toilet or the table, like those which
+      adorn the main staircase of the older edifice. Figures of the same kind
+      also ornament all the windows in the palace of Xerxes. A tone of mere
+      sensual enjoyment is thus given to the later edifice, which is very far
+      from characterizing the earlier; and the decline of morals at the Court,
+      which history indicates as rapid about this period, is seen to have
+      stamped itself, as such changes usually do, upon the national
+      architecture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small building, at the distance of about twenty or twenty-five yards
+      from the eastern wall of the palace of Xerxes, possesses a peculiar
+      interest, in consequence of its having some claims to be considered the
+      most ancient structure upon the platform. It consists of a hall and
+      portico, in size, proportions, and decoration almost exactly resembling
+      the corresponding parts of Darius&rsquo;s palace, but unaccompanied by any trace
+      of circumjacent chambers, and totally devoid of inscriptions. The building
+      is low, on the level of the northern, rather than on that of the central
+      terrace, and is indeed half buried in the rubbish which has accumulated at
+      its base. Its fragments are peculiarly grand and massive, while its
+      sculptures are in strong and bold relief. There can be little doubt but
+      that it was originally, like the hall and portico of Darius, surrounded on
+      three sides by chambers. These, however, have entirely disappeared, having
+      probably been pulled down to furnish materials for more recent edifices.
+      Like the palaces of Xerxes and Artaxerxes Ochus, and unlike the palace of
+      Darius, the building faces to the north, which is the direction naturally
+      preferred in such a climate. We may suppose it to have been the royal
+      residence of the earlier times, the erection of Cyrus or Cambyses, and to
+      have been intended especially for summer use, for which its position well
+      fitted it. Darius, wishing for a winter palace at Persepolis, as well as a
+      summer one, took probably this early palace for his model, and built one
+      as nearly as possible resembling it, except that, for the sake of greater
+      warmth, he made his new erection face southwards. Xerxes, dissatisfied
+      with the size of the old summer palace, built a new one at its side of
+      considerably larger dimensions, using perhaps some of the materials of the
+      old palace in his new building. Finally, Artaxerxes Ochus made certain
+      additions to the palace of Xerxes on its western side, and at the same
+      time added a staircase and a doorway to the winter residence of Darius.
+      Thus the Persepolitan palace, using the word in its proper sense of royal
+      residence, attained its full dimensions, occupying the southern half of
+      the great central platform, and covering with its various courts and
+      buildings a space 500 feet long by 375 feet wide, or nearly the space
+      covered by the less ambitious of the palaces of Assyria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides edifices adapted for habitation, the Persepolitan platform
+      sustained two other classes of buildings. These were propylaea, or
+      gateways&mdash;places commanding the approach to great buildings, where a
+      guard might be stationed to stop and examine all comers&mdash;and halls of
+      a vast size, which were probably throne-rooms, where the monarch held his
+      court on grand occasions, to exhibit himself in full state to his
+      subjects. The propylaea upon the platform appear to have been four in
+      number. One, the largest, was directly opposite the centre of the
+      landing-place at the top of the great stairs which gave access to the
+      platform from the plain. This consisted of a noble apartment, eighty-two
+      feet square, with a roof supported by four magnificent columns, each
+      between fifty and sixty feet high. The walls of the apartment were from
+      sixteen to seventeen feet thick. Two grand portals, each twelve feet wide
+      by thirty-six feet high, led into this apartment, one directly facing the
+      head of the stairs, and the other opposite to it, towards the east. Both
+      were flanked with colossal bulls, those towards the staircase being
+      conventional representations of the real animal, while the opposite pair
+      are almost exact reproductions of the winged and human-headed bulls, with
+      which the Assyrian discoveries have made us so familiar. The accompanying
+      illustration <a href="#linkBimage-0024">[PLATE XLVII., Fig. 1.]</a>, which
+      is taken from a photograph, exhibits this inner pair in their present
+      condition. The back of one of the other pair is also visible. Two of the
+      pillars&mdash;which alone are still standings appear in their places,
+      intervening between the front and the back gateway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0024" id="linkBimage-0024">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate047.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xlvii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The walls which enclosed this chamber, notwithstanding their immense
+      thickness, have almost entirely disappeared. On the southern side alone,
+      where there seems to have been a third doorway, unornamented, are there
+      any traces of them. We must conclude that they were either of burnt brick
+      or of small blocks of stone, which the natives of the country in later
+      times found it convenient to use as material for their own buildings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An edifice, almost exactly similar to this, but of very inferior
+      dimensions, occupied a position due east of the palace of Darius, and a
+      little to the north of the main staircase leading to the terrace in front
+      of the palace of Xerxes. The bases of two pillars and the jambs of three
+      doorways remain, from which it is easy to reconstruct the main building.
+      Its position seems to mark it as designed to give entrance to the
+      structure, whatever it was, which occupied the site of the great mound (M
+      on the Plan) east of Darius&rsquo;s palace, and north of the palace of his son.
+      The ornamentation, however, would rather connect it with the more eastern
+      of the two great pillared halls, which will have to be described
+      presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A third edifice of the same kind stood in front of the great eastern hall,
+      at the distance of about seventy yards from its portico. This building is
+      more utterly ruined than either of the preceding, and its dimensions are
+      open to some doubt. On the whole, it seems probable that it resembled the
+      great propylaea at the head of the stairs leading from the plain rather
+      than the central propylaea just described. Part of its ornamentation was
+      certainly a colossal bull, though whether human-headed or not cannot be
+      determined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fourth of the propylaea was on the terrace whereon stood the palace of
+      Xerxes, and directly fronting the landing-place at the head of its
+      principal stairs, just as the propylaea first described fronted the great
+      stairs leading up from the plain. Its dimensions were suited to those of
+      the staircase which led to it, and of the terrace on which it was placed.
+      It was less than one fourth the size of the great propylaea, and about
+      half that of the propylaea which stood the nearest to it. The bases of the
+      four pillars alone remain in situ; but, from the proportions thus
+      obtained, the position of the walls and doorways is tolerably certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have now to pass to the most magnificent of the Perse-politan buildings&mdash;the
+      Great Pillared Halls&mdash;which constitute the glory of Arian
+      architecture, and which, even in their ruins, provoke the wonder and
+      admiration of modern Europeans, familiar with all the triumphs of Western
+      art, with Grecian temples, Roman baths and amphitheatres, Moorish palaces,
+      Turkish mosques, and Christian cathedrals. Of these pillared halls, the
+      Persepolitan platform supports two, slightly differing in their design,
+      but presenting many points of agreement. They bear the character of an
+      earlier and a later building&mdash;a first effort in the direction which
+      circumstances compelled the architecture of the Persians to take, and the
+      final achievement of their best artists in this kind of building.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nearly midway in the platform between its northern and its southern edges,
+      and not very far from the boundary of rocky mountain on which the platform
+      abuts towards the east, is the vast edifice which has been called with
+      good reason the &ldquo;Hall of a Hundred Columns,&rdquo; since its roof was in all
+      probability supported by that number of pillars. This building consisted
+      of a single magnificent chamber, with a portico, and probably guard-rooms,
+      in front, of dimensions quite unequalled upon the platform. The portico
+      was 183 feet long by 52 feet deep, and was sustained by sixteen pillars,
+      about 33 feet high, arranged in two rows of eight. The great chamber
+      behind was a square of 227 feet, and had therefore an area of about 51,000
+      feet. Over this vast space were distributed, at equal distances from one
+      another, one hundred columns, each 35 feet high, arranged in ten rows of
+      ten each, every pillar thus standing at a distance of nearly 20 feet from
+      any other. The four walls which enclosed this great hall had a uniform
+      thickness of 10 1/2 feet, and were each pierced at equal intervals by two
+      doorways, the doorways being thus exactly opposite to one another, and
+      each looking down an avenue of columns. In the spaces of wall on either
+      side of the doorways, eastward, westward, and southward, were three
+      niches, all square-topped, and bearing the ornamentation which is
+      universal in the case of all niches, windows, and doorways in the
+      Persepolitan ruins. <a href="#linkBimage-0024">[PLATE XLVII., Fig. 2.]</a>
+      In the northern, or front, wall, the niches were replaced by windows
+      looking upon the portico, excepting towards the angles of the building,
+      where niches were retained, owing to a peculiarity in the plan of the
+      edifice which has now to be noticed. The portico, instead of being, as in
+      every other Persian instance, of the same width with the building which it
+      fronted, was 44 feet narrower, its antce projecting from the front wall,
+      not at either extremity, but at the distance of 11 feet from the corner.
+      While the porch was thus contracted, so that the pillars had to be eight
+      in each row instead of ten, space was left on either side for a narrow
+      guard-room opening on to the porch, indications of which are seen in the
+      doorways placed at right angles to the front wall, which are ornamented
+      with the usual figures of soldiers armed with spear and shield. It has
+      been suggested that the hall was, like the smaller pillared chambers upon
+      the platform, originally surrounded on three sides by a number of lesser
+      apartments; and this is certainly possible: but no trace remains of any
+      such buildings. The ornamentation which exists seems to show that the
+      building was altogether of a public character. Instead of exhibiting
+      attendants bringing articles for the toilet or the banquet, it shows on
+      its doors the monarch, either engaged in the art of destroying symbolical
+      monsters, or seated on his throne under a canopy, with the tiara on his
+      head, and the golden sceptre in his right hand. The throne representations
+      are of two kinds. On the jambs of the great doors leading out upon the
+      porch, we see in the top compartment the monarch seated under the canopy,
+      accompanied by five attendants, while below him are his guards, arranged
+      in five rows of ten each, some armed with spears and shields, others with
+      spears, short swords, bows and quivers. Thus the two portals together
+      exhibit the figures of 200 Persian guardsmen in attendance on the person
+      of the king. The doors at the back of the building present us with a still
+      more curious sculpture. On these the throne appears elevated on a lofty
+      platform, the stages of which, three in number, are upheld by figures in
+      different costumes, representing apparently the natives of all the
+      different provinces of the Empire. It is a reasonable conjecture that this
+      great hall was intended especially for a throne-room, and that in the
+      representations on these doorways we have figured a structure which
+      actually existed under its roof (probably at t in the plan)&mdash;a
+      platform reached by steps, whereon, in the great ceremonies of state, the
+      royal throne was placed, in order that the monarch might be distinctly
+      seen at one and the same time by the whole Court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0025" id="linkBimage-0025">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate048.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xlviii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The question of the lighting of this huge apartment presents some
+      difficulties. On three sides, as already observed, the hall had (so far as
+      appears) no windows&mdash;the places where windows might have been
+      expected to occur being occupied by niches. The apparent openings are
+      consequently reduced to some fifteen, viz., the eight doorways, and seven
+      windows, which looked out upon the portico, and were therefore overhung
+      and had a north aspect. It is clear that sufficient light could not have
+      entered the apartment from these&mdash;the only visible&mdash;apertures.
+      We must therefore suppose either that the walls above the niches were
+      pierced with windows, which is quite possible, or else that light was in
+      some way or other admitted from the roof. The latter is the supposition of
+      those most competent to decide. M. Flandin conjectures that the roof had
+      four apertures, placed at the points where the lines drawn from the
+      northern to the southern, and those drawn from the eastern to the western,
+      doors would intersect one another. He seems to suppose that these openings
+      were wholly unprotected, in which case they would have admitted, in a very
+      inconvenient way, both the sun and the rain. May we not presume that, if
+      such openings existed, they were guarded by louvres such as have been
+      regarded as probably lighting the Assyrian halls, and of which a
+      representation has already been given?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The portico of the Hall of a Hundred Columns was flanked on either side by
+      a colossal bull, standing at the inner angle of the antes, and thus in
+      some degree narrowing the entrance. Its columns were fluted, and had in
+      every case the complex capital, which occurs also in the great propylaea
+      and in the Hall of Xerxes. It was built of the same sort of massive blocks
+      as the south-eastern edifice, or Ancient Palace&mdash;blocks often ten
+      feet square by seven feet thick, and may be ascribed probably to the same
+      age as that structure. Like that edifice, it is situated somewhat low; it
+      has no staircase, and no inscription. We may fairly suppose it to have
+      been the throne-room or great hall of audience of the early king who built
+      the South-eastern Palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have now to describe the most remarkable of all the Persepolitan
+      edifices&mdash;a building the remains of which stretch nearly 350 feet in
+      one direction, while in the other they extend 246 feet. Its ruins consist
+      almost entirely of pillars, which are divided into four groups. The
+      largest of these was a square of thirty-six pillars, arranged in six rows
+      of six, all exactly equidistant from one another, and covering an area of
+      above 20,000 square feet. On three sides of this square, eastward,
+      northward, and westward, were magnificent porches, each consisting of
+      twelve columns, arranged in two rows, in line with the pillars of the
+      central cluster. These porches stood at the distance of seventy feet from
+      the main building, and have the appearance of having been entirely
+      separate from it. They are 143 feet long, by thirty broad, and thus cover
+      each an area of 4260 feet. The most astonishing feature in the whole
+      building is the height of the pillars. These, according to the
+      measurements of M. Flandin, had a uniform altitude throughout the building
+      of sixty-four feet. Even in their ruin, they tower over every other
+      erection upon the platform, retaining often, in spite of the effects of
+      time, an elevation of sixty feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The capitals of the pillars were of three kinds. Those of the side
+      colonnades were comparatively simple: they consisted, in each case, of a
+      single member, formed, in the eastern colonnade, of two half-griffins,
+      with their heads looking in opposite directions <a href="#linkBimage-0024">[PLATE
+      XLVII, Fig. 2]</a>; and, in the western colonnade, of two half-bulls,
+      arranged in the same manner <a href="#linkBimage-0024">[PLATE XLVII., Fig.
+      3]</a>. The capitals of the pillars in the northern colonnade, which faced
+      the great sculptured staircase, and constituted the true front of the
+      building, were of a very complex character. They may be best viewed as
+      composed of three distinct members&mdash;first, a sort of lotos-bud,
+      accompanied by pendent leaves; then, above that, a member, composed of
+      volutes like those of the Ionic order, but placed in a perpendicular
+      instead of a horizontal direction; and at the top, a member composed of
+      two half-bulls, exactly similar to that which forms the complete capital
+      of the western group of pillars. The pillars of the groat central cluster
+      had capitals exactly like those of the northern colonnade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bases of the colonnade pillars are of singular beauty. Bell-shaped,
+      and ornamented with a double or triple row of pendent lotus-leaves, some
+      rounded, some narrowed to a point; they are as graceful as they are rare
+      in their forms, and attract the admiration of all beholders. Above them
+      rise the columns, tapering gently as they ascend, but without any swell or
+      entasis. They consist of several masses of stone, carefully joined
+      together, and secured at the joints by an iron cramp in the direction of
+      the column&rsquo;s axis. All are beautifully fluted along their entire length,
+      the number of the incisions or flutings being from forty-eight to
+      fifty-two in each pillar. They are arcs of circles smaller than
+      semicircles, thus resembling those of the Doric, rather than those of the
+      Ionic or Corinthian order. The cutting of all is very exact and regular.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There can be little doubt but that both the porches, and the great central
+      pillar-cluster, were roofed in. The double-bull and double-griffin capital
+      are exactly suited to receive the ends of beams, which would stretch from
+      pillar to pillar, and support a roof and an entablature. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0026">[PLATE L., Fig.1.]</a> We may see in the entrances
+      to the royal tombs the true use of pillars in a Persian building, and the
+      character of the entablature which, they were intended to sustain,
+      Assuming, then, that both the great central pillar phalanx and the three
+      detached colonnades supported a roof, the question arises, were the
+      colonnades in any way united with the main building, or did they stand
+      completely detached from it? It has been supposed that they were all
+      porticos <i>in antis</i>, connected with the main building by solid walls&mdash;that
+      the great central column-cluster was surrounded on all sides by a wall of
+      a very massive description, from the four corners of which similar
+      barriers were carried down to the edge of the terrace, abutting in front
+      upon the steps of the great sculptured staircase, and extending eastward
+      and westward, so as to form the antce of an eastern and a western portico.
+      In the two corners between the northern in <i>antae</i> of the side
+      porticos and the <i>antae</i> of the portico in front are supposed to have
+      been large guard-rooms, entirely filling up the two angles. The whole
+      building is thus brought into close conformity with the &ldquo;Palace of
+      Xerxes,&rdquo; from which it is distinguished only by its superior size, its use
+      of stone pillars, and the elongation of the tetrastyle chambers at the
+      sides of that edifice into porticos of twelve pillars each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0026" id="linkBimage-0026">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate050.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate L. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The ingenuity of this conception is unquestionable; and one is tempted at
+      first sight to accept a solution which removes so much that is puzzling,
+      and establishes so remarkable a harmony between works whose outward aspect
+      is so dissimilar. It seems like the inspiration of genius to discern so
+      clearly the like in the unlike, and one inclines at first to believe that
+      what is so clever cannot but be true. But a rigorous examination of the
+      evidence leads to an opposite conclusion, and if it does not absolutely
+      disprove Mr. Fergusson&rsquo;s theory, at any rate shows it to be in the highest
+      degree doubtful. Such walls as he describes, with their <i>antae</i> and
+      their many doors and windows, should have left very marked traces of their
+      existence in great squared pillars at the sides of porticos, in huge
+      door-frames and window-frames, or at least in the foundations of walls,
+      or, the marks of them, on some part of the paved terrace. Now the entire
+      absence of squared pillars for the ends of antce, of door-frames, and
+      window-frames, or even of such sculptured fragments as might indicate
+      their former existence, is palpable and is admitted; nor is there any even
+      supposed trace of the walls, excepting in one of the lines which by the
+      hypothesis they would occupy. In front of the building, midway between the
+      great pillar-cluster and the north colonnade, are the remains of four
+      stone bases, parallel to one another, each seventeen feet long by five
+      feet six inches wide. Mr. Fergusson regards these bases as marking the
+      position of the doors in his front wall; and they are certainly in places
+      where doors might have been looked for, if the building had a front wall,
+      since the openings are exactly opposite the inter-columniations of the
+      pillars, both in the portico and in the main cluster. But there are
+      several objections to the notion of these bases being the foundations of
+      the jambs of doors. In the first place, they are too wide apart, being at
+      the distance from one another of seventeen feet, whereas no doorway on the
+      platform exceeds a width of twelve or thirteen feet. In the second place,
+      if these massive stone bases were prepared for the jambs of doors, it
+      could only have been for massive stone jambs like those of the other
+      palaces; but in that case, the jambs could not have disappeared. Thirdly,
+      if the doorways on this side were thus marked, why were they not similarly
+      marked on the other sides of the building? On the whole, the supposition
+      of M. Flandin, that the bases were pedestals for ornamental statues,
+      perhaps of bulls, seems more probable than that of Mr. Fergusson; though,
+      no doubt, there are objections also to M. Flandin&rsquo;s hypothesis, and it
+      would be perhaps best to confess that we do not know the use of these
+      strange foundations, which have nothing that at all resembles them upon
+      the rest of the platform.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another strong objection to Mr. Fergusson&rsquo;s theory, and one of which he,
+      to a certain extent, admits the force, is the existence of drains, running
+      exactly in the line of his side walls, which, if such walls existed, would
+      be a curious provision on the part of the architect for undermining his
+      own work. Mr. Fergusson supposes that they might be intended to drain the
+      walls themselves and keep them dry. But as it is clear that they must have
+      carried off the whole surplus water from the roof of the building, and as
+      there is often much rain and snow at Persepolis, their effect on the
+      foundations of such a wall as Mr. Fergusson imagines would evidently be
+      disastrous in the extreme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To these minute and somewhat technical objections may be added the main
+      one, whereof all alike can feel the force&mdash;namely, the entire
+      disappearance of such a vast mass of building as Mr. Fergusson&rsquo;s
+      hypothesis supposes. To account for this, Mr. Fergusson is obliged to lay
+      it down, that in this magnificent structure, with its solid stone
+      staircase, its massive pavement of the same material, and its seventy-two
+      stone pillars, each sixty-four feet high, the walls were of mud. Can we
+      believe in this incongruity? Can we imagine that a prince, who possessed
+      an unbounded command of human labor, and an inexhaustible supply of stone
+      in the rocky mountains close at hand, would have had recourse to the
+      meanest of materials for the walls of an edifice which he evidently
+      intended to eclipse all others upon the platform. And, especially, can we
+      suppose this, when the very same prince used solid blocks of stone, in the
+      walls of the very inferior edifice which he constructed in this same
+      locality? Mr. Fergusson, in defence of his hypothesis, alleges the
+      frequent combination of meanness with magnificence in the East, and
+      softens down the meanness in the present case by clothing his mud walls
+      with enamelled tiles, and painting them with all the colors of the
+      rainbow. But here again the hypothesis is wholly unsupported by fact.
+      Neither at Persepolis, nor at Pasargadae, nor at any other ancient Persian
+      site, has a single fragment of an enamelled tile or brick been discovered.
+      In Babylonia and Assyria, where the employment of such an ornamentation
+      was common, the traces of it which remain are abundant. Must not the
+      entire absence of such traces from all exclusively Persian ruins be held
+      to indicate that this mode of adorning edifices was not adopted in Persia?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If then we resign the notion of this remarkable building having been a
+      walled structure, we must suppose that it was a summer throne-room, open
+      to all the winds of heaven, except so far as it was protected by curtains.
+      For the use of these by the Persians in pillared edifices, we have
+      important historical authority in the statement already quoted from the
+      Book of Esther. The Persian palace, to which that passage directly refers,
+      contained a structure almost the exact counterpart of this at Persepolis;
+      and it is probable that at both places the interstices between the outer
+      pillars of, at any rate, the great central colonnade, were filled with
+      &ldquo;hangings of white and green and blue, fastened with cords of white and
+      purple to silver rings,&rdquo; which were attached to the &ldquo;pillars of marble;&rdquo;
+       and that by these means an undue supply of light and air, as well as an
+      unseemly publicity, were prevented. A traveller in the country well
+      observes, in allusion to this passage from Esther: Nothing could be more
+      appropriate than this method at Susa and Persepolis, the spring residences
+      of the Persian monarchs. It must be considered that these columnar halls
+      were the equivalents of the modern throne-rooms, that here all public
+      business was dispatched, and that here the king might sit and enjoy the
+      beauties of the landscape. With the rich plains of Susa and Persepolis
+      before him, he could well, after his winter&rsquo;s residence at Babylon,
+      dispense with massive walls, which would only check the warm fragrant
+      breeze from those verdant prairies adorned with the choicest flowers. A
+      massive roof, covering the whole expanse of columns, would be too cold and
+      dismal, whereas curtains around the central group would serve to admit
+      both light and warmth. Nothing can be conceived better adapted to the
+      climate or the season.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the central cluster of pillars was thus adapted to the purposes of a
+      throne-room, equally well may the isolated colonnades have served as
+      ante-chambers or posts for guards. Protected, perhaps, with curtains or
+      awnings of their own, of a coarser material than those of the main
+      chamber, or at any rate casting, when the sun was high, a broad and deep
+      shadow, they would give a welcome shelter to those who had to watch over
+      the safety of the monarch, or who were expecting but had not yet received
+      their summons to the royal presence. Except in the very hottest weather,
+      the Oriental does not love to pass his day within doors. Seated on the
+      pavement in groups, under the deep shadows of these colonnades, which
+      commanded a glorious view of the vast fertile plain of the Bendamir, of
+      the undulating mountain-tract beyond, and of the picturesque hills known
+      now as Koh-Istakhr, or Koh-Rhamgherd, the subjects of the Great King, who
+      had business at Court, would wait, agreeably enough, till their turn came
+      to approach the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our survey of the Persepolitan platform is now complete; but, before we
+      entirely dismiss the subject of Persian palaces, it seems proper to say a
+      few words with respect to the other palatial remains of Achasmenian times,
+      remains which exist in three places&mdash;at Murgab or Pasargadse, at
+      Istakr, and at the great mound of Susa. The Murgab and Istakr ruins were
+      carefully examined by MM. Coste and Flandin; while General Williams and
+      Mr. Loftus diligently explored, and completely made out, the plan of the
+      Susian edifice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ruins at Murgab, which are probably the most ancient in Persia,
+      comprise, besides the well-known &ldquo;Tomb of Cyrus,&rdquo; two principal buildings.
+      The largest of these was of an oblong-square shape, about 147 feet long by
+      116 wide. It seems to have been surrounded by a lofty wall, in which were
+      huge portals, consisting of great blocks of stone, partially hollowed out,
+      to render them portable. There was an inscription on the jambs of each
+      portal, containing the words, &ldquo;I am Cyrus the King, the Achaemenian.&rdquo;
+       Within the walled enclosure which may have been skirted internally by a
+      colonnade was a pillared building, of much greater height than the
+      surrounding walls, as is evident from the single column which remains.
+      This shaft, which is perfectly plain, and shows no signs of a capital, has
+      an altitude of thirty-six feet, with a diameter of three feet four inches
+      at the base. On the area around, which was carefully paved, are the bases
+      of seven other similar pillars, arranged in lines, and so situated as
+      apparently to indicate an oblong hall, supported by twelve pillars, in
+      three rows of four each. The chief peculiarity of the arrangement is, a
+      variety in the width of the intercolumniations, which measure twenty-seven
+      feet ten inches in one direction, but twenty-one feet only in the other.
+      The smaller building, which is situated at only a short distance from the
+      larger one, covers a space of 125 feet by fifty. It consists of twelve
+      pillar bases, arranged in two rows of six each, the pillars being somewhat
+      thicker than those of the other building, and placed somewhat closer
+      together. <a href="#linkBimage-0027">[PLATE XLIX., Fig. 5.]</a> The form
+      of the base is very singular. It exhibits at the side a semicircular
+      bulge, ornamented with a series of nine flutings, which are carried
+      entirely round the base in parallel horizontal circles. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0026">[PLATE L., Fig. 2.]</a> In front of the pillar
+      bases, at the distance of about twenty-three feet from the nearest, is a
+      square column, still upright, on which is sculptured a curious
+      mythological figure, together with the same curt legend, which appears on
+      the larger building&mdash;&ldquo;I am Cyrus, the King, the Achaemenian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0027" id="linkBimage-0027">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate049.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xlix. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      There are two other buildings at Murgab remarkable for their masonry. One
+      is a square tower, with slightly projecting corners, built of hewn blocks
+      of stone, very regularly laid, and carried to a height of forty-two feet.
+      The other is a platform, exceedingly massive and handsome, composed
+      entirely of squared stone, and faced with blocks often eight or ten feet
+      long, laid in horizontal courses, and rusticated throughout in a manner
+      that is highly ornamental. <a href="#linkBimage-0026">[PLATE L. Fig. 3.]</a>
+      The style resembles that of the substructions of the Temple of Jerusalem.
+      It occurs occasionally, though somewhat rarely, in Greece; but there is
+      said to exist nowhere so extensive and beautiful a specimen of it as that
+      of the platform at this ancient site. <a href="#linkBimage-0026">[PLATE
+      L., Fig. 4.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The palace at Istakr is in better preservation than either of the two
+      pillared edifices at Murgab; but still, it is not in such a condition as
+      to enable us to lay down with any certainty even its ground-plan. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0028">[PLATE LI., Fig. 1.]</a> One pillar only remains
+      erect; but the bases of eight others have been found in situ; the walls
+      are partly to be traced, and the jambs of several doorways and niches are
+      still standing. These remains show that in many respects, as in the
+      character of the pillars, which were fluted and had capitals like those
+      already described, in the massiveness of the door and window jambs, and in
+      the thickness of the walls, the Istakr Palace resembled closely the
+      buildings on the Persepolitan platform; but at the same time they indicate
+      that its plan was wholly different, and thus our knowledge of the platform
+      buildings in no degree enables us to complete, or even to carry forward to
+      any appreciable extent, the ground-plan of the edifice derived from actual
+      research. The height of the columns, which is inferior to that of the
+      lowest at the great platform, would seem to indicate, either that the
+      building was the first in which stone pillars were attempted, or that it
+      was erected at a time when the Persians no longer possessed the mechanical
+      skill required to quarry, transport, and raise into place the enormous
+      blocks used in the best days of the nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0028" id="linkBimage-0028">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate051.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Li. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The palace of Susa, exhumed by Mr. Loftus and General Williams, consisted
+      of a great Hall or Throne-room, almost exactly a duplicate of the Chehl
+      Minar at Persepolis, and of a few other very inferior buildings. It stood
+      at the summit of the great platform, a quadrilateral mass of unburnt
+      brick, which from a remote antiquity had supported the residence of the
+      old Susian kings. It fronted a little west of north, and commanded a
+      magnificent view over the Susianian plains to the mountains of Lauristan.
+      An inscription, repeated on four of its pillar-bases, showed that it was
+      originally built by Darius Hystaspis, and afterwards repaired by
+      Artaxerxes Longimanus. As it was so exactly a reproduction of an edifice
+      already minutely described, no further account of it need be here given.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the palaces of the Persian kings we may now pass to their tombs,
+      remarkable structures which drew the attention of the ancients, and which
+      have been very fully examined and represented in modern times. These tombs
+      are eight in number, but present only two types, so that it will be
+      sufficient to give in this place a detailed account of two tombs&mdash;one
+      of each description.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most ancient, and, on the whole, the most remarkable of the tombs, is
+      almost universally allowed to be that of the Great Cyrus. It is unique in
+      design, totally different from all the other royal sepulchres; and, though
+      it has been often described, demands, and must receive, notice in any
+      account that is given of the ancient Persian constructions. The historian
+      Arrian calls it &ldquo;a house upon a pedestal;&rdquo; and this brief description
+      exactly expresses its general character. On a base, composed of huge
+      blocks of the most beautiful white marble,1 which rises pyramidically in
+      seven steps of different heights, there stands a small &ldquo;house&rdquo; of similar
+      material, crowned with a stone roof, which is formed in front and rear
+      into a pediment resembling that of a Greek temple. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0028">[PLATE LI., Fig.3.]</a> The &ldquo;house&rdquo; has no window,
+      but one of the end walls was pierced by a low and narrow doorway, which
+      led into a small chamber or cell, about eleven feet long, seven broad, and
+      seven high. Here, as ancient writers inform us, the body of the Great
+      Cyrus was deposited in a golden coffin. Internally the chamber is
+      destitute of any inscription, and indeed seems to have been left perfectly
+      plain. Externally, there is a cornice of some elegance below the pediment,
+      a good molding over the doorway, which is also doubly recessed&mdash;and
+      two other very slight moldings, one at the base of the &ldquo;house,&rdquo; and the
+      other at the bottom of the second step. <a href="#linkBimage-0028">[PLATE
+      LI., Fig. 2.]</a> Except for these, the whole edifice is perfectly plain.
+      Its present height above the ground is thirty-six feet, and it may
+      originally have been a foot or eighteen inches higher, for the top of the
+      roof is worn away. It measures at the base forty-seven feet by forty-three
+      feet nine inches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tomb stands within a rectangular area, marked out by pillars, the
+      bases or broken shafts of which are still to be seen. They appear to have
+      been twenty-four in number; all of them circular and smooth, not fluted;
+      six pillars occupied each side of the rectangle, and they stood distant
+      from each other about fourteen feet. It is probable that they originally
+      supported a colonnade, which skirted internally a small walled court,
+      within which the tomb was placed. The capitals of the pillars, if they had
+      any, have wholly disappeared; and the researches conducted on the spot
+      have failed to discover any trace of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remainder of the Persian royal sepulchres are rock-tombs, excavations
+      in the sides of mountains, generally at a considerable elevation, so
+      placed as to attract the eye of the beholder, while they are extremely
+      difficult of approach. Of this kind of tomb there are four in the face of
+      the mountain which bounds the Pulwar Valley on the north-west, while there
+      are three others in the immediate vicinity of the Persepolitan platform,
+      two in the mountain which overhangs it, and one in the rocks a little
+      further to the south. The general shape of the excavations, as it presents
+      itself to the eye of the spectator, resembles a Greek cross. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0029">[PLATE LII., Fig. 1.]</a> This is divided by
+      horizontal lines into three portions, the upper one (corresponding with
+      the topmost limb of the cross) containing a very curious sculptured
+      representation of the monarch worshipping Ormazd; the middle one, which
+      comprises the two side limbs, together with the space between them, being
+      carved architecturally so as to resemble a portico; and the third
+      compartment (corresponding with the lowest limb of the cross) being left
+      perfectly plain. In the centre of the middle compartment is sculptured on
+      the face of the rock the similitude of a doorway, closely resembling those
+      which still stand on the great platform; that is to say, doubly recessed,
+      and ornamented at the top with lily-work. The upper portion of this
+      doorway is filled with the solid rock, smoothed to a flat surface and
+      crossed by three horizontal bars. The lower portion, to the height of four
+      or five feet, is cut away; and thus entrance is given to the actual tomb,
+      which is hollowed out in the rock behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0029" id="linkBimage-0029">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate052.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Thus far the rock tombs, are, with scarcely an exception, of the same
+      type. The excavations, however, behind their ornamental fronts, present
+      some curious differences. In the simplest case of all, we find, on
+      entering, an arched chamber, thirteen feet five inches long by seven feet
+      two inches wide, from which there opens out, opposite to the door and at
+      the height of about four feet from the ground, a deep horizontal recess,
+      arched, like the chamber. Near the front of this recess is a further
+      perpendicular excavation, in length six feet ten inches, in width three
+      feet three inches, and in depth the same. This was the actual sarcophagus,
+      and was covered, or intended to be covered, by a slab of stone. In the
+      deeper part of the recess there is room for two other such sarcophagi; but
+      in this case they have not been excavated, one burial only having, it
+      would seem, taken place in this tomb. Other sepulchres present the same
+      general features, but provide for a much greater number of interments. In
+      that of Darius Hystaspis the sepulchral chamber contains three distinct
+      recesses, in each of which are three sarcophagi, so that the tomb would
+      hold nine bodies. It has, apparently, been cut originally for a single
+      recess, on the exact plan of the tomb described above, but has afterwards
+      been elongated towards the left. <a href="#linkBimage-0030">[PLATE LIII.,
+      Fig. 1.]</a> Two of the tombs show a still more elaborate ground-plan&mdash;one
+      in which curved lines take to some extent the place of straight ones. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0029">[PLATE LII., Fig. 2.]</a> The tombs above the
+      platform of Persepolis are more richly ornamented than the others, the
+      lintels and sideposts of the doorways being covered with rosettes, and the
+      entablature above the cornice bearing a row of lions, facing on either
+      side towards the centre. <a href="#linkBimage-0030">[PLATE LIII., Fig. 2.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0030" id="linkBimage-0030">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate053.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Liii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      A curious edifice, belonging probably to the later Achaemenian times,
+      stands immediately in front of the four royal tombs at Nakhsh-i-Eustam.
+      This is a square tower, composed of large blocks of marble, cut with great
+      exactness, and joined together without mortar or cement of any kind. The
+      building is thirty-six feet high; and each side of it measures, as near as
+      possible, twenty-four feet. It is ornamented with pilasters at the corners
+      and with six recessed niches, or false windows, in three ranks, one over
+      the other, on three out of its four faces. On the fourth face are two
+      niches only, one over the other; and below them is a doorway with a
+      cornice. The surface of the walls between the pilasters is also ornamented
+      with a number of rectangular depressions, resembling the sunken ends of
+      beams. The doorway, which looks north, towards the tombs, is not at the
+      bottom of the building, but half-way up its side, and must have been
+      reached either by a ladder or by a flight of steps. It leads into a square
+      chamber, twelve feet wide by nearly eighteen high, extending to the top of
+      the building, and roofed in with four large slabs of stone, which reach
+      entirely across from side to side, being rather more than twenty-four feet
+      long, six feet wide, and from eighteen inches to three feet in thickness.
+      <a href="#linkBimage-0030">[PLATE LIII., Fig. 3.]</a> On the top these
+      slabs are so cut that the roof has every way a slight incline; at their
+      edges they are fashioned between the pilasters, into a dentated cornice,
+      like that which is seen on the tomb. Externally they were clamped together
+      in the same careful way which we find to have been in use both at
+      Persepolis and Parsargadae. The building seems to have been closed
+      originally by two ponderous stone doors. <a href="#linkBimage-0031">[PLATE
+      LIV., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0031" id="linkBimage-0031">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate054.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Liv. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Another remarkable construction, which must belong to a very ancient
+      period in the history of the country, is a gateway composed of enormous
+      stones, which forms a portion of the ruins of Istakr. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0031">[PLATE LIV., Fig. 2.]</a> It has generally been
+      regarded as one of the old gates of the city; but its position in the
+      gorge between the town wall and the opposite mountain, and the fact that
+      it lies directly across the road from Pasargadae into the plain of
+      Merdasht, seem rather to imply that it was one of those fortified &ldquo;gates,&rdquo;
+       which we know to have been maintained by the Persians, at narrow points
+      along their great routes, for the purpose of securing them, and stopping
+      the advance of an enemy. On either side were walls of vast thickness, on
+      the one hand abutting upon the mountain, on the other probably connected
+      with the wall of the town, while between them were three massive pillars,
+      once, no doubt, the supports of a tower, from which the defenders of the
+      gate would engage its assailants at a great advantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have now described (so far as our data have rendered it possible) all
+      the more important of the ancient edifices of the Persians, and may
+      proceed to consider the next branch of the present inquiry, namely, their
+      skill in the mimetic arts. Before, however, the subject of their
+      architecture is wholly dismissed, a few words seem to be required on its
+      general character and chief peculiarities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First, then, the simplicity and regularity of the style are worthy of
+      remark. In the ground-plans of buildings the straight line only is used;
+      all the angles are right angles; all the pillars fall into line; the
+      intervals between pillar and pillar are regular, and generally equal;
+      doorways are commonly placed opposite intercolumniations; where there is
+      but one doorway, it is in the middle of the wall which it pierces; where
+      there are two, they correspond to one another. Correspondence is the
+      general law. Not only does door correspond to door, and pillar to pillar,
+      but room to room, window to window, and even niche to niche. Most of the
+      buildings are so contrived that one half is the exact duplicate of the
+      other; and where this is not the case, the irregularity is generally
+      either slight, or the result of an alteration, made probably for
+      convenience sake. Travellers are impressed with the Grecian character of
+      what they behold, though there is an almost entire absence of Greek forms.
+      The regularity is not confined to single buildings, but extends to the
+      relations of different edifices one to another. The sides of buildings
+      standing on one platform, at whatever distance they may be, are parallel.
+      There is, however, less consideration paid than we should have expected to
+      the exact position, with respect to a main building, in which a
+      subordinate one shall be placed. Propylaea, for instance, are not opposite
+      the centre of the edifice to which they conduct, but slightly on one side
+      of the centre. And generally, excepting in the parallelism of their sides,
+      buildings seem placed with but slight regard to neighboring ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For effect, the Persian architecture must have depended, firstly, upon the
+      harmony that is produced by the observance of regularity and proportion;
+      and, secondly, upon two main features of the style. These were the grand
+      sculptured staircases which formed the approaches to all the principal
+      buildings, and the vast groves of elegant pillars in and about the great
+      halls. The lesser buildings were probably ugly, except in front. But such
+      edifices as the Chehl Minar at Persepolis, and its duplicate at Susa&mdash;where
+      long vistas of columns met the eye on every side, and the great central
+      cluster was supported by lighter detached groups, combining similarity of
+      form with some variety of ornament, where richly colored drapings
+      contrasted with the cool gray stone of the building, and a golden roof
+      overhung a pavement of many hues&mdash;must have been handsome, from
+      whatever side they were contemplated, and for general richness and harmony
+      of effect may have compared favorably with any edifices which, up to the
+      time of their construction, had been erected in any country or by any
+      people. If it may seem to some that they were wanting in grandeur, on
+      account of their comparatively low height&mdash;a height which, including
+      that of the platform, was probably in no case much more than a hundred
+      feet&mdash;it must be remembered that the buildings of Greece and (except
+      the Pyramids) those of Egypt, had the same defect, and that, until the
+      constructive powers of the arch came to be understood, it was almost
+      impossible to erect a building that should be at once lofty and elegant.
+      Height, moreover, if the buildings are for use, implies inconvenience, a
+      waste of time and power being involved in the ascent and descent of steps.
+      The ancient architects, studying utility more than effect, preferred
+      spreading out their buildings to piling them up, and rarely, unless in
+      thickly-peopled towns, even introduced a second story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spectator, however, was impressed with a sense of grandeur in another
+      way. The use of huge blocks of stone, not only in platforms, but in the
+      buildings themselves, in the shafts of pillars, the antae of porticos, the
+      jambs of doorways, occasionally in roofs, and perhaps in epistylia,
+      produced the same impression of power, and the same feeling of personal
+      insignificance in the beholder, which is commonly effected by great size
+      in the edifice, and particularly by height. The mechanical skill required
+      to transport and raise into place the largest of these blocks must have
+      been very considerable, and their employment causes not merely a blind
+      admiration of those who so built on the part of ignorant persons, but a
+      profound respect for them on the part of those who are by their studies
+      and tastes best qualified for pronouncing on the relative and absolute
+      merits of architectural masterpieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the less pleasing peculiarities of the Persian architecture may be
+      mentioned a general narrowness of doors in proportion to their height, a
+      want of passages, a thickness of walls, which is architecturally clumsy,
+      but which would have had certain advantages in such a climate, an
+      inclination to place the doors of rooms near one corner, an allowance of
+      two entrances into a great hall from under a single portico, a peculiar
+      position of propylaea, and the very large employment of pillars in the
+      interior of buildings. In many of these points, and also in the
+      architectural use which was made of sculpture, the style of building
+      resembled, to some extent, that of Assyria; the propylaea, however, were
+      less Assyrian than Egyptian; while in the main and best features of the
+      architecture, it was (so far as we can tell) original. The solid and
+      handsome stone platforms, the noble staircases, and the profusion of light
+      and elegant stone columns, which formed the true glory of the architecture&mdash;being
+      the features on which its effect chiefly depended&mdash;have nowhere been
+      discovered in Assyria; and all the evidence is against their existence.
+      The Arians found in Mesopotamia an architecture of which the pillar was
+      scarcely an element at all&mdash;which was fragile and unenduring&mdash;and
+      which depended for its effect on a lavish display of partially colored
+      sculpture and more richly tinted enamelled brick. Instead of imitating
+      this, they elaborated for themselves, from the wooden buildings of their
+      own mountain homes, a style almost exactly the reverse of that with which
+      their victories had brought them into contact. Adopting, of main features,
+      nothing but the platform, they imparted even to this a new character, by
+      substituting in its construction the best for the worst of materials, and
+      by further giving to these stone structures a massive solidity, from the
+      employment of huge, blocks, which made them stand in the strongest
+      possible contrast to the frail and perishable mounds of Babylonia and
+      Assyria. Having secured in this way a firm and enduring basis, they
+      proceeded to erect upon it buildings where the perpendicular line was
+      primary and the horizontal secondary&mdash;buildings of almost, the same
+      solid and massive character as the platform itself&mdash;forests of light
+      but strong columns, supporting a wide-spreading roof, sometimes open to
+      the air, sometimes enclosed by walls, according as they were designed for
+      summer or winter use, or for greater or less privacy. To edifices of this
+      character elaborate ornamentation was unnecessary; for the beauty of the
+      column is such that nothing more is needed to set off a building.
+      Sculpture would thus be dispensed with, or reserved for mere occasional
+      use, and employed not so much on the palace itself as on its outer
+      approaches; while brick enamelling could well be rejected altogether, as
+      too poor and fragile a decoration for buildings of such strength and
+      solidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The origination of this columnar architecture must be ascribed to the
+      Medes, who, dwelling in or near the more wooden parts of the Zagros range,
+      constructed, during the period of their empire, edifices of considerable
+      magnificence, whereof wooden pillars were the principal feature, the
+      courts being surrounded by colonnades, and the chief buildings having
+      porticos, the pillars in both cases being of wood. A wooden roof rested on
+      these supports, protected externally by plates of metal. We do not know if
+      the pillars had capitals, or if they supported an entablature; but
+      probability is in favor of both these arrangements having existed. When
+      the Persians succeeded the Medes in the sovereignty of Western Asia, they
+      found Arian architecture in this condition. As stone, however, was the
+      natural material of their country, which is but scantily wooded and is
+      particularly barren towards the edge of the great plateau, where their
+      chief towns were situated, and as they had from the first a strong desire
+      of fame and a love for the substantial and the enduring, they almost
+      immediately substituted for the cedar and cypress pillars of the Medes,
+      stone shafts, plain or fluted, which they carried to a surprising height,
+      and fixed with such firmness that many of them have resisted the
+      destructive powers of time, of earthquakes, and of vandalism for more than
+      three-and-twenty centuries, and still stand erect and nearly as perfect as
+      when they received the last touch from the sculptor&rsquo;s hand more than 2000
+      years ago. It is the glory of the Persians in art to have invented this
+      style, which they certainly did not learn from the Assyrians, and which
+      they can scarcely be supposed to have adopted from Egypt, where the
+      conception of the pillar and its ornamentation were wholly different. We
+      can scarcely doubt that Greece received from this quarter the impulse
+      which led to the substitution of the light and elegant forms which
+      distinguish the architecture of her best period from the rude and clumsy
+      work of the more ancient times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the mimetic art of the Persians we do not possess any great amount, or
+      any great variety, of specimens. The existing remains consist of reliefs,
+      either executed on the natural rock or on large slabs of hewn stone used
+      in building, of impressions upon coins, and of a certain number of
+      intaglios cut upon gems. We possess no Persian statues, no modelled
+      figures, no metal castings, no carvings in ivory or in wood, no
+      enamellings, no pottery even. The excavations on Persian sites have been
+      singularly barren of those minor results which flowed so largely from the
+      Mosopotamian excavations, and have yielded no traces of the furniture,
+      domestic implements, or wall-ornamentation of the people; have produced,
+      in fact, no small objects at all, excepting a few cylinders and some spear
+      and arrow heads, thus throwing scarcely any light on the taste or artistic
+      genius of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nearest approach to statuary which we meet with among the Persian
+      remains are the figures of colossal bulls, set to guard portals, or
+      porticos, which are not indeed sculptures in the round, but are specimens
+      of exceedingly high relief, and which, being carved in front as well as
+      along the side, do not fall very far short of statues. Of such figures, we
+      find two varieties&mdash;one representing the real animal, the other a
+      monster with the body and legs of a bull, the head of a man, and the wings
+      of an eagle. There is considerable merit in both representations. They are
+      free from the defect of flatness, or want of breadth in comparison with
+      the length, which characterizes the similar figures of Assyrian artists;
+      and they are altogether grand, massive, and imposing. The general
+      proportions of the bulls are good, the limbs are accurately drawn, the
+      muscular development is well portrayed, and the pose of the figure is
+      majestic. Even the monstrous forms of human-headed bulls have a certain
+      air of quiet dignity, which is not without its effect on the beholder;
+      and, although implying no great artistic merit, since they are little more
+      than reproductions of Assyrian models, indicate an appreciation of some of
+      the best qualities of Assyrian art&mdash;the combination of repose with
+      strength, of great size with the most careful finish, and of strangeness
+      with the absence of any approach to grotesqueness or absurdity. The other
+      Persian reliefs may be divided under four heads:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (1) Mythological representations of a man&mdash;the king apparently&mdash;engaged
+      in combat with a lion, a bull, or a monster; (2) Processions of guards,
+      courtiers, attendants, or tribute-bearers; (3) Representations of the
+      monarch walking, seated upon his throne, or employed in the act of
+      worship; and (4) Representations of lions and bulls, either singly or
+      engaged in combat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the jambs of doorways in three of the Persepolitan buildings, a human
+      figure, dressed in the Median robe, but with the sleeve thrown back from
+      the right arm, is represented in the act of killing either a lion, a bull,
+      or a grotesque monster. In every case the animal is rampant, and assails
+      his antagonist with three of his feet, while he stands on the fourth. The
+      lion and bull have nothing about them that is very peculiar; but the
+      monsters present most strange and unusual combinations. One of them has
+      the griffin head, which we have already seen in use in the capitals of
+      columns, a feathered crest and neck, a bird&rsquo;s wings, a scorpion&rsquo;s tail,
+      and legs terminating in the claws of an eagle. The other has an eagle&rsquo;s
+      head, ears like an ass, feathers on the neck, the breast, and the back,
+      with the body, legs, and tail of a lion. <a href="#linkBimage-0032">[PLATE
+      LV., Fig. 1.]</a> Figures of equal grotesqueness, some of which possess
+      certain resemblances to these, are common in the mythology of Assyria, and
+      have been already represented in these volumes; but the Persian specimens
+      are no servile imitations of these earlier forms. The idea of the Assyrian
+      artist has, indeed, been borrowed; but Persian fancy has worked it out in
+      its own way, adding, modifying, and subtracting in such a manner as to
+      give to the form produced a quite peculiar, and (so to speak) native
+      character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0032" id="linkBimage-0032">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate055a.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate055a (217K)" src="images/plate055.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Persian gems abound with monstrous forms, of equal, or even superior
+      grotesqueness. As the Gothic architects indulged their imagination in the
+      most wonderful combinations to represent evil spirits or the varieties of
+      vice and sensualism, so the Persian gem-engravers seem to have allowed
+      their fancy to run riot in the creation of monsters, representative of the
+      Powers of Darkness or of different kinds of evil, The stones exhibit the
+      king in conflict with a vast variety of monsters, some nearly resembling
+      the Persepolitan, while others have strange shapes unseen elsewhere.
+      Winged lions, with two tails and with the horns of a ram or an antelope,
+      sphinxes and griffins of half a dozen different kinds, and various other
+      nondescript creatures, appear upon the Persian gems and cylinders,
+      furnishing abundant evidence of the quaint and prolific fancy of the
+      designers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The processional subjects represented by the Persian artists are of three
+      kinds. In the simplest and least interesting the royal guards, or the
+      officers of the court, are represented in one or more lines of very
+      similar figures, either moving in one direction, or standing in two
+      bodies, one facing the other, in the attitude of quiet expectation. In
+      these subjects there is a great sameness, and a very small amount of
+      merit. The proportion of the forms is, indeed, fairly good, the heads and
+      hands are well drawn, and there is some grace in certain of the figures,
+      but the general effect is tame and somewhat heavy; the attitudes are
+      stiff, and present little variety, while, nevertheless, they are sometimes
+      impossible; there is a monotonous repetition of identically the same
+      figure, which is tiresome, and a want of grouping which is very
+      inartistic. If Persia had produced nothing better than this in sculpture,
+      she would have had to be placed not only behind Assyria, but behind Egypt,
+      as far as the sculptor&rsquo;s art is concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Processional scenes of a more attractive character are, however, tolerably
+      frequent. Some exhibit to us the royal purveyors arriving at the palace
+      with their train of attendants, and bringing with them the provisions
+      required for the table of the monarch. Here we have some varieties of
+      costume which are curious, and some representations of Persian utensils,
+      which are not without a certain interest. Occasionally, too, we are
+      presented with animal forms, as kids, which have considerable merit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But by far the most interesting of the processional scenes, are those
+      which represent the conquered nations bringing to the monarch those
+      precious products of their several countries which the Lord of Asia
+      expected to receive annually, as a sort of free gift from his subjects, in
+      addition to the fixed tribute which was exacted from them. Here we have a
+      wonderful variety of costume and equipment, a happy admixture of animal
+      with human forms, horses, asses, chariots, sheep, cattle, camels,
+      interspersed among men, and the whole divided into groups by means of
+      cypress-trees, which break the series into portions, and allow the eye to
+      rest in succession upon a number of distinct pictures. Processions of this
+      kind occurred on several of the Persepolitan staircases; but by far the
+      most elaborate and complete is that on the grand steps in front of the
+      Chehl Minar, or Great Hall of Audience, where we see above twenty such
+      groups of figures, each with it own peculiar features, and all finished
+      with the utmost care and delicacy. The illustration <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0032">[PLATE LV., Fig. 2]</a>, which is taken from a
+      photograph, will give a tolerable idea of the general character of this
+      relief; it shows the greater portion of six groups, whereof two are much
+      injured by the fall of the parapet-wall on which they were represented,
+      while the remaining four are in good preservation. It will be noticed that
+      the animal forms&mdash;the Bactrian camel and the humped ox&mdash;are
+      superior to the human, and have considerable positive merit as works of
+      art. This relative superiority is observable throughout the entire series,
+      which contains, besides several horses (some of which have been already
+      represented in these volumes), a lioness, an excellent figure of the wild
+      ass, and two tolerably well-drawn sheep. <a href="#linkBimage-0033">[PLATE
+      LVI., Fig. 2 and 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0033" id="linkBimage-0033">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate056.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lvi. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The representations of the monarch upon the reliefs are of three kinds. In
+      the simplest, he is on foot, attended by the parasol-bearer and the
+      napkin-bearer, or by the latter only, apparently in the act of proceeding
+      from one part of the palace to another. In the more elaborate he is either
+      seated on an elevated throne, which is generally supported by numerous
+      caryatid figures, or he stands on a platform similarly upheld, in the act
+      of worship before an altar. This latter is the universal representation
+      upon tombs, while the throne scenes are reserved for palaces. In both
+      representations the supporting figures are numerous; and it is here
+      chiefly that we notice varieties of physiognomy, which are evidently
+      intended to recall the differences in the physical type of the several
+      races by which the Empire was inhabited. In one case, we have a negro very
+      well portrayed; in others we trace the features of Scyths or Tatars. It is
+      manifest that the artist has not been content to mark the nationality of
+      the different figures by costume alone, but has aimed at reproducing upon
+      the stone the physiognomic peculiarities of each race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The purely animal representations which the bas-reliefs bring before us
+      are few in number, and have little variety of type. The most curious and
+      the most artistic is one which is several times repeated at Persepolis,
+      where it forms the usual ornamentation of the triangular spaces on the
+      facades of stairs. This is a representation of a combat between a lion and
+      a bull, or (perhaps, we should rather say) a representation of a lion
+      seizing and devouring a bull; for the latter animal is evidently powerless
+      to offer any resistance to the fierce beast which has sprung upon him from
+      behind, and has fixed both fangs and claws in his body. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0033">[PLATE LVI., Fig. 4.]</a> In his agony the bull
+      rears up his fore-parts, and turns his head feebly towards his assailant,
+      whose strong limbs and jaws have too firm a hold to be dislodged by such
+      struggles as his unhappy victim is capable of making. In no Assyrian
+      drawing is the massiveness and strength of the king of beasts more
+      powerfully rendered than in this favorite group, which the Persian
+      sculptors repeated without the slightest change from generation to
+      generation. The contour of the lion, his vast muscular development, and
+      his fierce countenance are really admirable, and the bold presentation of
+      the face in full, instead of in profile, is beyond the ordinary powers of
+      Oriental artists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Drawings of bulls and lions in rows, where each animal is the exact
+      counterpart of all the others, are found upon the friezes of some of the
+      tombs, and upon the representations of canopies over the royal throne.
+      These drawings are fairly spirited, but have not any extraordinary merit.
+      They reproduce forms well known in Assyria. A figure of a sitting lion
+      seems also to have been introduced occasionally on the facades of
+      staircases, occurring in the central compartment of the parapet-wall at
+      top. These figures, in no case, remain complete; but enough is left to
+      show distinctly what the attitude was, and this appears not to have
+      resembled very closely any common Assyrian type. <a href="#linkBimage-0034">[PLATE
+      LVII., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0034" id="linkBimage-0034">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate057.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lvii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Persian gem-engravings have considerable merit, and need not fear a
+      comparison with those of any other Oriental nation. They occur upon hard
+      stones of many different kinds, as cornelian, onyx, rock-crystal,
+      sapphirine, sardonyx, chalcedony, etc., and are executed for the most part
+      with great skill and delicacy. The designs which they embody are in
+      general of a mythological character; but sometimes scenes of real life
+      occur upon them, and then the drawing is often good, and almost always
+      spirited. In proof of this, the reader may be referred to the
+      hunting-scenes already given, which are derived wholly from this source,
+      as well as to the gems figured <a href="#linkBimage-0033">[PLATE LVI.,
+      Fig. 3]</a>, one of which is certainly, and the other almost certainly, of
+      Persian workmanship. In the former we see the king, not struggling with a
+      mythological lion but engaged apparently in the actual chase of the king
+      of beasts Two lions have been roused from their lairs, and the monarch
+      hastily places an arrow on the string, anxious to despatch one of his foes
+      before the other can come to close quarters The eagerness of the hunter
+      and the spirit and boldness of the animals are well represented. In the
+      other gem, while there is less of artistic excellence, we have a scene of
+      peculiar interest placed before us. A combat between two Persians and two
+      Cythians seems to be represented. The latter marked by their peaked cap
+      and their loose trousers, fight with the bow and the battle-axe, the
+      former with the bow and the sword One Scyth is receiving his death-wound,
+      the other is about to let loose a shaft, but seems at the same time half
+      inclined to fly The steady confidence of the warriors on the one side
+      contrasts well with the timidity and hesitancy of their weaker and smaller
+      rivals. <a href="#linkBimage-0034">[PLATE LVII., Fig. 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The vegetable forms represented on the gems are sometimes graceful and
+      pleasing. This is especially the case with palm-trees, a favorite subject
+      of the artists, who delineated with remarkable success the feathery
+      leaves, the pendant fruit and the rough bark of the stem. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Fig 1.]</a> The lion-hunter
+      represented on the signet-cylinder of Darius Hystaspis takes place in a
+      palm-grove, and furnishes the accompanying example of this form of
+      vegetable life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0035" id="linkBimage-0035">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate058.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lviii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      One gem, ascribed on somewhat doubtful grounds to the Persians of
+      Achaemenian times, contains what appears to be a portrait. It is thought
+      to be the bust of a satrap of Salamis in Cyprus, and is very carefully
+      executed. If really of Persian workmanship, it would indicate a
+      considerable advance in the power of representing the human countenance
+      between the time of Darius Hystaspis and that of Alexander <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0034">[PLATE LVII. Fig. 2.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persian coins are of three principal types. The earliest have on the one
+      side the figure of a monarch bearing the diadem and armed with the bow and
+      javelin, while on the other there is an irregular indentation of the same
+      nature with the <i>quadratum incusum</i> of the Greeks. This rude form is
+      replaced in later times by a second design, which is sometimes a horseman,
+      sometimes the forepart of a ship, sometimes the king drawing an an arrow
+      from his quiver. Another type exhibits on the obverse the monarch in
+      combat with a lion while the reverse shows a galley, or a towered and
+      battlemented city with two lions standing below it, back to back. The
+      third common type has on the obverse the king in his chariot, with his
+      charioteer in front of him, and (generally) an attendant carrying a
+      fly-chaser behind. The reverse has either the trireme or the battlemented
+      city. A specimen of each type is given. <a href="#linkBimage-0034">[PLATE
+      LVII., Fig. 4.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artistic merit of these medals is not great. The relief is low, and
+      the drawing generally somewhat rude. The head of the monarch in the early
+      coins is greatly too large. The animal forms are, however, much superior
+      to the human, and the horses which draw the royal chariot, the lions
+      placed below the battlemented city, and the bulls which are found
+      occasionally in the same position, must be pronounced truthful and
+      spirited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the Persian taste in furniture, utensils, personal ornaments and the
+      like, we need say but little. The throne and footstool of the monarch are
+      the only pieces of furniture represented in the sculptures, and these,
+      though sufficiently elegant in their forms, are not very remarkable.
+      Costliness of material seems to have been more prized than beauty of
+      shape; and variety appears to have been carefully eschewed, one single
+      uniform type of each article occurring in all the representations. The
+      utensils represented are likewise few in number, and limited to certain
+      constantly repeated forms. The most elaborate is the censer, which has
+      been already given. With this is usually seen a sort of pail or basket,
+      shaped like a lady&rsquo;s reticule, in which the aromatic gums for burning were
+      probably kept. <a href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Fig. 5.]</a> A
+      covered dish, and a goblet with an inverted saucer over it, are also forms
+      of frequent occurrence in the hands of the royal attendants; and the
+      tribute-bearers frequently carry, among their other offerings, bowls or
+      basons, which, though not of Persian manufacture, were no doubt left at
+      the court, and took their place among the utensils of the palace. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Figs. 2 and 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the matter of personal ornaments the taste of the Persians seems to
+      have been peculiarly simple. Earrings were commonly plain rings of gold;
+      bracelets mere bands of the same metal. Collars were circlets of gold
+      twisted in a very inartificial fashion. There was nothing artistic in the
+      sheaths or hilts of swords, though spear-shafts were sometimes adorned
+      with the representation of an apple or a pomegranate. Dresses seem not to
+      have been often patterned, but to have depended generally for their effect
+      on make and color. In all these respects we observe a remarkable contrast
+      between the Arian and the Semitic races, extreme simplicity characterizing
+      the one, while the most elaborate ornamentation was affected by the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persia was not celebrated in antiquity for the production of any special
+      fabrics. The arts of weaving and dyeing were undoubtedly practised in the
+      dominant country, as well as in most of the subject provinces, and the
+      Persian dyes seem even to have had a certain reputation; but none of the
+      productions of their looms acquired a name among foreign nations. Their
+      skill, indeed, in the mechanical arts generally was, it is probable, not
+      more than moderate. It was their boast that they were soldiers, and had
+      won a position by their good swords which gave them the command of all
+      that was most exquisite and admirable, whether in the natural world or
+      among the products of human industry. So long as the carpets of Babylon
+      and Sardis, the shawls of Kashmir and India, the fine linen of Borsippa
+      and Egypt, the ornamental metal-work of Greece, the coverlets of Damascus,
+      the muslins of Babylonia, the multiform manufactures of the Phoenician
+      towns, poured continually into Persia Proper in the way of tribute, gifts,
+      or merchandise, it was needless for the native population to engage
+      largely in industrial enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To science the ancient Persians contributed absolutely nothing. The genius
+      of the nation was adverse to that patient study and those laborious
+      investigations from which alone scientific progress ensues. Too light and
+      frivolous, too vivacious, too sensuous for such pursuits, they left them
+      to the patient Babylonians, and the thoughtful, many-sided Greeks. The
+      schools of Orchoe, Borsippa, and Miletus flourished under their sway, but
+      without provoking their emulation, possibly without so much as attracting
+      their attention. From first to last, from the dawn to the final close of
+      their power, they abstained wholly from scientific studies. It would seem
+      that they thought it enough to place before the world, as signs of their
+      intellectual vigor, the fabric of their Empire and the buildings of Susa
+      and Persepolis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2HCH0004" id="linkB2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. RELIGION.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The original form of the Persian religion has been already described under
+      the head of the third or Median monarchy. It was identical with the
+      religion of the Medes in its early shape, consisting mainly in the worship
+      of Ahura-Mazda, the acknowledgment of a principle of evil&mdash;Angro-Mainyus,
+      and obedience to the precepts of Zoroaster. When the Medes, on
+      establishing a wide-spread Empire, chiefly over races by whom Magism had
+      been long professed, allowed the creed of their subjects to corrupt their
+      own belief, accepted the Magi for their priests, and formed the mixed
+      religious system of which an account has been given in the second volume
+      of this work, the Persians in their wilder country, less exposed to
+      corrupting influences, maintained their original faith in undiminished
+      purity, and continued faithful to their primitive traditions. The
+      political dependence of their country upon Media during the period of the
+      Median sway made no difference in this respect; for the Medes were
+      tolerant, and did not seek to interfere with the creed of their subjects.
+      The simple Zoroastrian belief and worship, overlaid by Magism in the now
+      luxurious Media, found a refuge in the rugged Persian uplands, among the
+      hardy shepherds and cultivators of that unattractive region, was professed
+      by the early Achaemenian princes, and generally acquiesced in by the
+      people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The main feature of the religion daring this first period was the
+      acknowledgment and the worship of a single supreme God&mdash;&ldquo;the Lord God
+      of Heaven&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;the giver (i.e. maker) of heaven and earth&rdquo;&mdash;the
+      disposer of thrones, the dispenser of happiness. The foremost place in
+      inscriptions and decrees was assigned, almost universally, to the &ldquo;great
+      god, Ormazd.&rdquo; Every king, of whom we have an inscription more than two
+      lines in length, speaks of Ormazd as his upholder; and the early monarchs
+      mention by name no other god. All rule &ldquo;by the grace of Ormazd.&rdquo; From
+      Ormazd come victory, conquest, safety, prosperity, blessings of every
+      kind. The &ldquo;law of Ormazd&rdquo; is the rule of life. The protection of Ormazd is
+      the one priceless blessing for which prayer is perpetually offered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While, however, Ormazd holds this exalted and unapproachable position,
+      there is still an acknowledgment made, in a general way, of &ldquo;other gods.&rdquo;
+       Ormazd is &ldquo;the greatest of the gods&rdquo; (<i>mathista baganam</i>). It is a
+      usual prayer to ask for the protection of Ormazd, together with that of
+      these lesser powers (<i>hada bagaibish</i>). Sometimes the phrase is
+      varied, and the petition is for the special protection of a certain class
+      of Deities&mdash;the <i>Dii familiares</i>&mdash;or &ldquo;deities who guard the
+      house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The worship of Mithra, or the Sun, does not appear in the inscriptions
+      until the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, the victor of Cunaxa. It is,
+      however, impossible to doubt that it was a portion of the Persian
+      religion, at least as early as the date of Herodotus. Probably it belongs,
+      in a certain sense, to primitive Zoroastrianism, but was kept in the
+      background during the early period, when a less materialistic worship
+      prevailed than suited the temper of later times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor can it be doubted that the Persians held during this early period that
+      Dualistic belief which has been the distinguishing feature of
+      Zoroastrianism from a time long anterior to the commencement of the Median
+      Empire down to the present day. It was not to be expected that this belief
+      would show itself in the inscriptions, unless in the faintest manner; and
+      it can therefore excite no surprise that they are silent, or all but
+      silent, on the point in question. Nor need we wonder that this portion of
+      their creed was not divulged by the Persians to Herodotus or to Xenophon,
+      since it is exactly the sort of subject on which reticence was natural and
+      might have been anticipated. Neither the lively Halicarnassian, nor the
+      pleasant but somewhat shallow Athenian, had the gift of penetrating very
+      deeply into the inner mind of a foreign people; added to which, it is to
+      be remembered that they were unacquainted with Persia Proper, and drew
+      their knowledge of Persian opinions and customs either from hearsay or
+      from the creed and practices of the probably mixed garrisons which held
+      Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persian worship, in these early times, was doubtless that enjoined by the
+      Zendavesta, comprising prayer and thanksgiving to Ormazd and the good
+      spirits of his creation, the recitation of Gathas or hymns, the
+      performance of sacrifice, and participation in the Soma ceremony. Worship
+      seems to have taken place in temples, which are mentioned (according to
+      the belief of most cuneiform scholars) in the Behistun inscription. Of the
+      character of these buildings we can say nothing. It has been thought that
+      those two massive square towers so similar in construction, which exist in
+      a more or less ruined condition at Murgab and Nakhsh-i-Rustam, are Persian
+      temples of the early period, built to contain an altar on which the
+      priests offered victims. But the absence of any trace of an altar from
+      both, the total want of religious emblems, and the extremely small size of
+      the single apartment which each tower contains, make strongly against the
+      temple theory; not to mention that a much more probable use may be
+      suggested for the buildings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With respect to the altars upon which sacrifice was offered, we are not
+      left wholly without evidence. The Persian monarchs of the early period,
+      including Darius Hystaspis, represented themselves on their tombs in the
+      act of worship. Before them, at the distance of a few feet, stands an
+      altar, elevated on three steps, and crowned with the sacrificial fire. Its
+      form is square, and its only ornaments are a sunken squared recess, and a
+      strongly projecting cornice at top. The height of the altar, including the
+      steps, was apparently about four and a half feet. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Fig. 4.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians&rsquo; favorite victim was the horse; but they likewise sacrificed
+      cattle, sheep, and goats. Human sacrifices seem to have been almost, if
+      not altogether, unknown to them, and were certainly alien to the entire
+      spirit of the Zoroastrian system. The flesh of the victim was probably
+      merely shown to the sacred fire, after which it was eaten by the priests,
+      the sacrificer, and those whom the latter associated with himself in the
+      ceremony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spirit of the Zendavesta is wholly averse to idolatry, and we may
+      fully accept the statement of Herodotus that images of the gods were
+      entirely unknown to the Persians. Still, they did not deny themselves a
+      certain use of symbolic representations of their deities, nor did they
+      even scruple to adopt from idolatrous nations the forms of their religious
+      symbolism. The winged circle, with or without the addition of a human
+      figure, which was in Assyria the emblem of the chief Assyrian deity,
+      Asshur, became with the Persians the ordinary representation of the
+      Supreme God, Ormazd, and, as such, was placed in most conspicuous
+      positions on their rock tombs and on their buildings. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Fig. 7.]</a> Nor was the general
+      idea only of the emblem adopted, but all the details of the Assyrian model
+      were followed, with one exception. The human figure of the Assyrian
+      original wore the close-fitting tunic, with short sleeves, which was the
+      ordinary costume in Assyria, and had on its head the horned cap which
+      marked a god or a genius. In the Persian counterpart this costume was
+      exchanged for the Median robe, and a tiara, which was sometimes that
+      proper to the king,23 sometimes that worn with the Median robe by court
+      officers. <a href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Fig. 7.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mithra, or the Sun, is represented in Persian sculptures by a disk or orb,
+      which is not four-rayed like the Assyrian, but perfectly plain and simple.
+      In sculptures where the emblems of Ormazd and Mithra occur together, the
+      position of the former is central, that of the latter towards the right
+      hand of the tablet. The solar emblem is universal on sculptured tombs, but
+      is otherwise of rare occurrence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spirits of good and evil, the Ahuras and Devas of the mythology, were
+      represented by the Persians under human, animal, or monstrous forms. There
+      can be little doubt that it is a good genius&mdash;perhaps the
+      &ldquo;well-formed, swift, tall Serosh&rdquo;&mdash;who appears on one of the square
+      pillars set up by Cyrus at Pasargadae. This figure is that of a colossal
+      man, from whose shoulders issue four wings, two of which spread upwards
+      above his head, while the other two droop and reach nearly to his feet. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0036">[PLATE LIX.]</a> It stands erect, in profile, with
+      both arms raised and the hands open. The costume of the figure is
+      remarkable. It consists of a long fringed robe reaching from the neck to
+      the ankles&mdash;apparently of a stiff material, which conceals the form&mdash;and
+      of a very singular head-dress. This is a striped cap, closely fitting the
+      head, overshadowed by an elaborate ornament, of a character purely
+      Egyptian. First there rise from the top of the cap two twisted horns,
+      which, spreading right and left, become a sort of basis for the other
+      forms to rest upon. These consist of two grotesque human-headed figures,
+      one at either side, and of a complex triple ornament between them,
+      clumsily imitated from a far more elegant Egyptian model. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0038">[PLATE LX., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0036" id="linkBimage-0036">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate059.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lix. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The winged human-headed bulls, which the Persians adopted from the
+      Assyrians, with very slight modifications, were also, it is probable,
+      regarded as emblems of some god or good genius. They would scarcely
+      otherwise have been represented on Persian cylinders as upholding the
+      emblem of Ormazd in the same way that human-headed bulls uphold the
+      similar emblem of Asshur on Assyrian cylinders. <a href="#linkBimage-0038">[PLATE
+      LX., Fig. 2.]</a> Their position, too, at Persepolis, where they kept
+      watch over the entrance to the palace, accords with the notion that they
+      represented guardian spirits, objects of the favorable regard of the
+      Persians. Yet this view is not wholly free from difficulty. The bull
+      appears in the bas-reliefs of Persepolis among the evil, or at any rate
+      hostile, powers, which the king combats and slays; and though in these
+      representations the animal is not winged or human-headed, yet on some
+      cylinders apparently Persian, the monarch contends with bulls of exactly
+      the same type as that which is assigned in other cylinders to the
+      upholders of Ormazd. It would seem therefore that in this case the
+      symbolism was less simple than usual, the bull in certain combinations and
+      positions representing a god or a good spirit, while in others he was the
+      type of a deva or evil genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0038" id="linkBimage-0038"></a> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate060 (104K)" src="images/plate060.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most common representatives of the Evil Powers of the mythology were
+      lions, winged or unwinged, and monsters of several different descriptions.
+      At Persepolis the lions which the king stabs or strangles are of the
+      natural shape, and this type is found also upon gems and cylinders; but on
+      these last the king&rsquo;s antagonist is often a winged, while sometimes he is
+      a winged and horned, lion. <a href="#linkBimage-0038">[PLATE LX., Fig. 3.]</a>
+      The monsters are of two principal types. In both the forms of a bird and a
+      beast are commingled; but in the one the bird, and in the other the beast
+      predominates. Specimens are given <a href="#linkBimage-0038">[PLATE LX.,
+      Fig. 4]</a> taken from Persian gems and cylinders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such seems to have been, in outline, the purer and more ancient form of
+      the Persian religion. During its continuance a fierce iconoclastic spirit
+      animated the princes of the Empire, who took every opportunity of showing
+      their hatred and contempt for the idolatries of the neighboring nations,
+      burning temples, confiscating or destroying images, scourging or slaying
+      idolatrous priests, putting a stop to festivals, disturbing tombs, smiting
+      with the sword animals believed to be divine incarnations. Within their
+      own dominions the fear of stirring up religious wars compelled them to be
+      moderately tolerant, unless it were after rebellion, when a province lay
+      at their mercy; but when they invaded foreign countries, they were wont to
+      exhibit in the most open and striking way their aversion to materialistic
+      religions. In Greece, during the great invasion, they burned every temple
+      that they came near; in Egypt, on their first attack, they outraged every
+      religious feeling of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was during this time of comparative purity, when the anti-idolatrous
+      spirit was in full force, that a religious sympathy seems to have drawn
+      together the two nations of the Persians and the Jews. Cyrus evidently
+      identified Jehovah with Ormazd, and, accepting as a divine command the
+      prophecy of Isaiah, undertook to rebuild their temple for a people who,
+      like his own, allowed no image of God to defile the sanctuary. Darius,
+      similarly, encouraged the completion of the work, after it had been
+      interrupted by the troubles which followed the death of Cambyses. The
+      foundation was thus laid for that friendly intimacy between the two
+      peoples, of which we have abundant evidence in the books of Ezra,
+      Nehemiah, and Esther, a friendly intimacy which caused the Jews to
+      continue faithful to Persia to the last, and to brave the conqueror of
+      Issus rather than desert masters who had shown them kindness and sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first trace that we have of a corrupting influence being brought to
+      bear on the Persian religion is connected with the history of the
+      pseudo-Smerdis. According to Herodotus, Cambyses, when he set out on his
+      Egyptian expedition, left a Magus, Patizeithes, at the capital, as
+      comptroller of the royal household. The conferring of an office of such
+      importance on the priest of an alien religion is the earliest indication
+      which we have of a diminution of zeal for their ancestral creed on the
+      part of the Achaemenian kings, and the earliest historical proof of the
+      existence of Magism beyond the limits of Media. Magism was really, it is
+      probable, an older creed than Zoroastrianism in the country where the
+      Persians were settled; but it now, for the first time since the Persian
+      conquest, began to show itself, to thrust itself into high places, and to
+      attract general notice. From being the religion of the old Scythic tribes
+      whom the Persians had conquered and whom they held in subjection, it had
+      passed into being the religion of great numbers of the Persians
+      themselves. The same causes which had corrupted Zoroastrianism in Media
+      soon after the establishment of the Empire, worked also, though more
+      slowly, in Persia, and a large section of the nation was probably weaned
+      from its own belief, and won over to Magism, before Cambyses went into
+      Egypt. His prolonged absence in that country brought matters to a crisis.
+      The Magi took advantage of it to attempt a substitution of Magism for
+      Zoroastrianism as the religion of the state. When this attempt failed,
+      there was no doubt a reaction for a time, and Zoroastrianism thought
+      itself triumphant. But a foe is generally most dangerous when he is
+      despised. Magism, repulsed in its attempt to oust the rival religion,
+      derived wisdom from the lesson, and thenceforth set itself to sap the
+      fortress which it could not storm. Little by little it crept into favor,
+      mingling itself with the old Arian creed, not displacing it, but only
+      adding to it. In the later Persian system the Dualism of Zoroaster and the
+      Magian elemental worship were jointly professed&mdash;the Magi were
+      accepted as the national priests&mdash;the rights and ceremonies of the
+      two religions were united&mdash;a syncretism not unusual in the ancient
+      world blended into one two creeds originally quite separate and distinct,
+      but in few respects antagonistic&mdash;and the name of Zoroaster being
+      still fondly cherished in the memory of the nation, while in their
+      practical religion Magian rites predominated, the mixed religion acquired
+      the name, by which it was known to the later Greeks, of &ldquo;the Magism of
+      Zoroaster.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Magian rites have been described in the chapter on the Median
+      Religion. Their leading feature was the fire-worship, which is still
+      cherished among those descendants of the ancient Persians who did not
+      submit to the religion of Islam. On lofty spots in the high mountain-chain
+      which traversed both Media and Persia, fire-altars were erected, on which
+      burnt a perpetual flame, watched constantly lest it should expire, and
+      believed to have been kindled from heaven. Over the altar in most
+      instances a shrine or temple was built; and on these spots day after day
+      the Magi chanted their incantations, displayed their barsoms or
+      divining-rods, and performed their choicest ceremonies. Victims were not
+      offered on these fire-altars. When a sacrifice took place, a fire was laid
+      hard-by with logs of dry wood, stript of their bark, and this was lighted
+      from the flame which burned on the altar. On the fire thus kindled was
+      consumed a small part of the fat of the victim; but the rest was cut into
+      joints, boiled, and eaten or sold by the worshipper. The true offering,
+      which the god accepted, was, according to the Magi, the soul of the
+      animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If human victims were ever really offered by the Persians as sacrifices,
+      it is to Magian influence that the introduction of this horrid practice
+      must be attributed, since it is utterly opposed to the whole spirit of
+      Zoroaster&rsquo;s teaching. An instance of the practice is first reported in the
+      reign of Xerxes, when Magism, which had been sternly repressed by Darius
+      Hystaspis, began once more to lift its head, crept into favor at Court,
+      and obtained a status which it never afterwards forfeited. According to
+      Herodotus, the Persians, on their march into Greece, sacrificed, at Ennea
+      Hodoi on the Strymon river, nine youths and nine maidens of the country,
+      by burying them alive. Herodotus seems to have viewed the act as done in
+      propitiation of a god resembling the Grecian Pluto; but it is not at all
+      certain that he interpreted it correctly. Possibly he mistook a vengeance
+      for a religious ceremony. The Brygi, who dwelt at this time in the
+      vicinity of Ennea Hodoi, had given Mardonius a severe defeat on a former
+      occasion; and the Persians were apt to treasure up such wrongs, and visit
+      them, when occasion offered, with extreme severity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Persians had once yielded to the syncretic spirit so far as to
+      unite the Magian tenets and practices with their primitive belief, they
+      were naturally led on to adopt into their system such portions of the
+      other religions, with which they were brought into close contact, as
+      possessed an attraction for them. Before the date of Herodotus they had
+      borrowed from the Babylonians the worship of a Nature-Goddess, whom the
+      Greeks identified at one time with Aphrodite, at another with Artemis, at
+      another (probably) with Here, and had thus made a compromise with one of
+      the grossest of the idolatries which, theoretically, they despised and
+      detested. The Babylonian Venus, called in the original dialect of her
+      native country Nana, was taken into the Pantheon of the Persians, under
+      the name of Nansea, Anaea, Anaitis, or Tanata, and became in a little
+      while one of the principal objects of Persian worship. At first idolatry,
+      in the literal sense, was avoided; but Artaxerxes Mnemon, the conqueror of
+      Cunaxa, an ardent devotee of the goddess, not content with the mutilated
+      worship which he found established, resolved to show his zeal by
+      introducing into all the chief cities of the Empire the image of his
+      patroness. At Susa, at Persepolis, at Babylon, at Ecbatana, at Damascus,
+      at Sardis, at Bactra, images of Anaitis were set up by his authority for
+      the adoration of worshippers. It is to be feared that at this time, if not
+      before, the lascivious rites were also adopted, which throughout the East
+      constituted the chief attraction of the cult of Venus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the idolatry thus introduced, another came soon to be joined. Mithra,
+      so long an object of reverence, if not of actual worship, to the
+      Zoroastrians, was in the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, honored, like
+      Anaitis, with a statue, and advanced into the foremost rank of deities.
+      The exact form which the image took is uncertain; but probability is in
+      favor of the well-known type of a human figure slaying a prostrate bull,
+      which was to the Greeks and Romans the essential symbol of the Mithraic
+      worship. The intention of this oft-repeated group has been well explained
+      by Hyde, who regards it as a representation of the Sun quitting the
+      constellation of Taurus, the time when in the East his fructifying power
+      is the greatest. The specimens which we possess of this group belong to
+      classical art and to times later than Alexander; but we can scarcely
+      suppose the idea to have been Occidental. The Western artists would
+      naturally adopt the symbolism of those from whom they took the rites,
+      merely modifying its expression in accordance with their own aesthetic
+      notions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards the close of the Empire two other gods emerged from the obscurity
+      in which the lower deities of the Zoroastrian system were shrouded during
+      the earlier and purer period. Vohu-manu, or Bah-man, and Amerdat, or
+      Amendat, two of the councillors of Ormazd, became the objects of a
+      worship, which was clearly of an idolatrous character. Shrines were built
+      in their honor, and were frequented by companies of Magi, who chanted
+      their incantations, and performed their rites of divination in these new
+      edifices as willingly as in the old Fire-temples. The image of Bah-man was
+      of wood, and was borne in procession on certain occasions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus as time went on, the Persian religion continually assimilated itself
+      more and more to the forms of belief and worship which prevailed in the
+      neighboring parts of Asia. Idolatries of several kinds came into vogue,
+      some adopted from abroad, others developed out of their own system.
+      Temples, some of which had a character of extraordinary magnificence, were
+      erected to the honor of various gods; and the degenerate descendants of
+      pure Zoroastrian spiritualists bowed down to images, and entangled
+      themselves in the meshes of a sensualistic and most debasing
+      Nature-worship. Still, amid whatsoever corruptions, the Dualistic faith
+      was maintained. The supremacy of Ormazd was from first to last admitted.
+      Ahriman retained from first to last the same character and position,
+      neither rising into an object of worship, nor sinking into a mere
+      personification of evil. The inquiries which Aristotle caused to be made,
+      towards the very close of the Empire, into the true nature of the Persian
+      Religion, showed him Ormazd and Ahriman still recognized as Principles,
+      still standing in the same hostile and antithetical attitude, one towards
+      the other, which they occupied when the first Fargard of the Vendidad was
+      written, long anterior to the rise of the Persian Power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linkC2H_4_0002" id="linkC2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA PROPER.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0001" id="linkCimage-0001">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/map_persia.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="map_persia_th (188K)" src="images/map_persia_th.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkC2H_4_0003" id="linkC2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE FIFTH MONARCHY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkC2H_4_0004" id="linkC2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkC2HCH0002" id="linkC2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw the man pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no
+      beast might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out
+      of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.&rdquo;&mdash;Daniel,
+      viii. 4.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The history of the Persian Empire dates from the conquest of Astyages by
+      Cyrus, and therefore commences with the year B.C. 558. But the present
+      inquiry must be carried considerably further back, since in this, as in
+      most other cases, the Empire grew up out of a previously existing
+      monarchy. Darius Hystaspis reckons that there had been eight Persians
+      kings of his race previously to himself; and though it is no doubt
+      possible that some of the earlier names may be fictitious, yet we can
+      scarcely suppose that he was deceived, or that he wished to deceive, as to
+      the fact that long anterior to his own reign, or that of his elder
+      contemporary, Cyrus, Persia had been a monarchy, governed by a line of
+      princes of the same clan, or family, with himself. It is our business in
+      this place, before entering upon the brilliant period of the Empire, to
+      cast a retrospective glance over the earlier ages of obscurity, and to
+      collect therefrom such scattered notices as are to be found of the
+      Persians and their princes or kings before they suddenly attracted the
+      general attention of the civilized world by their astonishing achievements
+      under the great Cyrus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The more ancient of-the sacred books of the Jews, while distinctly
+      noticing the nation of the Medes, contain no mention at all of Persia or
+      the Persians. The Zendavesta, the sacred volume of the people themselves,
+      is equally silent on the subject. The earliest appearance of the Persians
+      in history is in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings, which begin to
+      notice them about the middle of the ninth century B.C. At this time
+      Shalmaneser II. found them in south-western Armenia, where they were in
+      close contact with the Medes, of whom, however, they seem to have been
+      wholly independent. Like the modern Kurds in this same region, they owned
+      no subjection to a single head, but were under the government of numerous
+      petty chieftains, each the lord of a single town or of a small mountain
+      district. Shalmaneser informs us that he took tribute from twenty-five
+      such chiefs. Similar tokens of submission were paid also to his son and
+      grandson. After this the Assyrian records are silent as to the Persians
+      for nearly a century, and it is not until the reign of Sennacherib that we
+      once more find them brought into contact with the power which aspired to
+      be mistress of Asia. At the time of their reappearance they are no longer
+      in Armenia, but have descended the line of Zagros and reached the
+      districts which lie north and north-east of Susiana, or that part of the
+      Bakhtiyari chain which, if it is not actually within Persia Proper, at any
+      rate immediately adjoins upon it. Arrived thus far, it was easy for them
+      to occupy the region to which they have given permanent name; for the
+      Bakhtiyari mountains command it and give a ready access to its valleys and
+      plains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians would thus appear not to have completed their migrations till
+      near the close of the Assyrian period, and it is probable that they did
+      not settle into an organized monarchy much before the fall of Nineveh. At
+      any rate we hear of no Persian ruler of note or name in the Assyrian
+      records, and the reign of petty chiefs would seem therefore to have
+      continued at least to the time of Asshur-bani-pal, up to which date we
+      have ample records. The establishment, however, about the year B.C. 660,
+      or a little later, of a powerful monarchy in the kindred and neighboring
+      Media, could not fail to attract attention, and might well provoke
+      imitation in Persia; and the native tradition appears to have been that
+      about this time. Persian royalty began in the person of a certain
+      Achaemenes (Hakhamanish), from whom all their later monarchs, with one
+      possible exception, were proud to trace their descent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The name Achaemenes cannot fail to arouse some suspicion. The Greek
+      genealogies render us so familiar with heroes eponymi&mdash;imaginary
+      personages, who owe their origin to the mere fact of the existence of
+      certain tribe or race names, to account for which they were invented&mdash;that
+      whenever, even in the history of other nations, we happen upon a name
+      professedly personal, which stands evidently in close connection with a
+      tribal designation, we are apt at once to suspect it of being fictitious.
+      But in the East tribal and even ethnic names were certainly sometimes
+      derived from actual persons; and it may be questioned whether the
+      Persians, or the Iranic stock generally, had the notion of inventing
+      personal eponyms. The name Achaemenes, therefore, in spite of its
+      connection with the royal clan name of Achaemenidae, may stand as perhaps
+      that of a real Persian king, and, if so, as probably that of the first
+      king, the original founder of the monarchy, who united the scattered
+      tribes in one, and thus raised Persia into a power of considerable
+      importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The immediate successor of Achaemenes appears to have been his son,
+      Teispes. Of him and of the next three monarchs, the information that we
+      possess is exceedingly scanty. The very names of one or two in the series
+      are uncertain. One tradition assigns either to the second or the fourth
+      king of the list the establishment of friendly relations with a certain
+      Pharnaces, King of Cappadocia, by an intermarriage between a Persian
+      princess, Atossa, and the Cappadocian monarch. The existence of
+      communication at this time between petty countries politically
+      unconnected, and placed at such a distance from one another as Cappadocia
+      and Persia, is certainly what we should not have expected; but our
+      knowledge of the general condition of Western Asia at the period is too
+      slight to justify us in a positive rejection of the story, which
+      indicates, if it be true, that even during this time of comparative
+      obscurity, the Persian monarchs were widely known, and that their alliance
+      was thought a matter of importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The political condition of Persia under these early monarchs is a more
+      interesting question than either the names of the kings or the foreign
+      alliances which they attracted. According to Herodotus, that condition was
+      one of absolute and unqualified subjection to the sway of the Medes, who
+      conquered Persia and imposed their yoke upon the people before the year
+      B.C. 634. The native records, however, and the accounts which Xenophon
+      preferred, represent Persia as being at this time a separate and powerful
+      state, either wholly independent of Media, or, at any rate, held in light
+      bonds of little more than nominal dependence. On the whole, it appears
+      most probable that the true condition of the country was that which this
+      last phrase expresses. It maybe doubted whether there had ever been a
+      conquest; but the weaker and less developed of the two kindred states
+      owned the suzerainty of the stronger, and though quite unshackled in her
+      internal administration, and perhaps not very much interfered with in her
+      relations towards foreign countries, was, formally, a sort of Median fief,
+      standing nearly in the position in which Egypt now stands to Turkey. The
+      position was irksome to the sovereigns rather than unpleasant to the
+      people. It detracted from the dignity of the Persian monarchs, and injured
+      their self-respect; it probably caused them occasional inconvenience,
+      since from time to time they would have to pay their court to their
+      suzerain; and it seems towards the close of the Median period to have
+      involved an obligation which must have been felt, if not as degrading, at
+      any rate as very disagreeable. The monarch appears to have been required
+      to send his eldest son as a sort of hostage to the Court of his superior,
+      where he was held in a species of honorable captivity, not being allowed
+      to quit the Court and return home without leave, but being otherwise well
+      treated. The fidelity of the father was probably supposed to be in this
+      way secured while it might be hoped that the son would be conciliated, and
+      made an attached and willing dependent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Persian history first fairly opens upon us in the pages of Xenophon
+      and of Nicolaus Damascenus, this is the condition of things which we find
+      existing. Cambyses, the father of Cyrus the Great&mdash;called Atradates
+      by the Syrian writer&mdash;is ruler of Persia, and resides in his native
+      country, while his son Cyrus is permanently, or at any rate usually,
+      resident at the Median Court, where he is in high favor with the reigning
+      monarch, Astyages. According to Xenophon, who has here the support of
+      Herodotus, he is Astyages&rsquo; grandson, his father, Cambyses, being married
+      to Mandane, that monarch&rsquo;s daughter. According to Nicolaus, who in this
+      agrees with Ctesias, he is no way related to Astyages, who retains him at
+      his court because he is personally attached to him. In the narrative of
+      the latter writer, which has already been preferred in these volumes, the
+      young prince, while at the Court, conceives the idea of freeing his own
+      country by a revolt, and enters into secret communication with his father
+      for the furtherance of his object. His father somewhat reluctantly
+      assents, and preparations are made, which lead to the escape of Cyrus and
+      the commencement of a war of independence. The details of the struggle, as
+      they are related by Nicolaus, have been already given. After repeated
+      defeats, the Persians finally make a stand at Pasargadae, their capital,
+      where in two great battles they destroy the power of Astyages, who himself
+      remains a prisoner in the hands of his adversary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the course of the struggle the father of Cyrus had fallen, and its
+      close, therefore, presented Cyrus himself before the eyes of the Western
+      Asiatics as the undisputed lord of the great Arian Empire which had
+      established itself on the ruins of the Semitic. Transfers of sovereignty
+      are easily made in the East, where independence is little valued, and each
+      new conqueror is hailed with acclamations from millions. It mattered
+      nothing to the bulk of Astyages&rsquo; subjects whether they were ruled from
+      Ecbatana or Pasargadae, by Median or Persian masters. Fate had settled
+      that a single lord was to bear sway over the tribes and nations dwelling
+      between the Persian Gulf and the Euxine; and the arbitrament of the sword
+      had now decided that this single lord should be Cyrus. We may readily
+      believe the statement of Nicolaus that the nations previously subject to
+      the Medes vied with each other in the celerity and zeal with which they
+      made their submission to the Persian conqueror. Cyrus succeeded at once to
+      the full inheritance of which he had dispossessed Astyages, and was
+      recognized as king by all the tribes between the Halys and the desert of
+      Khorassan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was at this time, if we may trust Dino, exactly forty years of age, and
+      was thus at that happy period in life when the bodily powers have not yet
+      begun to decay, while the mental are just reaching their perfection.
+      Though we may not be able to trust implicitly the details of the war of
+      independence which have come down to us, yet there can be no doubt that he
+      had displayed in its course very remarkable courage and conduct. He had
+      intended, probably, no more than to free his country from the Median yoke;
+      by the force of circumstances he had been led on to the destruction of the
+      Median power, and to the establishment of a Persian Empire in its stead.
+      With empire had come an enormous accession of wealth. The accumulated
+      stores of ages, the riches of the Ninevite kings&mdash;the &ldquo;gold,&rdquo; the
+      &ldquo;silver,&rdquo; and the &ldquo;pleasant furniture&rdquo; of those mighty potentates, of
+      which there was &ldquo;none end&rdquo;&mdash;together with all the additions made to
+      these stores by the Median monarchs, had fallen into his hands, and from
+      comparative poverty he had come per saltum into the position of one of the
+      wealthiest&mdash;if not of the very wealthiest&mdash;of princes. An
+      ordinary Oriental would have been content with such a result, and have
+      declined to tempt fortune any more. But Cyrus was no ordinary Oriental.
+      Confident in his own powers, active, not to say restless, and of an
+      ambition that nothing could satiate, he viewed, the position which he had
+      won simply as a means of advancing himself to higher eminence. According
+      to Ctesias, he was scarcely seated upon the throne, when he led an
+      expedition to the far north-east against the renowned Bactrians and
+      Sacans; and at any rate, whether this be true or no&mdash;and most
+      probably it is an anticipation of later occurrences&mdash;it is certain
+      that, instead of folding his hands, Cyrus proceeded with scarcely a pause
+      on a long career of conquest, devoting his whole life to the carrying out
+      of his plans of aggression, and leaving a portion of his schemes, which
+      were too extensive for one life to realize, as a legacy to his successor.
+      The quarter to which he really first turned his attention seems to have
+      been the north-west. There, in the somewhat narrow but most fertile tract
+      between the river Halys and the Egean Sea, was a state which seemed likely
+      to give him trouble&mdash;a state which had successfully resisted all the
+      efforts of the Medes to reduce it, and which recently, under a warlike
+      prince, had shown a remarkable power of expansion. An instinct of danger
+      warned the scarce firmly-settled monarch to fix his eye at once upon
+      Lydia; in the wealthy and successful Croesus, the Lydian king, he saw one
+      whom dynastic interests might naturally lead to espouse the quarrel of the
+      conquered Mede, and whose power and personal qualities rendered him a
+      really formidable rival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lydian monarch, on his side, did not scruple to challenge a contest.
+      The long strife which his father had waged with the great Cyaxares had
+      terminated in a close alliance, cemented by a marriage, which made Croesus
+      and Astyages brothers. The friendship of the great power of Western Asia,
+      secured by this union, had set Lydia free to pursue a policy of
+      self-aggrandizement in her own immediate, neighborhood. Rapidly, one after
+      another, the kingdoms of Asia Minor had been reduced; and, excepting the
+      mountain districts of Lycia and Cilicia, all Asia within the Halys now
+      owned the sway of the Lydian king. Contented with his successes, and
+      satisfied that the tie of relationship secured him from attack on the part
+      of the only power which he had need to fear, Croesus had for some years
+      given himself up to the enjoyment of his gains and to an ostentatious
+      display of his magnificence. It was a rude shock to the indolent and
+      self-complacent dreams of a sanguine optimism, which looked that
+      &ldquo;to-morrow should be as to-day, only much more abundant,&rdquo; when tidings
+      came that revolution had raised its head in the far south-east, and that
+      an energetic prince, in the full vigor of life, and untrammelled by
+      dynastic ties, had thrust the aged Astyages from his throne, and girt his
+      own brows with the Imperial diadem. Croesus, according to the story, was
+      still in deep grief on account of the untimely death of his eldest son,
+      when the intelligence reached him. Instantly rousing himself from his
+      despair, he set about his preparations for the struggle, which his
+      sagacity saw to be inevitable. After consultation of the oracles of
+      Greece, he allied himself with the Grecian community, which appeared to
+      him on the whole to be the most powerful. At the same time he sent
+      ambassadors to Babylon and Memphis, to the courts of Labynetus and Amasis,
+      with proposals for an alliance offensive and defensive between the three
+      secondary powers of the Eastern world against that leading power whose
+      superior strength and resources were felt to constitute a common danger.
+      His representations were effectual. The kings of Babylon and Egypt, alive
+      to their own peril, accepted his proposals; and a joint league was formed
+      between the three monarchs and the republic of Sparta for the purpose of
+      resisting the presumed aggressive spirit of the Medo-Persians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cyrus, meanwhile, was not idle. Suspecting that a weak point in his
+      adversary&rsquo;s harness would be the disaffection of some of his more recently
+      conquered subjects, he sent emissaries into Asia Minor to sound the
+      dispositions of the natives. These emissaries particularly addressed
+      themselves to the Asiatic Greeks, who, coming of a freedom-loving stock,
+      and having been only very lately subdued, would it was thought, be likely
+      to catch at an opportunity of shaking off the yoke of their conqueror.
+      But, reasonable as such hopes must have seemed, they were in this instance
+      doomed to disappointment. The Ionians, instead of hailing Cyrus as a
+      liberator, received his overtures with suspicion. They probably thought
+      that they were sure not to gain, and that they might possibly lose, by a
+      change of masters. The yoke of Croesus had not, perhaps, been very
+      oppressive; at any rate it seemed to them preferable to &ldquo;bear the ills
+      they had,&rdquo; rather than &ldquo;fly to others&rdquo; which might turn out less
+      tolerable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Disappointed in this quarter, the Persian prince directed his efforts to
+      the concentration of a large army, and its rapid advance into a position
+      where it would be excellently placed both for defence and attack. The
+      frontier province of Cappadocia, which was only separated from the
+      dominions of the Lydian monarch by a stream of moderate size, the Halys,
+      was a most defensible country, extremely fertile and productive, abounding
+      in natural fastnesses, and inhabited by a brave and warlike population.
+      Into this district Cyrus pushed forward his army with all speed, taking,
+      as it would seem, not the short route through Diarbekr, Malatiyah, and
+      Gurun, along which the &ldquo;Royal Road&rdquo; afterwards ran, but the more
+      circuitous one by Erzerum, which brought him into Northern Cappadocia, or
+      Pontus, as it was called by the Romans. Here, in a district named Pteria,
+      which cannot have been very far from the coast, he found his adversary,
+      who had crossed the Halys, and taken several Cappadocian towns, among
+      which was the chief city of the Pterians. Perceiving that his troops
+      considerably outnumbered those of Crcesus, he lost no time in giving him
+      battle. The action was fought in the Pterian country, and was stoutly
+      contested, terminating at nightfall without any decisive advantage to
+      either party. The next day neither side made any movement; and Crcesus,
+      concluding from his enemy&rsquo;s inaction that, though he had not been able to
+      conquer him, he had nothing to fear from his desire of vengeance or his
+      spirit of enterprise, determined on a retreat. He laid the blame of his
+      failure, we are told, on the insufficient number of his troops, and
+      purposed to call for the contingents of his allies, and renew the war with
+      largely augmented forces in the ensuing spring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cyrus, on his part, allowed the Lydians to retire unmolested, thus
+      confirming his adversary in the mistaken estimate which he had formed of
+      Persian courage and daring. Anticipating the course which Croesus would
+      adopt under the circumstances, he kept his army well in hand, and, as soon
+      as the Lydians were clean gone, he crossed the Halys, and marched straight
+      upon Sardis. Croesus, deeming himself safe from molestation, had no sooner
+      reached his capital than he had dismissed the bulk of his troops to their
+      homes for the winter, merely giving them orders to return in the spring,
+      when he hoped to have received auxiliaries from Sparta, Babylon, and
+      Egypt. Left thus almost without defence, he suddenly heard that his
+      audacious foe had followed on his steps, had ventured into the heart of
+      his dominions, and was but a short distance from the capital. In this
+      crisis he showed a spirit well worthy of admiration. Putting himself at
+      the head of such an army of native Lydians as he could collect at a few
+      hours&rsquo; notice, he met the advancing foe in the rich plain a little to the
+      east of Sardis, and gave him battle immediately. It is possible that even
+      under these disadvantageous circumstances he might in fair fight have been
+      victorious, for the Lydian cavalry were at this time excellent, and
+      decidedly superior to the Persian. But Cyrus, aware of their merits, had
+      recourse to stratagem, and by forming his camels in front, so frightened
+      the Lydian horses that they fled from the field. The riders dismounted and
+      fought on foot, but their gallantry was unavailing. After a prolonged and
+      bloody combat the Lydian army was defeated, and forced to take refuge
+      behind the walls of the capital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Croesus now in hot haste sent off fresh messengers to his allies, begging
+      them to come at once to his assistance. He had still a good hope of
+      maintaining himself till their arrival, for his city was defended by
+      walls, and was regarded by the natives as impregnable. An attempt to storm
+      the defences failed; and the siege must have been turned into a blockade
+      but for an accidental discovery. A Persian soldier had approached to
+      reconnoitre the citadel on the side where it was strongest by nature, and
+      therefore guarded with least care, when he observed one of the garrison
+      descend the rock after his helmet, which had fallen from his head, pick it
+      up, and return with it. Being an expert climber, he attempted the track
+      thus pointed out to him, and succeeded in reaching the summit. Several of
+      his comrades followed in his steps; the citadel was surprised, and the
+      town taken and plundered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus fell the greatest city of Asia Minor after a siege of fourteen days.
+      The Lydian monarch, it is said, narrowly escaped with his life from the
+      confusion of the sack; but, being fortunately recognized in time, was made
+      prisoner, and brought before Cyrus. Cyrus at first treated him with some
+      harshness, but soon relented, and, with that clemency which was a common
+      characteristic of the earlier Persian kings, assigned him a territory for
+      his maintenance, and gave him an honorable position at Court, where he
+      passed at least thirty years, in high favor, first with Cyrus, and then
+      with Cambyses. Lydia itself was absorbed at once into the Persian Empire,
+      together with most of its dependencies, which submitted as soon as the
+      fall of Sardis was known. There still, however, remained a certain amount
+      of subjugation to be effected. The Greeks of the coast, who had offended
+      the Great King by their refusal of his overtures, were not to be allowed
+      to pass quietly into the condition of tributaries; and there were certain
+      native races in the south-western corner of Asia Minor which declined to
+      submit without a struggle to the new conqueror. But these matters were not
+      regarded by Cyrus as of sufficient importance to require his own personal
+      superintendence. Having remained at Sardis for a few weeks, during which
+      time he received an insulting message from Sparta, whereto he made a
+      menacing reply, and having arranged for the government of the
+      newly-conquered province and the transmission of its treasures to
+      Ecbatana, he quitted Lydia for the interior, taking Croesus with him, and
+      proceeded towards the Median capital. He was bent on prosecuting without
+      delay his schemes of conquest in other quarters&mdash;schemes of a
+      grandeur and a comprehensiveness unknown to any previous monarch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely, however, was he departed when Sardis became the scene of an
+      insurrection. Pactyas, a Lydian, who had been entrusted with the duty of
+      conveying the treasures of Croesus and his more wealthy subjects to
+      Ecbatana, revolted against Tabalus, the Persian commandant of the town,
+      and being joined by the native population and numerous mercenaries,
+      principally Greeks, whom he hired with the treasure that was in his hands,
+      made himself master of Sardis, and besieged Tabalus in the citadel. The
+      news reached Cyrus while he was upon his march; but, estimating the degree
+      of its importance aright, he did not suffer it to interfere with his
+      plans. He judged it enough to send a general with a strong body of troops
+      to put down the revolt, and continued his own journey eastward. Mazares, a
+      Mede, was the officer selected for the service. On arriving before Sardis,
+      he found that Pactyas had relinquished his enterprise and fled to the
+      coast, and that the revolt was consequently at an end. It only remained to
+      exact vengeance. The rebellious Lydians were disarmed. Pactyas was pursued
+      with unrelenting hostility, and demanded, in succession, of the Cymaeans,
+      the Mytilenseans, and the Chians, of whom the last-mentioned surrendered
+      him. The Greek cities which had furnished Pactyas with auxiliaries were
+      then attacked, and the inhabitants of the first which fell, Priene, were
+      one and all sold as slaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mazares soon afterwards died, and was succeeded by Ha-pagus, another Mede,
+      who adopted a somewhat milder policy towards the unfortunate Greeks.
+      Besieging their cities one by one, and taking them by means of banks or
+      mounds piled up against the walls, he, in some instances, connived at the
+      inhabitants escaping in their ships, while, in others, he allowed them to
+      take up the ordinary position of Persian subjects, liable to tribute and
+      military service, but not otherwise molested. So little irksome were such
+      terms to the Ionians of this period that even those who dwelt in the
+      islands off the coast, with the single exception of the Samians&mdash;though
+      they ran no risk of subjugation, since the Persians did not possess a
+      fleet&mdash;accepted voluntarily the same position, and enrolled
+      themselves among the subjects of Cyrus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One Greek continental town alone suffered nothing during this time of
+      trouble. When Cyrus refused the offers of submission, which reached him
+      from the Ionian and AEolian Greeks after his capture of Sardis, he made an
+      exception in favor of Miletus, the most important of all the Grecian
+      cities in Asia. Prudence, it is probable, rather than clemency, dictated
+      this course, since to detach from the Grecian cause the most powerful and
+      influential of the states was the readiest way of weakening the resistance
+      they would be able to make. Miletus singly had defied the arms of four
+      successive Lydian kings, and had only succumbed at last to the efforts of
+      the fifth, Croesus. If her submission had been now rejected, and she had
+      been obliged to take counsel of her despair, the struggle between the
+      Greek cities and the Persian generals might have assumed a different
+      character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still more different might have been the result, if the cities generally
+      had had the wisdom to follow a piece of advice which the great philosopher
+      and statesman of the time, Thales, the Milesian, is said to have given
+      them. Thales suggested that the Ionians should form themselves into a
+      confederation, to be governed by a congress which should meet at Teos, the
+      several cities retaining their own laws and internal independence, but
+      being united for military purposes into a single community. Judged by the
+      light which later events, the great Ionian revolt especially, throw upon
+      it, this advice is seen to have been of the greatest importance. It is
+      difficult to say what check, or even reverse, the arms of Persia might not
+      have at this time sustained, if the spirit of Thales had animated his
+      Asiatic countrymen generally; if the loose Ionic Amphictyony, which in
+      reality left each state in the hour of danger to its own resources, had
+      been superseded by a true federal union, and the combined efforts of the
+      thirteen Ionian communities had been directed to a steady resistance of
+      Persian aggression and a determined maintenance of their own independence.
+      Mazares and Harpagus would almost certainly have been baffled, and the
+      Great King himself would probably have been called off from his eastern
+      conquests to undertake in person a task which after all he might have
+      failed to accomplish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fall of the last Ionian town left Harpagus free to turn his attention
+      to the tribes of the south-west which had not yet made their submission&mdash;the
+      Carians, the Dorian Greeks, the Caunians, and the people of Lycia.
+      Impressing the services of the newly-conquered Ionians and AEolians, he
+      marched first against Caria, which offered but a feeble resistance. The
+      Dorians of the continent, Myndians, Halicarnassians, and Cnidians.
+      submitted still more tamely, without any struggle at all; but the Caunians
+      and Lycians showed a different spirit. These tribes, which were ethnically
+      allied, and of a very peculiar type, had never yet, it would seem, been
+      subdued by any conqueror. Prizing highly the liberty they had enjoyed so
+      long, they defended themselves with desperation. When they were defeated
+      in the field they shut themselves up within the walls of their chief
+      cities, Caunus and Xanthus, where, finding resistance impossible, they set
+      fire to the two places with their own hands, burned their wives, children,
+      slaves, and valuables, and then sallying forth, sword in hand, fell on the
+      besiegers&rsquo; lines, and fought till they were all slain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Cyrus was pursuing a career of conquest in the far east. It was
+      now, according to Herodotus, who is, beyond all question, a better
+      authority than Ctesias for the reign of Cyrus, that the reduction of the
+      Bactrians and the Sacans, the chief nations of what is called by moderns
+      Central Asia, took place. Bactria was a country which enjoyed the
+      reputation of having been great and glorious at a very early date. In one
+      of the most ancient portions of the Zendavesta it was celebrated as
+      &ldquo;Bahhdi eredhwo-drafsha,&rdquo; or &ldquo;Bactria&rdquo; with the lofty banner; and
+      traditions not wholly to be despised made it the native country of
+      Zoroaster. There is good reason to believe that, up to the date of Cyras,
+      it had maintained its independence, or at any rate that it had been
+      untouched by the great monarchies which for above seven hundred years had
+      borne sway in the western parts of Asia. Its people were of the Iranic
+      stock, and retained in their remote and somewhat savage country the simple
+      and primitive habits of the race. Though their arms were of indifferent
+      character, they were among the best soldiers to be found in the East, and
+      always showed themselves a formidable enemy. According to Ctesias, when
+      Cyrus invaded them, they fought a pitched battle with his army, in which
+      the victory was with neither party. They were not, he said, reduced by
+      force of arms at all, but submitted voluntarily when they found that Cyrus
+      had married a Median princess. Herodotus, on the contrary, seems to
+      include the Bactrians among the nations which Cyrus subdued, and
+      probability is strongly in favor of this view of the matter. So warlike a
+      nation is not likely to have submitted unless to force; nor is there any
+      ground to believe that a Median marriage, had Cyrus contracted one, would
+      have made him any the more acceptable to the Bactrians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the conquest of Bactria followed, we may be tolerably sure, an attack
+      upon the Sacae. This people, who must certainly have bordered on the
+      Bactrians, dwelt probably either on the Pamir Steppe, or on the high plain
+      of Chinese Tartary, east of the Bolar range&mdash;the modern districts of
+      Kashgar and Yarkand. They were reckoned excellent soldiers. They fought
+      with the bow, the dagger, and the battle-axe, and were equally formidable
+      on horseback and on foot. In race they were probably Tatars or Turanians,
+      and their descendants or their congeners are to be seen in the modern
+      inhabitants of these regions. According to Ctesias, their women took the
+      field in almost equal numbers with their men; and the mixed army which
+      resisted Cyrus amounted, including both sexes, to half a million. The king
+      who commanded them was a certain Amorges, who was married to a wife called
+      Sparethra. In an engagement with the Persians he fell into the enemy&rsquo;s
+      hands, whereupon Sparethra put herself at the head of the Sacan forces,
+      defeated Cyrus, and took so many prisoners of importance that the Persian
+      monarch was glad to release Amorges in exchange for them. The Sacse,
+      however, notwithstanding this success, were reduced, and became subjects
+      and tributaries of Persia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among other countries subdued by Cyrus in this neighborhood, probably
+      about the same period, may be named Hyrcania, Parthia, Chorasmia,
+      Sogdiana, Aria (or Herat), Drangiana, Arachosia, Sattagydia, and Gandaria.
+      The brief epitome which we possess of Ctesias omits to make any mention of
+      these minor conquests, while Herodotus sums them all up in a single line;
+      but there is reason to believe that the Cnidian historian gave a
+      methodized account of their accomplishment, of which scattered notices
+      have come down to us in various writers. Arrian relates that there was a
+      city called Cyropolis, situated on the Jaxartes, a place of great strength
+      defended by very lofty walls, which had been founded by the Great Cyrus.
+      This city belonged to Sogdiana. Pliny states that Capisa, the chief city
+      of Capisene, which lay not far from the upper Indus, was destroyed by
+      Cyrus. This place is probably Kafshan, a little to the north of Kabul.
+      Several authors tell us that the Ariaspse, a people of Drangiana, assisted
+      Cyrus with provisions when he was warring in their neighborhood, and
+      received from him in return a new name, which the Greeks rendered by
+      &ldquo;Euergetse&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Benefactors.&rdquo; The Ariaspae must have dwelt near the
+      Hamoon, or Lake of Seistan. We have thus traces of the conqueror&rsquo;s
+      presence in the extreme north on the Jaxartes, in the extreme east in
+      Affghanistan, and towards the south as far as Seistan and the Helmend; nor
+      can there be any reasonable doubt that he overran and reduced to
+      subjection the whole of that vast tract which lies between the Caspian on
+      the west, the Indus valley and the desert of Tartary towards the east, the
+      Jaxartes or Sir Deria on the north, and towards the south the Great
+      Deserts of Seistan and Khorassan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More uncertainty attaches to the reduction of the tract lying south of
+      these deserts. Tradition said that Cyrus had once penetrated into Gedrosia
+      on an expedition against the Indians, and had lost his entire army in the
+      waterless and trackless desert; but there is no evidence at all that he
+      reduced the country. It appears to have been a portion of the Empire in
+      the reign of Darius Hystaspis, but whether that monarch, or Cambyses, or
+      the great founder of the Persian power conquered it, cannot at present be
+      determined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conquest of the vast tract lying between the Caspian and the Indus,
+      inhabited (as it was) by a numerous, valiant, and freedom-loving
+      population, may well have occupied Cyrus for thirteen or fourteen years.
+      Alexander the Great spent in the reduction of this region, after the
+      inhabitants had in a great measure lost their warlike qualities, as much
+      as five years, or half the time occupied by his whole series of conquests.
+      Cyrus could not have ventured on prosecuting his enterprises, as did the
+      Macedonian prince, continuously and without interruption, marching
+      straight from one country to another without once revisiting his capital.
+      He must from time to time have returned to Ecbatana or Pasargadae; and it
+      is on the whole most probable that, like the Assyrian monarchs, he marched
+      out from home on a fresh expedition almost every year. Thus it need cause
+      us no surprise that fourteen years were consumed in the subjugation of the
+      tribes and nations beyond the Iranic desert to the north and the
+      north-east, and that it was not till B.C. 539, when he was nearly sixty
+      years of age, that the Persian monarch felt himself free to turn his
+      attention to the great kingdom of the south.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The expedition of Cyrus against Babylon has been described already. Its
+      success added to the Empire the rich and valuable provinces of Babylonia,
+      Susiana, Syria, and Palestine, thus augmenting its size by about 240,000
+      or 250,000 square miles. Far more important, however, than this
+      geographical increase was the removal of the last formidable rival&mdash;the
+      complete destruction of a power which represented to the Asiatics the old
+      Semitic civilization, which with reason claimed to be the heir and the
+      successor of Assyria, and had a history stretching back for a space of
+      nearly two thousand years. So long as Babylon, &ldquo;the glory of kingdoms,&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;the praise of the whole earth,&rdquo; retained her independence, with her vast
+      buildings, her prestige of antiquity, her wealth, her learning, her
+      ancient and grand religious system, she could scarcely fail to be in the
+      eyes of her neighbors the first power in the world, if not in mere
+      strength, yet in honor, dignity, and reputation. Haughty and contemptuous
+      herself to the very last, she naturally imposed on men&rsquo;s minds, alike by
+      her past history and her present pretensions; nor was it possible for the
+      Persian monarch to feel that he stood before his subjects as indisputably
+      the foremost man upon the earth until he had humbled in the dust the pride
+      and arrogance of Babylon. But, with the fall of the Great City, the whole
+      fabric of Semetic greatness was shattered. Babylon became &ldquo;an astonishment
+      and a hissing&rdquo;&mdash;all her prestige vanished&mdash;and Persia stepped
+      manifestly into the place, which Assyria had occupied for so many
+      centuries, of absolute and unrivalled mistress of Western Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fall of Babylon was also the fall of an ancient, widely spread, and
+      deeply venerated religious system. Not of course, that the religion
+      suddenly disappeared or ceased to have votaries, but that, from a dominant
+      system, supported by all the resources of the state, and enforced by the
+      civil power over a wide extent of territory, it became simply one of many
+      tolerated beliefs, exposed to frequent rebuffs and insults, and at all
+      times overshadowed by a new and rival system&mdash;the comparatively pure
+      creed of Zoroastrianism, The conquest of Babylon by Persia was,
+      practically, if not a death-blow, at least a severe wound, to that
+      sensuous idol-worship which had for more than twenty centuries been the
+      almost universal religion in the countries between the Mediterranean and
+      the Zagros mountain range. The religion never recovered itself&mdash;was
+      never reinstated. It survived, a longer or a shorter time, in places. To a
+      slight extent it corrupted Zoroastrianism; but, on the whole, from the
+      date of the fall of Babylon it declined. &ldquo;Bel bowed down; Nebo stooped;&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;Merodach was broken in pieces.&rdquo; Judgment was done upon the Babylonian
+      graven images; and the system, of which they formed a necessary part,
+      having once fallen from its proud pre-eminence, gradually decayed and
+      vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Parallel with the decline of the old Semitic idolatry was the advance of
+      its direct antithesis, pure spiritual Monotheism. The same blow which laid
+      the Babylonian religion in the dust struck off the fetters from Judaism.
+      Purified and refined by the precious discipline of adversity, the Jewish
+      system, which Cyrus, feeling towards it a natural sympathy, protected,
+      upheld, and replaced in its proper locality, advanced from this time in
+      influence and importance, leavening little by little the foul mass of
+      superstition and impurity which came in contact with it. Proselytism grew
+      more common. The Jews spread themselves wider. The return from, the
+      captivity, which Cyrus authorized almost immediately after the capture of
+      Babylon, is the starting point from which we may trace a gradual
+      enlightenment of the heathen world by the dissemination of Jewish beliefs
+      and practices&mdash;such dissemination being greatly helped by the high
+      estimation in which the Jewish system was held by the civil authority,
+      both while the empire of the Persians lasted, and when power passed to the
+      Macedonians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the fall of Babylon its dependencies seem to have submitted to the
+      conqueror, with a single exception. Phoenicia, which had never acquiesced
+      contentedly either in Assyrian or in Babylonian rule, saw, apparently, in
+      the fresh convulsion that was now shaking the East, an opportunity for
+      recovering autonomy. It was nearly half a century since her last struggle
+      to free herself had terminated unsuccessfully. A new generation had grown
+      up since that time&mdash;a generation which had seen nothing of war, and
+      imperfectly appreciated its perils. Perhaps some reliance was placed on
+      the countenance and support of Egypt, which, it must have been felt, would
+      view with satisfaction any obstacle to the advance of a power wherewith
+      she was sure, sooner or later, to come into collision. At any rate, it was
+      resolved to make the venture. Phoenicia, on the destruction of her distant
+      suzerain, quietly resumed her freedom; abstained from making any act of
+      submission to the conqueror; while, however, at the same time, she
+      established friendly relations for commercial purposes with one of the
+      conqueror&rsquo;s vassals, the prince who had been sent into Palestine to
+      re-establish the Jews at Jerusalem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It might have been expected that Cyrus, after his conquest of Babylon,
+      would have immediately proceeded towards the south-west. The reduction of
+      Egypt had, according to Herodotus, been embraced in the designs which he
+      formed fifteen years earlier. The non-submission of Phoenicia must have
+      been regarded as an act of defiance which deserved signal chastisement. It
+      has been suspected that the restoration of the Jews was prompted, at least
+      in part, by political motives, and that Cyrus, when he re-established them
+      in their country, looked to finding them of use to him in the attack which
+      he was meditating upon Egypt. At any rate it is evident that their
+      presence would have facilitated his march through Palestine, and given him
+      a <i>point d&rsquo;appui</i>, which could not but have been of value. These
+      considerations make it probable that an Egyptian expedition would have
+      been determined on, had not circumstances occurred to prevent it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What the exact circumstances were, it is impossible to determine.
+      According to Herodotus, a sudden desire seized Cyrus to attack the
+      Massagetae, who bordered his Empire to the north-east. He led his troops
+      across the Araxes (Jaxartes?), defeated the Massagetae by stratagem in a
+      great battle, but was afterwards himself defeated and slain, his body
+      falling into the enemy&rsquo;s hands, who treated it with gross indignity.
+      According to Ctesias, the people against whom he made his expedition were
+      the Derbices, a nation bordering upon India, Assisted by Indian allies,
+      who lent them a number of elephants, this people engaged Cyrus, and
+      defeated him in a battle, wherein he received a mortal wound. Reinforced,
+      however, by a body of Sacae, the Persians renewed the struggle, and gained
+      a complete victory, which was followed by the submission of the nation.
+      Cyrus, however, died of his wound on the third day after the first battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This conflict of testimony clouds with uncertainty the entire closing
+      scene of the life of Cyrus. All that we can lay down as tolerably well
+      established is, that instead of carrying out his designs against Egypt, he
+      engaged in hostilities with one of the nations on his north-eastern
+      frontier, that he conducted the war with less than his usual success, and
+      in the course of it received a wound of which he died (B.C. 529), after he
+      had reigned nine-and-twenty years. That his body did not fall into the
+      enemy&rsquo;s hands appears, however, to be certain from the fact that it was
+      conveyed into Persia Proper, and buried at Pasargadae.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be suspected that this expedition, which proved so disastrous to
+      the Persian monarch, was not the mere wanton act which it appears to be in
+      the pages of our authorities. The nations of the north-east were at all
+      times turbulent and irritable, with difficulty held in check by the
+      civilized power that bore rule in the south and west. The expedition of
+      Cyrus, whether directed against the Massagetae or the Derbices, was
+      probably intended to strike terror into the barbarians of these regions,
+      and was analogous to those invasions which were undertaken under the
+      wisest of the Roman Emperors, across the Rhine and Danube, against
+      Germans, Goths, and Sarmatae. The object of such inroads was not to
+      conquer, but to alarm&mdash;it was hoped by an imposing display of
+      organized military force to deter the undisciplined hordes of the prolific
+      North from venturing across the frontier and carrying desolation through
+      large tracts of the Empire. Defensive warfare has often an aggressive
+      look. It may have been solely with the object of protecting his own
+      territories from attack that Cyrus made his last expedition across the
+      Jaxertes, or towards the upper Indus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character of Cyrus, as represented to us by the Greeks, is the most
+      favorable that we possess of any early Oriental monarch. Active,
+      energetic, brave, fertile in stratagems, he has all the qualities required
+      to form a successful military chief. He conciliates his people by friendly
+      and familiar treatment, but declines to spoil them by yielding to their
+      inclinations when they are adverse to their true interests. He has a ready
+      humor, which shows itself in smart sayings and repartees, that take
+      occasionally the favorite Oriental turn of parable or apologue. He is mild
+      in his treatment of the prisoners that fall into his hands, and ready to
+      forgive even the heinous crime of rebellion. He has none of the pride of
+      the ordinary eastern despot, but converses on terms of equality with those
+      about him. We cannot be surprised that the Persians, contrasting him with
+      their later monarchs, held his memory in the highest veneration, and were
+      even led by their affection for his person to make his type of countenance
+      their standard of physical beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The genius of Cyrus was essentially that of a conqueror, not of an
+      administrator. There is no trace of his having adopted anything like a
+      uniform system for the government of the provinces which he subdued. In
+      Lydia he set up a Persian governor, but assigned certain important
+      functions to a native; in Babylon he gave the entire direction of affairs
+      into the hands of a Mede, to whom he allowed the title and style of king;
+      in Judaea he appointed a native, but made him merely &ldquo;governor&rdquo; or
+      &ldquo;deputy;&rdquo; in Sacia he maintained as tributary king the monarch who had
+      resisted his arms. Policy may have dictated the course pursued in each
+      instance, which may have been suited to the condition of the several
+      provinces; but the variety allowed was fatal to consolidation, and the
+      monarchy, as Cyrus left it, had as little cohesion as any of those by
+      which it was preceded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though originally a rude mountain-chief, Cyrus, after he succeeded to
+      empire, showed himself quite able to appreciate the dignity and value of
+      art. In his constructions at Pasargadae he combined massiveness with
+      elegance, and manifested a taste at once simple and refined. He ornamented
+      his buildings with reliefs of an ideal character. It is probably to him
+      that we owe the conception of the light tapering stone shaft, which is the
+      glory of Persian architecture. If the more massive of the Persepolitan
+      buildings are to be ascribed to him, we must regard him as haying fixed
+      the whole plan and arrangement which was afterwards followed in all
+      Persian palatial edifices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his domestic affairs Cyrus appears to have shown the same moderation
+      and simplicity which we observe in his general conduct. He married, as it
+      would seem, one wife only, Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes, who was
+      a member of the royal family. By her he had issue two sons and at least
+      three daughters. The sons were Cambyses and Smerdis; the daughters Atossa,
+      Artystone, and one whose name is unknown to us. Cassandane died before her
+      husband, and was deeply mourned by him. Shortly before his own death he
+      took the precaution formally to settle the succession. Leaving the general
+      inheritance of his vast dominions to his elder son, Cambyses, he declared
+      it to be his will that the younger should be entrusted with the actual
+      government of several large and important provinces. He thought by this
+      plan to secure the well-being of both the youths, never suspecting that he
+      was in reality consigning both to untimely ends, and even preparing the
+      way for an extraordinary revolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ill effect of the unfortunate arrangement thus made appeared almost
+      immediately. Cambyses was scarcely settled upon the throne before he grew
+      jealous of his brother, and ordered him to be privately put to death. His
+      cruel orders were obeyed, and with so much secrecy that neither the mode
+      of the death, nor even the fact, was known to more than a few. Smerdis was
+      generally believed to be still alive; and thus an opportunity was
+      presented for personation&mdash;a form of imposture very congenial to
+      Orientals, and one which has often had very disastrous consequences. We
+      shall find in the sequel this opportunity embraced, and results follow of
+      a most stirring and exciting character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It required time, however, to bring to maturity the fruits of the crime so
+      rashly committed. Cambyses, in the meanwhile, quite unconscious of danger,
+      turned his attention to military matters, and determined on endeavoring to
+      complete his father&rsquo;s scheme of conquest by the reduction of Egypt.
+      Desirous of obtaining a ground of quarrel less antiquated than the
+      alliance, a quarter of a century earlier, between Amasis and Croesus, he
+      demanded that a daughter of the Egyptian king should be sent to him as a
+      secondary wife. Amasis, too timid to refuse, sent a damsel named Nitetis,
+      who was not his daughter; and she, soon after her arrival, made Cambyses
+      acquainted with the fraud. A ground of quarrel was thus secured, which
+      might be put forward when it suited his purpose; and meanwhile every nerve
+      was being strained to prepare effectually for the expedition. The
+      difficulty of a war with Egypt lay in her inaccessibility. She was
+      protected on all sides by seas or deserts; and, for a successful advance
+      upon her from the direction of Asia, it was desirable both to obtain a
+      quiet passage for a large army through the desert of El-Tij, and also to
+      have the support of a powerful fleet in the Mediterranean. This latter was
+      the paramount consideration. An army well supplied with camels might carry
+      its provisions and water through the desert, and might intimidate or
+      overpower the few Arab tribes which inhabited it; but, unless the command
+      of the sea was gained and the navigation of the Nile closed, Memphis might
+      successfully resist attack. Cambyses appears to have perceived with
+      sufficient clearness the conditions on which victory depended, and to have
+      applied himself at once to securing them. He made a treaty with the Arab
+      Sheikh who had the chief influence over the tribes of the desert; and at
+      the same time he set to work to procure the services of a powerful naval
+      force. By menaces or negotiations he prevailed upon the Phoenicians to
+      submit themselves to his yoke, and having thus obtained a fleet superior
+      to that of Egypt, he commenced hostilities by robbing her of a dependency
+      which possessed considerable naval strength, in this way still further
+      increasing the disparity between his own fleet and that of his enemy.
+      Against the combined ships of Phoenicia, Cyprus, Ionia, and AEolis, Egypt
+      was powerless, and her fleets seem to have quietly yielded the command of
+      the sea. Cambyses was thus able to give his army the support of a naval
+      force, as it marched along the coast, from Carmel probably to Pelusium;
+      and when, having defeated the Egyptians at the last-named place, he
+      proceeded against Memphis, he was able to take possession of the Nile, and
+      to blockade the Egyptian capital both by land and water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It appears that four years were consumed by the Persian monarch in his
+      preparations for his Egyptian expedition. It was not until B.C. 525 that
+      he entered Egypt at the head of his troops, and fought the great battle
+      which decided the fate of the country. The struggle was long and bloody.
+      Psammenitus, who had succeeded his father Amasis, had the services, not
+      only of his Egyptian subjects, but a large body of mercenaries besides,
+      Greeks and Carians. These allies were zealous in his cause, and are said
+      to have given him a horrible proof of their attachment. One of their body
+      had deserted to the Persians some little time before the expedition, and
+      was believed to have given important advice to the invader. He had left
+      his children behind in Egypt; and these his former comrades now seized,
+      and led out in front of their lines, where they slew them before their
+      father&rsquo;s eyes, and, having so done, mixed their blood in a bowl with water
+      and wine, and drank, one and all, of the mixture. The battle followed
+      immediately after; but, in spite of their courage and fanaticism, the
+      Egyptian army was completely defeated. According to Ctesias, fifty
+      thousand fell on the vanquished side, while the victors lost no more than
+      seven thousand. Psammenitus, after his defeat, threw himself into Memphis,
+      but, being blockaded by land and prevented from receiving supplies from
+      the sea, after a stout resistance, he surrendered. The captive monarch
+      received the respectful treatment which Persian clemency usually accorded
+      to fallen sovereigns. Herodotus even goes so far as to intimate that, if
+      he had abstained from conspiracy, he would probably have been allowed to
+      continue ruler of Egypt, exchanging, of course, his independent
+      sovereignty for a delegated kingship held at the pleasure of the Lord of
+      Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conquest of Egypt was immediately followed by the submission of the
+      neighboring tribes. The Libyans of the desert tract which borders the Nile
+      valley to the west, and even the Greeks of the more remote Barca and
+      Cyrene, sent gifts to the conqueror and consented to become his
+      tributaries. But Cambyses placed little value on such petty accessions to
+      his power. Inheriting the grandeur of view which had characterized his
+      father, he was no sooner master of Egypt than he conceived the idea of a
+      magnificent series of conquests in this quarter, whereby he hoped to
+      become Lord of Africa no less than of Asia, or at any rate to leave
+      himself without a rival of any importance on the vast continent which his
+      victorious arms had now opened to him. Apart from Egypt, Africa possessed
+      but two powers capable, by their political organization and their military
+      strength, of offering him serious resistance. These were Ethiopia and
+      Carthage&mdash;the one the great power of the South, the equal, if not
+      even the superior, of Egypt&mdash;the other the great power of the West&mdash;remote,
+      little known, but looming larger for, the obscurity in which she was
+      shrouded, and attractive from her reputed wealth. The views of Cambyses
+      comprised the reduction of both these powers, and also the conquest of the
+      oasis of Ammon. As a good Zoroastrian, he was naturally anxious to exhibit
+      the superiority of Ormazd to all the &ldquo;gods of the nations;&rdquo; and, as the
+      temple of Ammon in the oasis had the greatest repute of all the African
+      shrines, this design would be best accomplished by its pillage and
+      destruction. It is probable that he further looked to the subjugation of
+      all the tribes on the north coast between the Nile valley and the
+      Carthaginian territory; for he would undoubtedly have sent an army along
+      the shore to act in concert with his fleet, had he decided ultimately on
+      making the expedition. An unexpected obstacle, however, arose to prevent
+      him. The Phoenicians, who formed the main strength of his navy, declined
+      to take any part in an attack on Carthage, since the Carthaginians were
+      their colonists, and the relations between the two people had always been
+      friendly. Cambyses did not like to force their inclinations, on account of
+      their recent voluntary submission; and as, without their aid, his navy was
+      manifestly unequal to the proposed service, he felt obliged to desist from
+      the undertaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the Carthaginian scheme was thus nipped in the bud, the enterprises
+      which Cambyses attempted to carry out led to nothing but disaster. An
+      army, fifty thousand strong, despatched from Thebes against Ammon,
+      perished to a man amid the sands of the Libyan desert. A still more
+      numerous force, led by Cambyses himself towards the Ethiopian frontier,
+      found itself short of supplies on its march across Nubia, and was forced
+      to return, without glory, after suffering considerable loss. It became
+      evident that the abilities of the Persian monarch were not equal to his
+      ambition&mdash;that he insufficiently appreciated the difficulties and
+      dangers of enterprises&mdash;while a fatal obstinacy prevented him from
+      acknowledging and retrieving an error while retrieval was possible. The
+      Persians, we may be sure, grew dispirited under such a leader; and the
+      Egyptians naturally took heart. It seems to have been shortly after the
+      return of Cambyses from his abortive expedition against Ethiopia that
+      symptoms of an intention to revolt began to manifest themselves in Egypt.
+      The priests declared an incarnation of Apis, and the whole country burst
+      out into rejoicings. It was probably now that Psammenitus, who had
+      hitherto been kindly treated by his captor, was detected in treasonable
+      intrigues, condemned to death, and executed. At the same time, the native
+      officers who had been left in charge of the city of Memphis were
+      apprehended and capitally punished. Such stringent measures had all the
+      effect that was expected from them; they wholly crushed the nascent
+      rebellion; they left, however, behind them a soreness, felt alike by the
+      conqueror and the conquered, which prevented the establishment of a good
+      understanding between the Great King and his new subjects. Cambyses knew
+      that he had been severe, and that his severity had made him many enemies;
+      he suspected the people, and still more suspected the priests, their
+      natural leaders; he soon persuaded himself that policy required in Egypt a
+      departure from the principles of toleration which were ordinarily observed
+      towards their subjects by the Persians, and a sustained effort on the part
+      of the civil power to bring the religion, and its priests, into contempt.
+      Accordingly, he commenced a serious of acts calculated to have this
+      effect. He stabbed the sacred calf, believed to be incarnate Apis; he
+      ordered the body of priests who had the animal in charge to be publicly
+      scourged; he stopped the Apis festival by making participation in it a
+      capital offence; he opened the receptacles of the dead, and curiously
+      examined the bodies contained in them, he intruded himself into the chief
+      sanctuary at Memphis, and publicly scoffed at the grotesque image of
+      Phtha; finally, not content with outraging in the same way the inviolable
+      temple of the Cabeiri, he wound up his insults by ordering that their
+      images should be burnt. These injuries and indignities rankled in the
+      minds of the Egyptians, and probably had a large share in producing that
+      bitter hatred of the Persian yoke which shows itself in the later history
+      on so many occasions; but for the time the policy was successful: crushed
+      beneath the iron heel of the conqueror&mdash;their faith in the power of
+      their gods shaken, their spirits cowed, their hopes shattered&mdash;the
+      Egyptian subjects of Cambyses made up their minds to submission. The
+      Oriental will generally kiss the hand that smites him, if it only smite
+      hard enough. Egypt became now for a full generation the obsequious slave
+      of Persia, and gave no more trouble to her subjugator than the weakest or
+      the most contented of the provinces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The work of subjection completed, Cambyses, having been absent from his
+      capital longer than was at all prudent, prepared to return home. He had
+      proceeded on his way as far as Syria, when intelligence reached him of a
+      most unexpected nature. A herald suddenly entered his camp and proclaimed,
+      in the hearing of the whole army, that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, had ceased
+      to reign, and that the allegiance of all Persian subjects was henceforth
+      to be paid to Smerdis, son of Cyrus. At first, it is said, Cambyses
+      thought that his instrument had played him false, and that his brother was
+      alive and had actually seized the throne; but the assurances of the
+      suspected person, and a suggestion which he made, convinced him of the
+      contrary, and gave him a clue to the real solution of the mystery.
+      Prexaspes, the nobleman inculpated, knew that the so-called Smerdis must
+      be an impostor, and suggested his identity with a certain Magus, whose
+      brother had been intrusted by Cambyses with the general direction of his
+      household and the care of the palace. He was probably led to make the
+      suggestion by his knowledge of the resemblance borne by this person to the
+      murdered prince, which was sufficiently close to make personation
+      possible. Cambyses was thus enabled to appreciate the gravity of the
+      crisis, and to consider whether he could successfully contend with it or
+      no. Apparently, he decided in the negative. Believing that he could not
+      triumph over the conspiracy which had decreed his downfall, and unwilling
+      to descend to a private station&mdash;perhaps even uncertain whether his
+      enemies would spare his life&mdash;he resolved to fly to the last refuge
+      of a dethroned king, and to end all by suicide. Drawing his short sword
+      from its sheath, he gave himself a wound, of which he died in a few days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is certainly surprising that the king formed this resolution. He was at
+      the head of an army, returning from an expedition, which, if not wholly
+      successful, had at any rate added to the empire an important province. His
+      father&rsquo;s name was a tower of strength; and if he could only have exposed
+      the imposture that had been practised on them, he might have counted
+      confidently on rallying the great mass of the Persians to his cause. How
+      was it that he did not advance on the capital, and at least strike one
+      blow for empire? No clear and decided response can be made to this
+      inquiry; but we may indistinctly discern a number of causes which may have
+      combined to produce in the monarch&rsquo;s mind the feeling of despondency
+      whereto he gave way. Although he returned from Egypt a substantial
+      conqueror, his laurel wreath was tarnished by ill-success; his army,
+      weakened by its losses, and dispirited by its failures, was out of heart;
+      it had no trust in his capacity as a commander, and could not be expected
+      to fight with enthusiasm on his behalf. There is also reason to believe
+      that he was generally unpopular on account of his haughty and tyrannical
+      temper, and his contempt of law and usage, where they interfered with the
+      gratification of his desires. Though we should do wrong to accept as true
+      all the crimes laid to his charge by the Egyptians, who detested his
+      memory, we cannot doubt the fact of his incestuous marriage with his
+      sister, Atossa, which was wholly repugnant to the religious feelings of
+      his nation. Nor can we well imagine that there was no foundation at all
+      for the stories of the escape of Croesus, the murder of the son of
+      Prexaspes, and the execution in Egypt on a trivial charge of twelve noble
+      Persians. His own people called Cambyses a &ldquo;despot&rdquo; or &ldquo;master,&rdquo; in
+      contrast with Cyrus, whom they regarded as a &ldquo;father,&rdquo; because, as
+      Herodotus says, he was &ldquo;harsh and reckless,&rdquo; whereas his father was mild
+      and beneficent. Further, there was the religious aspect of the revolution,
+      which had taken place, in the background. Cambyses may have known that in
+      the ranks of his army there was much sympathy with Magism, and may have
+      doubted whether, if the whole conspiracy were laid bare, he could count on
+      anything like a general adhesion of his troops to the Zoroastrian cause.
+      These various grounds, taken together, go far towards accounting for a
+      suicide which at first sight strikes us as extraordinary, and is indeed
+      almost unparalleled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the general character of Cambyses little more need be said. He was
+      brave, active, and energetic, like his father: but he lacked his father&rsquo;s
+      strategic genius, his prudence, and his fertility in resources. Born in
+      the purple, he was proud and haughty, careless of the feelings of others,
+      and impatient of admonition or remonstrance. His pride made him obstinate
+      in error; and his contempt of others led on naturally to harshness, and
+      perhaps even to cruelty. He is accused of &ldquo;habitual drunkenness,&rdquo; and was
+      probably not free from the intemperance which was a common Persian
+      failing; but there is not sufficient ground for believing that his
+      indulgence was excessive, much less that it proceeded to the extent of
+      affecting his reason. The &ldquo;madness of Cambyses,&rdquo; reported to and believed
+      in by Herodotus, was a fiction of the Egyptian priests, who wished it to
+      be thought that their gods had in this way punished his impiety. The
+      Persians had no such tradition, but merely regarded him as unduly severe
+      and selfish. A dispassionate consideration of all the evidence on the
+      subject leads to the conclusion that Cambyses lived and died in the
+      possession of his reason, having neither destroyed it through inebriety
+      nor lost it by the judgment of Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The death of Cambyses (B.C. 522) left the conspirators, who had possession
+      of the capital, at liberty to develop their projects, and to take such
+      steps as they thought best for the consolidation and perpetuation of their
+      power. The position which they occupied was one of peculiar delicacy. On
+      the one hand, the impostor had to guard against acting in any way which
+      would throw suspicion on his being really Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. On
+      the other, he had to satisfy the Magian priests, to whom he was well
+      known, and on whom he mainly depended for support, if his imposture should
+      be detected. These priests must have desired a change of the national
+      religion, and to effect this must have been the true aim and object of the
+      revolution. But it was necessary to proceed with the utmost caution. An
+      open proclamation that Magism was to supersede Zoroastrianism would have
+      seemed a strange act in an Achaemenian prince, and could scarcely have
+      failed to arouse doubts which might easily terminate in discovery. The
+      Magian brothers shrank from affronting this peril, and resolved, before
+      approaching it, to obtain for the new government an amount of general
+      popularity which would make its overthrow in fair fight difficult.
+      Accordingly the new reign was inaugurated by a general remission of
+      tribute and military service for the space of three years&mdash;a measure
+      which was certain to give satisfaction to all the tribes and nations of
+      the Empire, except the Persians. Persia Proper was at all times exempt
+      from tribute, and was thus, so far, unaffected by the boon granted, while
+      military service was no doubt popular with the ruling nation, for whose
+      benefit the various conquests were effected. Still Persia could scarcely
+      take umbrage at an inactivity which was to last only three years, while to
+      the rest of the Empire the twofold grace accorded must have been
+      thoroughly acceptable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Further to confirm his uncertain hold upon the throne, the Pseudo-Smerdis
+      took to wife all the widows of his predecessor. This is a practice common
+      in the East; and there can be no doubt that it gives a new monarch a
+      certain prestige in the eyes of his people. In the present case, however,
+      it involved a danger. The wives of the late king were likely to be
+      acquainted with the person of the king&rsquo;s brother; Atossa, at any rate,
+      could not fail to know him intimately. If the Magus allowed them to
+      associate together freely, according to the ordinary practice, they would
+      detect his imposture and probably find a way to divulge it. He therefore
+      introduced a new system into the seraglio. Instead of the free intercourse
+      one with another which the royal consorts had enjoyed previously, he
+      established at once the principle of complete isolation. Each wife was
+      assigned her own portion of the palace; and no visiting of one wife by
+      another was permitted. Access to them from without was altogether
+      forbidden, even to their nearest relations; and the wives were thus cut
+      off wholly from the external world, unless they could manage to
+      communicate with it by means of secret messages. But precautions of this
+      kind, though necessary, were in themselves suspicious; they naturally
+      suggested an inquiry into their cause and object. It was a possible
+      explanation of them that they proceeded from an extreme and morbid
+      jealousy; but the thought could not fail to occur to some that they might
+      be occasioned by the fear of detection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, as time went on, and no discovery was actually made, the Magus
+      grew bolder, and ventured to commence that reformation of religion which
+      he and his order had so much at heart. He destroyed the Zoroastrian
+      temples in various places, and seems to have put down the old worship,
+      with its hymns in praise of the Zoroastrian deities. He instituted Magian
+      rites in lieu of the old ceremonies, and established his brother Magians
+      as the priest-caste of the Persian nation. The changes introduced were no
+      doubt satisfactory to the Medes, and to many of the subject races
+      throughout the Empire. They were even agreeable to a portion of the
+      Persian people, who leant towards a more material worship and a more
+      gorgeous ceremonial than had contented their ancestors. If the faithful
+      worshippers of Ormazd saw them with dismay, they were too timid to resist,
+      and tacitly acquiesced in the religious revolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one remote province the change gave a fresh impulse to a religious
+      struggle which was there going on, adding strength to the side of
+      intolerance. The Jews had now been engaged for fifteen or sixteen years in
+      the restoration of their temple, according to the permission granted them
+      by Cyrus. Their enterprise was distasteful to the neighboring Samaritans,
+      who strained every nerve to prevent its being brought to a successful
+      issue, and as each new king mounted the Persian throne, made a fresh
+      effort to have the work stopped by authority. Their representations had
+      had no effect upon Cambyses; but when they were repeated on the accession
+      of the Pseudo-Smerdis, the result was different. An edict was at once sent
+      down to Palestine, reversing the decree of Cyrus, and authorizing the
+      inhabitants of Samaria to interfere forcibly in the matter, and compel the
+      Jews to desist from building. Armed with this decree, the Samaritan
+      authorities hastened to Jerusalem, and &ldquo;made the Jews to cease by force
+      and power.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These revelations of a leaning towards a creed diverse from that of the
+      Achaemenian princes, combined with the system of seclusion adopted in the
+      palace&mdash;a system not limited to the seraglio, but extending also to
+      the person of the monarch, who neither quitted the palace precincts
+      himself, nor allowed any of the Persian nobles to enter them&mdash;must
+      have turned the suspicions previously existing into a general belief and
+      conviction that the monarch seated on the throne was not Smerdis the son
+      of Cyrus, but an impostor. Yet still there was for a while no outbreak. It
+      mattered nothing to the provincials who ruled them, provided that order
+      was maintained, and that the boons granted them at the opening of the new
+      reign were not revoked or modified. Their wishes were no doubt in favor of
+      the prince who had remitted their burthens; and in Media a peculiar
+      sympathy would exist towards one who had exalted Magism. Such discontent
+      as was felt would be confined to Persia, or to Persia and a few provinces
+      of the north-east, where the Zoroastrian faith may have maintained itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, among the chief Persians, rumors began to arise. These were
+      sternly repressed at the outset, and a reign of terror was established,
+      during which men remained silent through fear. But at length some of the
+      principal nobles, convinced of the imposture, held secret council
+      together, and discussed the measures proper to be adopted under the
+      circumstances. Nothing, however, was done until the arrival at the capital
+      of a personage felt by all to be the proper leader of the nation in the
+      existing crisis. This was Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a prince of the
+      blood royal who probably stood in the direct line of the succession,
+      failing the issue of Cyrus. At the early age of twenty he had attracted
+      the attention of that monarch, who suspected him even then of a design to
+      seize the throne. He was now about twenty-eight years of age, and
+      therefore at a time of life suited for vigorous enterprise; which was
+      probably the reason why his father, Hystaspes, who was still alive, sent
+      him to the capital, instead of proceeding thither in person. Youth and
+      vigor were necessary qualifications for success in a struggle against the
+      holders of power; and Hystaspes no longer possessed those advantages. He
+      therefore yielded to his son that headship of the movement to which his
+      position would have entitled him; and, with the leadership in danger, he
+      yielded necessarily his claim to the first place, when the time of peril
+      should be past and the rewards of victory should come to be apportioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius, on his arrival at the capital, was at once accepted as head of the
+      conspiracy, and with prudent boldness determined on pushing matters to an
+      immediate decision. Overruling the timidity of a party among the
+      conspirators, who urged delay, he armed his partisans, and proceeded,
+      without a moment&rsquo;s pause, to the attack. According to the Greek
+      historians, he and his friends entered the palace in a body, and surprised
+      the Magus in his private apartments, where they slew him after a brief
+      struggle. But the authority of Darius discredits the Greek accounts, and
+      shows us, though with provoking brevity, that the course of events must
+      have been very different. The Magus was not slain in the privacy of his
+      palace, at Susa or Ecbatana, but met his death in a small and
+      insignificant fort in the part of Media called &ldquo;the Maesan plain,&rdquo; or,
+      more briefly, &ldquo;Nisaea,&rdquo; whither he appears to have fled with a band of
+      followers. Whether he was first attacked in the capital, and escaping
+      threw himself into this stronghold, or receiving timely warning of his
+      danger withdrew to it before the outbreak occurred, or merely happened to
+      be at the spot when the conspirators decided to make their attempt, we
+      have no means of determining. We only know that the scene of the last
+      struggle was Sictachotes, in Media; that Darius made the attack
+      accompanied by six Persian nobles of high rank; and that the contest
+      terminated in the slaughter of the Magus and of a number of his adherents,
+      who were involved in the fall of their master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor did the vengeance of the successful conspirators stop here. Speeding
+      to the capital, with the head of the Magus in their hands, and exhibiting
+      everywhere this proof at once of the death of the late king and of his
+      imposture, they proceeded to authorize and aid in carrying out, a general
+      massacre of the Magian priests, the abettors of the later usurpation.
+      Every Magus who could be found was poniarded by the enraged Persians; and
+      the caste would have been well-nigh exterminated, if it had not been for
+      the approach of night. Darkness brought the carnage to an end; and the
+      sword, once sheathed, was not again drawn. Only, to complete the
+      punishment of the ambitious religionists who had insulted and deceived the
+      nation, the day of the massacre was appointed to be kept annually as a
+      solemn festival, under the name of the Magophonia; and a law was passed
+      that on that day no Magus should leave his house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The accession of Darius to the vacant throne now took place (Jan. 1, B.C.
+      521). According to Herodotus it was preceded by a period of debate and
+      irresolution, during which the royal authority was, as it were, in
+      commission among the Seven; and in this interval he places not only the
+      choice of a king, but an actual discussion on the subject of the proper
+      form of government to be established. Even his contemporaries, however,
+      could see that this last story was unworthy of credit and it may be
+      questioned whether any more reliance ought to be placed on the remainder
+      of the narrative. Probably the true account of the matter is, that, having
+      come to a knowledge of the facts of the case, the heads of the seven great
+      Persian clans or families met together in secret conclave and arranged all
+      their proceedings beforehand. No government but the monarchical could be
+      thought of for a moment, and no one could assert any claim to be king but
+      Darius. Darius went into the conspiracy as a pretender to the throne: the
+      other six were simply his &ldquo;faithful men,&rdquo; his friends and well-wishers.
+      While, however, the six were far from disputing Darius&rsquo;s right, they
+      required and received for themselves a guarantee of certain privileges,
+      which may either have belonged to them previously, by law or custom, as
+      the heads of the great clans, or may have been now for the first time
+      conceded. The king-bound himself to choose his wives from among the
+      families of the conspirators only, and sanctioned their claim to have free
+      access to his person at all times without asking his permission. One of
+      their number, Otanes, demanded and obtained even more. He and his house
+      were to remain &ldquo;free,&rdquo; and were to receive yearly a magnificent kaftan, or
+      royal present. Thus, something like a check on unbridled despotism was
+      formally and regularly established; an hereditary nobility was
+      acknowledged; the king became to some extent dependent on his grandees; he
+      could not regard himself as the sole fountain of honor; six great nobles
+      stood round the throne as its supports; but their position was so near the
+      monarch that they detracted somewhat from his prestige and dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The guarantee of these privileges was, we may be sure, given, and the
+      choice of Darius as king made, before the attack upon the. Magus began. It
+      would have been madness to allow an interval of anarchy. When Darius
+      reached the capital, with the head of the Pseudo-Smerdis in his
+      possession, he no doubt proceeded at once to the palace and took his seat
+      upon the vacant throne. No opposition was offered to him. The Persians
+      gladly saw a scion of their old royal stock installed in power. The
+      provincials were too far off to interfere. Such malcontents as might be
+      present would be cowed by the massacre that was going on in the streets.
+      The friends and intimates of the fallen monarch would be only anxious to
+      escape notice. The reign of the new king no doubt commenced amid those
+      acclamations which are never wanting in the East when a sovereign first
+      shows himself to his subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The measures with which the new monarch inaugurated his reign had for
+      their object the re-establishment of the old worship. He rebuilt the
+      Zoroastrian temples which the Magus had destroyed, and probably restored
+      the use of the sacred chants and the other accustomed ceremonies. It may
+      be suspected that his religious zeal proceeded often to the length of
+      persecution, and that the Magian priests were not the only persons who,
+      under the orders which he issued, felt the weight of the secular arm. His
+      Zoroastrian zeal was soon known through the provinces; and the Jews
+      forthwith resumed the building of their temple, trusting that their
+      conduct would be consonant with his wishes. This trust was not misplaced:
+      for, when the Samaritans once more interfered and tried to induce the new
+      king to put a stop to the work, the only result was a fresh edict,
+      confirming the old decree of Cyrus, forbidding interference, and assigning
+      a further grant of money, cattle, corn, etc., from the royal stores, for
+      the furtherance of the pious undertaking. Its accomplishment was declared
+      to be for the advantage of the king and his house, since, when the temple
+      was finished, sacrifices would be offered in it to &ldquo;the God of Heaven,&rdquo;
+       and prayer would be made &ldquo;for the life of the king and of his sons.&rdquo; Such
+      was the sympathy which still united pure Zoroastrianism with the worship
+      of Jehovah. But the reign, which, so far, might have seemed to be
+      auspiciously begun, was destined ere long to meet opposition, and even to
+      encounter armed hostility, in various quarters. In the loosely organized
+      empires of the early type, a change of sovereign, especially if
+      accompanied by revolutionary violence, is always regarded as an
+      opportunity for rebellion. Doubt as to the condition of the capital
+      paralyzes the imperial authority in the provinces; and bold men, taking
+      advantage of the moment of weakness, start up in various places, asserting
+      independence, and seeking to obtain for themselves kingdoms out of the
+      chaos which they see around them. The more remote provinces are especially
+      liable to be thus affected, and often revolt successfully on such an
+      occasion. It appears that the circumstances under which Darius obtained
+      the throne were more than usually provocative of the spirit of
+      disaffection and rebellion. Not only did the governors of remote
+      countries, like Egypt and Lydia, assume an attitude incompatible with
+      their duty as subjects, but everywhere, even in the very heart of the
+      Empire, insurrection raised its head; and for six long years the new king
+      was constantly employed in reducing one province after another to
+      obedience. Susiana, Babylonia, Persia itself, Media, Assyria, Armenia,
+      Hyrcania, Parthia, Margiana, Sagartia, and Sacia, all revolted during this
+      space, and were successively chastised and recovered. It may be suspected
+      that the religious element entered into some of these struggles, and that
+      the unusual number of the revolts and the obstinate character of many of
+      them were connected with the downfall of Magism and the restoration of the
+      pure Zoroastrian faith, which Darius was bent on effecting. But this
+      explanation can only be applied partially. We must suppose, besides, a
+      sort of contagion of rebellion&mdash;an awakening of hopes, far and wide,
+      among the subject nations, as the rumor that serious troubles had broken
+      out reached them, and a resolution to take advantage of the critical state
+      of things, spreading rapidly from one people to another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A brief sketch of these various revolts must now be given. They commenced
+      with a rising in Susiana, where a certain Atrines assumed the name and
+      state of king, and was supported by the people. Almost simultaneously a
+      pretender appeared in Babylon, who gave out that he was the son of the
+      late king, Nabonidus, and bore the world-renowned name of Nebuchadnezzar.
+      Darius, regarding this second revolt as the more important of the two,
+      while he dispatched a force to punish the Susianians, proceeded in person
+      against the Babylonian pretender. The rivals met at the river Tigris,
+      which the Babylonians held with a naval force, while their army was posted
+      on the right bank, ready to dispute the passage. Darius, however, crossed
+      the river in their dispute, and, defeating the troops of his antagonist,
+      pressed forward against the capital. He had nearly reached it, when the
+      pretender gave him battle for the second time at a small town on the banks
+      of the Euphrates. Fortune again declared in favor of the Persians, who
+      drove the host of their enemy into the water and destroyed great numbers.
+      The soi-disant Nebuchadnezzar escaped with a few horsemen and threw
+      himself into Babylon; but the city was ill prepared for a siege, and was
+      soon taken, the pretender falling into the hands of his enemy, who caused
+      him to be executed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, in Susiana, Atrines, the original leader of the rebellion, had
+      been made prisoner by the troops sent against him, and, being brought to
+      Darius while he was on his march against Babylon, was put to death. But
+      this severity had little effect. A fresh leader appeared in the person of
+      a certain Martes, a Persian who, taking example from the Babylonian rebel,
+      assumed a name which connected him with the old kings of the country, and
+      probably claimed to be their descendant, but the hands of Darius were now
+      free by the termination of the Babylonian contest, and he was able to
+      proceed towards Susiana himself. This movement, apparently, was
+      unexpected; for when the Susianians heard of it they were so alarmed that
+      they laid hands on the pretender and slew him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A more important rebellion followed. Three of the chief provinces of the
+      empire, Media, Armenia, and Assyria, revolted in concert. A Median monarch
+      was set up, who called himself Xathrites, and claimed descent from the
+      great Oyaxares; and it would seem that the three countries immediately
+      acknowledged his sway. Darius, seeing how formidable the revolt was,
+      determined to act with caution. Settling himself at the newly-conquered
+      city of Babylon, he resolved to employ his generals against the rebels,
+      and in this way to gauge the strength of the outbreak, before adventuring
+      his own person into the fray. Hydarnes, one of the Seven conspirators, was
+      sent into Media with an army, while Dadarses, an Armenian, was dispatched
+      into Armenia, and Vomises, a Persian, was ordered to march through Assyria
+      into the same country. All three generals were met by the forces of the
+      pretender, and several battles were fought, with results that seem not to
+      have been very decisive. Darius claims the victory on each occasion for
+      his own generals; but it is evident that his arms made little progress,
+      and that, in spite of several small defeats, the rebellion maintained a
+      bold front, and was thought not unlikely to be successful. So strong was
+      this feeling that two of the eastern provinces, Hyrcania and Parthia,
+      deserted the Persian cause in the midst of the struggle, and placed
+      themselves under the rule of Xathrites. Either this circumstance, or the
+      general position of affairs, induced Darius at length to take the field in
+      person. Quitting Babylon, he marched into Media, and being met by the
+      pretender near a town called Kudrus, he defeated him in a great battle.
+      This is no doubt the engagement of which Herodotus speaks, and which he
+      rightly regards as decisive. The battle of Kudrus gave Ecbatana into the
+      hands of Darius, and made the Median prince an outcast and a fugitive. He
+      fled towards the East, probably intending to join his partisans in
+      Hyrcania and Parthia, but was overtaken in the district of Rhages and made
+      prisoner by the troops of Darius. The king treated his captive with
+      extreme severity. Having cut off his nose, ears, and tongue, he kept him
+      for some time chained to the door of his palace, in order that there might
+      be no doubt of his capture. When this object had been sufficiently
+      secured, the wretched sufferer was allowed to end his miserable existence.
+      He was crucified in his capital city, Ecbatana, before the eyes of those
+      who had seen his former glory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rebellion was thus crushed in its original seat, but it had still to
+      be put down in the countries whereto it had extended itself. Parthia and
+      Hyrcania, which had embraced the cause of the pretender, were still
+      maintaining a conflict with their former governor, Hystaspes, Darius&rsquo;s
+      father. Darius marched as far as Rhages to his father&rsquo;s assistance, and
+      dispatched from that point a body of Persian troops to reinforce him. With
+      this important aid Hystaspes once more gave the rebels battle, and
+      succeeded in defeating them so entirely that they presently made their
+      submission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Troubles, meanwhile, had broken out in Sagartia. A native chief, moved
+      probably by the success which had for a while attended the Median rebel
+      who claimed to rule as the descendant and representative of Cyaxares, came
+      forward with similar pretensions, and was accepted by the Sargartians as
+      their monarch. This revolt, however, proved unimportant. Darius suppressed
+      it with the utmost facility by means of a mixed army of Persians and
+      Medes, whom he placed under a Median leader, Tachamaspates. The pretender
+      was captured and treated almost exactly in the same way as the Mede whose
+      example he had followed. His nose and ears were cut off; he was chained
+      for a while at the palace door; and finally he was crucified at Arbela.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another trifling revolt occurred about the same time in Margiana. The
+      Margians rebelled and set up a certain Phraates, a native, to be their
+      king. But the satrap of Bactria, within whose province Margiana lay,
+      quelled the revolt almost immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hitherto, however thickly troubles had come upon him, Darius could have
+      the satisfaction of feeling that he was contending with foreigners, and
+      that his own nation at any rate was faithful and true. But now this
+      consolation was to be taken from him. During his absence in the provinces
+      of the north-east Persia itself revolted against his authority, and
+      acknowledged for king an impostor, who, undeterred by the fate of Gomates,
+      and relying on the obscurity which still hung over the end of the real
+      Smerdis, assumed his name, and claimed to be the legitimate occupant of
+      the throne. The Persians at home were either deceived a second time, or
+      were willing to try a change of ruler; but the army of Darius, composed of
+      Persians and Medes, adhered to the banner under which they had so often
+      marched to victory, and enabled Darius, after a struggle of some duration,
+      to re-establish his sway. The impostor suffered two defeats at the hands
+      of Artabardes, one of Darius&rsquo;s generals, while a force which he had
+      detached to excite rebellion in Arachosia was engaged by the satrap of
+      that province and completely routed. The so-called Smerdis was himself
+      captured, and suffered the usual penalty of unsuccessful revolt,
+      crucifixion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before, however, these results were accomplished&mdash;while the fortune
+      of war still hung in the balance&mdash;a fresh danger threatened.
+      Encouraged by the disaffection which appeared to be so general, and which
+      had at length reached the very citadel of the Empire, Babylon revolted for
+      the second time. A man, named Aracus, an Armenian by descent, but settled
+      in Babylonia, headed the insurrection, and, adopting the practice of
+      personation so usual at the time, assumed the name and style of
+      &ldquo;Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus.&rdquo; Less alarmed on this occasion than at
+      the time of the first revolt, the king was content to send a Median
+      general against the new pretender. This officer, who is called Intaphres,
+      speedily chastised the rebels, capturing Babylon, and taking Aracus
+      prisoner. Crucifixion was again the punishment awarded to the rebel
+      leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A season of comparative tranquillity seems now to have set in; and it may
+      have been in this interval that Darius found time to chastise the remoter
+      governors, who without formally declaring themselves independent, or
+      assuming the title of king, had done acts savoring of rebellion. Oroetes,
+      the governor of Sardis, who had comported himself strangely even under
+      Cambyses, having ventured to entrap and put to death an ally of that
+      monarch&rsquo;s, Polycrates of Samos, had from the time of the Magian revolution
+      assumed an attitude quite above that of a subject. Having a quarrel with
+      Mitrobates, the governor of a neighboring province, he murdered him and
+      annexed his territory. When Darius sent a courier to him with a message
+      the purport of which he disliked, he set men to waylay and assassinate
+      him. It was impossible to overlook such acts; and Darius must have sent an
+      army into Asia Minor, if one of his nobles had not undertaken to remove
+      Oroetes in another way. Arming himself with several written orders bearing
+      the king&rsquo;s seal, he went to Sardis, and gradually tried the temper of the
+      guard which the satrap kept round his person. When he found them full of
+      respect for the royal authority and ready to do whatever the king
+      commanded, he produced an order for the governor&rsquo;s execution, which they
+      carried into effect immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The governor of Egypt, Aryandes, had shown a guilty ambition in a more
+      covert way. Understanding that Darius had issued a gold coinage of
+      remarkable purity, he, on his own authority and without consulting the
+      king, issued a silver coinage of a similar character. There is reason to
+      believe that he even placed his name upon his coins; an act which to the
+      Oriental mind distinctly implied a claim of independent sovereignty.
+      Darius taxed him with a design to revolt, and put him to death on the
+      charge, apparently without exciting any disturbance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still, however, the Empire was not wholly tranquillized. A revolt in
+      Susiana, suppressed by the conspirator Gobryas, and another among the
+      Sacse of the Tigris, quelled by Darius in person, are recorded on the rock
+      of Behistun, in a supplementary portion of the Inscription. We cannot
+      date, unless it be by approximation, these various troubles; but there is
+      reason to believe that they were almost all contained within a space not
+      exceeding five or six years. The date of the Behistun Inscription is fixed
+      by internal evidence to about B.C. 516-515&mdash;in other words, to the
+      fifth or sixth year of the reign of Darius. Its erection seems to mark the
+      termination of the first period of the reign, or that of disturbance, and
+      the commencement of the second period, or that of tranquillity, internal
+      progress, and patronage of the fine arts by the monarch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was natural that Darius, having with so much effort and difficulty
+      reduced the revolted provinces to obedience, should proceed to consider
+      within himself how the recurrence of such a time of trouble might be
+      prevented. His experience had shown him how weak were the ties which had
+      hitherto been thought sufficient to hold the Empire together, and how
+      slight an obstacle they opposed to the tendency, which all great empires
+      have, to disruption. But, however natural it might be to desire a remedy
+      for the evils which afflicted the State, it was not easy to devise one.
+      Great empires had existed in Western Asia for above seven hundred years,
+      and had all suffered more or less from the same inherent weakness; but no
+      one had as yet invented a cure, or even (so far as appears) conceived the
+      idea of improving on the rude system of imperial sway which the first
+      conqueror had instituted. It remained for Darius, not only to desire, but
+      to design&mdash;not only to design, but to bring into action&mdash;an
+      entirely new form and type of government. He has been well called &ldquo;the
+      true founder of the Persian state.&rdquo; He found the Empire a crude and
+      heterogeneous mass of ill-assorted elements, hanging loosely together by
+      the single tie of subjection to a common head; he left it a compact and
+      regularly organized body, united on a single well-ordered system,
+      permanently established everywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the nature and details of this system it will be necessary to speak at
+      some length. It was the first, and probably the best, instance of that
+      form of government which, taking its name from the Persian word for
+      provincial ruler, is known generally as the system of &ldquo;satrapial&rdquo;
+       administration. Its main principles were, in the first place, the
+      reduction of the whole Empire to a quasi-uniformity by the substitution of
+      one mode of governing for several; secondly, the substitution of fixed and
+      definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable and uncertain calls;
+      and thirdly, the establishment of a variety of checks and counterpoises
+      among the officials to whom it was necessary that the crown should
+      delegate its powers, which tended greatly to the security of the monarch
+      and the stability of the kingdom. A consideration of the modes in which
+      these three principles were applied will bring before us in a convenient
+      form the chief points of the system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Uniformity, or a near approach to it, was produced, not so much by the
+      abolition of differences as by superadding one and the same governmental
+      machinery in all parts of the Empire. It is an essential feature of the
+      satrapial system that it does not aim at destroying differences, or
+      assimilating to one type the various races and countries over which it is
+      extended. On the contrary, it allows, and indeed encourages, the several
+      nations to retain their languages, habits, manners, religion, laws, and
+      modes of local government. Only it takes care to place above all these
+      things a paramount state authority, which is one and the same everywhere,
+      whereon the unity of the kingdom is dependent. The authority instituted by
+      Darius was that of his satraps. He divided the whole empire into a number
+      of separate governments&mdash;a number which must have varied at different
+      times, but which seems never to have fallen short of twenty. Over each
+      government he placed a satrap, or supreme civil governor, charged with the
+      collection and transmission of the revenue, the administration of justice,
+      the maintenance of order, and the general supervision of the territory.
+      These satraps were nominated by the king at his pleasure from any class of
+      his subjects, and held office for no definite term, but simply until
+      recalled, being liable to deprivation or death at any moment, without
+      other formality than the presentation of the royal firman. While, however,
+      they remained in office they were despotic&mdash;they represented the
+      Great King, and were clothed with a portion of his majesty&mdash;they had
+      palaces, Courts, body-guards, parks or &ldquo;paradises,&rdquo; vast trains of eunuchs
+      and attendants, well-filled, seraglios. They wielded the power of life and
+      death. They assessed the tribute on the several towns and villages within
+      their jurisdiction at their pleasure, and appointed deputies&mdash;called
+      sometimes, like themselves, satraps&mdash;over cities or districts within
+      their province, whose office was regarded as one of great dignity. They
+      exacted from the provincials, for their own support and that of their
+      Court, over and above the tribute due to the crown, whatever sum they
+      regarded them as capable of furnishing. Favors, and even justice, had to
+      be purchased from them by gifts. They were sometimes guilty of gross
+      outrages on the persons and honor of their subjects. Nothing restrained
+      their tyranny but such sense of right as they might happen to possess, and
+      the fear of removal or execution if the voice of complaint reached the
+      monarch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides this uniform civil administration, the Empire was pervaded
+      throughout by one and the same military system. The services of the
+      subject nations as soldiers were, as a general rule, declined, unless upon
+      rare and exceptional cases. Order was maintained by large and numerous
+      garrisons of foreign troops&mdash;Persians and Medes&mdash;quartered on
+      the inhabitants, who had little sympathy with those among whom they lived,
+      and would be sure to repress sternly any outbreak. All places of much
+      strength were occupied in this way; and special watch was kept upon the
+      great capitals, which were likely to be centres of disaffection. Thus a
+      great standing army, belonging to the conquering race, stood everywhere on
+      guard throughout the Empire, offending the provincials no doubt by their
+      pride, their violence, and their contemptuous bearing, but rendering a
+      native revolt under ordinary circumstances hopeless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some exceptions to the general uniformity had almost of necessity to be
+      made in so vast and heterogeneous an empire as the Persian. Occasionally
+      it was thought wise to allow the continuance of a native dynasty in a
+      province; and the satrap had in such a case to share with the native
+      prince a divided authority. This was certainly the case in Cilicia, and
+      probably in Paphlagonia and Phoenicia. Tribes also, included within the
+      geographical limits of a satrapy, were sometimes recognized as
+      independent; and petty wars were carried on between these hordes and their
+      neighbors. Robber bands in many places infested the mountains, owing no
+      allegiance to any one, and defied alike the satrap and the standing army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The condition of Persia Proper was also purely exceptional. Persia paid no
+      tribute, and was not counted as a satrapy. Its inhabitants were, however,
+      bound, when the king passed through their country, to bring him gifts
+      according to their means. This burthen may have been felt sensibly by the
+      rich, but it pressed very lightly on the poor, who, if they could not
+      afford an ox or a sheep, might bring a little milk or cheese, a few dates,
+      or a handful of wild fruit. On the other hand, the king was bound,
+      whenever he visited Pasargadae, to present to each Persian woman who
+      appeared before him a sum equal to twenty Attic drachmas, or about sixteen
+      shillings of our money. This custom commemorated the service rendered by
+      the sex in the battle wherein Cyrus first repulsed the forces of Astyages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The substitution of definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable
+      and uncertain charges was aimed at, rather than effected, by the new
+      arrangement of the revenue which is associated with the name of Darius.
+      This arrangement consisted in fixing everywhere the amount of tribute in
+      money and in kind which each satrapy was to furnish to the crown. A
+      definite money payment, varying, in ordinary satrapies, from 170 to 1000
+      Babylonian silver talents,330 or from L42,000. to L250,000. of our money,
+      and amounting, in the exceptional case of the Indian satrapy, to above a
+      million sterling, was required annually by the sovereign, and had to be
+      remitted by the satrap to the capital. Besides this, a payment, the nature
+      and amount of which was also fixed, had to be made in kind, each province
+      being required to furnish that commodity, or those commodities, for which
+      it was most celebrated. This latter burthen must have pressed very
+      unequally on different portions of the Empire, if the statement of
+      Herodotus be true that Babylonia and Assyria paid one-third of it. The
+      payment seems to have been very considerable in amount. Egypt had to
+      supply grain sufficient for the nutriment of 120,000 Persian troops
+      quartered in the country. Media had to contribute 100,000 sheep, 4000
+      mules, and 3000 horses; Cappadocia, half the above number of each kind of
+      animal; Armenia furnished 20,000 colts; Cilicia gave 360 white horses and
+      a sum of 140 talents (L35,000.) in lieu of further tribute in kind.
+      Babylonia, besides corn, was required to furnish 500 boy eunuchs. These
+      charges, however, were all fixed by the crown, and may have been taken
+      into consideration in assessing the money payment, the main object of the
+      whole arrangement evidently being to make the taxation of each province
+      proportionate to its wealth and resources.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The assessment of the taxation upon the different portions of his province
+      was left to the satrap. We do not know on what principles he ordinarily
+      proceeded, or whether any uniform principles at all were observed
+      throughout the Empire. But we find some evidence that, in places at least,
+      the mode of exaction and collection was by a land-tax. The assessment upon
+      individuals, and the actual collection from them, devolved, in all
+      probability, on the local authorities, who distributed the burthen imposed
+      upon their town, village, or district as they thought proper. Thus the
+      foreign oppressor did not come into direct contact with the mass of the
+      conquered people, who no doubt paid the calls made upon them with less
+      reluctance through the medium of their own proper magistrates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the taxation of the subject had stopped here, he would have had no just
+      ground of complaint against his rulers. The population of the Empire
+      cannot be estimated at less than forty millions of souls. The highest
+      estimate of the value of the entire tribute, both in money and kind, will
+      scarcely place it at more than ten millions sterling. Thus far, then, the
+      burthen of taxation would certainly not have exceeded five shillings a
+      head per annum. Perhaps it would not have reached half that amount. But,
+      unhappily, neither was the tribute the sole tax which the crown exacted
+      from its subjects, nor had the crown the sole right of exacting taxation.
+      Persian subjects in many parts of the Empire paid, besides their tribute,
+      a water-rate, which is expressly said to have been very productive. The
+      rivers of the Empire were the king&rsquo;s; and when water was required for
+      irrigation, a state officer superintended the opening of the sluices, and
+      regulated the amount of the precious fluid which might be drawn off by
+      each tribe or township. For the opening of the sluices a large sum was
+      paid to the officer, which found its way into the coffers of the state.
+      Further, it appears that such things as fisheries&mdash;and if so,
+      probably salt-works, mines, quarries, and forests&mdash;were regarded as
+      crown property, and yielded large sums to the revenue. They appear to have
+      been farmed to responsible persons, who undertook to pay at a certain
+      fixed rate, and made what profit they could by the transaction. The price
+      of commodities thus farmed would be greatly enhanced to the consumer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By these means the actual burthen of taxation upon the subject was
+      rendered to some extent uncertain and indefinite, and the benefits of the
+      fixed tribute system were diminished. But the chief drawback upon it has
+      still to be mentioned. While the claims of the crown upon its subjects
+      were definite and could not be exceeded, the satrap was at liberty to make
+      any exactions that he pleased beyond them. There is every reason to
+      believe that he received no stipend, and that, consequently, the burthen
+      of supporting him, his body-guard, and his Court was intended to fall on
+      the province which had the benefit of his superintendence. Like a Roman
+      proconsul, he was to pay himself out of the pockets of his subjects; and,
+      like that class of persons, he took care to pay himself highly. It has
+      been calculated that one satrap of Babylon drew from his province annually
+      in actual coin a sum equal to L100,000. of our money. We can scarcely
+      doubt that the claims made by the provincial governors were, on the
+      average, at least equal to those of the crown; and they had the
+      disadvantage of being irregular, uncertain, and purely arbitrary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, what was gained by the new system was not so much the relief of the
+      subject from uncertain taxation as the advantage to the crown of knowing
+      beforehand what the revenue would be, and being able to regulate its
+      expenditure accordingly. Still a certain amount of benefit did undoubtedly
+      accrue to the provincials from the system; since it gave them the crown
+      for their protector. So long as the payments made to the state were
+      irregular, it was, or at least seemed to be, for the interest of the crown
+      to obtain from each province as much as it could anyhow pay. When the
+      state dues were once fixed, as the crown gained nothing by the rapacity of
+      its officers, but rather lost, since the province became exhausted, it was
+      interested in checking greed, and seeing that the provinces were
+      administered by wise and good satraps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The control of its great officers is always the main difficulty of a
+      despotic government, when it is extended over a large space of territory
+      and embraces many millions of men. The system devised by Darius for
+      checking and controlling his satraps was probably the best that has ever
+      yet been brought into operation. His plan was to establish in every
+      province at least three officers holding their authority directly from the
+      crown, and only responsible to it, who would therefore act as checks one
+      upon another. These were the satrap, the military commandant, and the
+      secretary. The satrap was charged with the civil administration, and
+      especially with the department of finance. The commandant was supreme over
+      the troops. The office of the secretary is less clearly defined; but it
+      probably consisted mainly in keeping the Court informed by despatches of
+      all that went on in the province. Thus, if the satrap were inclined to
+      revolt, he had, in the first place, to persuade the commandant, who would
+      naturally think that, if he ran the risk, it might as well be for himself;
+      and, further, he had to escape the lynx eyes of the secretary, whose
+      general right of superintendence gave him entrance everywhere, and whose
+      prospects of advancement would probably depend a good deal upon the
+      diligence and success with which he discharged the office of &ldquo;King&rsquo;s Eye&rdquo;
+       and &ldquo;Ear.&rdquo; So, if the commandant were ambitious of independent sway, he
+      must persuade the satrap, or he would have no money to pay his troops; and
+      he too must blind the secretary, or else bribe him into silence. As for
+      the secretary, having neither men nor money at his command, it was
+      impossible that he should think of rebellion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the precautions taken against revolt did not end here. Once a year,
+      according to Xenophon, or more probably at irregular intervals, an officer
+      came suddenly down from the Court with a commission to inspect a province.
+      Such persons were frequently of royal rank, brothers or sons of the king.
+      They were accompanied by an armed force, and were empowered to correct
+      whatever was amiss in the province, and in case of necessity to report to
+      the crown the insubordination or incompetency of its officers. If this
+      system had been properly maintained, it is evident that it would have
+      acted as a most powerful check upon misgovernment, and would have rendered
+      revolt almost impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another mode by which it was sought to secure the fidelity of the satraps
+      and commandants was by choosing them from among the king&rsquo;s blood
+      relations, or else attaching them to the crown by marriage with one of the
+      princesses. It was thought that the affection of sons and brothers would
+      be a restraint upon their ambition, and that even connections by marriage
+      would feel that they had an interest in upholding the power and dignity of
+      the great house with which they had been thought worthy of alliance. This
+      system, which was entensively followed by Darius, had on the whole good
+      results, and was at any rate preferable to that barbarous policy of
+      prudential fratricide which has prevailed widely in Oriental governments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The system of checks, while it was effectual for the object at which it
+      specially aimed, had one great disadvantage. It weakened the hands of
+      authority in times of difficulty. When danger, internal or external,
+      threatened, it was an evil that the powers of government should be
+      divided, and the civil authority lodged in the hands of one officer, the
+      military in those of another. Concentration of power is needed for rapid
+      and decisive action, for unity of purpose, and secrecy both of plan and of
+      execution. These considerations led to a modification of the original idea
+      of satrapial government, which was adopted partially at first&mdash;in
+      provinces especially exposed to danger, internal or external&mdash;but
+      which ultimately became almost universal. The offices of satrap, or civil
+      administrator, and commandant, or commander of the troops, were vested in
+      the same person, who came in this way to have that full and complete
+      authority which is possessed by Turkish pashas and modern Persian khans or
+      beys&mdash;an authority practically uncontrolled. This system was
+      advantageous for the defence of a province against foes; but it was
+      dangerous to the stability of the Empire, since it led naturally to the
+      occurrence of formidable rebellions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two minor points in the scheme of Darius remain to be noticed, before this
+      account of his governmental system can be regarded as complete. These are
+      his institution of posts, and his coinage of money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Darius&rsquo;s idea of government was included rapidity of communication.
+      Regarding it as of the utmost importance that the orders of the Court
+      should be speedily transmitted to the provincial governors, and that their
+      reports and those of the royal secretaries should be received without
+      needless delay, he established along the lines of routes already existing
+      between the chief cities of the Empire a number of post-houses, placed at
+      regular intervals, according to the estimated capacity of a horse to
+      gallop at his best speed without stopping. At each post-house were
+      maintained, at the cost of the state, a number of couriers and several
+      relays of horses. When a despatch was to be forwarded it was taken to the
+      first post-house along the route, where a courier received it, and
+      immediately mounting on horseback galloped with it to the next station.
+      Here it was delivered to a new courier, who, mounted on a fresh horse,
+      took it the next stage on its journey; and thus it passed from hand to
+      hand till it reached its destination. According to Xenophon, the
+      messengers travelled by night as well as by day; and the conveyance was so
+      rapid that some even compared it to the flight of birds. Excellent inns or
+      caravanserais were to be found at every station; bridges or ferries were
+      established upon all the streams; guard-houses occurred here and there,
+      and the whole route was kept secure from the brigands who infested the
+      Empire. Ordinary travellers were glad to pursue so convenient a line of
+      march; it does not appear, however, that they could obtain the use of
+      post-horses even when the government was in no need of them. The coinage
+      of Darius consisted, it is probable, both of a gold and silver issue. It
+      is not perhaps altogether certain that he was the first king of Persia who
+      coined money; but, if the term &ldquo;daric&rdquo; is really derived from his name,
+      that alone would be a strong argument in favor of his claim to priority.
+      In any case, it is indisputable that he was the first Persian king who
+      coined on a large scale, and it is further certain that his gold coinage
+      was regarded in later times as of peculiar value on account of its purity.
+      His gold darics appear to have contained, on an average, not quite 124
+      grains of pure metal, which would make their value about twenty two
+      shillings of our money. They were of the type usual at the time both in
+      Lydia and in Greece&mdash;flattened lumps of metal, very thick in
+      comparison with the size of their surface, irregular, and rudely stamped.
+      The silver darics were similar in general character, but exceeded the gold
+      in size. Their weight was from 224 to 230 grains, and they would thus have
+      been worth not quite three shillings of our money. It does not appear that
+      any other kinds of coins besides these were ever issued from the Persian
+      mint. They must, therefore, it would seem, have satisfied the commercial
+      needs of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this review of the governmental system of Darius we must now return
+      to the actions of his later life. The history of an Oriental monarchy must
+      always be composed mainly of a series of biographies; for, as the monarch
+      is all in all in such communities, his sayings, doings, and character, not
+      only determine, but constitute, the annals of the State. In the second
+      period of his reign, that which followed on the time of trouble and
+      disturbance, Darius (as has been already observed) appears to have pursued
+      mainly the arts of peace. Bent on settling and consolidating his Empire,
+      he set up everywhere the satrapial form of government, organized and
+      established his posts, issued his coinage, watched over the administration
+      of justice, and in various ways exhibited a love of order and method, and
+      a genius for systematic arrangement. At the same time he devoted
+      considerable attention to ornamental and architectural works, to
+      sculpture, and to literary composition. He founded the royal palace at
+      Susa, which was the main residence of the later kings. At Persepolis he
+      certainly erected one very important building; and it is on the whole most
+      probable that he designed&mdash;if he did not live to execute&mdash;the
+      Chehl Minor itself&mdash;the chief of the magnificent structures upon the
+      great central platform. The massive platform itself, with its grand and
+      stately steps, is certainly of his erection, for it is inscribed with his
+      name. He gave his works all the solidity and strength that is derivable
+      from the use of huge blocks of a good hard material. He set the example of
+      ornamenting the stepped approached to a palace with elaborate bas-reliefs.
+      He designed and caused to be constructed in his own lifetime the rock-tomb
+      at Nakhsh-i-Rustam, in which his remains were afterwards laid. The
+      rock-sculpture at Behistun was also his work. In attention to the creation
+      of permanent historical records he excelled all the Persian kings, both
+      before him and after him. The great Inscription of Behistun has no
+      parallel in ancient times for length, finish, and delicacy of execution,
+      unless it be in Assyria or in Egypt. The only really historical
+      inscription at Persepolis is one set up by Darius. He was the only Persian
+      king, except perhaps one, who placed an inscription upon his tomb. The
+      later monarchs in their records do little more than repeat certain
+      religious phrases and certain forms of self-glorification which occur in
+      the least remarkable inscriptions of their great predecessor. He alone
+      oversteps those limits, and presents us with geographical notices and
+      narratives of events profoundly interesting to the historian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this period of comparative peace, which may have extended from
+      about B.C. 516 to B.C. 508 or 507, the general tranquillity was
+      interrupted by at least one important expedition. The administrational
+      merits of Darius are so great that they have obscured his military
+      glories, and have sent him down to posterity with the character of an
+      unwarlike monarch&mdash;if not a mere &ldquo;peddler,&rdquo; as his subjects said,
+      yet, at any rate, a mere consolidator and arranger. But the son of
+      Hystaspes was no carpet prince. He had not drawn the sword against his
+      domestic foes to sheath it finally and forever when his triumph over them
+      was completed. On the contrary, he regarded it as incumbent on him to
+      carry on the aggressive policy of Cyrus and Cambyses, his great
+      predecessors, and like them to extend in one direction or another the
+      boundaries of the Empire. Perhaps he felt that aggression was the very law
+      of the Empire&rsquo;s being, since if the military spirit was once allowed to
+      become extinct in the conquering nation, they would lose the sole
+      guarantee of their supremacy. At any rate, whatever his motive, we find
+      him, after he had snatched a brief interval of repose, engaging in great
+      wars both towards his eastern and his western frontier&mdash;wars which in
+      both instances had results of considerable importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first grand expedition was towards the East. Cyrus, as we have seen,
+      had extended the Persian sway over the mountains of Affghanistan and the
+      highlands from which flow the tributaries of the Upper Indus. From these
+      eminences the Persian garrisons looked down on a territory possessing
+      every quality that could attract a powerful conqueror. Fertile,
+      well-watered, rich in gold, peopled by an ingenious yet warlike race,
+      which would add strength no less than wealth to its subjugators, the
+      Punjab lay at the foot of the Sufeid Koh and Suliman ranges, inviting the
+      attack of those who could swoop down when they pleased upon the low
+      country. It was against this region that Darius directed his first great
+      aggressive effort. Having explored the course of the Indus from Attock to
+      the sea by means of boats, and obtained, we may suppose, in this way some
+      knowledge of the country and its inhabitants, he led or sent an expedition
+      into the tract, which in a short time succeeded in completely reducing it.
+      The Punjab, and probably the whole valley of the Indus, was annexed, and
+      remained subject till the later times of the Empire. The results of this
+      conquest were the acquisition of a brave race, capable of making excellent
+      soldiers, an enormous increase of the revenue, a sudden and vast influx of
+      gold into Persia, which led probably to the introduction of the gold
+      coinage, and the establishment of commercial relations with the natives,
+      which issued in a regular trade carried on by coasting-vessels between the
+      mouths of the Indus and the Persian Gulf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next important expedition&mdash;one probably of still greater
+      magnitude&mdash;took exactly the opposite direction. The sea which bounded
+      the Persian dominion to the west and the north-west narrowed in two places
+      to dimensions not much exceeding those of of the greater Asiatic rivers.
+      The eye which looked across the Thracian Bosphorus or the Hellespont
+      seemed to itself to be merely contemplating the opposite bank of a pretty
+      wide stream. Darius, consequently being master of Asia Minor, and
+      separated by what seemed to him so poor a barrier from fertile tracts of
+      vast and indeed indefinite extent, such as were nowhere else to be found
+      on the borders of his empire, naturally turned his thoughts of conquest to
+      this quarter. His immediate desire was, probably, to annex Thrace; but he
+      may have already entertained wider views, and have looked to embracing in
+      his dominions the lovely isles and coasts of Greece also, so making good
+      the former threats of Cyrus. The story of the voyage and escape of
+      Democedes, related by Herodotus with such amplitude of detail, and
+      confirmed to some extent from other sources, cannot be a mere myth without
+      historical foundation. Nor is it probable that the expedition was designed
+      merely for the purpose of &ldquo;indulging the exile with a short visit to his
+      native country,&rdquo; or of collecting &ldquo;interesting information.&rdquo; If by the
+      king&rsquo;s orders a vessel was fitted out at Sidon to explore the coasts of
+      Greece under the guidance of Democedes, which proceeded as far as Crotona
+      in Magna Grsecia, we may be tolerably sure that a political object lay at
+      the bottom of the enterprise. It would have exactly the same aim and end
+      as the eastern voyage of Scylax, and would be intended, like that, to pave
+      the way for a conquest. Darius was therefore, it would seem, already
+      contemplating the reduction of Greece Proper, and did not require to have
+      it suggested to him by any special provocation. Mentally, or actually,
+      surveying the map of the world, so far as it was known to him, he saw that
+      in this direction only there was an attractive country readily accessible.
+      Elsewhere his Empire abutted on seas, sandy deserts, or at best barren
+      steppes; here, and here only, was there a rich prize close at hand and (as
+      it seemed) only waiting to be grasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if the aggressive force of Persia was to be turned in this direction,
+      if the stream of conquest was to be set westward along the flanks of
+      Rhodope and Haemus, it was essential to success, and even to safety, that
+      the line of communication with Asia should remain intact. Now, there lay
+      on the right flank of an army marching into Europe a vast and formidable
+      power, known to be capable of great efforts, which, if allowed to feel
+      itself secure from attack, might be expected at any time to step in, to
+      break the line of communication between the east and west, and to bring
+      the Persians who should be engaged in conquering Pseonia, Macedonia, and
+      Greece, into imminent danger. It is greatly to the credit of Darius that
+      he saw this peril&mdash;saw it and took effectual measures to guard
+      against it. The Scythian expedition was no insane project of a frantic
+      despot, burning for revenge, or ambitious of an impossible conquest. It
+      has all the appearance of being a well-laid plan, conceived by a moderate
+      and wise prince, for the furtherance of a great design, and the permanent
+      advantage of his empire. The lord of South-Western Asia was well aware of
+      the existence beyond his northern frontier of a standing menace to his
+      power. A century had not sufficed to wipe out the recollection of that
+      terrible time when Scythian hordes had carried desolation far and wide
+      over the fairest of the regions that were now under the Persian dominion.
+      What had occurred once might recur. Possibly, as a modern author suggests,
+      &ldquo;the remembrance of ancient injuries may have been revived by recent
+      aggressions.&rdquo; It was at any rate essential to strike terror into the
+      hordes of the Steppe Region in order that Western Asia might attain a
+      sense of security. It was still more essential to do so if the north-west
+      was to become the scene of war, and the Persians were to make a vigorous
+      effort to establish themselves permanently in Europe. Scythia, it must be
+      remembered, reached to the banks of the Danube. An invader, who aspired to
+      the conquest even of Thrace, was almost forced into collision with her
+      next neighbor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius, having determined on his course, prefaced his expedition by a
+      raid, the object of which was undoubtedly to procure information. He
+      ordered Ariaramnes, satrap of Cappadocia, to cross the Euxine with a small
+      fleet, and, descending suddenly upon the Scythian coast, to carry off a
+      number of prisoners. Ariaramnes executed the commission skilfully, and was
+      so fortunate as to make prize of a native of high rank, the brother of a
+      Scythian chief or king. From this person and his companions the Persian
+      monarch was able to obtain all the information which he required. Thus
+      enlightened, he proceeded to make his preparations. Collecting a fleet of
+      600 ships, chiefly from the Greeks of Asia, and an army estimated at from
+      700,000 to 800,000 men, which was made up of contingents from all the
+      nations under his rule, he crossed the Bosphorus by a bridge of boats
+      constructed by Mandrocles a Samian; marched through Thrace along the line
+      of the Little Balkan, receiving the submission of the tribes as he went;
+      crossed the Great Balkan; conquered the Getae, who dwelt between that
+      range and the Danube; passed the Danube by a bridge, which the Ionian
+      Greeks had made with their vessels just above the apex of the Delta; and
+      so invaded Scythia. The natives had received intelligence of his approach,
+      and had resolved not to risk a battle. They retired as he advanced, and
+      endeavored to bring his army into difficulties by destroying the forage,
+      driving off the cattle, and filling in the wells. But the commissariat of
+      the Persians was, as usual, well arranged. Darius remained for more than
+      two months in Scythia without incurring any important losses. He succeeded
+      in parading before the eyes of the whole nation the immense military power
+      of his empire. He no doubt inflicted considerable damage on the hordes,
+      whose herds he must often have captured, and whose supplies of forage he
+      curtailed. It is difficult to say how far he penetrated. Herodotus was
+      informed that he marched east to the Tanais (Don), and thence north to the
+      country of the Budini, where he burnt the staple of Gelonus, which cannot
+      well have been below the fiftieth parallel, and was probably not far from
+      Voronej. It is certainly astonishing that he should have ventured so far
+      inland, and still more surprising that, having done so, he should have
+      returned with his army well-nigh intact. But we can scarcely suppose the
+      story that he destroyed the staple of the Greek trade a pure fiction. He
+      would be glad to leave his mark in the country, and might make an
+      extraordinary effort to reach the only town that was to be found in the
+      whole steppe region. Having effected his purpose by its destruction, he
+      would retire, falling back probably upon the coast, where he could obtain
+      supplies from his fleet. It is beyond dispute that he returned with the
+      bulk of his army, having suffered no loss but that of a few invalid troops
+      whom he sacrificed. Attempts had been made during his absence to induce
+      the Greeks, who guarded the bridge over the Danube, to break it, and so
+      hinder his return; but they were unsuccessful. Darius recrossed the river
+      after an interval of somewhat more than two months, victorious according
+      to his own notions, and regarded himself as entitled thenceforth to
+      enumerate among the subject races of his empire &ldquo;the Scyths beyond the
+      sea.&rdquo; On his return march through Thrace, he met, apparently, with no
+      opposition. Before passing the Bosphorus, he gave a commission to one of
+      his generals, a certain Megabazus, to complete the reduction of Thrace,
+      and assigned him for the purpose a body of 80,000 men, who remained in
+      Europe while Darius and the rest of his army crossed into Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Megabazus appears to have been fully worthy of the trust reposed in him.
+      In a single campaign (B.C. 506) he overran and subjugated the entire tract
+      between the Propontis and the Strymon, thus pushing forward the Persian
+      dominion to the borders of Macedonia. Among the tribes which he conquered
+      were the Perinthians, Greeks; the Pseti, Cicones, Bistones, Sapaei,
+      Dersaei and Edoni, Thracians; and the Paeoplae and Siripasones, Pseonians.
+      These last, to gratify a whim of Darius, were transported into Asia. The
+      Thracians who submitted were especially those of the coast, no attempt,
+      apparently, being made to penetrate the mountain fastnesses and bring
+      under subjection the tribes of the interior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first contact between Persia and Macedonia possesses peculiar interest
+      from the circumstances of the later history. An ancestor of Alexander the
+      Great sat upon the throne of Macedon when the general of Darius was
+      brought in his career of conquest to the outskirts of the Macedonian
+      power. The kingdom was at this time comparatively small, not extending
+      much beyond Mount Bermius on the one hand, and not reaching very far to
+      the east of the Axius on the other. Megabazus saw in it, we may be sure,
+      not the fated destroyer of the Empire which he was extending, but a petty
+      state which the mere sound of the Persian name would awe into subjection.
+      He therefore, instead of invading the country, contented himself with
+      sending an embassy, with a demand for earth and water, the symbols,
+      according to Persian custom, of submission. Amyntas, the Macedonian king,
+      consented, to the demand at once; and though, owing to insolent conduct on
+      the part of the ambassadors, they were massacred with their whole retinue,
+      yet this circumstance did not prevent the completion of Macedonian
+      vassalage. When a second embassy was sent to inquire into the fate of the
+      first, Alexander, the son of Amyntas, who had arranged the massacre,
+      contrived to have the matter hushed up by bribing one of the envoys with a
+      large sum of money and the hand of his sister, Gygsea. Macedonia took up
+      the position of a subject kingdom, and owned for her true lord the great
+      monarch of Western Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Megabazus, having accomplished the task assigned him, proceeded to Sardis,
+      where Darius had remained almost, if not quite, a full year His place was
+      taken by Otanes, the son of Sisamnes, a different person from the
+      conspirator, who rounded off the Persian conquests in these parts by
+      reducing, probably in B.C. 505, the cities of Byzantium, Chalcedon,
+      Antandrus, and Lamponium, with the two adjacent islands of Letnnos and
+      Imbrus. The inhabitants of all were, it appears, taxable, either with
+      having failed to give contingents towards the Scythian expedition, or with
+      having molested it on its return&mdash;crimes these, which Otanes thought
+      it right to punish by their general enslavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius, meanwhile, had proceeded to the seat of government, which appears
+      at this time to have been Susa. He had perhaps already built there the
+      great palace, whose remains have been recently disinterred by English
+      enterprise; or he may have wished to superintend the work of construction.
+      Susa, which was certainly from henceforth the main Persian capital,
+      possessed advantages over almost any other site. Its climate was softer
+      than that of Ecbatana and Persepolis, less sultry than that of Babylon.
+      Its position was convenient for communicating both with the East and with
+      the West. Its people were plastic, and probably more yielding and
+      submissive than the Medes or the Persians. The king, fatigued with his
+      warlike exertions, was glad for a while to rest and recruit himself at
+      Susa, in the tranquil life of the Court. For some years he appears to have
+      conceived no new aggressive project; and he might perhaps have forgotten
+      his designs upon Greece altogether, had not his memory been stirred by a
+      signal and extraordinary provocation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The immediate circumstances which led to the Ionian Revolt belong to Greek
+      rather than to Persian history, and have been so fully treated of by the
+      historians of the Hellenic race that a knowledge of them may be assumed as
+      already possessed by the reader. What is chiefly remarkable about them is,
+      that they are so purely private and personal. A chance quarrel between
+      Aristagoras of Miletus and the Persian Megabates, pecuniary difficulties
+      pressing on the former, and the natural desire of Histiseus, father-in-law
+      of Aristagoras, to revisit his native place, were undoubtedly the direct
+      and immediate causes of what became a great national outbreak. That there
+      must have been other and wider predisposing causes can scarcely be
+      doubted. Among them two may be suggested. The presence of Darius in Asia
+      Minor, and his friendliness towards the tyrants who bore sway in most of
+      the Greek cities, were calculated to elate those persons in their own
+      esteem, and to encourage in them habits and acts injurious or offensive to
+      their subjects. Their tyranny under these circumstances would become more
+      oppressive and galling. At the same time the popular mind could not fail
+      to associate together the native despot and the foreign lord, who (it was
+      clear to all) supported and befriended each other. If the Greeks of Asia,
+      like so many of their brethren in Europe, had grown weary of their tyrants
+      and were desirous of rising against them, they would be compelled to
+      contemplate the chances of a successful resistance to the Persians. And
+      here there were circumstances in the recent history calculated to inspirit
+      them and give them hopes. Six hundred Greek ships, manned probably by
+      120,000 men, had been lately brought together, and had formed a united
+      fleet. The fate of the Persian land-army had depended on their fidelity.
+      It is not surprising that a sense of strength should have been developed,
+      and something like a national spirit should have grown up in such a
+      condition of things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If this were the state of feeling among the Greeks, the merit of
+      Aristagoras would be, that he perceived it, and, regardless of all class
+      prejudices, determined to take advantage of the chance which it gave him
+      of rising superior to his embarrassments. Throwing himself on the popular
+      feeling, the strength of which he had estimated aright, he by the same act
+      gave freedom to the cities, and plunged his nation into a rebellion
+      against Persia. It was easy for reason to show, when the matter was calmly
+      debated, that the probabilities of success against the might of Darius
+      were small. But the arrest of the tyrants by Aristagoras, and his
+      deliverance of them into the hands of their subjects, was an appeal to
+      passion against which reason was powerless. No state could resist the
+      temptation of getting rid of the tyranny under which it groaned. But the
+      expulsion of the vassal committed those who took part in it to resist in
+      arms the sovereign lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the original revolt appear to have been included only the cities of
+      Ionia and AEolis. Aristagoras felt that some further strength was needed,
+      and determined to seek it in European Greece. Repulsed from Sparta, which
+      was disinclined to so distant an expedition, he applied for aid to cities
+      on which he had a special claim. Miletus counted Athens as her mother
+      state; and Eretria was indebted to her for assistance in her great war
+      with Chalcis. Applying in these quarters Aristagoras succeeded better, but
+      still obtained no very important help. Athens voted him twenty ships,
+      Eretria five and with the promise of these succors he hastened back to
+      Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The European contingent soon afterwards arrived; and Aristagoras, anxious
+      to gain some signal success which should attract men to his cause,
+      determined on a most daring enterprise. This was no less than an attack on
+      Sardis, the chief seat of the Persian power in these parts, and by far the
+      most important city of Asia Minor. Sailing to Ephesus, he marched up the
+      valley of the Cayster, crossed Mount Tmolus, and took the Lydian capital
+      at the first onset. Artaphernes, the satrap, was only able to save the
+      citadel; the invaders began to plunder the town, and in the confusion it
+      caught fire and was burnt. Aristagoras and his troops hastily retreated,
+      but were overtaken before they could reach Ephesus by the Persians
+      quartered in the province, who fell upon them and gave them a severe
+      defeat. The expedition then broke up; the Asiatic Greeks dispersed among
+      their cities; the Athenians and Eretrians took ship and sailed home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Results followed that could scarcely have been anticipated. The failure of
+      the expedition was swallowed up in the glory of its one achievement. It
+      had taken Sardis&mdash;it had burnt one of the chief cities of the Great
+      King. The news spread like wildfire on every side, and was proclaimed
+      aloud in places where the defeat of Ephesus was never even whispered.
+      Everywhere revolt burst out. The Greeks of the Hellespont&mdash;not only
+      those of Asia but likewise those of Europe&mdash;the Carians and Caunians
+      of the south-western coast&mdash;even the distant Cyprians broke into
+      rebellion; the Scythians took heart and made a plundering raid through the
+      Great King&rsquo;s Thracian territories;4 vassal monarchs, like Miltiades,
+      assumed independence, and helped themselves to some of the fragments of
+      the Empire that seemed falling to pieces. If a great man, a Miltiades or a
+      Leondias, had been at the head of the movement, and if it had been
+      decently supported from the European side, a successful issue might
+      probably have been secured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Aristagoras was unequal to the occasion; and the struggle for
+      independence, which had promised so fair, was soon put down. Despite a
+      naval victory gained by the Greeks over the Phoenician fleet off Cyprus,
+      that island was recovered by the Persians within a year. Despite a courage
+      and a perseverance worthy of a better fate, the Carians were soon
+      afterwards forced to succumb. The reduction of the Hellespontine Greeks
+      and of the AEolians followed. The toils now closed around Ionia, and her
+      cities began to be attacked one by one; whereupon the incapable
+      Aristagoras, deserting the falling cause, betook himself to Europe, where
+      a just Nemesis pursued him: he died by a Thracian sword. After this the
+      climax soon arrived. Persia concentrated her strength upon Miletus, the
+      cradle of the revolt, and the acknowledged chief of the cities; and though
+      her sister states came gallantly to her aid, and a fleet was collected
+      which made it for a while doubtful which way victory might incline, yet
+      all was of no avail. Laziness and insubordination began and treachery
+      completed the work which all the force of Persia might have failed to
+      accomplish; the combined Ionian fleet was totally defeated in the battle
+      of Lade; and soon after Miletus herself fell. The bulk of her inhabitants
+      were transported into inner Asia and settled upon the Persian Gulf. The
+      whole Ionian coast was ravaged, and the cities punished by the loss of
+      their most beautiful maidens and youths. The islands off the coast were
+      swept of their inhabitants. The cities on the Hellespont and Sea of
+      Marmora were burnt. Miltiades barely escaped from the Chersonese with the
+      loss of his son and his kingdom. The flames of rebellion were everywhere
+      ruthlessly trampled out; and the power of the Great King was once more
+      firmly established over the coasts and islands of the Propontis and the
+      Egean Sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It remained, however, to take vengeance upon the foreigners who had dared
+      to lend their aid to the king&rsquo;s revolted subjects, and had borne a part in
+      the burning of Sardis. The pride of the Persians felt such interference as
+      an insult of the grossest kind: and the tale may well be true that Darius,
+      from the time that he first heard the news, employed an officer to bid him
+      daily &ldquo;remember Athens.&rdquo; The schemes which he had formerly entertained
+      with respect to the reduction of Greece recurred with fresh force to his
+      mind; and the task of crushing the revolt was no sooner completed than he
+      proceeded to attempt their execution. Selecting Mardonius, son of Gobryas
+      the conspirator, and one of his own sons-in-law, for general, he gave him
+      the command of a powerful expedition, which was to advance by way of
+      Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, against Eretria and Athens. At the same
+      time, with a wisdom which we should scarcely have expected in an Oriental,
+      he commissioned him, ere he quitted Asia, to depose the tyrants who bore
+      rule in the Greek cities, and to allow the establishment of democracies in
+      their stead. Such a measure was excellently calculated to preserve the
+      fidelity of the Hellenic population and to prevent any renewal of
+      disturbance. It gave ample employment to unquiet spirits by opening to
+      them a career in their own states&mdash;and it removed the grievance
+      which, more than anything else, had produced the recent rebellion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mardonius having effected this change proceeded into Europe. He had a
+      large land force and a powerful navy, and at first was successful both by
+      land and sea. The fleet took Thasos, an island valuable for its mines; and
+      the army forced the Macedonians to exchange their position of
+      semi-independence for that of full Persian subjects, liable to both
+      tribute and military service. But this fair dawn was soon overcast. As the
+      fleet was rounding Athos a terrible tempest arose which, destroyed 300
+      triremes and more than 20,000 men, some of whom were devoured by
+      sea-monsters, while the remainder perished by drowning. On shore, a night
+      attack of the Brygi, a Thracian tribe dwelling in the tract between the
+      Strymon and the Axius, brought disaster upon the land force, numbers of
+      which were slain, while Mardonius himself received a wound. This disgrace,
+      indeed, was retrieved by subsequent operations, which forced the Brygi to
+      make their submission; but the expedition found itself in no condition to
+      advance further, and Mardonius retreated into Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius, however, did not allow failure to turn him from his purpose. The
+      attack of Mardonius was followed within two years by the well-known
+      expedition under Datis (B.C. 490), which, avoiding the dangers of Athos,
+      sailed direct to its object, crossing the Egean by the line of the
+      Cyclades, and falling upon Eretria and Attica. Eretria&rsquo;s punishment warned
+      the Athenians to resist to the uttermost; and the skill of Miltiades,
+      backed by the valor of his countrymen, gave to Athens the great victory of
+      Marathon. Datis fell back upon Asia, having suffered worse disasters than
+      his predecessor, and bore to the king the melancholy tidings that his vast
+      force of from 100,000 to 200,000 men had been met and worsted by 20,000
+      Athenians and Plataeans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still Darius was not shaken in his resolution. He only issued fresh orders
+      for the collection of men, ships, and materials. For three years Asia
+      resounded with the din of preparation; and it is probable that in the
+      fourth year a fresh expedition would have been led into Greece, had not an
+      important occurrence prevented it. Egypt, always discontented with its
+      subject position under a race which despised its religion, and perhaps
+      occasionally persecuted it, broke out into open revolt (B.C. 487). Darius,
+      it seems, determined to divide his forces, and proceed simultaneously
+      against both enemies; he even contemplated leading one of the two
+      expeditions in person; but before his preparations were completed his
+      vital powers failed. He died in the year following the Egyptian revolt
+      (B.C. 486), in the sixty-third year of his age, and the thirty-sixth of
+      his reign, leaving his crown to his eldest son by Atossa, Xerxes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character of Darius will have revealed itself with tolerable clearness
+      in the sketch which has been here given of the chief events of his reign.
+      But a brief summary of some of its main points may not be superfluous.
+      Darius Hystaspis was, next to Cyrus, the greatest of the Persian kings;
+      and he was even superior to Cyrus in some particulars. His military talent
+      has been underrated. Though not equal to the founder of the Empire in this
+      respect, he deserves the credit of energy, vigor, foresight, and judicious
+      management in his military expeditions, of promptness in resolving and
+      ability in executing, of discrimination in the selection of generals, and
+      of a power of combination not often found in Oriental commanders. He was
+      personally brave, and quite willing to expose himself, even in his old
+      age, to dangers and hardships. But he did not unnecessarily thrust himself
+      into peril. He was content to employ generals, where the task to be
+      accomplished did not seem to be beyond their powers; and he appears to
+      have been quite free from an unworthy jealousy of their successes. He was
+      a man of kindly and warm feeling&mdash;strongly attached to his friends;
+      he was clement and even generous towards conquered foes. When he thought
+      the occasion required it, he could be severe but his inclination was
+      towards mildness and indulgence. He excelled all the other Persian kings
+      in the arts of peace. To him, and him alone, the Empire owed its
+      organization. He was a skilful administrator, a good financier, and a wise
+      and far-seeing ruler. Of all the Persian princes he is the only one who
+      can be called &ldquo;many-sided.&rdquo; He was organizer, general, statesman,
+      administrator, builder, patron of arts and literature, all in one. Without
+      him Persia would probably have sunk as rapidly as she rose, and would be
+      known to us only as one of the many meteor powers which have shot athwart
+      the horizon of the East.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xerxes, the eldest son of Darius by Atossa, succeeded his father by virtue
+      of a formal act of choice. It was a Persian custom that the king, before
+      he went out of his dominions on an expedition, should nominate a
+      successor. Darius must have done this before his campaign in Thrace and
+      Scythia; and if Xerxes was then, as is probable, a mere boy, it is
+      impossible that he should have received the appointment. Artobazanes, the
+      eldest of all Darius&rsquo;s sons, whose mother, a daughter of Gobryas, was
+      married to Darius before he became king, was most likely then nominated,
+      and was thenceforth regarded as the heir-apparent. When, however, towards
+      the close of his reign Darius again proposed to head a foreign expedition,
+      an opportunity occurred of disturbing this arrangement, of which Atossa,
+      Darius&rsquo;s favorite wife, whose influence over her husband was unbounded,
+      determined to take advantage. According to the law, a fresh signification
+      of the sovereign&rsquo;s will was now requisite; and Atossa persuaded Darius to
+      make it in favor of Xerxes. The pleas put forward were, first, that he was
+      the eldest son of the king, and secondly, that he was descended from
+      Cyrus. This latter argument could not fail to have weight. Backed by the
+      influence of Atossa, it prevailed over all other considerations; and hence
+      Xerxes obtained the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If we may trust the informants of Herodotus, it was the wish of Xerxes on
+      his accession to discontinue the preparations against Greece, and confine
+      his efforts to the re-conquest of Egypt. Though not devoid of ambition, he
+      may well have been distrustful of his own powers; and, having been
+      nurtured in luxury, he may have shrunk from the perils of a campaign in
+      unknown regions. But he was surrounded by advisers who had interests
+      opposed to his inclinations, and who worked on his facile temper till they
+      prevailed on him to take that course which seemed best calculated to
+      promote their designs. Mardonius was anxious to retrieve his former
+      failure, and expected, if Greece were conquered, that the rich prize would
+      become his own satrapy. The refugee princes of the family of Pisistratus
+      hoped to be reinstated under Persian influence as dependent despots of
+      Athens. Demaratus of Sparta probably cherished a similar expectation with
+      regard to that capital. The Persian nobles generally, who profited by the
+      spoils of war, and who were still full of the military spirit, looked
+      forward with pleasure to an expedition from which they anticipated
+      victory, plunder, and thousands of valuable captives. The youthful king
+      was soon persuaded that the example of his predecessors required him to
+      undertake some fresh conquest, while the honor of Persia absolutely
+      demanded that the wrongs inflicted upon her by Athens should be avenged.
+      Before, however, turning his arms against Greece, two revolts required his
+      attention. In the year B.C. 485&mdash;the second of his reign&mdash;he
+      marched into Egypt, which he rapidly reduced to obedience and punished by
+      increasing its burthens. Soon afterwards he seems to have provoked a
+      rebellion of the Babylonians by acts which they regarded as impious, and
+      avenged by killing their satrap, Zopyrus, and proclaiming their
+      independence. Megabyzus, the son of Zopyrus, recovered the city, which was
+      punished by the plunder and ruin of its famous temple and the desolation
+      of many of its shrines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xerxes was now free to bend all his efforts against Greece, and,
+      appreciating apparently to the full the magnitude and difficulty of the
+      task, resolved that nothing should be left undone which could possibly be
+      done in order to render success certain. The experience of former years
+      had taught some important lessons. The failure of Datis had proved that
+      such an expedition as could be conveyed by sea across the Egean would be
+      insufficient to secure the object sought, and that the only safe road for
+      a conqueror whose land force constituted his real strength was along the
+      shores of the European continent. But if a large army took this long and
+      circuitous route, it must be supported by a powerful fleet; and this
+      involved a new danger. The losses of Mardonius off Athos had shown the
+      perils of Egean navigation, and taught the lesson that the naval force
+      must be at first far more than proportionate to the needs of the army, in
+      order that it might still be sufficient notwithstanding some considerable
+      disasters. At the same time they had indicated one special place of
+      danger, which might be avoided, if proper measures were taken. Xerxes, in
+      the four years which followed on the reduction of Egypt, continued
+      incessantly to make the most gigantic preparations for his intended attack
+      upon Greece, and among them included all the precautions which a wise
+      foresight could devise in order to ward off every conceivable peril. A
+      general order was issued to all the satraps throughout the Empire, calling
+      on them to levy the utmost force of their province for the new war; while,
+      as the equipment of Oriental troops depends greatly on the purchase and
+      distribution of arms by their commander, a rich reward was promised to the
+      satrap whose contingent should appear at the appointed place and time in
+      the most gallant array. Orders for ships and transports of different kinds
+      were given to the maritime states, with such effect that above 1200
+      triremes and 3000 vessels of an inferior description were collected
+      together. Magazines of corn were formed at various points along the
+      intended line of route. Above all, it was determined to bridge the
+      Hellespont by a firm and compact structure, which it was thought would
+      secure the communication of the army from interruption by the elements;
+      and at the same time it was resolved to cut through the isthmus which
+      joined Mount Athos to the continent, in order to preserve the fleet from
+      disaster at that most perilous part of the proposed voyage. These
+      remarkable works, which made a deep impression on the minds of the Greeks,
+      have been ascribed to a mere spirit of ostentation on the part of Xerxes;
+      the vain-glorious monarch wished, it is supposed, to parade his power, and
+      made a useless bridge and an absurd cutting merely for the purpose of
+      exhibiting to the world the grandeur of his ideas and the extent of his
+      resources. But there is no necessity for travelling beyond the line of
+      ordinary human motive in order to discover a reason for the works in
+      question. The bridge across the Hellespont was a mere repetition of the
+      construction by which Darius had passed into Europe when he made his
+      Scythian expedition, and probably seemed to a Persian not a specially
+      dignified or very wonderful way of crossing so narrow a strait, but merely
+      the natural mode of passage. The only respect in which the bridge of
+      Xerxes differed from constructions with which the Persians were thoroughly
+      familiar, was in its superior solidity and strength. The shore-cables were
+      of unusual size and weight, and apparently of unusual materials; the
+      formation of a double line&mdash;of two bridges, in fact, instead of one&mdash;was
+      almost without a parallel; and the completion of the work by laying on the
+      ordinary plank-bridge a solid causeway composed of earth and brushwood,
+      with a high bulwark on either side, was probably, if not unprecedented, at
+      any rate very uncommon. Boat-bridges were usually, as they are even now in
+      the East, somewhat rickety constructions, which animals unaccustomed to
+      them could with difficulty be induced to cross. The bridge of Xerxes was a
+      high-road, as AEschylus calls it along, which men, horses, and vehicles
+      might pass with as much comfort and facility as they could move on shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The utility of such a work is evident. Without it Xerxes must have been
+      reduced to the necessity of embarking in ships, conveying across the
+      strait, and disembarking, not only his entire host, but all its stores,
+      tents, baggage, horses, camels, and sumpter-beasts. If the numbers of his
+      army approached even the lowest estimate that has been formed of them, it
+      is not too much to say that many weeks must have been spent in this
+      operation. As it was, the whole expedition marched across in seven days.
+      In the case of ship conveyance, continual accidents would have happened:
+      the transport would from time to time have been interrupted by bad
+      weather; and great catastrophes might have occurred. By means of the
+      bridge the passage was probably effected without any loss of either man or
+      beast. Moreover, the bridge once established, there was a safe line of
+      communication thenceforth between the army in Europe and the headquarters
+      of the Persian power in Asia, along which might pass couriers, supplies,
+      and reinforcements, if they should be needed. Further, the grandeur,
+      massiveness, and apparent stability of the work was calculated to impose
+      upon the minds of men, and to diminish their power of resistance by
+      impressing them strongly with a sense of the irresistible greatness and
+      strength of the invader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The canal of Athos was also quite a legitimate and judicious undertaking.
+      <a href="#linkCimage-0002">[PLATE LXI.]</a> No portion of the Greek coast
+      is so dangerous as that about Athos. Greek boatmen even at the present day
+      refuse to attempt the circumnavigation; and probably any government less
+      apathetic than that of the Turks would at once re-open the old cutting.
+      The work was one of very little difficulty, the breadth of the isthmus
+      being less than a mile and a half, the material sand and marl, and the
+      greatest height of the natural ground above the level of the sea about
+      fifty feet. The construction of a canal in such a locality was certainly
+      better than the formation of a ship-groove or Diolcus&mdash;the substitute
+      for it proposed by Ferodotus, <a href="#linkCimage-0002">[PLATE LXI.]</a>
+      not to mention that it is doubtful whether at the time that this cutting
+      was made ship-grooves were known even to the Greeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0002" id="linkCimage-0002">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate061.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lxi. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Xerxes, having brought his preparations into a state of forwardness,
+      having completed his canal and his bridge&mdash;after one failure with the
+      latter, for which the constructors and the sea were punished&mdash;proceeded,
+      in the year B.C. 481, along the &ldquo;Royal Road&rdquo; from Susa to Sardis, and
+      wintered at the Lydian capital. His army is said to have accompanied him;
+      but more probably it joined him in the spring, flocking in, contingent
+      after contingent, from the various provinces of his vast Empire.
+      Forty-nine nations, according to Herodotus, served under his standard; and
+      their contingents made up a grand total of eighteen hundred thousand men.
+      Of these, eighty thousand were cavalry, while twenty thousand rode in
+      chariots or on camels; the remainder served on foot. There are no
+      sufficient means of testing these numbers. Figures in the mouth of an
+      Oriental are vague and almost unmeaning; armies are never really counted:
+      there is no such thing as a fixed and definite &ldquo;strength&rdquo; of a division or
+      a battalion. Herodotus tells us that a rough attempt at numbering the
+      infantry of the host was made on this occasion; but it was of so rude and
+      primitive a description that little dependence can be placed on the
+      results obtained by it. Ten thousand men were counted, and were made to
+      stand close together; a line was then drawn round them, and a wall built
+      on the line to the height of a man&rsquo;s waist; within the enclosure thus made
+      all the troops in turn entered, and each time that the enclosure appeared
+      to be full, ten thousand were supposed to be within it. Estimated in this
+      way, the infantry was regarded as amounting to 1,700,000. It is clear that
+      such mode of counting was of the roughest kind, and might lead to gross
+      exaggeration. Each commander would wish his troops to be thought more
+      numerous than they really were, and would cause the enclosure to appear
+      full when several thousands more might still have found room within it.
+      Nevertheless there would be limits beyond which exaggeration could not go;
+      and if Xerxes was made to believe that the land force which he took with
+      him into Europe amounted to nearly two millions of men, it is scarcely
+      doubtful but that it must have exceeded one million.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The motley composition of such a host has been described in a former
+      chapter. Each nation was armed and equipped after its own fashion, and
+      served in a body, often under a distinct commander. The army marched
+      through Asia in a single column, which was not, however, continuous, but
+      was broken into three portions. The first portion consisted of the baggage
+      animals and about half of the contingents of the nations; the second was
+      composed wholly of native Persians, who preceded and followed the emblems
+      of religion and the king; the third was made up of the remaining national
+      contingents. The king himself rode alternately in a chariot and in a
+      litter. He was preceded immediately by ten sacred horses, and a sacred
+      chariot drawn by eight milk-white steeds. Round him and about him were the
+      choicest troops of the whole army, twelve thousand horse and the same
+      number of foot, all Persians, and those too not taken at random, but
+      selected carefully from the whole mass of the native soldiery. Among them
+      seem to have been the famous &ldquo;Immortals&rdquo;&mdash;a picked body of 10,000
+      footmen, always maintained at exactly the same number, and thence deriving
+      their appellation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The line of march from Sardis to Abydos was only partially along the
+      shore. The army probably descended the valley of the Hermus nearly to its
+      mouth, and then struck northward into the Caicus vale, crossing which it
+      held on its way, with Mount Kara-dagh (Cane) on the left, across the
+      Atarnean plain, and along the coast to Adramytium (Adramyti) and
+      Antandros, whence it again struck inland, and, crossing the ridge of Ida,
+      descended into the valley of the Scamander. Some losses were incurred from
+      the effects of a violent thunderstorm amid the mountains; but they cannot
+      have been of a any great consequence. On reaching the Scamander the army
+      found its first difficulty with respect to water. That stream was probably
+      low, and the vast host of men and animals were unable to obtain from it a
+      supply sufficient for their wants. This phenomenon, we are told,
+      frequently recurred afterwards; it surprises the English reader, but is
+      not really astonishing, since, in hot countries, even considerable streams
+      are often reduced to mere threads of water during the summer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rounding the hills which skirt the Scamander valley upon the east, the
+      army marched past Rhoeteum, Ophrynium, and Dardanus to Abydos. Here
+      Xerxes, seated upon a marble throne, which the people of Abydos had
+      erected for him on the summit of a hill, was able to see at one glance his
+      whole, armament, and to feast his eyes with the sight. It is not likely
+      that any misgivings occurred to him at such a moment. Before him lay his
+      vast host, covering with its dense masses the entire low ground between
+      the hills and the sea; beyond was the strait, and to his left the open
+      sea, white with the sails of four thousand ships; the green fields of the
+      Chersonese smiled invitingly a little further on; while, between him and
+      the opposite shore, the long lines of his bridges lay darkling upon the
+      sea, like a yoke placed upon the neck of a captive. Having seen all, the
+      king gave his special attention to the fleet, which he now perhaps beheld
+      in all its magnitude for the first time. Desirous of knowing which of his
+      subjects were the best sailors, he gave orders for a sailing-match, which
+      were at once carried out. The palm was borne off by the Phoenicians of
+      Sidon, who must have beaten not only their own countrymen of Tyre, but the
+      Greeks of Asia and the islands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the next day the passage took place. It was accompanied by religious
+      ceremonies. Waiting for the sacred hour of sunrise, the leader of the
+      host, as the first rays appeared, poured a libation from a golden goblet
+      into the sea, and prayed to Mithra that he might effect the conquest of
+      Europe. As he prayed he cast into the sea the golden goblet, and with it a
+      golden bowl and a short Persian sword. Meanwhile the multitude strewed all
+      the bridge with myrtle boughs, and perfumed it with clouds of incense. The
+      &ldquo;Immortals&rdquo; crossed first, wearing garlands on their heads. The king, with
+      the sacred chariot and horses passed over on the second day. For seven
+      days and seven nights the human stream flowed on without intermission
+      across one bridge, while the attendants and the baggage-train made use of
+      the other. The lash was employed to quicken the movements of laggards. At
+      last the whole army was in Europe, and the march resumed its regularity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is unnecessary to follow in detail the advance of the host along the
+      coast of Thrace, across Chalcidice, and round the Thermaic Gulf into
+      Pieria. If we except the counting of the fleet and army at Doriscus no
+      circumstances of much interest diversified this portion of the march,
+      which lay entirely through territories that had previously submitted to
+      the Great King. The army spread itself over a wide tract of country,
+      marching generally in three divisions, which proceeded by three parallel
+      lines&mdash;one along the coast, another at some considerable distance
+      inland, and a third, with which was Xerxes himself, midway between them.
+      At every place where Xerxes stopped along his line of route the natives
+      had, besides furnishing corn for his army, to entertain him and his suite
+      at a great banquet, the cost of which was felt as a heavy burthen.
+      Contributions of troops or ships were also required from all the cities
+      and tribes; and thus both fleet and army continually swelled as they
+      advanced onward. In crossing the track between the Strymon and the Axius
+      some damage was suffered by the baggage-train from lions, which came down
+      from the mountains during the night and devoured many of the camels; but
+      otherwise the march was effected without loss, and the fleet and army
+      reached the borders of Thessaly intact, and in good condition. Here it was
+      found that there was work for the pioneers, and a reconnaissance of the
+      enemy&rsquo;s country before entering it was probably also thought desirable.
+      The army accordingly halted some days in Pieria, while preparations were
+      being made for crossing the Olympic range into the Thessalian lowland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the halt intelligence arrived which seemed to promise the invader
+      an easy conquest. Xerxes, while he was staying at Sardis, had sent heralds
+      to all the Grecian states, excepting Athens and Sparta, with a demand for
+      earth and water, the recognized symbols of submission. His envoys now
+      returned, and brought him favorable replies from at least one-third of the
+      continental Greeks&mdash;from the Perrhaebians, Thessalians, Dolopians,
+      Magnetians, Achaeans of Phthiotis, Enianians, Malians, Locrians, and from
+      most of the Boeotians. Unless it were the insignificant Phocis, no hostile
+      country seemed to intervene between the place where his army lay and the
+      great object of the expedition, Attica. Xerxes, therefore, having first
+      viewed the pass of Tempe, and seen with his own eyes that no enemy lay
+      encamped beyond, passed over the Olympic range by a road cut through the
+      woods by his army, and proceeded southwards across Thessaly and Achaea
+      Phthiotis into Malis, the fertile plain at the mouth of the Spercheius
+      river. Here, having heard that a Greek force was in the neighborhood, he
+      pitched his camp not far from the small town of Trachis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus far had the Greeks allowed the invader to penetrate their country
+      without offering him any resistance. Originally there had been an
+      intention of defending Thessaly, and an army under Evsenetus, a Spartan
+      polemarch, and Themistocles, the great Athenian, had proceeded to Tempe,
+      in order to cooperate with the Thessalians in guarding the pass. But the
+      discovery that the Olympic range could be crossed in the,place where the
+      army of Xerxes afterwards passed it had shown that the position was
+      untenable; and it had been then resolved that the stand should be made at
+      the next defensible position, Thermopylae. <a href="#linkCimage-0003">[PLATE
+      LXII.]</a> Here, accordingly, a force was found&mdash;small, indeed, if it
+      be compared with the number of the assailants, but sufficient to defend
+      such a position as that where it was posted against the world in arms.
+      Three hundred Spartans, with their usual retinue of helots, 700
+      Lacedaemonians, other Peloponnesians to the number of 2800, 1000 Phocians,
+      the same number of Locrians, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, formed an
+      army of 9000 men&mdash;quite as numerous a force as could be employed with
+      any effect in the defile they were sent to guard. The defile was a long
+      and narrow pass shut in between a high mountain, Callidromus, and the sea,
+      and crossed at one point by a line of wall in which was a single gateway.
+      Unless the command of the sea were gained, or another mode of crossing the
+      mountains discovered, the pass could scarcely be forced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0003" id="linkCimage-0003">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate062.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate062th (143K)" src="images/plate062th.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Xerxes, however, confident in his numbers&mdash;after waiting four days at
+      Trachis, probably in the hope that his fleet would join him&mdash;proceeded
+      on the fifth day to the assault. First the Medes and Cissians, then the
+      famous &ldquo;Immortals&rdquo; were sent into the jaws of the pass against the
+      immovable foe; but neither detachment could make any impression. The long
+      spears, large shields, and heavy armor of the Greeks, their skilful
+      tactics, and steady array, were far more than a match for the inferior
+      equipments and discipline of the Asiatics. Though the attack was made with
+      great gallantry, both on this day and the next, it failed to produce the
+      slightest effect. Very few of the Greeks were either slain or wounded; and
+      it seemed as if the further advance of a million of men was to be stopped
+      by a force less than a hundredth part of their number.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now information reached Xerxes which completely changed the face of
+      affairs. There was a rough mountain-path leading from Trachis up the gorge
+      of the Asopus and across Callidromus to the rear of the Greek position,
+      which had been unknown to the Greeks when they decided on making their
+      first stand at Thermopylae, and which they only discovered when their
+      plans no longer admitted of alteration. It was, perhaps, not much more
+      than a goat-track, and apparently they had regarded it as scarcely
+      practicable, since they had thought its defence might be safely entrusted
+      to a thousand Phocians. Xerxes, however, on learning the existence of the
+      track, resolved at once to make trial of it. His Persian soldiers were
+      excellent mountaineers. He ordered Hydarnes to take the &ldquo;Immortals,&rdquo; and,
+      guided by a native, to proceed along the path by night, and descend with
+      early dawn into the rear of the Greeks, who would then be placed between
+      two fires. The operation was performed with complete success. The Phocian
+      guard, surprised at the summit, left the path free while they sought a
+      place of safety. The Greeks in the pass below, warned during the night of
+      their danger, in part fled, in part resolved on death. When morning came,
+      Leonidas, at the head of about half his original army, moved forward
+      towards the Malian plain, and there met the advancing Persians. A bloody
+      combat ensued, in which the Persians lost by far the greater number; but
+      the ranks of the Greeks were gradually thinned, and they were beaten back
+      step by step into the narrowest part of the pass, where finally they all
+      perished, except the four hundred Thebans, who submitted and were made
+      prisoners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So terminated the first struggle on the soil of Greece, between the
+      invaders and the invaded. It seemed to promise that, though at vast cost,
+      Persia would be victorious. If her loss in the three days&rsquo; combat was
+      20,000 men, as Herodotus states, yet, as that of her enemy was 4000, the
+      proportionate advantage was on her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, for the conquest of such a country as Greece, it was requisite, not
+      only that the invader should succeed on land, but also that he should be
+      superior at sea. Xerxes had felt this, and had brought with him a fleet,
+      calculated, as he imagined, to sweep the Greek navy from the Egean. As far
+      as the Pagasaean Gulf, opposite the northern extremity of Euboea, his
+      fleet had advanced without meeting an enemy. It had encountered one
+      terrible storm off the coast of Magnesia, and had lost 400 vessels; but
+      this loss was scarcely felt in so vast an armament. When from Aphetse, at
+      the mouth of the gulf, the small Greek fleet, amounting to no more than
+      271 vessels, was seen at anchor off Artemisium, the only fear which the
+      Persian commanders entertained was lest it should escape them. They at
+      once detached 200 vessels to sail round the Coast coast of Euboea, and cut
+      off the possibility of retreat. When, however, these vessels were all lost
+      in a storm, and when in three engagements on three successive days, the
+      Greek fleet showed itself fully able to contend against the superior
+      numbers of its antagonist, the Persians themselves could not fail to see
+      that their naval supremacy was more than doubtful. The fleet at Artemisium
+      was not the entire Greek naval force; on another occasion it might be
+      augumented, while their own could scarcely expect to receive
+      reinforcements. The fights at Artemisium foreshadowed a day when the rival
+      fleets would no longer meet and part on equal terms, but Persia would have
+      to acknowledge herself inferior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, however, the balance of advantage rested with the invaders. The
+      key of Northern Greece was won, and Phocis, Locris, Boeotia, Attica, and
+      the Megarid lay open to the Persian army. The Greek fleet could gain
+      nothing by any longer maintaining the position of Artemisium, and fell
+      back towards the south, while its leaders anxiously considered where it
+      should next take up its station. The Persians pressed on both by land and
+      sea. A rapid march through Phocis and Boeotia brought Xerxes to Athens,
+      soon after the Athenians, knowing that resistance would be vain, had
+      evacuated it. The Acropolis, defended by a few fanatics, was taken and
+      burnt. One object of the expedition was thus accomplished. Athens lay in
+      ruins; and the whole of Attica was occupied by the conqueror. The Persian
+      fleet, too, finding the channel of the Euripus clear, sailed down it, and
+      rounding Sunium, came to anchor in the bay of Phalerum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the councils of the Greeks all was doubt and irresolution. The army,
+      which ought to have mustered in full force at Thermopylae and Callidromus,
+      and which, after those passes were forced, might have defended Cithseron
+      and Parnes, had never ventured beyond the Isthmus of Corinth, and was
+      there engaged in building a wall across the neck of land from sea to sea.
+      The fleet lay off Salamis, where it was detained by the entreaties of the
+      Athenians, who had placed in that island the greater part of the
+      non-combatant population; but the inclination was strong on the part of
+      many to withdraw westward and fight the next battle, if a battle must be
+      fought, in the vicinity of the land force, which would be a protection in
+      case of defeat. Could Xerxes have had patience for a few days, the
+      combined fleet would have broken up. The Peloponnesian contingents would
+      have withdrawn to the isthmus; and the Athenians, despairing of success,
+      would probably have sailed away to Italy. But the Great King, when he saw
+      the vast disproportion between his own fleet and that of the enemy, could
+      not believe in the possibility of the Greeks offering a successful
+      resistance. Like a modern emperor, who imagined that, if only he could
+      have been with his fleet, all would necessarily have gone well, Xerxes
+      supposed that by having the sea-fight under his own eye he would be sure
+      of victory. Thus again, as at Artemisium, the only fear felt was lest the
+      Greeks should fly, and in that way escape chastisement. Orders were
+      therefore issued to the Persian fleet to close up at once, and blockade
+      the eastern end of the Salaminian strait, while a detachment repeated the
+      attempted manoeuvre at Euboea, and sailed round the island to guard the
+      channel at its western outlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These movements were executed late in the day on which the Persian fleet
+      arrived at Phalerum. During the night intelligence reached the commanders
+      that the retreat of the Greeks was about to commence at once; whereupon
+      the Persian right wing was pushed forward into the strait, and carried
+      beyond the Greek position so as to fill the channel where it opens into
+      the bay of Eleusis. The remainder of the night passed in preparations for
+      the battle on both sides. At daybreak both fleets advanced from their
+      respective shores, the Persians being rather the assailants. Their
+      thousand vessels were drawn up in three lines, and charged their
+      antagonists with such spirit that the general inclination on the part of
+      the Greeks was at first to retreat. Some of their ships had almost touched
+      the shore, when the bold example of one of the captains, or a cry of
+      reproach from unknown lips, produced a revulsion of feeling, and the whole
+      line advanced in good order. The battle was for a short time doubtful; but
+      soon the superiority of Greek naval tactics began to tell. The Persian
+      vessels became entangled one with another, and crashing together broke
+      each other&rsquo;s oars. The triple line increased their difficulties. If a
+      vessel, overmatched, sought to retreat, it necessarily came into collision
+      with the ships stationed in its rear. These moreover pressed too eagerly
+      forward, since their captains were anxious to distinguish themselves in
+      order to merit the approval of Xerxes. The Greeks found themselves able to
+      practice with good effect their favorite manoeuvre of the <i>periplus</i>,
+      and thus increased the confusion. It was not long before the greater part
+      of the Persian fleet became a mere helpless mass of shattered or damaged
+      vessels. Five hundred are said to have been sunk&mdash;the majority by the
+      enemy, but some even by their own friends. The sea was covered with
+      wrecks, and with wretches who clung to them, till the ruthless enemy slew
+      them or forced them to let go their hold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This defeat was a death-blow to the hopes of Xerxes, and sealed the fate
+      of the expedition. From the moment that he realized to himself the fact of
+      the entire inability of his fleet to cope with that of the Greeks, Xerxes
+      made up his mind to return with all haste to Asia. From over-confidence he
+      fell into the opposite extreme of despair, and made no effort to retrieve
+      his ill fortune. His fleet was ordered to sail straight for the
+      Hellespont, and to guard the bridges until he reached them with his army.
+      He himself retreated hastily along the same road by which he had advanced,
+      his whole army accompanying him as far as Thessaly, where Marnonius was
+      left with 260,000 picked men, to prevent pursuit, and to renew the attempt
+      against Greece in the ensuing year. Xerxes pressed on to the Hellespont,
+      losing vast numbers of his troops by famine and sickness on the way, and
+      finally returned into Asia, not by his magnificent bridge, which a storm
+      had destroyed, but on board a vessel, which, according to some, narrowly
+      escaped shipwreck during the passage. Even in Asia disaster pursued him.
+      Between Abydos and Sardis his army suffered almost as much from
+      over-indulgence as it had previously suffered from want; and of the mighty
+      host which had gone forth from the Lydian capital in the spring not very
+      many thousands can have re-entered it in the autumn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still, however, there was a possibility that the success which his own
+      arms had failed to achieve might reward the exertions of his lieutenants.
+      Mardonius had expressed himself confident that with 300,000 picked
+      soldiers he could overpower all resistance, and make Greece a satrapy of
+      Persia. Xerxes had raised his forces to that amount by sending Artabazus
+      back from Sestos at the head of a <i>corps d&rsquo;armee</i> numbering 40,000
+      men. The whole army of 300,000 wintered in Thessaly; and Mardonius, when
+      spring came, having vainly endeavored to detach the Athenians from the
+      Grecian ranks, marched through Boeotia in Attica, and occupied Athens for
+      the second time. Hence he proceeded to menace the Peloponnese, where he
+      formed an alliance with the Argives, who promised him that they would
+      openly embrace the Persian cause. At the same time the Athenians, finding
+      that Sparta took no steps to help them, began to waver in their
+      resistance, and to contemplate accepting the terms which Mardonius was
+      still willing to grant them. The fate of Greece trembled in the balance,
+      and apparently was determined by the accident of a death and a succession,
+      rather than by any wide-spread patriotic feeling or any settled course of
+      policy. Cleombrotus, regent for the young son of Leonidas, died, and his
+      brother Pausanias&mdash;a brave, clever, and ambitious man&mdash;took his
+      place. We can scarcely be wrong in ascribing&mdash;at least in part&mdash;to
+      this circumstance the unlooked-for change of policy, which electrified the
+      despondent ambassadors of Athens almost as soon as Pausanias was installed
+      in power. It was suddenly announced that Sparta would take the offensive.
+      Ten thousand hoplites and 400,000 light-armed&mdash;the largest army that
+      she ever levied&mdash;took the field, and, joined at the isthmus by above
+      25,000 Peloponnesians, and soon afterwards by almost as many Athenians and
+      Megarians, proceeded to seek the foreigners, first in Attica, and then in
+      the position to which they had retired in Boeotia. On the skirts of
+      Citheeron, near Platsea, a hundred and eight thousand Greeks confronted
+      more than thrice their number of Persians and Persian subjects; and now at
+      length the trial was to be made whether, in fair and open fight on land,
+      Greece or Persia would be superior. A suspicion of what the result would
+      be might have been derived from Marathon. But there the Persians had been
+      taken at a disadvantage, when the cavalry, their most important arm, was
+      absent. Here the error of Datis was not likely to be repeated. Mardonius
+      had a numerous and well-armed cavalry, which he handled with no little
+      skill. It remained to be seen, when the general engagement came, whether,
+      with both arms brought fully into play, the vanquished at Marathon would
+      be the victors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle of Plataea was brought on under circumstances very unfavorable
+      to the Greeks. Want of water and a difficulty about provisions had
+      necessitated a night movement on their part. The cowardice of all the
+      small contingents, and the obstinacy of an individual Spartan,
+      disconcerted the whole plan of the operation, and left the Lacedaemonians
+      and the Athenians at daybreak separated from each other, and deserted by
+      the whole body of their allies. Mardonius attacked at once, and prevented
+      the junction of the two allies, so that two distinct and separate
+      engagements went on at the same time. In both the Greeks were victorious.
+      The Spartans repulsed the Persian horse and foot, slew Mardonius and were
+      the first to assail the Persian camp. The Athenians defeated the <i>medizing</i>
+      Greeks, and effected a breach in the defences of the camp, on which the
+      Spartans had failed to make any impression. A terrible carnage followed.
+      The contingent of 40,000 troops under Artabazus alone drew off in good
+      order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remainder were seized with panic, and were either slaughtered like
+      sheep or fled in complete disarray. Seventy thousand Greeks not only
+      defeated but destroyed the army of 300,000 barbarians, which melted away
+      and disappeared making no further stand anywhere. The disaster of Marathon
+      was repeated on a larger scale, and without the resource of an
+      embarkation. Henceforth the immense superiority of Greek troops to Persian
+      was well known on both sides; and nothing but the distance from Greece of
+      her vital parts, and the quarrels of the Greek states among themselves,
+      preserved for nearly a century and a half the doomed empire of Persia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The immediate result of the defeats of Salamis and Platsea was a
+      contraction of the Persian boundary towards the west. Though a few Persian
+      garrisons maintained themselves for some years on the further side of the
+      straits, soothing thereby the wounded vanity of the Great King, who liked
+      to think that he had still a hold on Europe; yet there can be no doubt
+      that, after the double flight of Xerxes and Artabazus, Macedonia, Pseonia,
+      and Thrace recovered their independence. Persia lost her European
+      provinces, and began the struggle to retain those of Asia. Terminus
+      receded, and having once receded never advanced again in this quarter. The
+      Greeks took the offensive. Sailing to Asia, they not only liberated from
+      their Persian bondage the islands which lay along the coast, but landing
+      their men on the continent, attacked and defeated an army of 60,000
+      Persians at Mycale, and destroyed the remnant of the ships that had
+      escaped from Salamis. Could they have made up their minds to maintain a
+      powerful fleet permanently on the coast of Asia, they might at once have
+      deprived Persia of her whole sea-hoard on the Propontis and the Egean; but
+      neither of the two great powers of Greece was prepared for such a resolve.
+      Sparta disliked distant expeditions; and Athens did not as yet see her way
+      to undertaking the protection of the continental Greeks. She had much to
+      do at home, and had not yet discovered those weak points in her
+      adversary&rsquo;s harness, which subsequently enabled her to secure by treaty
+      the freedom of the Greek cities upon the mainland. For the present,
+      therefore, Persia only lost the bulk of her European possessions, and the
+      islands of the Propontis and the Egean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The circumstances which caused a renewal of Greek agressions upon Asia
+      towards the close of the reign of Xerxes are not very clearly narrated by
+      the authors who speak of them. It appears, however, that after twelve
+      years of petty operations, during which Eion was recovered, and Doriscus
+      frequently attacked, but without effect, the Athenians resolved, in B.C.
+      466, upon a great expedition to the eastward. Collecting a fleet of 300
+      vessels, which was placed under the command of Cimon, the son of
+      Miltiades, they sailed to the coast of Caria and Lycia, where they drove
+      the Persian garrisons out of the Greek towns, and augmenting their navy by
+      fresh contingents at every step, proceeded along the shores of Pamphylia
+      as far as the mouth of the river Eurymedon, where they found a Phoenician
+      fleet of 340 vessels, and a Persian army, stationed to protect the
+      territory. Engaging first the fleet they defeated it, and drove it ashore,
+      after which they disembarked and gained a victory over the Persian army.
+      As many as two hundred triremes were taken or destroyed. They then sailed
+      on towards Cyprus, where they met and destroyed a squadron of eighty
+      ships, which was on its way to reinforce the fleet at the Eurymedon. Above
+      a hundred vessels, 20,000 captives, and a vast amount of plunder were the
+      prize of this war; which had, however, no further effect on the relations
+      of the two powers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the following year the reign of Xerxes came to an end abruptly. With
+      this monarch seems to have begun those internal disorders of the seraglio,
+      which made the Court during more than a hundred and forty years a
+      perpetual scene of intrigues, assassinations, executions, and
+      conspiracies. Xerxes, who appears to have only one wife, Amestris, the
+      daughter (or grand-daughter) of the conspirator, Otanes, permitted himself
+      the free indulgence of illicit passion among the princesses of the Court,
+      the wives of his own near relatives. The most horrible results followed.
+      Amestris vented her jealous spite on those whom she regarded as guilty of
+      stealing from her the affections of her husband; and to prevent her
+      barbarities from producing rebellion, it was necessary to execute the
+      persons whom she had provoked, albeit they were near relations of the
+      monarch. The taint of incontinence spread among the members of the royal
+      family; and a daughter of the king, who was married to one of the most
+      powerful nobles, became notorious for her excesses. Eunuchs rose into
+      power, and fomented the evils which prevailed. The king made himself
+      bitter enemies among those whose position was close to his person. At
+      last, Artabanus, chief of the guard, a courtier of high rank, and
+      Aspamitres, a eunuch, who held the office of chamberlain, conspired
+      against their master, and murdered him in his sleeping apartment, after he
+      had reigned twenty years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character of Xerxes falls below that of any preceding monarch.
+      Excepting that he was not wholly devoid of a certain magnanimity, which
+      made him listen patiently to those who opposed his views or gave him
+      unpalatable advice and which prevented him from exacting vengeance on some
+      occasions, he had scarcely a trait whereon the mind can rest with any
+      satisfaction. Weak and easily led, puerile in his gusts of passion and his
+      complete abandonment of himself to them&mdash;selfish, fickle, boastful,
+      cruel, superstitious, licentious&mdash;he exhibits to us the Oriental
+      despot in the most contemptible of all his aspects&mdash;that wherein the
+      moral and the intellectual qualities are equally in defect, and the career
+      is one unvarying course of vice and folly. From Xerxes we have to date at
+      once the decline of the Empire in respect of territorial greatness and
+      military strength, and likewise its deterioration in regard to
+      administrative vigor and national spirit. With him commenced the
+      corruption of the Court&mdash;the fatal evil, which almost universally
+      weakens and destroys Oriental dynasties. His expedition against Greece
+      exhausted and depopulated the Empire; and though, by abstaining from
+      further military enterprises, he did what lay in his power to recruit its
+      strength, still the losses which his expedition caused were certainly not
+      repaired in his lifetime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a builder, Xerxes showed something of the same grandeur of conception
+      which is observable in his great military enterprise and in the works by
+      which it was accompanied. His Propylaea, and the sculptured staircase in
+      front of the Chebl Minar, which is undoubtedly his work, are among the
+      most magnificent erections upon the Persepolitan platform; and are quite
+      sufficient to place him in the foremost rank of Oriental builders. If we
+      were to ascribe the Chehl Minar itself to him, we should have to give him
+      the palm above all other kings of Persia; but on the whole it is most
+      probable that that edifice and its duplicate at Susa were conceived, and
+      in the main, constructed, by Darius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xerxes left behind him three sons&mdash;Darius, Hystaspes, and Artaxerxes&mdash;and
+      two daughters, Amytis and Rhodogune. Hystaspes was satrap of Bactria, and
+      at the time of their father&rsquo;s death, only Darius and Artaxerxes were at
+      the Court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fearing the eldest son most, Artabanus persuaded Artaxerxes that the
+      assassination of Xerxes was the act of his brother, whereupon Artaxerxes
+      caused him to be put to death, and himself ascended the throne (B.C. 465).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Troubles, as usual, accompanied this irregular accession. Artabanus, not
+      content with exercising an influence under Artaxerxes such as has caused
+      some authors to speak of him as king, aimed at removing the young prince,
+      and making himself actual monarch. But his designs being betrayed to
+      Artaxerxes by Megabyzus, and at the same time his former crimes coming to
+      light, he was killed, together with his tool Aspamitres, seven months
+      after the murder of Xerxes. The sons of Artabanus sought to avenge his
+      death, but were defeated by Megabyzus in an engagement, wherein they lost
+      their lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, in Bactria, Hystaspes, who had a rightful claim to the throne,
+      raised the standard of revolt. Artaxerxes marched against him in person,
+      and engaged him in two battles, the first of which was indecisive, while
+      in the second the Bactrians suffered defeat, chiefly (according to
+      Ctesias) because the wind blew violently in their faces. So signal was
+      victory, that Bactria at once submitted. Hystaspes&rsquo; fate is uncertain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not long after the reduction of Bactria, Egypt suddenly threw off the
+      Persian yoke (B.C. 460). Inarus, a king of the wild African tribes who
+      bordered the Nile valley on the west, but himself perhaps a descendant of
+      the old monarchs of Egypt, led the insurrection, and, in conjunction with
+      an Egyptian, named Amyrtseus, attacked the Persian troops stationed in the
+      country, who were commanded by Achaemenes, the satrap. A battle was fought
+      near Papremis in the Delta, wherein the Persians were defeated, and
+      Achaemenes fell by the hand of Inarus himself. The Egyptians generally now
+      joined in the revolt; and the remnant of the Persian army was shut up in
+      Memphis. Inarus had asked the aid of Athens; and an Athenian fleet of 200
+      sail was sent to his assistance. This fleet sailed up the Nile, defeated a
+      Persian squadron, and took part in the capture of Memphis and the siege of
+      its citade (White Castle). When the Persian king first learned what had
+      happened, he endeavored to rid himself of his Athenian enemies by inducing
+      the Spartans to invade their country; but, failing in his attempt, he had
+      recourse to arms, and, levying a vast host, which he placed under the
+      command of Megabyzus, sent that officer to recover the revolted province.
+      Megabyzus marched upon Memphis, defeated the Egyptians and their allies in
+      a great battle, relieved the citadel of Memphis from its siege, and
+      recovered the rest of the town. The Athenians fled to the tract called
+      Prosopitis, which was a a portion of the Delta, completely surrounded by
+      two branch streams of the Nile. Here they were besieged for eighteen
+      months, till Megabyzus contrived to turn the water from one of the two
+      streams, whereby the Athenian ships were stranded, and the Persian troops
+      were able to march across the river bed, and overwhelm the Athenians with
+      their numbers. A few only escaped to Cyrene. The entire fleet fell into
+      the enemy&rsquo;s hands; and a reinforcement of fifty more ships, arriving soon
+      after the defeat, was attacked unawares after it had entered the river,
+      and lost more than half its number. Inarus was betrayed by some of his own
+      men, and, being carried prisoner to Persia, suffered death by crucifixion.
+      Amyrtseus fled to the fens, where for a while he maintained his
+      independence. Egypt, however, was with this exception recovered to the
+      Empire (B.C. 455); and Athens was taught that she could not always invade
+      the dominions of the Great King with impunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Six years after this, the Athenians resolved on another effort. A fleet of
+      200 ships was equipped and placed under the command of the victor of the
+      Eurymedon, Cimon, with orders to proceed into the Eastern Mediterranean,
+      and seek to recover the laurels lost in Egypt. Cimon sailed to Cyprus,
+      where he received a communication from Amyrtseus, which induced him to
+      dispatch sixty ships to Egypt, while with the remaining one hundred and
+      forty he commenced the siege of Citium. Here he died, either of disease or
+      from the effects of a wound; and his armament, pressed for provisions, was
+      forced soon afterwards to raise the siege, and address itself to some
+      other enterprise. Sailing past Salamis, it found there a Cilician and
+      Phoenician fleet, consisting of 300 vessels, which it immediately attacked
+      and defeated, notwithstanding the disparity of number. Besides the ships
+      which were sunk, a hundred triremes were taken; and the sailors then
+      landed and gained a victory over a Persian army upon the shore.
+      Artaxerxes, upon this, fearing lest he should lose Cyprus altogether, and
+      thinking that, if Athens became mistress of this important island, she
+      would always be fomenting insurrection in Egypt, made overtures for peace
+      to the generals who were now in command. His propositions were favorably
+      received. Peace was made on the following terms:&mdash;Athens agreed to
+      relinquish Cyprus, and recall her squadron from Egypt; while the king
+      consented to grant freedom to all the Greek cities on the Asiatic
+      continent, and not to menace them either by land or water. The sea was
+      divided between the two powers, Persian ships of war were not to sail to
+      the west of Phaselis in the Levant, or of the Cyanean islands in the
+      Euxine; and Greek war-ships, we may assume, were not to show themselves
+      east of those limits. On these conditions there was to be peace and amity
+      between the Greeks and the Persians, and neither nation was to undertake
+      any expeditions against the territories of the other. Thus terminated the
+      first period of hostility between Greece and Persia, a period of exactly
+      half a century, commencing B.C. 499 and. ending B.C. 449, in the
+      seventeenth year of Artaxerxes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was probably not many years after the conclusion of this peace that a
+      rebellion broke out in Syria. Megabyzus, the satrap of that important
+      province, offended at the execution of Inarus, in violation of the promise
+      which he had himself made to him, raised a revolt against his sovereign,
+      defeated repeatedly the armies sent to reduce him to obedience, and
+      finally treated with Artaxerxes as to the terms on which he would consent
+      to be reconciled. Thus was set an example, if not of successful
+      insurrection, yet at any rate of the possibility of rebelling with
+      impunity&mdash;an example which could not fail to have a mischievous
+      effect on the future relations of the monarch with his satraps. It would
+      have been better for the Empire had Megabyzus suffered the fate of
+      Oroetes, instead of living to a good old age in high favor with the
+      monarch whose power he had weakened and defied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Artaxerxes survived the &ldquo;Peace of Callias&rdquo; twenty-four years. His
+      relations with the Greeks continued friendly till his demise, though, on
+      the occasion of the revolt of Samos (B.C. 440), Pissuthnes, satrap of
+      Sardis, seems to have transgressed the terms of the treaty, and to have
+      nearly brought about a renewal of hostilities. It was probably in
+      retaliation for the aid given to the revolted Samians, that the Athenians,
+      late in the reign of Artaxerxes, made an expedition against Caunus, which
+      might have had important consequences, if the Caunians had not been firm
+      in their allegiance. A revolt of Lycia and Caria under Zopyrus, the son of
+      Megabyzus, assisted by the Greeks, might have proved even more difficult
+      to subdue than the rebellion of Syria under his father. Persia, however,
+      escaped this danger; and Artaxerxes, no doubt, saw with pleasure a few
+      years later the Greeks turn their arms against each other&mdash;Athens,
+      his great enemy, being forced into a contest for existence with the
+      Peloponnesian confederacy under Sparta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character of Artaxerxes, though it receives the approval of Plutarch
+      and Diodorus, must be pronounced on the whole poor and contemptible. His
+      ready belief of the charge brought by Artabanus against his brother,
+      Darius, admits perhaps of excuse, owing to his extreme youth; but his
+      surrender of Inarus to Amestris on account of her importunity, his
+      readiness to condone the revolt of Megabyzus, and his subjection
+      throughout almost the whole of his life to the evil influence of Amytis,
+      his sister, and Amestris, his mother&mdash;both persons of ill-regulated
+      lives&mdash;are indications of weakness and folly quite unpardonable in a
+      monarch. That he was mild in temperament, and even kind and good-natured,
+      is probable. But he had no other quality that deserves the slightest
+      commendation. In the whole course of his long reign he seems never once to
+      have adventured himself in the field against an enemy. He made not a
+      single attempt at conquest in any direction. We have no evidence that he
+      patronized either literature or the arts. His peace with Athens was
+      necessary perhaps, but disgraceful to Persia. The disorders of the Court
+      increased under his reign, from the license (especially) which he allowed
+      the Queen-mother, who sported with the lives of his subjects. The decay of
+      the Empire received a fatal impulse from the impunity which he permitted
+      to Megabyzus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like his father, Artaxerxes appears to have had but one legitimate wife.
+      This was a certain Damaspia, of whom nothing is known, except that she
+      died on the same day as her husband, and was the mother of his only
+      legitimate son, Xerxes. Seventeen other sons, who survived him, were the
+      issue of various concubines, chiefly&mdash;it would appear&mdash;Babylonians.
+      Xerxes II. succeeded to the throne on the death of his father (B.C. 425),
+      but reigned forty-five days only, being murdered after a festival, in
+      which he had indulged too freely, by his half-brother, Secydianus or
+      Sogdianus. Secydianus enjoyed the sovereignty for little more than half a
+      year, when he was in his turn put to death by another, brother, Ochus, who
+      on ascending the throne took the name of Darius, and became known to the
+      Greeks as Darius Nothus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius Nothus had in his father&rsquo;s lifetime been made satrap of Hyrcania,
+      and had married his aunt, Parysatis, a daughter of Xerxes. He had already
+      two children at his accession,&mdash;a daughter, Amestris, and a son,
+      Arsaces, who succeeded him as Artaxerxes. His reign, which lasted nineteen
+      years, was a constant scene of insurrections and revolts, some of which
+      were of great importance, since they had permanent and very disastrous
+      consequences. The earliest of all was raised by his full-brother, Arsites,
+      who rebelled in conjunction with a son of Megabyzus, and, obtaining the
+      support of a number of Greek mercenaries, gained two victories over the
+      forces dispatched against him by the king. At last, however, the fortune
+      of war changed. Persian gold was used to corrupt the mercenaries; and the
+      rebels being thus reduced to extremities, were forced to capitulate,
+      yielding themselves on the condition that their lives should be spared.
+      Parysatis induced her husband to disregard the pledges given and execute
+      both Arsites and his fellow-conspirator&mdash;thus proclaiming to the
+      world that, unless by the employment of perfidy, the Empire was incapable
+      of dealing with those who rebelled against its authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The revolt of Pissuthnes, satrap of Lydia, was the next important
+      outbreak. Its exact date is uncertain; but it seems not to have very long
+      preceded the Athenian disasters in Sicily. Pissuthnes, who had held his
+      satrapy for more than twenty years, was the son of a Hystaspes, and
+      probably a member of the royal family. His wealth&mdash;the accumulations
+      of so long a term of office&mdash;enabled him to hire the services of a
+      body of Greek mercenaries, who were commanded by an Athenian, called
+      Lycon. On these troops he placed his chief dependence; but they failed him
+      in the hour of need. Tissaphernes, the Persian general sent against him,
+      bribed Lycon and his men, who thereupon quitted Pissuthnes and made common
+      cause with his adversaries. The unfortunate satrap could no longer resist,
+      and therefore surrendered upon terms, and accompanied Tissaphernes to the
+      Court. Darius, accustomed now to disregard the pledged word of his
+      officers, executed him forthwith, and made over his satrapy to
+      Tissaphernes, as a reward for his zeal. Lycon, the Athenian traitor,
+      received likewise a handsome return for his services, the revenues of
+      several towns and districts being assigned him by the Great King.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rebellion, however, was not wholly crushed by the destruction of its
+      author, Amorges, a bastard son of Pissuthnes, continued to maintain
+      himself in Caria, where he was master of the strong city of Iasus, on the
+      north coast of the Sinus Iasicus, and set the power of Tissaphernes at
+      defiance. Having probably inherited the wealth of his father, he hired a
+      number of Peloponnesian mercenaries, and succeeded in maintaining himself
+      as an independent monarch for some years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the condition of things in Asia Minor, when intelligence arrived
+      of the fearful disasters which had befallen the Athenians in Sicily&mdash;disasters
+      without a parallel since those of Salamis&mdash;sudden, unexpected,
+      overwhelming. The news, flying through Asia, awoke everywhere a belief
+      that the power of Athens was broken, and that her hostility need no longer
+      be dreaded. The Persian monarch considered that under the altered
+      circumstances it would be safe to treat the Peace of Callias as a dead
+      letter, and sent down orders to the satraps of Lydia and Bithynia that
+      they were once more to demand and collect the tribute of the Greek cities
+      within their provinces. The satraps began to speculate on the advantages
+      which they might derive from alliance with the enemies of Athens, and
+      looked anxiously to see a Peloponnesian fleet appear off the coast of
+      Asia. Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus vied with each other in the tempting
+      offers which they made to Sparta, and it was not long before a formal
+      treaty was concluded between that state and Persia, by which the two
+      powers bound themselves to carry on war conjointly against Athens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the contest between Persia and her rival entered upon a new phase.
+      Henceforth until the liberties of Greece were lost, the Great King could
+      always count on having for his ally one of the principal Grecian powers.
+      His gold was found to possess attractions which the Greeks were quite
+      unable to resist. At one time Sparta, at another Athens, at another Thebes
+      yielded to the subtle influence; Greek generals commanded the Persian
+      armies; Greek captains manoeuvered the Persian fleets; the very rank and
+      file of the standing army came to be almost as much Greek as Persian.
+      Acting on the maxim, <i>Divide et impera</i>, Persia prolonged for eighty
+      years her tottering Empire, by the skilful use which she made of the
+      mutual jealousies and divisions of the Hellenic states.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It scarcely belongs to the history of Persia to trace in detail the
+      fortunes of the contending powers during the latter portion of the
+      Peloponnesian war. We need only observe that the real policy of the Court
+      of Susa, well understood, and, on the whole, tolerably well carried out by
+      the satraps, was to preserve the balance of power between Athens and
+      Sparta, to allow neither to obtain too decided a preponderance, to help
+      each in turn, and encourage each to waste the other&rsquo;s strength, but to
+      draw back whenever the moment came for striking a decisive blow against
+      either side. This policy skilfully pursued by Tissaphernes (who had a
+      genius for intrigue and did not require an Alcibiades to give him lessons
+      in state-craft), more clumsily by Pharnabazus, whose character was
+      comparatively sincere and straightforward, prevailed until the younger
+      Cyrus made his appearance upon the scene, when a disturbing force came
+      into play which had disastrous effects both on the fortunes of Greece and
+      on those of Persia. The younger Cyrus had personal views of
+      self-aggrandizement which conflicted with the true interests of his
+      nation, and was so bent on paving the way for his own ascent to sovereign
+      power that he did not greatly care whether he injured his country or no.
+      As the accomplishment of his designs depended mainly on his obtaining a
+      powerful land-force, he regarded a Spartan as preferable to an Athenian
+      alliance; and, having once made his choice, he lent his ally such
+      effectual aid that in two years from the time of his coming down to the
+      coast the war was terminated. Persian gold manned and partly built the
+      fleet which conquered at AEgos-Potami; perhaps it contributed in a still
+      more decisive manner to the victory. Cyrus, by placing his stores at the
+      entire command of Lysander, deserved and acquired the cordial good-will of
+      Sparta and the Peloponnesians generally&mdash;an advantage of which we
+      shall find him in the sequel making good use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gain to Persia from the dominion which she had reacquired over the
+      Greeks of Asia was more than counter-balanced by a loss of territory in
+      another quarter, which seems to have occurred during the reign of Darius
+      Nothus, though in what exact year is doubtful. The revolt of Egypt is
+      placed by Heeren and Clinton in B.C. 414, by Eusebius in B.C. 411, by
+      Manetho in the last year of Darius Nothus, or B.C. 405. The earlier dates
+      depend on the view that the Amyrtseus of Manetho&rsquo;s twenty-eighth dynasty
+      was the leader of the rebellion, and had a reign of six years at this
+      period&mdash;a view which is perhaps unsound. Manetho probably represented
+      Nepherites (Nefaorot) as the leader; and it is quite clear that he placed
+      the re-establishment of the old throne of the Pharaohs in the year that
+      Darius Nothus died. As his authority is the best that we can obtain upon
+      this obscure point, we may regard the last days of the Persian monarch as
+      clouded by news of a rebellion, which had been perhaps for some time
+      contemplated, but which did not break out until he was known to be in a
+      moribund condition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few years earlier, B.C. 408 or 409, the Medes had made an unsuccessful
+      attempt to recover their independence. The circumstances of this revolt,
+      which is mentioned by no writer but Xenophon, are wholly unknown, but we
+      may perhaps connect it with the rebellion of Terituchmes, a son-in-law of
+      the king. The story of Terituchmes, which belongs to this period, deserves
+      at any rate to be told, as illustrating, in a very remarkable way, the
+      corruption, cruelty, and dissoluteness of the Persian Court at the time to
+      which we have now come. Terituchmes was the son of Idernes, a Persian
+      noble of high rank, probably a descendant of the conspirator Hydarnes. On
+      the death of his father, he succeeded to his satrapy, as to a hereditary
+      fief, and being high in favor with Darius Nothus, he received in marriage
+      that monarch&rsquo;s daughter, Amestris. Having, however, after his marriage
+      become enamored of his own half-sister, Roxana, and having persuaded her
+      to an incestuous commerce, he grew to detest his wife, and as he could not
+      rid himself of her without making an enemy of the king, he entered into a
+      conspiracy with 300 others, and planned to raise a rebellion. The bond of
+      a common crime, cruel and revolting in its character, was to secure the
+      fidelity of the rebels one to another. Amestris was to be placed in a
+      sack, and each conspirator in turn was to plunge his sword into her body.
+      It is not clear whether this intended murder was executed or no. Hoping to
+      prevent it, Darius commissioned a certain Udiastes, who was in the service
+      of Terituchmes, to save his daughter by any means that might be necessary;
+      and Udiastes, collecting a band, set upon Terituchmes and slew him after a
+      strenuous resistance. After this, his mother, brothers, and sisters were
+      apprehended by the order of Parysatis, the queen, who caused Roxana to be
+      hewn in pieces, and the other unfortunates to be buried alive. It was with
+      great difficulty that Arsaces, the heir-apparent, afterwards Artaxerxes
+      Mnemon, preserved his own wife, Statira, from the massacre. It happened
+      that she was sister to Terituchmes, and, though wholly innocent of his
+      offence, she would have been involved in the common destruction of her
+      family had not her husband with tears and entreaties begged her life of
+      his parents. The son of Terituchmes maintained himself for a while in his
+      father&rsquo;s government; but Parysatis succeeded in having him taken off by
+      poison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character of Darius Nothus is seen tolerably clearly in the account of
+      his reign which has been here given. He was at once weak and wicked.
+      Contrary to his sworn word, he murdered his brothers, Secydianus and
+      Arsites. He broke faith with Pissuthnes. He sanctioned the wholesale
+      execution of Terituchmes&rsquo; relatives. Under him the eunuchs of the palace
+      rose to such power that one of them actually ventured to aspire to the
+      sovereignty. Parysatis, his wife, one of the most cruel and malignant even
+      of Oriental women, was in general his chosen guide and counsellor. His
+      severities cannot, however, in all eases be ascribed to her influence, for
+      he was anxious that she should put the innocent Statira to death, and,
+      when she refused, reproached her with being foolishly lenient. In his
+      administration of the Empire he was unsuccessful; for, if he gained some
+      tracts of Asia Minor, he lost the entire African satrapy. Under him we
+      trace a growing relaxation of the checks by which the great officers of
+      the state were intended to have been held under restraint. Satraps came to
+      be practically uncontrolled in their provinces, and the dangerous custom
+      arose of allowing sons to succeed, almost as a matter of course, to the
+      governments of their fathers. Powers unduly large were lodged in the hands
+      of a single officer, and actions, that should have brought down upon their
+      perpetrators sharp and signal punishment, were timorously or negligently
+      condoned by the supreme authority. Cunning and treachery were made the
+      weapons wherewith Persia contended with her enemies. Manly habits were
+      laid aside, and the nation learned to trust more and more to the swords of
+      mercenaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly before the death of Darius there seems to have been a doubt raised
+      as to the succession. Parysatis, who preferred her second son to her
+      first-born, imagined that her influence was sufficient to induce her
+      husband to nominate Cyrus, instead of Arsaces, to succeed him; and Cyrus
+      is said to have himself expected to be preferred above his brother. He had
+      the claim, if claim it can be called, that he was the first son born to
+      his father after he became king; but his main dependence was doubtless on
+      his mother. Darius, however, proved less facile in his dying moments than
+      he had been during most of his life, and declined to set aside the rights
+      of the eldest son on the frivolous pretence suggested to him. His own
+      feelings may have inclined him towards Arsaces, who resembled him far more
+      than Cyrus did in character; and Cyrus, moreover, had recently offended
+      him, and been summoned to court, to answer a very serious charge. Arsaces,
+      therefore, was nominated, and took the name of Artaxerxes&mdash;as one of
+      a king who had reigned long, and, on the whole, prosperously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An incident of ill omen accompanied the commencement of the new reign
+      (B.C. 405). The inauguration of the monarch was a religious ceremony, and
+      took place in a temple at Pasargadae, the old capital, to which a peculiar
+      sanctity was still regarded as attaching. Artaxerxes had proceeded to this
+      place, and was about to engage in the ceremonies, when he was interrupted
+      by Tissaphernes, who informed him that his life was in danger. Cyrus, he
+      said, proposed to hide himself in the temple, and assassinate him as he
+      changed his dress, a necessary part of the formalities. One of the
+      officiating priests&mdash;a Magus, as it would seem&mdash;confirmed the
+      charge. Cyrus was immediately arrested, and would have been put to death
+      on the spot, had not his mother interfered, and, embracing him in her
+      arms, made it impossible for the executioner to perform his task. With
+      some difficulty she persuaded Artaxerxes to spare his brother&rsquo;s life and
+      allow him to return to his government, assuring him, and perhaps
+      believing, that the charges made against her favorite were without
+      foundation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cyrus returned to Asia Minor with the full determination of attacking his
+      brother at the earliest opportunity. He immediately began the collection
+      of a mercenary force, composed wholly of Greeks, on whose arms he was
+      disposed to place far more reliance than on those of Orientals. As
+      Tissaphernes had returned to the coast with him, and was closely watching
+      all his proceedings, it was necessary to exercise great caution, lest his
+      intentions should become known before he was ready to put them into
+      execution. He therefore had recourse to three different devices. Having
+      found a cause of quarrel with Tissaphernes in the ambiguous terms of their
+      respective commissions, he pressed it on to an actual war, which enabled
+      him to hire troops openly, as against this enemy; and in this way he
+      collected from 5000 to 6000 Greeks&mdash;chiefly Peloponnesians. He
+      further gave secret commissions to Greek officers, whose acquaintance he
+      had made when he was previously in these parts, to collect men for him,
+      whom they were to employ in their own quarrels until he needed their
+      services. From 3000 to 4000 troops were gathered for him by these persons.
+      Finally, when he found himself nearly ready to commence his march, he
+      discovered a new foe in the Pisidians of the Western Taurus, and proceeded
+      to levy a force against them, which amounted to some thousands more. In
+      all, he had in readiness 11,000 heavy-armed and about 2000 light-armed
+      Greeks before his purpose became so clear that Tissaphernes could no
+      longer mistake it, and therefore started off to carry his somewhat tardy
+      intelligence to the capital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The aims of Cyrus were different from those of ordinary rebel satraps; and
+      we must go back to the times of Darius Hystaspis in order to find a
+      parallel to them. Instead of seeking to free a province from the Persian
+      yoke, or to carve out for himself an independent sovereignty in some
+      remote corner of the Empire, his intention was to dethrone his brother,
+      and place on his own brows the diadem of his great namesake. It was
+      necessary for him therefore to assume the offensive. Only by a bold
+      advance, and by taking his enemy to some extent unprepared, and so at a
+      disadvantage, could he hope to succeed in his audacious project. It is not
+      easy to see that he could have had any considerable party among the
+      Persians, or any ground for expecting to be supported by any of the
+      subject nations. His following must have been purely personal; and though
+      it may be true that he was of a character to win more admiration and
+      affection than his brother, yet Artaxerxes himself was far from being
+      unpopular with his subjects, whom he pleased by a familiarity and a
+      good-nature to which they were little accustomed. Cyrus knew that his
+      principal dependence must be on himself, on his Greeks, and on the
+      carelessness and dilatoriness of his adversary, who was destitute of
+      military talent and was even thought to be devoid of personal bravery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it was important to advance as soon as possible. Cyrus therefore
+      quitted Sardis before all his troops were collected (B.C. 401), and
+      marched through Lydia and Phrygia, by the route formally followed in the
+      reverse direction by the army of Xerxes, as far as Celsense, where the
+      remainder of his mercenaries joined him. With his Greek force thus raised
+      to 13,000 men, and with a native army not much short of 100,000, he
+      proceeded on through Phrygia and Lycaonia to the borders of Cilicia,
+      having determined on taking the shortest route to Babylon, through the
+      Cilician and Syrian passes, and then along the course of the Euphrates. At
+      Caystrupedion he was met by Epyaxa, consort of Syennesis, the tributary
+      king of Cilicia, who brought him a welcome supply of money, and probably
+      assured him of the friendly disposition of her husband, who was anxious to
+      stand well with both sides. In Lycaonia, Cyrus divided his forces, and
+      sending a small body of troops under Menon to escort Epyaxa across the
+      mountains and enter Cilicia by the more western of the two practicable
+      passes he proceeded himself with the bulk of his troops to the famous
+      Pylae Cilicias, where he probably knew that Syennesis would only make a
+      feint of resistance. He found the pass occupied; but it was evacuated the
+      next day, on the receipt of intelligence that Menon had already entered
+      the country and that the fleet of Cyrus&mdash;composed partly of his own
+      ships, partly of a squadron furnished to him by Sparta&mdash;had appeared
+      off the coast and threatened a landing. Cyrus thus crossed the most
+      difficult and dangerous of all the passes that separated him from the
+      heart of the Empire, without the loss of a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus far it would appear that Cyrus had to a certain extent masked his
+      plans. The Greek captains must have guessed, if they had not actually
+      learnt, his intentions; but to the bulk of the soldiery they had been
+      hitherto absolutely unknown. It was only in Cilicia that the light broke
+      in upon them, and they began to suspect that they were being marched into
+      the interior of Asia, there to engage in a contest with the entire power
+      of the Great King. Something of the horror which is ascribed to Cleomenes,
+      when it was suggested to him a century earlier that he should conduct his
+      Spartans the distance of a three months&rsquo; journey from the sea, appears to
+      have taken possession of the minds of the mercenaries on their awaking to
+      this conviction. They at once refused to proceed. It was only by the most
+      skilful management on the part of their captains, joined to a judicious
+      liberality on the part of Cyrus, that they were induced to forego their
+      intention of returning home at once, and so breaking up the expedition. A
+      perception of the difficulty of effecting a retreat, together with an
+      increase of pay, extorted a reluctant assent to continue the march, of
+      which the real term and object were even now not distinctly avowed. Cyrus
+      said he proposed to attack the army of Abrocomas, which he believed to be
+      posted on the Euphrates. If he did not find it there, a fresh consultation
+      might be held to consider any further movement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The march now proceeded rapidly. The gates of Syria&mdash;a narrow pass on
+      the east coast of the Gulf of Issus, shut in, like Thermopylae, between
+      the mountains and the sea, and strengthened moreover by fortifications&mdash;were
+      left unguarded by Abrocomas; and the army, having traversed them without
+      loss, crossed the Amanus range by the pass of Beilan, and in twenty-nine
+      days from Tarsus reached Thapsacus on the Euphrates. The forces of
+      Artaxerxes had nowhere made their appearance&mdash;Abrocomas, though he
+      had 300,000 men at his disposal, had weakly or treacherously abandoned all
+      these strong and easily defensible positions; he does not seem even to
+      have wasted the country; but, having burnt the boats at Thapsacus, he was
+      content to fall back upon Phoenicia, and left the way to Babylon and Susa
+      open. At Thapsacus there was little difficulty in persuading the Greeks,
+      who had no longer the sea before their eyes, to continue the march; they
+      only stipulated for a further increase of pay, which was readily promised
+      them by the sanguine prince, who believed himself on the point of
+      obtaining by their aid the inexhaustible treasures of the Empire. The
+      river, which happened to be unusually low for the time of year, was easily
+      forded. Cyrus entered Mesopotamia, and continued his march down the left
+      bank of the Euphrates at the quickest rate that it was possible to move a
+      hundred thousand Orientals. In thirty-three days he had accomplished above
+      600 miles, and had approached within 120 miles of Babylon without seeing
+      any traces of an enemy. His only difficulties were from the nature of the
+      country, which, after the Khabour is passed, becomes barren, excepting
+      close along the river. From want of fodder there was a great mortality
+      among the baggage-animals; the price of grain rose; and the Greeks had to
+      subsist almost entirely upon meat. At last, when the Babylonian alluvium
+      was reached, with its abundance of fodder and corn, signs of the enemy
+      began to be observed. Artaxerxes, who after some doubts and misgivings had
+      finally determined to give his enemy battle in the plain, was already on
+      his way from Babylon, with an army reckoned at 900,000 men and had sent
+      forward a body of horse, partly to reconnoitre, partly to destroy the
+      crops, in order to prevent Cyrus and his troops from benefiting by them.
+      Cyrus now advanced slowly and cautiously, at the rate of about fourteen
+      miles a day, expecting each morning to fight a general engagement before
+      evening came. On the third night, believing the battle to be imminent, he
+      distributed the commands and laid down a plan of operations. But morning
+      brought no appearance of the enemy, and the whole day passed tranquilly.
+      In the course of it, he came upon a wide and deep trench cut through the
+      plain for a distance of above forty miles&mdash;a recent work, which
+      Artaxerxes had intended as a barrier to stop the progress of his enemy.
+      But the trench was undefended and incomplete, a space of twenty feet being
+      left between its termination and the Euphrates. Cyrus, having passed it,
+      began to be convinced that his brother would not risk a battle in the
+      plain, but would retreat to the mountains and make his stand at Persepolis
+      or Ecbatana. He therefore continued his march negligently. His men piled
+      their arms on the wagons or laid them, across the beasts of burthen; while
+      he himself exchanged the horse which he usually rode for a chariot, and
+      proceeded on his way leisurely, having about his person a small escort,
+      which preserved their ranks, while all the rest of the troops were allowed
+      to advance in complete disarray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, as the army was proceeding in this disorderly manner through the
+      plain, a single horseman was perceived advancing at full gallop from the
+      opposite quarter, his steed all flecked with foam. As he drew near, he
+      shouted aloud to those whom he met, addressing some in Greek, others in
+      Persian, and warning them that the Great King, with his whole force, was
+      close at hand, and rapidly approaching in order of battle. The news took
+      every one by surprise, and at first all was hurry and confusion. The
+      Greeks, however, who were on the right, rapidly marshalled their line,
+      resting it upon the river; while Cyrus put on his armor, mounted his
+      horse, and arranged the ranks of his Asiatics. Ample time was given for
+      completing all the necessary dispositions; since three hours, at the
+      least, must have elapsed from the announcement of the enemy&rsquo;s approach
+      before he actually appeared. Then a white cloud of dust arose towards the
+      verge of the horizon, below which a part of the plain began soon to
+      darken; presently gleams of light were seen to flash out from the dense
+      mass which was advancing, the serried lines of spears came into view, and
+      the component parts of the huge army grew to be discernible. On the
+      extreme left was a body of horsemen with white cuirasses, commanded by
+      Tissaphernes; next came infantry, carrying the long wicker shield, or <i>gerrhum</i>
+      then a solid square of Egyptians, heavily armed, and bearing wooden
+      shields that reached to the feet; then the contingents of many different
+      nations, some on foot, some on horseback, armed with bows and other
+      weapons. The line stretched away to the east further than the Greeks, who
+      were stationed on the right, could see, extending (as it would seem) more
+      than twice the distance which was covered by the army of Cyrus. Artaxerxes
+      was in the centre of his line, on horseback, surrounded by a mounted guard
+      of 6000 Persians. In front of the line, towards the river, were drawn up
+      at wide intervals a hundred and fifty scythed chariots, which were
+      designed to carry terror and confusion into the ranks of the Greeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other side, Cyrus had upon the extreme right a thousand
+      Paphlagonian cavalry with the more lightly armed of the Greeks; next, the
+      Greek heavy-armed, under Clearchus; and then his Asiatics, stretching in a
+      line to about the middle of his adversary&rsquo;s army, his own special command
+      being in the centre; and his left wing being led by the satrap, Ariaeus.
+      With Ariseus was posted the great mass of the cavalry; but a band of six
+      hundred, clad in complete armor, with their horses also partially armed,
+      waited on Cyrus himself, and accompanied him wherever he went. As the
+      enemy drew near, and Cyrus saw how much he was outflanked upon the left,
+      he made an attempt to remedy the evil by ordering Clearchus to move with
+      his troops from the extreme right to the extreme left of the line, where
+      he would be opposite to Artaxerxes himself. This, no doubt, would have
+      been a hazardous movement to make in the face of a superior enemy; and
+      Clearchus, feeling this, and regarding the execution of the order as left
+      to his discretion, declined to move away from the river. Cyrus, who
+      trusted much to the Greek general&rsquo;s judgment, did not any further press
+      the change, but prepared to fight the battle as he stood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The combat began upon the right. When the enemy had approached within six
+      or seven hundred yards, the impatience of the Greeks to engage could not
+      be restrained. They sang the paean and started forwards at a pace which in
+      a short time became a run. The Persians did not await their charge. The
+      drivers leaped from their chariots, the line of battle behind them
+      wavered, and then turned and fled without striking a blow. One Greek only
+      was wounded by an arrow. As for the scythed chariots, they damaged their
+      own side more than the Greeks; for the frightened horses in many cases,
+      carried the vehicles into the thick of the fugitives, while the Greeks
+      opened their ranks and gave passage to such as charged in an opposite
+      direction. Moderating their pace so as to preserve their tactical
+      arrangement, but still advancing with great rapidity, the Greeks pressed
+      on the flying enemy, and pursued him a distance of two or three miles,
+      never giving a thought to Cyrus, who, they supposed, would conquer those
+      opposed to him with as much ease as themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the prince meanwhile was in difficulties. Finding himself outnumbered
+      and outflanked, and fearing that his whole army would be surrounded, and
+      even the victorious Greeks attacked in the rear, he set all upon one
+      desperate cast and charged with his Six Hundred against the six thousand
+      horse who protected his brother. Artagerses, their commander, who met him
+      with a Homeric invective, he slew with his own hand. The six thousand were
+      routed and took to flight; the person of the king was exposed to view; and
+      Cyrus, transported at the sight, rushed forward shouting, &ldquo;I see the man,&rdquo;
+       and hurling his javelin, struck him straight upon the breast, with such
+      force that the cuirass was pierced and a slight flesh-wound inflicted. The
+      king fell from his horse; but at the same moment Cyrus received a wound
+      beneath the eye from the javelin of a Persian, and in the melee which
+      followed he was slain with eight of his followers. The Six Hundred could
+      lend no effectual aid, because they had rashly dispersed in pursuit of the
+      flying enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the whole contest was a personal one, the victory was now decided.
+      Fighting, however, continued till nightfall. On learning the death of
+      their leader, the Asiatic troops under Ariseus fled&mdash;first to their
+      camp, and then, when Artaxerxes attacked them there, to the last night&rsquo;s
+      station. The Grecian camp was assaulted by Tissaphernes, who at the
+      beginning of the battle had charged through the Greek light-armed, without
+      however, inflicting on them any loss, and had then pressed on, thinking to
+      capture the Grecian baggage. But the guard defended their camp with
+      success, and slew many of the assailants. Tissaphernes and the king drew
+      off after a while, and retraced their steps, in order to complete the
+      victory by routing the troops of Clearchus. Clearchus was at the same time
+      returning from his pursuit, having heard that his camp was in danger, and
+      as the two bodies of troops approached, he found his right threatened by
+      the entire host of the enemy, which might have lapped round it and
+      attacked it in front, in flank, and in rear. To escape this peril he was
+      about to wheel his line and make it rest alone its whole extent upon the
+      river, when the Persians passed him and resumed the position which they
+      had occupied at the beginning of the battle. They were then about to
+      attack, when once more the Greeks anticipated them and charged. The effect
+      was again ludicrous. The Persians would not abide the onset, but fled
+      faster than before. The Greeks pursued them to a village, close by which
+      was a knoll or mound, whither the fugitives had betaken themselves. Again
+      the Greeks made a movement in advance, and immediately the flight
+      recommenced. The last rays of the setting sun fell on scattered masses of
+      Persian horse and foot flying in all directions over the plain from the
+      little band of Greeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle of Cunaxa was a double blow to the Persian power. By the death
+      of Cyrus there was lost the sole chance that existed of such a
+      re-invigoration of the Empire as might have enabled it to start again on a
+      new lease of life, with ability to held its own, and strength to resume
+      once more the aggressive attitude of former times. The talents of Cyrus
+      have perhaps been overrated, but he was certainly very superior to most
+      Orientals; and there can be no doubt that the Empire would have greatly
+      gained by the substitution of his rule for that of his brother. He was
+      active, energetic, prompt indeed, ready in speech, faithful in the
+      observance of his engagements, brave, liberal&mdash;he had more foresight
+      and more self-contro than most Asiatics; he knew how to deal with
+      different classes of men; he had a great power of inspiring affection and
+      retaining it; he was free from the folly of national prejudice, and could
+      appreciate as they deserved both the character and the institutions of
+      foreigners. It is likely that he would have proved a better administrator
+      and ruler than any king of Persia since Darius Hystaspis. He would,
+      therefore, undoubtedly have raised his country to some extent. Whether he
+      could really have arrested its decline, and enabled it to avenge the
+      humiliations of Marathon, Salamis, and the peace of Callias, is, however,
+      exceedingly doubtful. For Cyrus, though he had considerable merits, was
+      not without great and grievous defects. As the Tartar is said always to
+      underlie the Russ, so the true Oriental underlay that coating of Grecian
+      manners and modes of thought and act, with which a real admiration of the
+      Hellenic race induced Cyrus to conceal his native barbarism. When he slew
+      his cousins for an act which he chose to construe as disrespect, and when
+      he executed Orontes for contemplated desertion, secretly and silently, so
+      that no one knew his fate, when transported with jealous rage he rushed
+      madly upon his brother, exposing to hazard the success of all his
+      carefully formed plans, and in fact ruining his cause, the acquired habits
+      of the Phil-Hellene gave way, and the native ferocity of the Asiatic came
+      to the surface. We see Cyrus under favorable circumstances, while
+      conciliation, tact, and self-restraint were necessities of his position,
+      without which he could not possibly gain his ends&mdash;we do not know
+      what effect success and the possession of supreme power might have had
+      upon his temper and conduct; but from the acts above-mentioned we may at
+      any rate suspect that the result would have been very injurious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, intellectually, Cyrus is only great for an Asiatic. He has more
+      method, more foresight, more power of combination, more breadth of mind
+      than the other Asiatics of his day, or than the vast mass of Asiatics of
+      any day. But he is not entitled to the praise of a great administrator or
+      of a great general. His three years&rsquo; administration of Asia Minor was
+      chiefly marked by a barbarous severity towards criminals, and by a lavish
+      expenditure of the resources of his government, which left him in actual
+      want at the moment when he was about to commence his expedition. His
+      generalship failed signally at the battle of Cunaxa, for the loss of which
+      he is far more to be blamed than Clearchus. As he well knew that
+      Artaxerxes was sure to occupy the centre of his line of battle, he should
+      have placed his Greeks in the middle of his own line, not at one
+      extremity. When he saw how much his adversary outflanked him on the left&mdash;a
+      contingency which was so probable that it ought to have occurred to him
+      beforehand&mdash;he should have deployed his line in that direction,
+      instead of ordering such a movement as Clearchus, not unwisely, declined
+      to execute. He might have trusted the Greeks to fight in line, as they had
+      fought at Marathon; and by expanding their ranks, and moving off his
+      Asiatics to the left, he might, have avoided the danger of being
+      outflanked and surrounded. But his capital error was the wildness and
+      abandon of his charge with the Six Hundred&mdash;a charge which it was
+      probably right to make under the circumstances, but which required a
+      combination of coolness and courage that the Persian prince evidently did
+      not possess when his feelings were excited. Had he kept his Six Hundred
+      well in hand, checked their pursuit, and abstained from thrusting his own
+      person into unnecessary danger, he might have joined the Greeks as they
+      returned from their first victory and participated in their final triumph.
+      At the same time, Clearchus cannot but be blamed for pushing his suit too
+      far. If, when the enemy in his front fled, he had at once turned against
+      those who were engaging Cyrus, taking them on their left flank, which must
+      have been completely uncovered, he might have been in time to prevent the
+      fatal results of the rash charge made by his leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the death of Cyrus, though a calamity to Persia, was scarcely the
+      great loss which it has been represented. A far worse result of the
+      Cyreian expedition was the revelation which it made of the weakness of
+      Persia, and of the facility with which a Greek force might penetrate to
+      the very midst of the Empire, defeat the largest army that could be
+      brought against it, and remain, or return, as it might think proper.
+      Hitherto Babylon and Susa had been, even to the mind of a Greek statesman,
+      remote localities, which it would be the extreme of rashness to attempt to
+      reach by force of arms, and from which it would be utter folly to suppose
+      that a single man could return alive except by permission of the Great
+      King. Henceforth these towns were looked upon as prizes quite within the
+      legitimate scope of Greek ambition, and their conquest came to be viewed
+      as little more than a question of time. The opinion of inaccessibility,
+      which had been Persia&rsquo;s safeguard hitherto, was gone, and in its stead
+      grew up a conviction that the heart of the Empire might be reached with
+      very little difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It required, however, for the production of this whole change, not merely
+      that the advance to Cunaxa should have been safely made, and the
+      immeasurable superiority of Greek to Asiatic soldiers there exhibited, but
+      also that the retreat should have been effected, as it was effected,
+      without disaster. Had the Ten Thousand perished under the attacks of the
+      Persian horse, or even under the weapons of the Kurds, or amid the snows
+      of Armenia, the opinion of Persian invulnerability would have been
+      strengthened rather than weakened by the expedition. But the return to
+      Greece of ten thousand men, who had defeated the hosts of the Great King
+      in the centre of his dominions, and fought their way back to the sea
+      without suffering more than the common casualties of war, was an evidence
+      of weakness which could not but become generally known, and of which all
+      could feel the force. Hence the retreat was as important as the battle. If
+      in late autumn and mid-winter a small Greek army, without maps or guides,
+      could make its way for a thousand miles through Asia, and encounter no foe
+      over whom it could not easily triumph, it was clear that the fabric of
+      Persian power was rotten, and would collapse on the first serious attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still, it will not be necessary to trace in detail the steps of the
+      retreat. It was the fact of the return, rather than the mode of its
+      accomplishment, which importantly affected the subsequent history of
+      Persia. We need only note that the retreat was successfully conducted in
+      spite, not merely of the military power of the Empire, but of the most
+      barefaced and cruel treachery&mdash;a fact which showed clearly the strong
+      desire that there was to hinder the invaders&rsquo; escape. Persia did not set
+      much store by her honor at this period; but she would scarcely have
+      pledged her word and broken it, without the slightest shadow of excuse,
+      unless she had regarded the object to be accomplished as one of vast
+      importance, and seen no other way which offered any prospect of the
+      desired result. Her failure, despite the success of her treachery, places
+      her military weakness in the strongest possible light. The Greeks, though
+      deprived of their leaders, deceived, surprised, and hemmed in by superior
+      numbers, amid terrific mountains, precipices, and snows, forced their way
+      by sheer dogged perseverance through all obstacles, and reached Trebizond
+      with the loss of not one fourth of their original number.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was also another discovery made during the return which partly
+      indicated the weakness of the Persian power, and partly accounted for it.
+      The Greeks had believed that the whole vast space enclosed between the
+      Black Sea, Caucasus, Caspian, and Jaxartes on the one hand, and the
+      Arabian Desert, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean on the other, was bound
+      together into one single centralized monarchy, all the resources of which
+      were wielded by a single arm. They now found that even towards the heart
+      of the empire, on the confines of Media and Assyria, there existed
+      independent tribes which set the arms of Persia at defiance; while towards
+      the verge of the old dominion whole provinces, once certainly held in
+      subjection, had fallen away from the declining State, and succeeded in
+      establishing their freedom. The nineteenth satrapy of Herodotus existed no
+      more; in lieu of it was a mass of warlike and autonomous tribes&mdash;Chalybes,
+      Taochi, Chaldeans, Macronians, Scythians, Colchians, Mosynoecians,
+      Tibarenians&mdash;whose services, if he needed them, the King of Persia
+      had to buy, while ordinarily their attitude towards him was one of
+      distrust and hostility. Judging of the unknown from the known, the Greeks
+      might reasonably conclude that in all parts of the Empire similar
+      defections had occurred, and that thus both the dimensions and the
+      resources of the state had suffered serious diminution, and fell far below
+      the conception which they had been accustomed to form of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The immediate consequence of the Cyreian expedition was a rupture between
+      Persia and Sparta. Sparta had given aid to Cyrus, and thus provoked the
+      hostility of the Great King. She was not inclined to apologize or to
+      recede. On the contrary, she saw in the circumstances of the expedition
+      strong grounds for anticipating great advantages to herself from a war
+      with so weak an antagonist. Having, therefore, secured the services of the
+      returned Ten Thousand, she undertook the protection of the Asiatic Greeks
+      against Persia, and carried on a war upon the continent against the
+      satraps of Lydia and Phrygia for the space of six years (B.C. 399 to B.C.
+      394). The disorganization of the Persian Empire became very manifest
+      during this period. So jealous were the two satraps of each other, that
+      either was willing at any time to make a truce with the Spartans on
+      condition that they proceeded to attack the other; and, on one occasion,
+      as much as thirty silver talents was paid by a satrap on the condition
+      that the war should be transferred from his own government to that, of his
+      rival. At the same time the native tribes were becoming more and more
+      inclined to rebel. The Mysians and Pisidians had for a long time been
+      practically independent. Now the Bithynians showed a disposition to shake
+      off the Persian yoke, while in Paphlagonia the native monarchs boldly
+      renounced their allegiance. Agesilaus, who carried on the war in Asia
+      Minor for three years, knew well how to avail himself of all these
+      advantageous circumstances; and it is not unlikely that he would have
+      effected the separation from Persia of the entire peninsula, had he been
+      able to continue the struggle a few years longer. But the league between
+      Argos, Thebes, and Corinth, which jealousy of Sparta caused and Persian
+      gold promoted, proved so formidable, that Agesilaus had to be summoned
+      home: and after his departure, Conon, in alliance with Pharnabazus,
+      recovered the supremacy of the sea for Athens, and greatly weakened
+      Spartan influence in Asia. Not content with this result, the two friends,
+      in the year B.C. 393, sailed across the Egean, and the portentous
+      spectacle of a Persian fleet in Greek waters was once more seen&mdash;this
+      time in alliance with Athens! Descents were made upon the coasts of the
+      Peloponnese, and the island of Cythera was seized and occupied. The long
+      walls of Athens were rebuilt with Persian money, and all the enemies of
+      Sparta were richly subsidized. Sparta was made to feel that if she had
+      been able at one time to make the Great King tremble for his provinces, or
+      even for his throne, the King could at another reach her across the Egean,
+      and approach Sparta as nearly as she had, with the Cyreians, approached
+      Babylon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lesson of the year B.C. 393 was not thrown away on the Spartan
+      government. The leading men became convinced that unless they could secure
+      the neutrality of the Persians, Sparta must succumb to the hostility of
+      her Hellenic enemies. Under these circumstances they devised, with much
+      skill, a scheme likely to be acceptable to the Persians, which would
+      weaken their chief rivals in Greece&mdash;Athens and Thebes&mdash;while it
+      would leave untouched their own power. They proposed a general peace, the
+      conditions of which should be the entire relinquishment of Asia to the
+      Persians, and the complete autonomy of all the Greek States in Europe. The
+      first attempt to procure the acceptance of these terms failed (B.C. 393);
+      but six years later, after Antalcidas had explained them at the Persian
+      Court, Artaxerxes sent down an ultimatum to the disputants, modifying the
+      terms slightly as regarded Athens, extending them as regarded himself so
+      as to include the islands of Clazomenae and Cyprus, and requiring their
+      acceptance by all the belligerents, on pain of their incurring his
+      hostility. To this threat all yielded. A Persian king may be excused if he
+      felt it a proud achievement thus to dictate a peace to the Greeks&mdash;a
+      peace, moreover, which annulled the treaty of Callias, and gave back
+      absolutely into his hands a province which had ceased to belong to his
+      Empire more than sixty years previously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the more important to Artaxerxes that his relations with the
+      European Greeks should be put upon a peaceful footing, since all the
+      resources of the Empire were wanted for the repression of disturbances
+      which had some years previously broken out in Cyprus. The exact date of
+      the Cyprian revolt under Evagoras, the Greek tyrant of Salamis, is
+      uncertain; but there is evidence that, at least as early as B.C. 391, he
+      was at open war with the power of Persia, and had made an alliance with
+      the Athenians, who both in that year and in B.C. 388 sent him aid.
+      Assisted also by Achoris, independent monarch of Egypt, and Hecatomnus,
+      vassal king of Caria, he was able to take the offensive, to conquer Tyre,
+      and extend his revolt into Cilicia and Idumaea. An expedition undertaken
+      against him by Autophradates, satrap of Lydia, seems to have failed. It
+      was the first object of the Persians, after concluding the &ldquo;Peace of
+      Antalcidas,&rdquo; to crush Evagoras. They collected 300 vessels, partly from
+      the Greeks of Asia, and brought together an army of 300,000 men. The fleet
+      of Evagoras numbered 200 triremes, and with these he ventured on an
+      attack, but was completely defeated by Tiribazus, who shut him up in
+      Salamis, and, after a struggle which continued for at least six years,
+      compelled him to submit to terms (B.C. 380 or 379). More fortunate than
+      former rebels, he obtained not merely a promise of pardon, which would
+      probably have been violated, but a recognition of his title, and
+      permission to remain in his government, with the single obligation of
+      furnishing to the Great King a certain annual tribute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the continuance of this war, Artaxerxes was personally engaged in
+      military operations in another part of his dominions. The Cadusians, who
+      inhabited the low and fertile tract between the Elburz range and the
+      Caspian, having revolted against his authority, Artaxerxes invaded their
+      territory at the head of an army which is estimated at 300,000 foot and
+      10,000 horse. The land was little cultivated, rugged, and covered with
+      constant fogs; the men were brave and warlike, and having admitted him
+      into their country, seem to have waylaid and intercepted his convoys. His
+      army was soon reduced to great straits, and forced to subsist on the
+      cavalry horses and the baggage-animals. A most disastrous result must have
+      followed, had not Tiribazus, who had been recalled from Cyprus on charges
+      preferred against him by the commander of the land force, Orontes,
+      contrived very artfully to induce the rebels to make their submission.
+      Artaxerxes was thus enabled to withdraw from the country without serious
+      disaster, having shown in his short campaign that he possessed the
+      qualities of a soldier, but was entirely deficient in those of a general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A time of comparative tranquillity seems to have followed the Cadusian
+      campaign. Artaxerxes strengthened his hold upon the Asiatic Greeks by
+      razing some of their towns and placing garrisons in others. His satraps
+      even ventured to commence the absorption of the islands off the coast; and
+      there is evidence that Sanaos, at any rate, was reduced and added to the
+      Empire. Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Idumaea were doubtless recovered soon
+      after the great defeat of Evagoras. There remained only one province in
+      this quarter which still maintained its revolt, and enjoyed, under native
+      monarchs, the advantages of independence. This was Egypt, which had now
+      continued free for above thirty years, since it shook off the yoke of
+      Darius Nothus. Artaxerxes, anxious to recover this portion of his
+      ancestral dominions, applied in B.C. 375 to Athens for the services of her
+      great general, Iphicrates. His request was granted, and in the next year a
+      vast armament was assembled at Acre under Iphicrates and Pharnabazus,
+      which effected a successful landing in the Delta at the Mendesian mouth of
+      the Nile, stormed the town commanding this branch of the river, and might
+      have taken Memphis, could the energetic advice of the Athenian have
+      stirred to action the sluggish temper of his Persian colleague. But
+      Pharnabazus declined to be hurried, and preferred to proceed leisurely and
+      according to rule. The result was that the season for hostilities passed
+      and nothing had been done. The Nile rose as the summer drew on, and
+      flooded most of the Delta; the expedition could effect nothing, and had to
+      return. Pharnabazus and Iphicrates parted amid mutual recriminations; and
+      the reduction of Egypt was deferred for above a quarter of a century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Greece, however, the Great King still retained that position of supreme
+      arbiter with which he had been invested at the &ldquo;Peace of Antalcidas.&rdquo; In
+      B.C. 372 Antalcidas was sent by Sparta a second time up to Susa, for the
+      purpose of obtaining an imperial rescript, prescribing the terms on which
+      the then existing hostilities among the Greeks should cease. In B.C. 367
+      Pelopidas and Ismenias proceeded with the same object from Thebes to the
+      Persian capital. In the following year a rescript, more in their favor
+      than former ones, was obtained by Athens. Thus every one of the leading
+      powers of Greece applied in turn to the Great King for his royal mandate,
+      so erecting him by common consent into a sort of superior, whose decision
+      was to be final in all cases of Greek quarrel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this external acknowledgment of the imperial greatness of Persia did
+      not, and could not, check the internal decay and tendency to
+      disintegration, which was gradually gaining head, and threatening the
+      speedy dissolution of the Empire. The long reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon was
+      now verging towards its close. He was advanced in years, and enfeebled in
+      mind and body, suspicious of his sons and of his nobles, especially of
+      such as showed more than common ability. Under these circumstances,
+      revolts on the part of satraps grew frequent. First Ariobarzanes, satrap
+      of Phrygia, renounced his allegiance (B.C. 366), and defended himself with
+      success against Autophradates, satrap of Lydia, and Mausolus, native king
+      of Caria under Persia, to whom the task of reducing him had been
+      entrusted. Then Aspis, who held a part of Cappadocia, revolted and
+      maintained himself by the help of the Pisidians, until he was overpowered
+      by Datames. Next Datames himself, satrap of the rest of Cappadocia,
+      understanding that Artaxerxes&rsquo; mind was poisoned against him, made a
+      treaty with Ariobarzanes, and assumed an independent attitude in his own
+      province. In this position he resisted all the efforts of Autophradates to
+      reduce him to obedience; and Artaxerxes condescended first to make terms
+      with him and then to remove him by treachery. Finally (B.C. 362), there
+      seems to have been something like a general revolt of the western
+      provinces, in which the satraps of Mysia, Phrygia, and Lydia, Mausolus,
+      prince of Caria, and the people of Lycia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Syria, and
+      Phoenicia participated. Tachos, king of Egypt, fomented the disturbances,
+      which were also secretly encouraged by the Spartans. A terrible conflict
+      appeared to be imminent; but it was avoided by the ordinary resources of
+      bribery and treachery. Orontes, satrap of Phrygia, and Rheomithras, one of
+      the revolted generals, yielding to the attractions of Persian gold,
+      deserted and betrayed their confederates. The insurrection was in this way
+      quelled, but it had raised hopes in Egypt, which did not at once subside.
+      Tachos, the native king, having secured the services of Agesilaus as
+      general, and of Chabrias, the Athenian, as admiral of his fleet, boldly
+      advanced into Syria, was well received by the Phoenicians, and commenced
+      the siege of some of the Syrian cities. Persia might have suffered
+      considerable loss in this quarter, had not the internal quarrels of the
+      Egyptians among themselves proved a better protection to her than her own
+      armies. Two pretenders to the throne sprang up as soon as Tachos had
+      quitted the country, and he was compelled to return to Egypt in order to
+      resist them. The force intended to strike a vigorous blow against the
+      power of Artaxerxes was dissipated in civil conflicts; and Persia had once
+      more to congratulate herself on the intestine divisions of her
+      adversaries. A few years after this, Artaxerxes died, having reigned
+      forty-six years, and lived, if we may trust Plutarch, ninety-four. Like
+      most of the later Persian kings, he was unfortunate in his domestic
+      relations. To his original queen, Statira, he was indeed fondly attached;
+      and she appears to have merited and returned his love, but in all other
+      respects his private life was unhappy. Its chief curse was Parysatis, the
+      queen-mother. This monster of cruelty held Artaxerxes in a species of
+      bondage during almost the whole of his long reign, and acted as if she
+      were the real sovereign of the country. She encouraged Cyrus in his
+      treason, and brought to most horrible ends all those who had been
+      prominent in frustrating it. She poisoned Statira out of hatred and
+      jealousy, because she had a certain degree of influence over her husband.
+      She encouraged Artaxerxes to contract an incestuous marriage with his
+      daughter Atossa, a marriage which proved a fertile source of further
+      calamities. Artaxerxes had three sons by Statira&mdash;Darius, Ariaspes,
+      and Ochus. Of these Darius, as the eldest, was formally declared the heir.
+      But Ochus, ambitious of reigning, intrigued with Atossa, and sought to
+      obtain the succession by her aid. So good seemed to Darius the chances of
+      his brother&rsquo;s success that he took the rash step of conspiring against the
+      life of his father, as the only way of securing the throne. His conspiracy
+      was detected, and he was seized and executed, Ariaspes thereby becoming
+      the eldest son, and so the natural heir. Ochus then persuaded Ariaspes
+      that he had offended his father, and was about to be put to a cruel and
+      ignominious death, whereupon that prince in despair committed suicide. His
+      elder brothers thus removed, there still remained one rival, whom Ochus
+      feared. This was Arsames, one of his half-brothers, an illegitimate son of
+      Artaxerxes, who stood high in his favor. Assassination was the weapon
+      employed to get rid of this rival. It is said that this last blow was too
+      much for the aged and unhappy king, who died of grief on receiving
+      intelligence of the murder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Artaxerxes was about the weakest of all the Persian monarchs. He was mild
+      in temperament, affable in demeanor, goodnatured, affectionate and
+      well-meaning. But, possessing no strength of will, he allowed the
+      commission of the most atrocious acts, the most horrible cruelties, by
+      those about him, who were bolder and more resolute than himself. The wife
+      and son, whom he fondly loved, were plotted against before his eyes; and
+      he had neither the skill to prevent nor the courage to avenge their fate.
+      Incapable of resisting entreaty and importunity, he granted boons which he
+      ought to have refused, and condoned offences which it would have been
+      proper to punish. He could not maintain long the most just resentment, but
+      remitted punishments even when they were far milder than the crime
+      deserved. He was fairly successful in the management of his relations with
+      foreign countries, and in the suppression of disturbances within his own
+      dominions; but he was quite incapable of anything like a strenuous and
+      prolonged effort to renovate and re-invigorate the Empire. If he held
+      together the territories which he inherited, and bequeathed them to his
+      successor augmented rather than diminished, it is to be attributed more to
+      his good fortune than to his merits, and to the mistakes of his opponents
+      than to his own prudence or sagacity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ochus, who obtained the crown in the manner related above, was the most
+      cruel and sanguinary of all the Persian kings. He is indeed the only
+      monarch of the Achaemenian line who appears to have been bloodthirsty by
+      temperament. His first act on finding himself acknowledged king (B.C. 359)
+      was to destroy, so far as he could, all the princes of the blood royal, in
+      order that he might have no rival to fear. He even, if we may believe
+      Justin, involved in this destruction a number of the princesses, whom any
+      but the most ruthless of despots would have spared. Having taken these
+      measures for his own security, he proceeded to show himself more active
+      and enterprising than any monarch since Longimanus. It was now nearly half
+      a century since one of the important provinces of the Empire&mdash;Egypt&mdash;had
+      successfully asserted its independence and restored the throne of its
+      native kings. General after general had been employed in vain attempts to
+      reduce the rebels to obedience. Ochus determined to attempt the recovery
+      of the revolted province in person. Though a rebellion had broken out in
+      Asia Minor, which being supported by Thebes, threatened to become serious,
+      he declined to be diverted from his enterprise. Levying a vast army, he
+      marched into Egypt, and engaged Noctanebo, the king, in a contest for
+      existence. Nectanebo, however, having obtained the services of two Greek
+      generals, Diophantus, an Athenian, and Lamius, a citizen of Sparta, boldly
+      met his enemy in the field, defeated him, and completely repulsed his
+      expedition. Hereupon the contagion of revolt spread. Phoenicia assumed
+      independence under the leadership of Sidon, expelled or massacred the
+      Persian garrisons, which held her cities, and formed an alliance with
+      Egypt. Her example was followed by Cyprus, where the kings of the nine
+      principal towns assumed each a separate sovereignty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chronology of this period is somewhat involved; but it seems probable
+      that the attack and failure of Ochus took place about B.C. 351; that the
+      revolts occurred in the next year, B.C. 350; while it was not till B.C.
+      346, or four years later, that Ochus undertook his second expedition into
+      these regions. He had, however, in the meanwhile, directed his generals or
+      feudatories, to attack the rebels, and bring them into subjection. The
+      Cyprian war he had committed to Idrieus, prince of Caria, who employed on
+      the service a body of 8000 Greek mercenaries, commanded by Phocion, the
+      Athenian, and Evagoras, son of the former Evagoras, the Cyprian monarch;
+      while he had committed to Belesys, satrap of Syria, and Mezseus, satrap of
+      Cilicia, the task of keeping the Phoenicians in check. Idrieus succeeded
+      in reducing Cyprus; but the two satraps suffered a single defeat at the
+      hands of Tennes, the Sidonian king, who was aided by 40,000 Greek
+      mercenaries, sent him by Nectanebo, and commanded by Mentor the Rhodian.
+      The Persian forces were driven out of Phoenicia; and Sidon had ample time
+      to strengthen its defences and make preparations for a desperate
+      resistance. The approach, however, of Ochus, at the head of an army of
+      330,000 men, shook the resolution of the Phoenician monarch, who
+      endeavored to purchase his own pardon by treacherously delivering up a
+      hundred of the principal citizens of Sidon into the hands of the Persian
+      king, and then admitting him within the defences of the town. Ochus, with
+      the savage cruelty which was his chief characteristic, caused the hundred
+      citizens to be transfixed with javelins, and when 500 more came out as
+      suppliants to entreat his mercy, relentlessly consigned them to the same
+      fate. Nor did the traitor Tennes derive any advantage from his guilty
+      bargain. Ochus, having obtained from him all he needed, instead of
+      rewarding his desertion, punished his rebellion with death. Hereupon the
+      Sidonians, understanding that they had nothing to hope from submission,
+      formed the dreadful resolution of destroying themselves and their town.
+      They had previously, to prevent the desertion of any of their number,
+      burnt their ships. Now they shut themselves up in their houses, and set
+      fire each to his own dwelling. Forty thousand persons lost their lives in
+      the conflagration; and the city was reduced to a heap of ruins, which
+      Ochus sold for a large sum. Thus ended the Phoenician revolt. Among its
+      most important results was the transfer of his services to the Persian
+      king on the part of Mentor the Rhodian, who appears to have been the
+      ablest of the mercenary leaders of whom Greece at this time produced so
+      many.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reduction of Sidon was followed closely by the invasion of Egypt.
+      Ochus, besides his 330,000 Asiatics, had now a force of 14,000 Greeks&mdash;6000
+      furnished by the Greek cities of Asia Minor; 4000 under Mentor, consisting
+      of the troops which he had brought to the aid of Tennes from Egypt; 3000
+      sent by Argos; and 1000 from Thebes. He divided his numerous armament into
+      three bodies, and placed at the head of each two generals&mdash;one
+      Persian and one Greek. The Greek commanders were Lacrates of Thebes,
+      Mentor of Rhodes, and Nicostratus of Argos, a man of enormous strength,
+      who regarded himself as a second Hercules, and adopted the traditional
+      costume of that hero&mdash;a club and a lion&rsquo;s skin. The Persians were
+      Rhossaces, Aristazanes, and Bagoas, the chief of the eunuchs. Nectanebo
+      was only able to oppose to this vast array an army less than one third of
+      the size. Twenty thousand, however, out of the 100,000 troops at his
+      disposal were Greeks; he occupied the Nile and its various branches with a
+      numerous navy the character of the country, intersected by numerous
+      canals, and full of strongly fortified towns, was in his favor; and he
+      might have been expected to make a prolonged, if not even a successful,
+      resistance. But he was deficient in generals, and over-confident in his
+      own powers of command: the Greek captains out-manoeuvred him; and no
+      sooner did he find one line of his defences forced than his ill-founded
+      confidence was exchanged for an alarm as little reasonable. He hastily
+      fell back upon Memphis, leaving the fortified towns to the defence of
+      their garrisons. These consisted of mixed troops, partly Greek and partly
+      Egyptian; between whom jealousies and suspicions were easily sown by the
+      Persian leaders, who by these means rapidly reduced the secondary cities
+      of Lower Egypt, and were advancing upon Memphis, when Nectanebo in despair
+      quitted the country and fled southwards to Ethiopia. All Egypt submitted
+      to Ochus, who demolished the walls of the cities, plundered the temples,
+      and after amply rewarding his mercenaries, returned to his own capital
+      with an immense booty, and with the glory of having successfully carried
+      through a most difficult and important enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been well observed that &ldquo;the reconquest of Egypt by Ochus must have
+      been one of the most impressive events of the age,&rdquo; and that it &ldquo;exalted
+      the Persian Empire in force and credit to a point nearly as high as it had
+      ever occupied before.&rdquo; Ochus not only redeemed by means of it his former
+      failure, but elevated himself in the opinions of men to a pitch of glory
+      such as no previous Persian king had reached, excepting Cyrus, Cambyses,
+      and the first Darius. Henceforth we hear of no more revolts or rebellions.
+      Mentor and Bagoas, the two generals who had most distinguished themselves
+      in the Egyptian campaign, were advanced by the gratitude of Ochus to posts
+      of the highest importance, in which their vigor and energy found ample
+      room to display themselves. Mentor, who was governor of the entire Asiatic
+      sea-board, exerted himself successfully to reduce to subjection the many
+      chiefs who during the recent troubles had assumed an independent
+      authority, and in the course of a few years brought once more the whole
+      coast into complete submission and dependence. Bagoas, carried with him by
+      Ochus to the capital, became the soul of the internal administration, and
+      maintained tranquillity throughout the rest of the Empire. The last six
+      years of the reign of Ochus form an exceptional period of vigorous and
+      successful government, such as occurs nowhere else in the history of the
+      later Persian monarchy. The credit of bringing about such a state of
+      things may be due especially to the king&rsquo;s officers, Bagoas and Mentor;
+      but a portion of it must reflect upon himself, as the person who selected
+      them, assigned them their respective tasks, and permanently maintained
+      them in office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was during this period of vigor and renewed life, when the Persian
+      monarchy seemed to have recovered almost its pristine force and strength,
+      that the attention of its rulers was called to a small cloud on the
+      distant horizon, which some were wise enough to see portended storm and
+      tempest. The growing power of Macedon, against which Demosthenes was at
+      this time in vain warning the careless Athenians, attracted the
+      consideration of Ochus or of his counsellors; and orders went forth from
+      the Court that Persian influence was to be used to check and depress the
+      rising kingdom. A force was consequently despatched to assist the Thracian
+      prince, Cersobleptes, to maintain his independence; and such effectual aid
+      was given to the city of Perinthus that the numerous and well-appointed
+      army with which Philip had commenced its siege was completely baffled and
+      compelled to give up the attempt (B.C. 340). The battle of Chseroneia had
+      not yet been fought, and Macedonia was still but one of the many states
+      which disputed for supremacy over Greece; but it is evident that she had
+      already awakened the suspicions of Persia, which saw a rival and a
+      possible assailant in the rapidly growing monarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Greater and more systematic efforts might possibly have been made, and the
+      power of Macedon might perhaps have been kept within bounds, had not the
+      inveterate evil of conspiracy and revolution once more shown itself at the
+      Court, and paralyzed for a time the action of the Empire on communities
+      beyond its borders. Ochus, while he was a vigorous ruler and
+      administrator, was harsh and sanguinary. His violence and cruelty rendered
+      him hateful to his subjects; and it is not unlikely that they caused even
+      those who stood highest in his favor to feel insecure. Bagoas may have
+      feared that sooner or later he would himself be one of the monarch&rsquo;s
+      victims, and have been induced by a genuine alarm to remove the source of
+      his terrors. In the year B.C. 338 he poisoned Ochus, and placed upon the
+      throne his youngest son, Arses, at the same time assassinating all the
+      brothers of the new monarch. It was evidently his aim to exercise the
+      supreme power himself, as counsellor to a prince who owed his position to
+      him, and who was moreover little more than a boy. But Arses, though
+      subservient for a year or two, began, as he grew older, to show that he
+      had a will of his own, and was even heard to utter threats against his
+      benefactor whereupon Bagoas, accustomed now to crime, secured himself by a
+      fresh series of murders. He caused Arses and his infant children to be
+      assassinated, and selected one of his friends, Codomannus, the son of
+      Arsanes, to fill the vacant throne. About the same time (B.C. 336), Philip
+      of Macedon was assassinated by the incensed Pausanias; and the two new
+      monarchs&mdash;Codomannus, who took the name of Darius, and Alexander the
+      Great&mdash;assumed their respective sceptres almost simultaneously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Codomannus, the last of the Persian kings, might with some reason have
+      complained, like Plato, that nature had brought him in the world too late.
+      Personally brave, as he proved himself into the Cadusian war, tall and
+      strikingly handsome, amiable in temper, capable of considerable exertion,
+      and not altogether devoid of military capacity, he would have been a
+      fairly good ruler in ordinary times, and might, had he fallen upon such
+      times, have held an honorable place among the Persian monarchs. But he was
+      unequal to the difficulties of such a position as that in which he found
+      himself. Raised to the throne after the victory of Chaeroneia had placed
+      Philip at the head of Greece, and when a portion of the Macedonian forces
+      had already passed into Asia, he was called upon to grapple at once with a
+      danger of the most formidable kind, and had but little time for
+      preparation. It is true that Philip&rsquo;s death soon after his own accession
+      gave him a short breathing-space: but at the same time it threw him off
+      his guard. The military talents of Alexander were untried, and of course
+      unknown; the perils which he had to encounter were patent. Codomannus may
+      be excused if for some months after Alexander&rsquo;s accession he slackened his
+      preparations for defence, uncertain whether the new monarch would maintain
+      himself, whether he would overpower the combinations which were formed
+      against him in Greece, whether he would inherit his father&rsquo;s genius for
+      war, or adopt his ambitious projects. It would have been wiser, no doubt,
+      as the event proved, to have joined heart and soul with Alexander&rsquo;s
+      European enemies, and to have carried the war at once to the other side of
+      the Egean. But no great blame attaches to the Persian monarch for his
+      brief inaction. As soon as the Macedonian prince had shown by his
+      campaigns in Thrace, Illyria, and Boeotia that he was a person to be
+      dreaded, Darius Codomannus renewed the preparations which he had
+      discontinued, and pushed them forward with all the speed that was
+      possible. A fleet was rapidly got ready: the satraps of Asia Minor were
+      reinforced with troops of good quality from the interior of the Empire,
+      and were ordered to raise a strong force of mercenaries; money was sent
+      into Greece to the Lacedaemonians and others in order to induce them to
+      create disturbances in Europe; above all, Memnon the Rhodian, a brother of
+      Mentor, and a commander of approved skill, was sent to the Hellespont, at
+      the head of a body of Greeks in Persian pay, with an authority co-ordinate
+      to that of the satraps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain amount of success at first attended these measures. Memnon was
+      able to act on the offensive in North-Western Asia. He marched upon
+      Cyzicus and was within a little of surprising it, obtaining from the lands
+      and villas without the walls an immense booty. He forced Parmenio to raise
+      the seige of Pitane; and when Callas, one of the Macedonian leaders,
+      endeavored to improve the condition of things by meeting the Persian
+      forces in the open field, he suffered a defeat and was compelled to throw
+      himself into Rhoeteum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These advantages, however, were detrimental rather than serviceable to the
+      Persian cause; since they encouraged the Persian satraps to regard the
+      Macedonians as an enemy no more formidable than the various tribes of
+      Greeks with whom they had now carried on war in Asia Minor for
+      considerably more than a century. The intended invasion of Alexander
+      seemed to them a matter of no great moment&mdash;to be classed with
+      expeditions like those of Thimbron and Agesilaus, not to need, as it
+      really did, to be placed in a category of its own. Accordingly, they made
+      no efforts to dispute the passage of the Hellespont, or to oppose the
+      landing of the expedition on the Asiatic shore. Alexander was allowed to
+      transport a force of 30,000 foot and 4000 or 5000 horse from the
+      Chersonese to Mysia without the slightest interference on the part of the
+      enemy, notwithstanding that his naval power was weak and that of the
+      Persians very considerable. This is one of those pieces of remissness in
+      the Persian conduct of military matters, whereof we have already had to
+      note signal instances, and which constantly caused the failure of very
+      elaborate and judicious preparations to meet a danger. Great efforts had
+      been made to collect and equip a numerous fleet, and a few weeks later it
+      was all-powerful in the Egean. But it was absent exactly at the time when
+      it was wanted. Alexander&rsquo;s passage and landing were unopposed, and the
+      Persians thus admitted within the Empire without a struggle the enemy who
+      was fated to destroy it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Persian commanders heard that Alexander was in Asia, they were
+      anxious to give him battle. One alone, the Rhodian Greek, Memnon, proposed
+      and urged a wholly different plan of operations. Memnon advised that a
+      general engagement should be avoided, that the entire country should be
+      laid waste, and even the cities burnt, while the army should retire, cut
+      off stragglers, and seek to bring the enemy into difficulties. At the same
+      time he recommended that the fleet should be brought up, a strong land
+      force embarked on board it, and an effort made to transfer the war into
+      Europe. But Memnon&rsquo;s colleagues, the satraps and commandants of the
+      north-western portion of Asia Minor, could not bring themselves to see
+      that circumstances required a line of action which they regarded as
+      ignominious. It is not necessary to attribute to them personal or selfish
+      motives. They probably thought honestly that they were a match for
+      Alexander with the troops at their disposal, and viewed retreat before an
+      enemy numerically weaker than themselves as a disgrace not to be endured
+      unless its necessity was palpable. Accordingly they determined to give the
+      invader battle. Supposing that Alexander, having crossed into Asia at
+      Abydos, would proceed to attack Dascyleium, the nearest satrapial capital,
+      they took post on the Granicus, and prepared to dispute the further
+      advance of the Macedonian army. They had collected a force of 20,000
+      cavalry of the best quality that the Empire afforded, and nearly the same
+      number of infantry, who were chiefly, if not solely, Greek mercenaries.
+      With these they determined to defend the passage of the small stream above
+      mentioned&mdash;one of the many which flow from the northern flank of Ida
+      into the Propontis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle thus offered was eagerly accepted by the Macedonian. If he
+      could not defeat with ease a Persian force not greatly exceeding his own,
+      he had miscalculated the relative goodness of the soldiers on either side,
+      and might as well desist from the expedition. Accordingly, he no sooner
+      came to the bank of the river, and saw the enemy drawn up on the other
+      side, than, rejecting the advice of Parmenio to wait till the next day, he
+      gave orders that the whole army should enter the stream and advance across
+      it. The Granicus was in most places fordable; but there were occasional
+      deeper parts, which had to be avoided; and there was thus some difficulty
+      in reaching the opposite bank in line. That bank itself was generally
+      steep and precipitous, but offered also several gentle slopes where a
+      landing was comparatively easy. The Persians had drawn up their cavalry
+      along the line of the river close to the water&rsquo;s edge, and had placed
+      their infantry in the rear. Alexander consequently attacked with his
+      cavalry. The engagement began upon the right. Amytas and Ptolemy, who were
+      the first to reach the opposite bank, met with a strenuous resistance and
+      were driven back into the stream by the forces of Memnon and his sons. The
+      battle, however, on this side was restored by Alexander himself, who
+      gradually forced the Persians back after a long hand-to-hand fight, in
+      which he received a slight wound, and slew with his own hand several noble
+      Persians. Elsewhere the resistance was less determined. Parmenio crossed
+      on the left with comparative ease, by his advance relieving Alexander. The
+      Persians found the long spears of the Macedonians and their intermixture
+      of light-armed foot with heavy-armed cavalry irresistible. The Macedonians
+      seem to have received orders to strike at their adversaries&rsquo; faces&mdash;a
+      style of warfare which was as unpleasant to the Persians as it was to the
+      soldiers of Pompey at Pharsalia. Their line was broken where it was
+      opposed to Alexander and his immediate companions; but the contagion of
+      disorder rapidly spread, and the whole body of the cavalry shortly quitted
+      the field, after having lost a thousand of their number. Only the infantry
+      now remained. Against these the Macedonian phalanx was brought up in
+      front, while the cavalry made repeated charges on either flank with
+      overwhelming effect. Deserted by their horse, vastly outnumbered, and
+      attacked on all sides, the brave mercenaries stood firm, fought with
+      desperation, and were mostly slaughtered where they stood. Two thousand
+      out of the 20,000&mdash;probably wounded men&mdash;were made prisoners.
+      The rest perished, except a few who lay concealed among the heaps of
+      slain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians lost by the battle 20,000 of their best footmen, and one or
+      two thousand horse. Among their slain the proportion of men of rank was
+      unusually large. The list included Spithridates, satrap of Lydia,
+      Mithrobarzanes, governor of Cappadocia, Pharnaces, a brother-in-law, and
+      Mithridates, a son-in-law of Darius, Arbupales, a grandson of Artaxerxes
+      Mnemon, Omares, the commander of the mercenaries, Niphates, Petines, and
+      Ehoesaces, generals. The Greek loss is said to have been exceedingly
+      small. Aristobulus made the total number of the slain thirty-four; Arrian
+      gives it as one hundred and fifteen, or a little over. It has been
+      suspected that even the latter estimate is below the truth; but the
+      analogy furnished by the other great victories of the Greeks over the
+      Persians tends rather to confirm Arrian&rsquo;s statement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle of the Granicus threw open to Alexander the whole of Asia
+      Minor. There was no force left in the entire country that could venture to
+      resist him, unless protected by walls. Accordingly, the Macedonian
+      operations for the next twelve months, or during nearly the whole space
+      that intervened between the battles of the Granicus and of Issus, consist
+      of little more than a series of marches and sieges. The reader of Persian
+      history will scarcely wish for an account of these operations in detail.
+      Suffice it to say that Alexander rapidly overran Lydia, Ionia, Caria,
+      Lycia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Phrygia, besieged and took Miletus,
+      Halicarnassus, Marmareis, and Sagalassus, and received the submission of
+      Dascyleium, Sardis, Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, the Lycian Telmisseis,
+      Pinara, Xanthus, Patara, Phaselis, Side, Aspendus, Celaenee, and Gordium.
+      This last city was the capital of Phrygia; and there the conqueror for the
+      first time since his landing gave himself and his army a few months&rsquo; rest
+      during the latter part of the winter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the first breath of spring his forces were again in motion. Hitherto
+      anxious with respect to the state of things on the coast and in Greece, he
+      had remained in the western half of Asia Minor, within call of his friends
+      in Macedonia, at no time distant more than about 200 miles from the sea.
+      Now intelligence reached him which made him feel at liberty to advance
+      into the interior of Asia. Memnon the Rhodian fell sick and died in the
+      early spring of B.C. 333. It is strange that so much should have depended
+      on a single life; but it certainly seems that there was no one in the
+      Persian service who, on Memnon&rsquo;s death, could replace him&mdash;no one
+      fitted for the difficult task of uniting Greeks and Asiatics together,
+      capable of influencing and managing the one while he preserved the
+      confidence of the other. Memnon&rsquo;s death disconcerted all the plans of the
+      Great King, who till it occurred had fully intended to carry the war into
+      his enemy&rsquo;s country. It induced Darius even to give up the notion of
+      maintaining a powerful fleet, and to transfer to the land service the most
+      efficient of his naval forces. At the same time it set Alexander free to
+      march wherever he liked, liberating him from the keen anxiety, which he
+      had previously felt, as to the maintenance of the Macedonian power in
+      Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It now became the object of the Persian king to confront the daring
+      invader of his Western provinces with an army worthy of the Persian name
+      and proportionate to the vastness of the Empire. He had long been
+      collecting troops from many of the most warlike nations, and had got
+      together a force of several hundred thousand men. Forgetting the lessons
+      of his country&rsquo;s previous history, he flattered himself that the host
+      which he had brought together was irresistible, and became anxious to
+      hurry on a general engagement. Starting from Babylon, probably about the
+      time that Alexander left Gordium in Phrygia, he marched up the valley of
+      the Euphrates, and took up a position at Sochi, which was situated in a
+      large open plain, not far from the modern Lake of Antioch. On his arrival
+      there he heard that Alexander was in Cilicia at no great distance; and the
+      Greeks in his service assured him that it would not be long before the
+      Macedonian monarch would seek him out and accept his offer of battle. But
+      a severe attack of illness detained Alexander at Tarsus, and when he was a
+      little recovered, troubles in Western Cilicia, threatening his
+      communications with Greece, required his presence; so that Darius grew
+      impatient, and, believing that his enemy had no intention of advancing
+      further than Cilicia, resolved to seek him in that country. Quitting the
+      open plain of Sochi, he marched northwards, having the range of Amanus on
+      his left, almost as far as the thirty-seventh parallel, when turning
+      sharply to the west, he crossed the chain, and descended upon Issus, in
+      the inner recess of the gulf which bore the same name. Here he came upon
+      Alexander&rsquo;s hospitals, and found himself to his surprise in the rear of
+      his adversary, who, while Darius was proceeding northwards along the
+      eastern flank of Amanus, had been marching southwards between the western
+      flank of the same range and the sea. Alexander had crossed the Pylse, or
+      narrowest portion of the pass, and had reached Myriandrus&mdash;a little
+      beyond Iskonderum&mdash;when news reached him that Darius had occupied
+      Issus in his rear, and had put to death all the sick and wounded
+      Macedonians whom he had found in the town. At first he could not credit
+      the intelligence; but when it was confirmed by scouts, whom he sent out,
+      he prepared instantly to retrace his steps, and to fight his first great
+      battle with the Persian king under circumstances which he felt to be
+      favorable beyond anything that he could have hoped. The tract of flat land
+      between the base of the mountains and the sea on the borders of the Gulf
+      of Issus was nowhere broader than about a mile and a half. The range of
+      Amanus on the east rose up with rugged and broken hills, so that on this
+      side the operations of cavalry were impracticable. It would be impossible
+      to form a line of battle containing in the front rank more than about 4000
+      men,1048 and difficult for either party to bring into action as many as
+      30,000 of their soldiers. Thus the vast superiority of numbers on the
+      Persian side became in such a position absolutely useless, and even
+      Alexander had more troops than he could well employ. No wonder that the
+      Macedonian should exclaim, that &ldquo;God had declared Himself on the Grecian
+      side by putting it into the heart of Darius to execute such a movement.&rdquo;
+       It may be that Alexander&rsquo;s superior generalship would have made him
+      victorious even on the open plain of Sochi; but in the defile of Issus
+      success was certain, and generalship superfluous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius had started from Issus in pursuit of his adversary, and had reached
+      the banks of the Pinarus, a small stream flowing westward from Amanus into
+      the Mediterranean, when he heard that Alexander had hastened to retrace
+      his stops, and was coming to meet him. Immediately he prepared for battle.
+      Passing a force of horse and foot across the stream in his front, to keep
+      his adversary in check if he advanced too rapidly, he drew up his best
+      troops along the line of the river in a continuous solid mass, the ranks
+      of which must have been at least twenty deep. Thirty thousand Greek
+      mercenaries formed the centre of the line, while on either side of them
+      were an equal number of Asiatic &ldquo;braves&rdquo;&mdash;picked probably from the
+      mass of the army. Twenty thousand troops of a lighter and inferior class
+      were placed upon the rough hills on the left, the outskirts of the Amanian
+      range, where the nature of the ground allowed them to encircle the
+      Macedonian right, which, to preserve its ranks unbroken, kept the plain.
+      The cavalry, to the number of 30,000, was massed upon the other wing, near
+      the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle began by certain movements of Alexander against the flank force
+      which menaced his right. These troops, assailed by the Macedonian
+      light-armed, retreated at once to higher ground, and by their manifest
+      cowardice freed Alexander from all anxiety on their account. Leaving 300
+      horse to keep the 20,000 in check, he moved on his whole line at a slow
+      pace towards the Pinarus till it came within bow-shot of the enemy, when
+      he gave the order to proceed at a run. The line advanced as commanded; but
+      before it could reach the river, the Persian horse on the extreme right,
+      unable to restrain themselves any longer, dashed across the shallow
+      stream, and assailed Alexander&rsquo;s left, where they engaged in a fierce
+      battle with the Thessalian cavalry, in which neither attained any decided
+      advantage. The infantry, meanwhile, came into conflict along the rest of
+      the line. Alexander himself, with the right and the right-centre, charged
+      the Asiatic troops on Darius&rsquo;s left, who, like their brethren at Cunaxa,
+      instantly broke and fled. Parmenio, with the left-centre, was less
+      successful. The north bank of the Pinarus was in this part steep and
+      defended by stakes in places; the Greek mercenaries were as brave as the
+      Macedonians, and fought valiantly. It was not till the troops which had
+      routed the Persian right began, to act against their centre, assailing it
+      upon the flank, while it was at the same time engaged in front, that the
+      mercenaries were overpowered and gave way. Seeing their defeat, the horse
+      likewise fled, and thus the rout became general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not quite clear what part Darius took in the battle, or how far he
+      was answerable for its untoward result. According to Arrian, he was struck
+      with a sudden panic on beholding the flight of his left wing, and gave
+      orders to his charioteer instantly to quit the field. But Curtius and
+      Diodorus represent him as engaged in a long struggle against Alexander
+      himself, and as only flying when he was in imminent danger of falling into
+      the enemy&rsquo;s hands. Justin goes further, and states that he was actually
+      wounded. The character gained by Darius in his earlier years makes it
+      improbable that he would under any circumstances have exhibited personal
+      cowardice. On the whole it would seem to be most probable that the flight
+      of the Persian monarch occurred, not when the left wing fled, but when the
+      Greek mercenaries among whom he had placed himself began to give way
+      before the irresistible phalanx and the impetuous charges of Alexander.
+      Darius, not unwisely, accepted the defeat of his best troops as the loss
+      of the battle, and hastily retired across Amanus by the pass which had
+      brought him to Issus, whence he hurried on through Sochi to the Euphrates,
+      anxious to place that obstacle between himself and his victorious enemy.
+      His multitudinous host, entangled in the defiles of the mountains,
+      suffered by its own weight and size, the stronger fugitives treading down
+      the weaker, while at the same time it was ruthlessly slaughtered by the
+      pursuing enemy, so long as the waning light allowed. As many as 100,000&mdash;90,000
+      foot and 10,000 horse&mdash;are said to have fallen. The ravines were in
+      places choked with the dead bodies, and Ptolemy the son of Lagus related
+      that in one instance he and Alexander crossed a gully on a bridge of this
+      kind. Among the slain were Sabaces, satrap of Egypt, Bubaces, a noble of
+      high rank, and Arsames, Rheomithres, and Atizyes, three of the commanders
+      at the Granicus. Forty thousand prisoners were made. The whole of the
+      Persian camp and camp-equipage fell into the enemy&rsquo;s hands, who found in
+      the royal pavilion the mother, wife, and sister of the king, an infant
+      son, two daughters, and a number of female attendants, wives of noblemen.
+      The treasure captured amounted to 3000 silver talents. Among the trophies
+      of victory were the chariot, bow, shield, and robe of the king, which he
+      had abandoned in his hurried flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The loss on the side of the Macedonians was trivial. The highest estimate
+      places it at 450 killed, the lowest at 182. Besides these, 504 were
+      wounded. Thus Alexander had less than 1000 men placed hors de combat. He
+      himself received a slight wound in the thigh from a sword, which, used a
+      little more resolutely, might have changed the fortunes of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The defeat of the Persians at Issus seems to have been due simply to the
+      fact that, practically, the two adversaries engaged with almost equal
+      numbers, and that the troops of Alexander were of vastly superior quality
+      to those of Darhis. The Asiatic infantry&mdash;notwithstanding their proud
+      title of &ldquo;braves&rdquo;&mdash;proved to be worthless; the Greek mercenaries were
+      personally courageous, but their inferior arms and training rendered them
+      incapable of coping with the Macedonian phalanx. The cavalry was the only
+      arm in which the Persians were not greatly at a disadvantage; and cavalry
+      alone cannot gain, or even save a battle. When Darius put himself into a
+      position where he lost all the advantages derivable from superiority of
+      numbers, he made his own defeat and his adversary&rsquo;s triumph certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It remained, therefore, before the Empire could be considered as entirely
+      lost, that this error should be corrected, this false step retrieved. All
+      hope for Persia was not gone, so long as her full force had not been met
+      and defeated in a fair and open field. When Darius fled from Issus, it was
+      not simply to preserve for a few months longer his own wretched life; it
+      was to make an effort to redeem the past&mdash;to give his country that
+      last chance of maintaining her independence which she had a right to claim
+      at his hands&mdash;to try what the award of battle would be under the
+      circumstances which he had fair grounds for regarding as the most
+      favorable possible to his own side and the most disadvantageous to his
+      adversary. Before the heart of the Empire could be reached from the West,
+      the wide Mesopotamian plain had to be traversed&mdash;there, in those vast
+      flats, across which the enemy must come, a position might be chosen where
+      there would be room for the largest numbers that even his enormous Empire
+      could furnish&mdash;where cavalry and even chariots would be everywhere
+      free to act&mdash;where consequently he might engage the puny force of his
+      antagonist to the greatest advantage, outflank it, envelop it, and perhaps
+      destroy it. Darius would have been inexcusable had he given up the contest
+      without trying this last chance&mdash;the chance of a battle in the open
+      field with the full collected force of Persia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His adversary gave him ample time to prepare for this final struggle. The
+      battle of Issus was fought in November, B.C. 333. It was not till the
+      summer of B.C. 331, twenty months later that the Macedonian forces were
+      set in motion towards the interior of the Empire. More than a year and a
+      half was consumed in the reduction of Phoenicia, the siege of Gaza, and
+      the occupation of Egypt. Alexander, apparently, was confident of defeating
+      Darius in a pitched battle, whenever and under whatever circumstances they
+      should again meet; and regarded as the only serious dangers which
+      threatened him, a possible interruption of his communications with Greece,
+      and the employment of Persian gold and Persian naval force in the raising
+      of troubles on the European side of the Egean. He was therefore
+      determined, before he plunged into the depth of the Asiatic continent, to
+      isolate Persia from Greece, to destroy her naval power, and to cripple her
+      pecuniary resources. The event showed that his decision was a wise one. By
+      detaching from Persia and bringing under his own sway the important
+      countries of Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, Idumsea, and Egypt, he wholly
+      deprived Persia of her navy, and transferred to himself the complete
+      supremacy of the sea, he greatly increased his own resources while he
+      diminished those of the enemy, and he shut out Persia altogether from
+      communication with Greece, excepting through his territories. He could
+      therefore commence his march into the interior with a feeling of entire
+      security as to his communications and his rear. No foe was left on the
+      coast capable of causing him a moment&rsquo;s uneasiness. Athens and Sparta
+      might chafe and even intrigue; but without the Persian &ldquo;archers,&rdquo; it was
+      impossible that any force should be raised which could in the slightest
+      degree imperil his European dominions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Babylon, whither Darius proceeded straight from Issus, he appears to
+      have made two ineffectual attempts at negotiating with his enemy. The
+      first embassy was despatched soon after his arrival, and, according to
+      Arrian, was instructed merely to make proposals for peace, and to request
+      the restitution of the Queen, the Queen-mother, Sisygambis, the infant
+      prince, and the two princesses, captured by Alexander. To this Alexander
+      replied, in haughty and contemptuous terms, that if Darius would
+      acknowledge him as Lord of Asia, and deliver himself into his power, he
+      should receive back his relatives: if he intended still to dispute the
+      sovereignty, he ought to come and fight out the contest, and not run away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second embassy was sent six or eight months later, while Alexander was
+      engaged in the siege of Tyre. Darius now offered, as a ransom for the
+      members of his family held in captivity by Alexander, the large sum of ten
+      thousand talents (L240,000.), and was willing to purchase peace by the
+      cession of all the provinces lying west of the Euphrates, several of which
+      were not yet in Alexander&rsquo;s possession. At the same time he proposed that
+      Alexander should marry his daughter, Statira, in order that the cession of
+      territory might be represented as the bestowal of a dowry. The reply of
+      Alexander was, if possible, ruder and haughtier than before. &ldquo;What did
+      Darius mean by offering money and territory? All his treasure and all his
+      territory were Alexander&rsquo;s already. As for the proposed marriage, if he
+      (Alexander) liked to marry a daughter of Darius, he should of course do
+      so, whether her father consented or not. If Darius wanted merciful
+      treatment, he had better come and deliver himself up at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The terms of this reply rendered further negotiation impossible. Darius
+      had probably not hoped much from his pacific overtures, and was therefore
+      not greatly concerned at their rejection. He knew that the members of his
+      family were honorably and even kindly treated by their captor, and that,
+      so far at any rate, Alexander had proved himself a magnanimous conqueror.
+      He can scarcely have thought that a lasting peace was possible between
+      himself and his young antagonist, who had only just fleshed his maiden
+      sword, and was naturally eager to pursue his career of conquest. Indeed,
+      he seems from the moment of his defeat at Issus to have looked forward to
+      another battle as inevitable, and to have been unremitting in his efforts
+      to collect and arm a force which might contend, with a good hope of
+      victory, against the Macedonians. He replaced the panoplies lost at Issus
+      with fresh ones; he armed his forces anew with swords and spears longer
+      than the Persians had been previously accustomed to employ, on account of
+      the great length of the Macedonian weapons; he caused to be constructed
+      200 scythed chariots; he prepared spiked balls to use against his enemy&rsquo;s
+      cavalry; above all, he laid under contribution for the supply of troops
+      all the provinces, even the most remote, of his extensive Empire, and
+      asked and obtained important aid from allies situated beyond his borders.
+      The forces which he collected for the final struggle comprised&mdash;besides
+      Persians, Medes, Babylonians, and Susianians from the centre of the Empire&mdash;Syrians
+      from the banks of the Orontes, Armenians from the neighborhood of Ararat,
+      Cappadocians and Albanians from the regions bordering on the Euxine,
+      Cadusians from the Caspian, Bactrians from the Upper Oxus, Sogdians from
+      the Jaxartes, Arachosians from Cabul, Arians from Herat, Indians from
+      Punjab, and even Sacse from the country about Kashgar and Yarkand, on the
+      borders of the Great Desert of Gobi. Twenty-five nations followed the
+      standard of the Great King, and swelled the ranks of his vast army, which
+      amounted (according to the best authorities) to above a million of men.
+      Every available resource that the Empire possessed was brought into play.
+      Besides the three arms of cavalry, infantry, and chariots, elephants were,
+      for perhaps the first time in the history of military science, marshalled
+      in the battle-field, to which they added an unwonted element of
+      grotesqueness and savagery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The field of battle was likewise selected with great care, and
+      artificially prepared for the encounter. Darius, it would seem, had at
+      last become convinced that his enemy would seek him out wherever he might
+      happen to be, and that consequently the choice of ground rested wholly
+      with himself. Leaving, therefore, the direct road to Babylon by the line
+      of the Euphrates undefended, he selected a position which possessed all
+      the advantages of the Mesopotamian plain, being open, level, fertile, and
+      well supplied with water, while its vicinity to the eastern and northern
+      provinces, made it convenient for a rendezvous. This position was on the
+      left or east bank of the Tigris, in the heart of the ancient Assyria, not
+      more than thirty miles from the site of Nineveh. Here, in the region
+      called by the Greeks Adiabene, extended between the Tigris and the river
+      Zab or Lycus, a vast plain broken by scarcely any elevations, and wholly
+      bare of both shrubs and trees. The few natural inequalities which
+      presented themselves were levelled by order of Darius, who made the entire
+      plain in his front practicable not only for cavalry but for chariots. At
+      the same time he planted, in the places where Alexander&rsquo;s cavalry was
+      likely to charge, spiked balls to damage the feet of the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Alexander had quitted Egypt, and after delaying some months in
+      Syria while his preparations were being completed, had crossed the
+      Euphrates at Thapsacus and marched through northern Mesopotamia along the
+      southern flank of the Mons Masius, a district in which provisions, water,
+      and forage were abundant, to the Tigris, which he must have reached in
+      about lat. 36° 30&rsquo;, thirty or forty miles above the site of Nineveh. No
+      resistance was made to his advance; even the passage of the great rivers
+      was unopposed. Arrived on the east bank of the Tigris, Alexander found
+      himself in Assyria Proper, with the stream upon his right and the
+      mountains of Gordyene Kurdistan at no great distance upon his left. But
+      the plain widened as he advanced, and became, as he drew near the position
+      of his enemy, a vast level, nowhere less than thirty miles in breadth,
+      between the outlying ranges of hills and the great river. Darius, whose
+      headquarters had been at Arbela, south of the Zab, on learning Alexander&rsquo;s
+      approach, had crossed that stream and taken post on the prepared ground to
+      the north, in the neighborhood of a small town or village called
+      Gaugamela. Here he drew up his forces in the order which he thought best,
+      placing the scythed chariots in front, with supports of horse&mdash;Scythian,
+      Bactrian, Armenian, and Cappadocian&mdash;near to them; then, the main
+      line of battle, divided into a centre and two wings, and composed of horse
+      and foot intermixed; and finally a reserve of Babylonians. Sitaceni, and
+      others, massed in heavy column in the rear. His own post was, according to
+      invariable Persian custom, in the centre; and about him were grouped the
+      best troops&mdash;the Household brigade, the Melophori or Persian
+      foot-guards, the Mardian archers, some Albanians and Carians, the entire
+      body of Greek mercenaries, and the Indians with their elephants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexander, on his side, determined to leave nothing to chance. Advancing
+      leisurely, resting his troops at intervals, carefully feeling his way by
+      means of scouts, and gradually learning from the prisoners whom he took,
+      and the deserters who came over to him, all the dispositions and
+      preparations of the enemy, he arrived opposite the position of Darius on
+      the ninth day after his passage of the Tigris. His officers were eager to
+      attack at once; but with great judgment he restrained them, gave his
+      troops a night&rsquo;s rest, and obtained time to reconnoitre completely the
+      whole position of the enemy and the arrangement which he had made of his
+      forces. He then formed his own dispositions. The army with which he was to
+      attack above a million of men consisted of 40,300 foot and 7000 horse.
+      Alexander drew them up in three lines:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first consisted of light-armed troops, horse and foot, of good
+      quality, which were especially intended to act against the enemy&rsquo;s
+      chariots. The next was the main line of battle, and contained the phalanx
+      with the rest of the heavy infantry in the centre, the heavy cavalry upon
+      the two wings. The third line consisted of light troops, chiefly horse,
+      and was instructed to act against such of the Persians as should outflank
+      the Macedonian main line and so threaten their rear. As at Issus,
+      Alexander took the command of the right wing himself, and assigned the
+      left to Parmenio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the two armies drew near, Alexander, who found himself greatly
+      outflanked on both wings, and saw in front of him smooth ground carefully
+      prepared for the operations of chariots and cavalry, began a diagonal
+      movement towards the right, which tended at once to place him beyond the
+      levelled ground, and to bring him in contact with his enemy&rsquo;s left wing
+      rather than with his direct front. The movement greatly disconcerted his
+      adversary, who sought to prevent it by extending and advancing his own
+      left, which was soon engaged with Alexander&rsquo;s right in a fierce
+      hand-to-hand conflict. Alexander still pressed his slanting movement, and
+      in resisting it Darius&rsquo;s left became separated from his centre, while at
+      the same time he was forced to give the signal for launching the chariots
+      against the foe sooner than he had intended, and under circumstances that
+      were not favorable. The effect of the operation was much the same as at
+      Cunaxa. Received by the Macedonian light-armed, the chariots were mostly
+      disabled before the enemy&rsquo;s main line was reached; the drivers were
+      dragged from the chariot-boards; and the horses were cut to pieces. Such
+      as escaped this fate and charged the Macedonian line, were allowed to pass
+      through the ranks, which opened to receive them, and were then dealt with
+      by grooms and others in the rear of the army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had the chariot attack failed, and the space between the two
+      lines of battle become clear, than Alexander, with the quick eye of a true
+      general, saw his opportunity: to resist his flank movement, the Bactrians
+      and Sacae with the greater part of the left wing had broken off from the
+      main Persian line, and in pressing towards the left had made a gap between
+      their ranks and the centre. Into this gap the Macedonian king, at the head
+      of the &ldquo;Companion&rdquo; cavalry and a portion of the phalanx, plunged. Here he
+      found himself in the near neighborhood of Darius, whereupon he redoubled
+      the vigor of his assault, knowing the great importance of any success
+      gained in this quarter. The Companions rushed on with loud cries, pressing
+      with all their weight, and thrusting their spears into the faces of their
+      antagonists&mdash;the phalanx, bristling with its thick array of lances,
+      bore them down. Alexander found himself sufficiently near Darius to hurl a
+      spear at him, which transfixed his charioteer. The cry arose that the king
+      had fallen, and the ranks at once grew unsteady. The more timid instantly
+      began to break and fly; the contagion of fear spread; and Darius was in a
+      little while almost denuded of protection on one side. Seeing this, and
+      regarding the battle as lost, since his line was broken, his centre and
+      left wing defeated, while only his right wing remained firm, the Persian
+      monarch yielded to his alarm, and hastily quitting the field, made his way
+      to Arbela. The centre and left fled with him. The right, which was under
+      the command of the Syrian satrap, Mazseus, made a firmer stand. On this
+      side the chariots had done some damage, and the horse was more than a
+      match for the Thessalian cavalry. Parmenio found himself in difficulties
+      about the time when the Persian king fled. His messengers detained a part
+      of the phalanx, which was about to engage in the pursuit, and even
+      recalled Alexander, who was hastening upon the track of Darius. The
+      careful prince turned back, but before he could make his way through the
+      crowd of fugitives to the side of his lieutenant, victory had declared in
+      favor of the Macedonians in this part of the field also. Mazseus and his
+      troops, learning that the king was fled, regarded further resistance as
+      useless, and quitted the field. The Persian army hurriedly recrossed the
+      Zab, pursued by the remorseless conquerors, who slew the unresisting
+      fugitives till they were weary of slaughter. Arrian says that 300,000
+      fell, while a still larger number were taken prisoners. Other writers make
+      the loss considerably less. All, however, agree that the army was
+      completely routed and dispersed, that it made no attempt to rally, and
+      gave no further trouble to the conqueror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conduct of Darius in this&mdash;the crisis of his fate&mdash;cannot be
+      approved; but it admits of palliation, and does not compel us to withdraw
+      from him that respectful compassion which we commonly accord to great
+      misfortunes. After Issus, it was his duty to make at least one more effort
+      against the invader. To this object he addressed himself with earnestness
+      and diligence. The number and quality of the troops collected at Arbela
+      attests at once the zeal and success of his endeavors. His choice and
+      careful preparation of the field of battle are commendable; in his
+      disposition of his forces there is nothing with which to find fault. Every
+      arm of the service had full room to act; all were brought into play; if
+      Alexander conquered, it was because he was a consummate general, while at
+      the same time he commanded the best troops in the world. Arbela was not,
+      like Issus, won by mere fighting. It was the leader&rsquo;s victory, rather than
+      the soldiers. Alexander&rsquo;s diagonal advance, the confusion which it caused,
+      the break in the Persian line, and its prompt occupation by some of the
+      best cavalry and a portion of the phalanx, are the turning-points of the
+      engagement. All the rest followed as a matter of course. Far too much
+      importance has been assigned to Darius&rsquo;s flight, which was the effect
+      rather than the cause of victory. When the centre of an Asiatic army is so
+      deeply penetrated that the person of the monarch is exposed and his near
+      attendants begin to fall, the battle is won. Darius did not&mdash;indeed
+      he could not&mdash;&ldquo;set the example of flight.&rdquo; Hemmed in by vast masses
+      of troops, it was not until their falling away from him on his left flank
+      at once exposed him to the enemy and gave him room to escape, that he
+      could extricate himself from the melee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No doubt it would have been nobler, finer, more heroic, had the Persian
+      monarch, seeing that all was lost, and that the Empire of the Persians was
+      over, resolved not to outlive the independence of his country. Had he died
+      in the thick of the fight, a halo of glory would have surrounded him. But,
+      because he lacked, in common with many other great kings and commanders,
+      the quality of heroism, we are not justified in affixing to his memory the
+      stigma of personal cowardice. Like Pompey, like Napoleon, he yielded in
+      the crisis of his fate to the instinct of self-preservation. He fled from
+      the field where he had lost his crown, not to organize a new army, not to
+      renew the contest, but to prolong for a few weeks a life which had ceased
+      to have any public value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is needless to pursue further the dissolution of the Empire. The fatal
+      blow was struck at Arbela&mdash;all the rest was but the long death-agony.
+      At Arbela the crown of Cyrua passed to the Macedonian; the Fifth Monarchy
+      came to an end. The HE-GOAT, with the notable horn between his eyes, had
+      come from the west to the ram which had two horns, and had run into him
+      with the fury of his power. He had come close to him, and, moved with
+      choler, had smitten the ram and broken his two horns&mdash;there was no
+      power in the ram to stand before him, but he had cast him down to the
+      ground and stamped upon him&mdash;and there was none to deliver the ram
+      out of his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia, by George Rawlinson
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,11231 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient
+Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia, by George Rawlinson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia
+       The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea,
+       Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian
+       or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
+
+Author: George Rawlinson
+
+Illustrator: George Rawlinson
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2005 [EBook #16165]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES
+
+OF THE
+
+ANCIENT EASTERN WORLD;
+
+
+OR,
+
+
+THE HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, AND ANTIQUITIES OF CHALDAEA, ASSYRIA
+
+BABYLON, MEDIA, PERSIA, PARTHIA, AND SASSANIAN,
+
+OR NEW PERSIAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A.,
+
+CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
+
+
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+
+
+VOLUME II.
+
+
+
+WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+
+
+PERSIA PROPER.
+
+
+[Illustration: MAP]
+
+
+
+
+THE FIFTH MONARCHY.
+
+
+
+
+PERSIA.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE.
+
+
+The geographical extent of the Fifth Monarchy was far greater than that
+of any one of the four which had preceded it. While Persia Proper is a
+comparatively narrow and poor tract, extending in its greatest length
+only some seven or eight degrees (less than 500 miles), the dominions of
+the Persian kings covered a space fifty-six degrees long, and in places
+more than twenty degrees wide. The boundaries of their empire were the
+desert of Thibet, the Sutlej, and the Indus, on the east; the Indian
+Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian and Nubian deserts, on the south;
+on the west, the Greater Syrtis, the Mediterranean, the Egean, and the
+Strymon river; on the north, the Danube, the Black Sea, the Caucasus,
+the Caspian, and the Jaxartes. Within these limits lay a territory, the
+extent of which from east to west was little less than 3000 miles,
+while its width varied between 500 and 1500 miles. Its entire area was
+probably not less than, two millions of square miles--or more than half
+that of modern Europe. It was thus at least eight times as large as the
+Babylonian Empire at its greatest extent, and was probably more than
+four times as large as the Assyrian.
+
+The provinces included within the Empire may be conveniently divided
+into the Central, the Western, and the Eastern. The Central are Persia
+Proper, Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the coast tract of the
+Caspian, and Sagartia, or the Great Desert. The Western are Paeonia,
+Thrace, Asia Minor, Armenia, Iberia, Syria and Phoenicia, Palestine,
+Egypt, and the Cyrenaica. The Eastern are Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria,
+Chorasmia, Sogdiana, Bactria, Scythia, Gandaria, Sattagydia, India,
+Paricania, the Eastern AEthiopia, and Mycia.
+
+Of these countries a considerable number have been already described in
+these volumes. Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the Caspian coast,
+Armenia, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, belong to this class; and it
+may be assumed that the reader is sufficiently acquainted with their
+general features. It would therefore seem to be enough in the present
+place to give an account of the regions which have not yet occupied our
+attention, more especially of Persia Proper--the home of the dominant
+race.
+
+Persia Proper seems to have corresponded nearly to that province of the
+modern Iran, which still bears the ancient name slightly modified, being
+called Farsistan or Fars. The chief important difference between the two
+is, that whereas in modern times the tract called Herman is regarded as
+a distinct and separate region, Carmania anciently was included within
+the limits of Persia. Persia Proper lay upon the gulf to which it has
+given name, extending from the mouth of the Tab (Oroatis) to the point
+where the gulf joins the Indian Ocean. It was bounded on the west by
+Susiana, on the north by Media Magna, on the east by Mycia, and on
+the south by the sea. Its length seems to have been about 450, and its
+average width about 250 miles. It thus contained an area of rather more
+than 100,000 square miles.
+
+In modern times it is customary to divide the province of Fars into
+the _ghermsir_, or, "warm district," and the _serdsir_, or "cold
+region"--and the physical character of the country must have made such a
+division thoroughly appropriate at every period. The "warm district"
+is a tract of sandy plain, often impregnated with salt, which extends
+between the mountains and the sea the whole length of the province,
+being a continuation of the flat region of Susiana, but falling very
+much short of that region in all the qualities which constitute physical
+excellence. The soil is poor, consisting of alternate sand and clay--it
+is ill-watered, the entire tract possessing scarcely a single stream
+worthy of the name of river--and, lying only just without the northern
+Tropic, the district is by its very situation among the hottest of
+western Asia. It forms, however, no very large portion of the ancient
+Persia, being in general a mere strip of land, from ten to fifty
+miles wide, and thus not constituting more than an eighth part of the
+territory in question.
+
+The remaining seven eighths belong to the serdsir, or "cold region."
+The mountain-range which under various names skirts on the east the
+Mesopotamian lowland, separating off that depressed and generally
+fertile region from the bare high plateau of Iran, and running
+continuously in a direction parallel to the course of the Mesopotamian
+streams--i.e. from the north-west to the south-east--changes its course
+as it approaches the sea, sweeping gradually round between long. 50 deg. and
+55 deg., and becoming parallel to the coast-line, while at the same time it
+broadens out, till it covers a space of nearly three degrees, or above
+two hundred miles. Along the high tract thus created lay the bulk of
+the ancient Persia, consisting of alternate mountain, plain, and narrow
+valley, curiously intermixed, and as yet very incompletely mapped. This
+region is of varied character. In places richly, fertile, picturesque,
+and romantic almost beyond imagination, with lovely wooded dells, green
+mountain-sides, and broad plains suited for the production of almost any
+crops, it has yet on the whole a predominant character of sterility and
+barrenness, especially towards its more northern and eastern portions.
+The supply of water is everywhere scanty. Scarcely any of the streams
+are strong enough to reach the sea. After short courses they are
+either absorbed by the sand or end in small salt lakes, from which
+the superfluous water is evaporated. Much of the country is absolutely
+without streams, and would be uninhabitable were it not for the
+_kanats_, or _karizes_, subterranean channels of spring-water, described
+at length in a former volume.
+
+The only rivers of the district which deserve any attention are the Tab
+(or Oroatis), whereof a description has been already given, the Kur or
+Bendamir (called anciently Araxes), with its tributary, the Pulwar (or
+Cyrus), and the Khoonazaberni or river of Khisht.
+
+The Bendamir rises in the mountains of the Bakhtiyari chain, in lat.
+30 deg. 35', long. 51 deg. 50' nearly, and runs with a course which is generally
+south-east, past the ruins of Persepolis, to the salt lake of Neyriz
+or Kheir, which it enters in long. 53 deg. 30'. It receives, where it
+approaches nearest to Persepolis, the Pulwar or Kur-ab, a small stream
+coming from the north-east and flowing by the ruins of both Pasargadae
+and Persepolis. A little below its junction with this stream the
+Bendamir is crossed by a bridge of five arches, and further down, on the
+route between Shiraz and Herman, by another of twelve. Here its waters
+are to a great extent drawn off by means of canals, and are made to
+fertilize a large tract of rich flat country on either bank, after which
+the stream pursues its course with greatly diminished volume to the salt
+lake in which it ends. The entire course, including only main windings,
+may be estimated at 140 or 150 miles.
+
+The Khoonazaberni or river of Khisht rises near the ruins of Shapur, at
+a short distance from Kazerun, on the route between Bushire and
+Shiraz, and flows in a broad valley between lofty mountains towards
+the south-west, entering the Persian Gulf by three mouths, the chief of
+which is at Rohilla, twenty miles north of Bushire, where the stream has
+a breadth of sixty yards, and a depth of about four feet. Above Khisht
+the river is already thirty yards wide. Its chief tributary is the
+Dalaki stream, which enters it from the east, nearly in long. 51 deg.. The
+entire course of the Khisht river may be about 95 or 100 miles. Its
+water is brackish except near the source.
+
+The principal lakes are the Lake of Neyriz and the Deriah-i-Nemek. The
+Deriah-i-Nemek is a small basin distant about ten miles from Shiraz,
+which receives the waters of the streams that supply that town. It has a
+length of about fifteen and a breadth of about three or three and a half
+miles. The lake of Neyriz or Kheir is of far larger size, being from
+fifty to sixty miles long and from three to six broad, though in the
+summer season it is almost entirely dried up. Salt is then obtained
+from the lake in large quantities, and forms an important feature in the
+commerce of the district. Smaller lakes, also salt or brackish, exist in
+other parts of the country, as Lake Famur, near Kazerun, which is about
+six miles in length, and from half a mile to a mile across.
+
+The most remarkable feature of the country consists in the extraordinary
+gorges which pierce the great mountain-chain, and render possible the
+establishment of routes across that tremendous barrier. Scarped rocks
+rise almost perpendicularly on either side of the mountain-streams,
+which descend rapidly with frequent cascades and falls. Along the slight
+irregularities of these rocks the roads are carried in zigzags, often
+crossing the streams from side to side by bridges of a single arch,
+which are thrown over profound chasms where the waters chafe and roar
+many hundred feet below.46 [PLATE XXVI.] The roads have for the most
+part been artificially cut in the sides of the precipices, which rise
+from the streams sometimes to the height of 2000 feet. In order to cross
+from the Persian Gulf to the high plateau of Iran, no fewer than three
+or four of these kotuls, or strange gorge-passes, have to be traversed
+successively. Thus the country towards the edge of the plateau is
+peculiarly safe from attack, being defended on the north and east by
+vast deserts, and on the south by a mountain-barrier of unusual strength
+and difficulty.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVI.]
+
+
+It is in these regions, which combine facility of defence with
+pleasantness of climate, that the principal cities of the district have
+at all times been placed. The earliest known capital of the region was
+Pasargadae, or Persagadae, as the name is sometimes written, of which
+the ruins still exist near Murgab, in lat. 30 deg. 15' long. 53 deg. 17'.
+Here is the famous tomb of Cyrus, whereof a description will be given
+hereafter; and here are also other interesting remains of the old
+Persian architecture. Neither the shape nor the extent of the town can
+be traced. The situation was a plain amid mountains, watered by small
+streams which found their way to a river of some size (the Pulwar)
+flowing at a little distance to the west. [PLATE XXVII Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVII.]
+
+
+At the distance of thirty miles from Pasargadae, or of more than forty
+by the ordinary road, grew up the second capital, Persepolis, occupying
+a more southern position than the primitive seat of power, but still
+situated towards the edge of the plateau, having the mountain-barrier
+to the south-west and the desert at no great distance to the north-east.
+Like its predecessor, Persepolis was situated in a plain, but in a plain
+of much larger dimensions and of far greater fertility. The plain of
+Merdasht is one of the most productive in Persia, being watered by the
+two streams of the Bendamir and the Pulwar, which unite a few miles
+below the site of the ancient city. From these two copious and unfailing
+rivers a plentiful supply of the precious fluid can at all times be
+obtained; and in Persia such a supply will always create the loveliest
+verdure, the most abundant crops, and the richest and thickest foliage.
+The site of Persopolis is naturally far superior to that in which
+the modern provincial capital, Shiraz, has grown up, at about the
+same distance from Persepolis as that is from Pasargadae. and in the
+same--i.e. in a south-west--direction.
+
+Besides Persepolis and Pasargadse, Persia Proper contained but few
+cities of any note or name. If we include Carmania in Persia, Carmana,
+the capital of that country, may indeed be mentioned as a third Persian
+town of some consequence; but otherwise the names which occur in ancient
+authors are insignificant, and designate villages rather than towns of
+any size. Carmana, however, which is mentioned by Ptolemy and
+Ammianus as the capital of those parts, seems to have been a place of
+considerable importance. It may be identified with the modern Kerman,
+which lies in lat. 39 deg. 55', long. 56 deg. 13', and is still one of the
+chief cities of Persia. Situated, like Pasargadae and Persepolis, in a
+capacious plain surrounded by mountains, which furnish sufficient water
+for cultivation to be carried on by means of kanats in most parts of the
+tract enclosed by them, and occupying a site through which the trade of
+the country almost of necessity passes, Kerman must always be a town of
+no little consequence. Its inland and remote position, however,
+caused it to be little known to the Greeks; and, apparently, the great
+Alexandrian geographer was the first who made them acquainted with its
+existence and locality.
+
+The Persian towns or villages upon the coast of the Gulf were chiefly
+Armuza (which gave name to the district of Ar-muzia), opposite the
+modern island of Ormuz; Sisidona, which must have been near Cape Jerd;
+Apostana, probably about Shewar; Gogana, no doubt the modern Kongoon;
+and Taoce on the Granis, famous as having in its neighborhood a royal
+palace, which we may perhaps place near Dalaki, Taoce itself occupying
+the position of Rohilla, at the mouth of the Khisht river. Of the inland
+towns the most remarkable, after Persepolis, Pasargadse, and Carmana,
+were Gabae, near Pasar-gadae, also the site of a palace; Uxia, or the
+Uxian city, which may have occupied the position of Mai-Amir, Obroatis,
+Tragonice, Ardea, Portospana, Hyrba, etc., which it is impossible to
+locate unless by the merest conjecture.
+
+The chief districts into which the territory was divided were
+Paraetacene, a portion of the Bakhtiyari mountain-chain, which some,
+however, reckoned to Media; Mardyene, or the country of the Mardi, also
+one of the hill tracts; Taocene, the district about Taoce, part of the
+low sandy coast region; Ciribo, the more northern portion of the same
+region; and Carmania, the entire eastern territory. These districts were
+not divided from one another by any marked natural features, the only
+division of the country to which such a character attached being the
+triple one into the high sandy plains north of the mountains, the
+mountain region, and the Deshtistan, or low hot tract along the coast.
+
+From this account it will be easy to understand how Persia Proper
+acquired and maintained the character of "a scant land and a rugged,"
+which we find attaching to it in ancient authors. The entire area, as
+has been already observed was about 100,000 square miles--little more
+than half that of Spain, and about one fifth of the area of modern
+Persia. Even of this space nearly one half was uninhabitable, consisting
+either of barren stony mountain or of scorching sandy plain, ill
+supplied with water, and often impregnated with salt, the habitable
+portion consisted of the valleys and plains among the mountains and
+along their skirts, together with certain favored spots upon the banks
+of streams in the flat regions. These flat regions themselves were
+traversed in many places by rocky ridges of a singularly forbidding
+aspect. The whole appearance of the country was dry, stony, sterile. As
+a modern writer observes, "the livery of the land is constantly brown
+or gray; water is scanty; plains and mountains are equally destitute of
+wood. When the traveller, after toiling over the rocky mountains that
+separate the plains looks down from the pass he has won with toil
+and difficulty upon the country below, his eye wanders unchecked and
+unrested over an uniform brown expanse losing itself in distance."
+
+Still this character, though predominant, is not universal. Wherever
+there is water, vegetation springs up. The whole of the mountain region
+is intersected by valleys and plains which are more or less fertile.
+The line of country between Bebahan and Shiraz is for above sixty miles
+"covered with wood and verdure," in East of Shiraz, on the route between
+that city and Kerman the country is said to be in parts "picturesque and
+romantic," consisting of "low luxuriant valleys or; plains separated
+by ranges of low mountains, green to their very summits with beautiful
+turf." The plains of Khubbes, Merdasht, Ujan, Shiraz, Kazerun,
+and others, produce abundantly under a very inefficient system of
+cultivation. Even in the most arid tracts there is generally a time of
+greenness immediately after the spring rains, when the whole country
+smiles with verdure.
+
+It has been already remarked that the Empire, which, commencing from
+Persia Proper, spread itself towards the close of the sixth century
+before Christ, over the surrounding tracts, included a number of
+countries not yet described in these volumes, since they formed no part
+of any of the four Empires which preceded the Persian. To complete,
+therefore, the geographical survey proper to our subject, it will be
+necessary to give a sketch of the tracts in question. They will
+fall naturally into three groups, an eastern, a north-western, and a
+southwestern--the eastern extending from the skirts of Mount Zagros to
+the Indian Desert, the north-western from the Caspian to the Propontis,
+and the south-western from the borders of Palestine to the shores of the
+Greater Syrtis.
+
+Inside the Zagros and Elburz ranges, bounded on the north and west by
+those mountain-lines, on the east by the ranges of Suliman and Hala, and
+on the south by the coast-chain which runs from Persia Proper nearly
+to the Indus, lies a vast tableland, from 3000 to 5000 feet above the
+sea-level, known to modern geographers as the Great Plateau of Iran. Its
+shape is an irregular rectangle, or trapezium, extending in its greatest
+length, which is from west to east, no less than twenty degrees, or
+above 1100 miles, while the breadth from north to south varies from
+seven degrees, or 480 miles (which is its measure along the line of
+Zagros), to ten degrees, or 690 miles, where it abuts upon the Indus
+valley. The area of the tract is probably from 500,000 to 600,000 square
+miles.
+
+It is calculated that two thirds of this elevated region are absolutely
+and entirely desert. The rivers which flow from the mountains
+surrounding it are, with a single exception--that of the Etymandrus or
+Helmend--insignificant, and their waters almost always lose themselves,
+after a course proportioned to their volume, in the sands of the
+interior. Only two, the Helmend and the river of Ghuzni, have even the
+strength to form lakes; the others are absorbed by irrigation, or sucked
+up by the desert. Occasionally a river, rising within the mountains,
+forces its way through the barrier, and so contrives to reach the sea.
+This is the case, especially, on the south, where the coast chain is
+pierced by a number of streams, some of which have their sources at a
+considerable distance inland. On the north the Heri-rud, or River of
+Herat, makes its escape in a similar way from the plateau, but only to
+be absorbed, after passing through two mountain chains, in the sands of
+the Kharesm. Thus by far the greater portion of this region is desert
+throughout the year, while, as the summer advances, large tracts, which
+in the spring were green, are burnt up--the rivers shrink back towards
+their sources--the whole plateau becomes dry and parched--and the
+traveller wonders that any portion of it should be inhabited.
+
+It must not be supposed that the entire plateau of which we have been
+speaking is to the eye a single level and unbroken plain. In the western
+portion of the region the plains are constantly intersected by "brown,
+irregular, rocky ridges," rising to no great height, but serving to
+condense the vapors held in the air, and furnishing thereby springs
+and wells of inestimable value to the inhabitants. In the southern and
+eastern districts "immense" ranges of mountains are said to occur; and
+the south-eastern as well as the north-eastern corners of the plateau
+are little else than confused masses of giant elevations. Vast flats,
+however, are found. In the Great Salt Desert, which extends from Kashan
+and Koum to the Deriah or "Sea" in which the Helmend terminates, and
+in the sandy desert of Seistan, which lies east and south-east of that
+lake, reaching from near Furrah to the Mekran mountains, plains of above
+a hundred miles in extent appear to occur, sometimes formed of loose
+sand, which the wind raises into waves like those of the sea, sometimes
+hard and gravelly, or of baked and indurated clay.
+
+The tract in question, which at the present day is divided between
+Afghanistan, Beloochistan, and Iran, contained, at the time when
+the Persian Empire arose, the following nations: the Sagartians, the
+Cossseans, the Parthians, the Hariva or Arians, the Gandarians, the
+Sattagydians, the Arachotians, the Thamanseans, the Sarangae, and the
+Paricanians. The Sagartians and Cossseans dwelt in the western portion
+of the tract, the latter probably about the Siah-Koh mountains, the
+former scattered over the whole region from the borders of Persia Proper
+to the Caspian Gates and the Elburz range. Along its northern edge, east
+of the Sagartians, were the Parthians, the Arians, and the Gandarians.
+occurring in that order as we proceed from west to east. The Parthians
+held the country known now as the Atak or "Skirt," the flat tract at the
+southern base of the Elburz from about Shahrud to Khaff, together with
+a portion of the mountain region adjoining. This is a rich and valuable
+territory, well watered by a number of small streams, which, issuing
+from the ravines and valleys of the Elburz, spread fertility around, but
+lose themselves after a short, course in the Salt Desert. Adjoining the
+Parthians upon the east were the Haroyu, Hariva, or Arians, an Iranic
+race of great antiquity, who held the country along the southern skirts
+of the mountains from the neighborhood of Khaff to the point where the
+Heri-rud (Arius) issues from the Paropamisan mountains. The character
+of this country closely resembles that of Parthia, whereof it is a
+continuation; but the copious stream of the Heri-rud renders it even
+more productive.
+
+The Gandarians held Kabul, and the mountain tract on both sides of the
+Kabul river as far as the upper course of the Indus, thus occupying
+the extreme north-eastern corner of the plateau, the region where its
+elevation is the greatest. Lofty mountain-ridges, ramifying in various
+directions but tending generally to run east and west, deep gorges,
+narrow and tremendous passes, like the Khyber, characterize this
+district. Its soil is generally rocky and barren; but many of the
+valleys are fertile, abounding with enchanting scenery and enjoying a
+delightful climate. More especially is this the case in the neighborhood
+of the city of Kabul, which is perhaps the Caspatyrus of Herodotus,
+where Darius built the fleet which descended the Indus.
+
+South of Aria and Gandaria, in the tract between the Great Desert
+and the Indus valley, the plateau was occupied by four nations--the
+Thamanseans, the Sarangians, the Sattagydians, and the Arachotians.
+The Thamanaean country appears to have been that which lies south and
+south-east of Aria (Herat), reaching from the Haroot-rud or river of
+Subzawar to the banks of the Helmend about Ghirisk. This is a varied
+region, consisting on the north and the north-east of several high
+mountain chains which ramify from a common centre, having between
+them large tracts of hills and downs, while towards the south and the
+south-west the country is comparatively low and flat, descending to
+the level of the desert about the thirty second parallel. Here the
+Thamanseans were adjoined upon by the Sarangians, who held the land
+about the lake in which the Helmend terminates--the Seistan of Modern
+Persia. Seistan is mainly desert. One third of the surface of the soil
+is composed of moving sands, and the other two thirds of a compact
+sand, mixed with a little clay, but very rich in vegetable matter. It
+is traversed by a number of streams, as the Haroot-rud, the river
+of Furrah, the river of Khash, the Helmend, and others, and is
+very productive along their banks, which are fertilized by annual
+inundations; but the country between the streams is for the most part an
+arid desert.
+
+The Sattagydians and Arachotians divided between them the remainder of
+Afghanistan, the former probably occupying south-eastern Kabul, from the
+Ghuzni river and its tributaries to the valley of the Indus, while the
+latter were located in the modern Candahar, upon the Urghand-ab and
+Turnuk rivers. The character of these tracts is similar to that of
+north-western Kabul, but somewhat less rugged and mountainous. Hills and
+downs alternate with rocky ranges and fairly fertile vales. There is
+a scantiness of water, but still a certain number of moderate-sized
+rivers, tolerably well supplied with affluents. The soil, however, is
+either rocky or sandy; and without a careful system of irrigation great
+portions of the country remain of necessity barren and unproductive.
+
+The south-eastern corner of the plateau, below the countries of the
+Sarangians and the Arachotians, was occupied by a people, called
+Paricanians by Herodotus, perhaps identical with the Gedrosians of
+later writers. This district, the modern Beloochistan, is still very
+imperfectly known, but appears to be generally mountainous, to have a
+singularly barren soil, and to be deficient in rivers. The nomadic life
+is a necessity in the greater part of the region, which is in few places
+suitable for cultivation, but has good pastures in the mountains or the
+plains according to the season of the year. The rivers of the country
+are for the most part mere torrents, which carry a heavy body of
+water after rains, but are often absolutely dry for several months in
+succession. Water, however, is generally obtainable by digging wells in
+their beds; and the liquid procured in this way suffices, not only for
+the wants of man and beast, but also for a limited irrigation.
+
+The Great Plateau which has been here described is bordered everywhere,
+except at its north-eastern and north-western corners, by low regions.
+On the north the lowland is at first a mere narrow strip intervening
+between the Elburz range and the Caspian, a strip which has been already
+described in the account given of the Third Monarchy. Where, however,
+the Caspian ends, its shore trending away to the northward, there
+succeeds to this mere strip of territory a broad and ample tract of
+sandy plain, extending from about the 54th to the 68th degree of east
+longitude--a distance of 760 miles--and reaching from the 36th to the
+50th parallel of north latitude--a distance not much short of a thousand
+miles! This tract which comprises the modern Khanats of Khiva and
+Bokhara, together with a considerable piece of Southern Asiatic Russia,
+is for the most part a huge trackless desert, composed of loose sand,
+black or red, which the wind heaps up into hills. Scarcely any region on
+the earth's surface is more desolate. The boundless plain lies stretched
+before the traveller like an interminable sea, but dead, dull, and
+motionless. Vegetation, even the most dry and sapless, scarcely exists.
+For three or four hundred miles together he sees no running stream.
+Water, salt, slimy, and discolored, lies Occasionally in pools, or
+is drawn from wells, which yield however only a scanty supply. For
+anything like a drinkable beverage the traveller has to trust to the
+skies, which give or withhold their stores with a caprice that is truly
+tantalizing. Occasionally, but only at long intervals, out of the
+low sandy region there issues a rocky range, or a plateau of moderate
+eminence, where the soil is firm, the ground smooth, and vegetation
+tolerably abundant. The most important of the ranges are the Great
+and Little Balkan, near the Caspian Sea, between the 39th and 40th
+parallels, the Khalata and Urta Tagh, north-west, of Bokhara, and the
+Kukuth; still further to the north-west in latitude 42 deg. nearly. The
+chief plateau is that of Ust-Urt, between the Caspian and the Sea of
+Aral, which is perhaps not more than three or four hundred feet above
+the sandy plain, but is entirely different in character.
+
+This desolate region of low sandy plain would be wholly uninhabitable,
+were it not for the rivers. Two great streams, the Amoo or Jyhun
+(anciently the Oxus), and the Sir or Synuti (anciently the Jaxartes),
+carry their waters across the desert, and pour them into the basin of
+the Aral. Several others of less volume, as the Murg-ab, or river of
+Merv, the Abi Meshed or Tejend, the Heri-rud, the river of Maymene, the
+river of Balkh, the river of Khulm, the Shehri-Sebz, the Ak Su or river
+of Bokhara, the Kizil Deria, etc., flow down from the high ground
+into the plain, where their waters either become lost in the sands, or
+terminate in small salt pools. Along the banks of these streams the soil
+is fertile, and where irrigation is employed the crops are abundant. In
+the vicinity of Khiva, at Kermineh on the Bokhara river, at Samarcand,
+at Balkh--and in a few other places, the vegetation is even luxuriant;
+gardens, meadows, orchards, and cornfields fringe the river-bank; and
+the natives see in such favored spots resemblances of Paradise! Often,
+however, even the river-banks themselves are uncultivated, and the
+desert creeps up to their very edge; but this is in default, not in
+spite, of human exertion. A well-managed system of irrigation could,
+in almost every instance, spread on either side of the streams a broad
+strip of verdure.
+
+In the time of the Fifth Monarchy, the tract which has been here
+described was divided among three nations. The region immediately to the
+east of the Caspian, bounded on the north by the old course of the Oxus
+and extending eastward to the neighborhood of Merv, though probably
+not including that city, was Chorasmia, the country of the Chorasmians.
+Across the Oxus to the north-east was Sogdiana (or Sugd), reaching
+thence to the Jaxartes, which was the Persian boundary in this
+direction. South of Sogdiana, divided from it by the Middle and Upper
+Oxus, was Bactria, the country of the Bakhtars or Bactrians. The
+territory of this people reached southward to the foot of the
+Paropamisus, adjoining Chorasmia and Aria on the west, and on the south
+Sattagydia and Gandaria.
+
+East of the table-land lies the valley of the Indus and its tributaries,
+at first a broad tract, 350 miles from west to east, but narrowing as
+it descends, and in places not exceeding sixty or seventy miles,
+across. The length of the valley is not less than 800 miles. Its area is
+probably about a hundred thousand square miles. We may best regard it
+as composed of two very distinct tracts--one the broad triangular plain
+towards the north, to which, from the fact of its being watered by five
+main streams, he natives have given the name of Punj-ab, the other the
+long and comparatively narrow valley of the single Indus river, which,
+deriving its appellation from that noble stream, is known in modern
+geography as Sinde. The Punjab, which contains an area of above fifty
+thousand square miles, is mountainous towards the north, where it
+adjoins on Kashmeer and Thibet, but soon sinks down into a vast plain,
+with a soil which is chiefly either sand or clay, immensely productive
+under irrigation, but tending to become jungle or desert if left without
+human care. Sinde, or the Indus valley below the Punjab, is a region of
+even greater fertility. It is watered, not only by the main stream of
+the Indus, but by a number of branch channels which the river begins to
+throw off from about the 28th parallel. It includes, on the right bank
+of the stream, the important tract called Cutchi Gandava, a triangular
+plain at the foot of the Suliman and Hala ranges, containing about 7000
+square miles of land which is all capable of being made into a garden.
+The soil is here for the most part rich, black, and loamy; water is
+abundant; and the climate suitable for the growth of all kinds of grain.
+Below Cutchi Gandava the valley of the Indus is narrow for about a
+hundred miles, but about Tatta it expands and a vast delta is formed.
+This is a third triangle, containing above a thousand square miles of
+the richest alluvium, which is liable however to floods and to vast
+changes in the river beds, whereby often whole fields are swept away.
+Much of this tract is moreover low and swampy; the climate is trying;
+and rice is almost the only product that can be advantageously
+cultivated.
+
+The low region lying south of the Great Plateau is neither extensive
+nor valuable. It consists of a mere strip of land along the coast of
+the Indian Ocean, extending a distance of about nine degrees (550 miles)
+from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to Cape Monze, near Kurrachee, but
+in width not exceeding ten or, at the most, twenty miles. This tract
+was occupied in ancient times mainly by a race which Herodotus called
+Ethiopians and the historians of Alexander Ichthyophagi (Fish-Eaters).
+It is an arid, sultry, and unpleasant region, scarcely possessing a
+perennial stream, and depending for its harvests entirely upon the
+winter rains, and for its water during the summer on wells which are
+chiefly brackish. Tolerable pasturage is, however, obtainable in places
+even during the hottest part of the year, and between Cape Jask and
+Gwattur the crops produced are far from contemptible.
+
+A small tract of coast, a continuation of the territory just described,
+intervening between it and Kerman, was occupied in the early Persian
+times by a race known to the Persians as Maka, and to the Greeks as
+Mycians. This district, reaching from about Cape Jask to Gombroon,
+is one of greater fertility than is usual in these regions, being
+particularly productive in dates and grain. This fertility seems,
+however, to be confined to the vicinity of the sea-shore.
+
+To complete the description of the Eastern provinces two other tracts
+must be mentioned. The mountain-chain which skirts the Great Plateau on
+the north, distinguished in these pages by the name of Elburz, broadens
+out after it passes the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea till it
+covers a space of nearly three degrees (more than 200 miles). Instead
+of the single lofty ridge which separates the Salt Desert from the low
+Caspian region, we find between the fifty-fourth and fifty-ninth degrees
+of east longitude three or four distinct ranges, all nearly parallel to
+one another, having a general direction of east and west. Broad and rich
+valleys are enclosed between these latitudinal ranges which are watered
+by rivers of a considerable size, as more especially the Ettrek and
+the Gurgan. Thus a territory is formed capable of supporting a largish
+population, a territory which possesses a natural unity, being shut in
+on three sides by mountains, and on the fourth by the Caspian. Here in
+Persian times was settled a people called Hyrcani; and from them the
+tract derived the name of Hyrcania (Vehrkana), while the lake on which
+it adjoined came to be known as "the Hyrcanian Sea." The fertility
+of the region, its broad plains, shady woods and lofty mountains were
+celebrated by the ancient writers.
+
+Further to the east, beyond the low sandy plain, and beyond the
+mountains in which its great rivers have their source--on the other
+side of the "Roof of the World," as the natives name this elevated
+region--lay a tract unimportant in itself, but valuable to the Persians
+as the home of a people from whom they obtained excellent soldiers. The
+plain of Chinese Tartary, the district about Kashgar and Yarkand, seems
+to have been in possession of certain Sacans or Scythians, who in the
+flourishing times of the empire acknowledged subjection to the Persian
+crown. These Sacans, who call themselves Huma-varga or Amyrgians,
+furnished some of the best and bravest of the Persian troops. Westward
+they bordered on Sogdiana and Bactria; northward they extended probably
+to the great mountain-chain of the Tien-chan; on the east they were shut
+in by the vast desert of Gobi or Shamoo; while southward they must have
+touched Gandaria and perhaps India. A portion of this country--that
+towards the north and west--was well watered and fairly productive; but
+the southern and eastern part of it must have been arid and desert.
+
+From this consideration of the Eastern provinces of the Empire, we pass
+on naturally to those which lay towards the North-West. The Caspian Sea
+alone intervened between these two groups, which thus approached each
+other within a distance of some 250 or 260 miles.
+
+Almost immediately to the west of the Caspian there rises a high
+table-land diversified by mountains, which stretches eastward for more
+than eighteen degrees between the 37th and 41st parallels. This highland
+may properly be regarded as a continuation of the great Iranean plateau,
+with which it is connected at its south-eastern corner. It comprises
+a portion of the modern Persia, the whole of Armenia, and most of Asia
+Minor. Its principal mountain-ranges are latitudinal or from west to
+east, only the minor ones taking the opposite or longitudinal direction.
+Of the latitudinal chains the most important is the Taurus, which,
+commencing at the southwestern corner of Asia Minor in longitude 29 deg.
+nearly, bounds the great table-land upon the south, running parallel
+with the shore at the distance of sixty or seventy miles as far as
+the Pylse Cilicise, near Tarsus, and then proceeding in a direction
+decidedly north of east to the neighborhood of Lake Van, where it unites
+with the line of Zagros. The elevation of this range, though not equal
+to that of some in Asia, is considerable. In Asia Minor the loftiest of
+the Taurus peaks seem to attain a height of about 9000 or 10,000 feet.
+Further to the east the elevation appears to be even greater, the peaks
+of Ala Dagh, Sapan, Nimrud, and Mut Khan in the tract about Lake Van
+being all of them considerably above the line of perpetual snow, and
+therefore probably 11,000 or 12,000 feet.
+
+At the opposite side of the table-land, bounding it towards the north,
+there runs under various names a second continuous range of inferior
+elevation, which begins near Brusa, in the Keshish Dagh or Mysian
+Olympus, and proceeds in a line nearly parallel with the northern coast
+to the vicinity of Kars. Between this and Taurus are two other important
+ridges, which run westward from the neighborhood of Ararat to about the
+34th degree of east longitude, after which they subside into the plain.
+
+The heart of the mountain-region, the tract extending from the district
+of Erivan on the east to the upper course of the Kizil-Irmak river
+and the vicinity of Sivas upon the west, was, as it still is, Armenia.
+Amidst these natural fastnesses, in a country of lofty ridges, deep
+and narrow valleys, numerous and copious streams, and occasional broad
+plains--a country of rich pasture grounds, productive orchards, and
+abundant harvests--this interesting people has maintained itself almost
+unchanged from the time of the early Persian kings to the present day.
+Armenia was one of the most valuable portions of the Persian Empire,
+furnishing, as it did, besides stone and timber, and several most
+important minerals, an annual supply of 20,000 excellent horses to the
+stud of the Persian king.
+
+The highland west of Armenia, the plateau of Asia Minor, from the
+longitude of Siwas (37 deg. E.) to the sources of the Meander and the
+Hermus, was occupied by the two nations of the Cappadocians and
+Phrygians, whose territories were separated by the Kizil-Irmak or Halys
+river. This tract, though diversified by some considerable ranges, and
+possessing one really lofty mountain, that of Argseus, was, compared
+with Armenia, champaign and level. Its broad plains afforded the best
+possible pasturage for sheep, while at the same time they bore excellent
+crops of wheat. The entire region was well-watered; it enjoyed a
+delightful climate; and besides corn and cattle furnished many products
+of value.
+
+Outside the plateau on the north, on the north-east, on the west, and
+on the south, lie territories which, in comparison with the high
+region whereon they adjoined, may be called lowlands. The north-eastern
+lowland, the broad and rich valley of the Kur, which corresponds closely
+with the modern Russian province of Georgia, was in the possession of a
+people called by Herodotus Saspeires or Sapeires, whom we may identify
+with the Iberians of later writers. Adjoining upon them towards the
+south, probably in the country about Erivan, and so in the neighborhood
+of Ararat, were the Alarodians, whose name must be connected with that
+of the great mountain. On the other side of the Sapeirian country, in
+the tracts now known as Mingrelia and Imeritia, regions of a wonderful
+beauty and fertility, were the Colchians--dependants, but not exactly
+subjects, of Persia.
+
+The northern lowland, which consisted of a somewhat narrow strip of land
+between the plateau and the Euxine, was a rich and well-wooded region,
+630 miles in length, and in breadth from forty to a hundred. It was
+inhabited by a large number of rude and barbarous tribes, each of whom
+possessed a small portion of the sea-board. These tribes, enumerated in
+the order of their occurrence from east to west, were the following:
+the Moschi, the Macrones (or Tzani), the Mosy-noeci, the Mares, the
+Tibareni, the Chalybes, the Paphlagones, the Mariandyni, the Bithyni,
+and the Thyni. The Moschi, Macrones, Mosynoeci, Mares, and Tibareni
+dwelt towards the east, occupying the coast from Batoum to Ordou.
+The Chalybes inhabited the tract immediately adjoining on Sinope.
+The Paphlagonians held the rest of the coast from the mouth of the
+Kizil-Irmak to Cape Baba, where they were succeeded by the Mariandyni,
+who owned the small tract between Cape Baba and the mouth of
+the Sakkariyeh (Sangarius). From the Sangarius to the canal of
+Constantinople dwelt the Thynians and Bithynians intermixed, the former
+however affecting the coast and the latter the interior of the country.
+The entire tract was of a nearly uniform character, consisting of wooded
+spurs from the northern mountain-chain, with, valleys of greater or
+less width between them. Streams were numerous, and vegetation was
+consequently rich; but it may be doubted whether the climate was
+healthy.
+
+The western lowland comprised the inland regions of Mysia, Lydia,
+and Caria, together with the coast-tracts which had been occupied by
+immigrant Greeks, and which were known as Juolis, Doris, and Ionia. The
+broad and rich plains, the open valleys, the fair grassy mountains, the
+noble trees, the numerous and copious rivers of this district are too
+well known to need description here. The western portion of Asia Minor
+is a terrestrial paradise, well deserving the praises which Herodotus
+with patriotic enthusiasm bestowed upon it. The climate is delightful,
+only that it is somewhat too luxurious; the soil is rich and varied in
+quality; the vegetable productions are abundant; and the mountains, at
+any rate anciently, possessed mineral treasures of great value.
+
+The lowland upon the south is narrower and more mountainous than either
+of the others. It comprised three countries only--Lycia, Pamphylia, and
+Cilicia. The tract is chiefly occupied by spurs from Taurus, between
+which lie warm and richly wooded valleys. In Lycia, however, the
+mountain-ridges embrace some extensive uplands, on a level not much
+inferior to that of the central plateau itself, while in Pamphylia and
+Cilicia are two or three low alluvial plains of tolerable extent and
+of great fertility. Of these the most remarkable is that near Tarsus,
+formed by the three streams of the Cydnus, the Sarus, and the Pyramus,
+which extends along the coast a distance of forty miles and reaches
+inland about thirty, the region which gave to the tract where it occurs
+the name of Cilicia Campestris or Pedias.
+
+The Persian dominion in this quarter was not bounded by sea. Opposite to
+Cilicia lay the large and important island of Cyprus, which was included
+in the territories of the Great King from the time of Cambyses to the
+close of the Empire. Further to the west, Rhodes, Cos, Samos, Chios,
+Lesbos, Tenedos, Lemnus, Imbrus, Samothrace, Thasos, and most of the
+islands of the Egean were for a time Persian, but were never grasped
+with such firmness as to be a source of real strength to their
+conquerors. The same may be said of Thrace and Pseonia, subjugated under
+Darius, and held for some twenty or thirty years, but not assimilated,
+not brought into the condition of provinces, and therefore rather
+a drain upon the Empire than an addition to its resources. It seems
+unnecessary to lengthen out this description of the Persian territories
+by giving an account of countries and islands, whose connection with the
+Empire was at once so slight and so temporary.
+
+A few words must, however, be said respecting Cyprus. This island, which
+is 140 miles long from Bafa (Paphos) to Cape Andrea, with an average
+width for two thirds of its length of thirty-five, and for the remaining
+third of about six or seven miles, is a mountainous tract, picturesque
+and varied, containing numerous slopes, and a few plains, well fitted
+for cultivation. According to Eratosthenes it was in the more ancient
+times richly wooded, but was gradually cleared by human labor. Its soil
+was productive, and particularly well suited for the vine and the olive.
+It grew also sufficient corn for its own use. But its special value
+arose from its mineral products. The copper mines near Tamasus were
+enormously productive, and the ore thence derived so preponderated over
+all other supplies that the later Romans came to use the word Cyprium
+for the metal generally--whence the names by which it is even now known
+in most of the languages of modern Europe. On the whole Cyprus was
+considered inferior to no known island. Besides its vegetable and
+mineral products, it furnished a large number of excellent sailors to
+the Persian fleet.
+
+It remains to notice briefly those provinces of the south-west which had
+not been included within any of the preceding monarchies, and which are
+therefore as yet undescribed in these volumes. These provinces are the
+African, and may be best considered under the three heads of Egypt,
+Libya, and the Cyrenaica.
+
+Egypt, if we include under the name not merely the Nile valley and the
+Delta, but the entire tract interposed between the Libyan Desert on the
+one side and the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea on the other, is a country of
+nearly the size of Italy. It measures 520 miles from Elephantine to the
+Mediterranean, and has an average width of 150 or 160 miles. It must
+thus contain an area of about 80,000 square miles. Of this space,
+however, at least three fourths is valueless, consisting of bare rocky
+mountain or dry sandy plain. It is only along the course of the narrow
+valley in which the Nile flows from the Cataracts to beyond Cairo, in
+the tract known as the Faioum, and in the broad region of the Delta,
+that cultivation is possible. Even in the Delta itself there are large
+spaces which are arid, and others which are permanent marshes, so that
+considerable portions of its surface are unfitted for husbandry. But if
+the quantity of cultivable land is thus limited in Egypt, the quality is
+so excellent, in consequence of the alluvial character of the soil, that
+the country was always in ancient times a sort of granary of the world.
+The noble river, bringing annually a fresh deposit of the richest soil,
+and furnishing a supply of water, which is sufficient, if carefully
+husbanded, to produce a succession of luxuriant crops throughout the
+year, makes Egypt--what it is even at the present day--one of the most
+fertile portions of the earth's surface--a land of varied products,
+all excellent--but especially a land of corn, to which the principal
+nations of the world looked for their supplies, either regularly, or at
+any rate in times of difficulty.
+
+West of Egypt was a dry and sandy tract, dotted with oases, but
+otherwise only habitable along the shore, which in the time of the
+Persian Empire was occupied by a number of wild tribes who were mostly
+in the lowest condition to which savage man is capable of sinking. The
+geographical extent of this tract was large, exceeding considerably that
+of Egypt; but its value was slight. Naturally, it produced nothing but
+dates and hides. The inhumanity of the inhabitants made it, however,
+further productive of a commodity, which, until the world is
+christianized, will probably always be regarded as one of high
+value--the commodity of negro slaves, which were procured in the Sahara
+by slave-hunts, and perhaps by purchase in Nigritia.
+
+Still further to the west, and forming the boundary of the Empire in
+this direction, lay the district of the Cyrenaica, a tract of singular
+fertility and beauty. Between Benghazi, in east longitude 20 deg., and the
+Ras al Tynn (long. 23 deg. 15'), there rises above the level of the adjacent
+regions an extensive table land, which, attracting the vapors that float
+over the Mediterranean, condenses them, and so abounds with springs
+and rills. A general freshness and greenness, with rich vegetation in
+places, is the consequence. Olives, figs, carobs, junipers, oleanders,
+cypresses, cedars, myrtles, arbutus-trees, cover the flanks of the
+plateau and the hollows which break its surface, while the remainder is
+suitable alike for the cultivation of cereals and for pasturage. Nature
+has also made the region a special gift in the laserpitium or silphium,
+which was regarded by the ancients as at once a delicacy and a plant
+of great medicinal power, and which added largely to the value of the
+country.
+
+Such was the geographical extent of the Persian Empire, and such
+were the chief provinces which it contained besides those previously
+comprised in the empires of Media or Babylon. Territorially, the great
+mass of the Empire lay towards the east, between long. 50 deg. and 75 deg., or
+between the Zagros range and the Indian Desert. But its most important
+provinces were the western ones. East of Persepolis, the only regions
+of much value were the valleys of the Indus and the Oxus. Westward lay
+Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, Armenia, Iberia, Cappadocia, Asia
+Minor, Cyprus, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, the Cyrenaica--all countries of
+great, or at least considerable, productiveness. The two richest grain
+tracts of the ancient world, the best pasture regions, the districts
+which produced the most valuable horses, the most abundant of known
+gold-fields, were included within the limits of the Empire, which may
+be looked upon as self-sufficing, containing within it all that man in
+those days required, not only for his necessities, but even for his most
+cherished luxuries.
+
+The productiveness of the Empire was the natural result of its
+possessing so many and such large rivers. Six streams of the first
+class, having courses exceeding a thousand miles in length, helped to
+fertilize the lands which owned the sway of the Great King. These were
+the Nile, the Indus, the Euphrates, the Jaxartes, the Oxus, and the
+Tigris. Two of the six have been already described in these volumes, and
+therefore will not need to detain us here; but a few words must be
+said with respect to each of the remaining four, if our sketch of the
+geography of the Empire is to make any approach to completeness.
+
+The Nile was only in the latter part of its course a Persian stream.
+Flowing, as we now know that it does, from within a short distance of
+the equator, it had accomplished more than three fourths of its course
+before it entered a Persian province. It ran, however, through Persian
+territory a distance of about six hundred miles, and conferred on
+the tract through which it passed immeasurable benefits. The Greeks
+sometimes maintained that "Egypt was the gift of the river;" and, though
+this was very far from being a correct statement in the sense intended,
+there is a meaning of the words in which we may accept them as
+expressing a fact. Egypt is only what she is through her river. The Nile
+gives her all that makes her valuable. This broad, ample, and unfailing
+stream not only by its annual inundation enriches the soil and prepares
+it for tillage in a manner that renders only the lightest further labor
+necessary, but serves as a reservoir from which inexhaustible supplies
+of the precious fluid can be obtained throughout the whole of the year.
+The water, which rises towards the end of June, begins to subside early
+in October, and for half the year--from December till June--Egypt is
+only cultivable through irrigation. She produces, however, during this
+period, excellent crops--even at the present day, when there are few
+canals--from the facility with which water is obtained, by means of
+a very simple engine, out of the channel of the Nile. This unfailing
+supply enabled the cultivator to obtain a second, a third, and even
+sometimes a fourth crop from the same land within the space of a year.
+
+The course of the Nile from Elephantine, where it entered Egypt, to
+Cercasorus, near Heliopolis, where it bifurcated, was in general north,
+with, however, a certain tendency westward. It entered Egypt nearly in
+long. 33 deg., and at Neapolis (more than two degrees further north) it was
+still within 15 deg. of the same meridian; then, however, it took a westerly
+bend, crossed the 32nd and 31st meridians, and in lat. 28 deg. 23 reached
+west as far as long. 30 deg. 43'. After this it returned a little eastward,
+recrossed the 31st meridian, and having reached long. 31 deg. 22' near
+Aphroditopolis (lat.29 deg. 25), it proceeded almost due north to Cercasorus
+in lat. 30 deg. 7'. The course of the river up to this point was, from its
+entry into the country, about 540 miles. At Cercasorus the Delta began.
+The river threw out two branches, which flowed respectively to the
+north-east and the north-west, while between them was a third channel,
+a continuation of the previous course of the stream, which pierced the
+Delta through its centre, flowing almost due north. Lower down, further
+branch channels were thrown out, some natural, some artificial, and the
+triangular tract between the two outer arms of the river was intersected
+by at least five, and (in later times) by fourteen large streams. The
+right and left arms appear to have been of about equal in length, and
+may be estimated at 150 or 160 miles; the central arm had a shorter
+course, not exceeding 110 miles. The volume of water which the Nile
+pours into the Mediterranean during a day and night is estimated at from
+150,000 millions to 700,000 millions of cubic metres. It was by far the
+largest of all the rivers of the Empire.
+
+The Indus, which was the next largest of the Persian rivers to the Nile,
+rose (like the Nile) outside the Persian territory. Its source is in the
+region north of the Himalaya range, about lat. 31 deg., long. 82 deg. 30'. It
+begins by flowing to the north-west, in a direction parallel to that of
+the Western Himalayas, along the northern flank of which it continues
+in this line a distance of about 700 miles, past Ladak, to long. 75 deg.
+nearly. Here it is met by the Bolor chain, which prevents its further
+progress in this direction and causes it to turn suddenly nearly at a
+right angle to the south-west. Entering a transverse valley, it finds a
+way (which is still very imperfectly known) through the numerous ridges
+of the Himalaya to the plain at its southern base, on which it debouches
+about thirty miles above Attock. It is difficult to say at what exact
+point it crossed the Persian frontier, but probably at least the first
+700 miles of its course were through territory not Persian. From Attock
+to the sea the Indus is a noble river. It runs for 900 miles in a
+general direction of S.S.W. through the plain in one main stream (which
+is several hundred yards in width), while on its way it throws off also
+from time to time small side streamlets, which are either consumed in
+irrigation or rejoin the main channel. A little below Tatta its Delta
+begins--a Delta, however, much inferior in size to that of the Nile. The
+distance from the apex to the sea is not more than sixty miles, and
+the breadth of the tract embraced between the two arms does not exceed
+seventy miles. The entire course of the Indus is reckoned at 1960 miles,
+of which probably 1260 were through Persian territory. The volume of
+the stream is always considerable, while in the rainy season it is very
+great. The Indus is said then to discharge into the Indian ocean
+446,000 cubic feet per second, or 4280 millions of cubic yards in the
+twenty-four hours.
+
+The Oxus rises from an Alpine lake, lying on the western side of the
+Bolor chain in lat. 37 deg. 40', long. 73 deg. 50'. After a rapid descent from
+the high elevation of the lake, during which it pursues a somewhat
+serpentine course, it debouches from the hills upon the plain about
+long. 69 deg. 20', after receiving the river of Fyzabad, and then proceeds,
+first west and afterwards north-west, across the Great Kharesmian Desert
+to the Sea of Aral. During the first 450 miles of its course, while it
+runs among the hills, it receives from both sides numerous and important
+tributaries; but from the meridian of Balkh those fail entirely, and
+for above 800 miles the Oxus pursues its solitary way, unaugmented by a
+single affluent, across the waste of Tartary, rolling through the desert
+a wealth of waters, which must diminish, but which does not seem very
+sensibly to diminish, by evaporation. At Kilef, sixty miles north-west
+of Balkh, the width of the river is 350 yards; at Khodja Salih, thirty
+miles lower down, it is 823 yards with a depth of twenty feet; at Kerki,
+seventy miles below Khodja Salih, it is "twice the width of the Danube
+at Buda-Pesth," or about 940 yards; at Betik, on the route between
+Bokhara and Merv, its width has diminished to 650 yards, but its depth
+has increased to twenty-nine feet. Finally, at Gorlen Hezaresp near
+Khiva, the breadth of the Oxus is so great that both banks are hardly
+distinguishable at the same time; but the stream is here comparatively
+shallow, ceasing to be navigable at about this point. The present course
+of the Oxus from its rise in Lake Sir-i-Kol to its termination in the
+Sea of Aral is estimated at 1400 miles. Anciently its course must have
+been still longer. The Oxus, in the time of the Achaemenian kings, fell
+into the Caspian by a channel which can even now be traced. Its length
+was thus increased by at least 450 miles, and, exceeding that of the
+Jaxartes, fell but little short of the length of the Indus.
+
+The Oxus, like the Nile and the Indus, has a periodical swell, which
+lasts from May to October. It does not, however, overflow its
+hanks. Under a scientific system of irrigation it is probable that a
+considerable belt of land on either side of its course might be brought
+under cultivation. But at present the extreme limit to which culture
+is carried, except in the immediate vicinity of Khiva, seems to be four
+miles; while often, in the absence of human care, the desert creeps up
+to the very brink of the river.
+
+The Jaxartes, or Sir-Deria, rises from two sources in the Thian-chan
+mountain chain, the more remote of which is in long. 79 deg. nearly. The two
+streams both flow to the westward in almost parallel valleys, uniting
+about long. 71 deg.. After their junction the course of the stream is still
+to the westward for two degrees; but between Khokand and Tashkend the
+river sweeps round in a semicircle and proceeds to run first due north
+and then north-west, skirting the Kizil Koum desert to Otrar, where
+it resumes its original westerly direction and flows with continually
+diminishing volume across the desert to the Sea of Aral. The Jaxartes
+is a smaller stream than the Oxus. At Otrar, after receiving its last
+tributary, it is no more than 250 yards wide. Below this point it
+continually dwindles, partly from evaporation, partly from the branch
+stream which it throws off right and left, of which the chief are the
+Cazala and the Kuvan Deria. On its way through the desert it spreads but
+little fertility along its banks, which are in places high and arid, in
+others depressed and swampy. The branch streams are of some service for
+irrigation; and it is possible that a scientific system might turn the
+water of the main channel to good account, and by its means redeem from
+the desert large tracts which have never yet been cultivated. But no
+such system has hitherto been applied to the Sir, and it is doubtful
+whether success would attend it. The Sir, where it falls into the Sea
+of Aral, is very shallow, seldom even in the flood season exceeding four
+feet. The length of the stream was till recently estimated at more than
+1208 miles; but the latest explorations seem to require an enlargement
+of this estimate by at least 200 or 250 miles.
+
+In rivers of the second class the Persian Empire was so rich that it
+will be impossible, within the limits prescribed for the present work,
+to do more than briefly enumerate them. The principal were, in Asia
+Minor, the Hermus (Ghiediz Chai), and the Maeander (Mendere) on the
+west, the Sangarius (Sakka-riyeh), the Halys (Kizil Irmak), and the Iris
+(Yechil Irmak) on the north, the Cydnus (Tersoos Chai), Sarus (Cilician
+Syhun), and Pyramus (Cilician Jyhun) on the south; in Armenia and the
+adjacent regions, the Araxes (Aras), Cyrus (Kur), and Phasis (Eion); on
+the Iranic plateau, the Sefid-rud, the Zenderud or river of Isfahan, the
+Etymandrus (Helmend), and the Arius (Heri-rud); in the low country east
+of the Caspian, the Gurgan and Ettrek, rivers of Hyrcania, the Margus
+Churghab (or river of Merv), the Delias or river of Balkh, the Ak Su or
+Bokhara river, and the Kizil Deria, a stream in the Khanat of Kokand;
+in Afghanistan and India, the Kabul river, the Hydaspes (Jelum), the
+Aoesines (Chenab), the Hydraotes (Ravee), and the Hyphasis (Sutlej
+or Gharra); in Persia Proper, the Oroatis (Hindyan or Tab), and the
+Bendamir; in Susiana, the Pasitigris (Kuran), the Hedypnus (Jerahi),
+the Choaspes (Kerkhah), and the Eulsenus (a branch of the same); in the
+Upper Zagros region, the Gyndes (Diyaleh), and the Greater and Lesser
+Zabs; in Mesopotamia, the Chaboras (Kha-bour), and Bilichus (Belik);
+finally, in Syria and Palestine, the Orontes or river of Antioch
+(Nahr-el-asy), the Jordan, and the Barada or river of Damascus. Thus,
+besides the six great rivers of the Empire, forty other considerable
+streams fertilized and enriched the territories of the Persian monarch,
+which, though they embraced many arid tracts, where cultivation was
+difficult, must be pronounced upon the whole well-watered, considering
+their extent and the latitude in which they lay.
+
+The Empire possessed, besides its rivers, a number of important lakes.
+Omitting the Caspian and the Aral, which lay upon its borders, there
+were contained within the Persian territories the following important
+basins: the Urumiyeh, Lake Van, and Lake Goutcha or Sivan in Armenia;
+Lakes Touz-Ghieul, Egerdir, Bey-Shehr, Chardak, Soghla, Buldur,
+Ghieul-Hissar, Iznik, Abullionte, Maniyas, and many others in Asia
+Minor; the Sabakhah, the Bahr-el-Melak, and the Lake of Antioch in
+Northern Syria; the Lake of Hems in the Coele-Syrian valley; the
+Damascus lakes, the Lake of Merom, the Sea of Tiberias, and the Dead
+Sea in Southern Syria and Palestine; Lake Moeris and the Natron lakes in
+Egypt; the Bahr-i-Nedjif in Babylonia; Lake Neyriz in Persia Proper;
+the Lake of Seistan in the Iranic Desert; and Lake Manchur in the In dus
+valley. Several of these have been already described in these
+volumes. Of the remainder the most important were the Lake of Van, the
+Touz-Ghieul, the great lake of Seistan, and Lake Moeris. These cannot be
+dismissed without a brief description.
+
+Lake Van is situated at a very unusual elevation, being more than 5400
+feet above the sea level. It is a triangular basin, of which the three
+sides front respectively S.S.E., N.N.E., and N.W. by W. The sides
+are all irregular, being broken by rocky promontories; but the chief
+projection lies to the east of the lake, where a tract is thrown out
+which suddenly narrows the expanse from about fifty miles to less than
+five. The greatest length of the basin is from N.E. to S.W., where it
+extends a distance of eighty miles between Amis and Tadvan; its greatest
+width is between Aklat and Van, where it measures across somewhat more
+than fifty miles. The scenery which surrounds it is remarkable for
+its beauty. The lake is embosomed amid high mountains, picturesque in
+outline, and all reaching in places the level of perpetual snow. Its
+waters, generally placid, but sometimes lashed into high waves, are
+of the deepest blue; while its banks exhibit a succession of orchards,
+meadows, and gardens which have scarcely their equals in Asia. The lake
+is fed by a number of small streams flowing down from the lofty ridges
+which surround it, and, having no outlet, is of course salt, though
+far less so than the neighboring lake of Urumiyeh. Gulls and cormorants
+float upon its surface fish can live in it; and it is not distasteful to
+cattle. Set in the expanse of waters are a few small islets, whose vivid
+green contrasts well with the deep azure which surrounds them.
+
+The Touz-Ghieul is a basin of a very different character. Situated on
+the upland of Phrygia, in lat. 39 deg., long. 33 deg., 30', its elevation is not
+more than 2500 feet. Low hills of sandstone and conglomerate encircle
+it, but generally at some distance, so that a tract of plain, six or
+seven miles in width, intervenes between their base and the shore. The
+shape of the lake is an irregular oval, with the greater axis running
+nearly due north and south. Its greatest length is estimated at
+forty-five miles, its width varies, but is generally from ten to sixteen
+miles. At one point, however, nearly opposite to Kodj Hissar, the lake
+narrows to a distance of no more than five miles; and here a causeway
+has been constructed from shore to shore, which, though ruined, still
+affords a dry pathway in the summer. The water of the Touz-Ghieul is
+intensely salt, containing at some seasons of the year no less than
+thirty-two per cent of saline matter, which is considerably more than
+the amount of such matter in the water of the Dead Sea. The surrounding
+plain is barren, in places marshy, and often covered with an
+incrustation of salt. The whole scene is one of desolation. The acrid
+waters support no animal organization; birds shun them; the plain grows
+nothing but a few stunted and sapless shrubs. The only signs of life
+which greet the traveller are the carts of the natives, which pass him
+laden with the salt that is obtained with ease from the saturated water.
+
+The Zerreh or Sea of Seistan--called sometimes the Hamun, or
+"expanse"--is situated in the Seistan Desert on the Great Iranic
+plateau, and consequently at an elevation of (probably) 3000 feet. It
+is formed by the accumulation of the waters brought down by the Helmend,
+the Haroot-rud, the river of Khash, the Furrah-rud and other streams,
+which flow from the mountains of Afghanistan, with converging courses
+to the south-west. It is an extensive basin, composed of two arms, an
+eastern and a western. The western arm, which is the larger of the
+two, has its greatest length from N.N.E. to S.S.W., and extends in this
+direction about ninety miles. Its greatest width is about twenty-five
+miles. The eastern arm is rather more than forty miles long, and from
+ten to twenty broad. It is shaped much like a fish's tail. The two arms
+are connected by a strait seven or eight miles in width, which joins
+them near their northern extremities. The water of the lake, though
+not salt, is black and has a bad taste. Fish support life in it with
+difficulty, and never grow to any great size. The lake is shallow, not
+much exceeding a depth of three or four feet. It contracts greatly in
+the summer, at which time the strait connecting the two arms is often
+absolutely dry. The edges of the lake are clothed with tamarisk and
+other trees; and where the rivers enter it, sometimes by several
+branches, the soil is rich and cultivation productive; but elsewhere the
+sand of the desert creeps up almost to the margin of the water, clothed
+only with some sickly grass and a few scattered shrubs.
+
+The Birket-el-Keroun, or Lake Moaris of the classical writers, is a
+natural basin--not, as Herodotus imagined, an artificial one--situated
+on the western side of the Nile valley, in a curious depression which
+nature has made among the Libyan hills. This depression--the modern
+district of the Faioom--is a circular plain, which sinks gradually
+towards the north-west, descending till it is more than 100 feet below
+the surface of the Nile at low water. The Northern and northwestern
+portion of the depression is occupied by the lake, a sheet of brackish
+water shaped like a horn (whence the modern name) measuring about
+thirty-five or thirty-six miles from end to end, and attaining in the
+middle a width of between five and six miles. The area of the lake is
+estimated roughly at 150 square miles, its circumference at about ninety
+miles. It has a depth varying from twelve to twenty-four feet. Though
+the water is somewhat brackish, yet the Birket contains several species
+of fresh-water fish; and in ancient times its fisheries are said to have
+been exceedingly productive.
+
+The principal cities of the Empire were, besides Pesargadae and
+Persepolis, Susa--the chief city of Susiana--which became the capital;
+Babylon, Ecbatana, Rhages, Zadracarta, Bactra (now Balkh), Maracanda
+(now Samarcand), Aria, or Artacoana (Herat), Caspatyrus on the Upper
+Indus,Taxila (Attock?), Pura (perhaps Bunpoor), Carmana (Kerman),
+Arbela, Nisibis, Amida (now Diarbekr); Mazaca in Cappadocia; Trapezus
+(Trebizond), Sinope, Dascyleium, Sardis, Ephesus, Miletus, Gordium,
+Perga, and Tarsus in Asia Minor: Damascus, Jerusalem, Sidon, Tyre,
+Azotus or Ashdod, and Gaza in Syria; Memphis and Thebes in Egypt; Cyrene
+and Barca in the Cyrenaica. Of these, while Susa had from the time of
+Darius Hystaspis a decided pre-eminence as the main residence of the
+court, and consequently as the usual seat of government, there were
+three others which could boast the distinction of being royal abodes
+from time to time, either regularly at certain seasons, or occasionally
+at the caprice of the monarch. These were Babylon, Ecbatana, and
+Persepolis, the capitals respectively of Chaldaea, Media, and Persia
+Proper, all great and ancient cities, accustomed to the presence of
+Courts, and all occupying positions sufficiently central to render them
+not ill-suited for the business of administration. Next to these in
+order of dignity may be classed the satrapial residences, often the
+chief cities of old monarchies, such as Sardis, the capital city of
+Lydia, Dascyleium of Bithynia, Memphis of Egypt, Bactra of Bactria, and
+the like; while the third rank was held by the towns, where there was no
+Court, either royal or satrapial.
+
+Before this chapter is concluded a few words must be said with respect
+to the countries which bordered upon the Persian Empire. The Empire
+was surrounded, for the most part, either by seas or deserts. The
+Mediterranean, the Egean, the Propontis, the Euxine, the Caspian, the
+Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Gulf or Bed Sea washed
+its shores, bounding almost all its western, and much of its northern
+and southern sides; while the sands of the Sahara, the deserts of
+Arabia and Syria of India and Thibet, filled up the greater part of the
+intervening spaces. The only countries of importance which can be viewed
+as in any sense neighbors of Persia are European and Asiatic Scythia,
+Hindustan, Arabia, Ethiopia, and Greece.
+
+Where the Black Sea, curving round to the north, ceased to furnish to
+the Empire the advantage of a water barrier, a protection of almost
+equal strength was afforded to it by the mountain-chain of the Caucasus.
+Excepting on the extreme east, where it slopes gently to the Caspian,
+this range is one of great elevation, possessing but few passes, and
+very difficult to traverse. Its fastnesses have always been inhabited by
+wild tribes, jealous of their freedom; and these tribes may have caused
+annoyance, but they could at no time have been a serious danger to
+the Empire. They were weak in numbers, divided in nationality and in
+interests, and quite incapable of conducting any distant expedition.
+Like their modern successors, the Circassians, Abassians, and Lesghians,
+their one and only desire was to maintain themselves in possession of
+their beloved mountains; and this desire would cause them to resist
+all attempts that might be made to traverse their country, whether
+proceeding from the north or from the south, from the inhabitants of
+Europe or from those of Asia. Persia was thus strongly protected in this
+quarter; but still she could not feel herself altogether safe. Once at
+least within historic memory the barrier of the Caucasus had proved to
+be surmountable. From the vast Steppe which stretches northwards from
+its base, in part salt, in part grassy, had crossed into Asia--through
+its passes or round its eastern flank--a countless host, which had swept
+all before it, and brought ruin upon flourishing empires. The Scythian
+and Samaritan hordes of the steppe-country between the Wolga and
+the Dnieper were to the monarchies of Western Asia a permanent, if a
+somewhat distant, peril. It could not be forgotten that they had
+proved themselves capable of penetrating the rocky barrier which would
+otherwise have seemed so sure a protection, or that when they swarmed
+across it in the seventh century before our era, their strength was at
+first irresistible. The Persians knew, what the great nations of the
+earth afterwards forgot, that along the northern horizon there lay a
+black cloud, which might at any time burst, carrying desolation to
+their homes and bringing ruin upon their civilization. We shall find the
+course of their history importantly affected by a sense of this danger,
+and we shall have reason to admire the wisdom of their measures of
+precaution against it.
+
+It was not only to the west of the Caspian that the danger threatened.
+East of that sea also was a vast steppe-region--rolling plains of sand
+or grass--the home of nomadic hordes similar in character to those who
+drank the waters of the Don and Wolga. The Sacse, Massagetse, and Dahse
+of this country, who dwelt about the Caspian, the Aral, and the Lower
+Jaxartes, were an enemy scarcely less formidable than the Sarmatians
+and the Scyths of the West. As the modern Iran now suffers from the
+perpetual incursions of Uzbegs and Turcomans, so the north-eastern
+provinces of the ancient Persia were exposed to the raids of the Asiatic
+Scythians and the Massagetse, who were confined by no such barrier as
+the Caucasus, having merely to cross a river, probably often fordable
+during the summer, in order to be in Persia. Hyrcania and Parthia had
+indeed a certain amount of protection from the Kharesmian Desert; but
+the upper valleys of the great streams--the satrapies of Sogdiana and
+Bactria--must have suffered considerable annoyance from such attacks.
+
+On the side of India, the Empire enjoyed a twofold security. From the
+shores of the Indian Ocean in the vicinity of the Runn of Cutch to the
+31st parallel of north latitude--a distance of above 600 miles--there
+extends a desert, from one to two hundred miles across, which
+effectually shuts off the valley of the Indus from the rest of
+Hindustan. It is only along the skirts of the mountains, by Lahore,
+Umritsir, and Loodiana, that the march of armies is possible--by this
+line alone can the Punjabis threaten Central India, or the inhabitants
+of Central India attack the Punjab. Hence in this quarter there was but
+a very narrow tract to guard; and the task of defence was still further
+lightened by the political condition of the people. The Gangetic
+Indians, though brave and powerful, were politically weak, from their
+separation into a number of distinct states under petty Rajahs, who
+could never hope to contend successfully against the forces of a mighty
+Empire. Persia, consequently, was safe upon this side, in the division
+of her adversaries. Nor had she neglected the further security which was
+obtainable by an interposition between her own actual frontier and her
+enemies' dominions of a number of half-subject dependencies. Native
+princes were allowed to bear sway in the Punjab region, who acknowledged
+the suzerainty of Persia, and probably paid her a fixed tribute, but
+whose best service was that they prevented a collision between the Power
+of whom they held their crowns and the great mass of their own nation.
+
+The Great Arabian Peninsula, which lay due south of the most central
+part of the Empire, and bordered it on this side for about thirteen
+degrees, or (if we follow the line of the boundary) for above a thousand
+miles, might seem to have been the most important of all the adjacent
+countries, since it contains an area of a million of square miles, and
+is a nursery of brave and hardy races. Politically, however, Arabia is
+weak, as has been shown in a former volume; while geographically she
+presents to the north her most arid and untraversable regions, so that
+it is rarely, and only under very exceptional circumstances, that she
+menaces seriously her northern neighbors. Persia seems never to have
+experienced any alarm of an Arab invasion; her relations with the tribes
+that came into closest contact with her were friendly; and she left the
+bulk of the nation in unmolested enjoyment of their independence.
+
+Another country adjoining the Persian Empire on the south, and one which
+might have been expected to cause some trouble, was Ethiopia. To Egypt
+Ethiopia had always proved an unquiet, and sometimes even a dangerous,
+neighbor; she was fertile, rich, populous; her inhabitants were tall,
+strong, and brave; she had a ready means of marching into Egypt down the
+fertile valley of the Nile; and her hosts had frequently ravaged,
+and even held for considerable terms of years, that easily subjected
+country. It is remarkable that during the whole time of the Persian
+dominion Ethiopia seems to have abstained from any invasion of the
+Egyptian territory. Apparently, she feared to provoke the power which
+had seated itself on the throne of the Pharaohs, and preferred the quiet
+enjoyment of her own wealth and resources to the doubtful issues of a
+combat with the mistress of Asia.
+
+On her western horizon, clearly discernible from the capes and headlands
+of the Asiatic coast, but separated from her, except in one or two
+places, by a tolerably broad expanse of sea, and so--as it might have
+seemed--less liable to come in contact with her than her neighbors upon
+the land, lay the shores and isles of Greece--lovely and delightful
+regions, in possession of a brave and hardy race, as yet uncorrupted by
+luxury, though in the enjoyment of a fair amount of civilization. As the
+eye looked across the Egean waters, resting with pleasure on the varied
+and graceful forms of Sporades and Cyclades, covetous thoughts might
+naturally arise in the beholder's heart; and the idea might readily
+occur of conquering and annexing the fair tracts which lay so temptingly
+near and possessed such numerous attractions. The entire region,
+continent and islands included, was one of diminutive size--not half
+so large as an ordinary Persian satrapy; it was well peopled, but its
+population could not have amounted to that of the Punjab or of Egypt,
+countries which Persia had overrun in a single campaign; its inhabitants
+were warlike, but they were comparatively poor, and the true sinews of
+war are money; moreover, they were divided amongst themselves, locally
+split up by the physical conformation of their country, and politically
+repugnant to anything like centralization or union. A Persian king like
+Cambyses or Darius might be excused if, when his thoughts turned to
+Greece, he had a complacent feeling that no danger could threaten him
+from that quarter--that the little territory on his western border was a
+prey which he might seize at any time that it suited his convenience or
+seemed good to his caprice; so opening without any risk a new world
+to his ambition. It required a knowledge that the causes of military
+success and political advance lie deeper than statistics can reach--that
+they have their roots in the moral nature of man, in the grandeur of his
+ideas and the energy of his character--in order to comprehend the fact,
+that the puny power upon her right flank was the enemy which Persia had
+most to fear, the foe who would gradually sap her strength, and finally
+deal her the blow that would lay her prostrate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS.
+
+
+It is evident that an Empire which extended over more than twenty
+degrees of latitude, touching on the one hand the tropic of Cancer,
+while it reached upon the other to the parallel of Astrakan, and which
+at the same time varied in elevation, from 20,000 feet above to 1300
+below the sea level, must have comprised within it great differences of
+climate, and have boasted an immense variety of productions. No general
+description can be applicable to such a stretch of territory; and it
+will therefore be necessary to speak of the various parts of the
+Empire successively in order to convey to the reader a true idea of
+the climatic influences to which it was subject, and the animals,
+vegetables, and minerals which it produced.
+
+Commencing with Persia Proper, the original seat and home of the race
+with whose history we are specially concerned at present, we may observe
+that it was regarded by the ancients as possessing three distinct
+climates--one along the shore, dry and scorchingly hot; another in the
+mountain region beyond, temperate and delightful; and a third in the
+tract further inland, which was thought to be disagreeably cold and
+wintry. Moderns, on the contrary, find two climates only in Fars--one
+that of the Desbistan or "low country," extremely hot and dry,
+with frequent scorching and oppressive winds from the south and the
+south-east; the other, that of the highlands, which is cold in winter,
+but in summer pleasant and enjoyable. In the Deshistan snow never falls,
+and there is but little rain; heavy dews, however, occur at night, so
+that the mornings are often fresh and cool; but the middle of the day
+is almost always hot, and from March to November the temperature at noon
+ranges from 90 deg. to 100 deg. of Fahrenheit. Occasionally it reaches 125 deg., and
+is then fearfully oppressive. Fierce gusts laden with sand sweep over
+the plain, causing vegetation to droop or disappear, and the animal
+world to hide itself. Man with difficulty retains life at these trying
+times, feeling a languor and a depression of spirits which are barely
+supportable.10 All who can do so quit the plains and betake themselves
+to the upland region till the great heats are past, and the advance of
+autumn brings at any rate cool nights and mornings. The climate of the
+uplands is severe in winter. Much snow falls, and the thermometer often
+marks from ten to fifteen degrees of frost. From time to time there are
+furious gales, and, as the spring advances, a good deal of wet falls;
+but the summer and autumn are almost rainless. The heat towards midday
+is often considerable, but it is tempered by cool winds, and even at the
+worst is not relaxing. The variations of temperature are great in the
+twenty-four hours, and the climate is, so far, trying; but, on the
+whole, it seems to be neither disagreeable nor unhealthy.
+
+A climate resembling that of the Deshtistan prevailed along the entire
+southern coast of the Empire, from the mouth of the Tigris to that of
+the Indus. It was exchanged in the lower valleys of the great streams
+for a damp close heat, intolerably stifling and oppressive. The upper
+valleys of these streams and the plains into which they expanded were at
+once less hot and less moist, but were subject to violent storms, owing
+to the near vicinity of the mountains. In the mountains themselves, in
+Armenia and Zagros, and again in the Elburz, the climate was of a more
+rigorous character--intensely cold in winter, but pleasant in the summer
+time. [PLATE XXVII., Fig. 3.] Asia Minor enjoyed generally a warmer
+climate than the high mountain regions; and its western and southern
+coasts, being fanned by fresh breezes from the sea, or from the hills
+of the interior, and cooled during the whole of the summer by frequent
+showers, were especially charming. In Syria and Egypt the heats of
+summer were somewhat trying, more especially in the Ghor or depressed
+Jordan valley, and in the parts of Egypt adjoining on Ethiopia; but the
+winters were mild, and the springs and autumns delightful. The rarity of
+rain in Egypt was remarkable, and drew the attention of foreigners,
+who recorded, in somewhat exaggerated terms, the curious meteorological
+phenomenon. In the Cyrenaica there was a delicious summer climate--an
+entire absence of rain, with cool breezes from the sea, cloudy skies,
+and heavy dews at night, these last supplying the moisture which through
+the whole of summer covered the ground with the freshest and loveliest
+verdure. The autumn and winter rains were, however, violent; and
+terrific storms were at that time of no unusual occurrence. The natives
+regarded it as a blessing, that over this part of Africa the sky was
+"pierced," and allowed moisture to fall from the great reservoir of
+"waters above the firmament;" but the blessing must have seemed one of
+questionable value at the time of the November monsoon, when the country
+is deluged with rain for several weeks in succession.
+
+On the opposite side of the Empire, towards the north and the
+north-east, in Azerbijan, on the Iranian plateau, in the Afghan plains,
+in the high flat region east of the Bolor, and again in the low plain
+about the Aral lake and the Caspian, a severe climate prevailed during
+the winter, while the summer combined intense heat during the day with
+extraordinary cold--the result of radiation--at night. Still more bitter
+weather was experienced in the mountain regions of these parts--in
+the Bolor, the Thian Chan, the Himalaya, and the Paropamisus or Hindu
+Kush--where the winters lasted more than half the year, deep snow
+covering the ground almost the whole of the time, and locomotion being
+rendered almost impossible; while the summers were only moderately hot.
+On the other hand, there was in this quarter, at the very extreme
+east of the Empire, one of the most sultry and disagreeable of all
+climates--namely, that of the Indus valley, which is either intolerably
+hot and dry, with fierce tornadoes of dust that are unspeakably
+oppressive, or close and moist, swept by heavy storms, which, while
+they somewhat lower the temperature, increase the unhealthiness of the
+region. The worst portion of the valley is its southern extremity, where
+the climate is only tolerable during three months of the year. From
+March to November the heat is excessive; dust-storms prevail; there are
+dangerous dews at night; and with the inundation, which commences in
+April, a sickly time sets in, which causes all the wealthier classes
+to withdraw from the country till the stagnant water, which the swell
+always leaves behind it, has dried up.
+
+Upon the whole, the climate of the Empire belonged to the warmer class
+of the climates which are called temperate. In a few parts only, indeed,
+as in the Indus valley, along the coast from the mouth of the Indus
+to that of the Tigris, in Lower Babylonia and the adjoining portion
+of Susiana, in Southern Palestine, and in Egypt, was frost absolutely
+unknown; while in many places, especially in the high mountainous
+regions, the winters were bitterly severe; and in all the more elevated
+portions of the Empire, as in Phrygia and Cappadocia, in Azerbijan, on
+the great Iranian plateau, and again in the district about Kashgar and
+Yarkand, there was a prolonged period of sharp and bracing weather. But
+the summer warmth of almost the whole Empire was great, the thermometer
+probably ranging in most places from 90 deg. to 120 deg. during the months of
+June, July, August, and September. The springs and autumns were, except
+in the high mountain tracts, mild and enjoyable; the Empire had few very
+unhealthy districts; while the range of the thermometer was in most of
+the provinces considerable, and the variations in the course of a single
+day and night were unusually great, there was in the climate, speaking
+generally, nothing destructive of human vigor--nothing even inimical to
+longevity.
+
+The vegetable productions of Persia Proper in ancient times (so far as
+we have direct testimony on the subject) were neither numerous nor very
+remarkable. The low coast tract supplied dates in tolerable plenty,
+and bore in a few favored spots, corn, vines, and different kinds of
+fruit-trees; but its general character was one of extreme barrenness.
+In the mountain region there was an abundance of rich pasture, excellent
+grapes were grown, and fruit-trees of almost every sort, except the
+olive, flourished. One fruit-tree, regarded as indigenous in the
+country, acquired a special celebrity, and was known to the Romans
+as the persica, whence the German Pfirsche, the French peche, and our
+"peach." Citrons, which grew in few places, were also a Persian fruit.
+Further, Persia produced a coarse kind of silphium or assafoetida; it
+was famous for its walnuts, which were distinguished by the epithet
+of "royal"; and it supplied to the pharmacopeia of Greece and Rome a
+certain number of herbs.
+
+The account of Persian vegetable products which we derive from antiquity
+is no doubt very incomplete; and it is necessary to supplement it from
+the observations of modern travellers. These persons tell us that, while
+Fars and Kerman are ill-supplied with forest-trees, they yet produce in
+places oaks, planes, chenars or sycamores, poplars, willows, pinasters,
+cypresses, acacias, fan-palms, konars, and junipers. Among shrubs, they
+bear the wild fig, the wild almond, the tamarisk, the myrtle, the box,
+the rhododendron, the camel's thorn, the gum tragacanth, the caper
+plant, the benneh, the blackberry, and the liquorice-plant. They boast a
+great abundance of fruit-trees--as date-bearing palms, lemons, oranges,
+pomegranates, vines, peaches, nectarines, apricots, quinces, pears,
+apples, plums, figs, cherries, mulberries, barberries, walnuts, almonds,
+and pistachio-nuts. The kinds of grain chiefly cultivated are wheat,
+barley, millet, rice, and Indian corn or maize, which has been imported
+into the country from America. Pulse, beans, sesame, madder, henna,
+cotton, opium, tobacco, and indigo, are also grown in some places. The
+three last-named, and maize or Indian corn, are of comparatively recent
+introduction; but of the remainder it may be doubted whether there is a
+single one which was unknown to the ancient inhabitants.
+
+Among Persian indigenous animals may be enumerated the lion, the bear,
+the wild ass, the stag, the antelope, the ibex or wild goat, the wild
+boar, the hyena, the jackal, the wolf, the fox, the hare, the porcupine,
+the otter, the jerboa, the ichneumon, and the marmot. The lion appears
+to be rare, occurring only in some parts of the mountains. The ichneumon
+is confined to the Deshtistan. The antelope, the wild boar, the wolf,
+the fox, the jackal, the porcupine, and the jerboa are common. Wild
+asses are found only on the northern side of the mountains, towards the
+salt desert. In this tract they are frequently seen, both singly and in
+herds, and are hunted by the natives, who regard their flesh as a great
+delicacy.
+
+The most remarkable of the Persian birds are the eagle, the vulture, the
+cormorant, the falcon, the bustard, the pheasant, the heath-cock, the
+red-legged partridge, the small gray partridge, the pin tailed grouse,
+the sand-grouse, the francolin, the wild swan, the flamingo, the stork,
+the bittern, the oyster-catcher, the raven, the hooded crow, and
+the cuckoo. Besides these, the lakes boast all the usual kinds of
+water-fowl, as herons, ducks, snipe, teal, etc.; the gardens and groves
+abound with blackbirds, thrushes, and nightingales; curlews and peewits
+are seen occasionally; while pigeons, starlings, crows, magpies, larks,
+sparrows, and swallows are common. The francolin is hunted by men on
+foot in the country between Shiraz and Kerman, and is taken by the hand
+after a few flights. The oyster-catcher, which is a somewhat rare bird,
+has been observed only on Lake Neyriz. The bustard occurs both in the
+low plain along the coast, and on the high plateau, where it is captured
+by means of hawks. The pheasant and the heath-cock (the latter a black
+species spotted with white) are found in the woods near Failyun. The
+sand-grouse and the pin-tailed grouse belong to the eastern portion
+of the country, the portion known anciently as Carmania or "the hot
+region." The other kinds are diffused pretty generally.
+
+The shores and rivers of Persia Proper supplied the people very
+plentifully with fish. The ancient writers tell us that the inhabitants
+of the coast tract lived almost wholly on a fish diet. The Indian Sea
+appears in those days to have abounded with whales, which were not
+unfrequently cast upon the shores, affording a mine of wealth to the
+natives. The great ribs were used as beams in the formation of huts,
+while the jaws served as doors and the smaller bones as planking.
+Dolphins also abounded in the Persian waters; together with many other
+fish of less bulk, which were more easy to capture. On these smaller
+fish, which they caught in nets, the maritime inhabitants subsisted
+principally. They had also an unfailing resource in the abundance of
+oysters, and other shell-fish along their coast--the former of excellent
+quality.
+
+In the interior, though the lakes, being salt or brackish, had no
+piscatory stores, the rivers were, for the most part, it would seem,
+well provided; at least, good fish are still found in many of the
+streams, both small and large; and in some they are exceedingly
+plentiful. Modern travellers fail to distinguish the different kinds;
+but we may presume that they are not very unlike those of the adjoining
+Media, which appear to be trout, carp, barbel, dace, bleak, and gudgeon.
+
+The reptiles of Persia Proper are not numerous. They are chiefly
+tortoises, lizards, frogs, land-snakes, and water-snakes. The
+land-snakes are venomous, but their poison is not of a very deadly
+character; and persons who have been bitten by them, if properly
+treated, generally recover. The lizards are of various sizes, some quite
+small, others more than three feet long, and covered with a coarse rough
+skin like that of a toad. They have the character of being venomous, and
+even dangerous to life; but it may be doubted whether they are not, like
+our toads and newts, in reality perfectly harmless.
+
+The traveller in Persia suffers less from reptiles than from insects.
+Scorpions abound in all parts of the country, and, infesting houses,
+furniture, and clothes, cause perpetual annoyance. Mosquitoes swarm
+in certain places and seasons, preventing sleep and irritating the
+traveller almost beyond endurance. A poisonous spider, a sort of
+tarantula, is said to occur in some localities; and Chardin further
+mentions a kind of centipede, the bite of which, according to him, is
+fatal. To the sufferings which these creatures cause, must be added a
+constant annoyance from those more vulgar forms of insect life which
+detract from the delights of travel even in Europe.
+
+Persia, moreover, suffers no less than Babylonia and Media, from the
+ravages of locusts. Constantly, when the wind is from the south-east,
+there cross from the Arabian coast clouds of these destructive insects,
+whose numbers darken the air as they move, in flight after flight,
+across the desert to the spots where nature or cultivation has clothed
+the earth with verdure. The Deshtistan, or low country, is, of course,
+most exposed to their attacks, but they are far from being confined to
+that region. The interior, as far as Shiraz itself, suffers terribly
+from this scourge, which produces scarcity, or even famine, when (as
+often happens) it is repeated year after year. The natives at such times
+are reduced to feeding on the locusts themselves; a diet which they do
+not relish, but to which necessity compels them.
+
+The locusts of Persia Proper are said to be of two kinds. One, which
+is regarded as bred in the country, bears the name of _missri_, being
+identified with the locust of Egypt. The other, which is thought to
+be blown over from Arabia, and thus to cross the sea, is known as the
+_melelch deriai_, or "sea-locust." The former is regarded as especially
+destructive to the crops, the latter to the shrubs and trees.
+
+The domestic animals in use at the present day within the provinces of
+Fars and Kerman are identical with those employed in the neighboring
+country of Media, and will need only a very few words of notice here.
+The ordinary horse of the country is the Turcoman, a large, strong, but
+somewhat clumsy animal, possessed of remarkable powers of endurance;
+but in the Deshtistan the Arabian breed prevails, and travellers tell us
+that in this region horses are produced which fall but little short of
+the most admired coursers of Nejd. Cows and oxen are somewhat rare, beef
+being little eaten, and such cattle being only kept for the supply
+of the dairy, and for purposes of agriculture. Sheep and goats are
+abundant, and constitute the chief wealth of the inhabitants; the goat
+is, on the whole, preferred, and both goats and sheep are generally of
+a black or brown color. The sheep of Kerman are small and short-legged;
+they produce a wool of great softness and delicacy.
+
+It is probable that in ancient times the domestic animals of the country
+were nearly the same as at the present day. The statement of Xenophon,
+that anciently a horse was a rarity in Persia Proper, is contradicted by
+the great bulk of the early writers, who tell us that the Persians were
+from the first expert riders, and that their country was peculiarly well
+fitted for the breeding of horses. Their camels, sheep, goats, asses,
+and oxen, are also expressly mentioned by the Greeks, who even indicate
+a knowledge of the fact that goats were preferred to sheep by the
+herdsmen of the country.
+
+The mineral treasures of the country appear to have been considerable,
+though to what extent they were known and made use of in ancient times
+is open to some question. Mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, red lead,
+and orpiment are said to have been actually worked under the Persian
+kings; and some of the other minerals were so patent and obvious, that
+we can scarcely suppose them to have been neglected. Salt abounded in
+the region in several shapes. It appeared in some places as rock salt,
+showing itself in masses of vast size and various colors. In other
+places it covered the surface of the ground for miles together with a
+thick incrustation, and could be gathered at all seasons with little
+labor. It was deposited by the waters of several lakes within the
+territory, and could be collected round their edges at certain times
+of the year. Finally, it was held in solution, both in the lakes and in
+many of the streams; from whose waters it might have been obtained by
+evaporation. Bitumen and naphtha were yielded by sources near Dalaki,
+which were certainly known to the ancients. Sulphur was deposited upon
+the surface of the ground in places. Some of the mountains contained
+ordinary lead; but it is not unlikely that this metal escaped notice.
+
+Ancient Persia produced a certain number of gems. The pearls of
+the Gulf, which have still so great a reputation, had attracted the
+attention of adventurers before the time of Alexander, whose naval
+captains found a regular fishery established in one of the islands. The
+Orientals have always set a high value on this commodity; and it appears
+that in ancient times the Gulf pearls were more highly esteemed than any
+others. Of hard stones the only kinds that can be distinctly assigned to
+Persia Proper are the iritis, a species of rock-crystal; the atizoe, a
+white stone which had a pleasant odor; the mithrax, a gem of many hues,
+the nipparene, which resembled ivory; and the the lycardios or mule,
+which was in special favor among the natives of the country.
+
+From this account of the products of Persia Proper we have now to pass
+to those of the Empire in general--a wide subject, which it will be
+impossible to treat here with any completeness, owing to the limits to
+which the present work is necessarily confined. In order to bring the
+matter within reasonable compass, the reader may be referred in the
+first instance to the account which was given in a former volume of the
+products of the empire of Babylon; and the enquiry may then be confined
+to those regions which were subject to Persia, but not contained within
+the limits of the Fourth Monarchy.
+
+Among the animals belonging to these regions, the following are
+especially noticeable:--The tiger, the elephant, the hippopotamus, the
+crocodile, the monitor, the two-humped camel, the Angora goat, the elk,
+the monkey, and the spotted hysena, or _Felis chaus_. The tiger, which
+is entirely absent from Mesopotamia, and unknown upon the plateau of
+Iran, abounds in the low tract between the Elburz and the Caspian, in
+the flat region about the Sea of Aral, and in the Indus valley. The
+elephant was, perhaps, anciently an inhabitant of Upper Egypt, where the
+island of Elephantine remained an evidence of the fact. It was also in
+Persian times a denizen of the Indus valley, though perhaps only in a
+domesticated state. The hippopotamus, unknown in India, was confined to
+the single province of Egypt, where it was included among the animals
+which were the objects of popular worship. The crocodile--likewise a
+sacred animal to the Egyptians--frequented both the Nile and the Indus.
+Monitors, which are a sort of diminutive crocodiles, were of two kinds:
+one, the _Lacerta Nilotica_, was a water animal, and was probably found
+only in Egypt; the other, _Lacerta scincus_, frequented dry and sandy
+spots, and abounded in North Africa and Syria, as well as in the Nile
+valley. The two-humped camel belonged to Bactria, where he was probably
+indigenous, but was widely spread over the Empire, on account of his
+great strength and powers of endurance.
+
+The Angora goat is, perhaps, scarcely a distinct species. If not
+identical with the ordinary wild goat of Persia and Mesopotamia (_Capra
+cegagrus_), he is at any rate closely allied to it; and it is possible
+that all his peculiar characteristics may be the effect of climate. He
+has a soft, white, silky fleece, very long, divided down the back by
+a strong line of separation, and falling on either side in beautiful
+spiral ringlets; his fleece weighs from two to four pounds. It is
+of nearly uniform, length, and averages from five to five and a half
+inches.
+
+The elk is said to inhabit Armenia, Affghanistan, and the lower part of
+the valley of the Indus; but it is perhaps not certain that he is really
+to be found in the two latter regions. Monkeys abound in Eastern Oabul
+and the adjoining parts of India. They may have also existed formerly
+in Upper Egypt. The spotted hyena, _Felis chaus_ (_Canis crocuta_ of
+Linnaeus), is an Egyptian animal, inhabiting principally the hills on
+the western side of the Nile. In appearance it is like a large cat,
+with a tuft of long black hair at the extremities of its ears--a feature
+which it has in common with the lynx.
+
+Among the rarer birds of the Empire may be mentioned the ostrich, which
+occurred in Mesopotamia; parrots, which were found in Cabul and the
+Punjab; ibises, which abounded in Egypt, and in the Delta of the Indus,
+the great vulture (Vultur cinereus), which inhabited the Taurus, the
+Indian owl (_Athena Indica_), the spoonbill (_Platalea nudifrons_); the
+benno (_Ardea bubulcus_), and the sicsac (_Charadrius melanocephalus_).
+
+The most valuable of the fish belonging to the Persian seas and rivers
+were the pearl oyster of the Gulf, and the murex of the Mediterranean,
+which furnished the famous purple dye of Tyre. After these may be placed
+the sturgeon and sterlet of the Caspian, the silurus of the Sea of Aral,
+the Aleppo eel, and the palla, a small but excellent fish, which is
+captured in the Indus during the flood season. The Indian Ocean and
+the Persian Gulf, as we have seen, were visited by whales; dolphins,
+porpoises, cod, and mullet abounded in the same seas; the large rivers
+generally contained barbel and carp; while some of them, together with
+many of the smaller streams, supplied trout of a good flavor. The
+Nile had some curious fish peculiar to itself, as the oxyrinchus,
+the lepidotus, the Perca Nilotica, the Silurus Schilbe Niloticus, the
+Silurus carmuth and others. Great numbers of fish, mostly of the same
+species with those of the Nile, were also furnished by the Lake Moeris;
+and from these a considerable revenue was derived by the Great Kings.
+
+Among the more remarkable of the reptiles which the Empire comprised
+within its limits may be noticed--besides the great saurians already
+mentioned among the larger animals--the Nile and Euphrates turtles
+(_Trionyx Egypticus_ and _Trionyx Euphraticus_), iguanas (_Stellio
+vulgaris_ and _Stellio spinipes_), geckos, especially the Egyptian house
+gecko (_O. lobatus_), snakes, such as the asp (_Coluber haje_) and
+the horned snake (_Coluber cerastes_), and the chameleon. The Egyptian
+turtle is a large species, sometimes exceeding three feet in length. It
+is said to feed on the young of the crocodile. Both it and the Euphrates
+turtle are of the soft kind, i.e., of the kind which has not the shell
+complete, but unites the upper and under portions by a coriaceous
+membrane. The turtle of the Euphrates is of moderate size, not exceeding
+a a length of two feet. It lives in the river, and on warm days suns
+itself on the sandbanks with which the stream abounds. It is active,
+strong, violent, and passionate. When laid on its back it easily
+recovers itself. If provoked, it will snap at sticks and other objects,
+and endeavor to tear them to pieces. It is of an olive-green color, with
+large irregular greenish black spots.
+
+Iguanas are found in Egypt, in Syria, and elsewhere. The most common
+kind (_Stellio vulgaris_) does not exceed a foot in length, and is of
+an olive color, shaded with black. It is persecuted and killed by the
+Mahometans, because they regard its favorite attitude as a derisive
+imitation of their own attitude of prayer. There is another species,
+also Egyptian, which is of a much larger size, and of a grass-green
+color. This is called _Stellio spinipes_: it has a length of from two to
+three feet.
+
+The gecko is a kind of nocturnal lizard. Its eyes are large, and the
+pupil is extremely contractile. It hides itself during the day, and is
+lively only at nights. It haunts rooms, especially kitchens, in Egypt,
+where it finds the insects which form its ordinary food. Its feet
+constitute its most marked characteristic. The five toes are enlarged
+and furnished with an apparatus of folds, which, by some peculiar
+action, enable it to adhere to perfectly smooth surfaces, to ascend
+perpendicular walls, cross ceilings, or hang suspended for hours on the
+under side of leaves. The Egyptians called it the abu burs, or "father
+of leprosy," and there is a wide-spread belief in its poisonous
+character; but modern naturalists incline to regard the belief as
+unfounded, and to place the gecko among reptiles which are absolutely
+harmless. [PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.]
+
+
+The asp of Egypt (_Coluber haje_) is a species of cobra. It is a large
+snake, varying from three to six feet in length, and is extremely
+venomous. It haunts gardens, where it is of great use, feeding on mice,
+frogs, and various small reptiles. It has the power of greatly dilating
+the skin of the neck, and this it does when angered in a way that is
+very remarkable. Though naturally irritable, it is easily tamed; and the
+serpent-charmers of the East make it the object of their art more often
+than any other species. [PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 2.] After extracting the
+fangs or burning out the poison-bag with a red-hot iron, the charmer
+trains the animal by the shrill sounds of a small flute, and it is soon
+perfectly docile.
+
+The cerastes is also employed occasionally by the snake-charmers. It
+has two long and thin excrescences above the eyes, whereto the name of
+"horns" has been given: they stand erect, leaning a little backwards;
+no naturalist has as yet discovered their use. The cerastes is of a
+very pale brown color, and is spotted with large, unequal, and
+irregularly-placed spots. Its bite is exceedingly dangerous, since it
+possesses a virulent poison; and, being in the habit of nearly burying
+itself in the sand, which is of the same color with itself, it is the
+more difficult of avoidance. Its size also favors its escaping notice,
+since in length it rarely much exceeds a foot. [PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 3.]
+
+The chameleon has in all ages attracted the attention of mankind. It is
+found in Egypt, and in many others parts of Africa, in Georgia, and in
+India. The power of changing color which it possesses is not really its
+most remarkable characteristic. Far more worthy of notice are its slow
+pace, extraordinary form, awkward movements, vivacity, and control of
+eye, and marvellous rapidity of tongue. It is the most grotesque of
+reptiles. With protruding and telescopic eyes, that move at will in
+the most opposite directions, with an ungainly head, a cold, dry,
+strange-looking skin, and a prehensile tail, the creature slowly steals
+along a branch or twig, scarcely distinguishable from the substance
+along which it moves, and scarcely seeming to move at all, until it has
+come within reach of its prey. Then suddenly, with a motion rapid as
+that of the most agile bird, the long cylindrical and readily extensile
+tongue is darted forth with unerring aim, and the prey is seized
+and swallowed in a single moment of time. The ordinary color of the
+chameleon is a pale olive-green. This sometimes fades to a sort of
+ashen-gray, while sometimes it warms to a yellowish-brown, on which
+are seen faint spots of red. Modern naturalists, for the most part,
+attribute the changes to the action of the lungs, which is itself
+affected chiefly by the emotions of anger, desire, and fear. [PLATE
+XXVIII., Fig. 5.]
+
+The great extent of the Empire caused its vegetable productions to
+include almost all the forms known to the ancient world. On the one
+hand, the more northern and more elevated regions bore pines, firs,
+larches, oaks, birch, beech, ash, ilex, and junipers, together with the
+shrubs and flowers of the cooler temperate regions; on the other
+hand, the southern tracts grew palms of various kinds, mangoes,
+tamarind-trees, lemons, oranges, jujubes, mimosas, and sensitive plants.
+Between these extremes of tropical and cold-temperate products, the
+Empire embraced an almost infinite variety of trees, shrubs, and
+flowers. The walnut and the Oriental plane grew to avast size in many
+places. Poplars, willows, fig-mulberries, konars, cedars, cypresses,
+acacias, were common. Bananas, egg-plants, locust-trees, banyans,
+terebinths, the gum-styrax, the gum-tragacanth, the assafoetida plant,
+the arbor vitse, the castor-oil plant, the Judas-tree, and other
+somewhat rare forms, sprang up side by side with the pomegranate,
+the oleander, the pistachio-nut, the myrtle, the bay, the laurel, the
+mulberry, the rhododendron, and the arbutus. The Empire grew all the
+known sorts of grain, and almost all the known fruits. Among its various
+productions of this class, it is only possible to select for notice
+a few which were especially remarkable either for their rarity or for
+their excellent quality.
+
+The ancients celebrated the wheat of AEolis, the dates of Babylon,
+the citrons of Media, the Persian peach, the grapes of Carmania,
+the Hyrcanian fig, the plum of Damascus, the cherries of Pontus, the
+mulberries of Egypt and of Cyprus, the silphium of Gyrene, the wine of
+Helbon, the wild-grape of Syria. It is not unlikely that to these
+might have been added as many other vegetable products of first-rate
+excellence, had the ancients possessed as good a knowledge of the
+countries included within the Empire as the moderns. At present, the
+mulberries of Khiva, the apricots of Bokhara, the roses of Mexar, the
+quinces and melons of Isfahan, the grapes of Kasvin and Shii-az, the
+pears of Natunz, the dates of Dalaki, have a wide-spread reputation,
+which appears in most cases to be well deserved. On the whole, it is
+certain that for variety and excellence the vegetable products of the
+Persian Empire will bear comparison with those of any other state or
+community that has as yet existed, either in the ancient or the modern
+world.
+
+Two only of these products seem to deserve a longer description. The
+Cyrenaic silphium, of which we hear so much, as constituting the main
+wealth of that province, was valued chiefly for its medicinal qualities.
+A decoction from its leaves was used to hasten the worst kind of labors;
+its root and a juice which flowed from it were employed in a variety
+of maladies. The plant, which is elaborately described by Theophrastus,
+appears to have been successfully identified by modern travellers in
+the Cyrenaica, who see it in the drias or derias of the Arabs, an
+umbelliferous plant, which grows to a height of about three feet, has a
+deleterious effect on the camels that browse on it, and bears a striking
+resemblance to the representations of the ancient silphium upon
+coins and medals. This plant grows only in the tract between Merj and
+Derna--the very heart of the old silphium country, while that it has
+medicinal properties is certain from its effects upon animals; there can
+thus be little doubt that it is the silphium of the ancients, somewhat
+degenerated, owing to want of cultivation.
+
+The Egyptian byblus or papyrus (_Cyperus papyrus_) was perhaps the
+most valuable of all the vegetables of the Empire. The plant was a
+tall smooth reed of a triangular shape. It grew to the height of ten or
+fifteen feet, and terminated in a tuft or plume of leaves and flowers.
+Though indigenous in the country, it was the subject of careful
+cultivation, and was grown in irrigated ground, or in such lands as were
+naturally marshy. The root of the plant was eaten, while from its stem
+was made the famous Egyptian paper. The manufacture of the papyrus was
+as follows; The outer rind having been removed, there was exposed a
+laminated interior, consisting of a number of successive layers of inner
+cuticle, generally about twenty. These were carefully separated from
+one another by the point of a needle, and thus were obtained a number
+of strips of the raw material, which were then arranged in rows, covered
+with a paste, and crossed at right angles by another set of strips
+placed over them, after which the whole was converted into paper by
+means of a strong pressure. A papyrus roll was made by uniting together
+a greater or less number of such sheets. The best paper was made
+from the inmost layers of cuticle. The outer rind of the papyrus was
+converted into ropes; and this fabric was found to be peculiarly adapted
+for immersion in water.
+
+The mineral treasures of the Empire were various and abundant. It has
+been noticed already that Persia Proper, if we include in it Carmania,
+possessed mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, red lead, orpiment, and
+salt, yielding also bitumen, naphtha, sulphur, and most probably common
+lead. We are further informed by ancient writers that Drangiana, or
+Sarangia, furnished the rare and valuable mineral tin, without which
+copper could not be hardened into bronze; that Armenia yielded emery, so
+necessary for the working and polishing of gems; that the mountains
+and mines of the Empire supplied almost all the varieties of useful and
+precious stones; and that thus there was scarcely a mineral known to and
+required by the ancients for the purposes of their life which the Great
+King could not command without having recourse to others than his own
+subjects. It may be likewise noticed that the more important were very
+abundant, being found in many places and in large quantities. Gold was
+furnished from the mountains and deserts of Thibet and India, from the
+rivers of Lydia, and probably from other places where it is still found,
+as Armenia, Cabul, and the neighborhood of Meshed. Silver, which was
+the general medium of exchange in Persia, must have been especially
+plentiful. It was probably yielded, not only by the Kerman mines,
+but also by those of Armenia, Asia Minor, and the Elburz. Copper was
+obtained in great abundance from Cyprus, as well as from Carmania; and
+it may have been also derived, as it is now in very large quantities,
+from Armenia. Iron, really the most precious of all metals, existed
+within the Persian territory in the shape of huge boulders, as well
+as in nodules and in the form of ironstone. Lead was procurable from
+Bactria, Armenia, Korman, and many parts of Affghanistan; orpiment
+from Bactria, Kerman, and the Hazareh country; antimony from Armenia,
+Affghanistan, and Media; hornblende, quartz, talc, and asbestos, from
+various places in the Taurus.
+
+Of all necessary minerals probably none was so plentiful and so widely
+diffused as salt. It was not only in Persia Proper that nature had
+bestowed this commodity with a lavish hand--there was scarcely
+a province of the Empire which did not possess it in superfluous
+abundance. Large tracts were covered by it in North Africa, in Media,
+in Carmania, and in Lower Babylonia. In Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria,
+Palestine, and other places, it could be obtained from lakes. In Kerman,
+and again in Palestine, it showed itself in the shape of large masses,
+not inappropriately termed "mountains." Finally, in India it was the
+chief material of a long mountain-range, which is capable of supplying
+the whole world with salt for many ages.
+
+Bitumen and naptha were also very widely diffused. At the eastern foot
+of the Caucasus, where it subsides into the Caspian Sea, at various
+points in the great Mesopotamian plain, in the Deshtistan or low country
+of Persia Proper, in the Bakh-tiyari mountains, and again in the distant
+Jordan valley, these two inseparable products are to be found, generally
+united with indications of volcanic action, present or recent. The
+bitumen is of excellent quality, and was largely employed by the
+ancients. The naphtha is of two kinds, black naphtha or petroleum, and
+white naphtha, which is much preferred to the other. The bitumen-pits
+also, in some places, yielded salt.
+
+Another useful mineral with which the Persians were very plentifully
+supplied, was sulphur. Sulphur is found in Persia Proper, in Carmania,
+on the coast of Mekran, in Azerbijan, in the Elburz, on the Iranian
+plateau, in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, and in very large quantities
+near Mosul. Here it is quarried in great blocks, which are conveyed to
+considerable distances.
+
+Excellent stone for building purposes was obtainable in most parts of
+the Empire. Egypt furnished an inexhaustible supply of the best possible
+granite; marbles of various kinds, compact sandstone, limestone, and
+other useful sorts were widely diffused; and basalt was procurable from
+some of the outlying ranges of Taurus. In the neighborhood of Nineveh,
+and in much of the Mesopotamian region, there was abundance of grey
+alabaster, and a better kind was quarried near Damascus. A gritty
+silicious rock on the banks of the Euphrates, a little above Hit, was
+suitable for mill-stones.
+
+The gems furnished by the various provinces of the Empire are too
+numerous for mention. They included, it must be remembered, all the
+kinds which have already been enumerated among the mineral products of
+the earlier Monarchies. Among them, a principal place must, one would
+think, have been occupied by the turquoise--the gem, par excellence, of
+modern Persia--although, strange to say, there is no certain mention
+of it among the literary remains of antiquity. This lovely stone
+is produced largely by the mines at Nishapur in the Elburz, and is
+furnished also in less abundance and less beauty by a mine in Kerman,
+and another near Khojend. It is noticed by an Arabian author as early as
+the twelfth century of our era. A modern writer on gems supposes that it
+is mentioned, though not named, by Theophrastus; but this view scarcely
+seems to be tenable.
+
+Among the gems of most value which the Empire certainly produced were
+the emerald, the green ruby, the red ruby, the opal, the sapphire, the
+amethyst, the carbuncle, the jasper, the lapis lazuli, the sard, the
+agate, and the topaz. Emeralds were found in Egypt, Media, and Cyprus;
+green rubies in Bactria; common or red rubies in Caria; opals in Egypt,
+Cyprus, and Asia Minor; sapphires in Cyprus; amethysts also in Cyprus,
+and moreover in Egypt, Galatia, and Armenia; carbuncles in Caria;
+jaspers in Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Persia Proper; the lapis lazuli in
+Cyprus, Egypt, and Media; the sard in Babylonia; the agate in Carmania,
+Susiana, and Armenia; and the topaz or chrysoprase in Upper Egypt.
+
+The tales which are told of enormous emeralds are undoubtedly fictions,
+the material which passed for that precious substance being really in
+these cases either green jasper or (more probably) glass. But lapis
+lazuli and agate seem to have existed within the Empire in huge masses.
+Whole cliffs of the former overhang the river Kashkar in Kaferistan; and
+the myrrhine vases of antiquity which were (it is probable) of agate,
+and came mainly from Carmania, seem to have been of a great size.
+
+We may conclude this review by noticing, among stones of less
+consequence produced within the Empire, jet, which was so called from
+being found at the mouth of the river Gagis in Lycia, garnets, which are
+common in Armenia, and beryl, which is a product of the same country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. CHARACTER, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, DRESS, ETC., OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+"I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the
+river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one
+was higher than the other, and the higher came up last."--Dan. viii. 3.
+
+
+The ethnic identity of the Persian people with the Medes, and the
+inclusion of both nations in that remarkable division of the human
+race which is known to ethnologers as the Ipanic or Arian, have been
+maintained in a former volume. To the arguments there adduced it seems
+unnecessary to add anything in this place, since at the present day
+neither of the two positions appears to be controverted. It is admitted
+generally, not only that the Persians were of the same stock with the
+Medes, but that they formed, together with the Medes and a few
+other tribes and peoples of less celebrity, a special branch of the
+Indo-European family--a branch to which the name of Arian may be
+assigned, not merely for convenience sake, but on grounds of actual
+tradition and history. Undistinguished in the earlier annals of their
+race, the Medes and Persians became towards the eighth or seventh
+century before our era, its leading and most important tribes. Closely
+united together, with the superiority now inclining to one, now to the
+other, they claimed and exercised a lordship over all the other members
+of the stock, and not only over them, but over various alien races
+also. They had qualities which raised them above their fellows, and a
+civilization, which was not, perhaps, very advanced, but was still not
+wholly contemptible. Such details as could be collected, either from
+ancient authors, or from the extant remains, of the character, mode of
+life, customs, etc., of the Medes, have already found a place in this
+work.
+
+The greater part of what was there said will apply also to the Persians.
+The information, however, which we possess, with respect to this latter
+people, is so much more copious than that which has come down to us with
+regard to the Medes, that, without repeating anything from the former
+place, our materials will probably enable us to give to the present
+chapter considerable dimensions.
+
+The woodcuts of the preceding volume will have made the reader
+sufficiently familiar with the physiognomy of the Persians, or, at any
+rate, with the representation of it which has come down to us upon the
+Persian monuments. It may be remarked that the type of face and head is
+uniform upon all of them, and offers a remarkable contrast to the type
+assigned to themselves by the Assyrians, from whom the Arians evidently
+adopted the general idea of bas-reliefs, as well as their general mode
+of treating subjects upon them. The novelty of the physiognomy is
+a strong argument in favor of its truthfulness; and this is further
+confirmed by the evidence which we have, that the Persian artists aimed
+at representing the varieties of the human race, and succeeded fairly
+in rendering them. Varieties of, physiognomy are represented upon the
+bas-reliefs with much care, and sometimes with remarkable success, as
+the annexed head of a negro, taken from one of the royal tombs, will
+sufficiently indicate. [PLATE XXIX., Fig.1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXIX.]
+
+
+According to Herodotus, the skulls of the Persians were extraordinarily
+thin and weak--a phenomenon for which he accounted by the national habit
+of always covering the head. There does not seem to be in reality any
+ground for supposing that such a practice would at all tend to produce
+such a result. If, therefore, we regard the fact of thinness as
+established, we can only view it as an original feature in the physical
+type of the race. Such a feature would imply, on the supposition that
+the heads were of the ordinary size, a large brain-cavity, and so
+an unusual volume of brain, which is generally a concomitant of high
+intellectual power.
+
+The Persians seem, certainly, to have been quick and lively,
+keen-witted, capable of repartee, ingenious, and, for Orientals,
+far-sighted. They had fancy and imagination, a relish for poetry and
+art, and they were not without a certain power of political combination.
+But we cannot justly ascribe to them any high degree of intellectual
+excellence. The religious ideas which they held in common with the Medes
+were, indeed, of a more elevated character than is usual with races not
+enlightened by special revelation; but these ideas were the common stock
+of the Iranic peoples, and were inherited by the Persians from a remote
+ancestry, not excogitated by themselves. Their taste for art, though
+marked, was neither pure nor high. We shall have to consider, in a
+future chapter, the architecture and mimetic art of the people to weigh
+their merits in these respects, and, at the same time, to note their
+deficiencies.
+
+Without anticipating the exact verdict then to be pronounced, we may say
+at once that there is nothing in the remains of the Persian architecture
+and sculpture that have come down to us indicative of any remarkable
+artistic genius; nothing that even places them on a par with the best
+works of the kind produced by Orientals. Again, if the great work of
+Firdausi represents to us, as it probably does, the true spirit of the
+ancient poetry of the Persians, we must conclude that, in the highest
+department of art, their efforts were but of moderate merit. A tone of
+exaggeration, an imagination exuberant and unrestrained, a preference
+for glitter over solid excellence, a love of far-fetched conceits,
+characterize the Shahnameh; and, though we may fairly ascribe something
+of this to the idiosyncrasy of the poet, still, after we have made all
+due allowance upon this score, the conviction presses upon us that there
+was a childish and grotesque character in the great mass of the old
+Persian poetry, which marks it as the creation of moderate rather than
+of high intellectual power, and prevents us from regarding it with the
+respect with which we view the labors of the Greeks and Romans, or,
+again, of the Hebrews, in this department. A want of seriousness, a
+want of reality, and, again, a want of depth, characterize the poetry
+of Iran, whose bards do not touch the chords which rouse what is noblest
+and highest in our nature. They give us sparkle, prettiness, quaint and
+ingenious fancies, grotesque marvels, an inflated kind of human heroism;
+but they have none of the higher excellencies of the poetic art, none of
+the divine fire which renders the true poet, and the true prophet, one.
+
+Among moral qualities, we must assign to the Persians as their most
+marked characteristics, at any rate in the earlier times, courage,
+energy, and a regard for truth. The valor of their troops in the great
+combats of Platsea and Thermopylae extorted the admiration of their
+enemies, who have left on record their belief that, "in boldness and
+warlike spirit, the Persians were not a whit behind the Greeks,"
+and that their defeat was "wholly owing to the inferiority of their
+equipment and training." Without proper shields, with little defensive
+armor, wielding only short swords and lances that were scarcely more
+than javelins, they dashed themselves upon the serried ranks of the
+Spartans, seizing the huge spear-shafts of these latter with their
+hands, striving to break them, and to force a way in. No conduct could
+have been braver than this, which the modern historian well compares
+with brilliant actions of the Romans and the Swiss. The Persians
+thoroughly deserved to be termed (as they are termed by AEschylus), a
+"valiant-minded people;" they had boldness, elan, dash, and considerable
+tenacity and stubbornness; no nation of Asia or Africa was able to stand
+against them; if they found their masters in the Greeks, it was owing,
+as the Greeks themselves tell us, to the superiority of Hellenic arms,
+equipment, and, above all, of Hellenic discipline, which together
+rendered the most desperate valor unavailing, when it lacked the support
+of scientific organization and united simultaneous movement.
+
+The energy of the Persians during the earlier years of their ascendancy
+is no less remarkable than their courage. AEschylus speaks of a
+mysterious fate which forced them to engage continually in a long series
+of wars, to take delight in combats of horse, and in the siege and
+overthrow of cities. Herodotus, in a tone that is not very different,
+makes Xerxes, soon after his accession, represent himself as bound by
+the examples of his forefathers to engage his country in some great
+enterprise, and not suffer the military spirit of his people to decay
+through want of employment. We shall find, when we come to consider the
+history of the Empire, that, for eighty years, under four sovereigns,
+the course indicated by these two writers was in fact pursued--that
+war followed on war, expedition on expedition--the active energy of
+sovereign and people carrying them on, without rest or pause, in a
+career of conquest that has few parallels in the history of Oriental
+nations. In the subsequent period, this spirit is less marked; but,
+at all times, a certain vigor and activity has characterized the race,
+distinguishing it in a very marked way from the dreamy and listless
+Hindus upon the one hand, and the apathetic Turks upon the other.
+
+The Persian love of truth was a favorite theme with the Greeks, who
+were, perhaps, the warmer in their praises from a latent consciousness
+of their own deficiency in the virtue. According to Herodotus, the
+attention of educators was specially directed to the point, and each
+young Persian was taught by his preceptors three main things:--"To
+ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth." We find that, in the
+Zendavesta, and more especially in its earliest and purest portions,
+truth is strenuously inculcated. Ahura-Mazda himself is "true,"
+"the father of all truth," and his worshippers are bound to conform
+themselves to his image. Darius, in his inscriptions, protests
+frequently against "lies," which he seems to regard as the embodiment
+of all evil. A love of finesse and intrigue is congenital to Orientals;
+and, in the later period of their sway, the Persians appear to have
+yielded to this natural inclination, and to have used freely in their
+struggle with the Greeks the weapons of cunning and deception; but,
+in the earlier period, a different spirit prevailed; lying was then
+regarded as the most disgraceful act of which a man could possibly be
+guilty truth was both admired and practised; Persian kings, entrapped
+into a promise, stood to it firmly, however much they might wish it
+recalled; foreign powers had never to complain that the terms of a
+treaty were departed from; the Persians thus form an honorable exception
+to the ordinary Asiatic character, and for general truthfulness and a
+faithful performance of their engagements compare favorably with the
+Greeks and Romans.
+
+The Persian, if we may trust Herodotus, was careful to avoid debt.
+He had a keen sense of the difficulty with which a debtor escapes
+subterfuge and equivocation--forms, slightly disguised, of lying. To buy
+and sell wares in a market place, to chaffer and haggle over prices,
+was distasteful to him, as apt to involve falsity and unfairness. He
+was free and open in speech, bold in act, generous, warm-hearted,
+hospitable. His chief faults were an addiction to self-indulgence and
+luxury, a passionate abandon to the feeling of the hour, whatever that
+might happen to be; and a tameness and subservience in all his relations
+towards his prince, which seem to moderns almost incompatible with real
+self-respect and manliness.
+
+The luxury of the Persians will be considered when we treat of
+their manners. In illustration of the two other weak points of their
+character, it may be observed that, in joy and in sorrow, they were
+alike immoderate; in the one transported beyond all reasonable bounds,
+and exhibiting their transports with entire unreserve and openness;
+in the other proportionately depressed, and quite unrestrained in
+the expression of their anxiety or misery. AEschylus' tragedy of the
+"Persae" is, in this respect, true to nature, and represents with
+accuracy the real habits of the nation. The Persian was a stranger
+to the dignified reserve which has commonly been affected by the more
+civilized among Western nations. He laughed and wept, shouted and
+shrieked, with the unrestraint of a child, who is not ashamed to lay
+bare his inmost feelings to the eyes of those about him. Lively and
+excitable, he loved to give vent to every passion that stirred his
+heart, and cared not how many witnessed his lamentations or his
+rejoicings.
+
+The feeling of the Persian towards his king is one of which moderns can
+with difficulty form a conception. In Persia the monarch was so much the
+State, that patriotism itself was, as it were, swallowed up in loyalty;
+and an absolute unquestioning submission, not only to the deliberate
+will, but to the merest caprice of the sovereign, was, by habit and
+education, so engrained into the nature of the people that a contrary
+spirit scarcely ever manifested itself. In war the safety of the
+sovereign was the first thought, and the principal care of all.
+The tales told of the self-devotion of individuals to secure the
+preservation of the monarch may not be true, but they indicate
+faithfully the actual tone of men's sentiments about the value of the
+royal person. If the king suffered, all was lost; if the king escaped,
+the greatest calamities seemed light, and could be endured with
+patience. Uncomplaining acquiescence in all the decisions of the
+monarch--cheerful submission to his will, whatever it might chance to
+be--characterized the conduct of the Persians in time of peace. It
+was here that their loyalty degenerated into parasitical tameness,
+and became a defect instead of a virtue. The voice of remonstrance, of
+rebuke, of warning, was unheard at the Court; and tyranny was allowed to
+indulge unchecked in the wildest caprices and extravagances. The
+father, whose innocent son was shot before his eyes by the king in pure
+wantonness, instead of raising an indignant protest against the
+crime, felicitated him on the excellence of his archery. Unfortunates,
+bastinadoed by the royal orders, declared themselves delighted, because
+his majesty had condescended to recollect them. A tone of sycophancy
+and servility was thus engendered, which, sapping self-respect, tended
+fatally to lower and corrupt the entire character of the people.
+
+In considering the manners and customs of the Persians, it will be
+convenient to follow the order already observed in treating of Assyria
+and Media--that is to say, to treat, in the first instance, of their
+warlike, and subsequently of their peaceful usages. On the latter the
+monuments throw considerable light; on the former, the information which
+they supply is comparatively scanty.
+
+The Persians, like the Medes, regarded chariots with disfavor, and
+composed their armies almost entirely of foot and horse. The ordinary
+dress of the foot-man was, in the earlier times, a tunic with long
+sleeves, made of leather, and fitting rather tightly to the frame, which
+it covered from the neck to the knee. Under this was worn a pair of
+trousers, also of leather, and tolerably tight-fitting, especially at
+the ankles, where they met a sort of high shoe, or low boot. The head
+was protected by a loose round cap, apparently of felt, which projected
+a little in front, and rose considerably above the top of the head.
+Round the waist was worn a double girdle or belt, from which depended a
+short sword. [PLATE XXVIII Fig. 4.]
+
+The offensive arms of the foot-man were, a sword, a spear, and a bow.
+The sword, which was called by the Persians _akinaces_, appears to
+have been a short, straight weapon, suited for stabbing rather than for
+cutting, and, in fact, not very much better than a dagger. [PLATE XXIX.,
+Fig. 2.] It was carried in a sheath, and was worn suspended from the
+girdle on the right side. From the Persepolitan sculptures it would
+seem not to have hung freely, but to have been attached to the right
+thigh by a thong which passed round the knee. The handle was short,
+and generally unprotected by a guard; but, in some specimens, we see a
+simple cross-bar between the hilt and the blade.
+
+The spear carried by the Persian foot-man was also short, or, at any
+rate, much shorter than the Greek. To judge by the representations of
+guardsmen on the Persepolitan sculptures, it was from six to six and a
+half or seven feet in length. The Grecian spear was sometimes as much as
+twenty-one feet. The Persian weapon had a short head, which appears to
+have been flattish, and which was strengthened by a bar or ridge down
+the middle. The shaft, which was of cornel wood, tapered gradually from
+bottom to top, and was ornamented at its lower extremity with a ball,
+sometimes carved in the shape of an apple or a pomegranate. [PLATE
+XXIX., Fig. 3.]
+
+The Persian bow, according to Herodotus and Xenophon, was of unusual
+size. According to the sculptures, it was rather short, certainly not
+exceeding four feet. It seems to have been carried strung, either on the
+left shoulder, with the arm passed through it, or in a bow-case slung at
+the left side. It was considerably bent in the middle, and had the ends
+slightly turned back. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 1.] The arrows, which were of
+reed, tipped with metal, and feathered, were carried in a quiver, which
+hung at the back near the left shoulder. To judge from the sculptures,
+their length must have been about two feet and a half. The arrow-heads,
+which were either of bronze or iron, seem to have been of various
+shapes, the most common closely resembling the arrow-heads of the
+Assyrians. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 3.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXX.]
+
+
+Other offensive weapons carried occasionally by the Persian foot-men
+were, a battle-axe, a sling, and a knife. The battle-axe, which appears
+in the sculptures only in one or two instances, is declared to have been
+a common Persian weapon by Xenophon, who, upon such a point, would seem
+to be trustworthy. The use of the sling by the Persian light-armed is
+quite certain. It is mentioned by Curtius and Strabo, no less than by
+Xenophon; and the last-named writer speaks with full knowledge on the
+subject, for he witnessed the effect of the weapon in the hands of
+Persian slingers during his return with the Ten Thousand. The only
+missiles which the Persian slingers threw were stones; they did not,
+like the Rhodians, make use of small lumps of lead.
+
+The knife seems also to have been a Persian weapon. Its blade appears to
+have been slightly curved, like that of a pruning-hook. It was worn in a
+sheath, and was probably thrust into the belt or girdle like the similar
+weapon, half knife, half dagger, of a modern Persian.
+
+The ordinary defence of the Persian against the weapons of his enemy was
+a shield of wicker-work, which covered him almost from head to foot,
+and which probably differed little from the wattled shield of the
+Assyrians. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 2.] This he commonly planted on the ground,
+supporting it, perhaps, with a crutch, while he shot his arrows from
+behind it. Occasionally, he added to this defence the protection of a
+coat of mail, composed either of scale armor, or of quilted linen, like
+the corselets of the Egyptians. Armor of the former kind was almost
+impenetrable, since the scales were of metal--iron, bronze, or sometimes
+gold--and overlapped one another like those of a fish.
+
+The Persian cavalry was armed, in the early times of the monarchy,
+almost exactly in the same manner as their infantry. Afterwards, however
+a considerable change seems to have been made. In the time of the
+younger Cyrus cavalry soldiers were very fully protected. They wore
+helmets on their heads, coats of mail about their bodies, and greaves
+on their legs. Their chief offensive arms seem, then, to have been the
+short sword, the javelin, and the knife. It is probable that they were
+without shields, being sufficiently defended by their armor, which (as
+we have seen) was almost complete.
+
+The javelin of the horseman, which was his special weapon, was a short
+strong spear or pike, with a shaft of cornel-wood, and an iron point. It
+was common for him to carry two such weapons, one of which he used as
+a missile, while he retained the other in order to employ it in
+hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. It was a stout manageable weapon,
+and though no match for the longer and equally strong spear of
+the Macedonian cavalry, was preferred by Xenophon to the long weak
+reed-lance commonly carried by horse-soldiers in his day.
+
+It was the practice of the later Persians to protect with armor, not
+only the horseman, but the horse. They selected for the service large
+and powerful animals, chiefly of the Nisaean breed, and cased them
+almost wholly in mail. The head was guarded by a frontlet, and the neck
+and chest by a breast-piece; the sides and flanks had their own special
+covering and cuisses defended the thighs. These defences were not
+merely, like those of the later Assyrian heavy cavalry, of felt or
+leather, but consisted, like the cuirasses worn by the riders, of some
+such material covered with metal scales. The weight which the horse had
+to sustain was thus very great, and the movements of the cavalry force
+were, in consequence, slow and hesitating. Flight was difficult; and, in
+a retreat, the weaker animals were apt to sink under their burdens, and
+to be trampled to death by the stronger ones.
+
+There can be no doubt that, besides these heavy horsemen, the Persians
+employed, even in the latest times, and much more in the earlier,
+a light and agile cavalry force. Such were the troops which, under
+Tissaphernes, harassed the Ten Thousand during their retreat; and such,
+it may be conjectured, was really at all times the great body of their
+cavalry. The education of the Persian, as we shall see hereafter, was
+directed to the formation of those habits of quickness and agility in
+the mounting and managing of horses, which have a military value only
+as furnishing a good training for the light-cavalry service; and the
+tendency of the race has at all times been, not to those forms of
+military organization which are efficient by means of solidity and
+strength, but to those lighter, more varied, and more elastic branches
+which compensate for a want of solidity by increased activity,
+readiness, and ease of movement.
+
+Though the Persians did not set any great store by chariots, as an arm
+of the military service, they nevertheless made occasional use of them.
+Not only were their kings and princes, when they commanded their troops
+in person, accustomed to direct their movements, both on the march and
+even inaction, from the elevation of a war-chariot, but now and then, in
+great battles, a considerable force of them was brought into the field,
+and important consequences were expected from their employment. The
+wheels of the war-chariots were armed with scythes; and these, when the
+chariot was set in motion, were regarded as calculated to inflict great
+damage on the ranks of opponents. Such hopes seem, however, to have
+been generally disappointed. As every chariot was drawn by at least
+two horses, and contained at least two persons--the charioteer and the
+warrior--a large mark was offered by each to the missiles of the light
+troops who were commonly stationed to receive them; and, as practically
+it was found that a single wound to either horse or man threw the whole
+equipage into confusion, the charge of a scythed chariot was commonly
+checked before it reached the line of battle of the enemy. Where this
+was not the case, the danger was escaped by opening the ranks and
+letting the chariots pass through them to the rear, a good account being
+speedily given of any adventurer who thus isolated himself from the
+support of his own party.
+
+The Persian war-chariot was, probably, somewhat loftier than the
+Assyrian. The wheels appear to have been from, three to four feet in
+diameter; and the body rose above them to a height from the ground of
+nearly five feet. The person of the warrior was thus protected up to his
+middle by the curved board which enclosed the chariot on three sides.
+The axle-tree is said to have been broad, since breadth afforded a
+security against being overturned, and the whole construction to have
+been strong and solid. The wheels had twelve spokes, which radiated from
+a nave of unusual size. The felloes were narrower than the Assyrian, but
+were still composed, like them, of two or three distinct layers of wood.
+The tires were probably of metal, and were indented like the edge of a
+saw. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXI.]
+
+
+No great ornamentation of the chariot appears to have been attempted.
+The body was occasionally patterned with a chequer-work, which maybe
+compared with a style common in Assyria, and the spokes of the wheels
+were sometimes of great elegance, but the general character of the
+workmanship was massive and plain. The pole was short, and terminated
+with a simple curve. From the evidence of the monuments it would seem
+that chariots were drawn by two horses only; but the classical writers
+assure us that the ordinary practice was to have teams of four. The
+harness used was exceedingly simple, consisting of a yoke, a belly-band,
+a narrow collar, a head-stall, a bit, and reins. When the charioteer
+left his seat, the reins could be attached to a loop or bar which
+projected from the front of the chariot-board.
+
+Chariots were constructed to contain two, or perhaps, in some instances,
+three persons. These consisted of the warrior, his charioteer, who stood
+beside him, and an attendant, whose place was behind, and whose business
+it was to open and shut the chariot doors. The charioteer wore a visor
+and a coat of mail, exposing nothing to the enemy but his eyes.
+
+The later Persians made use also of elephants in battle, but to a very
+small extent, and without any results worth mentioning.
+
+The chief points of Persian tactics were the following. The army was
+organized into three distinct services--those of the chariots, the
+horse, and the foot. In drawing up the line of battle, it was usual,
+where chariots were employed, to place them in the front rank, in front
+of the rest of the army. Behind the chariots were stationed the horse
+and the foot; the former generally massed upon the wings; the latter
+placed in the middle, drawn up according to nations, in a number of
+oblong squares, which touched, or nearly touched, one another. The
+bravest and best armed troops were placed in front; the ranks towards
+the rear being occupied by those of inferior quality. The depth of the
+ranks was usually very great, since Oriental troops cannot be trusted to
+maintain a firm front unless they are strongly supported from behind.
+No attempt, however, seems to have been made at forming a second line of
+battle in the rear of the first, nor does there even seem to have been
+any organized system of reserves. When the battle began, the chariots
+were first launched against the enemy, whose ranks it was hoped they
+would confuse, or, at any rate, disturb. After this the main line
+advanced to the attack, but without any inclination to come at once to
+close quarters. Planting their shields firmly on the ground in front of
+them, the Persian heavy-armed shot flight after flight of arrows against
+their foe, while the slingers and other light-armed in the rear sent
+clouds of missiles over the heads of their friends into the adverse
+ranks beyond them. It was usually the enemy which brought this phase of
+the battle to an end, by pressing onward and closing with the Persian
+main line in a hand:to-hand combat. Here the struggle was commonly
+brief--a very few minutes often decided the engagement. If the Persian
+line of battle was forced or broken, all was immediately regarded as
+lost--flight and rout followed. The cavalry, from its position on
+the wings, might attempt, by desperate charges on the flanks of the
+advancing foe, to stay his progress, and restore the fortune of the
+day, but such efforts were usually unavailing. Its line of battle
+once broken, a Persian army lost heart; its commander commonly set the
+example of flight, and there was a general rush of all arms from the
+battle-field.
+
+For success the Persians trusted mainly to their numbers, which enabled
+them, in some cases, to renew an attack time after time with fresh
+troops, in others to outflank and surround their adversary. Their best
+troops were undoubtedly their cavalry, both heavy and light. The heavy,
+armed in the old times with bows, and in the later with the javelins,
+highly distinguished itself on many important occasions. The weight of
+its charge must have been great; its offensive weapons were good; and
+its armor made it almost invulnerable to ordinary weapons. The
+light cavalry was celebrated for the quickness and dexterity of its
+manoeuvres. It had the loose organization of modern Bashi-Bazouks or
+Cossacks; it hung in clouds on the enemy--assailed, retreated, rallied,
+re-advanced--fled, and even in flight was formidable, since each rider
+was trained to discharge his arrows backwards with a sure aim.
+against the pursuing foe. The famous skill of the Parthians in their
+horse-combats was inherited from their Persian predecessors, who seem to
+have invented the practice which the later people carried to perfection.
+
+Though mainly depending for success on their numbers, the Persians did
+not wholly despise the use of contrivance and stratagem. At Arbela,
+Darius Codomannus had spiked balls strewn over the ground where he
+expected the Greek cavalry to make its attacks. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 5];
+and, at Sardis, Cyrus obtained his victory over the Lydian horse
+by frightening them with the grotesque and unfamiliar camel. Other
+instances will readily occur to the reader, whereby it appears that the
+art of war was studied, and ingenuity allowed its due place in military
+matters, by this people, who showed a fair share of Oriental subtlety in
+the devices which they employed against their enemies.
+
+It is doubtful whether we are to include among these devices the use of
+military engines. On the one hand, we have several distinct statements
+by the author of the "Cyrpoasdia," to the effect that engines were well
+known to the Persians; on the other, we remark an entire absence from
+the works of other ancient writers of any notice that they actually
+employed them, either in their battles or their sieges. The silence of
+Scripture, of Herodotus, of the inscriptions, of Quintus Curtius, of
+Arrian, may fairly be regarded as outweighing the unsupported authority
+of the romance-writer, Xenophon; and though it would be rash to decide
+that such things as siege-towers, battering rams, and balistce--all
+of which are found to have been in constant use under the Assyrian and
+Babylonian monarchies--were wholly discarded by, or unknown to,
+their successors in the government of Asia, yet a wise criticism will
+conclude, that they were, at any rate, unfamiliar to the Persians,
+rarely and sparingly (if at all) employed by them, other methods
+of accomplishing the ends whereto they served having more approved
+themselves to this ingenious people. In ordinary sieges it would seem
+that they trusted to the bank or mound, while sometimes they drove mines
+under the walls, and sought in this way to effect a breach. Where the
+place attacked was of great strength, they had recourse in general
+either to stratagem or to blockade. Occasionally they employed the
+destructive force of fire, and no doubt they often succeeded by the
+common method of escalade. On the whole, it must certainly be said that
+they were successful in their sieges, exhibiting in their conduct of
+them courage, activity, and considerable fertility of resource.
+
+A Persian army was usually, though not always, placed under a single
+commander. This commander was the monarch, if he was present; if not, it
+was a Persian, or a Mede, nominated by him. Under the commander-in-chief
+were a number of general officers, heads of corps or divisions, of whom
+we find, in one instance, as many as nine. Next in rank to these were
+the chiefs of the various ethnic contingents composing the army, who
+were, probably, in general the satraps of the different provinces. Thus
+far appointments were held directly from the crown; but beyond this the
+system was changed. The ethnic or satrapial commanders appointed the
+officers next below themselves, the captains over a thousand, and (if
+their contingent was large enough to admit it) the captains over ten
+thousand; who, again, nominated their subordinates, commanders of a
+hundred, and commanders of ten. Thus, in the main, a decimal scale
+prevailed. The lowest rank of officers commanded each ten men, the next
+lowest a hundred, the next to that a thousand, the next ten thousand.
+The officer over ten thousand was sometimes a divisional chief;
+sometimes he was subject to the commander of an ethnic contingent, who
+was himself under the orders of the head of a division. Altogether there
+were six ranks of officers, exclusive of the commander-in-chief.
+
+The proper position of the commander-in-chief was considered to be the
+centre of the line of battle. He was regarded as safer there than
+he would have been on either wing; and it was seen that, from such a
+position, his orders would be most rapidly conveyed to all parts of the
+battlefield. It was not, however, thought to be honorable that he should
+keep aloof from the fight, or avoid risking his own person. On the
+contrary, he was expected to take an active part in the combat; and
+therefore, though his place was not exactly in the very foremost ranks,
+it was towards the front, and the result followed that he was often
+exposed to imminent danger. The consequences of this arrangement
+were frequently disastrous in the extreme, the death or flight of the
+commander producing universal panic, stopping the further issue of any
+general order, and thus paralyzing the whole army.
+
+The numbers of a Persian army, though no doubt exaggerated by the
+Greeks, must have been very great, amounting, probably, on occasions,
+to more than a million of combatants. Troops were drawn from the entire
+empire, and were marshalled in the field according to nations,
+each tribe accoutred in its own fashion. Here were seen the gilded
+breastplates and scarlet kilts of the Persians and Medes; there the
+woollen shirt of the Arab, the leathern jerkin of the Berber, or the
+cotton dress of the native of Hindustan. Swart savage Ethiops from the
+Upper Nile, adorned with a war-paint of white and red, and scantily
+clad with the skins of leopards or lions, fought in one place with huge
+clubs, arrows tipped with stone, and spears terminating in the horn of
+an antelope. In another, Scyths, with their loose spangled trousers and
+their tall pointed caps, dealt death around from their unerring blows;
+while near them Assyrians, helmeted, and wearing corselets of quilted
+linen, wielded the tough spear, or the still more formidable iron mace.
+Rude weapons, like cane bows, unfeathered arrows, and stakes hardened at
+one end in the fire, were seen side by side with keen swords and
+daggers of the best steel, the finished productions of the workshops
+of Phoenicia and Greece. Here the bronze helmet was surmounted with
+the ears and horns of an ox; there it was superseded by a fox-skin, a
+leathern or wooden skull-cap, or a head-dress fashioned out of a horse's
+scalp. Besides horses and mules, elephants, camels, and wild asses,
+diversified the scene, and rendered it still more strange and wonderful
+to the eye of a European. One large body of cavalry was accustomed
+to enter the field apparently unarmed; besides the dagger, which the
+Oriental never lays aside, they had nothing but a long leathern thong.
+They used this, however, just as the lasso is used by the natives of
+Brazil, and the wretch at whom they aimed their deadly noose had small
+chance of escape. The Persians, like the Assyrians, usually avoided
+fighting during the winter, and marched out their armies against the
+enemy in early spring. With the great hosts which they moved a fixed
+order of march was most necessary; and we find evidence of so much
+attention being paid to this point that confusion and disorder seem
+scarcely ever to have arisen. When the march lay within their own
+country, it was usual to send on the baggage and the sumpter-beasts in
+advance, after which came about half the troops, moving slowly in a long
+and continuous column along the appointed line of route. At this point
+a considerable break occurred, in order that all might be clear for
+the most important part of the army, which was now to follow. A guard,
+consisting of a thousand horse and a thousand foot, picked men of the
+Persian people, prepared the way for what was most holy in the eyes of
+the nation--the emblems of their religion, and their king. The former
+consisted of sacred horses and cars; perhaps, in the later times, of
+silver altars also, bearing the perpetual and heaven-kindled fire,
+which was a special object of Persian religious regard, and which the
+superstition of the people viewed as a sort of palladium, sure to bring
+the blessings of heaven upon their arms. Behind the sacred emblems
+followed the Great King himself, mounted on a car drawn by Nissean
+steeds, and perhaps protected on either side by a select band of his
+relatives. Behind the royal chariot came a second guard, consisting,
+like the first, of a thousand foot and a thousand horse. Then followed
+ten thousand picked foot, probably the famous "Immortals;" then came
+a body of ten thousand picked Persian horsemen. After these a space of
+four hundred yards (nearly a quarter of a mile) was left vacant; then
+marched, in a second continuous column, the remainder of the host.
+
+On entering an enemy's country, or drawing near a hostile force in their
+own, certain alterations in these dispositions became necessary, and
+were speedily effected. The baggage-train was withdrawn, and instead of
+moving before the army, followed at some little distance in the rear.
+Horsemen were thrown out in front, to feel for the enemy and notify his
+arrival. Sometimes, if the host was large, a division of the troops
+was made, and several _corps d'armee_ advanced against the foe
+simultaneously by distinct routes. When this took place, the
+commander-in-chief was careful to accompany the central force, so as to
+find himself in his proper position if he was suddenly compelled to give
+battle.
+
+Night movements were seldom attempted by the Persians. They marched from
+sunrise to sunset, halting, probably, during the midday heat. In their
+most rapid marches they seldom accomplished more than from twenty to
+twenty-five miles in the day; and when this rate was attempted for any
+continuance, it was necessary to rest the men at intervals for as much
+as three days at a time. The great drag upon rapidity of movement was
+the baggage-train, which consisted ordinarily of a vast multitude of
+camels, horses, asses, mules, oxen, etc., in part carrying burthens upon
+their backs, in part harnessed to carts laden with provisions, tents,
+and other necessaries. The train also frequently comprised a number of
+litters, in which the wives or female companions of the chief men were
+luxuriously conveyed, amid a crowd of eunuchs and attendants, and with
+all the cumbrous paraphernalia of female wardrobes. Roads, it must be
+remembered, did not exist; rivers were not bridged, except occasionally
+by boats; the army marched on the natural ground along an established
+line of route which no art had prepared for the passage of man or beast.
+Portions of the route would often be soft and muddy; the carts and
+litters would become immovable, their wheels sinking into the mire up
+to the axles; all the efforts of the teams would be unavailing; it must
+have been imperative to halt the main line, and employ the soldiers in
+the release of the vehicles, which had to be lifted and carried forward
+till the ground was sufficiently firm to bear them. When a river crossed
+the line of route, a ford had to be sought, boats procured, or rafts
+extemporized. The Persians were skilful in the passage of streams, to
+which they became accustomed in their first campaigns under Cyrus; but
+the march was necessarily retarded by these and similar obstacles, and
+we cannot be surprised that the average rate of movement was slow.
+
+As evening approached the Persians sought a suitable place for their
+camp. An open plain was preferred for the purpose, and the vicinity of
+water was a necessity. If an enemy was thought to be at hand, a ditch
+was rapidly dug, and the earth thrown up inside; or if the soil was
+sandy, sacks were filled with it, and the camp was protected with
+sand-bags. Immediately within the rampart were placed the _gerrhophori_,
+or Persians armed with large wicker shields. The rest of the soldiers
+had severally their appointed places, the position assigned to the
+commander-in-chief being the centre. All the army had tents, which were
+pitched so as to face the east. The horses of the cavalry were tethered
+and hobbled in front of the tents of their owners.
+
+The Persians disliked encamping near to their enemy. They preferred an
+interval of seven or eight miles, which they regarded as a considerable
+security against a surprise. As their most important arm was the
+cavalry, and as it was impossible for the cavalry to unfasten and
+unhobble their steeds, to equip them properly, to arm themselves, and
+then to mount in a short space of time, when darkness and confusion
+reigned around, a night attack on the part of an enterprising enemy
+would have been most perilous to a Persian army. Hence the precaution
+which they observed against its occurrence--a precaution which was
+seldom or never omitted where they felt any respect for their foe,
+and which seems to have been effective, since we do not hear of their
+suffering any disaster of the kind which they so greatly feared.
+
+The Persians do not seem to have possessed any special corps of
+pioneers. When the nature of the country was such as to require the
+felling of timber or the removal of brushwood, the army was halted, and
+the work was assigned to a certain number of the regular soldiers. For
+the construction of bridges, however, in important places, and for
+other works on a grand scale intended to facilitate an expedition,
+preparations were made beforehand, the tasks being entrusted either to
+skilled workmen, or to the crews of ships, if they were tolerably easy
+of performance.
+
+Commissariat arrangements were generally made by the Persians on a
+large scale, and with the best possible results. An ample baggage-train
+conveyed corn sufficient to supply the host during some months and in
+cases where scarcity was apprehended, further precautions were taken.
+Ships laden with corn accompanied the expedition as closely as possible,
+and supplemented any deficiency that might arise from a failure on the
+part of the land transport department. Sometimes, too, magazines were
+established at convenient points along the intended line of march
+previously to the setting forth of the army, and stores were thus
+accumulated at places where it was probable they would be found of most
+service.
+
+Requisitions for supplies were also made upon the inhabitants of the
+towns and villages through which lay the route of the army. Whenever the
+host rested for a night at a place of any consequence, the inhabitants
+seem to have been required to furnish sufficient bread for a meal
+to each man, and, in addition, to provide a banquet for the king
+(or general) and his suite, which was always very numerous. Such
+requisitions, often intolerably burthensome to those upon whom they
+were laid, must have tended greatly to relieve the strain upon their own
+resources, which the sustentation of such enormous hosts as the Persian
+kings were in the habit of moving, cannot have failed to produce in many
+cases.
+
+The effectiveness of these various arrangements for the provisioning of
+troops upon a march was such that Persian armies were rarely, if ever,
+in any difficulty with respect to their subsistence. Once only in
+the entire course of their history do we hear of the Persian forces
+suffering to any considerable extent from a want of supplies. According
+to Herodotus, Cambyses, when he invaded Ethiopia, neglected the ordinary
+precautions and brought his army into such straits that his men began to
+eat each other. This caused the total failure of his expedition, and
+the loss of a great proportion of the troops employed in it. There
+is, however, reason to suspect that, even in this case, the loss and
+difficulty which occurred have been much exaggerated.
+
+The Persians readily gave quarter to the enemy who asked it, and
+generally treated their prisoners of war with much kindness. Personages
+of importance, as monarchs or princes, either preserved their titles
+and their liberty, with even a certain nominal authority, or received
+appanages in other parts of the Persian territory, or, finally, were
+retained about the Court as friends and table-companions of the Great
+King. Those of less rank were commonly given lands and houses in some
+province remote from their own country, and thenceforth held the same
+position as the great mass of the subject races. Exchanges of prisoners
+do not seem to have been thought of. In a few cases, persons, whom we
+should regard as prisoners of war, experienced some severities, but
+probably only when they were viewed by the Persians, not as fair
+enemies, but as rebels. Rebels were, of course, liable to any punishment
+which the king might think it right to inflict upon them, and there were
+occasions after a revolt when sentences of extreme rigor were passed
+upon the persons considered to have been most in fault. According to
+Herodotus, three thousand Babylonians were crucified by order of
+Darius, to punish their revolt from him; and, though this is probably an
+exaggeration, it is certain that sometimes, where an example was thought
+to be required, the Persians put to death, not only the leader of a
+rebellion, but a number of his chief adherents. Crucifixion, or, at
+any rate, impalement of some sort, was in such cases the ordinary
+punishment. Sometimes, before a rebel was executed, he was kept for a
+while chained at the king's door, in order that there might be no doubt
+of his capture.
+
+Among the minor punishments of rebellion were branding, and removal of
+the rebels _en masse_ from their own country, to some remote locality.
+In this latter case, they were merely treated in the same way as
+ordinary prisoners of war. In the former, they probably became royal
+slaves attached to the household of the monarch.
+
+Though the Persians were not themselves a nautical people, they were
+quite aware of the great importance of a navy, and spared no pains to
+provide themselves with an efficient one. The conquests of Phoenicia,
+Cyprus, Egypt, and the Greek islands were undertaken, it is probable,
+mainly with this object; and these parts of the Empire were always
+valued chiefly as possessing skilled seamen, vessels, and dockyards,
+from which the Great King could draw an almost inexhaustible supply of
+war-ships and transports. Persia at times had the complete command of
+the Mediterranean Sea, and bore undisputed sway in the Levant during
+almost the whole period of her existence as an empire.
+
+The war-ship preferred by the best naval powers during the whole period
+of the Persian rule was the trireme, or decked galley impelled by rowers
+sitting in three tiers, or banks, one above another. This vessel, the
+invention of the Corinthians, had been generally adopted by the nations
+bordering on the Mediterranean in the interval between B.C. 700 and B.C.
+525, when by the reduction of Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Egypt, the Persians
+obtained the command of the sea. Notwithstanding the invention of
+quadriremes by the Carthaginians before B.C. 400, and of quinqueremes by
+Dionysius the Elder soon after, the trireme stood its ground, and from
+first to last the Persian fleets were mainly composed of this class of
+vessels.
+
+The trireme was a vessel of a considerable size, and was capable of
+accommodating two hundred and thirty persons. Of these, two hundred
+constituted the crew, while the remaining thirty were men-at-arms,
+corresponding to our own "marines." By far the greater number of the
+crew consisted of the rowers, who probably formed at least nine-tenths
+of the whole, or one hundred and eighty out of the two hundred. The
+rowers sat, not on benches running right across the vessel, but on small
+seats attached to its side. They were arranged, as before stated, in
+three tiers, not, however, directly one over the head of another, but
+obliquely, each at once above and behind his fellow. Each rower had the
+sole management of a single oar, which he worked through a hole pierced
+in the side of the vessel. To prevent his oar from slipping he had a
+leathern strap, which he twisted round it, and fastened to the thole,
+probably by means of a button. The remainder of the crew comprised the
+captain, the steersman, the petty officers, and the sailors proper, or
+those whose office it was to trim the sails and look to the rigging.
+The trireme of Persian times had, in all cases, a mast, and at least one
+sail, which was of a square shape, hung across the mast by means of a
+yard or spar, like the "square-sail" of a modern vessel. The rudder
+was composed of two broad-bladed oars, one on either side of the stern,
+united, however, by a cross-bar, and managed by a single steersman. The
+central part of a trireme was always decked, and on this deck, which
+was generally level with the bulwarks, stood and fought the men-at-arms,
+whose business it was to engage the similar force of the enemy.
+
+The weapon of the trireme, with which she was intended chiefly to
+attack her foe, was the beak. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 3.] This consisted of
+a projection from the prow of the ship, either above or below the
+water-line, strongly shod with a casting of iron, and terminating either
+in the head of an animal, or in one or more sharp points. A trireme was
+expected, like a modern "ram," to use this implement against the sides
+of her adversary's vessels, so as to crush them in and cause the vessels
+to sink. Driven by the full force of her oars, which impelled her almost
+at the rate of a modern steamer, she was nearly certain, if she struck
+her adversary full, to send ship and men to the bottom. She might
+also, it is true, greatly damage herself; but, to preclude this, it was
+customary to make the whole prow of a trirene exceedingly strong, and,
+more particularly, to support it with beams at the side which tended to
+prevent the timbers from starting.
+
+Besides triremes, which constituted the bulk of the Persian navy, there
+were contained in their fleet various other classes of vessels, as
+triaconters, penteconters, cercuri, and others. Triaconters were long,
+sharp-keeled ships, shaped very much like a trireme, rowed by thirty
+rowers, who sat all upon a level, like the rowers in modern boats,
+fifteen on either side of the vessel. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 2.]
+Penteconters were very similar, the only difference being in the number
+of the oars and oarsmen. [PLATE XXXI., Fig. 4.] Both these classes of
+vessels seem to have been frequently without sails. Cercuri were light
+boats, very long and swift. They are said to have been invented by the
+Cyprians, and were always peculiar to Asia.
+
+The transports of the Persians were either for the conveyance of horses
+or of food. Horse-transports were large clumsy vessels, constructed
+expressly for the service whereon they were used, possessing probably a
+special apparatus for the embarkation and disembarkation of the animals
+which they were built to carry. Corn-transports seem to have been of a
+somewhat lighter character. Probably, they varied very considerably in
+their size and burthen, including huge and heavy merchantmen on the one
+hand, and a much lighter and smaller craft on the other.
+
+The Persians used their ships of war, not only for naval engagements,
+but also for the conveyance of troops and the construction of bridges.
+Accustomed to pass the great streams which intersect Western Asia
+by bridges of boats, which were permanently established wherever an
+unfordable river crossed any of the regular routes connecting the
+provinces with the capital, the Persians, when they proceeded to carry
+their arms from Asia into Europe, conceived the idea of bridging the
+interval between the continents, which did not much exceed the width of
+one of the Mesopotamian streams, by constructions similar in principle
+and general character to those wherewith long use had made them familiar
+in their own country. Ranging a number of vessels side by side, at no
+great distance one from another, parallel with the course of the stream,
+which ran down the straits, anchoring each vessel stem and stern to keep
+it in place, and then laying upon these supports a long wooden platform,
+they made a floating bridge of considerable strength, reaching from
+the Asiatic to the European coast, on which not only men, but horses,
+camels, chariots, and laden carts passed over safely from the one
+continent to the other. Only, as the water which they had to cross was
+not a river, but an arm of the real salt sea, and might, therefore, in
+case of a storm, show a might and fury far beyond a river's power, they
+thought it necessary to employ, in lieu of boats, the strongest ships
+which they possessed, namely, triremes and pentecon-ters, as best
+capable of withstanding the force of an angry sea. Bridges of this
+kind were intended sometimes for temporary, sometimes for permanent
+constructions. In the latter case, great care and much engineering skill
+was lavished on their erection. The shore cables, which united the ships
+together, and sustained the actual bridge or platform, were made of most
+carefully selected materials, and must have been of enormous strength;
+the ships were placed in close proximity one to another; and by the
+substitution of a double for a single line--of two bridges, in fact, for
+one--the solidity of the work was very largely augmented. Yet, rare as
+was the skill shown, solid and compact as were the causeways thus
+thrown by human art over the sea, they were found inadequate to the end
+desired. The great work of Xerxes, far the most elaborate of its class,
+failed to withstand the fury of the elements for a single year; the
+bridge, constructed in one autumn, was utterly swept away in the next;
+and the army which had crossed into Europe by its aid had to embark as
+it best could, and return on board ship to Asia.
+
+As the furnishing of the Persian fleet was left wholly to the subject
+nations of the Empire, so was its manning intrusted to them almost
+entirely. Phoenicians, Syrians, Egyptians, Cypriots, Cilicians, Lycians,
+Pamphylians, Carians, Greeks, equipped in the several costumes of their
+countries, served side by side in their respective contingents of ships,
+thereby giving the fleet nearly the same motley appearance which
+was presented by the army. In one respect alone did the navy exhibit
+superior uniformity to their sister service--the _epibatae_, or
+"marines," who formed the whole fighting force of the fleet while it
+kept the sea, was a nearly homogeneous body, consisting of three races
+only (two of which were closely allied), namely, Persians, Medes, and
+Sacse. Every ship had thirty such men on board; all, it is probable,
+uniformly armed, and all animated by one and the same spirit. To this
+force the Persians must have owed it mainly that their great fleets
+were not mere congeries of mutually repellant atoms, but were capable of
+acting against an enemy with a fair amount of combination and singleness
+of purpose.
+
+When a fleet accompanied a land army upon an expedition, it was usually
+placed under the same commander. This commander, however, was not
+expected to adventure himself on board much less to take the direction
+of a sea-fight. He intrusted the fleet to an officer, or officers, whom
+he nominated, and was content himself with the conduct of operations
+ashore. Occasionally the land and sea forces were assigned to distinct
+commanders of co-ordinate authority--an arrangement which led naturally,
+to misunderstanding and quarrel.
+
+The tactics of a Persian fleet seem to have been of the simplest
+kind Confident in their numbers, until experience had taught them the
+fallaciousness of such a ground of hope, they were chiefly anxious
+that their enemy should not escape. To prevent this they endeavored to
+surround the ships opposed to them, advancing their line in a crescent
+form, so as to enclose their adversary's wings, or even detaching
+squadrons to cut off his retreat. They formed their line several ships
+deep and when the hour of battle came, advanced directly at their best
+speed against the enemy, endeavoring to run down his vessels by sheer
+force, and never showing any acquaintance with or predilection for
+manoeuvres of a skilful antagonist, who avoided or successfully
+withstood this first onset, they were apt through their very numbers to
+be thrown into disorder: the first line would become entangled with the
+second, the second with the third, and inextricable confusion would be
+the result. Confusion placed them at the mercy of their antagonist,
+who, retaining complete command over his own vessels, was able to strike
+theirs in vulnerable parts, and, in a short time, to cover the sea with
+shattered and sinking wrecks. The loss to the Persians in men as well
+as in material, was then sure to be very great; for their sailors seldom
+knew how to swim, and were consequently drowned, even when the shore was
+but a few yards distant.
+
+When, from deficiency in their numbers, or distrust of their own
+nautical skill in comparison with that of their enemy, the commanders of
+a Persian fleet wished to avoid an engagement, a plan sometimes adopted
+was to run the ships ashore upon a smooth soft beach, and, after drawing
+them together, to surround them with such a rampart as could be hastily
+made, and defend this rampart with the sailors. The crews of the Persian
+vessels were always more or less completely armed, in order that, if
+occasion arose, they might act as soldiers ashore, and were thus quite
+capable of fighting effectively behind a rampart. They might count, too,
+under such circumstances, upon assistance from such of their own land
+forces as might happen to be in the neighborhood, who would be sure to
+come with all speed to their aid, and might be expected to prove a sure
+protection.
+
+The subject nations who furnished the Persians with their fleet were,
+in the earlier times, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Cypriots, the
+Cilicians, the Syrians of Palestine, the Pamphylians, the Lycians, the
+Carians, and the Greeks of Asia Minor and the islands. The Greeks seem
+to have furnished the largest number of ships; the Phoenicians, the
+next largest; then the Egyptians; after them the Cypriots; then the
+Cilicians; then the Carians; next the Lycians; while the Pamphylians
+furnished the least. The best ships and the best sailors were the
+Phoenicians, especially those of Sidon. In later times, ships were drawn
+either from Phoenicia alone, or from Phoenicia, Cilicia, and Cyprus.
+
+The limits assigned to the present work forbid the further prosecution
+of this branch of our inquiry, and require us now to pass on from the
+consideration of the Persian usages in war, to that of their manners
+and customs, their habits and proceedings, in time of peace. And here
+it will once more be convenient to follow a division of the subject with
+which the reader is familiar, and to treat first of the public life of
+the King and Court, and next of the private life of the people.
+
+The Persian king held the same rank and position in the eyes of his
+subjects which the great monarch of Western Asia, whoever he might be,
+had always occupied from time immemorial. He was their lord and master,
+absolute disposer of their lives, liberties, and property; the
+sole fountain of law and right, incapable himself of doing wrong,
+irresponsible irresistable--a sort of God upon earth; one whose favor
+was happiness, at whose frown men trembled, before whom all bowed
+themselves down with the lowest and humblest obeisance.
+
+To a personage so exhalted, a state and pomp of the utmost magnificence
+was befitting. The king's ordinary dress in time of peace was the long
+flowing "Median garment," or _candys_--made in his case (it is probable)
+of richest silk, which, with its ample folds, its wide hanging sleeves,
+and its close fit about the neck and chest, gave dignity to almost any
+figure, and excellently set off the noble presence of an Achaemenian
+prince. The royal robe was either of purple throughout, or sometimes of
+purple embroidered with gold. It descended below the ankles; resting on
+the foot even when the monarch was seated. A broad girdle confined it at
+the waist. Under it was worn a tunic, or shirt, which reached from the
+neck to the knee, and had tight-fitting sleeves that covered the arm to
+the wrist. The tunic was purple in color, like the _candys_, or robe,
+but striped or mixed with white. The lower limbs were encased in
+trousers of a crimson hue. On his feet the the king wore shoes like
+those of the Medes, long and taper at the toe buttoned in front,
+and reaching very high up the instep: their color was deep yellow or
+saffron. [PLATE XXXII., Fig.1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXII.]
+
+
+Thus far the monarch's costume, though richer in material than the dress
+of the Persian nobles, and in some points different in color, was on the
+whole remarkably like that of the upper class of his subjects. It
+was, however, most important that his dress should possess some
+distinguishing feature, and that that feature should be one of
+very marked prominency. In an absolute monarchy the king must be
+unmistakable, at almost any distance, and almost in any light.
+Consequences of the gravest kind may follow from any mistake of the
+royal identity; and it is therefore essential to the comfort both of
+prince and subject that some very conspicuous badge shall mark and
+notify the monarch's presence. Accordingly, it appears that the Persian
+ruler was to be known by his headdress, which was peculiar alike
+in shape and in color, and was calculated to catch the eye in both
+respects. It bore the name _kitaris_ or _hidaris_, and was a tall stiff
+cap, slightly swelling as it ascended, flat at top, and terminating in a
+ring or circle which projected beyond the lines of the sides. Round
+it, probably near the bottom, was worn a fillet or band--the diadem
+proper--which was blue, spotted with white.
+
+As the other Persians wore either simple fillets round their heads, or
+soft, rounded, and comparatively low caps, with no band round them, the
+king's headdress, which would tower above theirs and attract attention
+by its color, could readily be distinguished even in the most crowded
+Court.
+
+It has been asserted that the _kidaris_, or tiara of the Persian kings,
+was "commonly adorned with gold and jewelry;" and this may possibly have
+been the case, but there is no evidence that it was so. Its material
+was probably either cloth or felt, and it was always of a bright color,
+though not (apparently) always of the same color. Its distinguishing
+features were its height, its stiffness, and the blue and white fillet
+which encircled it.
+
+Among other certain indications of the royal presence may be mentioned
+the golden sceptre, and the parasol. The sceptre, which is seen
+frequently in the king's hands, was a plain rod, about five feet in
+length, ornamented with a ball, or apple, at its upper end, and at its
+lower tapering nearly to a point. The king held it in his right hand,
+grasping it near, but not at, the thick end, and rested the thin end on
+the ground in his front. When he walked, he planted it upright before
+him, as a spearman would plant his spear. When he sate, he sloped it
+outwards, still, however, touching the ground with its point.
+
+The parasol, which has always been in the East a mark of dignity, seems
+in Persia, as in Assyria, to have been confined, either by law or usage,
+to the king. The Persian implement resembled the later Assyrian, except
+that it was not tasselled, and had no curtain or flap. It had the same
+tent-like shape, the same long thick stem, and the same ornament at the
+top. It only differed in being somewhat shallower, and in having the
+supports, which kept it open, curved instead of straight. It was held
+over the king's head on state occasions by an attendant who walked
+immediately behind him. [PLATE XXXII., Fig. 3.]
+
+The throne of the monarch was an elevated seat, with a high back, but
+without arms, cushioned, and ornamented with a fringe, and with moldings
+or carvings along the back and legs. The ornamentation consisted chiefly
+of balls and broad rings, and contained little that was artistic or
+elaborate. The legs, however, terminated in lions' feet, resting upon
+half balls, which were ribbed or fluted. The sides of the chair
+below the seat appear to have been panelled, like the thrones of the
+Assyrians, but were not adorned with any carving. The seat of the throne
+was very high from the ground, and without a rest the legs would have
+dangled. A footstool consequently was provided, which was plain, like
+the throne, but was supported on legs terminating in the feet of bulls.
+Thus the lion and the bull, so frequent in the symbolism of the East,
+were here again brought together, being represented as the supports of
+the throne.
+
+With respect to the material whereof the throne was composed, there
+can be no doubt that it was something splendid and costly. Late writers
+describe it as made of pure gold; but, as we hear of its having silver
+feet, we may presume that parts at least were of the less precious
+metal. Ivory is not said to have been used in its composition. We may,
+perhaps, conjecture, that the frame of the throne was wood, and that
+this was overlaid with plates of gold or silver, whereby the whole of
+the woodwork was concealed from view, and an appearance of solid metal
+presented.
+
+The person of the king was adorned with golden ornaments. He had
+earrings of gold in his ears, often inlaid with jewels he wore golden
+bracelets upon his wrists; and he had a chain or collar of gold about
+his neck. [PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 1.] In his girdle, which was also of
+gold, he carried a short sword, the sheath of which was formed of a
+single precious stone. The monuments, unfortunately, throw little light
+on the character and workmanship of these portions of the royal costume.
+We may gather from them, perhaps, that the bracelets had a large jewel
+set in their centre, and that the collars were of twisted work, worn
+loosely around the neck. The sword seems to have differed little from
+that of the ordinary Persians. It had a short straight blade, a mere
+crossbar for a guard, and a handle almost devoid of ornament. This
+plainness was compensated, if we may trust Curtius, by the magnificence
+of the sheath, which was, perhaps, of jasper, agate, or lapis lazuli.
+[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 2.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIII.]
+
+
+The officers in most close attendance on the monarch's person were,
+in war, his charioteer, his stool-bearer, his bow-bearer, and his
+quiver-bearer; in peace, his parasol-bearer, and his fan bearer, who
+was also privileged to carry what has been termed "the royal
+pocket-handkerchief."
+
+The royal charioteer is seemingly unarmed. His head is protected merely
+by a fillet. He sits in front of his master, and both his hands are
+fully occupied with the management of the reins. He has no whip, and
+seems to urge his horses forward simply by leaning forward himself, and
+slackening or shaking the reins over them. He was, no doubt, in every
+case a Persian of the highest rank, such near proximity to the Royal
+person being a privilege to which none but the very noblest could
+aspire. [PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 2.]
+
+The office of the stool-bearer, was to assist the king as he mounted his
+chariot or dismounted from it. He carried a golden stool, and followed
+the royal chariot closely, in order that he might be at hand whenever
+his master felt disposed to alight. On a march, the king was wont to
+vary the manner of his travelling, exchanging, when the inclination took
+him, his chariot for a litter, and riding in that more luxurious vehicle
+till he was tired of it, after which he returned to his chariot for
+a space. The services of the stool-bearer were thus in constant
+requisition, since it was deemed quite impossible that his Majesty could
+ascend or descend his somewhat lofty war-car without such aid.
+
+The rank of the bow-bearer was probably nearly as great as that of the
+driver of the chariot. He was privileged to stand immediately behind the
+monarch on grand occasions, so carrying in his left hand the weapon from
+which he derived his appellation. The quiver-bearer had the next place.
+Both wore the Median costume--the _candys_, or flowing robe, the girdle,
+the high shoe, and the stiff fluted cap, or, perhaps, occasionally the
+simple fillet. Sometimes the two offices would seem to have been held
+by the same person, unless we are to attribute this appearance, where
+it occurs, to the economy of the artist, who may have wished to save
+himself the trouble of drawing two separate figures. [PLATE XXXIII.,
+Fig. 5.]
+
+The parasol-bearer was attired as the bow and quiver bearers,
+except that he was wholly unarmed, and had the fillet for his proper
+head-dress. Though not a military officer, he accompanied the monarch in
+his expeditions, since in the midst of war there might be occasions of
+state when his presence would be convenient. The officer who bore the
+royal fan and handkerchief had generally the same costume; but sometimes
+his head was enveloped in a curious kind of cowl or muffler, which
+covered the whole of it except the forehead, the eyes, the nose, the
+mouth, and the upper portion of the cheeks. [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIV.]
+
+
+The fan, or fly-chaser, had a long straight handle, ornamented with
+a sort of beading, which held a brush of some springy fibrous matter.
+[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 4.] The bearer, whose place was directly behind the
+monarch, held his implement, which bent forward gracefully, nearly at
+arm's length over his master's head.
+
+It would seem that occasionally the bearer of the handkerchief
+laid aside his fly-chaser, and assumed in lieu of it a small bottle
+containing perfumery. [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 4.] In a sculptured tablet at
+Persepolis, given by Ker Porter, an attendant in the Median robe, with a
+fillet upon his head, who bears the handkerchief in the usual way in his
+left hand, carries in the palm of his right what seems to be a bottle,
+not-unlike the scent-bottle of a modern lady. It has always been an
+Oriental custom to wash the hands before meals, and the rich commonly
+mix some perfumery or other with the water. We may presume that this
+was the practice at the Persian Court, and that the Great King therefore
+took care to have an officer, who should at all times be ready to
+provide his guests, or himself, with the scent which was most rare or
+most fashionable.
+
+The Persians seem to have been connoisseurs in scents. We are told that,
+when the royal tiara was not in wear, it was laid up carefully with a
+mixture of myrrh and _labyzus_, to give it an agreeable odor. Unguents
+were thought to have been a Persian invention, and at any rate were most
+abundantly used by the upper classes of the nation. The monarch applied
+to his own person an ointment composed of the fat of lions, palm wine,
+saffron, and the herb helianthes, which was considered to increase the
+beauty of the complexion. He carried with him, even when he went to the
+wars, a case of choice unguents; and such a treasure fell into the hands
+of Alexander, with the rest of Darius's camp equipage, at Arbela. It may
+be suspected that the "royal ointment" of the Parthian kings, composed
+of cinnamon, spikenard, myrrh, cassia, gum styrax, saffron, cardamum,
+wine, honey, and sixteen other ingredients, was adopted from the
+Persians, who were far more likely than the rude Parthians to have
+invented so recondite a mixture. Nor were scents used only in this form
+by the ingenious people of whom we are speaking. Arabia was required
+to furnish annually to the Persian crown a thousand talents' weight of
+frankincense; and there is reason to believe that this rare spice was
+largely employed about the Court, since the walls of Persepolis have
+several representations of censers, which are sometimes carried in
+the hands of an attendant, while sometimes they stand on the ground
+immediately in front of the Great King.321 [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 2.]
+
+The box or vase in which the Persians commonly kept their unguents was
+of alabaster. This stone, which abounded in the country, was regarded as
+peculiarly suited for holding ointments, not only by the Persians, but
+also by the Egyptians, the Greeks, and (probably) the Assyrians. The
+Egyptian variety of stone seems to have been especially valued; and
+vases appear to have been manufactured in that country for the use of
+the Persian monarch, which were transmitted to the Court, and became
+part of the toilet furniture of the palace.330 [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 3.]
+
+Among the officers of the Court, less closely attached to the person of
+the monarch than those above enumerated, may be mentioned the steward
+of the household; the groom or master of the horse; the chief eunuch,
+or keeper of the women; the king's "eyes" and "ears," persons whose
+business it was to keep him informed on all matters of importance;
+his scribes or secretaries, who wrote his letters and his edicts; his
+messengers, who went his errands; his ushers, who introduced strangers
+to him; his "tasters," who tried the various dishes set before him lest
+they should be poisoned; his cupbearers who handed him his wine, and
+tasted it; his chamberlains, who assisted him to bed; and his musicians,
+who amused him with song and harp. Besides these, the Court comprised
+various classes of guards, and also doorkeepers, huntsmen, grooms,
+cooks, and other domestic servants in great abundance, together with
+a vast multitude of visitors and guests, princes, nobles, captives of
+rank, foreign refugees, ambassadors, travellers. We are assured that
+the king fed daily within the precincts of his palace as many as fifteen
+thousand persons, and that the cost of each day's food was four hundred
+talents. A thousand beasts were slaughtered for each repast, besides
+abundance of feathered game and poultry. The beasts included not only
+sheep, goats, and oxen, but also stags, asses, horses, and camels. Among
+the feathered delicacies were poultry, geese, and ostriches.
+
+The monarch himself rarely dined with his guests. For the most part he
+was served alone. Sometimes he admitted to his table the queen and two
+or three of his children. Sometimes, at a "banquet of wine," a certain
+number of privileged boon companions were received, who drank in the
+royal presence, not, however, of the same wine, nor on the same terms.
+
+The monarch reclined on a couch with golden feet, and sipped the rich
+wine of Helbon; the guests drank an inferior beverage, seated upon the
+floor. At a great banquet, it was usual to divide the guests into two
+classes. Those of lower degree were entertained in an outer court or
+chamber to which the public had access, while such as were of higher
+rank entered the private apartments, and drew near to the king. Here
+they were feasted in a chamber opposite to the king's chamber, which had
+a curtain drawn across the door, concealing him from their gaze, but not
+so thick as to hide them from their entertainer. Occasionally, on some
+very special occasion, as, perhaps, on the Royal birthday, or other
+great festival, the king presided openly at the banquet, drinking and
+discoursing with his lords, and allowing the light of his countenance to
+shine freely upon a large number of guests, whom, on these occasions,
+he treated as if they were of the same flesh and blood with himself.
+Couches of gold and silver were spread for all, and "royal wine in
+abundance" was served to them in golden goblets. On these, and, indeed,
+on all occasions, the guests, if they liked, carried away any portion
+of the food set before them which they did not consume at the time,
+conveying it to their homes, where it served to support their families.
+
+The architecture of the royal palace will be discussed in another
+chapter; but a few words may be said in this place with respect to its
+furniture and general appearance. The pillared courts and halls of
+the vast edifices which the Achaemenian monarchs raised at Susa and
+Persepolis would have had a somewhat bare and cold aspect, if it had not
+been for their internal fittings. The floors were paved with stones
+of various hues, blue, white, black, and red, arranged doubtless into
+patterns, and besides were covered in places with carpeting. The spaces
+between the pillars were filled with magnificent hangings, white green,
+and violet, which were fastened with cords of fine linen (?) and purple
+to silver rings and pillars of marble, screening the guests from sight,
+while they did not too much exclude the balmy summer breeze. The walls
+of the apartments were covered with plates of gold. All the furniture
+was rich and costly. The golden throne of the monarch stood under an
+embroidered canopy or awning supported by four pillars of gold inlaid
+with precious stones. [PLATE XXXV.] Couches resplendent with silver and
+gold filled the rooms. The private chamber of the monarch was adorned
+with a number of objects, not only rich and splendid, but valuable as
+productions of high art. Here, impending over the royal bed, was the
+golden vine, the work of Theodore of Samos, where the grapes were
+imitated by means of precious stones, each of enormous value. Here,
+probably, was the golden plane-tree, a worthy companion to the
+vine, though an uncourtly Greek declared it was too small to shade a
+grasshopper. Here, finally, was a bowl of solid gold, another work
+of the great Samian metallurgist, more precious for its artistic
+workmanship than even for its material.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXV.]
+
+
+Nothing has hitherto been said of the Royal harem or seraglio, which,
+however, as a feature of the Court always important, and ultimately
+preponderating over all others, claims a share of our attention. In the
+early times, it would appear that the Persian kings were content with
+three or four wives, and a moderate number of concubines. Of the wives
+there was always one who held the most exalted place, to whom alone
+appertained the title of "Queen," and who was regarded as "wife" in a
+different sense from the others. Such was Atossa to Darius Hystaspis,
+Amestris to Xerxes, Statira to Darius Codomannus. Such, too, were Vashti
+and Esther to the prince, whoever he was, whose deeds are recorded in
+Scripture under the name of Ahasuerus. The chief wife, or Queen-Consort,
+was privileged to wear on her head a royal tiara or crown. She was
+the acknowledged head of the female apartments or Gynaeceum, and the
+concubines recognized her dignity by actual prostration. On great
+occasions, when the king entertained the male part of the Court, she
+feasted all the females in her own part of the palace. She had a
+large revenue of her own, assigned her, not so much by the will of her
+husband, as by an established law or custom. Her dress was splendid,
+and she was able to indulge freely that love of ornament of which few
+Oriental women are devoid. Though legally subject to her husband as much
+as the meanest of his slaves, she could venture on liberties which would
+have been fatal to almost any one else, and often, by her influence over
+the monarch, possessed a very considerable share of power.
+
+The status of the other wives was very inferior to this; and it is
+difficult to see how such persons were really in a position much
+superior to that of the concubines. As daughters of the chief
+nobles--for the king could only choose a wife within a narrow
+circle--they had, of course, a rank and dignity independent of that
+acquired by marriage; but otherwise they must have been almost on a par
+with those fair inmates of the Gynaeceum who had no claim even to
+the name of consort. Each wife had probably a suite of apartments to
+herself, and a certain number of attendants--eunuchs, and tirewomen--at
+her disposal; but the inferior wives saw little of the king, being only
+summoned each in their turn to share his apartment, and had none of the
+privileges which made the position of chief wife so important.
+
+The concubines seem to have occupied a distinct part of the Gynaeceum,
+called "the second house of the women." They were in the special charge
+of one of the eunuchs, and were no doubt kept under strict surveillance.
+The Empire was continually searched for beautiful damsels to fill the
+harem, a constant succession being required, as none shared the royal
+couch more than once, unless she attracted the monarch's regard very
+particularly. In the later times of the Empire, the number of the
+concubines became enormous, amounting (according to one authority) to
+three hundred and twenty-nine, (according to another) to three hundred
+and sixty. They accompanied the king both in his wars and in his hunting
+expeditions. It was a part of their duty to sing and play for the royal
+delectation; and this task, according to one author, they had to perform
+during the whole of each night. It is a more probable statement that
+they entertained the king and queen with music while they dined, one of
+them leading, and the others singing and playing in concert.
+
+The Gynaeceum--in the Susa palace, at any rate--was a building distinct
+from the general edifice, separated from the "king's house" by a court.
+It was itself composed of at least three sets of apartments--viz.
+apartments for the virgins who had not yet gone into the king,
+apartments for the concubines, and apartments for the Queen-Consort and
+the other wives. These different portions were under the supervision
+of different persons. Two eunuchs of distinction had the charge
+respectively of the "first" and of the "second house of the women." The
+Queen-Consort was, at any rate nominally, paramount in the third, her
+authority extending over all its inmates, male and female.
+
+Sometimes there was in the Gynaeceum a personage even more exalted than
+any which have as yet been mentioned. The mother of the reigning prince,
+if she outlived his father, held a position at the Court of her son
+beyond that even of his Chief Wife. She kept the ensigns of royalty
+which she had worn during the reign of her husband; and wielded, as
+Queen-Mother, a far weightier and more domineering authority than she
+ever exercised as Queen-Consort. The habits of reverence and obedience,
+in which the boy had been reared, retained commonly their power over the
+man; and the monarch who in public ruled despotically over millions
+of men, succumbed, within the walls of the seraglio, to the yoke of a
+woman, whose influence he was too weak to throw off. The Queen-Mother
+had her seat at the royal table whenever the king dined with his wife;
+and, while the wife sat below, she sat above the monarch. She had a
+suite of eunuchs distinct from those of her son. Ample revenues were
+secured to her, and were completely at her disposal. She practically
+exercised--though she could not perhaps legally claim--a power of life
+and death. She screened offenders from punishment, procuring for them
+the royal pardon, or sheltering them in her own apartments; and she
+poisoned, or openly executed, those who provoked her jealousy or
+resentment.
+
+The service of the harem, so far as it could not be fitly performed by
+women, was committed to eunuchs. Each legitimate wife--as well as the
+Queen-Mother--had a number of these unfortunates among her attendants;
+and the king intrusted the house of the concubines, and also that of the
+virgins, to the same class of persons. His own attendants seem likewise
+to have been chiefly eunuchs. In the later times, the eunuchs acquired
+a vast political authority, and appear to have then filled all the chief
+offices of state. They were the king's advisers in the palace, and his
+generals in the field. They superintended the education of the young
+princes, and found it easy to make them their tools. The plots and
+conspiracies, the executions and assassinations, which disfigure the
+later portion of the Persian annals, maybe traced chiefly to their
+intrigues and ambition. But the early Persian annals are free from these
+horrors; and it is clear that the power of the eunuchs was, during this
+period, kept within narrow bounds. We hear little of them in authentic
+history till the reign of Xerxes. It is remarkable that the Persepolitan
+sculptures, abounding as they do in representations of Court life, of
+the officers and attendants who approached at all closely to the person
+of the monarch, contain not a single figure of a eunuch in their entire
+range. We may gather from this that there was at any rate a marked
+difference between the Assyrian and the early Persian Court in the
+position which eunuchs occupied at them respectively: we should not,
+however, be justified in going further and questioning altogether the
+employment of eunuchs by the Persian monarchs during the early period,
+since their absence from the sculptures may be accounted for on other
+grounds.
+
+It is peculiarly noticeable in the Persian sculptures and inscriptions
+that they carry to excess that reserve which Orientals have always
+maintained with regard to women. The inscriptions are wholly devoid
+of all reference to the softer sex, and the sculptures give us no
+representation of a female. In Persia, at the present day, it is
+regarded as a gross indecorum to ask a man after his wife; and anciently
+it would seem that the whole sex fell under a law of taboo, which
+required that, whatever the real power and influence of women, all
+public mention of them, as well as all representations of the female
+form, should be avoided. If this were so, it must of course still more
+have been the rule that the women--or, at any rate, those of the upper
+classes--should not be publicly seen. Hence the indignant refusal of
+Vashti to obey the command of King Aha-suerus to show herself to his
+Court. Hence, too, the law which made it a capital offence to address or
+touch one of the royal concubines or even to pass their litters upon
+the road. The litters of women were always curtained; and when the Queen
+Statira rode in hers with the curtains drawn, it was a novelty which
+attracted general attention, as a relaxation of the ordinary etiquette,
+though only females were allowed to come near her. Married women
+might not even see their nearest male relatives, as their fathers and
+brothers; the unmarried had, it is probable, a little more liberty.
+
+As the employment of eunuchs at the Persian Court was mainly in the
+harem, and in offices connected therewith, it is no wonder that
+they shared, to some extent, in the law of taboo, which forbade the
+representation of women. Their proper place was in the female courts and
+apartments, or in close attendance upon the litters, when members of
+the seraglio travelled, or took the air--not in the throne-room, or the
+antechambers, or the outer courts of the palace, which alone furnished
+the scenes regarded as suitable for representation.
+
+Of right, the position at the Persian Court immediately below that of
+the king belonged to the members of certain privileged families. Besides
+the royal family itself--or clan of the Achaemenidae--there were
+six great houses which had a rank superior to that of all the other
+grandees. According to Herodotus these houses derived their special
+dignity from the accident that their heads had been fellow-conspirators
+with Darius Hystaspis; but there is reason to suspect that the rank
+of the families was precedent to the conspiracy in question, certain
+families conspiring because they were great, and not becoming great
+because they conspired. At any rate, from the time of Darius I.,
+there seem to have been seven great families, including that of the
+Achaemenidae, whose chiefs had the privilege of free communication
+with the monarch, and from which he was legally bound to choose his
+legitimate wives. The chiefs appear to have been known as "the Seven
+Princes," or "the Seven Counsellors," of the king. They sat next to him
+at public festivals; they were privileged to tender him their advice,
+whenever they pleased; they recommended important measures of state, and
+were, in part, responsible for them; they could demand admission to the
+monarch's presence at any time, unless he were in the female apartments;
+they had precedence on all great occasions of ceremony, and enjoyed
+a rank altogether independent of office. Sometimes--perhaps most
+commonly--they held office; but they rather conferred a lustre on the
+position which they consented to fill, than derived any additional
+splendor from it.
+
+It does not appear that the chiefs of the seven great families had any
+peculiar insignia. Officers of the Court, on the contrary, seem to have
+always carried, as badges marking their position, either wands about
+three feet in length, or an ornament resembling a lotos blossom, which
+is sometimes seen in the hands of the monarch himself. Such officers
+wore, at their pleasure, either the long Median robe and the fluted cap,
+or the close-fitting Persian tunic and trousers, with the loose felt
+[Greek name]. All had girdles, in which sometimes a dagger was placed;
+and all had collars of gold about their necks, and earrings of gold in
+their ears. The Median robes were of various colors--scarlet, purple,
+crimson, dark gray, etc. Over the Persian tunic a sleeved cloak, or
+great coat, reaching to the ankles, was sometimes worn; this garment was
+fastened by strings in front, and descended loosely from the shoulders,
+no use being commonly made of the sleeves, which hung empty at the
+wearer's side. [PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVI.]
+
+
+An elaborate Court ceremonial was the natural accompaniment of the ideas
+with respect to royalty embodied in the Persian system. Excepting
+the "Seven Princes," no one could approach the royal person unless
+introduced by a Court usher, Prostration--the attitude of worship--was
+required of all as they entered the presence. The hands of the persons
+introduced had to be hidden in their sleeves so long as their audience
+lasted. In crossing the Palace Courts it was necessary to abstain
+carefully from touching the carpet which was laid for the king to walk
+on. Coming into the king's presence unsummoned was a capital crime,
+punished by the attendants with instant death, unless the monarch
+himself, as a sign that he pardoned the intrusion, held out towards the
+culprit the golden sceptre which he bore in his hands. It was also a
+capital offence to sit down, even unknowingly, upon the royal throne;
+and it was a grave misdemeanor to wear one of the king's cast-off
+dresses. Etiquette was almost as severe on the monarch himself as on
+his subjects. He was required to live chiefly in seclusion; to eat his
+meals, for the most part, alone; never to go on foot beyond the palace
+walls; never to revoke an order once given, however much he might regret
+it; never to draw back from a promise, whatever ill results he might
+anticipate from its performance. To maintain the quasi-divine character
+which attached to him it was necessary that he should seem infallible,
+immutable, and wholly free from the weakness of repentance.
+
+As some compensation for the restrictions laid upon him, the Persian
+king had the sole enjoyment of certain luxuries. The wheat of Assos was
+sent to the Court to furnish him with bread, and the vines of Helbon
+were cultivated for the special purpose of supplying him with wine.
+Water was conveyed to Susa for his use from distant streams regarded as
+specially sweet and pure; and in his expeditions he was accompanied, by
+a train of wagons, which were laden with silver flasks, filled from the
+clear stream of the Choaspes. The oasis of Ammon contributed the salt
+with which he seasoned his food. All the delicacies that the Empire
+anywhere produced were accumulated on his board, for the supply of which
+each province was proud to send its best and choicest products.
+
+The chief amusements in which the Great King indulged were hunting and
+playing at dice. Darius Hystaspis, who followed the chase with such
+ardor as on one occasion to dislocate his ankle in the pursuit of a wild
+beast, had himself represented on his signet-cylinder as engaged in a
+lion-hunt. From this representation, we learn that the Persian monarchs,
+like the Assyrian, pursued the king of beasts in their chariots, and
+generally despatched him by means of arrows. Seated in a light car,
+and attended by a single unarmed charioteer, they invaded the haunts of
+these fiercest of brutes, rousing them from their lairs--probably with
+Indian hounds, and chasing them at full speed if they fled, or, if they
+faced the danger, attacking them with arrows or with the javelin. [PLATE
+XXXVI., Fig. 2.] Occasionally the monarch might indulge in this sport
+alone; but generally he was (it seems) accompanied by some of his
+courtiers, who shared the pleasures of the chase with him on the
+condition that they never ventured to let fly their weapons before he
+had discharged his. If they disregarded this rule they were liable
+to capital punishment, and might esteem themselves fortunate if they
+escaped with exile.
+
+Besides lions, the Persian monarch chased, it is probable, stages,
+antelopes, wild asses, wild boars, bears, wild sheep, and leopards.
+[PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 3.] These animals all abounded in the neighborhood
+of the royal palaces, and they are enumerated by Xenophon among the
+beasts hunted by Cyrus. The mode of chasing the wild ass was for the
+horsemen to scatter themselves over the plain, and to pursue the
+animal in turns, one taking up the chase when the horse of another was
+exhausted. The speed of the creature is so great that no horse with
+a rider on his back can long keep pace with him; and thus relays were
+necessary to tire him out, and enable the hunters to bring him within
+the range of their weapons.
+
+When game was scarce in the open country, or when the kings were
+too indolent to seek it in its native haunts, they indulged their
+inclination for sport by chasing the animals which they kept in their
+own "paradises." These were walled enclosures of a large size, well
+wooded, and watered with sparkling streams, in which were bred or kept
+wild beasts of various kinds, chiefly of the more harmless sorts, as
+stags, antelopes, and wild sheep. These the kings pursued and shot with
+arrows, or brought down with the javelin; but the sport was regarded as
+tame, and not to be compared with hunting in the open field.
+
+Within the palace the Persian monarchs are said to have amused
+themselves with dice. They played, it is probable, chiefly with their
+near relatives, as their wives, or the Queen-Mother. The stakes, as was
+to be expected, ran high, as much as a thousand darics (nearly L 1100.)
+being sometimes set on a single throw. Occasionally they played for the
+persons of their slaves, eunuchs, and others, who, when lost, became the
+absolute property of the winner.
+
+Another favorite royal amusement was carving or planing wood. According
+to AElian, the Persian king, when he took a journey, always employed
+himself, as he sat in his carriage, in this way; and Ctesias speaks of
+the occupation as pursued also within the walls of the palace. Manual
+work of this kind has often been the refuge of those rulers, who, sated
+with pleasure and devoid of literary tastes, have found time hang heavy
+upon their hands.
+
+In literature a Persian king seems rarely to have taken any pleasure at
+all. Occasionally, to beguile the weary hours, a monarch may have had
+the "Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Persia and Media" read
+before him; but the kings themselves never opened a book, or studied any
+branch of science or learning. The letters, edicts, and probably even
+the inscriptions, of the monarch were the composition of the Court
+scribes, who took their orders from the king or his ministers, and
+clothed them in their own language. They did not even call upon their
+master to sign his name to a parchment; his seal, on which his name was
+engraved, sufficiently authenticated all proclamations and edicts.
+
+Among the more serious occupations of the monarch were the holding of
+councils, the reviewing of troops, the hearing of complaints, and the
+granting or refusing of redress, the assignment of rewards, perhaps, in
+some cases, the trying of causes, and, above all, the general direction
+of the civil administration and government of the Empire. An energetic
+king probably took care to hear all the reports which were sent up to
+the Court by the various officials employed in the actual government of
+the numerous provinces, as well as those sent in by the persons who from
+time to time inspected, on the part of the Crown, the condition of this
+or that satrapy. Having heard and considered these reports, and perhaps
+taken advice upon them, such a monarch would give clear directions as
+to the answers to be sent, which would be embodied in despatches by his
+secretaries, and then read over to him, before he affixed his seal to
+them. The concerns of an empire so vast as that of Persia would have
+given ample employment for the greater part of the day to any monarch
+who was determined not only to reign, but to govern. Among the Persian
+sovereigns there seems to have been a few who had sufficient energy and
+self-denial to devote themselves habitually to the serious duties of
+their office. Generally, however, the cares of government were devolved
+upon some favorite adviser, a relative, or a eunuch, who was entrusted
+by the monarch with the entire conduct of affairs, in order that he
+might give himself up to sensual pleasures, to the sports of the field,
+or to light and frivolous amusements.
+
+The passion for building, which we have found so strong in Assyria and
+Babylonia, possessed, but in a minor degree, a certain number of the
+Persian monarchs. The simplicity of their worship giving little scope
+for architectural grandeur in the buildings devoted to religion, they
+concentrated their main efforts upon the construction of palaces and
+tombs. The architectural character of these works will be considered in
+a later chapter. It is sufficient to note here that a good deal of the
+time and attention of many monarchs were directed to these objects; and
+particularly it is interesting to remark, that, notwithstanding their
+worldly greatness, and the flattering voices of their subjects, which
+were continually bidding them "live for ever," the Persian kings were
+quite aware of the frail tenure by which man holds his life, and, while
+they were still in vigorous health, constructed their own tombs.
+
+It was an important principle of the Magian religion that the body
+should not after death be allowed to mingle with, and so pollute, any
+one of the four elements. Either from a regard for this superstition, or
+from the mere instinctive desire to preserve the lifeless clay as long
+as possible, the Persians entombed their kings in the following way.
+The body was placed in a golden coffin, which was covered with a
+close-fitting lid, and deposited either in a massive building erected to
+serve at once as a tomb and a monument, or in a chamber cut out of some
+great mass of solid rock, at a considerable elevation above its base. In
+either case, the entrance into the tomb was carefully closed, after the
+body had been deposited in it, by a block or blocks of stone. [PLATE
+XXXVII., Fig. 1.] Inside the tomb were placed, together with the coffin,
+a number of objects, designed apparently for the king's use in the other
+world, as rich cloaks and tunics, trousers, purple robes, collars of
+gold, earrings of gold, set with gems, daggers, carpets, goblets,
+and hangings. Generally the tomb was ornamented with sculptures, and
+sometimes, though rarely, it had an inscription (or inscriptions) upon
+it, containing the name and titles of the monarch whose remains reposed
+within.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVII.]
+
+
+If the tomb were a building, and not rock-hewn, the ground in the
+vicinity was formed into a park or garden, which was planted with all
+manner of trees. Within the park, at some little distance from the
+tomb, was a house, which formed the residence of a body of priests, who
+watched over the safety of the sepulchre.
+
+The Greeks seem to have believed that divine honors were sometimes paid
+to a monarch after his decease; but the spirit of the Persian religion
+was so entirely opposed to any such observance that it is most probable
+the Greeks were mistaken. Observing that sacrifices were offered once a
+month in the vicinity of some of the royal tombs, they assumed that
+the object of the cult was the monarch himself, whereas it was no doubt
+really addressed either to Ormazd or to Mithras. The Persians cannot
+rightly be accused of the worship of dead men, a superstition from which
+both the Zoroastrian and the Magian systems were entirely free.
+
+From this account of the Persian monarchs and their Court, we may
+now turn to a subject which moderns regard as one of much greater
+interest--the general condition, manners, and customs of the Persian
+people. Our information on these points is unfortunately far less full
+than on the subject which we have been recently discussing, but still it
+is perhaps sufficient to give us a tolerably complete notion of the real
+character of the nation.
+
+The Persians, according to Herodotus, were divided into ten tribes, of
+which four were nomadic and three agricultural. The nomadic were the
+Dai, the Mardi, the Dropici, and the Sagartii; the agricultural were
+the Panthilaei, the Derusisei, and the Germanii, or Carmanians. What the
+occupation of the other three tribes was Herodotus does not state;
+but, as one of them--the Pasargadae--was evidently the ruling class,
+consisting, therefore (it is probable), of land owners, who did not
+themselves till the soil, we may perhaps assume that all three occupied
+this position, standing in Persia somewhat--as the three tribes of
+Dorians stood to the other Greeks in the Peloponnese. If this were the
+case, the population would have been really divided broadly into the two
+classes of settled and nomade, whereof the former class was subdivided
+into those who were the lords of the soil, and those who cultivated it,
+either as farmers or as laborers, under them.
+
+The ordinary dress of the poorer class, whether agricultural or nomade,
+was probably the tunic and trousers of leather which have been already
+mentioned as the true national costume of the people. The costume was
+completed by a loose felt cap upon the head, a strap or belt round the
+waist, and a pair of high shoes upon the feet, tied in front with a
+string. [PLATE XXXVIII., Fig. 2.] In later times a linen or muslin rag
+replaced the felt cap, and the tunic was lengthened so as to reach half
+way between the knee and the ankle.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVIII.]
+
+
+The richer classes seem generally to have adopted the Median costume
+which was so prevalent at the Court. They wore long purple or flowered
+robes with loose hanging sleeves, flowered tunics reaching to the knee,
+also sleeved, embroidered trousers, tiaras, and shoes of a more elegant
+shape than the ordinary Persian. Nor was this the whole of their dress.
+Under their trousers they wore drawers, under their tunics shirts, on
+their hands gloves, and under their shoes socks or stockings--luxuries
+these, one and all, little known in the ancient world. The Persians
+were also, like most Orientals, extremely fond of ornaments. Men of rank
+carried, almost as a matter of course, massive chains or collars of gold
+about their necks, and bracelets of gold upon their arms. The sheaths
+and handles of their swords and daggers were generally of gold,
+sometimes, perhaps, studded with gems. Many of them wore earrings. Great
+expense was lavished on the trappings of the horses which they rode or
+drove; the bridle, or at least the bit, was often of solid gold, and the
+rest of the equipment was costly. Among the gems which were especially
+affected, the pearl held the first place. Besides being set in the
+ordinary way, it was bored and strung, in order that it might be used
+for necklaces, bracelets, and ankles. Even children had sometimes golden
+ornaments, which were preferred when the gold was of a reddish color.
+
+Very costly and rich too was the furniture of the better class of
+houses. The tables were plated or inlaid with silver and gold. Splendid
+couches, spread with gorgeous coverlets, invited the inmates to repose
+at their ease; and, the better to insure their comfort, the legs of the
+couches were made to rest upon carpets, which were sufficiently elastic
+to act as a sort of spring, rendering the couches softer and more
+luxurious than they would otherwise have been. Gold and silver plate,
+especially in the shape of drinking-cups, was largely displayed in all
+the wealthy mansions, each household priding itself on the show which it
+could make of the precious metals.
+
+In respect of eating and drinking, the Persians, even better sort, were
+in the earlier times noted for their temperance and sobriety. Their
+ordinary food was wheaten bread, barley-cakes, and meat simply roasted
+or boiled, which they seasoned with salt and with bruised cress-seed, a
+substitute for mustard. The sole drink in which they indulged was water.
+Moreover, it was their habit to take one meal only each day. The poorer
+kind of people were contented with even a simpler diet, supporting
+themselves, to a great extent, on the natural products of the soil, as
+dates, figs, wild pears, acorns, and the fruit of the terebinth-tree.
+But these abstemious habits were soon laid aside, and replaced by luxury
+and self-indulgence, when the success of their arms had put it in their
+power to have the full and free gratification of all their desires and
+propensities. Then, although the custom of having but one meal in the
+day was kept up, the character of the custom was entirely altered by
+beginning the meal early and making it last till night. Not many sorts
+of meat were placed on the board, unless the occasion was a grand one;
+but course after course of the lighter kinds of food flowed on in
+an almost endless succession, intervals of some length being allowed
+between the courses to enable the guests to recover their appetites.
+Instead of water, wine became the usual beverage; each man prided
+himself on the quantity he could drink; and the natural result followed
+that most banquets terminated in general intoxication. Drunkenness even
+came to be a sort of institution. Once a year, at the feast of Mithras,
+the king of Persia, according to Duris, was bound to be drunk. A general
+practice arose of deliberating on all important affairs under the
+influence of wine, so that, in every household, when a family crisis
+impended, intoxication was a duty.
+
+The Persians ate, not only the meats which we are in the habit of
+consuming, but also the flesh of goats, horses, asses, and camels. The
+hump of the last-named animal is considered, even at the present day, a
+delicacy in many parts of the East; but in ancient Persia it would seem
+that the entire animal was regarded as fairly palatable. The horse
+and ass, which no one would touch in modern Persia, were thought,
+apparently, quite as good eating as the ox; and goats, which were far
+commoner than sheep, appeared, it is probable, oftener at table. The
+dietery of a grand house was further varied by the admission into it
+of poultry and game--the game including wild boars, stags, antelopes,
+bustards, and probably partridges; the poultry consisting of geese
+and chickens. Oysters and other fish were used largely as food by the
+inhabitants of the coast-region.
+
+Grades of society were strongly marked among the Persians; and the
+etiquette of the Court travelled down to the lowest ranks of the people.
+Well-known rules determined how each man was to salute his equal,
+his inferior, or his superior; and the observance of these rules was
+universal. Inferiors on meeting a decided superior prostrated themselves
+on the ground; equals kissed each other on the lips; persons nearly but
+not quite equals kissed each other's cheeks. The usual Oriental rules
+prevailed as to the intercourse of the sexes. Wives lived in strict
+seclusion within the walls of the Gynaeceum, or went abroad in litters,
+seeing no males except their sons, their husbands, and their husbands'
+eunuchs. Concubines had somewhat more freedom, appearing sometimes at
+banquets, when they danced, sang, and played to amuse the guests of
+their master.
+
+The Persian was allowed to marry several wives, and might maintain in
+addition as many concubines as he thought proper. Most of the richer
+class had a multitude of each, since every Persian prided himself on the
+number of his sons, and it is even said that an annual prize was given
+by the monarch to the Persian who could show most sons living. The
+concubines were not unfrequently Greeks, if we may judge by the case of
+the younger Cyrus, who took two Greek concubines with him when he made
+his expedition against his brother. It would seem that wives did
+not ordinarily accompany their husbands, when these went on military
+expeditions, but that concubines were taken to the wars by most Persians
+of consideration. Every such person had a litter at her disposal, and a
+number of female attendants, whose business it was to wait upon her and
+execute her orders.
+
+All the best authorities are agreed that great pains were taken by
+the Persians--or, at any rate, by those of the leading clans--in the
+education of their sons. During the first five years of his life the boy
+remained wholly with the women, and was scarcely, if at all, seen by his
+father. After that time his training commenced. He was expected to rise
+before dawn, and to appear at a certain spot, where he was exercised
+with other boys of his age in running, slinging stones, shooting with
+the bow, and throwing the javelin. At seven he was taught to ride, and
+soon afterwards he was allowed to begin to hunt. The riding included,
+not only the ordinary management of the horse, but the power of jumping
+on and off his back when he was at speed, and of shooting with the bow
+and throwing the javelin with unerring aim, while the horse was still at
+full gallop. The hunting was conducted by state-officers, who aimed at
+forming by its means in the youths committed to their charge all the
+qualities needed in war. The boys were made to bear extremes of heat
+and cold, to perform long marches, to cross rivers without wetting their
+weapons, to sleep in the open air at night, to be content with a single
+meal in two days, and to support themselves occasionally on the wild
+products of the country, acorns, wild pears, and the fruit of the
+terebinth-tree. On days when there was no hunting they passed their
+mornings in athletic exercises, and contests with the bow or the
+javelin, after which they dined simply on the plain food mentioned above
+as that of the men in the early times, and then employed themselves
+during the afternoon in occupations regarded as not illiberal--for
+instance, in the pursuits of agriculture, planting, digging for roots,
+and the like, or in the construction of arms and hunting implements,
+such as nets and springes. Hardy and temperate habits being secured
+by this training, the point of morals on which their preceptors mainly
+insisted was the rigid observance of truth. Of intellectual education
+they had but little. It seems to have been no part of the regular
+training of a Persian youth that he should learn to read. He was given
+religious notions and a certain amount of moral knowledge by means of
+legendary poems, in which the deeds of gods and heroes were set before
+him by his teachers, who recited or sung them in his presence, and
+afterwards required him to repeat what he had heard, or, at any rate,
+to give some account of it. This education continued for fifteen years,
+commencing when the boy was five, and terminating when he reached the
+age of twenty.
+
+The effect of this training was to render the Persian an excellent
+soldier and a most accomplished horseman. Accustomed from early boyhood
+to pass the greater part of every day in the saddle, he never felt so
+much at home as when mounted upon a prancing steed. On horseback he
+pursued the stag, the boar, the antelope, even occasionally the bear
+or the lion, and shot his arrows, or slung his stones, or hurled his
+javelin at them with deadly aim, never pausing for a moment in his
+career. [PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 2.] Only when the brute turned on his
+pursuers, and stood at bay, or charged them in its furious despair, they
+would sometimes descend from their coursers, and receive the attack,
+or deal the _coup de grace_ on foot, using for the purpose a short
+but strong hunting-spear. [PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 3.] The chase was the
+principal delight of the upper class of Persians, so long as the ancient
+manners were kept up, and continued an occupation in which the bolder
+spirits loved to indulge long after decline had set in, and the advance
+of luxury had changed, to a great extent, the character of the nation.
+
+At fifteen years of age the Persian was considered to have attained to
+manhood, and was enrolled in the ranks of the army, continuing liable to
+military service from that time till he reached the age of fifty. Those
+of the highest rank became the body-guard of the king, and these formed
+the garrison of the capital. They were a force of not less than fourteen
+or fifteen thousand men. Others, though liable to military service, did
+not adopt arms as their profession, but attached themselves to the Court
+and looked to civil employment, as satraps, secretaries, attendants,
+ushers, judges, inspectors, messengers. A portion, no doubt, remained
+in the country districts, and there followed those agricultural pursuits
+which the Zoroastrian religion regarded as in the highest degree
+honorable. But the bulk of the nation must, from the time of the great
+conquests, have passed their lives mainly, like the Roman legionaries
+under the Empire, in garrison duty in the provinces. The entire
+population of Persia Proper can scarcely have exceeded two millions. Not
+more than one fourth of this number would be males between the ages
+of fifteen and fifty. This body of 500,000 men, besides supplying the
+official class at the Court and throughout the provinces, and also
+furnishing to Persia Proper those who did the work of its cultivation,
+had to supply to the whole Empire those large and numerous garrisons on
+whose presence depended the maintenance of the Persian dominion in every
+province that had been conquered. According to Herodotus, the single
+country of Egypt contained, in his day, a standing army of 120,000
+Persians; and, although this was no doubt an exceptional case, Egypt
+being more prone to revolt than any other satrapy, yet there is abundant
+evidence that elsewhere, in almost every part of the Empire, large
+bodies of troops were regularly maintained; troops which are always
+characterized as "Persians." We may suspect that under the name were
+included the kindred nation of the Medes, and perhaps some other Arian
+races, as the Hyrcanians, and the Bactrians, for it is difficult to
+conceive that such a country as Persia Proper could alone have kept up
+the military force which the Empire required for its preservation;
+but to whatever extent the standing army was supplemented from these
+sources, Persia must still have furnished the bulk of it; and the
+demands of this service must have absorbed, at the very least, one third
+if not one half of the adult male population.
+
+For trade and commerce the Persians were wont to express extreme
+contempt. The richer classes made it their boast that they neither
+bought nor sold, being supplied (we must suppose) from their estates,
+and by their slaves and dependents, with all that they needed for the
+common purposes of life. Persians of the middle rank would condescend to
+buy, but considered it beneath them to sell; while only the very lowest
+and poorest were actual artisans and traders. Shops were banished
+from the more public parts of the towns; and thus such commercial
+transactions as took place were veiled in what was regarded as a decent
+obscurity. The reason assigned for this low estimation of trade was that
+shopping and bargaining involved the necessity of falsehood.
+
+According to Quintus Curtius, the Persian ladies had the same objection
+to soil their hands with work that the men had to dirty theirs with
+commerce. The labors of the loom, which no Grecian princess regarded
+as unbecoming her rank, were despised by all Persian women except the
+lowest; and we may conclude that the same idle and frivolous gossip
+which resounds all day in the harems of modern Iran formed the main
+occupation of the Persian ladies in the time of the Empire.
+
+With the general advance of luxury under Xerxes and his successors, of
+which something has been already said, there were introduced into the
+Empire a number of customs of an effeminate and demoralizing character.
+From the earliest times the Persians seem to have been very careful of
+their beards and hair, arranging the latter in a vast number of short
+crisp curls, and partly curling the former, partly training it to hang
+straight from the chin. After a while, not content with this degree
+of care for their personal appearance, they proceeded to improve it by
+wearing false hair in addition to the locks which nature had given them,
+by the use of cosmetics to increase the delicacy of their complexions,
+and by the application of a coloring matter to the upper and lower
+eyelids, for the purpose of giving to the eye an appearance of greater
+size and beauty. They employed a special class of servants to perform
+these operations of the toilet, whom the Greeks called "adorners". Their
+furniture increased, not merely in splendor, but in softness; their
+floors were covered with carpets, their beds with numerous and delicate
+coverlets; they could not sit upon the ground unless a cloth was first
+spread upon it; they would not mount a horse until he was so caparisoned
+that the seat on his back was softer even than their couches. At the
+same time they largely augmented the number and variety of their viands
+and of their sauces, always seeking after novel delicacies, and offering
+rewards to the inventors of "new pleasures." A useless multitude of lazy
+menials was maintained in all rich households, each servant confining
+himself rigidly to a single duty, and porters, bread-makers, cooks,
+cup-bearers, water-bearers, waiters at table, chamberlains, "awakers,"
+"adorners," all distinct from one another, crowded each noble mansion,
+helping forward the general demoralization. It was probably at this
+comparatively late period that certain foreign customs of a sadly
+lowering character were adopted by this plastic and impressible people,
+who learnt the vice of paederasty from the Greeks, and adopted from the
+Assyrians the worship of Beltis, with its accompaniment of religious
+prostitution.
+
+On the whole the Persians may seem to have enjoyed an existence free
+from care, and only too prosperous to result in the formation of a high
+and noble character. They were the foremost Asiatic people of their
+time, and were fully conscious of their pre-eminency. A small ruling
+class in a vast Empire, they enjoyed almost a monopoly of office, and
+were able gradually to draw to themselves much of the wealth of the
+provinces. Allowed the use of arms, and accustomed to lord it over the
+provincials, they themselves maintained their self-respect, and showed,
+even towards the close of their Empire, a spirit and an energy seldom
+exhibited by any but a free people. But there was nevertheless a dark
+side to the picture--a lurking danger which must have thrown a shadow
+over the lives of all the nobler and richer of the nation, unless
+they were utterly thoughtless. The irresponsible authority and cruel
+dispositions of the kings, joined to the recklessness with which they
+delegated the power of life and death to their favorites, made it
+impossible for any person of eminence in the whole Empire to feel sure
+that he might not any day be seized and accused of a crime, or even
+without the form of an accusation be taken and put to death, after
+suffering the most excruciating tortures. To produce this result, it was
+enough to have failed through any cause whatever in the performance of
+a set task, or to have offended, even by doing him too great a service,
+the monarch or one of his favorites. Nay, it was enough to have
+provoked, through a relation or a connection, the anger or jealousy of
+one in favor at Court; for the caprice of an Oriental would sometimes
+pass over the real culprit and exact vengeance from one quite
+guiltless--even, it may be, unconscious--of the offence given.
+Theoretically, the Persian was never to be put to death for a single
+crime; or at least he was not to suffer until the king had formally
+considered the whole tenor of his life, and struck a balance between his
+good and his evil deeds to see which outweighed the other. Practically,
+the monarch slew with his own hand any one whom he chose, or, if
+he preferred it, ordered him to instant execution, without trial
+or inquiry. His wife and his mother indulged themselves in the same
+pleasing liberty of slaughter, sometimes obtaining his tacit consent to
+their proceedings, sometimes without consulting him. It may be said
+that the sufferers could at no time be very many in number, and that
+therefore no very wide-spread alarm can have been commonly felt; but
+the horrible nature of many of the punishments, and the impossibility
+of conjecturing on whom they might next fall, must be set against their
+infrequency; and it must be remembered that an awful horror, from which
+no precautions can save a man, though it happen to few, is more terrible
+than a score of minor perils, against which it is possible to guard.
+Noble Persians were liable to be beheaded, to be stoned to death, to be
+suffocated with ashes, to have their tongues torn out by the roots, to
+be buried alive, to be shot in mere wantonness, to be flayed and then
+crucified, to be buried all but the head, and to perish by the lingering
+agony of "the boat." If they escaped these modes of execution, they
+might be secretly poisoned, or they might be exiled, or transported for
+life. Their wives and daughters might be seized and horribly mutilated,
+or buried alive, or cut into a number of fragments. With these perils
+constantly impending over their heads, the happiness of the nobles can
+scarcely have been more real than that of Damocles upon the throne of
+Dionysius.
+
+In conclusion, we may notice as a blot upon the Persian character and
+system, the cruelty and barbarity which was exhibited, not only in these
+abnormal acts of tyranny and violence, but also in the regular and legal
+punishments which were assigned to crimes and offences. The criminal
+code, which--rightly enough--made death the penalty of murder, rape,
+treason, and rebellion, instead of stopping at this point, proceeded
+to visit with a like severity even such offences as deciding a cause
+wrongfully on account of a bribe, intruding without permission on the
+king's privacy, approaching near to one of his concubines, seating
+oneself, even accidentally, on the throne, and the like. The modes of
+execution were also, for the most part, unnecessarily cruel. Poisoners
+were punished by having their heads placed upon a broad stone, and then
+having their faces crushed, and their brains beaten out by repeated
+blows with another stone. Ravishers and rebels were put to death by
+crucifixion. The horrible punishment of "the boat" seems to have been no
+individual tyrant's cruel conception, but a recognized and legal form of
+execution. The same may be said also of burying alive. Again the Persian
+secondary punishments were for the most part exceedingly barbarous.
+Xenophon tells us, as a proof of the good government maintained by the
+younger Cyrus, in his satrapy, that under his sway it was common to see
+along all the most frequented roads numbers of persons who had had
+their hands or feet cut off, or their eyes put out, as a punishment
+for thieving and rascality. And other writers relate that similar
+mutilations were inflicted on rebels, and even on prisoners of war.
+It would seem, indeed, that mutilation and scourging were the ordinary
+forms of secondary punishment used by the Persians, who employed
+imprisonment solely for the safe custody of an accused person between
+his arrest and his execution, while they had recourse to transportation
+and exile only in the case of political offenders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. LANGUAGE AND WRITING.
+
+
+It has been intimated in the account of the Median Empire which was
+given in a former-volume that the language of the Persians, which was
+identical, or almost identical, with that of the Medes, belonged to the
+form of speech known to moderns as Indo-European. The characteristics of
+that form of speech are a certain number of common, or at least
+widely spread, roots, a peculiar mode of inflecting, together with
+a resemblance in the inflections, and a similarity of syntax or
+construction. Of the old Persian language the known roots are, almost
+without exception, kindred forms to roots already familiar to the
+philologist through the Sanscrit, or the Zend, or both; while many are
+of that more general type of which we have spoken--forms common to all,
+or most of the varieties of the Indo-European stock. To instance in a
+few very frequently recurring words--"father" is in old Persian (as
+in Sanscrit) _pitar_, which differs only in the vocalization from the
+Zendic _patar_, the Greek [ ], and the Latin _pater_, and of which
+cognate forms are the Gothic _fadar_, the German voter, the English
+_father_, and the Erse _athair_.
+
+     [See the html version for the following pages of this
+     chapter which is a section with hundreds of Greek
+     words.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 365]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 366]
+
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+[Illustration: PAGE 377]
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+[Illustration: PAGE 378]
+
+
+The ordinary Persian writing was identical with that which has been
+described in the second volume of this work as Median. A cuneiform
+alphabet, consisting of some thirty-six or thirty-seven forms,
+expressive of twenty-three distinct sounds, sufficed for the wants of
+the people, whose language was simple and devoid of phonetic luxuriance.
+Writing was from left to right, as with the Arian nations generally.
+Words were separated from one another by an oblique wedge; and were
+divided at any point at which the writer happened to reach the end of
+a line. Enclitics were joined without any break to the words which they
+accompanied.
+
+The Persian writing which has come down to us is almost entirely upon
+stone. It comprises various rock tablets, a number of inscriptions upon
+buildings, and a few short legends upon vases and cylinders. It is in
+every case incised or cut into the material. The letters are of various
+sizes, some (as those at Elwend) reaching a length of about two inches,
+others (those, for instance, on the vases) not exceeding the sixth of
+an inch. The inscriptions cover a space of at least a hundred and eighty
+years, commencing with Cyrus, and terminating with Artaxerxes Ochus,
+the successor of Mnemon. The style of the writing is, on the whole,
+remarkably uniform, the latter inscriptions containing only two
+characters unknown to the earlier times. Orthography, however, and
+grammar are in these later inscriptions greatly changed, the character
+of the changes being indicative of corruption and decline, unless,
+indeed, we are to ascribe them to mere ignorance on the part of the
+engravers.
+
+There can be little doubt that, besides the cuneiform character, which
+was only suited for inscriptions, the Persians employed a cursive
+writing for common literary purposes. Ctesias informs us that the royal
+archives were written on parchment; and there is abundant evidence that
+writing was an art perfectly familiar to the educated Persian. It might
+have been supposed that the Pehlevi, as the lineal descendant of the
+Old Persian language, would have furnished valuable assistance towards
+solving the question of what character the Persians employed commonly;
+but the alphabetic type of the Pehlevi inscriptions is evidently
+Semitic; and it would thus seem that the old national modes of writing
+had been completely lost before the establishment by Ardeshir, son of
+Babek, of the new Persian Empire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. ARCHITECTURE AND OTHER ARTS.
+
+
+If in the old world the fame of the Persians, as builders and artists,
+fell on the whole below that of the Assyrians and Babylonians--their
+instructors in art, no less than in letters and science--it was not so
+much that they had not produced works worthy of comparison with those
+which adorned Babylon and Nineveh, as that, boasting less antiquity and
+less originality than those primitive races, they did not strike in the
+same way the imagination of the lively Greeks, who moreover could not
+but feel a certain jealousy of artistic successes, which had rewarded
+the efforts of a living and rival people. It happened, moreover, that
+the Persian masterpieces were less accessible to the Greeks than the
+Babylonian, and hence there was actually less knowledge of their real
+character in the time when Greek literature was at its best. Herodotus
+and Xenophon, who impressed on their countrymen true ideas of the
+grandeur and magnificence of the Mesopotamian structures, never
+penetrated to Persia Proper, and perhaps never beheld a real Persian
+building. Ctesias, it is true, as a resident at the Achaemenian Court
+for seventeen years, must certainly have seen Susa and Ecbatana, if not
+even Persepolis, and he therefore must have been well acquainted with
+the character of Persian palaces; but, so far as appears from the
+fragments of his work which have come down to us, he said but little
+on the subject of these edifices. It was not until Alexander led his
+cohorts across the chain of Zagros to the high plateau beyond, that a
+proper estimate of the great Persian buildings could be made; and then
+the most magnificent of them all was scarcely seen before it was laid
+in ruins. The barbarous act of the great Macedonian conqueror, in
+committing the palace of Persepolis to the flames, tended to prevent
+a full recognition of the real greatness of Persian art even after the
+Greeks had occupied the country; but we find from this time a certain
+amount of acknowledgment of its merits--a certain number of passages,
+which, like that which forms the heading to this chapter, admit alike
+its grandeur and its magnificence.
+
+If, however, the ancients did less than justice to the efforts of the
+Persians in architecture, sculpture, and the kindred arts, moderns have,
+on the contrary, given them rather an undue prominence. From the
+middle of the seventeenth century, when Europeans first began freely to
+penetrate the East, the Persian ruins, especially those of Persepolis,
+drew the marked attention of travellers; and in times when the site of
+Babylon had attracted but scanty notice, and that of Nineveh and the
+other great Assyrian cities was almost unknown, English, French, and
+German savans measured, described, and figured the Persian remains with
+a copiousness and exactness that left little to desire. Chardin, the
+elder Mebuhr, Le Brun, Ouseley, Ker Porter, exerted themselves with the
+most praiseworthy zeal to represent fully and faithfully the marvels of
+the Chehl Minar; and these persevering efforts were followed within no
+very lengthy period by the splendid and exhaustive works of the Baron
+Texier and of MM. Flandin and Coste. Persepolis rose again from its
+ashes in the superb and costly volumes of these latter writers, who
+represented on the grandest scale, and in the most finished way,
+not only the actual but the ideal--not only the present but the
+past--placing before our eyes at once the fullest and completest views
+of the existing ruins, and also restorations of the ancient structures,
+some of them warm with color and gilding, which, though to a certain
+extent imaginary, probably give to a modern the best notion that it is
+now possible to form of an old Persian edifice.
+
+It is impossible within the limits of the present work, and with the
+resources at the author's command, to attempt a complete description of
+the Persian remains, or to vie with writers who had at their disposal
+all the modern means of illustration. By the liberality of a well-known
+authority on architecture, he is able to present his readers with
+certain general views of the most important structures; and he also
+enjoys the advantage of illustrating some of the most curious of the
+details with engravings from a set of photographs recently taken. These
+last have, it is believed, an accuracy beyond that of any drawings
+hitherto made, and will give a better idea than words could possibly do
+of the merit of the sculptures. With these helps, and with the addition
+of reduced copies from some of MM. Flandin and Coste's plates, the
+author hopes to be able to make his account fairly intelligible, and to
+give his readers the opportunity of forming a tolerably correct judgment
+on the merit of the Persian art in comparison with that of Babylon and
+Assyria.
+
+Persian architectural art displayed itself especially in two forms of
+building--the palace and the tomb. Temples were not perhaps unknown in
+Persia, though much of the worship may always have been in the open
+air; but temples, at least until the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon, were
+insignificant, and neither attracted the attention of contemporaries,
+nor were of such a character as to leave traces of themselves to after
+times. The palaces of the Persian kings, on the other hand, and the
+sepulchres which they prepared for themselves, are noticed by many
+ancient writers as objects of interest; and, notwithstanding certain
+doubts which have been raised in recent years, it seems tolerably
+certain that they are to be recognized in the two chief classes of
+ancient ruins which still exist in the country.
+
+The Persian palatial buildings, of which traces remain, are four in
+number. One was situated at Ecbatana, the Median capital, and was a sort
+of adjunct to the old residence of the Median kings. Of this only a very
+few vestiges have been hitherto found; and we can merely say that it
+appears to have been of the same general character with the edifices
+which will be hereafter described. Another was built by Darius and
+his son Xerxes on the great mound of Susa; and of this we have the
+ground-plan, in a great measure, and various interesting details. A
+third stood within the walls of the city of Persepolis, but of this not
+much more is left than of the construction at Ecbatana. Finally, there
+was in the neighborhood of Persepolis, but completely distinct from the
+town, the Great Palace, which, as the chief residence, at any rate of
+the later kings, Alexander burnt, and of which the remains still to
+be seen are ample, constituting by far the most remarkable group of
+buildings now existing in this part of Asia.
+
+It is to this last edifice, or group of edifices, that the reader's
+attention will be specially directed in the following pages. Here the
+greatest of the Persian monarchs seem to have built the greatest of
+their works. Here the ravages of time and barbarism, sadly injurious
+as they may have been, have had least effect. Here, moreover, modern
+research has spent its chief efforts, excavations having been made,
+measurements effected, and ground-plans laid down with accuracy. In
+describing the Persepolitan buildings we have aids which mostly fail us
+elsewhere--charts, plans, drawings in extraordinary abundance and often
+of high artistic value, elaborate descriptions, even photographs. [PLATE
+XXXVIII., Fig. 3.] If the describer has still a task of some difficulty
+to perform, it is because an overplus of material is apt to cause almost
+as much embarrassment as too poor and scanty a supply.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.]
+
+
+The buildings at Persepolis are placed upon a vast platform. It was
+the practice of the Persians, as of the Assyrians and Babylonians, to
+elevate their palaces in this way. They thus made them at once more
+striking to the eye, more dignified, and more easy to guard. In
+Babylonia an elevated habitation was also more healthy and more
+pleasant, being raised above the reach of many insects, and laid open to
+the winds of heaven, never too boisterous in that climate. Perhaps the
+Assyrians and Persians in their continued use of the custom, to some
+extent followed a fashion, elevating their royal residences, not so much
+for security or comfort, as because it had come to be considered that a
+palace ought to have a lofty site, and to look down on the habitations
+of meaner men; but, however this may have been, the custom certainly
+prevailed, and at Persepolis we have, in an almost perfect condition,
+this first element of a Persian palace. [PLATE XXXIX.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIX.]
+
+
+The platform at Persepolis is built at the foot of a high range of
+rocky hills, on which it abuts towards the east. It is composed of solid
+masses of hewn stone, which were united by metal clamps, probably of
+iron or lead. The masses were not cut to a uniform size, nor even always
+to a right angle, but were fitted together with a certain amount
+of irregularity, which will be the best understood from the woodcut
+overleaf. Many of the blocks were of enormous size; and their
+quarrying, transport, and elevation to their present places, imply very
+considerable mechanical skill. They were laid so as to form a perfectly
+smooth perpendicular wall, the least height of which above the
+plain below is twenty feet. The outline of the platform was somewhat
+irregular. Speaking roughly, we may call it an oblong square, with a
+breadth about two thirds of its length; but this description, unless
+qualified, will give an idea of far greater uniformity than actually
+prevails. [PLATE XL., Fig. 1.] The most serious irregularity is on the
+north side, the general line of which is not parallel to the south side,
+nor at right angles with the western one, but forms with the general
+line of the western an angle of about eighty degrees. The cause of this
+deviation lay probably in the fact that, on this side, a low rocky
+spur ran out from the mountain-range in this direction, and that it
+was thought desirable to accommodate the line of the structure to the
+natural irregularities of the ground. In addition to the irregularity
+of general outline thus produced, there is another of such perpetual
+occurrence that it must be regarded as an essential element of the
+original design, and therefore probably as approving itself to the
+artistic notions of the builder. This is the occurrence of frequent
+angular projections and indentations, which we remark on all three sides
+of the platform equally, and which would therefore seem to have been
+regarded in Persia, no less than in Assyria, as ornamental.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XL.]
+
+
+The whole of the platform is not of a uniform height. On the contrary,
+it seems to have been composed, as originally built, of several quite
+distinct terraces. Three of these still remain, exhibiting towards the
+west a very marked difference of elevation. The lowest of the three is
+on the south side, and it may therefore be termed the Southern Terrace.
+It extends from east to west a distance of about 800 feet, with a width
+of about 170 or 180, and has an elevation above the plain of from twenty
+to twenty-three feet. Opposite to this, on the northern side of the
+platform, is a second terrace, more than three times the breadth of the
+southern one, which may be called, by way of distinction, the Northern
+Terrace. This has an elevation above the plain of thirty-five feet.
+Intermediate between these two is the great Central or Upper Terrace,
+standing forty-five feet above the plain, having a length of 770 feet
+along the west face of the platform, and a width of about 400. Upon
+this Upper Terrace were situated almost all the great and important
+buildings.
+
+The erection of a royal residence on a platform composed of several
+terraces involved the necessity of artificial ascents, which the
+Persian architects managed by means of broad and solid staircases. These
+staircases constitute one of the most remarkable features of the place,
+and seem to deserve careful and exact description. [PLATE XLI., Fig. 2.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLI.]
+
+
+The first, and grandest in respect of scale, is on the west front of the
+platform towards its northern end, and leads up from the plain to the
+summit of the northern terrace, furnishing the only means by which the
+platform can even now be ascended. It consists of two distinct sets of
+steps, each composed of two flights, with a broad landing-place between
+them, the steps themselves running at right angles to the platform wall,
+and the two lower flights diverging, while the two upper ones converge
+to a common landing-place on the top. The slope of the stairs is so
+gentle that, though each step has a convenient width, the height of a
+step is in no case more than from three to four inches. It is thus
+easy to ride horses both up and down the staircase, and travellers are
+constantly in the habit of ascending and descending it in this way.
+
+The width of the staircase is twenty-two feet--space sufficient to allow
+of ten horsemen ascending each flight of steps abreast. Altogether this
+ascent, which is on a plan unknown elsewhere, is pronounced to be the
+noblest example of a flight of stairs to be found in any part of the
+world. It does not project beyond the line of the platform whereto it
+leads, but is, as it were, taken out of it. [PLATE XLII.]
+
+
+[[Illustration: PLATE XLII.]
+
+
+The next, and in some respects the most remarkable of all the
+staircases, conducts from the level of the northern platform to that of
+the central or upper terrace. This staircase fronts northward, and opens
+on the view as soon as the first staircase (A on the plan) has been
+ascended, lying to the right of the spectator at the distance of about
+fifty or sixty yards. It consists of four single flights of steps, two
+of which are central, facing one another, and leading to a projecting
+landing-place (B), about twenty feet in width; while the two others
+are on either side of the central flights, distant from them about
+twenty-one yards. The entire length of this staircase is 212 feet;
+its greatest projection in front of the line of the terrace whereon it
+abuts, is thirty-six feet. The steps, which are sixteen feet wide, rise
+in the same gentle way as those of the lower or platform staircase. The
+height of each is under four inches; and thus there are thirty-one steps
+in an ascent of ten feet.
+
+The feature which specially distinguishes this staircase from the lower
+one already described is its elaborate ornamentation. The platform
+staircase is perfectly plain. The entire face which this staircase
+presents to the spectator is covered with sculptures. In the first
+place, on the central projection, which is divided perpendicularly into
+three compartments, are represented, in the spandrels on either side,
+a lion devouring a bull, and in the compartment between the spandrels
+eight colossal Persian guardsmen, armed with spears and either with
+sword or shield. Further, above the lion and bull, towards the edge of
+the spandrel where it slopes, forming a parapet to the steps, [PLATE
+XLIII., Fig. 1.] there was a row of cypress trees, while at the end of
+the parapet and along the whole of its inner face were a set of small
+figures, guardsmen habited like those in the central compartment, but
+carrying mostly a bow and quiver instead of a shield. Along the extreme
+edge of the parapet externally was a narrow border thickly set with
+rosettes. [PLATE XLIII., Fig. 2.] Next, in the long spaces between the
+central stairs and those on either side of them, the spandrels contain
+repetitions of the lion and bull sculpture, while between them and the
+central stairs the face of the wall is divided horizontally into three
+bands, each of which has been ornamented with a continuous row of
+figures. The highest row of the three is unfortunately mutilated, the
+upper portion of all the bodies being lost in consequence of their
+having been sculptured upon a parapet wall built originally to protect
+the edge of the terrace, but now fallen away. The middle and lowest rows
+are tolerably perfect, and possess considerable interest, as well as
+some artistic merit. The entire scene represented on the right side
+seems to be the bringing of tribute or presents to the monarch by the
+various nations under his sway. On the left-hand side this subject was
+continued to a certain extent; but the greater part of the space was
+occupied by representations of guards and officers of the court, the
+guards being placed towards the centre, and, as it were, keeping the
+main stairs, while the officers were at a greater distance. The three
+rows of figures were separated from one another by narrow bands, thickly
+set with rosettes.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIII.]
+
+
+The builder of this magnificent work was not content to leave it to
+history or tradition to connect his name with his construction, but
+determined to make the work itself the means of perpetuating his memory.
+In three conspicuous parts of the staircase, slabs were left clear of
+sculpture, undoubtedly to receive inscriptions commemorative of the
+founder. The places selected were the front of the middle staircase, the
+exact centre of the whole work, and the space adjoining the spandrels to
+the extreme right and the extreme left. In one instance alone, however,
+was this part of the work completed. On the right hand, or western
+extremity of the staircase, an inscription of thirty lines in the old
+Persian language informs us that the constructor was "Xerxes, the Great
+King, the King of Kings, the son of King Darius, the Achaemenian." The
+central and left-hand tablets, intended probably for Babylonian and
+Scythic translations of the Persian legend, were never inscribed, and
+remain blank to the present day.
+
+The remaining staircases will not require very lengthy or elaborate
+descriptions. They are six in number, and consist, in most instances,
+of a double flight of steps, similar to the central portion of the
+staircase which has been just described. Two of them (e and f) belonged
+to the building marked as the "Palace of Darius" on the plan, and gave
+entrance to it from the central platform above which it is elevated
+about fourteen or fifteen feet. Two others (c and d) belonged to the
+"Palace of Xerxes." These led up to a broad paved space in front of
+that building, which formed a terrace, elevated about ten feet above
+the general level of the central platform. Their position was at the two
+ends of the terrace, opposite to one another; but in other respects
+they cannot be said to have matched. The eastern, which consisted of two
+double flights, was similar in general arrangement to the staircase by
+which the platform was mounted from the plain, excepting that it was not
+recessed, but projected its full breadth beyond the line of the terrace.
+It was decidedly the more elegant of the two, and evidently formed the
+main approach. It was adorned with the usual bull and lion combats, with
+figures of guardsmen, and with attendants carrying articles needed for
+the table or the toilet. The inscriptions upon it declare it to be
+the work of Xerxes. [PLATE XLIV.] The western staircase was composed
+merely of two single flights, facing one another, with a narrow
+landing-place between them. It was ornamented like the eastern, but
+somewhat less elaborately.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIV.]
+
+
+A staircase, very similar to this last, but still one with certain
+peculiarities, was built by Artaxerxes Ochus, at the west side of the
+Palace of Darius, in order to give it a second entrance. [PLATE XLV.,
+Fig. 1.] There the spandrels have the usual figures of the lion and
+bull; but the intermediate space is somewhat unusually arranged. It is
+divided vertically and horizontally into eight squared compartments,
+three on either side, and two in the middle. The upper of these two
+contains nothing but a winged circle, the emblem of Divinity being thus
+placed reverently by itself. Below, in a compartment of double size, is
+an inscription of Ochus, barbarous in language, but very religious in
+tone. The six remaining compartments had each four figures, representing
+tribute-bearers introduced to the royal presence by a court officer.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLV.]
+
+
+The other, and original, staircase to this palace (f on the plan) was
+towards the north, and led up to the great portico, which was anciently
+its sole entrance. Two flights of steps, facing each other, conducted to
+a paved space of equal extent with the portico and projecting in front
+of it about five feet. On the base of the staircase were sculptures in
+a single line--the lion and bull in either spandrel--and between the
+spandrels eighteen colossal guardsmen, nine facing either way towards
+a central inscription, which was repeated in other languages on slabs
+placed between the guardsmen and the bulls. Above the spandrels, on
+the parapet which fenced the stairs, was a line of figures representing
+attendants bringing into the palace materials for the banquet. A similar
+line adorned the inner wall of the staircase.
+
+Opposite to this, at the distance of about thirty-two yards, was another
+very similar staircase, leading up to the portico of another
+building, erected (apparently) by Artaxerxes Ochus, which occupied the
+south-western corner of the upper platform. The sculptures here seem to
+have been of the usual character but they are so mutilated that no very
+decided opinion can be passed upon them.
+
+Last of all, a staircase of a very peculiar character, (h on the plan)
+requires notice. This is a flight of steps cut in the solid rock,
+which leads up from the southern terrace to the upper one, at a point
+intervening between the south-western edifice, or palace of Artaxerxes,
+and the palace of Xerxes, or central southern edifice. These steps are
+singular in facing the terrace to which they lead, instead of being
+placed sideways to it. They are of rude construction, being without a
+parapet, and wholly devoid of sculpture or other ornamentation.
+They furnish the only communication between the southern and central
+terraces.
+
+It is a peculiarity of the Persepolitan ruins that they are not
+continuous, but present to the modern inquirer the appearance, at
+any rate, of a number of distinct buildings. Of these the platform
+altogether contains ten, five of which are of large size, while the
+remainder are comparatively insignificant.
+
+Of the five large buildings four stand upon the central or upper
+terrace, while one lies east of that terrace, between it and the
+mountains. The four upon the central terrace comprise three buildings
+made up of several sets of chambers, together with one great open
+pillared hall, to which are attached no subordinate apartments. The
+three complex edifices will be here termed "palaces," and will take
+the names of their respective founders, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes
+Ochus: the fourth will be called the "Great Hall of Audience." The
+building between the upper terrace and the mountains will be termed the
+"Great Eastern Edifice."
+
+The "Palace of Darius," which is one of the most interesting of the
+Persepolitan buildings, stands near the western edge of the platform,
+midway between the "Great Hall of Audience" and the "Palace of
+Artaxerxes Ochus." [PLATE XLVI., Fig. 1.] It is a building about one
+hundred and thirty five feet in length, and in breadth a little short of
+a hundred. Of all the existing buildings on the platform it occupies
+the most exalted position, being elevated from fourteen to fifteen feet
+above the general level of the central terrace, and being thus four or
+five feet higher than the "Palace of Xerxes." It fronted towards the
+south, where it was approached by a double staircase of the usual
+character, which led up to a deep portico of eight pillars arranged in
+two rows. On either side of the portico were guard-rooms, which opened
+upon it, in length twenty-three feet, and in breadth thirteen. Behind
+the portico lay the main chamber, which was a square of fifty feet,
+having a roof supported by sixteen pillars, arranged in four rows of
+four, in line with the pillars of the portico. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 2.]
+The bases for the pillars alone remain; and it is thus uncertain whether
+their material was stone or wood. They were probably light and slender,
+not greatly interrupting the view. The hall was surrounded on all sides
+by walls from four to five feet in thickness, in which were doors,
+windows, and recesses, symmetrically arranged. The entrance from the
+portico was by a door in the exact centre of the front wall, on either
+side of which were two windows, looking into the portico. The
+opposite, or back, wall was pierced by two doors, which faced the
+intercolumniations of the side rows of pillars, as the front door faced
+the intercolumniation of the central rows. Between the two doors
+which pierced the back wall was a squared recess, and similar recesses
+ornamented the same wall on either side of the doors. The side walls
+were each pierced originally by a single doorway, between which and the
+front wall was a squared recess, while beyond, between the doorways
+and the back wall, were two recesses of the same character. Curiously
+enough, these side doorways and recesses fronted the pillars, not the
+intercolumniations.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVI.]
+
+
+No sculpture, so far as appears, adorned this apartment, excepting
+in the doorways, which however had in every case this kind of
+ornamentation. The doorways in the back wall exhibited on their jambs
+figures of the king followed by two attendants, one holding a cloth, and
+the other a fly-chaser. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 3.] These figures had in every
+case their faces turned towards the apartment. The front doorway showed
+on its jambs the monarch followed by the parasol-bearer and the bearer
+of the fly-chaser, with his back turned to the apartment, issuing forth,
+as it were, from it. On the jambs of the doors of the side apartments
+was represented the king in combat with a lion or a monster, the king
+here in every case facing outwards, and seeming to guard the entrances
+to the side chambers.
+
+At the back of the hall, and at either side, were chambers of very
+moderate dimensions. The largest were to the rear of the building,
+where there seems to have been one about forty feet by twenty-three, and
+another twenty-eight feet by twenty. The doorways here had sculptures,
+representing attendants bearing napkins and perfumes. The side chambers,
+five in number, were considerably smaller than those behind the great
+hall, the largest not exceeding thirty-four feet by thirteen.
+
+It seems probable that this palace was without any second story. There
+is no vestige in any part of it of a staircase--no indication of its
+height having ever exceeded from twenty-two to twenty-five feet. It was
+a modest building, simple and regular, covering less than half the space
+of an ordinary palace in Assyria. [PLATE XLV., Fig. 2.] Externally,
+it must have presented an appearance not very dissimilar to that of
+the simpler Greek temples; distinguished from them by peculiarities of
+ornamentation, but by no striking or important feature, excepting
+the grand and elaborately sculptured staircase. Internally, it was
+remarkable for the small number of its apartments, which seem not to
+have been more than twelve or thirteen, and for the moderate size of
+most of them. Even the grand central hall covered a less area than three
+out of the five halls in the country palace of Sargon. The effect
+of this room was probably fine, though it must have been somewhat
+over-crowded with pillars. If these were, however (as is probable),
+light wooden posts, plated with silver or with gold, and if the ceiling
+consisted (as it most likely did) of beams, crossing each other at right
+angles, with square spaces between them, all likewise coated with the
+precious metals; if moreover the cold stone walls, excepting where
+they were broken by a doorway, or a window, were similarly decked; if
+curtains of brilliant hues hung across the entrances; if the pavement
+was of many-colored stones, and in places covered with magnificent
+carpets; if an elevated golden throne, under a canopy of purple, adorned
+the upper end of the room, standing against the wall midway between the
+two doors--if this were in truth the arrangement and ornamentation of
+the apartment, we can well understand that the _coup d'oeil_ must
+have been effective, and the impression made on the spectator highly
+pleasing. A room fifty feet square, and not much more than twenty high,
+could not be very grand; but elegance of form, combined with richness
+of material and splendor of coloring, may have more than compensated for
+the want of that grandeur which results from mere size.
+
+If it be inquired how a palace of the dimensions described can have
+sufficed even for one of the early Persian kings, the reply must
+seemingly be that the building in question can only have contained
+the public apartments of the royal residence--the throne-room,
+banqueting-rooms, guard-rooms, etc.,--and that it must have been
+supplemented by at least one other edifice of a considerable size, the
+Gynaeceum or "House of the Women." There is ample room on the platform
+for such a building, either towards the east, where the ground is now
+occupied by a high mound of rubbish, or on the west, towards the edge of
+the platform, where traces of a large edifice were noted by Niebuhr. On
+the whole, this latter situation seems to be the more probable; and the
+position of the Gynaeceum in this quarter may account for the alteration
+made by Artaxerxes Ochus in the palace of Darius, which now seriously
+interferes with its symmetry. Artaxerxes cut a doorway in the outer
+western wall, and another opposite to it in the western wall of the
+great hall, adding at the same time a second staircase to the building,
+which thus became accessible from the west no less than from the south.
+It has puzzled the learned in architecture to assign a motive for this
+alteration. May we not find an adequate one in the desire to obtain a
+ready and comparatively private access to the Gynaeceum, which must have
+been somewhere on the platform, and which may well have lain in this
+direction?
+
+The minute account which has been now given of this palace will render
+unnecessary a very elaborate description of the remainder. Two grand
+palatial edifices seem to have been erected on the platform by later
+kings--one by Xerxes and the other by Artaxerxes Ochus; but the latter
+of these is in so ruined a condition, and the former is so like the
+palace of Darius, that but few remarks need be made upon either. The
+palace of Xerxes is simply that of Darius on a larger scale, the pillars
+in the portico being increased from two rows of four to two rows of six,
+and the great hall behind being a square of eighty instead of a square
+of fifty feet, with thirty-six instead of sixteen pillars to support
+its roof. On either side of the hall, and on either side of the portico,
+were apartments like those already described as abutting on the same
+portions of the older palace, differing from them chiefly in being
+larger and more numerous. The two largest, which were thirty-one feet
+square, had roofs supported on pillars, the numbers of such supports
+being in each case four. The only striking difference in the plans of
+the two buildings consisted in the absence from the palace of Xerxes of
+any apartments to the rear of the great hall. In order to allow space
+for an ample terrace in front, the whole edifice was thrown back so
+close to the edge of the upper platform that no room was left for any
+chambers at the back, since the hall itself was here brought almost to
+the very verge of the sheer descent from the central to the low southern
+terrace. In ornamentation the palaces also very closely resembled each
+other, the chief difference being that the combats of the king with
+lions and mythological monsters, which form the regular ornamentation
+of the side-chambers in the palace of Darius, occur nowhere in the
+residence of his son, where they are replaced by figures of attendants
+bringing articles for the toilet or the table, like those which adorn
+the main staircase of the older edifice. Figures of the same kind also
+ornament all the windows in the palace of Xerxes. A tone of mere sensual
+enjoyment is thus given to the later edifice, which is very far from
+characterizing the earlier; and the decline of morals at the Court,
+which history indicates as rapid about this period, is seen to
+have stamped itself, as such changes usually do, upon the national
+architecture.
+
+A small building, at the distance of about twenty or twenty-five yards
+from the eastern wall of the palace of Xerxes, possesses a peculiar
+interest, in consequence of its having some claims to be considered
+the most ancient structure upon the platform. It consists of a hall and
+portico, in size, proportions, and decoration almost exactly resembling
+the corresponding parts of Darius's palace, but unaccompanied by any
+trace of circumjacent chambers, and totally devoid of inscriptions. The
+building is low, on the level of the northern, rather than on that of
+the central terrace, and is indeed half buried in the rubbish which has
+accumulated at its base. Its fragments are peculiarly grand and massive,
+while its sculptures are in strong and bold relief. There can be little
+doubt but that it was originally, like the hall and portico of Darius,
+surrounded on three sides by chambers. These, however, have entirely
+disappeared, having probably been pulled down to furnish materials for
+more recent edifices. Like the palaces of Xerxes and Artaxerxes Ochus,
+and unlike the palace of Darius, the building faces to the north, which
+is the direction naturally preferred in such a climate. We may suppose
+it to have been the royal residence of the earlier times, the erection
+of Cyrus or Cambyses, and to have been intended especially for summer
+use, for which its position well fitted it. Darius, wishing for a winter
+palace at Persepolis, as well as a summer one, took probably this early
+palace for his model, and built one as nearly as possible resembling it,
+except that, for the sake of greater warmth, he made his new erection
+face southwards. Xerxes, dissatisfied with the size of the old summer
+palace, built a new one at its side of considerably larger dimensions,
+using perhaps some of the materials of the old palace in his new
+building. Finally, Artaxerxes Ochus made certain additions to the palace
+of Xerxes on its western side, and at the same time added a staircase
+and a doorway to the winter residence of Darius. Thus the Persepolitan
+palace, using the word in its proper sense of royal residence, attained
+its full dimensions, occupying the southern half of the great central
+platform, and covering with its various courts and buildings a space
+500 feet long by 375 feet wide, or nearly the space covered by the less
+ambitious of the palaces of Assyria.
+
+Besides edifices adapted for habitation, the Persepolitan platform
+sustained two other classes of buildings. These were propylaea, or
+gateways--places commanding the approach to great buildings, where a
+guard might be stationed to stop and examine all comers--and halls of a
+vast size, which were probably throne-rooms, where the monarch held
+his court on grand occasions, to exhibit himself in full state to his
+subjects. The propylaea upon the platform appear to have been four
+in number. One, the largest, was directly opposite the centre of the
+landing-place at the top of the great stairs which gave access to the
+platform from the plain. This consisted of a noble apartment, eighty-two
+feet square, with a roof supported by four magnificent columns, each
+between fifty and sixty feet high. The walls of the apartment were from
+sixteen to seventeen feet thick. Two grand portals, each twelve feet
+wide by thirty-six feet high, led into this apartment, one directly
+facing the head of the stairs, and the other opposite to it, towards the
+east. Both were flanked with colossal bulls, those towards the staircase
+being conventional representations of the real animal, while the
+opposite pair are almost exact reproductions of the winged and
+human-headed bulls, with which the Assyrian discoveries have made us so
+familiar. The accompanying illustration [PLATE XLVII., Fig. 1.], which
+is taken from a photograph, exhibits this inner pair in their present
+condition. The back of one of the other pair is also visible. Two of
+the pillars--which alone are still standings appear in their places,
+intervening between the front and the back gateway.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVII.]
+
+
+The walls which enclosed this chamber, notwithstanding their immense
+thickness, have almost entirely disappeared. On the southern side alone,
+where there seems to have been a third doorway, unornamented, are there
+any traces of them. We must conclude that they were either of burnt
+brick or of small blocks of stone, which the natives of the country
+in later times found it convenient to use as material for their own
+buildings.
+
+An edifice, almost exactly similar to this, but of very inferior
+dimensions, occupied a position due east of the palace of Darius, and
+a little to the north of the main staircase leading to the terrace in
+front of the palace of Xerxes. The bases of two pillars and the jambs
+of three doorways remain, from which it is easy to reconstruct the main
+building. Its position seems to mark it as designed to give entrance
+to the structure, whatever it was, which occupied the site of the great
+mound (M on the Plan) east of Darius's palace, and north of the palace
+of his son. The ornamentation, however, would rather connect it with
+the more eastern of the two great pillared halls, which will have to be
+described presently.
+
+A third edifice of the same kind stood in front of the great eastern
+hall, at the distance of about seventy yards from its portico. This
+building is more utterly ruined than either of the preceding, and its
+dimensions are open to some doubt. On the whole, it seems probable that
+it resembled the great propylaea at the head of the stairs leading from
+the plain rather than the central propylaea just described. Part of its
+ornamentation was certainly a colossal bull, though whether human-headed
+or not cannot be determined.
+
+The fourth of the propylaea was on the terrace whereon stood the palace
+of Xerxes, and directly fronting the landing-place at the head of its
+principal stairs, just as the propylaea first described fronted the
+great stairs leading up from the plain. Its dimensions were suited to
+those of the staircase which led to it, and of the terrace on which it
+was placed. It was less than one fourth the size of the great propylaea,
+and about half that of the propylaea which stood the nearest to it.
+The bases of the four pillars alone remain in situ; but, from the
+proportions thus obtained, the position of the walls and doorways is
+tolerably certain.
+
+We have now to pass to the most magnificent of the Perse-politan
+buildings--the Great Pillared Halls--which constitute the glory of Arian
+architecture, and which, even in their ruins, provoke the wonder and
+admiration of modern Europeans, familiar with all the triumphs of
+Western art, with Grecian temples, Roman baths and amphitheatres,
+Moorish palaces, Turkish mosques, and Christian cathedrals. Of these
+pillared halls, the Persepolitan platform supports two, slightly
+differing in their design, but presenting many points of agreement. They
+bear the character of an earlier and a later building--a first effort
+in the direction which circumstances compelled the architecture of the
+Persians to take, and the final achievement of their best artists in
+this kind of building.
+
+Nearly midway in the platform between its northern and its southern
+edges, and not very far from the boundary of rocky mountain on which
+the platform abuts towards the east, is the vast edifice which has been
+called with good reason the "Hall of a Hundred Columns," since its
+roof was in all probability supported by that number of pillars. This
+building consisted of a single magnificent chamber, with a portico, and
+probably guard-rooms, in front, of dimensions quite unequalled upon
+the platform. The portico was 183 feet long by 52 feet deep, and was
+sustained by sixteen pillars, about 33 feet high, arranged in two rows
+of eight. The great chamber behind was a square of 227 feet, and had
+therefore an area of about 51,000 feet. Over this vast space were
+distributed, at equal distances from one another, one hundred columns,
+each 35 feet high, arranged in ten rows of ten each, every pillar thus
+standing at a distance of nearly 20 feet from any other. The four walls
+which enclosed this great hall had a uniform thickness of 10 1/2 feet,
+and were each pierced at equal intervals by two doorways, the doorways
+being thus exactly opposite to one another, and each looking down an
+avenue of columns. In the spaces of wall on either side of the doorways,
+eastward, westward, and southward, were three niches, all square-topped,
+and bearing the ornamentation which is universal in the case of all
+niches, windows, and doorways in the Persepolitan ruins. [PLATE XLVII.,
+Fig. 2.] In the northern, or front, wall, the niches were replaced by
+windows looking upon the portico, excepting towards the angles of the
+building, where niches were retained, owing to a peculiarity in the
+plan of the edifice which has now to be noticed. The portico, instead
+of being, as in every other Persian instance, of the same width with the
+building which it fronted, was 44 feet narrower, its antce projecting
+from the front wall, not at either extremity, but at the distance of 11
+feet from the corner. While the porch was thus contracted, so that the
+pillars had to be eight in each row instead of ten, space was left on
+either side for a narrow guard-room opening on to the porch, indications
+of which are seen in the doorways placed at right angles to the front
+wall, which are ornamented with the usual figures of soldiers armed
+with spear and shield. It has been suggested that the hall was, like the
+smaller pillared chambers upon the platform, originally surrounded on
+three sides by a number of lesser apartments; and this is certainly
+possible: but no trace remains of any such buildings. The ornamentation
+which exists seems to show that the building was altogether of a public
+character. Instead of exhibiting attendants bringing articles for the
+toilet or the banquet, it shows on its doors the monarch, either engaged
+in the art of destroying symbolical monsters, or seated on his throne
+under a canopy, with the tiara on his head, and the golden sceptre in
+his right hand. The throne representations are of two kinds. On the
+jambs of the great doors leading out upon the porch, we see in the top
+compartment the monarch seated under the canopy, accompanied by five
+attendants, while below him are his guards, arranged in five rows of
+ten each, some armed with spears and shields, others with spears, short
+swords, bows and quivers. Thus the two portals together exhibit the
+figures of 200 Persian guardsmen in attendance on the person of the
+king. The doors at the back of the building present us with a still
+more curious sculpture. On these the throne appears elevated on a lofty
+platform, the stages of which, three in number, are upheld by figures
+in different costumes, representing apparently the natives of all the
+different provinces of the Empire. It is a reasonable conjecture that
+this great hall was intended especially for a throne-room, and that in
+the representations on these doorways we have figured a structure which
+actually existed under its roof (probably at t in the plan)--a platform
+reached by steps, whereon, in the great ceremonies of state, the royal
+throne was placed, in order that the monarch might be distinctly seen at
+one and the same time by the whole Court.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVIII.]
+
+
+The question of the lighting of this huge apartment presents some
+difficulties. On three sides, as already observed, the hall had (so
+far as appears) no windows--the places where windows might have been
+expected to occur being occupied by niches. The apparent openings are
+consequently reduced to some fifteen, viz., the eight doorways, and
+seven windows, which looked out upon the portico, and were therefore
+overhung and had a north aspect. It is clear that sufficient light could
+not have entered the apartment from these--the only visible--apertures.
+We must therefore suppose either that the walls above the niches were
+pierced with windows, which is quite possible, or else that light was in
+some way or other admitted from the roof. The latter is the supposition
+of those most competent to decide. M. Flandin conjectures that the roof
+had four apertures, placed at the points where the lines drawn from
+the northern to the southern, and those drawn from the eastern to the
+western, doors would intersect one another. He seems to suppose that
+these openings were wholly unprotected, in which case they would have
+admitted, in a very inconvenient way, both the sun and the rain. May we
+not presume that, if such openings existed, they were guarded by louvres
+such as have been regarded as probably lighting the Assyrian halls, and
+of which a representation has already been given?
+
+The portico of the Hall of a Hundred Columns was flanked on either side
+by a colossal bull, standing at the inner angle of the antes, and thus
+in some degree narrowing the entrance. Its columns were fluted, and
+had in every case the complex capital, which occurs also in the great
+propylaea and in the Hall of Xerxes. It was built of the same sort of
+massive blocks as the south-eastern edifice, or Ancient Palace--blocks
+often ten feet square by seven feet thick, and may be ascribed probably
+to the same age as that structure. Like that edifice, it is situated
+somewhat low; it has no staircase, and no inscription. We may fairly
+suppose it to have been the throne-room or great hall of audience of the
+early king who built the South-eastern Palace.
+
+We have now to describe the most remarkable of all the Persepolitan
+edifices--a building the remains of which stretch nearly 350 feet in one
+direction, while in the other they extend 246 feet. Its ruins consist
+almost entirely of pillars, which are divided into four groups. The
+largest of these was a square of thirty-six pillars, arranged in six
+rows of six, all exactly equidistant from one another, and covering
+an area of above 20,000 square feet. On three sides of this square,
+eastward, northward, and westward, were magnificent porches, each
+consisting of twelve columns, arranged in two rows, in line with the
+pillars of the central cluster. These porches stood at the distance of
+seventy feet from the main building, and have the appearance of having
+been entirely separate from it. They are 143 feet long, by thirty broad,
+and thus cover each an area of 4260 feet. The most astonishing feature
+in the whole building is the height of the pillars. These, according to
+the measurements of M. Flandin, had a uniform altitude throughout the
+building of sixty-four feet. Even in their ruin, they tower over every
+other erection upon the platform, retaining often, in spite of the
+effects of time, an elevation of sixty feet.
+
+The capitals of the pillars were of three kinds. Those of the side
+colonnades were comparatively simple: they consisted, in each case, of
+a single member, formed, in the eastern colonnade, of two half-griffins,
+with their heads looking in opposite directions [PLATE XLVII, Fig. 2];
+and, in the western colonnade, of two half-bulls, arranged in the
+same manner [PLATE XLVII., Fig. 3]. The capitals of the pillars in the
+northern colonnade, which faced the great sculptured staircase, and
+constituted the true front of the building, were of a very complex
+character. They may be best viewed as composed of three distinct
+members--first, a sort of lotos-bud, accompanied by pendent leaves;
+then, above that, a member, composed of volutes like those of the Ionic
+order, but placed in a perpendicular instead of a horizontal direction;
+and at the top, a member composed of two half-bulls, exactly similar to
+that which forms the complete capital of the western group of pillars.
+The pillars of the groat central cluster had capitals exactly like those
+of the northern colonnade.
+
+The bases of the colonnade pillars are of singular beauty. Bell-shaped,
+and ornamented with a double or triple row of pendent lotus-leaves, some
+rounded, some narrowed to a point; they are as graceful as they are rare
+in their forms, and attract the admiration of all beholders. Above them
+rise the columns, tapering gently as they ascend, but without any swell
+or entasis. They consist of several masses of stone, carefully joined
+together, and secured at the joints by an iron cramp in the direction of
+the column's axis. All are beautifully fluted along their entire length,
+the number of the incisions or flutings being from forty-eight to
+fifty-two in each pillar. They are arcs of circles smaller than
+semicircles, thus resembling those of the Doric, rather than those of
+the Ionic or Corinthian order. The cutting of all is very exact and
+regular.
+
+There can be little doubt but that both the porches, and the
+great central pillar-cluster, were roofed in. The double-bull and
+double-griffin capital are exactly suited to receive the ends of beams,
+which would stretch from pillar to pillar, and support a roof and an
+entablature. [PLATE L., Fig.1.] We may see in the entrances to the royal
+tombs the true use of pillars in a Persian building, and the character
+of the entablature which, they were intended to sustain, Assuming,
+then, that both the great central pillar phalanx and the three detached
+colonnades supported a roof, the question arises, were the colonnades
+in any way united with the main building, or did they stand completely
+detached from it? It has been supposed that they were all porticos _in
+antis_, connected with the main building by solid walls--that the great
+central column-cluster was surrounded on all sides by a wall of a very
+massive description, from the four corners of which similar barriers
+were carried down to the edge of the terrace, abutting in front upon
+the steps of the great sculptured staircase, and extending eastward and
+westward, so as to form the antce of an eastern and a western portico.
+In the two corners between the northern in _antae_ of the side porticos
+and the _antae_ of the portico in front are supposed to have been large
+guard-rooms, entirely filling up the two angles. The whole building is
+thus brought into close conformity with the "Palace of Xerxes," from
+which it is distinguished only by its superior size, its use of stone
+pillars, and the elongation of the tetrastyle chambers at the sides of
+that edifice into porticos of twelve pillars each.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE L.]
+
+
+The ingenuity of this conception is unquestionable; and one is tempted
+at first sight to accept a solution which removes so much that is
+puzzling, and establishes so remarkable a harmony between works whose
+outward aspect is so dissimilar. It seems like the inspiration of genius
+to discern so clearly the like in the unlike, and one inclines at first
+to believe that what is so clever cannot but be true. But a rigorous
+examination of the evidence leads to an opposite conclusion, and if it
+does not absolutely disprove Mr. Fergusson's theory, at any rate shows
+it to be in the highest degree doubtful. Such walls as he describes,
+with their _antae_ and their many doors and windows, should have left
+very marked traces of their existence in great squared pillars at the
+sides of porticos, in huge door-frames and window-frames, or at least
+in the foundations of walls, or, the marks of them, on some part of the
+paved terrace. Now the entire absence of squared pillars for the ends
+of antce, of door-frames, and window-frames, or even of such sculptured
+fragments as might indicate their former existence, is palpable and is
+admitted; nor is there any even supposed trace of the walls, excepting
+in one of the lines which by the hypothesis they would occupy. In front
+of the building, midway between the great pillar-cluster and the north
+colonnade, are the remains of four stone bases, parallel to one another,
+each seventeen feet long by five feet six inches wide. Mr. Fergusson
+regards these bases as marking the position of the doors in his front
+wall; and they are certainly in places where doors might have been
+looked for, if the building had a front wall, since the openings are
+exactly opposite the inter-columniations of the pillars, both in the
+portico and in the main cluster. But there are several objections to the
+notion of these bases being the foundations of the jambs of doors. In
+the first place, they are too wide apart, being at the distance from one
+another of seventeen feet, whereas no doorway on the platform exceeds a
+width of twelve or thirteen feet. In the second place, if these massive
+stone bases were prepared for the jambs of doors, it could only have
+been for massive stone jambs like those of the other palaces; but
+in that case, the jambs could not have disappeared. Thirdly, if the
+doorways on this side were thus marked, why were they not similarly
+marked on the other sides of the building? On the whole, the supposition
+of M. Flandin, that the bases were pedestals for ornamental statues,
+perhaps of bulls, seems more probable than that of Mr. Fergusson;
+though, no doubt, there are objections also to M. Flandin's hypothesis,
+and it would be perhaps best to confess that we do not know the use of
+these strange foundations, which have nothing that at all resembles them
+upon the rest of the platform.
+
+Another strong objection to Mr. Fergusson's theory, and one of which
+he, to a certain extent, admits the force, is the existence of drains,
+running exactly in the line of his side walls, which, if such walls
+existed, would be a curious provision on the part of the architect for
+undermining his own work. Mr. Fergusson supposes that they might be
+intended to drain the walls themselves and keep them dry. But as it is
+clear that they must have carried off the whole surplus water from
+the roof of the building, and as there is often much rain and snow
+at Persepolis, their effect on the foundations of such a wall as Mr.
+Fergusson imagines would evidently be disastrous in the extreme.
+
+To these minute and somewhat technical objections may be added the
+main one, whereof all alike can feel the force--namely, the entire
+disappearance of such a vast mass of building as Mr. Fergusson's
+hypothesis supposes. To account for this, Mr. Fergusson is obliged to
+lay it down, that in this magnificent structure, with its solid
+stone staircase, its massive pavement of the same material, and its
+seventy-two stone pillars, each sixty-four feet high, the walls were of
+mud. Can we believe in this incongruity? Can we imagine that a prince,
+who possessed an unbounded command of human labor, and an inexhaustible
+supply of stone in the rocky mountains close at hand, would have had
+recourse to the meanest of materials for the walls of an edifice which
+he evidently intended to eclipse all others upon the platform. And,
+especially, can we suppose this, when the very same prince used solid
+blocks of stone, in the walls of the very inferior edifice which he
+constructed in this same locality? Mr. Fergusson, in defence of
+his hypothesis, alleges the frequent combination of meanness with
+magnificence in the East, and softens down the meanness in the present
+case by clothing his mud walls with enamelled tiles, and painting them
+with all the colors of the rainbow. But here again the hypothesis is
+wholly unsupported by fact. Neither at Persepolis, nor at Pasargadae,
+nor at any other ancient Persian site, has a single fragment of an
+enamelled tile or brick been discovered. In Babylonia and Assyria, where
+the employment of such an ornamentation was common, the traces of it
+which remain are abundant. Must not the entire absence of such traces
+from all exclusively Persian ruins be held to indicate that this mode of
+adorning edifices was not adopted in Persia?
+
+If then we resign the notion of this remarkable building having been a
+walled structure, we must suppose that it was a summer throne-room,
+open to all the winds of heaven, except so far as it was protected by
+curtains. For the use of these by the Persians in pillared edifices, we
+have important historical authority in the statement already quoted from
+the Book of Esther. The Persian palace, to which that passage directly
+refers, contained a structure almost the exact counterpart of this
+at Persepolis; and it is probable that at both places the interstices
+between the outer pillars of, at any rate, the great central colonnade,
+were filled with "hangings of white and green and blue, fastened with
+cords of white and purple to silver rings," which were attached to the
+"pillars of marble;" and that by these means an undue supply of light
+and air, as well as an unseemly publicity, were prevented. A traveller
+in the country well observes, in allusion to this passage from Esther:
+Nothing could be more appropriate than this method at Susa and
+Persepolis, the spring residences of the Persian monarchs. It must be
+considered that these columnar halls were the equivalents of the modern
+throne-rooms, that here all public business was dispatched, and that
+here the king might sit and enjoy the beauties of the landscape. With
+the rich plains of Susa and Persepolis before him, he could well, after
+his winter's residence at Babylon, dispense with massive walls, which
+would only check the warm fragrant breeze from those verdant prairies
+adorned with the choicest flowers. A massive roof, covering the whole
+expanse of columns, would be too cold and dismal, whereas curtains
+around the central group would serve to admit both light and warmth.
+Nothing can be conceived better adapted to the climate or the season.
+
+If the central cluster of pillars was thus adapted to the purposes of
+a throne-room, equally well may the isolated colonnades have served as
+ante-chambers or posts for guards. Protected, perhaps, with curtains
+or awnings of their own, of a coarser material than those of the main
+chamber, or at any rate casting, when the sun was high, a broad and deep
+shadow, they would give a welcome shelter to those who had to watch
+over the safety of the monarch, or who were expecting but had not yet
+received their summons to the royal presence. Except in the very hottest
+weather, the Oriental does not love to pass his day within doors. Seated
+on the pavement in groups, under the deep shadows of these colonnades,
+which commanded a glorious view of the vast fertile plain of the
+Bendamir, of the undulating mountain-tract beyond, and of the
+picturesque hills known now as Koh-Istakhr, or Koh-Rhamgherd, the
+subjects of the Great King, who had business at Court, would wait,
+agreeably enough, till their turn came to approach the throne.
+
+Our survey of the Persepolitan platform is now complete; but, before we
+entirely dismiss the subject of Persian palaces, it seems proper to say
+a few words with respect to the other palatial remains of Achasmenian
+times, remains which exist in three places--at Murgab or Pasargadse, at
+Istakr, and at the great mound of Susa. The Murgab and Istakr ruins were
+carefully examined by MM. Coste and Flandin; while General Williams and
+Mr. Loftus diligently explored, and completely made out, the plan of the
+Susian edifice.
+
+The ruins at Murgab, which are probably the most ancient in Persia,
+comprise, besides the well-known "Tomb of Cyrus," two principal
+buildings. The largest of these was of an oblong-square shape, about 147
+feet long by 116 wide. It seems to have been surrounded by a lofty
+wall, in which were huge portals, consisting of great blocks of
+stone, partially hollowed out, to render them portable. There was an
+inscription on the jambs of each portal, containing the words, "I am
+Cyrus the King, the Achaemenian." Within the walled enclosure which may
+have been skirted internally by a colonnade was a pillared building, of
+much greater height than the surrounding walls, as is evident from the
+single column which remains. This shaft, which is perfectly plain, and
+shows no signs of a capital, has an altitude of thirty-six feet, with
+a diameter of three feet four inches at the base. On the area around,
+which was carefully paved, are the bases of seven other similar pillars,
+arranged in lines, and so situated as apparently to indicate an oblong
+hall, supported by twelve pillars, in three rows of four each. The
+chief peculiarity of the arrangement is, a variety in the width of the
+intercolumniations, which measure twenty-seven feet ten inches in one
+direction, but twenty-one feet only in the other. The smaller building,
+which is situated at only a short distance from the larger one, covers a
+space of 125 feet by fifty. It consists of twelve pillar bases, arranged
+in two rows of six each, the pillars being somewhat thicker than those
+of the other building, and placed somewhat closer together. [PLATE
+XLIX., Fig. 5.] The form of the base is very singular. It exhibits
+at the side a semicircular bulge, ornamented with a series of nine
+flutings, which are carried entirely round the base in parallel
+horizontal circles. [PLATE L., Fig. 2.] In front of the pillar bases,
+at the distance of about twenty-three feet from the nearest, is a square
+column, still upright, on which is sculptured a curious mythological
+figure, together with the same curt legend, which appears on the larger
+building--"I am Cyrus, the King, the Achaemenian."
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIX.]
+
+
+There are two other buildings at Murgab remarkable for their masonry.
+One is a square tower, with slightly projecting corners, built of
+hewn blocks of stone, very regularly laid, and carried to a height
+of forty-two feet. The other is a platform, exceedingly massive and
+handsome, composed entirely of squared stone, and faced with blocks
+often eight or ten feet long, laid in horizontal courses, and rusticated
+throughout in a manner that is highly ornamental. [PLATE L. Fig. 3.] The
+style resembles that of the substructions of the Temple of Jerusalem.
+It occurs occasionally, though somewhat rarely, in Greece; but there
+is said to exist nowhere so extensive and beautiful a specimen of it as
+that of the platform at this ancient site. [PLATE L., Fig. 4.]
+
+The palace at Istakr is in better preservation than either of the two
+pillared edifices at Murgab; but still, it is not in such a condition as
+to enable us to lay down with any certainty even its ground-plan. [PLATE
+LI., Fig. 1.] One pillar only remains erect; but the bases of eight
+others have been found in situ; the walls are partly to be traced,
+and the jambs of several doorways and niches are still standing. These
+remains show that in many respects, as in the character of the pillars,
+which were fluted and had capitals like those already described, in the
+massiveness of the door and window jambs, and in the thickness of
+the walls, the Istakr Palace resembled closely the buildings on the
+Persepolitan platform; but at the same time they indicate that its plan
+was wholly different, and thus our knowledge of the platform buildings
+in no degree enables us to complete, or even to carry forward to any
+appreciable extent, the ground-plan of the edifice derived from actual
+research. The height of the columns, which is inferior to that of the
+lowest at the great platform, would seem to indicate, either that the
+building was the first in which stone pillars were attempted, or that
+it was erected at a time when the Persians no longer possessed the
+mechanical skill required to quarry, transport, and raise into place the
+enormous blocks used in the best days of the nation.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LI.]
+
+
+The palace of Susa, exhumed by Mr. Loftus and General Williams,
+consisted of a great Hall or Throne-room, almost exactly a duplicate
+of the Chehl Minar at Persepolis, and of a few other very inferior
+buildings. It stood at the summit of the great platform, a quadrilateral
+mass of unburnt brick, which from a remote antiquity had supported the
+residence of the old Susian kings. It fronted a little west of north,
+and commanded a magnificent view over the Susianian plains to the
+mountains of Lauristan. An inscription, repeated on four of its
+pillar-bases, showed that it was originally built by Darius Hystaspis,
+and afterwards repaired by Artaxerxes Longimanus. As it was so exactly
+a reproduction of an edifice already minutely described, no further
+account of it need be here given.
+
+From the palaces of the Persian kings we may now pass to their tombs,
+remarkable structures which drew the attention of the ancients, and
+which have been very fully examined and represented in modern times.
+These tombs are eight in number, but present only two types, so that
+it will be sufficient to give in this place a detailed account of two
+tombs--one of each description.
+
+The most ancient, and, on the whole, the most remarkable of the tombs,
+is almost universally allowed to be that of the Great Cyrus. It is
+unique in design, totally different from all the other royal sepulchres;
+and, though it has been often described, demands, and must
+receive, notice in any account that is given of the ancient Persian
+constructions. The historian Arrian calls it "a house upon a pedestal;"
+and this brief description exactly expresses its general character. On a
+base, composed of huge blocks of the most beautiful white marble,1 which
+rises pyramidically in seven steps of different heights, there stands a
+small "house" of similar material, crowned with a stone roof, which
+is formed in front and rear into a pediment resembling that of a Greek
+temple. [PLATE LI., Fig.3.] The "house" has no window, but one of the
+end walls was pierced by a low and narrow doorway, which led into a
+small chamber or cell, about eleven feet long, seven broad, and seven
+high. Here, as ancient writers inform us, the body of the Great Cyrus
+was deposited in a golden coffin. Internally the chamber is destitute
+of any inscription, and indeed seems to have been left perfectly plain.
+Externally, there is a cornice of some elegance below the pediment, a
+good molding over the doorway, which is also doubly recessed--and two
+other very slight moldings, one at the base of the "house," and the
+other at the bottom of the second step. [PLATE LI., Fig. 2.] Except for
+these, the whole edifice is perfectly plain. Its present height above
+the ground is thirty-six feet, and it may originally have been a foot
+or eighteen inches higher, for the top of the roof is worn away. It
+measures at the base forty-seven feet by forty-three feet nine inches.
+
+The tomb stands within a rectangular area, marked out by pillars, the
+bases or broken shafts of which are still to be seen. They appear to
+have been twenty-four in number; all of them circular and smooth, not
+fluted; six pillars occupied each side of the rectangle, and they stood
+distant from each other about fourteen feet. It is probable that they
+originally supported a colonnade, which skirted internally a small
+walled court, within which the tomb was placed. The capitals of the
+pillars, if they had any, have wholly disappeared; and the researches
+conducted on the spot have failed to discover any trace of them.
+
+The remainder of the Persian royal sepulchres are rock-tombs,
+excavations in the sides of mountains, generally at a considerable
+elevation, so placed as to attract the eye of the beholder, while they
+are extremely difficult of approach. Of this kind of tomb there are
+four in the face of the mountain which bounds the Pulwar Valley on the
+north-west, while there are three others in the immediate vicinity of
+the Persepolitan platform, two in the mountain which overhangs it, and
+one in the rocks a little further to the south. The general shape of
+the excavations, as it presents itself to the eye of the spectator,
+resembles a Greek cross. [PLATE LII., Fig. 1.] This is divided by
+horizontal lines into three portions, the upper one (corresponding with
+the topmost limb of the cross) containing a very curious sculptured
+representation of the monarch worshipping Ormazd; the middle one, which
+comprises the two side limbs, together with the space between them,
+being carved architecturally so as to resemble a portico; and the third
+compartment (corresponding with the lowest limb of the cross) being left
+perfectly plain. In the centre of the middle compartment is sculptured
+on the face of the rock the similitude of a doorway, closely resembling
+those which still stand on the great platform; that is to say, doubly
+recessed, and ornamented at the top with lily-work. The upper portion of
+this doorway is filled with the solid rock, smoothed to a flat surface
+and crossed by three horizontal bars. The lower portion, to the height
+of four or five feet, is cut away; and thus entrance is given to the
+actual tomb, which is hollowed out in the rock behind.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LII.]
+
+
+Thus far the rock tombs, are, with scarcely an exception, of the same
+type. The excavations, however, behind their ornamental fronts, present
+some curious differences. In the simplest case of all, we find, on
+entering, an arched chamber, thirteen feet five inches long by seven
+feet two inches wide, from which there opens out, opposite to the door
+and at the height of about four feet from the ground, a deep horizontal
+recess, arched, like the chamber. Near the front of this recess is a
+further perpendicular excavation, in length six feet ten inches, in
+width three feet three inches, and in depth the same. This was the
+actual sarcophagus, and was covered, or intended to be covered, by a
+slab of stone. In the deeper part of the recess there is room for two
+other such sarcophagi; but in this case they have not been excavated,
+one burial only having, it would seem, taken place in this tomb. Other
+sepulchres present the same general features, but provide for a much
+greater number of interments. In that of Darius Hystaspis the sepulchral
+chamber contains three distinct recesses, in each of which are three
+sarcophagi, so that the tomb would hold nine bodies. It has, apparently,
+been cut originally for a single recess, on the exact plan of the tomb
+described above, but has afterwards been elongated towards the left.
+[PLATE LIII., Fig. 1.] Two of the tombs show a still more elaborate
+ground-plan--one in which curved lines take to some extent the place
+of straight ones. [PLATE LII., Fig. 2.] The tombs above the platform of
+Persepolis are more richly ornamented than the others, the lintels
+and sideposts of the doorways being covered with rosettes, and the
+entablature above the cornice bearing a row of lions, facing on either
+side towards the centre. [PLATE LIII., Fig. 2.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIII.]
+
+
+A curious edifice, belonging probably to the later Achaemenian times,
+stands immediately in front of the four royal tombs at Nakhsh-i-Eustam.
+This is a square tower, composed of large blocks of marble, cut with
+great exactness, and joined together without mortar or cement of
+any kind. The building is thirty-six feet high; and each side of it
+measures, as near as possible, twenty-four feet. It is ornamented with
+pilasters at the corners and with six recessed niches, or false windows,
+in three ranks, one over the other, on three out of its four faces. On
+the fourth face are two niches only, one over the other; and below
+them is a doorway with a cornice. The surface of the walls between the
+pilasters is also ornamented with a number of rectangular depressions,
+resembling the sunken ends of beams. The doorway, which looks north,
+towards the tombs, is not at the bottom of the building, but half-way up
+its side, and must have been reached either by a ladder or by a flight
+of steps. It leads into a square chamber, twelve feet wide by nearly
+eighteen high, extending to the top of the building, and roofed in with
+four large slabs of stone, which reach entirely across from side to
+side, being rather more than twenty-four feet long, six feet wide, and
+from eighteen inches to three feet in thickness. [PLATE LIII., Fig. 3.]
+On the top these slabs are so cut that the roof has every way a slight
+incline; at their edges they are fashioned between the pilasters, into
+a dentated cornice, like that which is seen on the tomb. Externally they
+were clamped together in the same careful way which we find to have been
+in use both at Persepolis and Parsargadae. The building seems to have
+been closed originally by two ponderous stone doors. [PLATE LIV., Fig.
+1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIV.]
+
+
+Another remarkable construction, which must belong to a very ancient
+period in the history of the country, is a gateway composed of enormous
+stones, which forms a portion of the ruins of Istakr. [PLATE LIV., Fig.
+2.] It has generally been regarded as one of the old gates of the city;
+but its position in the gorge between the town wall and the opposite
+mountain, and the fact that it lies directly across the road from
+Pasargadae into the plain of Merdasht, seem rather to imply that it was
+one of those fortified "gates," which we know to have been maintained by
+the Persians, at narrow points along their great routes, for the purpose
+of securing them, and stopping the advance of an enemy. On either
+side were walls of vast thickness, on the one hand abutting upon the
+mountain, on the other probably connected with the wall of the town,
+while between them were three massive pillars, once, no doubt, the
+supports of a tower, from which the defenders of the gate would engage
+its assailants at a great advantage.
+
+We have now described (so far as our data have rendered it possible)
+all the more important of the ancient edifices of the Persians, and
+may proceed to consider the next branch of the present inquiry, namely,
+their skill in the mimetic arts. Before, however, the subject of their
+architecture is wholly dismissed, a few words seem to be required on its
+general character and chief peculiarities.
+
+First, then, the simplicity and regularity of the style are worthy of
+remark. In the ground-plans of buildings the straight line only is used;
+all the angles are right angles; all the pillars fall into line; the
+intervals between pillar and pillar are regular, and generally equal;
+doorways are commonly placed opposite intercolumniations; where there is
+but one doorway, it is in the middle of the wall which it pierces; where
+there are two, they correspond to one another. Correspondence is the
+general law. Not only does door correspond to door, and pillar to
+pillar, but room to room, window to window, and even niche to niche.
+Most of the buildings are so contrived that one half is the exact
+duplicate of the other; and where this is not the case, the irregularity
+is generally either slight, or the result of an alteration, made
+probably for convenience sake. Travellers are impressed with the Grecian
+character of what they behold, though there is an almost entire absence
+of Greek forms. The regularity is not confined to single buildings, but
+extends to the relations of different edifices one to another. The sides
+of buildings standing on one platform, at whatever distance they may be,
+are parallel. There is, however, less consideration paid than we should
+have expected to the exact position, with respect to a main building,
+in which a subordinate one shall be placed. Propylaea, for instance,
+are not opposite the centre of the edifice to which they conduct, but
+slightly on one side of the centre. And generally, excepting in the
+parallelism of their sides, buildings seem placed with but slight regard
+to neighboring ones.
+
+For effect, the Persian architecture must have depended, firstly,
+upon the harmony that is produced by the observance of regularity and
+proportion; and, secondly, upon two main features of the style. These
+were the grand sculptured staircases which formed the approaches to all
+the principal buildings, and the vast groves of elegant pillars in and
+about the great halls. The lesser buildings were probably ugly, except
+in front. But such edifices as the Chehl Minar at Persepolis, and its
+duplicate at Susa--where long vistas of columns met the eye on every
+side, and the great central cluster was supported by lighter detached
+groups, combining similarity of form with some variety of ornament,
+where richly colored drapings contrasted with the cool gray stone of the
+building, and a golden roof overhung a pavement of many hues--must
+have been handsome, from whatever side they were contemplated, and for
+general richness and harmony of effect may have compared favorably
+with any edifices which, up to the time of their construction, had been
+erected in any country or by any people. If it may seem to some that
+they were wanting in grandeur, on account of their comparatively low
+height--a height which, including that of the platform, was probably in
+no case much more than a hundred feet--it must be remembered that the
+buildings of Greece and (except the Pyramids) those of Egypt, had the
+same defect, and that, until the constructive powers of the arch came to
+be understood, it was almost impossible to erect a building that should
+be at once lofty and elegant. Height, moreover, if the buildings are for
+use, implies inconvenience, a waste of time and power being involved
+in the ascent and descent of steps. The ancient architects, studying
+utility more than effect, preferred spreading out their buildings
+to piling them up, and rarely, unless in thickly-peopled towns, even
+introduced a second story.
+
+The spectator, however, was impressed with a sense of grandeur in
+another way. The use of huge blocks of stone, not only in platforms,
+but in the buildings themselves, in the shafts of pillars, the antae of
+porticos, the jambs of doorways, occasionally in roofs, and perhaps in
+epistylia, produced the same impression of power, and the same feeling
+of personal insignificance in the beholder, which is commonly effected
+by great size in the edifice, and particularly by height. The mechanical
+skill required to transport and raise into place the largest of these
+blocks must have been very considerable, and their employment causes not
+merely a blind admiration of those who so built on the part of ignorant
+persons, but a profound respect for them on the part of those who are by
+their studies and tastes best qualified for pronouncing on the relative
+and absolute merits of architectural masterpieces.
+
+Among the less pleasing peculiarities of the Persian architecture may be
+mentioned a general narrowness of doors in proportion to their height, a
+want of passages, a thickness of walls, which is architecturally clumsy,
+but which would have had certain advantages in such a climate, an
+inclination to place the doors of rooms near one corner, an allowance of
+two entrances into a great hall from under a single portico, a peculiar
+position of propylaea, and the very large employment of pillars in
+the interior of buildings. In many of these points, and also in the
+architectural use which was made of sculpture, the style of building
+resembled, to some extent, that of Assyria; the propylaea, however, were
+less Assyrian than Egyptian; while in the main and best features of the
+architecture, it was (so far as we can tell) original. The solid and
+handsome stone platforms, the noble staircases, and the profusion of
+light and elegant stone columns, which formed the true glory of
+the architecture--being the features on which its effect chiefly
+depended--have nowhere been discovered in Assyria; and all the
+evidence is against their existence. The Arians found in Mesopotamia an
+architecture of which the pillar was scarcely an element at all--which
+was fragile and unenduring--and which depended for its effect on a
+lavish display of partially colored sculpture and more richly tinted
+enamelled brick. Instead of imitating this, they elaborated for
+themselves, from the wooden buildings of their own mountain homes, a
+style almost exactly the reverse of that with which their victories had
+brought them into contact. Adopting, of main features, nothing but the
+platform, they imparted even to this a new character, by substituting
+in its construction the best for the worst of materials, and by further
+giving to these stone structures a massive solidity, from the employment
+of huge, blocks, which made them stand in the strongest possible
+contrast to the frail and perishable mounds of Babylonia and Assyria.
+Having secured in this way a firm and enduring basis, they proceeded to
+erect upon it buildings where the perpendicular line was primary and the
+horizontal secondary--buildings of almost, the same solid and massive
+character as the platform itself--forests of light but strong columns,
+supporting a wide-spreading roof, sometimes open to the air, sometimes
+enclosed by walls, according as they were designed for summer or winter
+use, or for greater or less privacy. To edifices of this character
+elaborate ornamentation was unnecessary; for the beauty of the column is
+such that nothing more is needed to set off a building. Sculpture
+would thus be dispensed with, or reserved for mere occasional use, and
+employed not so much on the palace itself as on its outer approaches;
+while brick enamelling could well be rejected altogether, as too poor
+and fragile a decoration for buildings of such strength and solidity.
+
+The origination of this columnar architecture must be ascribed to the
+Medes, who, dwelling in or near the more wooden parts of the Zagros
+range, constructed, during the period of their empire, edifices of
+considerable magnificence, whereof wooden pillars were the principal
+feature, the courts being surrounded by colonnades, and the chief
+buildings having porticos, the pillars in both cases being of wood. A
+wooden roof rested on these supports, protected externally by plates of
+metal. We do not know if the pillars had capitals, or if they supported
+an entablature; but probability is in favor of both these arrangements
+having existed. When the Persians succeeded the Medes in the
+sovereignty of Western Asia, they found Arian architecture in this
+condition. As stone, however, was the natural material of their country,
+which is but scantily wooded and is particularly barren towards the edge
+of the great plateau, where their chief towns were situated, and as
+they had from the first a strong desire of fame and a love for the
+substantial and the enduring, they almost immediately substituted for
+the cedar and cypress pillars of the Medes, stone shafts, plain or
+fluted, which they carried to a surprising height, and fixed with such
+firmness that many of them have resisted the destructive powers of
+time, of earthquakes, and of vandalism for more than three-and-twenty
+centuries, and still stand erect and nearly as perfect as when they
+received the last touch from the sculptor's hand more than 2000 years
+ago. It is the glory of the Persians in art to have invented this style,
+which they certainly did not learn from the Assyrians, and which
+they can scarcely be supposed to have adopted from Egypt, where the
+conception of the pillar and its ornamentation were wholly different.
+We can scarcely doubt that Greece received from this quarter the impulse
+which led to the substitution of the light and elegant forms which
+distinguish the architecture of her best period from the rude and clumsy
+work of the more ancient times.
+
+Of the mimetic art of the Persians we do not possess any great amount,
+or any great variety, of specimens. The existing remains consist of
+reliefs, either executed on the natural rock or on large slabs of hewn
+stone used in building, of impressions upon coins, and of a certain
+number of intaglios cut upon gems. We possess no Persian statues, no
+modelled figures, no metal castings, no carvings in ivory or in wood, no
+enamellings, no pottery even. The excavations on Persian sites have been
+singularly barren of those minor results which flowed so largely
+from the Mosopotamian excavations, and have yielded no traces of the
+furniture, domestic implements, or wall-ornamentation of the people;
+have produced, in fact, no small objects at all, excepting a few
+cylinders and some spear and arrow heads, thus throwing scarcely any
+light on the taste or artistic genius of the people.
+
+The nearest approach to statuary which we meet with among the Persian
+remains are the figures of colossal bulls, set to guard portals,
+or porticos, which are not indeed sculptures in the round, but are
+specimens of exceedingly high relief, and which, being carved in front
+as well as along the side, do not fall very far short of statues. Of
+such figures, we find two varieties--one representing the real animal,
+the other a monster with the body and legs of a bull, the head of a
+man, and the wings of an eagle. There is considerable merit in both
+representations. They are free from the defect of flatness, or want of
+breadth in comparison with the length, which characterizes the similar
+figures of Assyrian artists; and they are altogether grand, massive, and
+imposing. The general proportions of the bulls are good, the limbs are
+accurately drawn, the muscular development is well portrayed, and the
+pose of the figure is majestic. Even the monstrous forms of human-headed
+bulls have a certain air of quiet dignity, which is not without its
+effect on the beholder; and, although implying no great artistic merit,
+since they are little more than reproductions of Assyrian models,
+indicate an appreciation of some of the best qualities of Assyrian
+art--the combination of repose with strength, of great size with the
+most careful finish, and of strangeness with the absence of any approach
+to grotesqueness or absurdity. The other Persian reliefs may be divided
+under four heads:
+
+(1) Mythological representations of a man--the king apparently--engaged
+in combat with a lion, a bull, or a monster; (2) Processions of guards,
+courtiers, attendants, or tribute-bearers; (3) Representations of the
+monarch walking, seated upon his throne, or employed in the act of
+worship; and (4) Representations of lions and bulls, either singly or
+engaged in combat.
+
+On the jambs of doorways in three of the Persepolitan buildings, a human
+figure, dressed in the Median robe, but with the sleeve thrown back from
+the right arm, is represented in the act of killing either a lion, a
+bull, or a grotesque monster. In every case the animal is rampant, and
+assails his antagonist with three of his feet, while he stands on the
+fourth. The lion and bull have nothing about them that is very peculiar;
+but the monsters present most strange and unusual combinations. One
+of them has the griffin head, which we have already seen in use in
+the capitals of columns, a feathered crest and neck, a bird's wings,
+a scorpion's tail, and legs terminating in the claws of an eagle. The
+other has an eagle's head, ears like an ass, feathers on the neck, the
+breast, and the back, with the body, legs, and tail of a lion. [PLATE
+LV., Fig. 1.] Figures of equal grotesqueness, some of which possess
+certain resemblances to these, are common in the mythology of Assyria,
+and have been already represented in these volumes; but the Persian
+specimens are no servile imitations of these earlier forms. The idea of
+the Assyrian artist has, indeed, been borrowed; but Persian fancy has
+worked it out in its own way, adding, modifying, and subtracting in such
+a manner as to give to the form produced a quite peculiar, and (so to
+speak) native character.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LV.]
+
+
+Persian gems abound with monstrous forms, of equal, or even superior
+grotesqueness. As the Gothic architects indulged their imagination
+in the most wonderful combinations to represent evil spirits or the
+varieties of vice and sensualism, so the Persian gem-engravers seem
+to have allowed their fancy to run riot in the creation of monsters,
+representative of the Powers of Darkness or of different kinds of evil,
+The stones exhibit the king in conflict with a vast variety of monsters,
+some nearly resembling the Persepolitan, while others have strange
+shapes unseen elsewhere. Winged lions, with two tails and with the horns
+of a ram or an antelope, sphinxes and griffins of half a dozen different
+kinds, and various other nondescript creatures, appear upon the Persian
+gems and cylinders, furnishing abundant evidence of the quaint and
+prolific fancy of the designers.
+
+The processional subjects represented by the Persian artists are of
+three kinds. In the simplest and least interesting the royal guards, or
+the officers of the court, are represented in one or more lines of very
+similar figures, either moving in one direction, or standing in two
+bodies, one facing the other, in the attitude of quiet expectation. In
+these subjects there is a great sameness, and a very small amount of
+merit. The proportion of the forms is, indeed, fairly good, the heads
+and hands are well drawn, and there is some grace in certain of
+the figures, but the general effect is tame and somewhat heavy; the
+attitudes are stiff, and present little variety, while, nevertheless,
+they are sometimes impossible; there is a monotonous repetition of
+identically the same figure, which is tiresome, and a want of grouping
+which is very inartistic. If Persia had produced nothing better than
+this in sculpture, she would have had to be placed not only behind
+Assyria, but behind Egypt, as far as the sculptor's art is concerned.
+
+Processional scenes of a more attractive character are, however,
+tolerably frequent. Some exhibit to us the royal purveyors arriving at
+the palace with their train of attendants, and bringing with them the
+provisions required for the table of the monarch. Here we have some
+varieties of costume which are curious, and some representations
+of Persian utensils, which are not without a certain interest.
+Occasionally, too, we are presented with animal forms, as kids, which
+have considerable merit.
+
+But by far the most interesting of the processional scenes, are those
+which represent the conquered nations bringing to the monarch those
+precious products of their several countries which the Lord of Asia
+expected to receive annually, as a sort of free gift from his subjects,
+in addition to the fixed tribute which was exacted from them. Here we
+have a wonderful variety of costume and equipment, a happy admixture of
+animal with human forms, horses, asses, chariots, sheep, cattle, camels,
+interspersed among men, and the whole divided into groups by means of
+cypress-trees, which break the series into portions, and allow the eye
+to rest in succession upon a number of distinct pictures. Processions of
+this kind occurred on several of the Persepolitan staircases; but by far
+the most elaborate and complete is that on the grand steps in front of
+the Chehl Minar, or Great Hall of Audience, where we see above twenty
+such groups of figures, each with it own peculiar features, and all
+finished with the utmost care and delicacy. The illustration [PLATE LV.,
+Fig. 2], which is taken from a photograph, will give a tolerable idea
+of the general character of this relief; it shows the greater portion of
+six groups, whereof two are much injured by the fall of the parapet-wall
+on which they were represented, while the remaining four are in good
+preservation. It will be noticed that the animal forms--the Bactrian
+camel and the humped ox--are superior to the human, and have
+considerable positive merit as works of art. This relative superiority
+is observable throughout the entire series, which contains, besides
+several horses (some of which have been already represented in these
+volumes), a lioness, an excellent figure of the wild ass, and two
+tolerably well-drawn sheep. [PLATE LVI., Fig. 2 and 3.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LVI.]
+
+
+The representations of the monarch upon the reliefs are of three kinds.
+In the simplest, he is on foot, attended by the parasol-bearer and
+the napkin-bearer, or by the latter only, apparently in the act of
+proceeding from one part of the palace to another. In the more elaborate
+he is either seated on an elevated throne, which is generally supported
+by numerous caryatid figures, or he stands on a platform similarly
+upheld, in the act of worship before an altar. This latter is the
+universal representation upon tombs, while the throne scenes are
+reserved for palaces. In both representations the supporting figures
+are numerous; and it is here chiefly that we notice varieties of
+physiognomy, which are evidently intended to recall the differences
+in the physical type of the several races by which the Empire was
+inhabited. In one case, we have a negro very well portrayed; in others
+we trace the features of Scyths or Tatars. It is manifest that the
+artist has not been content to mark the nationality of the different
+figures by costume alone, but has aimed at reproducing upon the stone
+the physiognomic peculiarities of each race.
+
+The purely animal representations which the bas-reliefs bring before us
+are few in number, and have little variety of type. The most curious and
+the most artistic is one which is several times repeated at Persepolis,
+where it forms the usual ornamentation of the triangular spaces on the
+facades of stairs. This is a representation of a combat between a lion
+and a bull, or (perhaps, we should rather say) a representation of a
+lion seizing and devouring a bull; for the latter animal is evidently
+powerless to offer any resistance to the fierce beast which has sprung
+upon him from behind, and has fixed both fangs and claws in his body.
+[PLATE LVI., Fig. 4.] In his agony the bull rears up his fore-parts, and
+turns his head feebly towards his assailant, whose strong limbs and jaws
+have too firm a hold to be dislodged by such struggles as his unhappy
+victim is capable of making. In no Assyrian drawing is the massiveness
+and strength of the king of beasts more powerfully rendered than in
+this favorite group, which the Persian sculptors repeated without the
+slightest change from generation to generation. The contour of the lion,
+his vast muscular development, and his fierce countenance are really
+admirable, and the bold presentation of the face in full, instead of in
+profile, is beyond the ordinary powers of Oriental artists.
+
+Drawings of bulls and lions in rows, where each animal is the exact
+counterpart of all the others, are found upon the friezes of some of the
+tombs, and upon the representations of canopies over the royal throne.
+These drawings are fairly spirited, but have not any extraordinary
+merit. They reproduce forms well known in Assyria. A figure of a sitting
+lion seems also to have been introduced occasionally on the facades of
+staircases, occurring in the central compartment of the parapet-wall at
+top. These figures, in no case, remain complete; but enough is left
+to show distinctly what the attitude was, and this appears not to have
+resembled very closely any common Assyrian type. [PLATE LVII., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LVII.]
+
+
+The Persian gem-engravings have considerable merit, and need not fear a
+comparison with those of any other Oriental nation. They occur upon
+hard stones of many different kinds, as cornelian, onyx, rock-crystal,
+sapphirine, sardonyx, chalcedony, etc., and are executed for the most
+part with great skill and delicacy. The designs which they embody are in
+general of a mythological character; but sometimes scenes of real life
+occur upon them, and then the drawing is often good, and almost
+always spirited. In proof of this, the reader may be referred to the
+hunting-scenes already given, which are derived wholly from this source,
+as well as to the gems figured [PLATE LVI., Fig. 3], one of which is
+certainly, and the other almost certainly, of Persian workmanship. In
+the former we see the king, not struggling with a mythological lion but
+engaged apparently in the actual chase of the king of beasts Two lions
+have been roused from their lairs, and the monarch hastily places an
+arrow on the string, anxious to despatch one of his foes before the
+other can come to close quarters The eagerness of the hunter and the
+spirit and boldness of the animals are well represented. In the other
+gem, while there is less of artistic excellence, we have a scene of
+peculiar interest placed before us. A combat between two Persians and
+two Cythians seems to be represented. The latter marked by their peaked
+cap and their loose trousers, fight with the bow and the battle-axe,
+the former with the bow and the sword One Scyth is receiving his
+death-wound, the other is about to let loose a shaft, but seems at the
+same time half inclined to fly The steady confidence of the warriors
+on the one side contrasts well with the timidity and hesitancy of their
+weaker and smaller rivals. [PLATE LVII., Fig. 3.]
+
+The vegetable forms represented on the gems are sometimes graceful
+and pleasing. This is especially the case with palm-trees, a favorite
+subject of the artists, who delineated with remarkable success the
+feathery leaves, the pendant fruit and the rough bark of the
+stem. [PLATE LVIII., Fig 1.] The lion-hunter represented on the
+signet-cylinder of Darius Hystaspis takes place in a palm-grove, and
+furnishes the accompanying example of this form of vegetable life.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LVIII.]
+
+
+One gem, ascribed on somewhat doubtful grounds to the Persians of
+Achaemenian times, contains what appears to be a portrait. It is thought
+to be the bust of a satrap of Salamis in Cyprus, and is very carefully
+executed. If really of Persian workmanship, it would indicate a
+considerable advance in the power of representing the human countenance
+between the time of Darius Hystaspis and that of Alexander [PLATE LVII.
+Fig. 2.]
+
+Persian coins are of three principal types. The earliest have on the one
+side the figure of a monarch bearing the diadem and armed with the bow
+and javelin, while on the other there is an irregular indentation of the
+same nature with the _quadratum incusum_ of the Greeks. This rude form
+is replaced in later times by a second design, which is sometimes a
+horseman, sometimes the forepart of a ship, sometimes the king drawing
+an an arrow from his quiver. Another type exhibits on the obverse the
+monarch in combat with a lion while the reverse shows a galley, or a
+towered and battlemented city with two lions standing below it, back to
+back. The third common type has on the obverse the king in his chariot,
+with his charioteer in front of him, and (generally) an attendant
+carrying a fly-chaser behind. The reverse has either the trireme or the
+battlemented city. A specimen of each type is given. [PLATE LVII., Fig.
+4.]
+
+The artistic merit of these medals is not great. The relief is low,
+and the drawing generally somewhat rude. The head of the monarch in the
+early coins is greatly too large. The animal forms are, however, much
+superior to the human, and the horses which draw the royal chariot, the
+lions placed below the battlemented city, and the bulls which are found
+occasionally in the same position, must be pronounced truthful and
+spirited.
+
+Of the Persian taste in furniture, utensils, personal ornaments and the
+like, we need say but little. The throne and footstool of the monarch
+are the only pieces of furniture represented in the sculptures,
+and these, though sufficiently elegant in their forms, are not very
+remarkable. Costliness of material seems to have been more prized than
+beauty of shape; and variety appears to have been carefully eschewed,
+one single uniform type of each article occurring in all the
+representations. The utensils represented are likewise few in number,
+and limited to certain constantly repeated forms. The most elaborate is
+the censer, which has been already given. With this is usually seen
+a sort of pail or basket, shaped like a lady's reticule, in which the
+aromatic gums for burning were probably kept. [PLATE LVIII., Fig. 5.]
+A covered dish, and a goblet with an inverted saucer over it, are also
+forms of frequent occurrence in the hands of the royal attendants; and
+the tribute-bearers frequently carry, among their other offerings, bowls
+or basons, which, though not of Persian manufacture, were no doubt left
+at the court, and took their place among the utensils of the palace.
+[PLATE LVIII., Figs. 2 and 3.]
+
+In the matter of personal ornaments the taste of the Persians seems to
+have been peculiarly simple. Earrings were commonly plain rings of gold;
+bracelets mere bands of the same metal. Collars were circlets of gold
+twisted in a very inartificial fashion. There was nothing artistic
+in the sheaths or hilts of swords, though spear-shafts were sometimes
+adorned with the representation of an apple or a pomegranate. Dresses
+seem not to have been often patterned, but to have depended generally
+for their effect on make and color. In all these respects we observe
+a remarkable contrast between the Arian and the Semitic races,
+extreme simplicity characterizing the one, while the most elaborate
+ornamentation was affected by the other.
+
+Persia was not celebrated in antiquity for the production of any special
+fabrics. The arts of weaving and dyeing were undoubtedly practised in
+the dominant country, as well as in most of the subject provinces, and
+the Persian dyes seem even to have had a certain reputation; but none
+of the productions of their looms acquired a name among foreign nations.
+Their skill, indeed, in the mechanical arts generally was, it is
+probable, not more than moderate. It was their boast that they were
+soldiers, and had won a position by their good swords which gave them
+the command of all that was most exquisite and admirable, whether in the
+natural world or among the products of human industry. So long as the
+carpets of Babylon and Sardis, the shawls of Kashmir and India, the fine
+linen of Borsippa and Egypt, the ornamental metal-work of Greece,
+the coverlets of Damascus, the muslins of Babylonia, the multiform
+manufactures of the Phoenician towns, poured continually into Persia
+Proper in the way of tribute, gifts, or merchandise, it was needless for
+the native population to engage largely in industrial enterprise.
+
+To science the ancient Persians contributed absolutely nothing. The
+genius of the nation was adverse to that patient study and those
+laborious investigations from which alone scientific progress ensues.
+Too light and frivolous, too vivacious, too sensuous for such pursuits,
+they left them to the patient Babylonians, and the thoughtful, many-sided
+Greeks. The schools of Orchoe, Borsippa, and Miletus flourished under
+their sway, but without provoking their emulation, possibly without so
+much as attracting their attention. From first to last, from the dawn
+to the final close of their power, they abstained wholly from scientific
+studies. It would seem that they thought it enough to place before the
+world, as signs of their intellectual vigor, the fabric of their Empire
+and the buildings of Susa and Persepolis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. RELIGION.
+
+
+The original form of the Persian religion has been already described
+under the head of the third or Median monarchy. It was identical with
+the religion of the Medes in its early shape, consisting mainly in
+the worship of Ahura-Mazda, the acknowledgment of a principle of
+evil--Angro-Mainyus, and obedience to the precepts of Zoroaster. When
+the Medes, on establishing a wide-spread Empire, chiefly over races by
+whom Magism had been long professed, allowed the creed of their subjects
+to corrupt their own belief, accepted the Magi for their priests, and
+formed the mixed religious system of which an account has been given in
+the second volume of this work, the Persians in their wilder country,
+less exposed to corrupting influences, maintained their original faith
+in undiminished purity, and continued faithful to their primitive
+traditions. The political dependence of their country upon Media during
+the period of the Median sway made no difference in this respect; for
+the Medes were tolerant, and did not seek to interfere with the creed of
+their subjects. The simple Zoroastrian belief and worship, overlaid by
+Magism in the now luxurious Media, found a refuge in the rugged Persian
+uplands, among the hardy shepherds and cultivators of that unattractive
+region, was professed by the early Achaemenian princes, and generally
+acquiesced in by the people.
+
+The main feature of the religion daring this first period was the
+acknowledgment and the worship of a single supreme God--"the Lord God of
+Heaven"--"the giver (i.e. maker) of heaven and earth"--the disposer of
+thrones, the dispenser of happiness. The foremost place in inscriptions
+and decrees was assigned, almost universally, to the "great god,
+Ormazd." Every king, of whom we have an inscription more than two lines
+in length, speaks of Ormazd as his upholder; and the early monarchs
+mention by name no other god. All rule "by the grace of Ormazd." From
+Ormazd come victory, conquest, safety, prosperity, blessings of every
+kind. The "law of Ormazd" is the rule of life. The protection of Ormazd
+is the one priceless blessing for which prayer is perpetually offered.
+
+While, however, Ormazd holds this exalted and unapproachable position,
+there is still an acknowledgment made, in a general way, of "other
+gods." Ormazd is "the greatest of the gods" (_mathista baganam_). It is
+a usual prayer to ask for the protection of Ormazd, together with that
+of these lesser powers (_hada bagaibish_). Sometimes the phrase is
+varied, and the petition is for the special protection of a certain
+class of Deities--the _Dii familiares_--or "deities who guard the
+house."
+
+The worship of Mithra, or the Sun, does not appear in the inscriptions
+until the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, the victor of Cunaxa. It is,
+however, impossible to doubt that it was a portion of the Persian
+religion, at least as early as the date of Herodotus. Probably it
+belongs, in a certain sense, to primitive Zoroastrianism, but was kept
+in the background during the early period, when a less materialistic
+worship prevailed than suited the temper of later times.
+
+Nor can it be doubted that the Persians held during this early period
+that Dualistic belief which has been the distinguishing feature of
+Zoroastrianism from a time long anterior to the commencement of the
+Median Empire down to the present day. It was not to be expected
+that this belief would show itself in the inscriptions, unless in the
+faintest manner; and it can therefore excite no surprise that they are
+silent, or all but silent, on the point in question. Nor need we wonder
+that this portion of their creed was not divulged by the Persians to
+Herodotus or to Xenophon, since it is exactly the sort of subject on
+which reticence was natural and might have been anticipated. Neither the
+lively Halicarnassian, nor the pleasant but somewhat shallow Athenian,
+had the gift of penetrating very deeply into the inner mind of a
+foreign people; added to which, it is to be remembered that they were
+unacquainted with Persia Proper, and drew their knowledge of Persian
+opinions and customs either from hearsay or from the creed and practices
+of the probably mixed garrisons which held Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.
+
+Persian worship, in these early times, was doubtless that enjoined by
+the Zendavesta, comprising prayer and thanksgiving to Ormazd and the
+good spirits of his creation, the recitation of Gathas or hymns, the
+performance of sacrifice, and participation in the Soma ceremony.
+Worship seems to have taken place in temples, which are mentioned
+(according to the belief of most cuneiform scholars) in the Behistun
+inscription. Of the character of these buildings we can say nothing.
+It has been thought that those two massive square towers so similar in
+construction, which exist in a more or less ruined condition at Murgab
+and Nakhsh-i-Rustam, are Persian temples of the early period, built to
+contain an altar on which the priests offered victims. But the absence
+of any trace of an altar from both, the total want of religious emblems,
+and the extremely small size of the single apartment which each tower
+contains, make strongly against the temple theory; not to mention that a
+much more probable use may be suggested for the buildings.
+
+With respect to the altars upon which sacrifice was offered, we are not
+left wholly without evidence. The Persian monarchs of the early period,
+including Darius Hystaspis, represented themselves on their tombs in the
+act of worship. Before them, at the distance of a few feet, stands an
+altar, elevated on three steps, and crowned with the sacrificial fire.
+Its form is square, and its only ornaments are a sunken squared recess,
+and a strongly projecting cornice at top. The height of the altar,
+including the steps, was apparently about four and a half feet. [PLATE
+LVIII., Fig. 4.]
+
+The Persians' favorite victim was the horse; but they likewise
+sacrificed cattle, sheep, and goats. Human sacrifices seem to have been
+almost, if not altogether, unknown to them, and were certainly alien to
+the entire spirit of the Zoroastrian system. The flesh of the victim was
+probably merely shown to the sacred fire, after which it was eaten by
+the priests, the sacrificer, and those whom the latter associated with
+himself in the ceremony.
+
+The spirit of the Zendavesta is wholly averse to idolatry, and we may
+fully accept the statement of Herodotus that images of the gods were
+entirely unknown to the Persians. Still, they did not deny themselves a
+certain use of symbolic representations of their deities, nor did
+they even scruple to adopt from idolatrous nations the forms of their
+religious symbolism. The winged circle, with or without the addition of
+a human figure, which was in Assyria the emblem of the chief Assyrian
+deity, Asshur, became with the Persians the ordinary representation of
+the Supreme God, Ormazd, and, as such, was placed in most conspicuous
+positions on their rock tombs and on their buildings. [PLATE LVIII.,
+Fig. 7.] Nor was the general idea only of the emblem adopted, but all
+the details of the Assyrian model were followed, with one exception. The
+human figure of the Assyrian original wore the close-fitting tunic, with
+short sleeves, which was the ordinary costume in Assyria, and had on
+its head the horned cap which marked a god or a genius. In the Persian
+counterpart this costume was exchanged for the Median robe, and a tiara,
+which was sometimes that proper to the king,23 sometimes that worn with
+the Median robe by court officers. [PLATE LVIII., Fig. 7.]
+
+Mithra, or the Sun, is represented in Persian sculptures by a disk or
+orb, which is not four-rayed like the Assyrian, but perfectly plain
+and simple. In sculptures where the emblems of Ormazd and Mithra occur
+together, the position of the former is central, that of the latter
+towards the right hand of the tablet. The solar emblem is universal on
+sculptured tombs, but is otherwise of rare occurrence.
+
+Spirits of good and evil, the Ahuras and Devas of the mythology, were
+represented by the Persians under human, animal, or monstrous forms.
+There can be little doubt that it is a good genius--perhaps the
+"well-formed, swift, tall Serosh"--who appears on one of the square
+pillars set up by Cyrus at Pasargadae. This figure is that of a colossal
+man, from whose shoulders issue four wings, two of which spread upwards
+above his head, while the other two droop and reach nearly to his feet.
+[PLATE LIX.] It stands erect, in profile, with both arms raised and the
+hands open. The costume of the figure is remarkable. It consists of a
+long fringed robe reaching from the neck to the ankles--apparently of
+a stiff material, which conceals the form--and of a very singular
+head-dress. This is a striped cap, closely fitting the head,
+overshadowed by an elaborate ornament, of a character purely Egyptian.
+First there rise from the top of the cap two twisted horns, which,
+spreading right and left, become a sort of basis for the other forms to
+rest upon. These consist of two grotesque human-headed figures, one at
+either side, and of a complex triple ornament between them, clumsily
+imitated from a far more elegant Egyptian model. [PLATE LX., Fig. 1.]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIX.]
+
+
+The winged human-headed bulls, which the Persians adopted from the
+Assyrians, with very slight modifications, were also, it is probable,
+regarded as emblems of some god or good genius. They would scarcely
+otherwise have been represented on Persian cylinders as upholding the
+emblem of Ormazd in the same way that human-headed bulls uphold the
+similar emblem of Asshur on Assyrian cylinders. [PLATE LX., Fig. 2.]
+Their position, too, at Persepolis, where they kept watch over the
+entrance to the palace, accords with the notion that they represented
+guardian spirits, objects of the favorable regard of the Persians. Yet
+this view is not wholly free from difficulty. The bull appears in
+the bas-reliefs of Persepolis among the evil, or at any rate hostile,
+powers, which the king combats and slays; and though in these
+representations the animal is not winged or human-headed, yet on some
+cylinders apparently Persian, the monarch contends with bulls of exactly
+the same type as that which is assigned in other cylinders to the
+upholders of Ormazd. It would seem therefore that in this case the
+symbolism was less simple than usual, the bull in certain combinations
+and positions representing a god or a good spirit, while in others he
+was the type of a deva or evil genius.
+
+
+[[Illustration: PLATE LX.]
+
+
+The most common representatives of the Evil Powers of the mythology
+were lions, winged or unwinged, and monsters of several different
+descriptions. At Persepolis the lions which the king stabs or strangles
+are of the natural shape, and this type is found also upon gems and
+cylinders; but on these last the king's antagonist is often a winged,
+while sometimes he is a winged and horned, lion. [PLATE LX., Fig. 3.]
+The monsters are of two principal types. In both the forms of a bird and
+a beast are commingled; but in the one the bird, and in the other the
+beast predominates. Specimens are given [PLATE LX., Fig. 4] taken from
+Persian gems and cylinders.
+
+Such seems to have been, in outline, the purer and more ancient form
+of the Persian religion. During its continuance a fierce iconoclastic
+spirit animated the princes of the Empire, who took every opportunity of
+showing their hatred and contempt for the idolatries of the neighboring
+nations, burning temples, confiscating or destroying images, scourging
+or slaying idolatrous priests, putting a stop to festivals,
+disturbing tombs, smiting with the sword animals believed to be divine
+incarnations. Within their own dominions the fear of stirring up
+religious wars compelled them to be moderately tolerant, unless it
+were after rebellion, when a province lay at their mercy; but when they
+invaded foreign countries, they were wont to exhibit in the most open
+and striking way their aversion to materialistic religions. In Greece,
+during the great invasion, they burned every temple that they came near;
+in Egypt, on their first attack, they outraged every religious feeling
+of the people.
+
+It was during this time of comparative purity, when the anti-idolatrous
+spirit was in full force, that a religious sympathy seems to have drawn
+together the two nations of the Persians and the Jews. Cyrus evidently
+identified Jehovah with Ormazd, and, accepting as a divine command the
+prophecy of Isaiah, undertook to rebuild their temple for a people who,
+like his own, allowed no image of God to defile the sanctuary. Darius,
+similarly, encouraged the completion of the work, after it had been
+interrupted by the troubles which followed the death of Cambyses. The
+foundation was thus laid for that friendly intimacy between the two
+peoples, of which we have abundant evidence in the books of Ezra,
+Nehemiah, and Esther, a friendly intimacy which caused the Jews to
+continue faithful to Persia to the last, and to brave the conqueror
+of Issus rather than desert masters who had shown them kindness and
+sympathy.
+
+The first trace that we have of a corrupting influence being brought
+to bear on the Persian religion is connected with the history of the
+pseudo-Smerdis. According to Herodotus, Cambyses, when he set out on
+his Egyptian expedition, left a Magus, Patizeithes, at the capital, as
+comptroller of the royal household. The conferring of an office of such
+importance on the priest of an alien religion is the earliest indication
+which we have of a diminution of zeal for their ancestral creed on the
+part of the Achaemenian kings, and the earliest historical proof of the
+existence of Magism beyond the limits of Media. Magism was really, it
+is probable, an older creed than Zoroastrianism in the country where the
+Persians were settled; but it now, for the first time since the Persian
+conquest, began to show itself, to thrust itself into high places, and
+to attract general notice. From being the religion of the old Scythic
+tribes whom the Persians had conquered and whom they held in subjection,
+it had passed into being the religion of great numbers of the Persians
+themselves. The same causes which had corrupted Zoroastrianism in Media
+soon after the establishment of the Empire, worked also, though more
+slowly, in Persia, and a large section of the nation was probably weaned
+from its own belief, and won over to Magism, before Cambyses went
+into Egypt. His prolonged absence in that country brought matters to
+a crisis. The Magi took advantage of it to attempt a substitution
+of Magism for Zoroastrianism as the religion of the state. When
+this attempt failed, there was no doubt a reaction for a time, and
+Zoroastrianism thought itself triumphant. But a foe is generally most
+dangerous when he is despised. Magism, repulsed in its attempt to oust
+the rival religion, derived wisdom from the lesson, and thenceforth set
+itself to sap the fortress which it could not storm. Little by little
+it crept into favor, mingling itself with the old Arian creed, not
+displacing it, but only adding to it. In the later Persian system the
+Dualism of Zoroaster and the Magian elemental worship were jointly
+professed--the Magi were accepted as the national priests--the rights
+and ceremonies of the two religions were united--a syncretism not
+unusual in the ancient world blended into one two creeds originally
+quite separate and distinct, but in few respects antagonistic--and the
+name of Zoroaster being still fondly cherished in the memory of the
+nation, while in their practical religion Magian rites predominated,
+the mixed religion acquired the name, by which it was known to the later
+Greeks, of "the Magism of Zoroaster."
+
+The Magian rites have been described in the chapter on the Median
+Religion. Their leading feature was the fire-worship, which is still
+cherished among those descendants of the ancient Persians who did
+not submit to the religion of Islam. On lofty spots in the high
+mountain-chain which traversed both Media and Persia, fire-altars were
+erected, on which burnt a perpetual flame, watched constantly lest it
+should expire, and believed to have been kindled from heaven. Over the
+altar in most instances a shrine or temple was built; and on these
+spots day after day the Magi chanted their incantations, displayed
+their barsoms or divining-rods, and performed their choicest ceremonies.
+Victims were not offered on these fire-altars. When a sacrifice took
+place, a fire was laid hard-by with logs of dry wood, stript of their
+bark, and this was lighted from the flame which burned on the altar.
+On the fire thus kindled was consumed a small part of the fat of the
+victim; but the rest was cut into joints, boiled, and eaten or sold
+by the worshipper. The true offering, which the god accepted, was,
+according to the Magi, the soul of the animal.
+
+If human victims were ever really offered by the Persians as sacrifices,
+it is to Magian influence that the introduction of this horrid practice
+must be attributed, since it is utterly opposed to the whole spirit of
+Zoroaster's teaching. An instance of the practice is first reported in
+the reign of Xerxes, when Magism, which had been sternly repressed by
+Darius Hystaspis, began once more to lift its head, crept into favor
+at Court, and obtained a status which it never afterwards forfeited.
+According to Herodotus, the Persians, on their march into Greece,
+sacrificed, at Ennea Hodoi on the Strymon river, nine youths and nine
+maidens of the country, by burying them alive. Herodotus seems to have
+viewed the act as done in propitiation of a god resembling the Grecian
+Pluto; but it is not at all certain that he interpreted it correctly.
+Possibly he mistook a vengeance for a religious ceremony. The Brygi, who
+dwelt at this time in the vicinity of Ennea Hodoi, had given Mardonius
+a severe defeat on a former occasion; and the Persians were apt to
+treasure up such wrongs, and visit them, when occasion offered, with
+extreme severity.
+
+When the Persians had once yielded to the syncretic spirit so far as to
+unite the Magian tenets and practices with their primitive belief, they
+were naturally led on to adopt into their system such portions of the
+other religions, with which they were brought into close contact, as
+possessed an attraction for them. Before the date of Herodotus they had
+borrowed from the Babylonians the worship of a Nature-Goddess, whom the
+Greeks identified at one time with Aphrodite, at another with Artemis,
+at another (probably) with Here, and had thus made a compromise with one
+of the grossest of the idolatries which, theoretically, they despised
+and detested. The Babylonian Venus, called in the original dialect of
+her native country Nana, was taken into the Pantheon of the Persians,
+under the name of Nansea, Anaea, Anaitis, or Tanata, and became in a
+little while one of the principal objects of Persian worship. At first
+idolatry, in the literal sense, was avoided; but Artaxerxes Mnemon, the
+conqueror of Cunaxa, an ardent devotee of the goddess, not content with
+the mutilated worship which he found established, resolved to show his
+zeal by introducing into all the chief cities of the Empire the image
+of his patroness. At Susa, at Persepolis, at Babylon, at Ecbatana, at
+Damascus, at Sardis, at Bactra, images of Anaitis were set up by his
+authority for the adoration of worshippers. It is to be feared that at
+this time, if not before, the lascivious rites were also adopted, which
+throughout the East constituted the chief attraction of the cult of
+Venus.
+
+With the idolatry thus introduced, another came soon to be joined.
+Mithra, so long an object of reverence, if not of actual worship, to
+the Zoroastrians, was in the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, honored, like
+Anaitis, with a statue, and advanced into the foremost rank of deities.
+The exact form which the image took is uncertain; but probability is in
+favor of the well-known type of a human figure slaying a prostrate bull,
+which was to the Greeks and Romans the essential symbol of the Mithraic
+worship. The intention of this oft-repeated group has been well
+explained by Hyde, who regards it as a representation of the Sun
+quitting the constellation of Taurus, the time when in the East his
+fructifying power is the greatest. The specimens which we possess of
+this group belong to classical art and to times later than Alexander;
+but we can scarcely suppose the idea to have been Occidental. The
+Western artists would naturally adopt the symbolism of those from whom
+they took the rites, merely modifying its expression in accordance with
+their own aesthetic notions.
+
+Towards the close of the Empire two other gods emerged from the
+obscurity in which the lower deities of the Zoroastrian system were
+shrouded during the earlier and purer period. Vohu-manu, or Bah-man,
+and Amerdat, or Amendat, two of the councillors of Ormazd, became the
+objects of a worship, which was clearly of an idolatrous character.
+Shrines were built in their honor, and were frequented by companies
+of Magi, who chanted their incantations, and performed their rites
+of divination in these new edifices as willingly as in the old
+Fire-temples. The image of Bah-man was of wood, and was borne in
+procession on certain occasions.
+
+Thus as time went on, the Persian religion continually assimilated
+itself more and more to the forms of belief and worship which prevailed
+in the neighboring parts of Asia. Idolatries of several kinds came
+into vogue, some adopted from abroad, others developed out of their
+own system. Temples, some of which had a character of extraordinary
+magnificence, were erected to the honor of various gods; and the
+degenerate descendants of pure Zoroastrian spiritualists bowed down to
+images, and entangled themselves in the meshes of a sensualistic and
+most debasing Nature-worship. Still, amid whatsoever corruptions, the
+Dualistic faith was maintained. The supremacy of Ormazd was from first
+to last admitted. Ahriman retained from first to last the same character
+and position, neither rising into an object of worship, nor sinking into
+a mere personification of evil. The inquiries which Aristotle caused to
+be made, towards the very close of the Empire, into the true nature of
+the Persian Religion, showed him Ormazd and Ahriman still recognized
+as Principles, still standing in the same hostile and antithetical
+attitude, one towards the other, which they occupied when the first
+Fargard of the Vendidad was written, long anterior to the rise of the
+Persian Power.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY.
+
+
+"I saw the man pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so
+that no beast might stand before him, neither was there any that could
+deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became
+great."--Daniel, viii. 4.
+
+
+The history of the Persian Empire dates from the conquest of Astyages by
+Cyrus, and therefore commences with the year B.C. 558. But the present
+inquiry must be carried considerably further back, since in this, as
+in most other cases, the Empire grew up out of a previously existing
+monarchy. Darius Hystaspis reckons that there had been eight Persians
+kings of his race previously to himself; and though it is no doubt
+possible that some of the earlier names may be fictitious, yet we can
+scarcely suppose that he was deceived, or that he wished to deceive, as
+to the fact that long anterior to his own reign, or that of his elder
+contemporary, Cyrus, Persia had been a monarchy, governed by a line of
+princes of the same clan, or family, with himself. It is our business in
+this place, before entering upon the brilliant period of the Empire, to
+cast a retrospective glance over the earlier ages of obscurity, and
+to collect therefrom such scattered notices as are to be found of the
+Persians and their princes or kings before they suddenly attracted
+the general attention of the civilized world by their astonishing
+achievements under the great Cyrus.
+
+The more ancient of-the sacred books of the Jews, while distinctly
+noticing the nation of the Medes, contain no mention at all of Persia
+or the Persians. The Zendavesta, the sacred volume of the people
+themselves, is equally silent on the subject. The earliest appearance
+of the Persians in history is in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings,
+which begin to notice them about the middle of the ninth century B.C.
+At this time Shalmaneser II. found them in south-western Armenia, where
+they were in close contact with the Medes, of whom, however, they seem
+to have been wholly independent. Like the modern Kurds in this same
+region, they owned no subjection to a single head, but were under the
+government of numerous petty chieftains, each the lord of a single town
+or of a small mountain district. Shalmaneser informs us that he took
+tribute from twenty-five such chiefs. Similar tokens of submission were
+paid also to his son and grandson. After this the Assyrian records are
+silent as to the Persians for nearly a century, and it is not until the
+reign of Sennacherib that we once more find them brought into contact
+with the power which aspired to be mistress of Asia. At the time of
+their reappearance they are no longer in Armenia, but have descended the
+line of Zagros and reached the districts which lie north and north-east
+of Susiana, or that part of the Bakhtiyari chain which, if it is not
+actually within Persia Proper, at any rate immediately adjoins upon it.
+Arrived thus far, it was easy for them to occupy the region to which
+they have given permanent name; for the Bakhtiyari mountains command it
+and give a ready access to its valleys and plains.
+
+The Persians would thus appear not to have completed their migrations
+till near the close of the Assyrian period, and it is probable that
+they did not settle into an organized monarchy much before the fall of
+Nineveh. At any rate we hear of no Persian ruler of note or name in the
+Assyrian records, and the reign of petty chiefs would seem therefore to
+have continued at least to the time of Asshur-bani-pal, up to which date
+we have ample records. The establishment, however, about the year
+B.C. 660, or a little later, of a powerful monarchy in the kindred and
+neighboring Media, could not fail to attract attention, and might well
+provoke imitation in Persia; and the native tradition appears to have
+been that about this time. Persian royalty began in the person of a
+certain Achaemenes (Hakhamanish), from whom all their later monarchs,
+with one possible exception, were proud to trace their descent.
+
+The name Achaemenes cannot fail to arouse some suspicion. The Greek
+genealogies render us so familiar with heroes eponymi--imaginary
+personages, who owe their origin to the mere fact of the existence
+of certain tribe or race names, to account for which they were
+invented--that whenever, even in the history of other nations, we
+happen upon a name professedly personal, which stands evidently in close
+connection with a tribal designation, we are apt at once to suspect it
+of being fictitious. But in the East tribal and even ethnic names
+were certainly sometimes derived from actual persons; and it may be
+questioned whether the Persians, or the Iranic stock generally, had the
+notion of inventing personal eponyms. The name Achaemenes, therefore,
+in spite of its connection with the royal clan name of Achaemenidae, may
+stand as perhaps that of a real Persian king, and, if so, as probably
+that of the first king, the original founder of the monarchy, who united
+the scattered tribes in one, and thus raised Persia into a power of
+considerable importance.
+
+The immediate successor of Achaemenes appears to have been his son,
+Teispes. Of him and of the next three monarchs, the information that
+we possess is exceedingly scanty. The very names of one or two in the
+series are uncertain. One tradition assigns either to the second or the
+fourth king of the list the establishment of friendly relations with
+a certain Pharnaces, King of Cappadocia, by an intermarriage between a
+Persian princess, Atossa, and the Cappadocian monarch. The existence
+of communication at this time between petty countries politically
+unconnected, and placed at such a distance from one another as
+Cappadocia and Persia, is certainly what we should not have expected;
+but our knowledge of the general condition of Western Asia at the period
+is too slight to justify us in a positive rejection of the story, which
+indicates, if it be true, that even during this time of comparative
+obscurity, the Persian monarchs were widely known, and that their
+alliance was thought a matter of importance.
+
+The political condition of Persia under these early monarchs is a more
+interesting question than either the names of the kings or the foreign
+alliances which they attracted. According to Herodotus, that condition
+was one of absolute and unqualified subjection to the sway of the Medes,
+who conquered Persia and imposed their yoke upon the people before
+the year B.C. 634. The native records, however, and the accounts which
+Xenophon preferred, represent Persia as being at this time a separate
+and powerful state, either wholly independent of Media, or, at any
+rate, held in light bonds of little more than nominal dependence. On the
+whole, it appears most probable that the true condition of the country
+was that which this last phrase expresses. It maybe doubted whether
+there had ever been a conquest; but the weaker and less developed of
+the two kindred states owned the suzerainty of the stronger, and though
+quite unshackled in her internal administration, and perhaps not very
+much interfered with in her relations towards foreign countries, was,
+formally, a sort of Median fief, standing nearly in the position in
+which Egypt now stands to Turkey. The position was irksome to the
+sovereigns rather than unpleasant to the people. It detracted from the
+dignity of the Persian monarchs, and injured their self-respect; it
+probably caused them occasional inconvenience, since from time to time
+they would have to pay their court to their suzerain; and it seems
+towards the close of the Median period to have involved an obligation
+which must have been felt, if not as degrading, at any rate as very
+disagreeable. The monarch appears to have been required to send his
+eldest son as a sort of hostage to the Court of his superior, where he
+was held in a species of honorable captivity, not being allowed to
+quit the Court and return home without leave, but being otherwise well
+treated. The fidelity of the father was probably supposed to be in this
+way secured while it might be hoped that the son would be conciliated,
+and made an attached and willing dependent.
+
+When Persian history first fairly opens upon us in the pages of Xenophon
+and of Nicolaus Damascenus, this is the condition of things which we
+find existing. Cambyses, the father of Cyrus the Great--called Atradates
+by the Syrian writer--is ruler of Persia, and resides in his native
+country, while his son Cyrus is permanently, or at any rate usually,
+resident at the Median Court, where he is in high favor with the
+reigning monarch, Astyages. According to Xenophon, who has here the
+support of Herodotus, he is Astyages' grandson, his father, Cambyses,
+being married to Mandane, that monarch's daughter. According to
+Nicolaus, who in this agrees with Ctesias, he is no way related to
+Astyages, who retains him at his court because he is personally attached
+to him. In the narrative of the latter writer, which has already been
+preferred in these volumes, the young prince, while at the Court,
+conceives the idea of freeing his own country by a revolt, and enters
+into secret communication with his father for the furtherance of his
+object. His father somewhat reluctantly assents, and preparations are
+made, which lead to the escape of Cyrus and the commencement of a war
+of independence. The details of the struggle, as they are related by
+Nicolaus, have been already given. After repeated defeats, the Persians
+finally make a stand at Pasargadae, their capital, where in two great
+battles they destroy the power of Astyages, who himself remains a
+prisoner in the hands of his adversary.
+
+In the course of the struggle the father of Cyrus had fallen, and its
+close, therefore, presented Cyrus himself before the eyes of the Western
+Asiatics as the undisputed lord of the great Arian Empire which had
+established itself on the ruins of the Semitic. Transfers of sovereignty
+are easily made in the East, where independence is little valued,
+and each new conqueror is hailed with acclamations from millions. It
+mattered nothing to the bulk of Astyages' subjects whether they were
+ruled from Ecbatana or Pasargadae, by Median or Persian masters. Fate
+had settled that a single lord was to bear sway over the tribes and
+nations dwelling between the Persian Gulf and the Euxine; and the
+arbitrament of the sword had now decided that this single lord should be
+Cyrus. We may readily believe the statement of Nicolaus that the nations
+previously subject to the Medes vied with each other in the celerity
+and zeal with which they made their submission to the Persian conqueror.
+Cyrus succeeded at once to the full inheritance of which he had
+dispossessed Astyages, and was recognized as king by all the tribes
+between the Halys and the desert of Khorassan.
+
+He was at this time, if we may trust Dino, exactly forty years of age,
+and was thus at that happy period in life when the bodily powers
+have not yet begun to decay, while the mental are just reaching their
+perfection. Though we may not be able to trust implicitly the details of
+the war of independence which have come down to us, yet there can be no
+doubt that he had displayed in its course very remarkable courage and
+conduct. He had intended, probably, no more than to free his country
+from the Median yoke; by the force of circumstances he had been led on
+to the destruction of the Median power, and to the establishment of a
+Persian Empire in its stead. With empire had come an enormous accession
+of wealth. The accumulated stores of ages, the riches of the Ninevite
+kings--the "gold," the "silver," and the "pleasant furniture" of those
+mighty potentates, of which there was "none end"--together with all the
+additions made to these stores by the Median monarchs, had fallen into
+his hands, and from comparative poverty he had come per saltum into the
+position of one of the wealthiest--if not of the very wealthiest--of
+princes. An ordinary Oriental would have been content with such a
+result, and have declined to tempt fortune any more. But Cyrus was
+no ordinary Oriental. Confident in his own powers, active, not to say
+restless, and of an ambition that nothing could satiate, he viewed,
+the position which he had won simply as a means of advancing himself to
+higher eminence. According to Ctesias, he was scarcely seated upon the
+throne, when he led an expedition to the far north-east against the
+renowned Bactrians and Sacans; and at any rate, whether this be true or
+no--and most probably it is an anticipation of later occurrences--it
+is certain that, instead of folding his hands, Cyrus proceeded with
+scarcely a pause on a long career of conquest, devoting his whole life
+to the carrying out of his plans of aggression, and leaving a portion
+of his schemes, which were too extensive for one life to realize, as a
+legacy to his successor. The quarter to which he really first turned
+his attention seems to have been the north-west. There, in the somewhat
+narrow but most fertile tract between the river Halys and the Egean Sea,
+was a state which seemed likely to give him trouble--a state which had
+successfully resisted all the efforts of the Medes to reduce it, and
+which recently, under a warlike prince, had shown a remarkable power
+of expansion. An instinct of danger warned the scarce firmly-settled
+monarch to fix his eye at once upon Lydia; in the wealthy and successful
+Croesus, the Lydian king, he saw one whom dynastic interests might
+naturally lead to espouse the quarrel of the conquered Mede, and whose
+power and personal qualities rendered him a really formidable rival.
+
+The Lydian monarch, on his side, did not scruple to challenge a contest.
+The long strife which his father had waged with the great Cyaxares
+had terminated in a close alliance, cemented by a marriage, which made
+Croesus and Astyages brothers. The friendship of the great power of
+Western Asia, secured by this union, had set Lydia free to pursue
+a policy of self-aggrandizement in her own immediate, neighborhood.
+Rapidly, one after another, the kingdoms of Asia Minor had been reduced;
+and, excepting the mountain districts of Lycia and Cilicia, all Asia
+within the Halys now owned the sway of the Lydian king. Contented with
+his successes, and satisfied that the tie of relationship secured him
+from attack on the part of the only power which he had need to fear,
+Croesus had for some years given himself up to the enjoyment of his
+gains and to an ostentatious display of his magnificence. It was a rude
+shock to the indolent and self-complacent dreams of a sanguine optimism,
+which looked that "to-morrow should be as to-day, only much more
+abundant," when tidings came that revolution had raised its head in the
+far south-east, and that an energetic prince, in the full vigor of life,
+and untrammelled by dynastic ties, had thrust the aged Astyages from
+his throne, and girt his own brows with the Imperial diadem. Croesus,
+according to the story, was still in deep grief on account of the
+untimely death of his eldest son, when the intelligence reached
+him. Instantly rousing himself from his despair, he set about his
+preparations for the struggle, which his sagacity saw to be inevitable.
+After consultation of the oracles of Greece, he allied himself with the
+Grecian community, which appeared to him on the whole to be the most
+powerful. At the same time he sent ambassadors to Babylon and Memphis,
+to the courts of Labynetus and Amasis, with proposals for an alliance
+offensive and defensive between the three secondary powers of the
+Eastern world against that leading power whose superior strength and
+resources were felt to constitute a common danger. His representations
+were effectual. The kings of Babylon and Egypt, alive to their own
+peril, accepted his proposals; and a joint league was formed between the
+three monarchs and the republic of Sparta for the purpose of resisting
+the presumed aggressive spirit of the Medo-Persians.
+
+Cyrus, meanwhile, was not idle. Suspecting that a weak point in his
+adversary's harness would be the disaffection of some of his more
+recently conquered subjects, he sent emissaries into Asia Minor to sound
+the dispositions of the natives. These emissaries particularly addressed
+themselves to the Asiatic Greeks, who, coming of a freedom-loving stock,
+and having been only very lately subdued, would it was thought, be
+likely to catch at an opportunity of shaking off the yoke of their
+conqueror. But, reasonable as such hopes must have seemed, they were in
+this instance doomed to disappointment. The Ionians, instead of hailing
+Cyrus as a liberator, received his overtures with suspicion. They
+probably thought that they were sure not to gain, and that they might
+possibly lose, by a change of masters. The yoke of Croesus had not,
+perhaps, been very oppressive; at any rate it seemed to them preferable
+to "bear the ills they had," rather than "fly to others" which might
+turn out less tolerable.
+
+Disappointed in this quarter, the Persian prince directed his efforts to
+the concentration of a large army, and its rapid advance into a position
+where it would be excellently placed both for defence and attack. The
+frontier province of Cappadocia, which was only separated from the
+dominions of the Lydian monarch by a stream of moderate size, the
+Halys, was a most defensible country, extremely fertile and productive,
+abounding in natural fastnesses, and inhabited by a brave and warlike
+population. Into this district Cyrus pushed forward his army with all
+speed, taking, as it would seem, not the short route through Diarbekr,
+Malatiyah, and Gurun, along which the "Royal Road" afterwards ran,
+but the more circuitous one by Erzerum, which brought him into Northern
+Cappadocia, or Pontus, as it was called by the Romans. Here, in a
+district named Pteria, which cannot have been very far from the coast,
+he found his adversary, who had crossed the Halys, and taken several
+Cappadocian towns, among which was the chief city of the Pterians.
+Perceiving that his troops considerably outnumbered those of Crcesus, he
+lost no time in giving him battle. The action was fought in the Pterian
+country, and was stoutly contested, terminating at nightfall without any
+decisive advantage to either party. The next day neither side made any
+movement; and Crcesus, concluding from his enemy's inaction that, though
+he had not been able to conquer him, he had nothing to fear from
+his desire of vengeance or his spirit of enterprise, determined on
+a retreat. He laid the blame of his failure, we are told, on the
+insufficient number of his troops, and purposed to call for the
+contingents of his allies, and renew the war with largely augmented
+forces in the ensuing spring.
+
+Cyrus, on his part, allowed the Lydians to retire unmolested, thus
+confirming his adversary in the mistaken estimate which he had formed of
+Persian courage and daring. Anticipating the course which Croesus would
+adopt under the circumstances, he kept his army well in hand, and, as
+soon as the Lydians were clean gone, he crossed the Halys, and marched
+straight upon Sardis. Croesus, deeming himself safe from molestation,
+had no sooner reached his capital than he had dismissed the bulk of
+his troops to their homes for the winter, merely giving them orders to
+return in the spring, when he hoped to have received auxiliaries
+from Sparta, Babylon, and Egypt. Left thus almost without defence, he
+suddenly heard that his audacious foe had followed on his steps, had
+ventured into the heart of his dominions, and was but a short distance
+from the capital. In this crisis he showed a spirit well worthy of
+admiration. Putting himself at the head of such an army of native
+Lydians as he could collect at a few hours' notice, he met the advancing
+foe in the rich plain a little to the east of Sardis, and gave him
+battle immediately. It is possible that even under these disadvantageous
+circumstances he might in fair fight have been victorious, for the
+Lydian cavalry were at this time excellent, and decidedly superior
+to the Persian. But Cyrus, aware of their merits, had recourse to
+stratagem, and by forming his camels in front, so frightened the Lydian
+horses that they fled from the field. The riders dismounted and fought
+on foot, but their gallantry was unavailing. After a prolonged and
+bloody combat the Lydian army was defeated, and forced to take refuge
+behind the walls of the capital.
+
+Croesus now in hot haste sent off fresh messengers to his allies,
+begging them to come at once to his assistance. He had still a good hope
+of maintaining himself till their arrival, for his city was defended
+by walls, and was regarded by the natives as impregnable. An attempt to
+storm the defences failed; and the siege must have been turned into
+a blockade but for an accidental discovery. A Persian soldier had
+approached to reconnoitre the citadel on the side where it was strongest
+by nature, and therefore guarded with least care, when he observed one
+of the garrison descend the rock after his helmet, which had fallen from
+his head, pick it up, and return with it. Being an expert climber, he
+attempted the track thus pointed out to him, and succeeded in reaching
+the summit. Several of his comrades followed in his steps; the citadel
+was surprised, and the town taken and plundered.
+
+Thus fell the greatest city of Asia Minor after a siege of fourteen
+days. The Lydian monarch, it is said, narrowly escaped with his life
+from the confusion of the sack; but, being fortunately recognized
+in time, was made prisoner, and brought before Cyrus. Cyrus at first
+treated him with some harshness, but soon relented, and, with that
+clemency which was a common characteristic of the earlier Persian kings,
+assigned him a territory for his maintenance, and gave him an honorable
+position at Court, where he passed at least thirty years, in high favor,
+first with Cyrus, and then with Cambyses. Lydia itself was absorbed at
+once into the Persian Empire, together with most of its dependencies,
+which submitted as soon as the fall of Sardis was known. There still,
+however, remained a certain amount of subjugation to be effected. The
+Greeks of the coast, who had offended the Great King by their refusal of
+his overtures, were not to be allowed to pass quietly into the condition
+of tributaries; and there were certain native races in the south-western
+corner of Asia Minor which declined to submit without a struggle to
+the new conqueror. But these matters were not regarded by Cyrus as
+of sufficient importance to require his own personal superintendence.
+Having remained at Sardis for a few weeks, during which time he received
+an insulting message from Sparta, whereto he made a menacing reply, and
+having arranged for the government of the newly-conquered province and
+the transmission of its treasures to Ecbatana, he quitted Lydia for
+the interior, taking Croesus with him, and proceeded towards the
+Median capital. He was bent on prosecuting without delay his schemes
+of conquest in other quarters--schemes of a grandeur and a
+comprehensiveness unknown to any previous monarch.
+
+Scarcely, however, was he departed when Sardis became the scene of an
+insurrection. Pactyas, a Lydian, who had been entrusted with the duty
+of conveying the treasures of Croesus and his more wealthy subjects to
+Ecbatana, revolted against Tabalus, the Persian commandant of the town,
+and being joined by the native population and numerous mercenaries,
+principally Greeks, whom he hired with the treasure that was in his
+hands, made himself master of Sardis, and besieged Tabalus in the
+citadel. The news reached Cyrus while he was upon his march; but,
+estimating the degree of its importance aright, he did not suffer it to
+interfere with his plans. He judged it enough to send a general with
+a strong body of troops to put down the revolt, and continued his own
+journey eastward. Mazares, a Mede, was the officer selected for
+the service. On arriving before Sardis, he found that Pactyas had
+relinquished his enterprise and fled to the coast, and that the revolt
+was consequently at an end. It only remained to exact vengeance. The
+rebellious Lydians were disarmed. Pactyas was pursued with unrelenting
+hostility, and demanded, in succession, of the Cymaeans, the
+Mytilenseans, and the Chians, of whom the last-mentioned surrendered
+him. The Greek cities which had furnished Pactyas with auxiliaries were
+then attacked, and the inhabitants of the first which fell, Priene, were
+one and all sold as slaves.
+
+Mazares soon afterwards died, and was succeeded by Ha-pagus, another
+Mede, who adopted a somewhat milder policy towards the unfortunate
+Greeks. Besieging their cities one by one, and taking them by means
+of banks or mounds piled up against the walls, he, in some instances,
+connived at the inhabitants escaping in their ships, while, in others,
+he allowed them to take up the ordinary position of Persian subjects,
+liable to tribute and military service, but not otherwise molested. So
+little irksome were such terms to the Ionians of this period that even
+those who dwelt in the islands off the coast, with the single exception
+of the Samians--though they ran no risk of subjugation, since the
+Persians did not possess a fleet--accepted voluntarily the same
+position, and enrolled themselves among the subjects of Cyrus.
+
+One Greek continental town alone suffered nothing during this time of
+trouble. When Cyrus refused the offers of submission, which reached him
+from the Ionian and AEolian Greeks after his capture of Sardis, he made
+an exception in favor of Miletus, the most important of all the Grecian
+cities in Asia. Prudence, it is probable, rather than clemency, dictated
+this course, since to detach from the Grecian cause the most powerful
+and influential of the states was the readiest way of weakening the
+resistance they would be able to make. Miletus singly had defied the
+arms of four successive Lydian kings, and had only succumbed at last
+to the efforts of the fifth, Croesus. If her submission had been now
+rejected, and she had been obliged to take counsel of her despair, the
+struggle between the Greek cities and the Persian generals might have
+assumed a different character.
+
+Still more different might have been the result, if the cities
+generally had had the wisdom to follow a piece of advice which the great
+philosopher and statesman of the time, Thales, the Milesian, is said
+to have given them. Thales suggested that the Ionians should form
+themselves into a confederation, to be governed by a congress which
+should meet at Teos, the several cities retaining their own laws and
+internal independence, but being united for military purposes into a
+single community. Judged by the light which later events, the great
+Ionian revolt especially, throw upon it, this advice is seen to have
+been of the greatest importance. It is difficult to say what check, or
+even reverse, the arms of Persia might not have at this time sustained,
+if the spirit of Thales had animated his Asiatic countrymen generally;
+if the loose Ionic Amphictyony, which in reality left each state in
+the hour of danger to its own resources, had been superseded by a
+true federal union, and the combined efforts of the thirteen Ionian
+communities had been directed to a steady resistance of Persian
+aggression and a determined maintenance of their own independence.
+Mazares and Harpagus would almost certainly have been baffled, and the
+Great King himself would probably have been called off from his eastern
+conquests to undertake in person a task which after all he might have
+failed to accomplish.
+
+The fall of the last Ionian town left Harpagus free to turn his
+attention to the tribes of the south-west which had not yet made their
+submission--the Carians, the Dorian Greeks, the Caunians, and the people
+of Lycia. Impressing the services of the newly-conquered Ionians and
+AEolians, he marched first against Caria, which offered but a feeble
+resistance. The Dorians of the continent, Myndians, Halicarnassians, and
+Cnidians. submitted still more tamely, without any struggle at all; but
+the Caunians and Lycians showed a different spirit. These tribes, which
+were ethnically allied, and of a very peculiar type, had never yet, it
+would seem, been subdued by any conqueror. Prizing highly the liberty
+they had enjoyed so long, they defended themselves with desperation.
+When they were defeated in the field they shut themselves up within
+the walls of their chief cities, Caunus and Xanthus, where, finding
+resistance impossible, they set fire to the two places with their own
+hands, burned their wives, children, slaves, and valuables, and then
+sallying forth, sword in hand, fell on the besiegers' lines, and fought
+till they were all slain.
+
+Meanwhile Cyrus was pursuing a career of conquest in the far east. It
+was now, according to Herodotus, who is, beyond all question, a better
+authority than Ctesias for the reign of Cyrus, that the reduction of the
+Bactrians and the Sacans, the chief nations of what is called by moderns
+Central Asia, took place. Bactria was a country which enjoyed the
+reputation of having been great and glorious at a very early date. In
+one of the most ancient portions of the Zendavesta it was celebrated
+as "Bahhdi eredhwo-drafsha," or "Bactria" with the lofty banner; and
+traditions not wholly to be despised made it the native country of
+Zoroaster. There is good reason to believe that, up to the date of
+Cyras, it had maintained its independence, or at any rate that it had
+been untouched by the great monarchies which for above seven hundred
+years had borne sway in the western parts of Asia. Its people were
+of the Iranic stock, and retained in their remote and somewhat savage
+country the simple and primitive habits of the race. Though their arms
+were of indifferent character, they were among the best soldiers to
+be found in the East, and always showed themselves a formidable enemy.
+According to Ctesias, when Cyrus invaded them, they fought a pitched
+battle with his army, in which the victory was with neither party.
+They were not, he said, reduced by force of arms at all, but submitted
+voluntarily when they found that Cyrus had married a Median princess.
+Herodotus, on the contrary, seems to include the Bactrians among the
+nations which Cyrus subdued, and probability is strongly in favor of
+this view of the matter. So warlike a nation is not likely to have
+submitted unless to force; nor is there any ground to believe that a
+Median marriage, had Cyrus contracted one, would have made him any the
+more acceptable to the Bactrians.
+
+On the conquest of Bactria followed, we may be tolerably sure, an attack
+upon the Sacae. This people, who must certainly have bordered on the
+Bactrians, dwelt probably either on the Pamir Steppe, or on the high
+plain of Chinese Tartary, east of the Bolar range--the modern districts
+of Kashgar and Yarkand. They were reckoned excellent soldiers. They
+fought with the bow, the dagger, and the battle-axe, and were equally
+formidable on horseback and on foot. In race they were probably Tatars
+or Turanians, and their descendants or their congeners are to be seen
+in the modern inhabitants of these regions. According to Ctesias, their
+women took the field in almost equal numbers with their men; and the
+mixed army which resisted Cyrus amounted, including both sexes, to half
+a million. The king who commanded them was a certain Amorges, who was
+married to a wife called Sparethra. In an engagement with the Persians
+he fell into the enemy's hands, whereupon Sparethra put herself at the
+head of the Sacan forces, defeated Cyrus, and took so many prisoners
+of importance that the Persian monarch was glad to release Amorges in
+exchange for them. The Sacse, however, notwithstanding this success,
+were reduced, and became subjects and tributaries of Persia.
+
+Among other countries subdued by Cyrus in this neighborhood, probably
+about the same period, may be named Hyrcania, Parthia, Chorasmia,
+Sogdiana, Aria (or Herat), Drangiana, Arachosia, Sattagydia, and
+Gandaria. The brief epitome which we possess of Ctesias omits to make
+any mention of these minor conquests, while Herodotus sums them all
+up in a single line; but there is reason to believe that the Cnidian
+historian gave a methodized account of their accomplishment, of which
+scattered notices have come down to us in various writers. Arrian
+relates that there was a city called Cyropolis, situated on the
+Jaxartes, a place of great strength defended by very lofty walls, which
+had been founded by the Great Cyrus. This city belonged to Sogdiana.
+Pliny states that Capisa, the chief city of Capisene, which lay not far
+from the upper Indus, was destroyed by Cyrus. This place is probably
+Kafshan, a little to the north of Kabul. Several authors tell us that
+the Ariaspse, a people of Drangiana, assisted Cyrus with provisions when
+he was warring in their neighborhood, and received from him in return a
+new name, which the Greeks rendered by "Euergetse"--"Benefactors." The
+Ariaspae must have dwelt near the Hamoon, or Lake of Seistan. We have
+thus traces of the conqueror's presence in the extreme north on the
+Jaxartes, in the extreme east in Affghanistan, and towards the south as
+far as Seistan and the Helmend; nor can there be any reasonable doubt
+that he overran and reduced to subjection the whole of that vast tract
+which lies between the Caspian on the west, the Indus valley and the
+desert of Tartary towards the east, the Jaxartes or Sir Deria on the
+north, and towards the south the Great Deserts of Seistan and Khorassan.
+
+More uncertainty attaches to the reduction of the tract lying south
+of these deserts. Tradition said that Cyrus had once penetrated into
+Gedrosia on an expedition against the Indians, and had lost his entire
+army in the waterless and trackless desert; but there is no evidence at
+all that he reduced the country. It appears to have been a portion of
+the Empire in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, but whether that monarch,
+or Cambyses, or the great founder of the Persian power conquered it,
+cannot at present be determined.
+
+The conquest of the vast tract lying between the Caspian and the
+Indus, inhabited (as it was) by a numerous, valiant, and freedom-loving
+population, may well have occupied Cyrus for thirteen or fourteen years.
+Alexander the Great spent in the reduction of this region, after the
+inhabitants had in a great measure lost their warlike qualities, as
+much as five years, or half the time occupied by his whole series of
+conquests. Cyrus could not have ventured on prosecuting his enterprises,
+as did the Macedonian prince, continuously and without interruption,
+marching straight from one country to another without once revisiting
+his capital. He must from time to time have returned to Ecbatana or
+Pasargadae; and it is on the whole most probable that, like the Assyrian
+monarchs, he marched out from home on a fresh expedition almost every
+year. Thus it need cause us no surprise that fourteen years were
+consumed in the subjugation of the tribes and nations beyond the Iranic
+desert to the north and the north-east, and that it was not till B.C.
+539, when he was nearly sixty years of age, that the Persian monarch
+felt himself free to turn his attention to the great kingdom of the
+south.
+
+The expedition of Cyrus against Babylon has been described already.
+Its success added to the Empire the rich and valuable provinces of
+Babylonia, Susiana, Syria, and Palestine, thus augmenting its size by
+about 240,000 or 250,000 square miles. Far more important, however,
+than this geographical increase was the removal of the last formidable
+rival--the complete destruction of a power which represented to the
+Asiatics the old Semitic civilization, which with reason claimed to be
+the heir and the successor of Assyria, and had a history stretching back
+for a space of nearly two thousand years. So long as Babylon, "the
+glory of kingdoms," "the praise of the whole earth," retained her
+independence, with her vast buildings, her prestige of antiquity, her
+wealth, her learning, her ancient and grand religious system, she could
+scarcely fail to be in the eyes of her neighbors the first power in the
+world, if not in mere strength, yet in honor, dignity, and reputation.
+Haughty and contemptuous herself to the very last, she naturally imposed
+on men's minds, alike by her past history and her present pretensions;
+nor was it possible for the Persian monarch to feel that he stood before
+his subjects as indisputably the foremost man upon the earth until he
+had humbled in the dust the pride and arrogance of Babylon. But, with
+the fall of the Great City, the whole fabric of Semetic greatness was
+shattered. Babylon became "an astonishment and a hissing"--all her
+prestige vanished--and Persia stepped manifestly into the place, which
+Assyria had occupied for so many centuries, of absolute and unrivalled
+mistress of Western Asia.
+
+The fall of Babylon was also the fall of an ancient, widely spread,
+and deeply venerated religious system. Not of course, that the religion
+suddenly disappeared or ceased to have votaries, but that, from a
+dominant system, supported by all the resources of the state, and
+enforced by the civil power over a wide extent of territory, it became
+simply one of many tolerated beliefs, exposed to frequent rebuffs and
+insults, and at all times overshadowed by a new and rival system--the
+comparatively pure creed of Zoroastrianism, The conquest of Babylon by
+Persia was, practically, if not a death-blow, at least a severe wound,
+to that sensuous idol-worship which had for more than twenty centuries
+been the almost universal religion in the countries between the
+Mediterranean and the Zagros mountain range. The religion never
+recovered itself--was never reinstated. It survived, a longer or a
+shorter time, in places. To a slight extent it corrupted Zoroastrianism;
+but, on the whole, from the date of the fall of Babylon it declined.
+"Bel bowed down; Nebo stooped;" "Merodach was broken in pieces."
+Judgment was done upon the Babylonian graven images; and the system, of
+which they formed a necessary part, having once fallen from its proud
+pre-eminence, gradually decayed and vanished.
+
+Parallel with the decline of the old Semitic idolatry was the advance
+of its direct antithesis, pure spiritual Monotheism. The same blow which
+laid the Babylonian religion in the dust struck off the fetters from
+Judaism. Purified and refined by the precious discipline of adversity,
+the Jewish system, which Cyrus, feeling towards it a natural sympathy,
+protected, upheld, and replaced in its proper locality, advanced from
+this time in influence and importance, leavening little by little the
+foul mass of superstition and impurity which came in contact with it.
+Proselytism grew more common. The Jews spread themselves wider. The
+return from, the captivity, which Cyrus authorized almost immediately
+after the capture of Babylon, is the starting point from which we may
+trace a gradual enlightenment of the heathen world by the dissemination
+of Jewish beliefs and practices--such dissemination being greatly helped
+by the high estimation in which the Jewish system was held by the civil
+authority, both while the empire of the Persians lasted, and when power
+passed to the Macedonians.
+
+On the fall of Babylon its dependencies seem to have submitted to
+the conqueror, with a single exception. Phoenicia, which had never
+acquiesced contentedly either in Assyrian or in Babylonian rule, saw,
+apparently, in the fresh convulsion that was now shaking the East, an
+opportunity for recovering autonomy. It was nearly half a century since
+her last struggle to free herself had terminated unsuccessfully. A new
+generation had grown up since that time--a generation which had seen
+nothing of war, and imperfectly appreciated its perils. Perhaps some
+reliance was placed on the countenance and support of Egypt, which, it
+must have been felt, would view with satisfaction any obstacle to the
+advance of a power wherewith she was sure, sooner or later, to come into
+collision. At any rate, it was resolved to make the venture. Phoenicia,
+on the destruction of her distant suzerain, quietly resumed her freedom;
+abstained from making any act of submission to the conqueror; while,
+however, at the same time, she established friendly relations for
+commercial purposes with one of the conqueror's vassals, the prince who
+had been sent into Palestine to re-establish the Jews at Jerusalem.
+
+It might have been expected that Cyrus, after his conquest of Babylon,
+would have immediately proceeded towards the south-west. The reduction
+of Egypt had, according to Herodotus, been embraced in the designs which
+he formed fifteen years earlier. The non-submission of Phoenicia
+must have been regarded as an act of defiance which deserved signal
+chastisement. It has been suspected that the restoration of the Jews was
+prompted, at least in part, by political motives, and that Cyrus, when
+he re-established them in their country, looked to finding them of use
+to him in the attack which he was meditating upon Egypt. At any rate it
+is evident that their presence would have facilitated his march through
+Palestine, and given him a _point d'appui_, which could not but have
+been of value. These considerations make it probable that an Egyptian
+expedition would have been determined on, had not circumstances occurred
+to prevent it.
+
+What the exact circumstances were, it is impossible to determine.
+According to Herodotus, a sudden desire seized Cyrus to attack the
+Massagetae, who bordered his Empire to the north-east. He led his troops
+across the Araxes (Jaxartes?), defeated the Massagetae by stratagem in
+a great battle, but was afterwards himself defeated and slain, his body
+falling into the enemy's hands, who treated it with gross indignity.
+According to Ctesias, the people against whom he made his expedition
+were the Derbices, a nation bordering upon India, Assisted by Indian
+allies, who lent them a number of elephants, this people engaged Cyrus,
+and defeated him in a battle, wherein he received a mortal wound.
+Reinforced, however, by a body of Sacae, the Persians renewed the
+struggle, and gained a complete victory, which was followed by the
+submission of the nation. Cyrus, however, died of his wound on the third
+day after the first battle.
+
+This conflict of testimony clouds with uncertainty the entire closing
+scene of the life of Cyrus. All that we can lay down as tolerably well
+established is, that instead of carrying out his designs against Egypt,
+he engaged in hostilities with one of the nations on his north-eastern
+frontier, that he conducted the war with less than his usual success,
+and in the course of it received a wound of which he died (B.C. 529),
+after he had reigned nine-and-twenty years. That his body did not fall
+into the enemy's hands appears, however, to be certain from the fact
+that it was conveyed into Persia Proper, and buried at Pasargadae.
+
+It may be suspected that this expedition, which proved so disastrous to
+the Persian monarch, was not the mere wanton act which it appears to be
+in the pages of our authorities. The nations of the north-east were at
+all times turbulent and irritable, with difficulty held in check by the
+civilized power that bore rule in the south and west. The expedition
+of Cyrus, whether directed against the Massagetae or the Derbices, was
+probably intended to strike terror into the barbarians of these regions,
+and was analogous to those invasions which were undertaken under the
+wisest of the Roman Emperors, across the Rhine and Danube, against
+Germans, Goths, and Sarmatae. The object of such inroads was not to
+conquer, but to alarm--it was hoped by an imposing display of organized
+military force to deter the undisciplined hordes of the prolific North
+from venturing across the frontier and carrying desolation through large
+tracts of the Empire. Defensive warfare has often an aggressive look. It
+may have been solely with the object of protecting his own territories
+from attack that Cyrus made his last expedition across the Jaxertes, or
+towards the upper Indus.
+
+The character of Cyrus, as represented to us by the Greeks, is the
+most favorable that we possess of any early Oriental monarch. Active,
+energetic, brave, fertile in stratagems, he has all the qualities
+required to form a successful military chief. He conciliates his people
+by friendly and familiar treatment, but declines to spoil them by
+yielding to their inclinations when they are adverse to their true
+interests. He has a ready humor, which shows itself in smart sayings and
+repartees, that take occasionally the favorite Oriental turn of parable
+or apologue. He is mild in his treatment of the prisoners that fall into
+his hands, and ready to forgive even the heinous crime of rebellion. He
+has none of the pride of the ordinary eastern despot, but converses on
+terms of equality with those about him. We cannot be surprised that the
+Persians, contrasting him with their later monarchs, held his memory
+in the highest veneration, and were even led by their affection for
+his person to make his type of countenance their standard of physical
+beauty.
+
+The genius of Cyrus was essentially that of a conqueror, not of an
+administrator. There is no trace of his having adopted anything like a
+uniform system for the government of the provinces which he subdued.
+In Lydia he set up a Persian governor, but assigned certain important
+functions to a native; in Babylon he gave the entire direction of
+affairs into the hands of a Mede, to whom he allowed the title and style
+of king; in Judaea he appointed a native, but made him merely "governor"
+or "deputy;" in Sacia he maintained as tributary king the monarch who
+had resisted his arms. Policy may have dictated the course pursued
+in each instance, which may have been suited to the condition of the
+several provinces; but the variety allowed was fatal to consolidation,
+and the monarchy, as Cyrus left it, had as little cohesion as any of
+those by which it was preceded.
+
+Though originally a rude mountain-chief, Cyrus, after he succeeded to
+empire, showed himself quite able to appreciate the dignity and value
+of art. In his constructions at Pasargadae he combined massiveness
+with elegance, and manifested a taste at once simple and refined. He
+ornamented his buildings with reliefs of an ideal character. It is
+probably to him that we owe the conception of the light tapering stone
+shaft, which is the glory of Persian architecture. If the more massive
+of the Persepolitan buildings are to be ascribed to him, we must regard
+him as haying fixed the whole plan and arrangement which was afterwards
+followed in all Persian palatial edifices.
+
+In his domestic affairs Cyrus appears to have shown the same moderation
+and simplicity which we observe in his general conduct. He married, as
+it would seem, one wife only, Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes,
+who was a member of the royal family. By her he had issue two sons
+and at least three daughters. The sons were Cambyses and Smerdis;
+the daughters Atossa, Artystone, and one whose name is unknown to us.
+Cassandane died before her husband, and was deeply mourned by him.
+Shortly before his own death he took the precaution formally to settle
+the succession. Leaving the general inheritance of his vast dominions to
+his elder son, Cambyses, he declared it to be his will that the younger
+should be entrusted with the actual government of several large and
+important provinces. He thought by this plan to secure the well-being of
+both the youths, never suspecting that he was in reality consigning
+both to untimely ends, and even preparing the way for an extraordinary
+revolution.
+
+The ill effect of the unfortunate arrangement thus made appeared almost
+immediately. Cambyses was scarcely settled upon the throne before he
+grew jealous of his brother, and ordered him to be privately put to
+death. His cruel orders were obeyed, and with so much secrecy that
+neither the mode of the death, nor even the fact, was known to more than
+a few. Smerdis was generally believed to be still alive; and thus an
+opportunity was presented for personation--a form of imposture very
+congenial to Orientals, and one which has often had very disastrous
+consequences. We shall find in the sequel this opportunity embraced, and
+results follow of a most stirring and exciting character.
+
+It required time, however, to bring to maturity the fruits of the crime
+so rashly committed. Cambyses, in the meanwhile, quite unconscious of
+danger, turned his attention to military matters, and determined on
+endeavoring to complete his father's scheme of conquest by the reduction
+of Egypt. Desirous of obtaining a ground of quarrel less antiquated
+than the alliance, a quarter of a century earlier, between Amasis and
+Croesus, he demanded that a daughter of the Egyptian king should be sent
+to him as a secondary wife. Amasis, too timid to refuse, sent a damsel
+named Nitetis, who was not his daughter; and she, soon after her
+arrival, made Cambyses acquainted with the fraud. A ground of quarrel
+was thus secured, which might be put forward when it suited his purpose;
+and meanwhile every nerve was being strained to prepare effectually
+for the expedition. The difficulty of a war with Egypt lay in her
+inaccessibility. She was protected on all sides by seas or deserts; and,
+for a successful advance upon her from the direction of Asia, it was
+desirable both to obtain a quiet passage for a large army through the
+desert of El-Tij, and also to have the support of a powerful fleet in
+the Mediterranean. This latter was the paramount consideration. An army
+well supplied with camels might carry its provisions and water through
+the desert, and might intimidate or overpower the few Arab tribes which
+inhabited it; but, unless the command of the sea was gained and the
+navigation of the Nile closed, Memphis might successfully resist
+attack. Cambyses appears to have perceived with sufficient clearness
+the conditions on which victory depended, and to have applied himself at
+once to securing them. He made a treaty with the Arab Sheikh who had the
+chief influence over the tribes of the desert; and at the same time
+he set to work to procure the services of a powerful naval force. By
+menaces or negotiations he prevailed upon the Phoenicians to submit
+themselves to his yoke, and having thus obtained a fleet superior to
+that of Egypt, he commenced hostilities by robbing her of a dependency
+which possessed considerable naval strength, in this way still further
+increasing the disparity between his own fleet and that of his enemy.
+Against the combined ships of Phoenicia, Cyprus, Ionia, and AEolis,
+Egypt was powerless, and her fleets seem to have quietly yielded the
+command of the sea. Cambyses was thus able to give his army the support
+of a naval force, as it marched along the coast, from Carmel probably
+to Pelusium; and when, having defeated the Egyptians at the last-named
+place, he proceeded against Memphis, he was able to take possession of
+the Nile, and to blockade the Egyptian capital both by land and water.
+
+It appears that four years were consumed by the Persian monarch in his
+preparations for his Egyptian expedition. It was not until B.C. 525 that
+he entered Egypt at the head of his troops, and fought the great battle
+which decided the fate of the country. The struggle was long and bloody.
+Psammenitus, who had succeeded his father Amasis, had the services, not
+only of his Egyptian subjects, but a large body of mercenaries besides,
+Greeks and Carians. These allies were zealous in his cause, and are said
+to have given him a horrible proof of their attachment. One of
+their body had deserted to the Persians some little time before the
+expedition, and was believed to have given important advice to the
+invader. He had left his children behind in Egypt; and these his former
+comrades now seized, and led out in front of their lines, where they
+slew them before their father's eyes, and, having so done, mixed their
+blood in a bowl with water and wine, and drank, one and all, of the
+mixture. The battle followed immediately after; but, in spite of their
+courage and fanaticism, the Egyptian army was completely defeated.
+According to Ctesias, fifty thousand fell on the vanquished side, while
+the victors lost no more than seven thousand. Psammenitus, after his
+defeat, threw himself into Memphis, but, being blockaded by land
+and prevented from receiving supplies from the sea, after a stout
+resistance, he surrendered. The captive monarch received the respectful
+treatment which Persian clemency usually accorded to fallen sovereigns.
+Herodotus even goes so far as to intimate that, if he had abstained from
+conspiracy, he would probably have been allowed to continue ruler
+of Egypt, exchanging, of course, his independent sovereignty for a
+delegated kingship held at the pleasure of the Lord of Asia.
+
+The conquest of Egypt was immediately followed by the submission of the
+neighboring tribes. The Libyans of the desert tract which borders the
+Nile valley to the west, and even the Greeks of the more remote Barca
+and Cyrene, sent gifts to the conqueror and consented to become his
+tributaries. But Cambyses placed little value on such petty accessions
+to his power. Inheriting the grandeur of view which had characterized
+his father, he was no sooner master of Egypt than he conceived the idea
+of a magnificent series of conquests in this quarter, whereby he hoped
+to become Lord of Africa no less than of Asia, or at any rate to leave
+himself without a rival of any importance on the vast continent which
+his victorious arms had now opened to him. Apart from Egypt, Africa
+possessed but two powers capable, by their political organization and
+their military strength, of offering him serious resistance. These were
+Ethiopia and Carthage--the one the great power of the South, the equal,
+if not even the superior, of Egypt--the other the great power of the
+West--remote, little known, but looming larger for, the obscurity in
+which she was shrouded, and attractive from her reputed wealth. The
+views of Cambyses comprised the reduction of both these powers, and
+also the conquest of the oasis of Ammon. As a good Zoroastrian, he was
+naturally anxious to exhibit the superiority of Ormazd to all the
+"gods of the nations;" and, as the temple of Ammon in the oasis had the
+greatest repute of all the African shrines, this design would be best
+accomplished by its pillage and destruction. It is probable that he
+further looked to the subjugation of all the tribes on the north coast
+between the Nile valley and the Carthaginian territory; for he would
+undoubtedly have sent an army along the shore to act in concert with his
+fleet, had he decided ultimately on making the expedition. An unexpected
+obstacle, however, arose to prevent him. The Phoenicians, who formed
+the main strength of his navy, declined to take any part in an attack
+on Carthage, since the Carthaginians were their colonists, and the
+relations between the two people had always been friendly. Cambyses
+did not like to force their inclinations, on account of their recent
+voluntary submission; and as, without their aid, his navy was manifestly
+unequal to the proposed service, he felt obliged to desist from the
+undertaking.
+
+While the Carthaginian scheme was thus nipped in the bud, the
+enterprises which Cambyses attempted to carry out led to nothing but
+disaster. An army, fifty thousand strong, despatched from Thebes against
+Ammon, perished to a man amid the sands of the Libyan desert. A still
+more numerous force, led by Cambyses himself towards the Ethiopian
+frontier, found itself short of supplies on its march across Nubia, and
+was forced to return, without glory, after suffering considerable loss.
+It became evident that the abilities of the Persian monarch were
+not equal to his ambition--that he insufficiently appreciated the
+difficulties and dangers of enterprises--while a fatal obstinacy
+prevented him from acknowledging and retrieving an error while retrieval
+was possible. The Persians, we may be sure, grew dispirited under such
+a leader; and the Egyptians naturally took heart. It seems to have
+been shortly after the return of Cambyses from his abortive expedition
+against Ethiopia that symptoms of an intention to revolt began to
+manifest themselves in Egypt. The priests declared an incarnation of
+Apis, and the whole country burst out into rejoicings. It was probably
+now that Psammenitus, who had hitherto been kindly treated by his
+captor, was detected in treasonable intrigues, condemned to death, and
+executed. At the same time, the native officers who had been left in
+charge of the city of Memphis were apprehended and capitally punished.
+Such stringent measures had all the effect that was expected from them;
+they wholly crushed the nascent rebellion; they left, however, behind
+them a soreness, felt alike by the conqueror and the conquered, which
+prevented the establishment of a good understanding between the Great
+King and his new subjects. Cambyses knew that he had been severe, and
+that his severity had made him many enemies; he suspected the people,
+and still more suspected the priests, their natural leaders; he soon
+persuaded himself that policy required in Egypt a departure from the
+principles of toleration which were ordinarily observed towards their
+subjects by the Persians, and a sustained effort on the part of the
+civil power to bring the religion, and its priests, into contempt.
+Accordingly, he commenced a serious of acts calculated to have this
+effect. He stabbed the sacred calf, believed to be incarnate Apis; he
+ordered the body of priests who had the animal in charge to be publicly
+scourged; he stopped the Apis festival by making participation in it a
+capital offence; he opened the receptacles of the dead, and curiously
+examined the bodies contained in them, he intruded himself into the
+chief sanctuary at Memphis, and publicly scoffed at the grotesque
+image of Phtha; finally, not content with outraging in the same way the
+inviolable temple of the Cabeiri, he wound up his insults by ordering
+that their images should be burnt. These injuries and indignities
+rankled in the minds of the Egyptians, and probably had a large share in
+producing that bitter hatred of the Persian yoke which shows itself in
+the later history on so many occasions; but for the time the policy was
+successful: crushed beneath the iron heel of the conqueror--their faith
+in the power of their gods shaken, their spirits cowed, their hopes
+shattered--the Egyptian subjects of Cambyses made up their minds to
+submission. The Oriental will generally kiss the hand that smites him,
+if it only smite hard enough. Egypt became now for a full generation the
+obsequious slave of Persia, and gave no more trouble to her subjugator
+than the weakest or the most contented of the provinces.
+
+The work of subjection completed, Cambyses, having been absent from his
+capital longer than was at all prudent, prepared to return home. He had
+proceeded on his way as far as Syria, when intelligence reached him of
+a most unexpected nature. A herald suddenly entered his camp and
+proclaimed, in the hearing of the whole army, that Cambyses, son of
+Cyrus, had ceased to reign, and that the allegiance of all Persian
+subjects was henceforth to be paid to Smerdis, son of Cyrus. At first,
+it is said, Cambyses thought that his instrument had played him false,
+and that his brother was alive and had actually seized the throne; but
+the assurances of the suspected person, and a suggestion which he made,
+convinced him of the contrary, and gave him a clue to the real solution
+of the mystery. Prexaspes, the nobleman inculpated, knew that the
+so-called Smerdis must be an impostor, and suggested his identity with
+a certain Magus, whose brother had been intrusted by Cambyses with the
+general direction of his household and the care of the palace. He was
+probably led to make the suggestion by his knowledge of the resemblance
+borne by this person to the murdered prince, which was sufficiently
+close to make personation possible. Cambyses was thus enabled to
+appreciate the gravity of the crisis, and to consider whether he could
+successfully contend with it or no. Apparently, he decided in the
+negative. Believing that he could not triumph over the conspiracy
+which had decreed his downfall, and unwilling to descend to a private
+station--perhaps even uncertain whether his enemies would spare his
+life--he resolved to fly to the last refuge of a dethroned king, and
+to end all by suicide. Drawing his short sword from its sheath, he gave
+himself a wound, of which he died in a few days.
+
+It is certainly surprising that the king formed this resolution. He
+was at the head of an army, returning from an expedition, which, if
+not wholly successful, had at any rate added to the empire an important
+province. His father's name was a tower of strength; and if he could
+only have exposed the imposture that had been practised on them,
+he might have counted confidently on rallying the great mass of the
+Persians to his cause. How was it that he did not advance on the
+capital, and at least strike one blow for empire? No clear and decided
+response can be made to this inquiry; but we may indistinctly discern
+a number of causes which may have combined to produce in the monarch's
+mind the feeling of despondency whereto he gave way. Although he
+returned from Egypt a substantial conqueror, his laurel wreath was
+tarnished by ill-success; his army, weakened by its losses, and
+dispirited by its failures, was out of heart; it had no trust in
+his capacity as a commander, and could not be expected to fight with
+enthusiasm on his behalf. There is also reason to believe that he was
+generally unpopular on account of his haughty and tyrannical temper,
+and his contempt of law and usage, where they interfered with the
+gratification of his desires. Though we should do wrong to accept as
+true all the crimes laid to his charge by the Egyptians, who detested
+his memory, we cannot doubt the fact of his incestuous marriage with his
+sister, Atossa, which was wholly repugnant to the religious feelings of
+his nation. Nor can we well imagine that there was no foundation at
+all for the stories of the escape of Croesus, the murder of the son
+of Prexaspes, and the execution in Egypt on a trivial charge of twelve
+noble Persians. His own people called Cambyses a "despot" or "master,"
+in contrast with Cyrus, whom they regarded as a "father," because, as
+Herodotus says, he was "harsh and reckless," whereas his father was
+mild and beneficent. Further, there was the religious aspect of the
+revolution, which had taken place, in the background. Cambyses may have
+known that in the ranks of his army there was much sympathy with Magism,
+and may have doubted whether, if the whole conspiracy were laid bare,
+he could count on anything like a general adhesion of his troops to the
+Zoroastrian cause. These various grounds, taken together, go far
+towards accounting for a suicide which at first sight strikes us as
+extraordinary, and is indeed almost unparalleled.
+
+Of the general character of Cambyses little more need be said. He
+was brave, active, and energetic, like his father: but he lacked his
+father's strategic genius, his prudence, and his fertility in resources.
+Born in the purple, he was proud and haughty, careless of the feelings
+of others, and impatient of admonition or remonstrance. His pride made
+him obstinate in error; and his contempt of others led on naturally
+to harshness, and perhaps even to cruelty. He is accused of "habitual
+drunkenness," and was probably not free from the intemperance which
+was a common Persian failing; but there is not sufficient ground for
+believing that his indulgence was excessive, much less that it proceeded
+to the extent of affecting his reason. The "madness of Cambyses,"
+reported to and believed in by Herodotus, was a fiction of the Egyptian
+priests, who wished it to be thought that their gods had in this way
+punished his impiety. The Persians had no such tradition, but merely
+regarded him as unduly severe and selfish. A dispassionate consideration
+of all the evidence on the subject leads to the conclusion that Cambyses
+lived and died in the possession of his reason, having neither destroyed
+it through inebriety nor lost it by the judgment of Heaven.
+
+The death of Cambyses (B.C. 522) left the conspirators, who had
+possession of the capital, at liberty to develop their projects, and
+to take such steps as they thought best for the consolidation and
+perpetuation of their power. The position which they occupied was one
+of peculiar delicacy. On the one hand, the impostor had to guard against
+acting in any way which would throw suspicion on his being really
+Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. On the other, he had to satisfy the Magian
+priests, to whom he was well known, and on whom he mainly depended for
+support, if his imposture should be detected. These priests must have
+desired a change of the national religion, and to effect this must have
+been the true aim and object of the revolution. But it was necessary to
+proceed with the utmost caution. An open proclamation that Magism was
+to supersede Zoroastrianism would have seemed a strange act in an
+Achaemenian prince, and could scarcely have failed to arouse doubts
+which might easily terminate in discovery. The Magian brothers shrank
+from affronting this peril, and resolved, before approaching it, to
+obtain for the new government an amount of general popularity which
+would make its overthrow in fair fight difficult. Accordingly the new
+reign was inaugurated by a general remission of tribute and military
+service for the space of three years--a measure which was certain to
+give satisfaction to all the tribes and nations of the Empire, except
+the Persians. Persia Proper was at all times exempt from tribute, and
+was thus, so far, unaffected by the boon granted, while military service
+was no doubt popular with the ruling nation, for whose benefit the
+various conquests were effected. Still Persia could scarcely take
+umbrage at an inactivity which was to last only three years, while
+to the rest of the Empire the twofold grace accorded must have been
+thoroughly acceptable.
+
+Further to confirm his uncertain hold upon the throne, the
+Pseudo-Smerdis took to wife all the widows of his predecessor. This is
+a practice common in the East; and there can be no doubt that it gives a
+new monarch a certain prestige in the eyes of his people. In the present
+case, however, it involved a danger. The wives of the late king were
+likely to be acquainted with the person of the king's brother; Atossa,
+at any rate, could not fail to know him intimately. If the Magus allowed
+them to associate together freely, according to the ordinary practice,
+they would detect his imposture and probably find a way to divulge it.
+He therefore introduced a new system into the seraglio. Instead of the
+free intercourse one with another which the royal consorts had enjoyed
+previously, he established at once the principle of complete isolation.
+Each wife was assigned her own portion of the palace; and no visiting
+of one wife by another was permitted. Access to them from without was
+altogether forbidden, even to their nearest relations; and the wives
+were thus cut off wholly from the external world, unless they could
+manage to communicate with it by means of secret messages. But
+precautions of this kind, though necessary, were in themselves
+suspicious; they naturally suggested an inquiry into their cause and
+object. It was a possible explanation of them that they proceeded from
+an extreme and morbid jealousy; but the thought could not fail to occur
+to some that they might be occasioned by the fear of detection.
+
+However, as time went on, and no discovery was actually made, the Magus
+grew bolder, and ventured to commence that reformation of religion which
+he and his order had so much at heart. He destroyed the Zoroastrian
+temples in various places, and seems to have put down the old worship,
+with its hymns in praise of the Zoroastrian deities. He instituted
+Magian rites in lieu of the old ceremonies, and established his
+brother Magians as the priest-caste of the Persian nation. The changes
+introduced were no doubt satisfactory to the Medes, and to many of
+the subject races throughout the Empire. They were even agreeable to a
+portion of the Persian people, who leant towards a more material worship
+and a more gorgeous ceremonial than had contented their ancestors. If
+the faithful worshippers of Ormazd saw them with dismay, they were too
+timid to resist, and tacitly acquiesced in the religious revolution.
+
+In one remote province the change gave a fresh impulse to a religious
+struggle which was there going on, adding strength to the side of
+intolerance. The Jews had now been engaged for fifteen or sixteen years
+in the restoration of their temple, according to the permission granted
+them by Cyrus. Their enterprise was distasteful to the neighboring
+Samaritans, who strained every nerve to prevent its being brought to a
+successful issue, and as each new king mounted the Persian throne,
+made a fresh effort to have the work stopped by authority. Their
+representations had had no effect upon Cambyses; but when they were
+repeated on the accession of the Pseudo-Smerdis, the result was
+different. An edict was at once sent down to Palestine, reversing the
+decree of Cyrus, and authorizing the inhabitants of Samaria to interfere
+forcibly in the matter, and compel the Jews to desist from building.
+Armed with this decree, the Samaritan authorities hastened to Jerusalem,
+and "made the Jews to cease by force and power."
+
+These revelations of a leaning towards a creed diverse from that of the
+Achaemenian princes, combined with the system of seclusion adopted in
+the palace--a system not limited to the seraglio, but extending also
+to the person of the monarch, who neither quitted the palace precincts
+himself, nor allowed any of the Persian nobles to enter them--must have
+turned the suspicions previously existing into a general belief and
+conviction that the monarch seated on the throne was not Smerdis the son
+of Cyrus, but an impostor. Yet still there was for a while no outbreak.
+It mattered nothing to the provincials who ruled them, provided that
+order was maintained, and that the boons granted them at the opening of
+the new reign were not revoked or modified. Their wishes were no doubt
+in favor of the prince who had remitted their burthens; and in Media a
+peculiar sympathy would exist towards one who had exalted Magism. Such
+discontent as was felt would be confined to Persia, or to Persia and a
+few provinces of the north-east, where the Zoroastrian faith may have
+maintained itself.
+
+At last, among the chief Persians, rumors began to arise. These were
+sternly repressed at the outset, and a reign of terror was established,
+during which men remained silent through fear. But at length some of
+the principal nobles, convinced of the imposture, held secret council
+together, and discussed the measures proper to be adopted under the
+circumstances. Nothing, however, was done until the arrival at the
+capital of a personage felt by all to be the proper leader of the nation
+in the existing crisis. This was Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a
+prince of the blood royal who probably stood in the direct line of the
+succession, failing the issue of Cyrus. At the early age of twenty he
+had attracted the attention of that monarch, who suspected him even then
+of a design to seize the throne. He was now about twenty-eight years
+of age, and therefore at a time of life suited for vigorous enterprise;
+which was probably the reason why his father, Hystaspes, who was still
+alive, sent him to the capital, instead of proceeding thither in person.
+Youth and vigor were necessary qualifications for success in a struggle
+against the holders of power; and Hystaspes no longer possessed those
+advantages. He therefore yielded to his son that headship of the
+movement to which his position would have entitled him; and, with the
+leadership in danger, he yielded necessarily his claim to the first
+place, when the time of peril should be past and the rewards of victory
+should come to be apportioned.
+
+Darius, on his arrival at the capital, was at once accepted as head of
+the conspiracy, and with prudent boldness determined on pushing matters
+to an immediate decision. Overruling the timidity of a party among the
+conspirators, who urged delay, he armed his partisans, and proceeded,
+without a moment's pause, to the attack. According to the Greek
+historians, he and his friends entered the palace in a body, and
+surprised the Magus in his private apartments, where they slew him
+after a brief struggle. But the authority of Darius discredits the Greek
+accounts, and shows us, though with provoking brevity, that the course
+of events must have been very different. The Magus was not slain in the
+privacy of his palace, at Susa or Ecbatana, but met his death in a small
+and insignificant fort in the part of Media called "the Maesan plain,"
+or, more briefly, "Nisaea," whither he appears to have fled with a band
+of followers. Whether he was first attacked in the capital, and escaping
+threw himself into this stronghold, or receiving timely warning of his
+danger withdrew to it before the outbreak occurred, or merely happened
+to be at the spot when the conspirators decided to make their attempt,
+we have no means of determining. We only know that the scene of the
+last struggle was Sictachotes, in Media; that Darius made the attack
+accompanied by six Persian nobles of high rank; and that the contest
+terminated in the slaughter of the Magus and of a number of his
+adherents, who were involved in the fall of their master.
+
+Nor did the vengeance of the successful conspirators stop here.
+Speeding to the capital, with the head of the Magus in their hands, and
+exhibiting everywhere this proof at once of the death of the late king
+and of his imposture, they proceeded to authorize and aid in carrying
+out, a general massacre of the Magian priests, the abettors of the later
+usurpation. Every Magus who could be found was poniarded by the enraged
+Persians; and the caste would have been well-nigh exterminated, if it
+had not been for the approach of night. Darkness brought the carnage
+to an end; and the sword, once sheathed, was not again drawn. Only, to
+complete the punishment of the ambitious religionists who had insulted
+and deceived the nation, the day of the massacre was appointed to be
+kept annually as a solemn festival, under the name of the Magophonia;
+and a law was passed that on that day no Magus should leave his house.
+
+The accession of Darius to the vacant throne now took place (Jan. 1,
+B.C. 521). According to Herodotus it was preceded by a period of debate
+and irresolution, during which the royal authority was, as it were, in
+commission among the Seven; and in this interval he places not only the
+choice of a king, but an actual discussion on the subject of the proper
+form of government to be established. Even his contemporaries, however,
+could see that this last story was unworthy of credit and it may be
+questioned whether any more reliance ought to be placed on the remainder
+of the narrative. Probably the true account of the matter is, that,
+having come to a knowledge of the facts of the case, the heads of the
+seven great Persian clans or families met together in secret conclave
+and arranged all their proceedings beforehand. No government but the
+monarchical could be thought of for a moment, and no one could assert
+any claim to be king but Darius. Darius went into the conspiracy as a
+pretender to the throne: the other six were simply his "faithful men,"
+his friends and well-wishers. While, however, the six were far from
+disputing Darius's right, they required and received for themselves a
+guarantee of certain privileges, which may either have belonged to them
+previously, by law or custom, as the heads of the great clans, or may
+have been now for the first time conceded. The king-bound himself to
+choose his wives from among the families of the conspirators only, and
+sanctioned their claim to have free access to his person at all times
+without asking his permission. One of their number, Otanes, demanded and
+obtained even more. He and his house were to remain "free," and were to
+receive yearly a magnificent kaftan, or royal present. Thus, something
+like a check on unbridled despotism was formally and regularly
+established; an hereditary nobility was acknowledged; the king became
+to some extent dependent on his grandees; he could not regard himself as
+the sole fountain of honor; six great nobles stood round the throne
+as its supports; but their position was so near the monarch that they
+detracted somewhat from his prestige and dignity.
+
+The guarantee of these privileges was, we may be sure, given, and the
+choice of Darius as king made, before the attack upon the. Magus began.
+It would have been madness to allow an interval of anarchy. When
+Darius reached the capital, with the head of the Pseudo-Smerdis in his
+possession, he no doubt proceeded at once to the palace and took his
+seat upon the vacant throne. No opposition was offered to him. The
+Persians gladly saw a scion of their old royal stock installed in power.
+The provincials were too far off to interfere. Such malcontents as
+might be present would be cowed by the massacre that was going on in the
+streets. The friends and intimates of the fallen monarch would be only
+anxious to escape notice. The reign of the new king no doubt commenced
+amid those acclamations which are never wanting in the East when a
+sovereign first shows himself to his subjects.
+
+The measures with which the new monarch inaugurated his reign had for
+their object the re-establishment of the old worship. He rebuilt the
+Zoroastrian temples which the Magus had destroyed, and probably restored
+the use of the sacred chants and the other accustomed ceremonies. It may
+be suspected that his religious zeal proceeded often to the length of
+persecution, and that the Magian priests were not the only persons who,
+under the orders which he issued, felt the weight of the secular arm.
+His Zoroastrian zeal was soon known through the provinces; and the Jews
+forthwith resumed the building of their temple, trusting that their
+conduct would be consonant with his wishes. This trust was not
+misplaced: for, when the Samaritans once more interfered and tried to
+induce the new king to put a stop to the work, the only result was
+a fresh edict, confirming the old decree of Cyrus, forbidding
+interference, and assigning a further grant of money, cattle,
+corn, etc., from the royal stores, for the furtherance of the pious
+undertaking. Its accomplishment was declared to be for the advantage of
+the king and his house, since, when the temple was finished, sacrifices
+would be offered in it to "the God of Heaven," and prayer would be made
+"for the life of the king and of his sons." Such was the sympathy which
+still united pure Zoroastrianism with the worship of Jehovah. But the
+reign, which, so far, might have seemed to be auspiciously begun,
+was destined ere long to meet opposition, and even to encounter armed
+hostility, in various quarters. In the loosely organized empires of
+the early type, a change of sovereign, especially if accompanied
+by revolutionary violence, is always regarded as an opportunity for
+rebellion. Doubt as to the condition of the capital paralyzes the
+imperial authority in the provinces; and bold men, taking advantage
+of the moment of weakness, start up in various places, asserting
+independence, and seeking to obtain for themselves kingdoms out of
+the chaos which they see around them. The more remote provinces are
+especially liable to be thus affected, and often revolt successfully on
+such an occasion. It appears that the circumstances under which Darius
+obtained the throne were more than usually provocative of the spirit
+of disaffection and rebellion. Not only did the governors of remote
+countries, like Egypt and Lydia, assume an attitude incompatible with
+their duty as subjects, but everywhere, even in the very heart of the
+Empire, insurrection raised its head; and for six long years the new
+king was constantly employed in reducing one province after another to
+obedience. Susiana, Babylonia, Persia itself, Media, Assyria, Armenia,
+Hyrcania, Parthia, Margiana, Sagartia, and Sacia, all revolted during
+this space, and were successively chastised and recovered. It may
+be suspected that the religious element entered into some of these
+struggles, and that the unusual number of the revolts and the obstinate
+character of many of them were connected with the downfall of Magism and
+the restoration of the pure Zoroastrian faith, which Darius was bent on
+effecting. But this explanation can only be applied partially. We must
+suppose, besides, a sort of contagion of rebellion--an awakening of
+hopes, far and wide, among the subject nations, as the rumor that
+serious troubles had broken out reached them, and a resolution to take
+advantage of the critical state of things, spreading rapidly from one
+people to another.
+
+A brief sketch of these various revolts must now be given. They
+commenced with a rising in Susiana, where a certain Atrines assumed
+the name and state of king, and was supported by the people. Almost
+simultaneously a pretender appeared in Babylon, who gave out that he was
+the son of the late king, Nabonidus, and bore the world-renowned name
+of Nebuchadnezzar. Darius, regarding this second revolt as the more
+important of the two, while he dispatched a force to punish the
+Susianians, proceeded in person against the Babylonian pretender. The
+rivals met at the river Tigris, which the Babylonians held with a naval
+force, while their army was posted on the right bank, ready to dispute
+the passage. Darius, however, crossed the river in their dispute, and,
+defeating the troops of his antagonist, pressed forward against the
+capital. He had nearly reached it, when the pretender gave him battle
+for the second time at a small town on the banks of the Euphrates.
+Fortune again declared in favor of the Persians, who drove the host of
+their enemy into the water and destroyed great numbers. The soi-disant
+Nebuchadnezzar escaped with a few horsemen and threw himself into
+Babylon; but the city was ill prepared for a siege, and was soon taken,
+the pretender falling into the hands of his enemy, who caused him to be
+executed.
+
+Meanwhile, in Susiana, Atrines, the original leader of the rebellion,
+had been made prisoner by the troops sent against him, and, being
+brought to Darius while he was on his march against Babylon, was put to
+death. But this severity had little effect. A fresh leader appeared in
+the person of a certain Martes, a Persian who, taking example from the
+Babylonian rebel, assumed a name which connected him with the old kings
+of the country, and probably claimed to be their descendant, but the
+hands of Darius were now free by the termination of the Babylonian
+contest, and he was able to proceed towards Susiana himself. This
+movement, apparently, was unexpected; for when the Susianians heard of
+it they were so alarmed that they laid hands on the pretender and slew
+him.
+
+A more important rebellion followed. Three of the chief provinces of
+the empire, Media, Armenia, and Assyria, revolted in concert. A Median
+monarch was set up, who called himself Xathrites, and claimed descent
+from the great Oyaxares; and it would seem that the three countries
+immediately acknowledged his sway. Darius, seeing how formidable the
+revolt was, determined to act with caution. Settling himself at the
+newly-conquered city of Babylon, he resolved to employ his generals
+against the rebels, and in this way to gauge the strength of the
+outbreak, before adventuring his own person into the fray. Hydarnes,
+one of the Seven conspirators, was sent into Media with an army, while
+Dadarses, an Armenian, was dispatched into Armenia, and Vomises, a
+Persian, was ordered to march through Assyria into the same country.
+All three generals were met by the forces of the pretender, and several
+battles were fought, with results that seem not to have been very
+decisive. Darius claims the victory on each occasion for his own
+generals; but it is evident that his arms made little progress, and
+that, in spite of several small defeats, the rebellion maintained a bold
+front, and was thought not unlikely to be successful. So strong was
+this feeling that two of the eastern provinces, Hyrcania and Parthia,
+deserted the Persian cause in the midst of the struggle, and placed
+themselves under the rule of Xathrites. Either this circumstance, or the
+general position of affairs, induced Darius at length to take the field
+in person. Quitting Babylon, he marched into Media, and being met by the
+pretender near a town called Kudrus, he defeated him in a great battle.
+This is no doubt the engagement of which Herodotus speaks, and which he
+rightly regards as decisive. The battle of Kudrus gave Ecbatana into the
+hands of Darius, and made the Median prince an outcast and a fugitive.
+He fled towards the East, probably intending to join his partisans in
+Hyrcania and Parthia, but was overtaken in the district of Rhages and
+made prisoner by the troops of Darius. The king treated his captive with
+extreme severity. Having cut off his nose, ears, and tongue, he kept
+him for some time chained to the door of his palace, in order that there
+might be no doubt of his capture. When this object had been sufficiently
+secured, the wretched sufferer was allowed to end his miserable
+existence. He was crucified in his capital city, Ecbatana, before the
+eyes of those who had seen his former glory.
+
+The rebellion was thus crushed in its original seat, but it had still to
+be put down in the countries whereto it had extended itself. Parthia
+and Hyrcania, which had embraced the cause of the pretender, were still
+maintaining a conflict with their former governor, Hystaspes, Darius's
+father. Darius marched as far as Rhages to his father's assistance, and
+dispatched from that point a body of Persian troops to reinforce him.
+With this important aid Hystaspes once more gave the rebels battle, and
+succeeded in defeating them so entirely that they presently made their
+submission.
+
+Troubles, meanwhile, had broken out in Sagartia. A native chief, moved
+probably by the success which had for a while attended the Median rebel
+who claimed to rule as the descendant and representative of Cyaxares,
+came forward with similar pretensions, and was accepted by the
+Sargartians as their monarch. This revolt, however, proved unimportant.
+Darius suppressed it with the utmost facility by means of a mixed
+army of Persians and Medes, whom he placed under a Median leader,
+Tachamaspates. The pretender was captured and treated almost exactly
+in the same way as the Mede whose example he had followed. His nose and
+ears were cut off; he was chained for a while at the palace door; and
+finally he was crucified at Arbela.
+
+Another trifling revolt occurred about the same time in Margiana. The
+Margians rebelled and set up a certain Phraates, a native, to be their
+king. But the satrap of Bactria, within whose province Margiana lay,
+quelled the revolt almost immediately.
+
+Hitherto, however thickly troubles had come upon him, Darius could have
+the satisfaction of feeling that he was contending with foreigners,
+and that his own nation at any rate was faithful and true. But now
+this consolation was to be taken from him. During his absence in
+the provinces of the north-east Persia itself revolted against his
+authority, and acknowledged for king an impostor, who, undeterred by the
+fate of Gomates, and relying on the obscurity which still hung over
+the end of the real Smerdis, assumed his name, and claimed to be the
+legitimate occupant of the throne. The Persians at home were either
+deceived a second time, or were willing to try a change of ruler; but
+the army of Darius, composed of Persians and Medes, adhered to the
+banner under which they had so often marched to victory, and enabled
+Darius, after a struggle of some duration, to re-establish his sway.
+The impostor suffered two defeats at the hands of Artabardes, one
+of Darius's generals, while a force which he had detached to excite
+rebellion in Arachosia was engaged by the satrap of that province and
+completely routed. The so-called Smerdis was himself captured, and
+suffered the usual penalty of unsuccessful revolt, crucifixion.
+
+Before, however, these results were accomplished--while the fortune of
+war still hung in the balance--a fresh danger threatened. Encouraged
+by the disaffection which appeared to be so general, and which had at
+length reached the very citadel of the Empire, Babylon revolted for the
+second time. A man, named Aracus, an Armenian by descent, but settled
+in Babylonia, headed the insurrection, and, adopting the practice
+of personation so usual at the time, assumed the name and style of
+"Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus." Less alarmed on this occasion than
+at the time of the first revolt, the king was content to send a
+Median general against the new pretender. This officer, who is called
+Intaphres, speedily chastised the rebels, capturing Babylon, and taking
+Aracus prisoner. Crucifixion was again the punishment awarded to the
+rebel leader.
+
+A season of comparative tranquillity seems now to have set in; and it
+may have been in this interval that Darius found time to chastise
+the remoter governors, who without formally declaring themselves
+independent, or assuming the title of king, had done acts savoring of
+rebellion. Oroetes, the governor of Sardis, who had comported himself
+strangely even under Cambyses, having ventured to entrap and put to
+death an ally of that monarch's, Polycrates of Samos, had from the
+time of the Magian revolution assumed an attitude quite above that of a
+subject. Having a quarrel with Mitrobates, the governor of a neighboring
+province, he murdered him and annexed his territory. When Darius sent a
+courier to him with a message the purport of which he disliked, he set
+men to waylay and assassinate him. It was impossible to overlook such
+acts; and Darius must have sent an army into Asia Minor, if one of
+his nobles had not undertaken to remove Oroetes in another way. Arming
+himself with several written orders bearing the king's seal, he went
+to Sardis, and gradually tried the temper of the guard which the satrap
+kept round his person. When he found them full of respect for the royal
+authority and ready to do whatever the king commanded, he produced
+an order for the governor's execution, which they carried into effect
+immediately.
+
+The governor of Egypt, Aryandes, had shown a guilty ambition in a more
+covert way. Understanding that Darius had issued a gold coinage of
+remarkable purity, he, on his own authority and without consulting the
+king, issued a silver coinage of a similar character. There is reason to
+believe that he even placed his name upon his coins; an act which to
+the Oriental mind distinctly implied a claim of independent sovereignty.
+Darius taxed him with a design to revolt, and put him to death on the
+charge, apparently without exciting any disturbance.
+
+Still, however, the Empire was not wholly tranquillized. A revolt in
+Susiana, suppressed by the conspirator Gobryas, and another among the
+Sacse of the Tigris, quelled by Darius in person, are recorded on the
+rock of Behistun, in a supplementary portion of the Inscription. We
+cannot date, unless it be by approximation, these various troubles; but
+there is reason to believe that they were almost all contained within
+a space not exceeding five or six years. The date of the Behistun
+Inscription is fixed by internal evidence to about B.C. 516-515--in
+other words, to the fifth or sixth year of the reign of Darius. Its
+erection seems to mark the termination of the first period of the reign,
+or that of disturbance, and the commencement of the second period, or
+that of tranquillity, internal progress, and patronage of the fine arts
+by the monarch.
+
+It was natural that Darius, having with so much effort and difficulty
+reduced the revolted provinces to obedience, should proceed to consider
+within himself how the recurrence of such a time of trouble might be
+prevented. His experience had shown him how weak were the ties which had
+hitherto been thought sufficient to hold the Empire together, and how
+slight an obstacle they opposed to the tendency, which all great empires
+have, to disruption. But, however natural it might be to desire a remedy
+for the evils which afflicted the State, it was not easy to devise one.
+Great empires had existed in Western Asia for above seven hundred years,
+and had all suffered more or less from the same inherent weakness; but
+no one had as yet invented a cure, or even (so far as appears) conceived
+the idea of improving on the rude system of imperial sway which the
+first conqueror had instituted. It remained for Darius, not only to
+desire, but to design--not only to design, but to bring into action--an
+entirely new form and type of government. He has been well called "the
+true founder of the Persian state." He found the Empire a crude and
+heterogeneous mass of ill-assorted elements, hanging loosely together by
+the single tie of subjection to a common head; he left it a compact
+and regularly organized body, united on a single well-ordered system,
+permanently established everywhere.
+
+On the nature and details of this system it will be necessary to speak
+at some length. It was the first, and probably the best, instance of
+that form of government which, taking its name from the Persian word
+for provincial ruler, is known generally as the system of "satrapial"
+administration. Its main principles were, in the first place, the
+reduction of the whole Empire to a quasi-uniformity by the substitution
+of one mode of governing for several; secondly, the substitution of
+fixed and definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable and
+uncertain calls; and thirdly, the establishment of a variety of checks
+and counterpoises among the officials to whom it was necessary that the
+crown should delegate its powers, which tended greatly to the security
+of the monarch and the stability of the kingdom. A consideration of the
+modes in which these three principles were applied will bring before us
+in a convenient form the chief points of the system.
+
+Uniformity, or a near approach to it, was produced, not so much by the
+abolition of differences as by superadding one and the same governmental
+machinery in all parts of the Empire. It is an essential feature of
+the satrapial system that it does not aim at destroying differences, or
+assimilating to one type the various races and countries over which
+it is extended. On the contrary, it allows, and indeed encourages, the
+several nations to retain their languages, habits, manners, religion,
+laws, and modes of local government. Only it takes care to place above
+all these things a paramount state authority, which is one and the same
+everywhere, whereon the unity of the kingdom is dependent. The authority
+instituted by Darius was that of his satraps. He divided the whole
+empire into a number of separate governments--a number which must have
+varied at different times, but which seems never to have fallen short
+of twenty. Over each government he placed a satrap, or supreme civil
+governor, charged with the collection and transmission of the revenue,
+the administration of justice, the maintenance of order, and the general
+supervision of the territory. These satraps were nominated by the king
+at his pleasure from any class of his subjects, and held office for no
+definite term, but simply until recalled, being liable to deprivation
+or death at any moment, without other formality than the presentation
+of the royal firman. While, however, they remained in office they were
+despotic--they represented the Great King, and were clothed with a
+portion of his majesty--they had palaces, Courts, body-guards, parks
+or "paradises," vast trains of eunuchs and attendants, well-filled,
+seraglios. They wielded the power of life and death. They assessed the
+tribute on the several towns and villages within their jurisdiction
+at their pleasure, and appointed deputies--called sometimes, like
+themselves, satraps--over cities or districts within their province,
+whose office was regarded as one of great dignity. They exacted from
+the provincials, for their own support and that of their Court, over and
+above the tribute due to the crown, whatever sum they regarded them as
+capable of furnishing. Favors, and even justice, had to be purchased
+from them by gifts. They were sometimes guilty of gross outrages on the
+persons and honor of their subjects. Nothing restrained their tyranny
+but such sense of right as they might happen to possess, and the fear of
+removal or execution if the voice of complaint reached the monarch.
+
+Besides this uniform civil administration, the Empire was pervaded
+throughout by one and the same military system. The services of the
+subject nations as soldiers were, as a general rule, declined, unless
+upon rare and exceptional cases. Order was maintained by large and
+numerous garrisons of foreign troops--Persians and Medes--quartered
+on the inhabitants, who had little sympathy with those among whom they
+lived, and would be sure to repress sternly any outbreak. All places of
+much strength were occupied in this way; and special watch was kept upon
+the great capitals, which were likely to be centres of disaffection.
+Thus a great standing army, belonging to the conquering race, stood
+everywhere on guard throughout the Empire, offending the provincials no
+doubt by their pride, their violence, and their contemptuous bearing,
+but rendering a native revolt under ordinary circumstances hopeless.
+
+Some exceptions to the general uniformity had almost of necessity to be
+made in so vast and heterogeneous an empire as the Persian. Occasionally
+it was thought wise to allow the continuance of a native dynasty in a
+province; and the satrap had in such a case to share with the native
+prince a divided authority. This was certainly the case in Cilicia, and
+probably in Paphlagonia and Phoenicia. Tribes also, included within
+the geographical limits of a satrapy, were sometimes recognized as
+independent; and petty wars were carried on between these hordes and
+their neighbors. Robber bands in many places infested the mountains,
+owing no allegiance to any one, and defied alike the satrap and the
+standing army.
+
+The condition of Persia Proper was also purely exceptional. Persia paid
+no tribute, and was not counted as a satrapy. Its inhabitants were,
+however, bound, when the king passed through their country, to bring him
+gifts according to their means. This burthen may have been felt sensibly
+by the rich, but it pressed very lightly on the poor, who, if they could
+not afford an ox or a sheep, might bring a little milk or cheese, a
+few dates, or a handful of wild fruit. On the other hand, the king was
+bound, whenever he visited Pasargadae, to present to each Persian woman
+who appeared before him a sum equal to twenty Attic drachmas, or about
+sixteen shillings of our money. This custom commemorated the service
+rendered by the sex in the battle wherein Cyrus first repulsed the
+forces of Astyages.
+
+The substitution of definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable
+and uncertain charges was aimed at, rather than effected, by the new
+arrangement of the revenue which is associated with the name of Darius.
+This arrangement consisted in fixing everywhere the amount of tribute
+in money and in kind which each satrapy was to furnish to the crown. A
+definite money payment, varying, in ordinary satrapies, from 170 to
+1000 Babylonian silver talents,330 or from L42,000. to L250,000. of our
+money, and amounting, in the exceptional case of the Indian satrapy, to
+above a million sterling, was required annually by the sovereign,
+and had to be remitted by the satrap to the capital. Besides this, a
+payment, the nature and amount of which was also fixed, had to be made
+in kind, each province being required to furnish that commodity, or
+those commodities, for which it was most celebrated. This latter burthen
+must have pressed very unequally on different portions of the Empire,
+if the statement of Herodotus be true that Babylonia and Assyria paid
+one-third of it. The payment seems to have been very considerable
+in amount. Egypt had to supply grain sufficient for the nutriment of
+120,000 Persian troops quartered in the country. Media had to contribute
+100,000 sheep, 4000 mules, and 3000 horses; Cappadocia, half the above
+number of each kind of animal; Armenia furnished 20,000 colts; Cilicia
+gave 360 white horses and a sum of 140 talents (L35,000.) in lieu
+of further tribute in kind. Babylonia, besides corn, was required to
+furnish 500 boy eunuchs. These charges, however, were all fixed by the
+crown, and may have been taken into consideration in assessing the money
+payment, the main object of the whole arrangement evidently being to
+make the taxation of each province proportionate to its wealth and
+resources.
+
+The assessment of the taxation upon the different portions of his
+province was left to the satrap. We do not know on what principles he
+ordinarily proceeded, or whether any uniform principles at all were
+observed throughout the Empire. But we find some evidence that, in
+places at least, the mode of exaction and collection was by a land-tax.
+The assessment upon individuals, and the actual collection from them,
+devolved, in all probability, on the local authorities, who distributed
+the burthen imposed upon their town, village, or district as they
+thought proper. Thus the foreign oppressor did not come into direct
+contact with the mass of the conquered people, who no doubt paid the
+calls made upon them with less reluctance through the medium of their
+own proper magistrates.
+
+If the taxation of the subject had stopped here, he would have had
+no just ground of complaint against his rulers. The population of the
+Empire cannot be estimated at less than forty millions of souls. The
+highest estimate of the value of the entire tribute, both in money and
+kind, will scarcely place it at more than ten millions sterling. Thus
+far, then, the burthen of taxation would certainly not have exceeded
+five shillings a head per annum. Perhaps it would not have reached half
+that amount. But, unhappily, neither was the tribute the sole tax which
+the crown exacted from its subjects, nor had the crown the sole right
+of exacting taxation. Persian subjects in many parts of the Empire paid,
+besides their tribute, a water-rate, which is expressly said to have
+been very productive. The rivers of the Empire were the king's; and when
+water was required for irrigation, a state officer superintended the
+opening of the sluices, and regulated the amount of the precious fluid
+which might be drawn off by each tribe or township. For the opening of
+the sluices a large sum was paid to the officer, which found its way
+into the coffers of the state. Further, it appears that such things
+as fisheries--and if so, probably salt-works, mines, quarries, and
+forests--were regarded as crown property, and yielded large sums to the
+revenue. They appear to have been farmed to responsible persons, who
+undertook to pay at a certain fixed rate, and made what profit they
+could by the transaction. The price of commodities thus farmed would be
+greatly enhanced to the consumer.
+
+By these means the actual burthen of taxation upon the subject was
+rendered to some extent uncertain and indefinite, and the benefits of
+the fixed tribute system were diminished. But the chief drawback upon
+it has still to be mentioned. While the claims of the crown upon its
+subjects were definite and could not be exceeded, the satrap was at
+liberty to make any exactions that he pleased beyond them. There
+is every reason to believe that he received no stipend, and that,
+consequently, the burthen of supporting him, his body-guard, and his
+Court was intended to fall on the province which had the benefit of his
+superintendence. Like a Roman proconsul, he was to pay himself out of
+the pockets of his subjects; and, like that class of persons, he took
+care to pay himself highly. It has been calculated that one satrap of
+Babylon drew from his province annually in actual coin a sum equal to
+L100,000. of our money. We can scarcely doubt that the claims made by
+the provincial governors were, on the average, at least equal to
+those of the crown; and they had the disadvantage of being irregular,
+uncertain, and purely arbitrary.
+
+Thus, what was gained by the new system was not so much the relief of
+the subject from uncertain taxation as the advantage to the crown of
+knowing beforehand what the revenue would be, and being able to regulate
+its expenditure accordingly. Still a certain amount of benefit did
+undoubtedly accrue to the provincials from the system; since it gave
+them the crown for their protector. So long as the payments made to the
+state were irregular, it was, or at least seemed to be, for the interest
+of the crown to obtain from each province as much as it could anyhow
+pay. When the state dues were once fixed, as the crown gained nothing by
+the rapacity of its officers, but rather lost, since the province became
+exhausted, it was interested in checking greed, and seeing that the
+provinces were administered by wise and good satraps.
+
+The control of its great officers is always the main difficulty of a
+despotic government, when it is extended over a large space of territory
+and embraces many millions of men. The system devised by Darius for
+checking and controlling his satraps was probably the best that has
+ever yet been brought into operation. His plan was to establish in every
+province at least three officers holding their authority directly from
+the crown, and only responsible to it, who would therefore act as checks
+one upon another. These were the satrap, the military commandant, and
+the secretary. The satrap was charged with the civil administration, and
+especially with the department of finance. The commandant was supreme
+over the troops. The office of the secretary is less clearly defined;
+but it probably consisted mainly in keeping the Court informed by
+despatches of all that went on in the province. Thus, if the satrap
+were inclined to revolt, he had, in the first place, to persuade the
+commandant, who would naturally think that, if he ran the risk, it might
+as well be for himself; and, further, he had to escape the lynx eyes of
+the secretary, whose general right of superintendence gave him entrance
+everywhere, and whose prospects of advancement would probably depend a
+good deal upon the diligence and success with which he discharged the
+office of "King's Eye" and "Ear." So, if the commandant were ambitious
+of independent sway, he must persuade the satrap, or he would have no
+money to pay his troops; and he too must blind the secretary, or else
+bribe him into silence. As for the secretary, having neither men
+nor money at his command, it was impossible that he should think of
+rebellion.
+
+But the precautions taken against revolt did not end here. Once a year,
+according to Xenophon, or more probably at irregular intervals, an
+officer came suddenly down from the Court with a commission to inspect
+a province. Such persons were frequently of royal rank, brothers or sons
+of the king. They were accompanied by an armed force, and were empowered
+to correct whatever was amiss in the province, and in case of necessity
+to report to the crown the insubordination or incompetency of its
+officers. If this system had been properly maintained, it is evident
+that it would have acted as a most powerful check upon misgovernment,
+and would have rendered revolt almost impossible.
+
+Another mode by which it was sought to secure the fidelity of the
+satraps and commandants was by choosing them from among the king's blood
+relations, or else attaching them to the crown by marriage with one of
+the princesses. It was thought that the affection of sons and brothers
+would be a restraint upon their ambition, and that even connections by
+marriage would feel that they had an interest in upholding the power and
+dignity of the great house with which they had been thought worthy of
+alliance. This system, which was entensively followed by Darius, had on
+the whole good results, and was at any rate preferable to that barbarous
+policy of prudential fratricide which has prevailed widely in Oriental
+governments.
+
+The system of checks, while it was effectual for the object at which it
+specially aimed, had one great disadvantage. It weakened the hands of
+authority in times of difficulty. When danger, internal or external,
+threatened, it was an evil that the powers of government should be
+divided, and the civil authority lodged in the hands of one officer, the
+military in those of another. Concentration of power is needed for rapid
+and decisive action, for unity of purpose, and secrecy both of plan and
+of execution. These considerations led to a modification of the original
+idea of satrapial government, which was adopted partially at first--in
+provinces especially exposed to danger, internal or external--but which
+ultimately became almost universal. The offices of satrap, or civil
+administrator, and commandant, or commander of the troops, were vested
+in the same person, who came in this way to have that full and complete
+authority which is possessed by Turkish pashas and modern Persian
+khans or beys--an authority practically uncontrolled. This system was
+advantageous for the defence of a province against foes; but it was
+dangerous to the stability of the Empire, since it led naturally to the
+occurrence of formidable rebellions.
+
+Two minor points in the scheme of Darius remain to be noticed, before
+this account of his governmental system can be regarded as complete.
+These are his institution of posts, and his coinage of money.
+
+In Darius's idea of government was included rapidity of communication.
+Regarding it as of the utmost importance that the orders of the Court
+should be speedily transmitted to the provincial governors, and that
+their reports and those of the royal secretaries should be received
+without needless delay, he established along the lines of routes already
+existing between the chief cities of the Empire a number of post-houses,
+placed at regular intervals, according to the estimated capacity of a
+horse to gallop at his best speed without stopping. At each post-house
+were maintained, at the cost of the state, a number of couriers and
+several relays of horses. When a despatch was to be forwarded it was
+taken to the first post-house along the route, where a courier received
+it, and immediately mounting on horseback galloped with it to the next
+station. Here it was delivered to a new courier, who, mounted on a fresh
+horse, took it the next stage on its journey; and thus it passed from
+hand to hand till it reached its destination. According to Xenophon, the
+messengers travelled by night as well as by day; and the conveyance was
+so rapid that some even compared it to the flight of birds. Excellent
+inns or caravanserais were to be found at every station; bridges or
+ferries were established upon all the streams; guard-houses occurred
+here and there, and the whole route was kept secure from the brigands
+who infested the Empire. Ordinary travellers were glad to pursue so
+convenient a line of march; it does not appear, however, that they could
+obtain the use of post-horses even when the government was in no need
+of them. The coinage of Darius consisted, it is probable, both of a gold
+and silver issue. It is not perhaps altogether certain that he was
+the first king of Persia who coined money; but, if the term "daric" is
+really derived from his name, that alone would be a strong argument in
+favor of his claim to priority. In any case, it is indisputable that
+he was the first Persian king who coined on a large scale, and it is
+further certain that his gold coinage was regarded in later times as of
+peculiar value on account of its purity. His gold darics appear to have
+contained, on an average, not quite 124 grains of pure metal, which
+would make their value about twenty two shillings of our money.
+They were of the type usual at the time both in Lydia and in
+Greece--flattened lumps of metal, very thick in comparison with the size
+of their surface, irregular, and rudely stamped. The silver darics
+were similar in general character, but exceeded the gold in size. Their
+weight was from 224 to 230 grains, and they would thus have been worth
+not quite three shillings of our money. It does not appear that any
+other kinds of coins besides these were ever issued from the Persian
+mint. They must, therefore, it would seem, have satisfied the commercial
+needs of the people.
+
+From this review of the governmental system of Darius we must now return
+to the actions of his later life. The history of an Oriental monarchy
+must always be composed mainly of a series of biographies; for, as the
+monarch is all in all in such communities, his sayings, doings, and
+character, not only determine, but constitute, the annals of the State.
+In the second period of his reign, that which followed on the time of
+trouble and disturbance, Darius (as has been already observed)
+appears to have pursued mainly the arts of peace. Bent on settling and
+consolidating his Empire, he set up everywhere the satrapial form of
+government, organized and established his posts, issued his coinage,
+watched over the administration of justice, and in various ways
+exhibited a love of order and method, and a genius for systematic
+arrangement. At the same time he devoted considerable attention to
+ornamental and architectural works, to sculpture, and to literary
+composition. He founded the royal palace at Susa, which was the main
+residence of the later kings. At Persepolis he certainly erected one
+very important building; and it is on the whole most probable that he
+designed--if he did not live to execute--the Chehl Minor itself--the
+chief of the magnificent structures upon the great central platform. The
+massive platform itself, with its grand and stately steps, is certainly
+of his erection, for it is inscribed with his name. He gave his works
+all the solidity and strength that is derivable from the use of huge
+blocks of a good hard material. He set the example of ornamenting the
+stepped approached to a palace with elaborate bas-reliefs. He designed
+and caused to be constructed in his own lifetime the rock-tomb at
+Nakhsh-i-Rustam, in which his remains were afterwards laid. The
+rock-sculpture at Behistun was also his work. In attention to the
+creation of permanent historical records he excelled all the Persian
+kings, both before him and after him. The great Inscription of Behistun
+has no parallel in ancient times for length, finish, and delicacy
+of execution, unless it be in Assyria or in Egypt. The only really
+historical inscription at Persepolis is one set up by Darius. He was the
+only Persian king, except perhaps one, who placed an inscription upon
+his tomb. The later monarchs in their records do little more than repeat
+certain religious phrases and certain forms of self-glorification which
+occur in the least remarkable inscriptions of their great predecessor.
+He alone oversteps those limits, and presents us with geographical
+notices and narratives of events profoundly interesting to the
+historian.
+
+During this period of comparative peace, which may have extended
+from about B.C. 516 to B.C. 508 or 507, the general tranquillity was
+interrupted by at least one important expedition. The administrational
+merits of Darius are so great that they have obscured his military
+glories, and have sent him down to posterity with the character of an
+unwarlike monarch--if not a mere "peddler," as his subjects said, yet,
+at any rate, a mere consolidator and arranger. But the son of Hystaspes
+was no carpet prince. He had not drawn the sword against his domestic
+foes to sheath it finally and forever when his triumph over them was
+completed. On the contrary, he regarded it as incumbent on him to carry
+on the aggressive policy of Cyrus and Cambyses, his great predecessors,
+and like them to extend in one direction or another the boundaries of
+the Empire. Perhaps he felt that aggression was the very law of the
+Empire's being, since if the military spirit was once allowed to become
+extinct in the conquering nation, they would lose the sole guarantee of
+their supremacy. At any rate, whatever his motive, we find him, after
+he had snatched a brief interval of repose, engaging in great wars
+both towards his eastern and his western frontier--wars which in both
+instances had results of considerable importance.
+
+The first grand expedition was towards the East. Cyrus, as we have seen,
+had extended the Persian sway over the mountains of Affghanistan and the
+highlands from which flow the tributaries of the Upper Indus. From these
+eminences the Persian garrisons looked down on a territory possessing
+every quality that could attract a powerful conqueror. Fertile,
+well-watered, rich in gold, peopled by an ingenious yet warlike race,
+which would add strength no less than wealth to its subjugators, the
+Punjab lay at the foot of the Sufeid Koh and Suliman ranges, inviting
+the attack of those who could swoop down when they pleased upon the low
+country. It was against this region that Darius directed his first great
+aggressive effort. Having explored the course of the Indus from Attock
+to the sea by means of boats, and obtained, we may suppose, in this way
+some knowledge of the country and its inhabitants, he led or sent an
+expedition into the tract, which in a short time succeeded in completely
+reducing it. The Punjab, and probably the whole valley of the Indus, was
+annexed, and remained subject till the later times of the Empire. The
+results of this conquest were the acquisition of a brave race, capable
+of making excellent soldiers, an enormous increase of the revenue, a
+sudden and vast influx of gold into Persia, which led probably to the
+introduction of the gold coinage, and the establishment of commercial
+relations with the natives, which issued in a regular trade carried
+on by coasting-vessels between the mouths of the Indus and the Persian
+Gulf.
+
+The next important expedition--one probably of still greater
+magnitude--took exactly the opposite direction. The sea which bounded
+the Persian dominion to the west and the north-west narrowed in two
+places to dimensions not much exceeding those of of the greater Asiatic
+rivers. The eye which looked across the Thracian Bosphorus or the
+Hellespont seemed to itself to be merely contemplating the opposite
+bank of a pretty wide stream. Darius, consequently being master of
+Asia Minor, and separated by what seemed to him so poor a barrier
+from fertile tracts of vast and indeed indefinite extent, such as were
+nowhere else to be found on the borders of his empire, naturally turned
+his thoughts of conquest to this quarter. His immediate desire was,
+probably, to annex Thrace; but he may have already entertained wider
+views, and have looked to embracing in his dominions the lovely isles
+and coasts of Greece also, so making good the former threats of Cyrus.
+The story of the voyage and escape of Democedes, related by Herodotus
+with such amplitude of detail, and confirmed to some extent from other
+sources, cannot be a mere myth without historical foundation. Nor is
+it probable that the expedition was designed merely for the purpose of
+"indulging the exile with a short visit to his native country," or of
+collecting "interesting information." If by the king's orders a vessel
+was fitted out at Sidon to explore the coasts of Greece under the
+guidance of Democedes, which proceeded as far as Crotona in Magna
+Grsecia, we may be tolerably sure that a political object lay at the
+bottom of the enterprise. It would have exactly the same aim and end as
+the eastern voyage of Scylax, and would be intended, like that, to pave
+the way for a conquest. Darius was therefore, it would seem, already
+contemplating the reduction of Greece Proper, and did not require
+to have it suggested to him by any special provocation. Mentally, or
+actually, surveying the map of the world, so far as it was known to
+him, he saw that in this direction only there was an attractive country
+readily accessible. Elsewhere his Empire abutted on seas, sandy deserts,
+or at best barren steppes; here, and here only, was there a rich prize
+close at hand and (as it seemed) only waiting to be grasped.
+
+But if the aggressive force of Persia was to be turned in this
+direction, if the stream of conquest was to be set westward along the
+flanks of Rhodope and Haemus, it was essential to success, and even to
+safety, that the line of communication with Asia should remain intact.
+Now, there lay on the right flank of an army marching into Europe a vast
+and formidable power, known to be capable of great efforts, which, if
+allowed to feel itself secure from attack, might be expected at any
+time to step in, to break the line of communication between the east
+and west, and to bring the Persians who should be engaged in conquering
+Pseonia, Macedonia, and Greece, into imminent danger. It is greatly to
+the credit of Darius that he saw this peril--saw it and took effectual
+measures to guard against it. The Scythian expedition was no insane
+project of a frantic despot, burning for revenge, or ambitious of an
+impossible conquest. It has all the appearance of being a well-laid
+plan, conceived by a moderate and wise prince, for the furtherance of
+a great design, and the permanent advantage of his empire. The lord of
+South-Western Asia was well aware of the existence beyond his northern
+frontier of a standing menace to his power. A century had not sufficed
+to wipe out the recollection of that terrible time when Scythian hordes
+had carried desolation far and wide over the fairest of the regions that
+were now under the Persian dominion. What had occurred once might recur.
+Possibly, as a modern author suggests, "the remembrance of ancient
+injuries may have been revived by recent aggressions." It was at any
+rate essential to strike terror into the hordes of the Steppe Region in
+order that Western Asia might attain a sense of security. It was still
+more essential to do so if the north-west was to become the scene
+of war, and the Persians were to make a vigorous effort to establish
+themselves permanently in Europe. Scythia, it must be remembered,
+reached to the banks of the Danube. An invader, who aspired to the
+conquest even of Thrace, was almost forced into collision with her next
+neighbor.
+
+Darius, having determined on his course, prefaced his expedition by a
+raid, the object of which was undoubtedly to procure information. He
+ordered Ariaramnes, satrap of Cappadocia, to cross the Euxine with a
+small fleet, and, descending suddenly upon the Scythian coast, to carry
+off a number of prisoners. Ariaramnes executed the commission skilfully,
+and was so fortunate as to make prize of a native of high rank, the
+brother of a Scythian chief or king. From this person and his companions
+the Persian monarch was able to obtain all the information which he
+required. Thus enlightened, he proceeded to make his preparations.
+Collecting a fleet of 600 ships, chiefly from the Greeks of Asia, and
+an army estimated at from 700,000 to 800,000 men, which was made up
+of contingents from all the nations under his rule, he crossed the
+Bosphorus by a bridge of boats constructed by Mandrocles a Samian;
+marched through Thrace along the line of the Little Balkan, receiving
+the submission of the tribes as he went; crossed the Great Balkan;
+conquered the Getae, who dwelt between that range and the Danube; passed
+the Danube by a bridge, which the Ionian Greeks had made with their
+vessels just above the apex of the Delta; and so invaded Scythia. The
+natives had received intelligence of his approach, and had resolved not
+to risk a battle. They retired as he advanced, and endeavored to bring
+his army into difficulties by destroying the forage, driving off the
+cattle, and filling in the wells. But the commissariat of the Persians
+was, as usual, well arranged. Darius remained for more than two months
+in Scythia without incurring any important losses. He succeeded in
+parading before the eyes of the whole nation the immense military power
+of his empire. He no doubt inflicted considerable damage on the hordes,
+whose herds he must often have captured, and whose supplies of forage he
+curtailed. It is difficult to say how far he penetrated. Herodotus was
+informed that he marched east to the Tanais (Don), and thence north to
+the country of the Budini, where he burnt the staple of Gelonus, which
+cannot well have been below the fiftieth parallel, and was probably
+not far from Voronej. It is certainly astonishing that he should have
+ventured so far inland, and still more surprising that, having done
+so, he should have returned with his army well-nigh intact. But we can
+scarcely suppose the story that he destroyed the staple of the Greek
+trade a pure fiction. He would be glad to leave his mark in the country,
+and might make an extraordinary effort to reach the only town that was
+to be found in the whole steppe region. Having effected his purpose by
+its destruction, he would retire, falling back probably upon the coast,
+where he could obtain supplies from his fleet. It is beyond dispute that
+he returned with the bulk of his army, having suffered no loss but
+that of a few invalid troops whom he sacrificed. Attempts had been made
+during his absence to induce the Greeks, who guarded the bridge over
+the Danube, to break it, and so hinder his return; but they were
+unsuccessful. Darius recrossed the river after an interval of somewhat
+more than two months, victorious according to his own notions, and
+regarded himself as entitled thenceforth to enumerate among the subject
+races of his empire "the Scyths beyond the sea." On his return march
+through Thrace, he met, apparently, with no opposition. Before passing
+the Bosphorus, he gave a commission to one of his generals, a certain
+Megabazus, to complete the reduction of Thrace, and assigned him for the
+purpose a body of 80,000 men, who remained in Europe while Darius and
+the rest of his army crossed into Asia.
+
+Megabazus appears to have been fully worthy of the trust reposed in him.
+In a single campaign (B.C. 506) he overran and subjugated the entire
+tract between the Propontis and the Strymon, thus pushing forward the
+Persian dominion to the borders of Macedonia. Among the tribes which he
+conquered were the Perinthians, Greeks; the Pseti, Cicones, Bistones,
+Sapaei, Dersaei and Edoni, Thracians; and the Paeoplae and Siripasones,
+Pseonians. These last, to gratify a whim of Darius, were transported
+into Asia. The Thracians who submitted were especially those of the
+coast, no attempt, apparently, being made to penetrate the mountain
+fastnesses and bring under subjection the tribes of the interior.
+
+The first contact between Persia and Macedonia possesses peculiar
+interest from the circumstances of the later history. An ancestor of
+Alexander the Great sat upon the throne of Macedon when the general of
+Darius was brought in his career of conquest to the outskirts of the
+Macedonian power. The kingdom was at this time comparatively small, not
+extending much beyond Mount Bermius on the one hand, and not reaching
+very far to the east of the Axius on the other. Megabazus saw in it,
+we may be sure, not the fated destroyer of the Empire which he was
+extending, but a petty state which the mere sound of the Persian
+name would awe into subjection. He therefore, instead of invading the
+country, contented himself with sending an embassy, with a demand
+for earth and water, the symbols, according to Persian custom, of
+submission. Amyntas, the Macedonian king, consented, to the demand
+at once; and though, owing to insolent conduct on the part of the
+ambassadors, they were massacred with their whole retinue, yet this
+circumstance did not prevent the completion of Macedonian vassalage.
+When a second embassy was sent to inquire into the fate of the first,
+Alexander, the son of Amyntas, who had arranged the massacre, contrived
+to have the matter hushed up by bribing one of the envoys with a large
+sum of money and the hand of his sister, Gygsea. Macedonia took up the
+position of a subject kingdom, and owned for her true lord the great
+monarch of Western Asia.
+
+Megabazus, having accomplished the task assigned him, proceeded to
+Sardis, where Darius had remained almost, if not quite, a full year His
+place was taken by Otanes, the son of Sisamnes, a different person from
+the conspirator, who rounded off the Persian conquests in these parts
+by reducing, probably in B.C. 505, the cities of Byzantium, Chalcedon,
+Antandrus, and Lamponium, with the two adjacent islands of Letnnos and
+Imbrus. The inhabitants of all were, it appears, taxable, either with
+having failed to give contingents towards the Scythian expedition,
+or with having molested it on its return--crimes these, which Otanes
+thought it right to punish by their general enslavement.
+
+Darius, meanwhile, had proceeded to the seat of government, which
+appears at this time to have been Susa. He had perhaps already built
+there the great palace, whose remains have been recently disinterred
+by English enterprise; or he may have wished to superintend the work of
+construction. Susa, which was certainly from henceforth the main Persian
+capital, possessed advantages over almost any other site. Its climate
+was softer than that of Ecbatana and Persepolis, less sultry than that
+of Babylon. Its position was convenient for communicating both with
+the East and with the West. Its people were plastic, and probably
+more yielding and submissive than the Medes or the Persians. The king,
+fatigued with his warlike exertions, was glad for a while to rest and
+recruit himself at Susa, in the tranquil life of the Court. For some
+years he appears to have conceived no new aggressive project; and he
+might perhaps have forgotten his designs upon Greece altogether, had not
+his memory been stirred by a signal and extraordinary provocation.
+
+The immediate circumstances which led to the Ionian Revolt belong to
+Greek rather than to Persian history, and have been so fully treated of
+by the historians of the Hellenic race that a knowledge of them may be
+assumed as already possessed by the reader. What is chiefly remarkable
+about them is, that they are so purely private and personal. A chance
+quarrel between Aristagoras of Miletus and the Persian Megabates,
+pecuniary difficulties pressing on the former, and the natural desire
+of Histiseus, father-in-law of Aristagoras, to revisit his native place,
+were undoubtedly the direct and immediate causes of what became a
+great national outbreak. That there must have been other and wider
+predisposing causes can scarcely be doubted. Among them two may be
+suggested. The presence of Darius in Asia Minor, and his friendliness
+towards the tyrants who bore sway in most of the Greek cities, were
+calculated to elate those persons in their own esteem, and to encourage
+in them habits and acts injurious or offensive to their subjects. Their
+tyranny under these circumstances would become more oppressive and
+galling. At the same time the popular mind could not fail to associate
+together the native despot and the foreign lord, who (it was clear to
+all) supported and befriended each other. If the Greeks of Asia, like so
+many of their brethren in Europe, had grown weary of their tyrants
+and were desirous of rising against them, they would be compelled to
+contemplate the chances of a successful resistance to the Persians.
+And here there were circumstances in the recent history calculated
+to inspirit them and give them hopes. Six hundred Greek ships, manned
+probably by 120,000 men, had been lately brought together, and had
+formed a united fleet. The fate of the Persian land-army had depended
+on their fidelity. It is not surprising that a sense of strength should
+have been developed, and something like a national spirit should have
+grown up in such a condition of things.
+
+If this were the state of feeling among the Greeks, the merit of
+Aristagoras would be, that he perceived it, and, regardless of all class
+prejudices, determined to take advantage of the chance which it gave
+him of rising superior to his embarrassments. Throwing himself on the
+popular feeling, the strength of which he had estimated aright, he by
+the same act gave freedom to the cities, and plunged his nation into
+a rebellion against Persia. It was easy for reason to show, when the
+matter was calmly debated, that the probabilities of success against
+the might of Darius were small. But the arrest of the tyrants by
+Aristagoras, and his deliverance of them into the hands of their
+subjects, was an appeal to passion against which reason was powerless.
+No state could resist the temptation of getting rid of the tyranny under
+which it groaned. But the expulsion of the vassal committed those who
+took part in it to resist in arms the sovereign lord.
+
+In the original revolt appear to have been included only the cities
+of Ionia and AEolis. Aristagoras felt that some further strength was
+needed, and determined to seek it in European Greece. Repulsed from
+Sparta, which was disinclined to so distant an expedition, he applied
+for aid to cities on which he had a special claim. Miletus counted
+Athens as her mother state; and Eretria was indebted to her for
+assistance in her great war with Chalcis. Applying in these quarters
+Aristagoras succeeded better, but still obtained no very important help.
+Athens voted him twenty ships, Eretria five and with the promise of
+these succors he hastened back to Asia.
+
+The European contingent soon afterwards arrived; and Aristagoras,
+anxious to gain some signal success which should attract men to his
+cause, determined on a most daring enterprise. This was no less than an
+attack on Sardis, the chief seat of the Persian power in these parts,
+and by far the most important city of Asia Minor. Sailing to Ephesus, he
+marched up the valley of the Cayster, crossed Mount Tmolus, and took
+the Lydian capital at the first onset. Artaphernes, the satrap, was only
+able to save the citadel; the invaders began to plunder the town, and in
+the confusion it caught fire and was burnt. Aristagoras and his troops
+hastily retreated, but were overtaken before they could reach Ephesus by
+the Persians quartered in the province, who fell upon them and gave
+them a severe defeat. The expedition then broke up; the Asiatic Greeks
+dispersed among their cities; the Athenians and Eretrians took ship and
+sailed home.
+
+Results followed that could scarcely have been anticipated. The failure
+of the expedition was swallowed up in the glory of its one achievement.
+It had taken Sardis--it had burnt one of the chief cities of the Great
+King. The news spread like wildfire on every side, and was proclaimed
+aloud in places where the defeat of Ephesus was never even whispered.
+Everywhere revolt burst out. The Greeks of the Hellespont--not only
+those of Asia but likewise those of Europe--the Carians and Caunians of
+the south-western coast--even the distant Cyprians broke into rebellion;
+the Scythians took heart and made a plundering raid through the Great
+King's Thracian territories;4 vassal monarchs, like Miltiades, assumed
+independence, and helped themselves to some of the fragments of the
+Empire that seemed falling to pieces. If a great man, a Miltiades or
+a Leondias, had been at the head of the movement, and if it had been
+decently supported from the European side, a successful issue might
+probably have been secured.
+
+But Aristagoras was unequal to the occasion; and the struggle for
+independence, which had promised so fair, was soon put down. Despite a
+naval victory gained by the Greeks over the Phoenician fleet off Cyprus,
+that island was recovered by the Persians within a year. Despite a
+courage and a perseverance worthy of a better fate, the Carians were
+soon afterwards forced to succumb. The reduction of the Hellespontine
+Greeks and of the AEolians followed. The toils now closed around Ionia,
+and her cities began to be attacked one by one; whereupon the incapable
+Aristagoras, deserting the falling cause, betook himself to Europe,
+where a just Nemesis pursued him: he died by a Thracian sword. After
+this the climax soon arrived. Persia concentrated her strength upon
+Miletus, the cradle of the revolt, and the acknowledged chief of the
+cities; and though her sister states came gallantly to her aid, and a
+fleet was collected which made it for a while doubtful which way victory
+might incline, yet all was of no avail. Laziness and insubordination
+began and treachery completed the work which all the force of Persia
+might have failed to accomplish; the combined Ionian fleet was totally
+defeated in the battle of Lade; and soon after Miletus herself fell.
+The bulk of her inhabitants were transported into inner Asia and settled
+upon the Persian Gulf. The whole Ionian coast was ravaged, and the
+cities punished by the loss of their most beautiful maidens and youths.
+The islands off the coast were swept of their inhabitants. The cities on
+the Hellespont and Sea of Marmora were burnt. Miltiades barely escaped
+from the Chersonese with the loss of his son and his kingdom. The flames
+of rebellion were everywhere ruthlessly trampled out; and the power
+of the Great King was once more firmly established over the coasts and
+islands of the Propontis and the Egean Sea.
+
+It remained, however, to take vengeance upon the foreigners who had
+dared to lend their aid to the king's revolted subjects, and had borne
+a part in the burning of Sardis. The pride of the Persians felt such
+interference as an insult of the grossest kind: and the tale may well be
+true that Darius, from the time that he first heard the news, employed
+an officer to bid him daily "remember Athens." The schemes which he had
+formerly entertained with respect to the reduction of Greece recurred
+with fresh force to his mind; and the task of crushing the revolt was no
+sooner completed than he proceeded to attempt their execution.
+Selecting Mardonius, son of Gobryas the conspirator, and one of his
+own sons-in-law, for general, he gave him the command of a powerful
+expedition, which was to advance by way of Thrace, Macedonia, and
+Thessaly, against Eretria and Athens. At the same time, with a wisdom
+which we should scarcely have expected in an Oriental, he commissioned
+him, ere he quitted Asia, to depose the tyrants who bore rule in the
+Greek cities, and to allow the establishment of democracies in their
+stead. Such a measure was excellently calculated to preserve the
+fidelity of the Hellenic population and to prevent any renewal of
+disturbance. It gave ample employment to unquiet spirits by opening to
+them a career in their own states--and it removed the grievance which,
+more than anything else, had produced the recent rebellion.
+
+Mardonius having effected this change proceeded into Europe. He had a
+large land force and a powerful navy, and at first was successful both
+by land and sea. The fleet took Thasos, an island valuable for its
+mines; and the army forced the Macedonians to exchange their position
+of semi-independence for that of full Persian subjects, liable to both
+tribute and military service. But this fair dawn was soon overcast. As
+the fleet was rounding Athos a terrible tempest arose which, destroyed
+300 triremes and more than 20,000 men, some of whom were devoured by
+sea-monsters, while the remainder perished by drowning. On shore,
+a night attack of the Brygi, a Thracian tribe dwelling in the tract
+between the Strymon and the Axius, brought disaster upon the land force,
+numbers of which were slain, while Mardonius himself received a wound.
+This disgrace, indeed, was retrieved by subsequent operations, which
+forced the Brygi to make their submission; but the expedition found
+itself in no condition to advance further, and Mardonius retreated into
+Asia.
+
+Darius, however, did not allow failure to turn him from his purpose.
+The attack of Mardonius was followed within two years by the well-known
+expedition under Datis (B.C. 490), which, avoiding the dangers of Athos,
+sailed direct to its object, crossing the Egean by the line of the
+Cyclades, and falling upon Eretria and Attica. Eretria's punishment
+warned the Athenians to resist to the uttermost; and the skill of
+Miltiades, backed by the valor of his countrymen, gave to Athens the
+great victory of Marathon. Datis fell back upon Asia, having suffered
+worse disasters than his predecessor, and bore to the king the
+melancholy tidings that his vast force of from 100,000 to 200,000 men
+had been met and worsted by 20,000 Athenians and Plataeans.
+
+Still Darius was not shaken in his resolution. He only issued fresh
+orders for the collection of men, ships, and materials. For three years
+Asia resounded with the din of preparation; and it is probable that in
+the fourth year a fresh expedition would have been led into Greece, had
+not an important occurrence prevented it. Egypt, always discontented
+with its subject position under a race which despised its religion, and
+perhaps occasionally persecuted it, broke out into open revolt (B.C.
+487). Darius, it seems, determined to divide his forces, and proceed
+simultaneously against both enemies; he even contemplated leading one
+of the two expeditions in person; but before his preparations were
+completed his vital powers failed. He died in the year following the
+Egyptian revolt (B.C. 486), in the sixty-third year of his age, and
+the thirty-sixth of his reign, leaving his crown to his eldest son by
+Atossa, Xerxes.
+
+The character of Darius will have revealed itself with tolerable
+clearness in the sketch which has been here given of the chief events
+of his reign. But a brief summary of some of its main points may not be
+superfluous. Darius Hystaspis was, next to Cyrus, the greatest of the
+Persian kings; and he was even superior to Cyrus in some particulars.
+His military talent has been underrated. Though not equal to the founder
+of the Empire in this respect, he deserves the credit of energy, vigor,
+foresight, and judicious management in his military expeditions, of
+promptness in resolving and ability in executing, of discrimination in
+the selection of generals, and of a power of combination not often found
+in Oriental commanders. He was personally brave, and quite willing to
+expose himself, even in his old age, to dangers and hardships. But
+he did not unnecessarily thrust himself into peril. He was content to
+employ generals, where the task to be accomplished did not seem to be
+beyond their powers; and he appears to have been quite free from an
+unworthy jealousy of their successes. He was a man of kindly and warm
+feeling--strongly attached to his friends; he was clement and even
+generous towards conquered foes. When he thought the occasion required
+it, he could be severe but his inclination was towards mildness and
+indulgence. He excelled all the other Persian kings in the arts of
+peace. To him, and him alone, the Empire owed its organization. He was
+a skilful administrator, a good financier, and a wise and far-seeing
+ruler. Of all the Persian princes he is the only one who can be called
+"many-sided." He was organizer, general, statesman, administrator,
+builder, patron of arts and literature, all in one. Without him Persia
+would probably have sunk as rapidly as she rose, and would be known to
+us only as one of the many meteor powers which have shot athwart the
+horizon of the East.
+
+Xerxes, the eldest son of Darius by Atossa, succeeded his father by
+virtue of a formal act of choice. It was a Persian custom that the king,
+before he went out of his dominions on an expedition, should nominate a
+successor. Darius must have done this before his campaign in Thrace
+and Scythia; and if Xerxes was then, as is probable, a mere boy, it is
+impossible that he should have received the appointment. Artobazanes,
+the eldest of all Darius's sons, whose mother, a daughter of Gobryas,
+was married to Darius before he became king, was most likely then
+nominated, and was thenceforth regarded as the heir-apparent. When,
+however, towards the close of his reign Darius again proposed to head
+a foreign expedition, an opportunity occurred of disturbing this
+arrangement, of which Atossa, Darius's favorite wife, whose influence
+over her husband was unbounded, determined to take advantage. According
+to the law, a fresh signification of the sovereign's will was now
+requisite; and Atossa persuaded Darius to make it in favor of Xerxes.
+The pleas put forward were, first, that he was the eldest son of the
+king, and secondly, that he was descended from Cyrus. This latter
+argument could not fail to have weight. Backed by the influence of
+Atossa, it prevailed over all other considerations; and hence Xerxes
+obtained the throne.
+
+If we may trust the informants of Herodotus, it was the wish of Xerxes
+on his accession to discontinue the preparations against Greece, and
+confine his efforts to the re-conquest of Egypt. Though not devoid of
+ambition, he may well have been distrustful of his own powers; and,
+having been nurtured in luxury, he may have shrunk from the perils of a
+campaign in unknown regions. But he was surrounded by advisers who had
+interests opposed to his inclinations, and who worked on his facile
+temper till they prevailed on him to take that course which seemed best
+calculated to promote their designs. Mardonius was anxious to retrieve
+his former failure, and expected, if Greece were conquered, that the
+rich prize would become his own satrapy. The refugee princes of the
+family of Pisistratus hoped to be reinstated under Persian influence as
+dependent despots of Athens. Demaratus of Sparta probably cherished
+a similar expectation with regard to that capital. The Persian nobles
+generally, who profited by the spoils of war, and who were still full of
+the military spirit, looked forward with pleasure to an expedition
+from which they anticipated victory, plunder, and thousands of valuable
+captives. The youthful king was soon persuaded that the example of his
+predecessors required him to undertake some fresh conquest, while the
+honor of Persia absolutely demanded that the wrongs inflicted upon her
+by Athens should be avenged. Before, however, turning his arms against
+Greece, two revolts required his attention. In the year B.C. 485--the
+second of his reign--he marched into Egypt, which he rapidly reduced to
+obedience and punished by increasing its burthens. Soon afterwards he
+seems to have provoked a rebellion of the Babylonians by acts which they
+regarded as impious, and avenged by killing their satrap, Zopyrus, and
+proclaiming their independence. Megabyzus, the son of Zopyrus, recovered
+the city, which was punished by the plunder and ruin of its famous
+temple and the desolation of many of its shrines.
+
+Xerxes was now free to bend all his efforts against Greece, and,
+appreciating apparently to the full the magnitude and difficulty of the
+task, resolved that nothing should be left undone which could possibly
+be done in order to render success certain. The experience of former
+years had taught some important lessons. The failure of Datis had proved
+that such an expedition as could be conveyed by sea across the Egean
+would be insufficient to secure the object sought, and that the only
+safe road for a conqueror whose land force constituted his real strength
+was along the shores of the European continent. But if a large army
+took this long and circuitous route, it must be supported by a powerful
+fleet; and this involved a new danger. The losses of Mardonius off Athos
+had shown the perils of Egean navigation, and taught the lesson that the
+naval force must be at first far more than proportionate to the needs
+of the army, in order that it might still be sufficient notwithstanding
+some considerable disasters. At the same time they had indicated one
+special place of danger, which might be avoided, if proper measures
+were taken. Xerxes, in the four years which followed on the reduction of
+Egypt, continued incessantly to make the most gigantic preparations
+for his intended attack upon Greece, and among them included all the
+precautions which a wise foresight could devise in order to ward off
+every conceivable peril. A general order was issued to all the satraps
+throughout the Empire, calling on them to levy the utmost force of their
+province for the new war; while, as the equipment of Oriental troops
+depends greatly on the purchase and distribution of arms by their
+commander, a rich reward was promised to the satrap whose contingent
+should appear at the appointed place and time in the most gallant array.
+Orders for ships and transports of different kinds were given to the
+maritime states, with such effect that above 1200 triremes and 3000
+vessels of an inferior description were collected together. Magazines
+of corn were formed at various points along the intended line of route.
+Above all, it was determined to bridge the Hellespont by a firm and
+compact structure, which it was thought would secure the communication
+of the army from interruption by the elements; and at the same time it
+was resolved to cut through the isthmus which joined Mount Athos to the
+continent, in order to preserve the fleet from disaster at that most
+perilous part of the proposed voyage. These remarkable works, which made
+a deep impression on the minds of the Greeks, have been ascribed to
+a mere spirit of ostentation on the part of Xerxes; the vain-glorious
+monarch wished, it is supposed, to parade his power, and made a useless
+bridge and an absurd cutting merely for the purpose of exhibiting to
+the world the grandeur of his ideas and the extent of his resources. But
+there is no necessity for travelling beyond the line of ordinary human
+motive in order to discover a reason for the works in question. The
+bridge across the Hellespont was a mere repetition of the construction
+by which Darius had passed into Europe when he made his Scythian
+expedition, and probably seemed to a Persian not a specially dignified
+or very wonderful way of crossing so narrow a strait, but merely the
+natural mode of passage. The only respect in which the bridge of Xerxes
+differed from constructions with which the Persians were thoroughly
+familiar, was in its superior solidity and strength. The shore-cables
+were of unusual size and weight, and apparently of unusual materials;
+the formation of a double line--of two bridges, in fact, instead of
+one--was almost without a parallel; and the completion of the work by
+laying on the ordinary plank-bridge a solid causeway composed of earth
+and brushwood, with a high bulwark on either side, was probably, if not
+unprecedented, at any rate very uncommon. Boat-bridges were usually,
+as they are even now in the East, somewhat rickety constructions, which
+animals unaccustomed to them could with difficulty be induced to cross.
+The bridge of Xerxes was a high-road, as AEschylus calls it along, which
+men, horses, and vehicles might pass with as much comfort and facility
+as they could move on shore.
+
+The utility of such a work is evident. Without it Xerxes must have been
+reduced to the necessity of embarking in ships, conveying across the
+strait, and disembarking, not only his entire host, but all its stores,
+tents, baggage, horses, camels, and sumpter-beasts. If the numbers of
+his army approached even the lowest estimate that has been formed of
+them, it is not too much to say that many weeks must have been spent in
+this operation. As it was, the whole expedition marched across in seven
+days. In the case of ship conveyance, continual accidents would have
+happened: the transport would from time to time have been interrupted by
+bad weather; and great catastrophes might have occurred. By means of the
+bridge the passage was probably effected without any loss of either man
+or beast. Moreover, the bridge once established, there was a safe
+line of communication thenceforth between the army in Europe and the
+headquarters of the Persian power in Asia, along which might pass
+couriers, supplies, and reinforcements, if they should be needed.
+Further, the grandeur, massiveness, and apparent stability of the work
+was calculated to impose upon the minds of men, and to diminish their
+power of resistance by impressing them strongly with a sense of the
+irresistible greatness and strength of the invader.
+
+The canal of Athos was also quite a legitimate and judicious
+undertaking. [PLATE LXI.] No portion of the Greek coast is so dangerous
+as that about Athos. Greek boatmen even at the present day refuse to
+attempt the circumnavigation; and probably any government less apathetic
+than that of the Turks would at once re-open the old cutting. The work
+was one of very little difficulty, the breadth of the isthmus being less
+than a mile and a half, the material sand and marl, and the greatest
+height of the natural ground above the level of the sea about fifty
+feet. The construction of a canal in such a locality was certainly
+better than the formation of a ship-groove or Diolcus--the substitute
+for it proposed by Ferodotus, [PLATE LXI.] not to mention that it is
+doubtful whether at the time that this cutting was made ship-grooves
+were known even to the Greeks.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXI.]
+
+
+Xerxes, having brought his preparations into a state of forwardness,
+having completed his canal and his bridge--after one failure with the
+latter, for which the constructors and the sea were punished--proceeded,
+in the year B.C. 481, along the "Royal Road" from Susa to Sardis, and
+wintered at the Lydian capital. His army is said to have accompanied
+him; but more probably it joined him in the spring, flocking in,
+contingent after contingent, from the various provinces of his vast
+Empire. Forty-nine nations, according to Herodotus, served under his
+standard; and their contingents made up a grand total of eighteen
+hundred thousand men. Of these, eighty thousand were cavalry, while
+twenty thousand rode in chariots or on camels; the remainder served on
+foot. There are no sufficient means of testing these numbers. Figures
+in the mouth of an Oriental are vague and almost unmeaning; armies are
+never really counted: there is no such thing as a fixed and definite
+"strength" of a division or a battalion. Herodotus tells us that a rough
+attempt at numbering the infantry of the host was made on this occasion;
+but it was of so rude and primitive a description that little dependence
+can be placed on the results obtained by it. Ten thousand men were
+counted, and were made to stand close together; a line was then drawn
+round them, and a wall built on the line to the height of a man's waist;
+within the enclosure thus made all the troops in turn entered, and each
+time that the enclosure appeared to be full, ten thousand were supposed
+to be within it. Estimated in this way, the infantry was regarded as
+amounting to 1,700,000. It is clear that such mode of counting was of
+the roughest kind, and might lead to gross exaggeration. Each commander
+would wish his troops to be thought more numerous than they really were,
+and would cause the enclosure to appear full when several thousands
+more might still have found room within it. Nevertheless there would be
+limits beyond which exaggeration could not go; and if Xerxes was made to
+believe that the land force which he took with him into Europe amounted
+to nearly two millions of men, it is scarcely doubtful but that it must
+have exceeded one million.
+
+The motley composition of such a host has been described in a former
+chapter. Each nation was armed and equipped after its own fashion, and
+served in a body, often under a distinct commander. The army marched
+through Asia in a single column, which was not, however, continuous,
+but was broken into three portions. The first portion consisted of the
+baggage animals and about half of the contingents of the nations; the
+second was composed wholly of native Persians, who preceded and followed
+the emblems of religion and the king; the third was made up of the
+remaining national contingents. The king himself rode alternately in
+a chariot and in a litter. He was preceded immediately by ten sacred
+horses, and a sacred chariot drawn by eight milk-white steeds. Round
+him and about him were the choicest troops of the whole army, twelve
+thousand horse and the same number of foot, all Persians, and those too
+not taken at random, but selected carefully from the whole mass of the
+native soldiery. Among them seem to have been the famous "Immortals"--a
+picked body of 10,000 footmen, always maintained at exactly the same
+number, and thence deriving their appellation.
+
+The line of march from Sardis to Abydos was only partially along the
+shore. The army probably descended the valley of the Hermus nearly to
+its mouth, and then struck northward into the Caicus vale, crossing
+which it held on its way, with Mount Kara-dagh (Cane) on the left,
+across the Atarnean plain, and along the coast to Adramytium (Adramyti)
+and Antandros, whence it again struck inland, and, crossing the ridge
+of Ida, descended into the valley of the Scamander. Some losses were
+incurred from the effects of a violent thunderstorm amid the mountains;
+but they cannot have been of a any great consequence. On reaching the
+Scamander the army found its first difficulty with respect to water.
+That stream was probably low, and the vast host of men and animals
+were unable to obtain from it a supply sufficient for their wants. This
+phenomenon, we are told, frequently recurred afterwards; it surprises
+the English reader, but is not really astonishing, since, in hot
+countries, even considerable streams are often reduced to mere threads
+of water during the summer.
+
+Rounding the hills which skirt the Scamander valley upon the east, the
+army marched past Rhoeteum, Ophrynium, and Dardanus to Abydos. Here
+Xerxes, seated upon a marble throne, which the people of Abydos had
+erected for him on the summit of a hill, was able to see at one glance
+his whole, armament, and to feast his eyes with the sight. It is not
+likely that any misgivings occurred to him at such a moment. Before him
+lay his vast host, covering with its dense masses the entire low ground
+between the hills and the sea; beyond was the strait, and to his left
+the open sea, white with the sails of four thousand ships; the green
+fields of the Chersonese smiled invitingly a little further on; while,
+between him and the opposite shore, the long lines of his bridges lay
+darkling upon the sea, like a yoke placed upon the neck of a captive.
+Having seen all, the king gave his special attention to the fleet, which
+he now perhaps beheld in all its magnitude for the first time. Desirous
+of knowing which of his subjects were the best sailors, he gave orders
+for a sailing-match, which were at once carried out. The palm was borne
+off by the Phoenicians of Sidon, who must have beaten not only their own
+countrymen of Tyre, but the Greeks of Asia and the islands.
+
+On the next day the passage took place. It was accompanied by religious
+ceremonies. Waiting for the sacred hour of sunrise, the leader of the
+host, as the first rays appeared, poured a libation from a golden goblet
+into the sea, and prayed to Mithra that he might effect the conquest of
+Europe. As he prayed he cast into the sea the golden goblet, and with it
+a golden bowl and a short Persian sword. Meanwhile the multitude strewed
+all the bridge with myrtle boughs, and perfumed it with clouds of
+incense. The "Immortals" crossed first, wearing garlands on their
+heads. The king, with the sacred chariot and horses passed over on the
+second day. For seven days and seven nights the human stream flowed
+on without intermission across one bridge, while the attendants and the
+baggage-train made use of the other. The lash was employed to quicken
+the movements of laggards. At last the whole army was in Europe, and the
+march resumed its regularity.
+
+It is unnecessary to follow in detail the advance of the host along the
+coast of Thrace, across Chalcidice, and round the Thermaic Gulf into
+Pieria. If we except the counting of the fleet and army at Doriscus no
+circumstances of much interest diversified this portion of the march,
+which lay entirely through territories that had previously submitted
+to the Great King. The army spread itself over a wide tract of country,
+marching generally in three divisions, which proceeded by three parallel
+lines--one along the coast, another at some considerable distance
+inland, and a third, with which was Xerxes himself, midway between them.
+At every place where Xerxes stopped along his line of route the natives
+had, besides furnishing corn for his army, to entertain him and his
+suite at a great banquet, the cost of which was felt as a heavy burthen.
+Contributions of troops or ships were also required from all the cities
+and tribes; and thus both fleet and army continually swelled as they
+advanced onward. In crossing the track between the Strymon and the Axius
+some damage was suffered by the baggage-train from lions, which came
+down from the mountains during the night and devoured many of the
+camels; but otherwise the march was effected without loss, and the fleet
+and army reached the borders of Thessaly intact, and in good condition.
+Here it was found that there was work for the pioneers, and a
+reconnaissance of the enemy's country before entering it was probably
+also thought desirable. The army accordingly halted some days in Pieria,
+while preparations were being made for crossing the Olympic range into
+the Thessalian lowland.
+
+During the halt intelligence arrived which seemed to promise the invader
+an easy conquest. Xerxes, while he was staying at Sardis, had sent
+heralds to all the Grecian states, excepting Athens and Sparta, with a
+demand for earth and water, the recognized symbols of submission. His
+envoys now returned, and brought him favorable replies from at least
+one-third of the continental Greeks--from the Perrhaebians, Thessalians,
+Dolopians, Magnetians, Achaeans of Phthiotis, Enianians, Malians,
+Locrians, and from most of the Boeotians. Unless it were the
+insignificant Phocis, no hostile country seemed to intervene between the
+place where his army lay and the great object of the expedition, Attica.
+Xerxes, therefore, having first viewed the pass of Tempe, and seen with
+his own eyes that no enemy lay encamped beyond, passed over the Olympic
+range by a road cut through the woods by his army, and proceeded
+southwards across Thessaly and Achaea Phthiotis into Malis, the fertile
+plain at the mouth of the Spercheius river. Here, having heard that a
+Greek force was in the neighborhood, he pitched his camp not far from
+the small town of Trachis.
+
+Thus far had the Greeks allowed the invader to penetrate their country
+without offering him any resistance. Originally there had been an
+intention of defending Thessaly, and an army under Evsenetus, a Spartan
+polemarch, and Themistocles, the great Athenian, had proceeded to Tempe,
+in order to cooperate with the Thessalians in guarding the pass. But the
+discovery that the Olympic range could be crossed in the,place where
+the army of Xerxes afterwards passed it had shown that the position was
+untenable; and it had been then resolved that the stand should be
+made at the next defensible position, Thermopylae. [PLATE LXII.] Here,
+accordingly, a force was found--small, indeed, if it be compared with
+the number of the assailants, but sufficient to defend such a position
+as that where it was posted against the world in arms. Three hundred
+Spartans, with their usual retinue of helots, 700 Lacedaemonians, other
+Peloponnesians to the number of 2800, 1000 Phocians, the same number
+of Locrians, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, formed an army of 9000
+men--quite as numerous a force as could be employed with any effect in
+the defile they were sent to guard. The defile was a long and narrow
+pass shut in between a high mountain, Callidromus, and the sea, and
+crossed at one point by a line of wall in which was a single gateway.
+Unless the command of the sea were gained, or another mode of crossing
+the mountains discovered, the pass could scarcely be forced.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXII.]
+
+
+Xerxes, however, confident in his numbers--after waiting four days at
+Trachis, probably in the hope that his fleet would join him--proceeded
+on the fifth day to the assault. First the Medes and Cissians, then
+the famous "Immortals" were sent into the jaws of the pass against the
+immovable foe; but neither detachment could make any impression. The
+long spears, large shields, and heavy armor of the Greeks, their skilful
+tactics, and steady array, were far more than a match for the inferior
+equipments and discipline of the Asiatics. Though the attack was made
+with great gallantry, both on this day and the next, it failed to
+produce the slightest effect. Very few of the Greeks were either slain
+or wounded; and it seemed as if the further advance of a million of men
+was to be stopped by a force less than a hundredth part of their number.
+
+But now information reached Xerxes which completely changed the face
+of affairs. There was a rough mountain-path leading from Trachis up
+the gorge of the Asopus and across Callidromus to the rear of the Greek
+position, which had been unknown to the Greeks when they decided on
+making their first stand at Thermopylae, and which they only discovered
+when their plans no longer admitted of alteration. It was, perhaps,
+not much more than a goat-track, and apparently they had regarded it as
+scarcely practicable, since they had thought its defence might be safely
+entrusted to a thousand Phocians. Xerxes, however, on learning the
+existence of the track, resolved at once to make trial of it. His
+Persian soldiers were excellent mountaineers. He ordered Hydarnes to
+take the "Immortals," and, guided by a native, to proceed along the path
+by night, and descend with early dawn into the rear of the Greeks, who
+would then be placed between two fires. The operation was performed with
+complete success. The Phocian guard, surprised at the summit, left the
+path free while they sought a place of safety. The Greeks in the pass
+below, warned during the night of their danger, in part fled, in part
+resolved on death. When morning came, Leonidas, at the head of about
+half his original army, moved forward towards the Malian plain, and
+there met the advancing Persians. A bloody combat ensued, in which the
+Persians lost by far the greater number; but the ranks of the Greeks
+were gradually thinned, and they were beaten back step by step into the
+narrowest part of the pass, where finally they all perished, except the
+four hundred Thebans, who submitted and were made prisoners.
+
+So terminated the first struggle on the soil of Greece, between the
+invaders and the invaded. It seemed to promise that, though at vast
+cost, Persia would be victorious. If her loss in the three days' combat
+was 20,000 men, as Herodotus states, yet, as that of her enemy was 4000,
+the proportionate advantage was on her side.
+
+But, for the conquest of such a country as Greece, it was requisite, not
+only that the invader should succeed on land, but also that he should be
+superior at sea. Xerxes had felt this, and had brought with him a fleet,
+calculated, as he imagined, to sweep the Greek navy from the Egean. As
+far as the Pagasaean Gulf, opposite the northern extremity of Euboea,
+his fleet had advanced without meeting an enemy. It had encountered one
+terrible storm off the coast of Magnesia, and had lost 400 vessels; but
+this loss was scarcely felt in so vast an armament. When from Aphetse,
+at the mouth of the gulf, the small Greek fleet, amounting to no more
+than 271 vessels, was seen at anchor off Artemisium, the only fear which
+the Persian commanders entertained was lest it should escape them. They
+at once detached 200 vessels to sail round the Coast coast of Euboea,
+and cut off the possibility of retreat. When, however, these vessels
+were all lost in a storm, and when in three engagements on three
+successive days, the Greek fleet showed itself fully able to contend
+against the superior numbers of its antagonist, the Persians themselves
+could not fail to see that their naval supremacy was more than doubtful.
+The fleet at Artemisium was not the entire Greek naval force; on another
+occasion it might be augumented, while their own could scarcely expect
+to receive reinforcements. The fights at Artemisium foreshadowed a day
+when the rival fleets would no longer meet and part on equal terms, but
+Persia would have to acknowledge herself inferior.
+
+Meanwhile, however, the balance of advantage rested with the invaders.
+The key of Northern Greece was won, and Phocis, Locris, Boeotia, Attica,
+and the Megarid lay open to the Persian army. The Greek fleet could gain
+nothing by any longer maintaining the position of Artemisium, and fell
+back towards the south, while its leaders anxiously considered where it
+should next take up its station. The Persians pressed on both by land
+and sea. A rapid march through Phocis and Boeotia brought Xerxes to
+Athens, soon after the Athenians, knowing that resistance would be vain,
+had evacuated it. The Acropolis, defended by a few fanatics, was taken
+and burnt. One object of the expedition was thus accomplished. Athens
+lay in ruins; and the whole of Attica was occupied by the conqueror.
+The Persian fleet, too, finding the channel of the Euripus clear, sailed
+down it, and rounding Sunium, came to anchor in the bay of Phalerum.
+
+In the councils of the Greeks all was doubt and irresolution. The
+army, which ought to have mustered in full force at Thermopylae and
+Callidromus, and which, after those passes were forced, might have
+defended Cithseron and Parnes, had never ventured beyond the Isthmus
+of Corinth, and was there engaged in building a wall across the neck of
+land from sea to sea. The fleet lay off Salamis, where it was detained
+by the entreaties of the Athenians, who had placed in that island the
+greater part of the non-combatant population; but the inclination was
+strong on the part of many to withdraw westward and fight the next
+battle, if a battle must be fought, in the vicinity of the land force,
+which would be a protection in case of defeat. Could Xerxes have had
+patience for a few days, the combined fleet would have broken up. The
+Peloponnesian contingents would have withdrawn to the isthmus; and the
+Athenians, despairing of success, would probably have sailed away to
+Italy. But the Great King, when he saw the vast disproportion
+between his own fleet and that of the enemy, could not believe in the
+possibility of the Greeks offering a successful resistance. Like a
+modern emperor, who imagined that, if only he could have been with his
+fleet, all would necessarily have gone well, Xerxes supposed that by
+having the sea-fight under his own eye he would be sure of victory. Thus
+again, as at Artemisium, the only fear felt was lest the Greeks should
+fly, and in that way escape chastisement. Orders were therefore issued
+to the Persian fleet to close up at once, and blockade the eastern end
+of the Salaminian strait, while a detachment repeated the attempted
+manoeuvre at Euboea, and sailed round the island to guard the channel at
+its western outlet.
+
+These movements were executed late in the day on which the Persian
+fleet arrived at Phalerum. During the night intelligence reached the
+commanders that the retreat of the Greeks was about to commence at once;
+whereupon the Persian right wing was pushed forward into the strait,
+and carried beyond the Greek position so as to fill the channel where
+it opens into the bay of Eleusis. The remainder of the night passed
+in preparations for the battle on both sides. At daybreak both fleets
+advanced from their respective shores, the Persians being rather the
+assailants. Their thousand vessels were drawn up in three lines, and
+charged their antagonists with such spirit that the general inclination
+on the part of the Greeks was at first to retreat. Some of their ships
+had almost touched the shore, when the bold example of one of the
+captains, or a cry of reproach from unknown lips, produced a revulsion
+of feeling, and the whole line advanced in good order. The battle was
+for a short time doubtful; but soon the superiority of Greek naval
+tactics began to tell. The Persian vessels became entangled one with
+another, and crashing together broke each other's oars. The triple
+line increased their difficulties. If a vessel, overmatched, sought to
+retreat, it necessarily came into collision with the ships stationed
+in its rear. These moreover pressed too eagerly forward, since their
+captains were anxious to distinguish themselves in order to merit the
+approval of Xerxes. The Greeks found themselves able to practice
+with good effect their favorite manoeuvre of the _periplus_, and thus
+increased the confusion. It was not long before the greater part of
+the Persian fleet became a mere helpless mass of shattered or damaged
+vessels. Five hundred are said to have been sunk--the majority by the
+enemy, but some even by their own friends. The sea was covered with
+wrecks, and with wretches who clung to them, till the ruthless enemy
+slew them or forced them to let go their hold.
+
+This defeat was a death-blow to the hopes of Xerxes, and sealed the fate
+of the expedition. From the moment that he realized to himself the fact
+of the entire inability of his fleet to cope with that of the Greeks,
+Xerxes made up his mind to return with all haste to Asia. From
+over-confidence he fell into the opposite extreme of despair, and made
+no effort to retrieve his ill fortune. His fleet was ordered to sail
+straight for the Hellespont, and to guard the bridges until he reached
+them with his army. He himself retreated hastily along the same road
+by which he had advanced, his whole army accompanying him as far as
+Thessaly, where Marnonius was left with 260,000 picked men, to prevent
+pursuit, and to renew the attempt against Greece in the ensuing year.
+Xerxes pressed on to the Hellespont, losing vast numbers of his troops
+by famine and sickness on the way, and finally returned into Asia, not
+by his magnificent bridge, which a storm had destroyed, but on board a
+vessel, which, according to some, narrowly escaped shipwreck during the
+passage. Even in Asia disaster pursued him. Between Abydos and Sardis
+his army suffered almost as much from over-indulgence as it had
+previously suffered from want; and of the mighty host which had gone
+forth from the Lydian capital in the spring not very many thousands can
+have re-entered it in the autumn.
+
+Still, however, there was a possibility that the success which his
+own arms had failed to achieve might reward the exertions of his
+lieutenants. Mardonius had expressed himself confident that with 300,000
+picked soldiers he could overpower all resistance, and make Greece
+a satrapy of Persia. Xerxes had raised his forces to that amount by
+sending Artabazus back from Sestos at the head of a _corps d'armee_
+numbering 40,000 men. The whole army of 300,000 wintered in Thessaly;
+and Mardonius, when spring came, having vainly endeavored to detach the
+Athenians from the Grecian ranks, marched through Boeotia in Attica, and
+occupied Athens for the second time. Hence he proceeded to menace the
+Peloponnese, where he formed an alliance with the Argives, who promised
+him that they would openly embrace the Persian cause. At the same time
+the Athenians, finding that Sparta took no steps to help them, began to
+waver in their resistance, and to contemplate accepting the terms which
+Mardonius was still willing to grant them. The fate of Greece trembled
+in the balance, and apparently was determined by the accident of a death
+and a succession, rather than by any wide-spread patriotic feeling or
+any settled course of policy. Cleombrotus, regent for the young son
+of Leonidas, died, and his brother Pausanias--a brave, clever, and
+ambitious man--took his place. We can scarcely be wrong in ascribing--at
+least in part--to this circumstance the unlooked-for change of policy,
+which electrified the despondent ambassadors of Athens almost as soon as
+Pausanias was installed in power. It was suddenly announced that
+Sparta would take the offensive. Ten thousand hoplites and 400,000
+light-armed--the largest army that she ever levied--took the field,
+and, joined at the isthmus by above 25,000 Peloponnesians, and soon
+afterwards by almost as many Athenians and Megarians, proceeded to seek
+the foreigners, first in Attica, and then in the position to which they
+had retired in Boeotia. On the skirts of Citheeron, near Platsea, a
+hundred and eight thousand Greeks confronted more than thrice their
+number of Persians and Persian subjects; and now at length the trial
+was to be made whether, in fair and open fight on land, Greece or Persia
+would be superior. A suspicion of what the result would be might have
+been derived from Marathon. But there the Persians had been taken at a
+disadvantage, when the cavalry, their most important arm, was absent.
+Here the error of Datis was not likely to be repeated. Mardonius had a
+numerous and well-armed cavalry, which he handled with no little skill.
+It remained to be seen, when the general engagement came, whether, with
+both arms brought fully into play, the vanquished at Marathon would be
+the victors.
+
+The battle of Plataea was brought on under circumstances very
+unfavorable to the Greeks. Want of water and a difficulty about
+provisions had necessitated a night movement on their part. The
+cowardice of all the small contingents, and the obstinacy of an
+individual Spartan, disconcerted the whole plan of the operation, and
+left the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians at daybreak separated from
+each other, and deserted by the whole body of their allies. Mardonius
+attacked at once, and prevented the junction of the two allies, so that
+two distinct and separate engagements went on at the same time. In both
+the Greeks were victorious. The Spartans repulsed the Persian horse and
+foot, slew Mardonius and were the first to assail the Persian camp. The
+Athenians defeated the _medizing_ Greeks, and effected a breach in
+the defences of the camp, on which the Spartans had failed to make any
+impression. A terrible carnage followed. The contingent of 40,000 troops
+under Artabazus alone drew off in good order.
+
+The remainder were seized with panic, and were either slaughtered like
+sheep or fled in complete disarray. Seventy thousand Greeks not only
+defeated but destroyed the army of 300,000 barbarians, which melted
+away and disappeared making no further stand anywhere. The disaster of
+Marathon was repeated on a larger scale, and without the resource of
+an embarkation. Henceforth the immense superiority of Greek troops to
+Persian was well known on both sides; and nothing but the distance from
+Greece of her vital parts, and the quarrels of the Greek states among
+themselves, preserved for nearly a century and a half the doomed empire
+of Persia.
+
+The immediate result of the defeats of Salamis and Platsea was a
+contraction of the Persian boundary towards the west. Though a few
+Persian garrisons maintained themselves for some years on the further
+side of the straits, soothing thereby the wounded vanity of the Great
+King, who liked to think that he had still a hold on Europe; yet there
+can be no doubt that, after the double flight of Xerxes and Artabazus,
+Macedonia, Pseonia, and Thrace recovered their independence. Persia lost
+her European provinces, and began the struggle to retain those of Asia.
+Terminus receded, and having once receded never advanced again in this
+quarter. The Greeks took the offensive. Sailing to Asia, they not only
+liberated from their Persian bondage the islands which lay along the
+coast, but landing their men on the continent, attacked and defeated
+an army of 60,000 Persians at Mycale, and destroyed the remnant of the
+ships that had escaped from Salamis. Could they have made up their minds
+to maintain a powerful fleet permanently on the coast of Asia, they
+might at once have deprived Persia of her whole sea-hoard on the
+Propontis and the Egean; but neither of the two great powers of Greece
+was prepared for such a resolve. Sparta disliked distant expeditions;
+and Athens did not as yet see her way to undertaking the protection
+of the continental Greeks. She had much to do at home, and had not
+yet discovered those weak points in her adversary's harness, which
+subsequently enabled her to secure by treaty the freedom of the Greek
+cities upon the mainland. For the present, therefore, Persia only lost
+the bulk of her European possessions, and the islands of the Propontis
+and the Egean.
+
+The circumstances which caused a renewal of Greek agressions upon Asia
+towards the close of the reign of Xerxes are not very clearly narrated
+by the authors who speak of them. It appears, however, that after twelve
+years of petty operations, during which Eion was recovered, and Doriscus
+frequently attacked, but without effect, the Athenians resolved, in B.C.
+466, upon a great expedition to the eastward. Collecting a fleet of
+300 vessels, which was placed under the command of Cimon, the son of
+Miltiades, they sailed to the coast of Caria and Lycia, where they drove
+the Persian garrisons out of the Greek towns, and augmenting their
+navy by fresh contingents at every step, proceeded along the shores of
+Pamphylia as far as the mouth of the river Eurymedon, where they found
+a Phoenician fleet of 340 vessels, and a Persian army, stationed to
+protect the territory. Engaging first the fleet they defeated it, and
+drove it ashore, after which they disembarked and gained a victory
+over the Persian army. As many as two hundred triremes were taken
+or destroyed. They then sailed on towards Cyprus, where they met and
+destroyed a squadron of eighty ships, which was on its way to reinforce
+the fleet at the Eurymedon. Above a hundred vessels, 20,000 captives,
+and a vast amount of plunder were the prize of this war; which had,
+however, no further effect on the relations of the two powers.
+
+In the following year the reign of Xerxes came to an end abruptly.
+With this monarch seems to have begun those internal disorders of the
+seraglio, which made the Court during more than a hundred and forty
+years a perpetual scene of intrigues, assassinations, executions, and
+conspiracies. Xerxes, who appears to have only one wife, Amestris,
+the daughter (or grand-daughter) of the conspirator, Otanes, permitted
+himself the free indulgence of illicit passion among the princesses
+of the Court, the wives of his own near relatives. The most horrible
+results followed. Amestris vented her jealous spite on those whom she
+regarded as guilty of stealing from her the affections of her husband;
+and to prevent her barbarities from producing rebellion, it was
+necessary to execute the persons whom she had provoked, albeit they were
+near relations of the monarch. The taint of incontinence spread among
+the members of the royal family; and a daughter of the king, who was
+married to one of the most powerful nobles, became notorious for
+her excesses. Eunuchs rose into power, and fomented the evils which
+prevailed. The king made himself bitter enemies among those whose
+position was close to his person. At last, Artabanus, chief of the
+guard, a courtier of high rank, and Aspamitres, a eunuch, who held the
+office of chamberlain, conspired against their master, and murdered him
+in his sleeping apartment, after he had reigned twenty years.
+
+The character of Xerxes falls below that of any preceding monarch.
+Excepting that he was not wholly devoid of a certain magnanimity, which
+made him listen patiently to those who opposed his views or gave him
+unpalatable advice and which prevented him from exacting vengeance on
+some occasions, he had scarcely a trait whereon the mind can rest with
+any satisfaction. Weak and easily led, puerile in his gusts of passion
+and his complete abandonment of himself to them--selfish, fickle,
+boastful, cruel, superstitious, licentious--he exhibits to us the
+Oriental despot in the most contemptible of all his aspects--that
+wherein the moral and the intellectual qualities are equally in defect,
+and the career is one unvarying course of vice and folly. From Xerxes we
+have to date at once the decline of the Empire in respect of territorial
+greatness and military strength, and likewise its deterioration in
+regard to administrative vigor and national spirit. With him commenced
+the corruption of the Court--the fatal evil, which almost universally
+weakens and destroys Oriental dynasties. His expedition against Greece
+exhausted and depopulated the Empire; and though, by abstaining from
+further military enterprises, he did what lay in his power to recruit
+its strength, still the losses which his expedition caused were
+certainly not repaired in his lifetime.
+
+As a builder, Xerxes showed something of the same grandeur of conception
+which is observable in his great military enterprise and in the works by
+which it was accompanied. His Propylaea, and the sculptured staircase in
+front of the Chebl Minar, which is undoubtedly his work, are among the
+most magnificent erections upon the Persepolitan platform; and are quite
+sufficient to place him in the foremost rank of Oriental builders. If
+we were to ascribe the Chehl Minar itself to him, we should have to give
+him the palm above all other kings of Persia; but on the whole it
+is most probable that that edifice and its duplicate at Susa were
+conceived, and in the main, constructed, by Darius.
+
+Xerxes left behind him three sons--Darius, Hystaspes, and
+Artaxerxes--and two daughters, Amytis and Rhodogune. Hystaspes was
+satrap of Bactria, and at the time of their father's death, only Darius
+and Artaxerxes were at the Court.
+
+Fearing the eldest son most, Artabanus persuaded Artaxerxes that the
+assassination of Xerxes was the act of his brother, whereupon Artaxerxes
+caused him to be put to death, and himself ascended the throne (B.C.
+465).
+
+Troubles, as usual, accompanied this irregular accession. Artabanus, not
+content with exercising an influence under Artaxerxes such as has
+caused some authors to speak of him as king, aimed at removing the
+young prince, and making himself actual monarch. But his designs being
+betrayed to Artaxerxes by Megabyzus, and at the same time his
+former crimes coming to light, he was killed, together with his tool
+Aspamitres, seven months after the murder of Xerxes. The sons of
+Artabanus sought to avenge his death, but were defeated by Megabyzus in
+an engagement, wherein they lost their lives.
+
+Meanwhile, in Bactria, Hystaspes, who had a rightful claim to the
+throne, raised the standard of revolt. Artaxerxes marched against him
+in person, and engaged him in two battles, the first of which was
+indecisive, while in the second the Bactrians suffered defeat, chiefly
+(according to Ctesias) because the wind blew violently in their faces.
+So signal was victory, that Bactria at once submitted. Hystaspes' fate
+is uncertain.
+
+Not long after the reduction of Bactria, Egypt suddenly threw off the
+Persian yoke (B.C. 460). Inarus, a king of the wild African tribes who
+bordered the Nile valley on the west, but himself perhaps a descendant
+of the old monarchs of Egypt, led the insurrection, and, in conjunction
+with an Egyptian, named Amyrtseus, attacked the Persian troops stationed
+in the country, who were commanded by Achaemenes, the satrap. A battle
+was fought near Papremis in the Delta, wherein the Persians were
+defeated, and Achaemenes fell by the hand of Inarus himself. The
+Egyptians generally now joined in the revolt; and the remnant of the
+Persian army was shut up in Memphis. Inarus had asked the aid of Athens;
+and an Athenian fleet of 200 sail was sent to his assistance. This fleet
+sailed up the Nile, defeated a Persian squadron, and took part in the
+capture of Memphis and the siege of its citade (White Castle). When
+the Persian king first learned what had happened, he endeavored to rid
+himself of his Athenian enemies by inducing the Spartans to invade their
+country; but, failing in his attempt, he had recourse to arms, and,
+levying a vast host, which he placed under the command of Megabyzus,
+sent that officer to recover the revolted province. Megabyzus marched
+upon Memphis, defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a great battle,
+relieved the citadel of Memphis from its siege, and recovered the rest
+of the town. The Athenians fled to the tract called Prosopitis, which
+was a a portion of the Delta, completely surrounded by two branch
+streams of the Nile. Here they were besieged for eighteen months, till
+Megabyzus contrived to turn the water from one of the two streams,
+whereby the Athenian ships were stranded, and the Persian troops were
+able to march across the river bed, and overwhelm the Athenians with
+their numbers. A few only escaped to Cyrene. The entire fleet fell into
+the enemy's hands; and a reinforcement of fifty more ships, arriving
+soon after the defeat, was attacked unawares after it had entered the
+river, and lost more than half its number. Inarus was betrayed by some
+of his own men, and, being carried prisoner to Persia, suffered death by
+crucifixion. Amyrtseus fled to the fens, where for a while he maintained
+his independence. Egypt, however, was with this exception recovered to
+the Empire (B.C. 455); and Athens was taught that she could not always
+invade the dominions of the Great King with impunity.
+
+Six years after this, the Athenians resolved on another effort. A fleet
+of 200 ships was equipped and placed under the command of the victor
+of the Eurymedon, Cimon, with orders to proceed into the Eastern
+Mediterranean, and seek to recover the laurels lost in Egypt. Cimon
+sailed to Cyprus, where he received a communication from Amyrtseus,
+which induced him to dispatch sixty ships to Egypt, while with the
+remaining one hundred and forty he commenced the siege of Citium. Here
+he died, either of disease or from the effects of a wound; and his
+armament, pressed for provisions, was forced soon afterwards to raise
+the siege, and address itself to some other enterprise. Sailing past
+Salamis, it found there a Cilician and Phoenician fleet, consisting of
+300 vessels, which it immediately attacked and defeated, notwithstanding
+the disparity of number. Besides the ships which were sunk, a hundred
+triremes were taken; and the sailors then landed and gained a victory
+over a Persian army upon the shore. Artaxerxes, upon this, fearing lest
+he should lose Cyprus altogether, and thinking that, if Athens became
+mistress of this important island, she would always be fomenting
+insurrection in Egypt, made overtures for peace to the generals who were
+now in command. His propositions were favorably received. Peace was made
+on the following terms:--Athens agreed to relinquish Cyprus, and recall
+her squadron from Egypt; while the king consented to grant freedom to
+all the Greek cities on the Asiatic continent, and not to menace them
+either by land or water. The sea was divided between the two powers,
+Persian ships of war were not to sail to the west of Phaselis in the
+Levant, or of the Cyanean islands in the Euxine; and Greek war-ships, we
+may assume, were not to show themselves east of those limits. On these
+conditions there was to be peace and amity between the Greeks and the
+Persians, and neither nation was to undertake any expeditions against
+the territories of the other. Thus terminated the first period of
+hostility between Greece and Persia, a period of exactly half a century,
+commencing B.C. 499 and. ending B.C. 449, in the seventeenth year of
+Artaxerxes.
+
+It was probably not many years after the conclusion of this peace that
+a rebellion broke out in Syria. Megabyzus, the satrap of that important
+province, offended at the execution of Inarus, in violation of the
+promise which he had himself made to him, raised a revolt against
+his sovereign, defeated repeatedly the armies sent to reduce him to
+obedience, and finally treated with Artaxerxes as to the terms on which
+he would consent to be reconciled. Thus was set an example, if not of
+successful insurrection, yet at any rate of the possibility of rebelling
+with impunity--an example which could not fail to have a mischievous
+effect on the future relations of the monarch with his satraps. It
+would have been better for the Empire had Megabyzus suffered the fate
+of Oroetes, instead of living to a good old age in high favor with the
+monarch whose power he had weakened and defied.
+
+Artaxerxes survived the "Peace of Callias" twenty-four years. His
+relations with the Greeks continued friendly till his demise, though,
+on the occasion of the revolt of Samos (B.C. 440), Pissuthnes, satrap of
+Sardis, seems to have transgressed the terms of the treaty, and to
+have nearly brought about a renewal of hostilities. It was probably
+in retaliation for the aid given to the revolted Samians, that the
+Athenians, late in the reign of Artaxerxes, made an expedition against
+Caunus, which might have had important consequences, if the Caunians
+had not been firm in their allegiance. A revolt of Lycia and Caria under
+Zopyrus, the son of Megabyzus, assisted by the Greeks, might have proved
+even more difficult to subdue than the rebellion of Syria under his
+father. Persia, however, escaped this danger; and Artaxerxes, no doubt,
+saw with pleasure a few years later the Greeks turn their arms against
+each other--Athens, his great enemy, being forced into a contest for
+existence with the Peloponnesian confederacy under Sparta.
+
+The character of Artaxerxes, though it receives the approval of Plutarch
+and Diodorus, must be pronounced on the whole poor and contemptible.
+His ready belief of the charge brought by Artabanus against his brother,
+Darius, admits perhaps of excuse, owing to his extreme youth; but his
+surrender of Inarus to Amestris on account of her importunity, his
+readiness to condone the revolt of Megabyzus, and his subjection
+throughout almost the whole of his life to the evil influence of Amytis,
+his sister, and Amestris, his mother--both persons of ill-regulated
+lives--are indications of weakness and folly quite unpardonable in
+a monarch. That he was mild in temperament, and even kind and
+good-natured, is probable. But he had no other quality that deserves the
+slightest commendation. In the whole course of his long reign he seems
+never once to have adventured himself in the field against an enemy.
+He made not a single attempt at conquest in any direction. We have no
+evidence that he patronized either literature or the arts. His peace
+with Athens was necessary perhaps, but disgraceful to Persia. The
+disorders of the Court increased under his reign, from the license
+(especially) which he allowed the Queen-mother, who sported with the
+lives of his subjects. The decay of the Empire received a fatal impulse
+from the impunity which he permitted to Megabyzus.
+
+Like his father, Artaxerxes appears to have had but one legitimate wife.
+This was a certain Damaspia, of whom nothing is known, except that she
+died on the same day as her husband, and was the mother of his only
+legitimate son, Xerxes. Seventeen other sons, who survived him, were
+the issue of various concubines, chiefly--it would appear--Babylonians.
+Xerxes II. succeeded to the throne on the death of his father (B.C.
+425), but reigned forty-five days only, being murdered after a festival,
+in which he had indulged too freely, by his half-brother, Secydianus or
+Sogdianus. Secydianus enjoyed the sovereignty for little more than half
+a year, when he was in his turn put to death by another, brother, Ochus,
+who on ascending the throne took the name of Darius, and became known to
+the Greeks as Darius Nothus.
+
+Darius Nothus had in his father's lifetime been made satrap of Hyrcania,
+and had married his aunt, Parysatis, a daughter of Xerxes. He had
+already two children at his accession,--a daughter, Amestris, and a
+son, Arsaces, who succeeded him as Artaxerxes. His reign, which lasted
+nineteen years, was a constant scene of insurrections and revolts, some
+of which were of great importance, since they had permanent and
+very disastrous consequences. The earliest of all was raised by his
+full-brother, Arsites, who rebelled in conjunction with a son of
+Megabyzus, and, obtaining the support of a number of Greek mercenaries,
+gained two victories over the forces dispatched against him by the king.
+At last, however, the fortune of war changed. Persian gold was used
+to corrupt the mercenaries; and the rebels being thus reduced to
+extremities, were forced to capitulate, yielding themselves on the
+condition that their lives should be spared. Parysatis induced her
+husband to disregard the pledges given and execute both Arsites and his
+fellow-conspirator--thus proclaiming to the world that, unless by the
+employment of perfidy, the Empire was incapable of dealing with those
+who rebelled against its authority.
+
+The revolt of Pissuthnes, satrap of Lydia, was the next important
+outbreak. Its exact date is uncertain; but it seems not to have very
+long preceded the Athenian disasters in Sicily. Pissuthnes, who had held
+his satrapy for more than twenty years, was the son of a Hystaspes, and
+probably a member of the royal family. His wealth--the accumulations of
+so long a term of office--enabled him to hire the services of a body of
+Greek mercenaries, who were commanded by an Athenian, called Lycon. On
+these troops he placed his chief dependence; but they failed him in the
+hour of need. Tissaphernes, the Persian general sent against him, bribed
+Lycon and his men, who thereupon quitted Pissuthnes and made common
+cause with his adversaries. The unfortunate satrap could no longer
+resist, and therefore surrendered upon terms, and accompanied
+Tissaphernes to the Court. Darius, accustomed now to disregard the
+pledged word of his officers, executed him forthwith, and made over his
+satrapy to Tissaphernes, as a reward for his zeal. Lycon, the Athenian
+traitor, received likewise a handsome return for his services, the
+revenues of several towns and districts being assigned him by the Great
+King.
+
+The rebellion, however, was not wholly crushed by the destruction of
+its author, Amorges, a bastard son of Pissuthnes, continued to maintain
+himself in Caria, where he was master of the strong city of Iasus, on
+the north coast of the Sinus Iasicus, and set the power of Tissaphernes
+at defiance. Having probably inherited the wealth of his father, he
+hired a number of Peloponnesian mercenaries, and succeeded in maintaining
+himself as an independent monarch for some years.
+
+Such was the condition of things in Asia Minor, when intelligence
+arrived of the fearful disasters which had befallen the Athenians in
+Sicily--disasters without a parallel since those of Salamis--sudden,
+unexpected, overwhelming. The news, flying through Asia, awoke
+everywhere a belief that the power of Athens was broken, and that her
+hostility need no longer be dreaded. The Persian monarch considered that
+under the altered circumstances it would be safe to treat the Peace of
+Callias as a dead letter, and sent down orders to the satraps of Lydia
+and Bithynia that they were once more to demand and collect the tribute
+of the Greek cities within their provinces. The satraps began to
+speculate on the advantages which they might derive from alliance with
+the enemies of Athens, and looked anxiously to see a Peloponnesian fleet
+appear off the coast of Asia. Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus vied with
+each other in the tempting offers which they made to Sparta, and it was
+not long before a formal treaty was concluded between that state
+and Persia, by which the two powers bound themselves to carry on war
+conjointly against Athens.
+
+Thus the contest between Persia and her rival entered upon a new phase.
+Henceforth until the liberties of Greece were lost, the Great King could
+always count on having for his ally one of the principal Grecian powers.
+His gold was found to possess attractions which the Greeks were quite
+unable to resist. At one time Sparta, at another Athens, at another
+Thebes yielded to the subtle influence; Greek generals commanded the
+Persian armies; Greek captains manoeuvered the Persian fleets; the very
+rank and file of the standing army came to be almost as much Greek as
+Persian. Acting on the maxim, _Divide et impera_, Persia prolonged for
+eighty years her tottering Empire, by the skilful use which she made of
+the mutual jealousies and divisions of the Hellenic states.
+
+It scarcely belongs to the history of Persia to trace in detail the
+fortunes of the contending powers during the latter portion of the
+Peloponnesian war. We need only observe that the real policy of the
+Court of Susa, well understood, and, on the whole, tolerably well
+carried out by the satraps, was to preserve the balance of power
+between Athens and Sparta, to allow neither to obtain too decided a
+preponderance, to help each in turn, and encourage each to waste the
+other's strength, but to draw back whenever the moment came for striking
+a decisive blow against either side. This policy skilfully pursued
+by Tissaphernes (who had a genius for intrigue and did not require
+an Alcibiades to give him lessons in state-craft), more clumsily
+by Pharnabazus, whose character was comparatively sincere and
+straightforward, prevailed until the younger Cyrus made his appearance
+upon the scene, when a disturbing force came into play which had
+disastrous effects both on the fortunes of Greece and on those of
+Persia. The younger Cyrus had personal views of self-aggrandizement
+which conflicted with the true interests of his nation, and was so bent
+on paving the way for his own ascent to sovereign power that he did not
+greatly care whether he injured his country or no. As the accomplishment
+of his designs depended mainly on his obtaining a powerful land-force,
+he regarded a Spartan as preferable to an Athenian alliance; and, having
+once made his choice, he lent his ally such effectual aid that in
+two years from the time of his coming down to the coast the war was
+terminated. Persian gold manned and partly built the fleet which
+conquered at AEgos-Potami; perhaps it contributed in a still more
+decisive manner to the victory. Cyrus, by placing his stores at the
+entire command of Lysander, deserved and acquired the cordial good-will
+of Sparta and the Peloponnesians generally--an advantage of which we
+shall find him in the sequel making good use.
+
+The gain to Persia from the dominion which she had reacquired over the
+Greeks of Asia was more than counter-balanced by a loss of territory in
+another quarter, which seems to have occurred during the reign of Darius
+Nothus, though in what exact year is doubtful. The revolt of Egypt is
+placed by Heeren and Clinton in B.C. 414, by Eusebius in B.C. 411, by
+Manetho in the last year of Darius Nothus, or B.C. 405. The earlier
+dates depend on the view that the Amyrtseus of Manetho's twenty-eighth
+dynasty was the leader of the rebellion, and had a reign of six years
+at this period--a view which is perhaps unsound. Manetho probably
+represented Nepherites (Nefaorot) as the leader; and it is quite clear
+that he placed the re-establishment of the old throne of the Pharaohs in
+the year that Darius Nothus died. As his authority is the best that we
+can obtain upon this obscure point, we may regard the last days of
+the Persian monarch as clouded by news of a rebellion, which had been
+perhaps for some time contemplated, but which did not break out until he
+was known to be in a moribund condition.
+
+A few years earlier, B.C. 408 or 409, the Medes had made an unsuccessful
+attempt to recover their independence. The circumstances of this revolt,
+which is mentioned by no writer but Xenophon, are wholly unknown, but we
+may perhaps connect it with the rebellion of Terituchmes, a son-in-law
+of the king. The story of Terituchmes, which belongs to this period,
+deserves at any rate to be told, as illustrating, in a very remarkable
+way, the corruption, cruelty, and dissoluteness of the Persian Court at
+the time to which we have now come. Terituchmes was the son of Idernes,
+a Persian noble of high rank, probably a descendant of the conspirator
+Hydarnes. On the death of his father, he succeeded to his satrapy, as
+to a hereditary fief, and being high in favor with Darius Nothus, he
+received in marriage that monarch's daughter, Amestris. Having, however,
+after his marriage become enamored of his own half-sister, Roxana, and
+having persuaded her to an incestuous commerce, he grew to detest his
+wife, and as he could not rid himself of her without making an enemy of
+the king, he entered into a conspiracy with 300 others, and planned to
+raise a rebellion. The bond of a common crime, cruel and revolting in
+its character, was to secure the fidelity of the rebels one to another.
+Amestris was to be placed in a sack, and each conspirator in turn was
+to plunge his sword into her body. It is not clear whether this intended
+murder was executed or no. Hoping to prevent it, Darius commissioned
+a certain Udiastes, who was in the service of Terituchmes, to save his
+daughter by any means that might be necessary; and Udiastes, collecting
+a band, set upon Terituchmes and slew him after a strenuous resistance.
+After this, his mother, brothers, and sisters were apprehended by the
+order of Parysatis, the queen, who caused Roxana to be hewn in pieces,
+and the other unfortunates to be buried alive. It was with great
+difficulty that Arsaces, the heir-apparent, afterwards Artaxerxes
+Mnemon, preserved his own wife, Statira, from the massacre. It happened
+that she was sister to Terituchmes, and, though wholly innocent of his
+offence, she would have been involved in the common destruction of her
+family had not her husband with tears and entreaties begged her life of
+his parents. The son of Terituchmes maintained himself for a while in
+his father's government; but Parysatis succeeded in having him taken off
+by poison.
+
+The character of Darius Nothus is seen tolerably clearly in the account
+of his reign which has been here given. He was at once weak and wicked.
+Contrary to his sworn word, he murdered his brothers, Secydianus and
+Arsites. He broke faith with Pissuthnes. He sanctioned the wholesale
+execution of Terituchmes' relatives. Under him the eunuchs of the palace
+rose to such power that one of them actually ventured to aspire to the
+sovereignty. Parysatis, his wife, one of the most cruel and malignant
+even of Oriental women, was in general his chosen guide and counsellor.
+His severities cannot, however, in all eases be ascribed to her
+influence, for he was anxious that she should put the innocent Statira
+to death, and, when she refused, reproached her with being foolishly
+lenient. In his administration of the Empire he was unsuccessful; for,
+if he gained some tracts of Asia Minor, he lost the entire African
+satrapy. Under him we trace a growing relaxation of the checks by which
+the great officers of the state were intended to have been held
+under restraint. Satraps came to be practically uncontrolled in their
+provinces, and the dangerous custom arose of allowing sons to succeed,
+almost as a matter of course, to the governments of their fathers.
+Powers unduly large were lodged in the hands of a single officer, and
+actions, that should have brought down upon their perpetrators sharp
+and signal punishment, were timorously or negligently condoned by the
+supreme authority. Cunning and treachery were made the weapons wherewith
+Persia contended with her enemies. Manly habits were laid aside, and the
+nation learned to trust more and more to the swords of mercenaries.
+
+Shortly before the death of Darius there seems to have been a doubt
+raised as to the succession. Parysatis, who preferred her second son to
+her first-born, imagined that her influence was sufficient to induce her
+husband to nominate Cyrus, instead of Arsaces, to succeed him; and Cyrus
+is said to have himself expected to be preferred above his brother. He
+had the claim, if claim it can be called, that he was the first son
+born to his father after he became king; but his main dependence was
+doubtless on his mother. Darius, however, proved less facile in his
+dying moments than he had been during most of his life, and declined
+to set aside the rights of the eldest son on the frivolous pretence
+suggested to him. His own feelings may have inclined him towards
+Arsaces, who resembled him far more than Cyrus did in character; and
+Cyrus, moreover, had recently offended him, and been summoned to court,
+to answer a very serious charge. Arsaces, therefore, was nominated, and
+took the name of Artaxerxes--as one of a king who had reigned long, and,
+on the whole, prosperously.
+
+An incident of ill omen accompanied the commencement of the new reign
+(B.C. 405). The inauguration of the monarch was a religious ceremony,
+and took place in a temple at Pasargadae, the old capital, to which
+a peculiar sanctity was still regarded as attaching. Artaxerxes had
+proceeded to this place, and was about to engage in the ceremonies, when
+he was interrupted by Tissaphernes, who informed him that his life was
+in danger. Cyrus, he said, proposed to hide himself in the temple,
+and assassinate him as he changed his dress, a necessary part of the
+formalities. One of the officiating priests--a Magus, as it would
+seem--confirmed the charge. Cyrus was immediately arrested, and would
+have been put to death on the spot, had not his mother interfered, and,
+embracing him in her arms, made it impossible for the executioner to
+perform his task. With some difficulty she persuaded Artaxerxes to spare
+his brother's life and allow him to return to his government, assuring
+him, and perhaps believing, that the charges made against her favorite
+were without foundation.
+
+Cyrus returned to Asia Minor with the full determination of attacking
+his brother at the earliest opportunity. He immediately began the
+collection of a mercenary force, composed wholly of Greeks, on whose
+arms he was disposed to place far more reliance than on those of
+Orientals. As Tissaphernes had returned to the coast with him, and was
+closely watching all his proceedings, it was necessary to exercise great
+caution, lest his intentions should become known before he was ready to
+put them into execution. He therefore had recourse to three different
+devices. Having found a cause of quarrel with Tissaphernes in the
+ambiguous terms of their respective commissions, he pressed it on to
+an actual war, which enabled him to hire troops openly, as against this
+enemy; and in this way he collected from 5000 to 6000 Greeks--chiefly
+Peloponnesians. He further gave secret commissions to Greek officers,
+whose acquaintance he had made when he was previously in these parts,
+to collect men for him, whom they were to employ in their own quarrels
+until he needed their services. From 3000 to 4000 troops were gathered
+for him by these persons. Finally, when he found himself nearly ready
+to commence his march, he discovered a new foe in the Pisidians of
+the Western Taurus, and proceeded to levy a force against them, which
+amounted to some thousands more. In all, he had in readiness 11,000
+heavy-armed and about 2000 light-armed Greeks before his purpose became
+so clear that Tissaphernes could no longer mistake it, and therefore
+started off to carry his somewhat tardy intelligence to the capital.
+
+The aims of Cyrus were different from those of ordinary rebel satraps;
+and we must go back to the times of Darius Hystaspis in order to find a
+parallel to them. Instead of seeking to free a province from the Persian
+yoke, or to carve out for himself an independent sovereignty in some
+remote corner of the Empire, his intention was to dethrone his brother,
+and place on his own brows the diadem of his great namesake. It was
+necessary for him therefore to assume the offensive. Only by a bold
+advance, and by taking his enemy to some extent unprepared, and so at a
+disadvantage, could he hope to succeed in his audacious project. It is
+not easy to see that he could have had any considerable party among
+the Persians, or any ground for expecting to be supported by any of
+the subject nations. His following must have been purely personal; and
+though it may be true that he was of a character to win more admiration
+and affection than his brother, yet Artaxerxes himself was far from
+being unpopular with his subjects, whom he pleased by a familiarity and
+a good-nature to which they were little accustomed. Cyrus knew that
+his principal dependence must be on himself, on his Greeks, and on the
+carelessness and dilatoriness of his adversary, who was destitute of
+military talent and was even thought to be devoid of personal bravery.
+
+Thus it was important to advance as soon as possible. Cyrus therefore
+quitted Sardis before all his troops were collected (B.C. 401), and
+marched through Lydia and Phrygia, by the route formally followed in the
+reverse direction by the army of Xerxes, as far as Celsense, where
+the remainder of his mercenaries joined him. With his Greek force thus
+raised to 13,000 men, and with a native army not much short of 100,000,
+he proceeded on through Phrygia and Lycaonia to the borders of Cilicia,
+having determined on taking the shortest route to Babylon, through the
+Cilician and Syrian passes, and then along the course of the Euphrates.
+At Caystrupedion he was met by Epyaxa, consort of Syennesis, the
+tributary king of Cilicia, who brought him a welcome supply of money,
+and probably assured him of the friendly disposition of her husband, who
+was anxious to stand well with both sides. In Lycaonia, Cyrus divided
+his forces, and sending a small body of troops under Menon to escort
+Epyaxa across the mountains and enter Cilicia by the more western of the
+two practicable passes he proceeded himself with the bulk of his troops
+to the famous Pylae Cilicias, where he probably knew that Syennesis
+would only make a feint of resistance. He found the pass occupied; but
+it was evacuated the next day, on the receipt of intelligence that Menon
+had already entered the country and that the fleet of Cyrus--composed
+partly of his own ships, partly of a squadron furnished to him by
+Sparta--had appeared off the coast and threatened a landing. Cyrus
+thus crossed the most difficult and dangerous of all the passes that
+separated him from the heart of the Empire, without the loss of a man.
+
+Thus far it would appear that Cyrus had to a certain extent masked his
+plans. The Greek captains must have guessed, if they had not actually
+learnt, his intentions; but to the bulk of the soldiery they had been
+hitherto absolutely unknown. It was only in Cilicia that the light broke
+in upon them, and they began to suspect that they were being marched
+into the interior of Asia, there to engage in a contest with the entire
+power of the Great King. Something of the horror which is ascribed to
+Cleomenes, when it was suggested to him a century earlier that he should
+conduct his Spartans the distance of a three months' journey from the
+sea, appears to have taken possession of the minds of the mercenaries
+on their awaking to this conviction. They at once refused to proceed. It
+was only by the most skilful management on the part of their captains,
+joined to a judicious liberality on the part of Cyrus, that they were
+induced to forego their intention of returning home at once, and so
+breaking up the expedition. A perception of the difficulty of effecting
+a retreat, together with an increase of pay, extorted a reluctant assent
+to continue the march, of which the real term and object were even now
+not distinctly avowed. Cyrus said he proposed to attack the army of
+Abrocomas, which he believed to be posted on the Euphrates. If he did
+not find it there, a fresh consultation might be held to consider any
+further movement.
+
+The march now proceeded rapidly. The gates of Syria--a narrow pass on
+the east coast of the Gulf of Issus, shut in, like Thermopylae,
+between the mountains and the sea, and strengthened moreover by
+fortifications--were left unguarded by Abrocomas; and the army, having
+traversed them without loss, crossed the Amanus range by the pass of
+Beilan, and in twenty-nine days from Tarsus reached Thapsacus on
+the Euphrates. The forces of Artaxerxes had nowhere made their
+appearance--Abrocomas, though he had 300,000 men at his disposal, had
+weakly or treacherously abandoned all these strong and easily defensible
+positions; he does not seem even to have wasted the country; but,
+having burnt the boats at Thapsacus, he was content to fall back upon
+Phoenicia, and left the way to Babylon and Susa open. At Thapsacus there
+was little difficulty in persuading the Greeks, who had no longer the
+sea before their eyes, to continue the march; they only stipulated for a
+further increase of pay, which was readily promised them by the sanguine
+prince, who believed himself on the point of obtaining by their aid the
+inexhaustible treasures of the Empire. The river, which happened to be
+unusually low for the time of year, was easily forded. Cyrus entered
+Mesopotamia, and continued his march down the left bank of the Euphrates
+at the quickest rate that it was possible to move a hundred thousand
+Orientals. In thirty-three days he had accomplished above 600 miles, and
+had approached within 120 miles of Babylon without seeing any traces
+of an enemy. His only difficulties were from the nature of the country,
+which, after the Khabour is passed, becomes barren, excepting close
+along the river. From want of fodder there was a great mortality among
+the baggage-animals; the price of grain rose; and the Greeks had to
+subsist almost entirely upon meat. At last, when the Babylonian alluvium
+was reached, with its abundance of fodder and corn, signs of the enemy
+began to be observed. Artaxerxes, who after some doubts and misgivings
+had finally determined to give his enemy battle in the plain, was
+already on his way from Babylon, with an army reckoned at 900,000 men
+and had sent forward a body of horse, partly to reconnoitre, partly
+to destroy the crops, in order to prevent Cyrus and his troops from
+benefiting by them. Cyrus now advanced slowly and cautiously, at the
+rate of about fourteen miles a day, expecting each morning to fight a
+general engagement before evening came. On the third night, believing
+the battle to be imminent, he distributed the commands and laid down a
+plan of operations. But morning brought no appearance of the enemy, and
+the whole day passed tranquilly. In the course of it, he came upon a
+wide and deep trench cut through the plain for a distance of above forty
+miles--a recent work, which Artaxerxes had intended as a barrier to stop
+the progress of his enemy. But the trench was undefended and incomplete,
+a space of twenty feet being left between its termination and the
+Euphrates. Cyrus, having passed it, began to be convinced that his
+brother would not risk a battle in the plain, but would retreat to the
+mountains and make his stand at Persepolis or Ecbatana. He therefore
+continued his march negligently. His men piled their arms on the wagons
+or laid them, across the beasts of burthen; while he himself exchanged
+the horse which he usually rode for a chariot, and proceeded on his way
+leisurely, having about his person a small escort, which preserved
+their ranks, while all the rest of the troops were allowed to advance in
+complete disarray.
+
+Suddenly, as the army was proceeding in this disorderly manner through
+the plain, a single horseman was perceived advancing at full gallop from
+the opposite quarter, his steed all flecked with foam. As he drew near,
+he shouted aloud to those whom he met, addressing some in Greek, others
+in Persian, and warning them that the Great King, with his whole force,
+was close at hand, and rapidly approaching in order of battle. The news
+took every one by surprise, and at first all was hurry and confusion.
+The Greeks, however, who were on the right, rapidly marshalled their
+line, resting it upon the river; while Cyrus put on his armor, mounted
+his horse, and arranged the ranks of his Asiatics. Ample time was given
+for completing all the necessary dispositions; since three hours, at the
+least, must have elapsed from the announcement of the enemy's approach
+before he actually appeared. Then a white cloud of dust arose towards
+the verge of the horizon, below which a part of the plain began soon to
+darken; presently gleams of light were seen to flash out from the dense
+mass which was advancing, the serried lines of spears came into view,
+and the component parts of the huge army grew to be discernible. On the
+extreme left was a body of horsemen with white cuirasses, commanded by
+Tissaphernes; next came infantry, carrying the long wicker shield, or
+_gerrhum_ then a solid square of Egyptians, heavily armed, and bearing
+wooden shields that reached to the feet; then the contingents of many
+different nations, some on foot, some on horseback, armed with bows
+and other weapons. The line stretched away to the east further than the
+Greeks, who were stationed on the right, could see, extending (as it
+would seem) more than twice the distance which was covered by the
+army of Cyrus. Artaxerxes was in the centre of his line, on horseback,
+surrounded by a mounted guard of 6000 Persians. In front of the line,
+towards the river, were drawn up at wide intervals a hundred and fifty
+scythed chariots, which were designed to carry terror and confusion into
+the ranks of the Greeks.
+
+On the other side, Cyrus had upon the extreme right a thousand
+Paphlagonian cavalry with the more lightly armed of the Greeks;
+next, the Greek heavy-armed, under Clearchus; and then his Asiatics,
+stretching in a line to about the middle of his adversary's army, his
+own special command being in the centre; and his left wing being led
+by the satrap, Ariaeus. With Ariseus was posted the great mass of the
+cavalry; but a band of six hundred, clad in complete armor, with their
+horses also partially armed, waited on Cyrus himself, and accompanied
+him wherever he went. As the enemy drew near, and Cyrus saw how much he
+was outflanked upon the left, he made an attempt to remedy the evil by
+ordering Clearchus to move with his troops from the extreme right to
+the extreme left of the line, where he would be opposite to Artaxerxes
+himself. This, no doubt, would have been a hazardous movement to make in
+the face of a superior enemy; and Clearchus, feeling this, and regarding
+the execution of the order as left to his discretion, declined to move
+away from the river. Cyrus, who trusted much to the Greek general's
+judgment, did not any further press the change, but prepared to fight
+the battle as he stood.
+
+The combat began upon the right. When the enemy had approached within
+six or seven hundred yards, the impatience of the Greeks to engage could
+not be restrained. They sang the paean and started forwards at a pace
+which in a short time became a run. The Persians did not await their
+charge. The drivers leaped from their chariots, the line of battle
+behind them wavered, and then turned and fled without striking a blow.
+One Greek only was wounded by an arrow. As for the scythed chariots,
+they damaged their own side more than the Greeks; for the frightened
+horses in many cases, carried the vehicles into the thick of the
+fugitives, while the Greeks opened their ranks and gave passage to such
+as charged in an opposite direction. Moderating their pace so as to
+preserve their tactical arrangement, but still advancing with great
+rapidity, the Greeks pressed on the flying enemy, and pursued him a
+distance of two or three miles, never giving a thought to Cyrus, who,
+they supposed, would conquer those opposed to him with as much ease as
+themselves.
+
+But the prince meanwhile was in difficulties. Finding himself
+outnumbered and outflanked, and fearing that his whole army would be
+surrounded, and even the victorious Greeks attacked in the rear, he set
+all upon one desperate cast and charged with his Six Hundred against
+the six thousand horse who protected his brother. Artagerses, their
+commander, who met him with a Homeric invective, he slew with his own
+hand. The six thousand were routed and took to flight; the person of the
+king was exposed to view; and Cyrus, transported at the sight, rushed
+forward shouting, "I see the man," and hurling his javelin, struck him
+straight upon the breast, with such force that the cuirass was pierced
+and a slight flesh-wound inflicted. The king fell from his horse; but at
+the same moment Cyrus received a wound beneath the eye from the javelin
+of a Persian, and in the melee which followed he was slain with eight of
+his followers. The Six Hundred could lend no effectual aid, because they
+had rashly dispersed in pursuit of the flying enemy.
+
+As the whole contest was a personal one, the victory was now decided.
+Fighting, however, continued till nightfall. On learning the death of
+their leader, the Asiatic troops under Ariseus fled--first to their
+camp, and then, when Artaxerxes attacked them there, to the last night's
+station. The Grecian camp was assaulted by Tissaphernes, who at the
+beginning of the battle had charged through the Greek light-armed,
+without however, inflicting on them any loss, and had then pressed on,
+thinking to capture the Grecian baggage. But the guard defended their
+camp with success, and slew many of the assailants. Tissaphernes and
+the king drew off after a while, and retraced their steps, in order to
+complete the victory by routing the troops of Clearchus. Clearchus was
+at the same time returning from his pursuit, having heard that his camp
+was in danger, and as the two bodies of troops approached, he found
+his right threatened by the entire host of the enemy, which might have
+lapped round it and attacked it in front, in flank, and in rear. To
+escape this peril he was about to wheel his line and make it rest
+alone its whole extent upon the river, when the Persians passed him and
+resumed the position which they had occupied at the beginning of the
+battle. They were then about to attack, when once more the Greeks
+anticipated them and charged. The effect was again ludicrous. The
+Persians would not abide the onset, but fled faster than before. The
+Greeks pursued them to a village, close by which was a knoll or mound,
+whither the fugitives had betaken themselves. Again the Greeks made a
+movement in advance, and immediately the flight recommenced. The last
+rays of the setting sun fell on scattered masses of Persian horse and
+foot flying in all directions over the plain from the little band of
+Greeks.
+
+The battle of Cunaxa was a double blow to the Persian power. By the
+death of Cyrus there was lost the sole chance that existed of such a
+re-invigoration of the Empire as might have enabled it to start again
+on a new lease of life, with ability to held its own, and strength to
+resume once more the aggressive attitude of former times. The talents of
+Cyrus have perhaps been overrated, but he was certainly very superior
+to most Orientals; and there can be no doubt that the Empire would have
+greatly gained by the substitution of his rule for that of his brother.
+He was active, energetic, prompt indeed, ready in speech, faithful in
+the observance of his engagements, brave, liberal--he had more foresight
+and more self-contro than most Asiatics; he knew how to deal with
+different classes of men; he had a great power of inspiring affection
+and retaining it; he was free from the folly of national prejudice,
+and could appreciate as they deserved both the character and the
+institutions of foreigners. It is likely that he would have proved a
+better administrator and ruler than any king of Persia since Darius
+Hystaspis. He would, therefore, undoubtedly have raised his country
+to some extent. Whether he could really have arrested its decline, and
+enabled it to avenge the humiliations of Marathon, Salamis, and the
+peace of Callias, is, however, exceedingly doubtful. For Cyrus, though
+he had considerable merits, was not without great and grievous defects.
+As the Tartar is said always to underlie the Russ, so the true Oriental
+underlay that coating of Grecian manners and modes of thought and act,
+with which a real admiration of the Hellenic race induced Cyrus to
+conceal his native barbarism. When he slew his cousins for an act which
+he chose to construe as disrespect, and when he executed Orontes for
+contemplated desertion, secretly and silently, so that no one knew
+his fate, when transported with jealous rage he rushed madly upon his
+brother, exposing to hazard the success of all his carefully formed
+plans, and in fact ruining his cause, the acquired habits of the
+Phil-Hellene gave way, and the native ferocity of the Asiatic came
+to the surface. We see Cyrus under favorable circumstances, while
+conciliation, tact, and self-restraint were necessities of his position,
+without which he could not possibly gain his ends--we do not know what
+effect success and the possession of supreme power might have had upon
+his temper and conduct; but from the acts above-mentioned we may at any
+rate suspect that the result would have been very injurious.
+
+Again, intellectually, Cyrus is only great for an Asiatic. He has more
+method, more foresight, more power of combination, more breadth of mind
+than the other Asiatics of his day, or than the vast mass of Asiatics of
+any day. But he is not entitled to the praise of a great administrator
+or of a great general. His three years' administration of Asia Minor
+was chiefly marked by a barbarous severity towards criminals, and by a
+lavish expenditure of the resources of his government, which left him in
+actual want at the moment when he was about to commence his expedition.
+His generalship failed signally at the battle of Cunaxa, for the loss of
+which he is far more to be blamed than Clearchus. As he well knew that
+Artaxerxes was sure to occupy the centre of his line of battle, he
+should have placed his Greeks in the middle of his own line, not at
+one extremity. When he saw how much his adversary outflanked him on the
+left--a contingency which was so probable that it ought to have occurred
+to him beforehand--he should have deployed his line in that direction,
+instead of ordering such a movement as Clearchus, not unwisely, declined
+to execute. He might have trusted the Greeks to fight in line, as they
+had fought at Marathon; and by expanding their ranks, and moving off
+his Asiatics to the left, he might, have avoided the danger of being
+outflanked and surrounded. But his capital error was the wildness
+and abandon of his charge with the Six Hundred--a charge which it was
+probably right to make under the circumstances, but which required a
+combination of coolness and courage that the Persian prince evidently
+did not possess when his feelings were excited. Had he kept his
+Six Hundred well in hand, checked their pursuit, and abstained from
+thrusting his own person into unnecessary danger, he might have joined
+the Greeks as they returned from their first victory and participated
+in their final triumph. At the same time, Clearchus cannot but be blamed
+for pushing his suit too far. If, when the enemy in his front fled, he
+had at once turned against those who were engaging Cyrus, taking them
+on their left flank, which must have been completely uncovered, he might
+have been in time to prevent the fatal results of the rash charge made
+by his leader.
+
+Thus the death of Cyrus, though a calamity to Persia, was scarcely the
+great loss which it has been represented. A far worse result of the
+Cyreian expedition was the revelation which it made of the weakness of
+Persia, and of the facility with which a Greek force might penetrate
+to the very midst of the Empire, defeat the largest army that could be
+brought against it, and remain, or return, as it might think proper.
+Hitherto Babylon and Susa had been, even to the mind of a Greek
+statesman, remote localities, which it would be the extreme of rashness
+to attempt to reach by force of arms, and from which it would be
+utter folly to suppose that a single man could return alive except by
+permission of the Great King. Henceforth these towns were looked upon
+as prizes quite within the legitimate scope of Greek ambition, and their
+conquest came to be viewed as little more than a question of time. The
+opinion of inaccessibility, which had been Persia's safeguard hitherto,
+was gone, and in its stead grew up a conviction that the heart of the
+Empire might be reached with very little difficulty.
+
+It required, however, for the production of this whole change, not
+merely that the advance to Cunaxa should have been safely made, and the
+immeasurable superiority of Greek to Asiatic soldiers there exhibited,
+but also that the retreat should have been effected, as it was effected,
+without disaster. Had the Ten Thousand perished under the attacks of the
+Persian horse, or even under the weapons of the Kurds, or amid the
+snows of Armenia, the opinion of Persian invulnerability would have been
+strengthened rather than weakened by the expedition. But the return to
+Greece of ten thousand men, who had defeated the hosts of the Great King
+in the centre of his dominions, and fought their way back to the
+sea without suffering more than the common casualties of war, was an
+evidence of weakness which could not but become generally known, and of
+which all could feel the force. Hence the retreat was as important as
+the battle. If in late autumn and mid-winter a small Greek army, without
+maps or guides, could make its way for a thousand miles through Asia,
+and encounter no foe over whom it could not easily triumph, it was clear
+that the fabric of Persian power was rotten, and would collapse on the
+first serious attack.
+
+Still, it will not be necessary to trace in detail the steps of the
+retreat. It was the fact of the return, rather than the mode of its
+accomplishment, which importantly affected the subsequent history of
+Persia. We need only note that the retreat was successfully conducted in
+spite, not merely of the military power of the Empire, but of the most
+barefaced and cruel treachery--a fact which showed clearly the strong
+desire that there was to hinder the invaders' escape. Persia did not
+set much store by her honor at this period; but she would scarcely have
+pledged her word and broken it, without the slightest shadow of excuse,
+unless she had regarded the object to be accomplished as one of vast
+importance, and seen no other way which offered any prospect of the
+desired result. Her failure, despite the success of her treachery,
+places her military weakness in the strongest possible light. The
+Greeks, though deprived of their leaders, deceived, surprised, and
+hemmed in by superior numbers, amid terrific mountains, precipices,
+and snows, forced their way by sheer dogged perseverance through all
+obstacles, and reached Trebizond with the loss of not one fourth of
+their original number.
+
+There was also another discovery made during the return which partly
+indicated the weakness of the Persian power, and partly accounted for
+it. The Greeks had believed that the whole vast space enclosed between
+the Black Sea, Caucasus, Caspian, and Jaxartes on the one hand, and the
+Arabian Desert, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean on the other, was bound
+together into one single centralized monarchy, all the resources of
+which were wielded by a single arm. They now found that even towards the
+heart of the empire, on the confines of Media and Assyria, there existed
+independent tribes which set the arms of Persia at defiance; while
+towards the verge of the old dominion whole provinces, once certainly
+held in subjection, had fallen away from the declining State, and
+succeeded in establishing their freedom. The nineteenth satrapy of
+Herodotus existed no more; in lieu of it was a mass of warlike and
+autonomous tribes--Chalybes, Taochi, Chaldeans, Macronians, Scythians,
+Colchians, Mosynoecians, Tibarenians--whose services, if he needed them,
+the King of Persia had to buy, while ordinarily their attitude towards
+him was one of distrust and hostility. Judging of the unknown from the
+known, the Greeks might reasonably conclude that in all parts of
+the Empire similar defections had occurred, and that thus both
+the dimensions and the resources of the state had suffered serious
+diminution, and fell far below the conception which they had been
+accustomed to form of them.
+
+The immediate consequence of the Cyreian expedition was a rupture
+between Persia and Sparta. Sparta had given aid to Cyrus, and thus
+provoked the hostility of the Great King. She was not inclined to
+apologize or to recede. On the contrary, she saw in the circumstances
+of the expedition strong grounds for anticipating great advantages
+to herself from a war with so weak an antagonist. Having, therefore,
+secured the services of the returned Ten Thousand, she undertook the
+protection of the Asiatic Greeks against Persia, and carried on a war
+upon the continent against the satraps of Lydia and Phrygia for the
+space of six years (B.C. 399 to B.C. 394). The disorganization of the
+Persian Empire became very manifest during this period. So jealous were
+the two satraps of each other, that either was willing at any time
+to make a truce with the Spartans on condition that they proceeded to
+attack the other; and, on one occasion, as much as thirty silver talents
+was paid by a satrap on the condition that the war should be transferred
+from his own government to that, of his rival. At the same time the
+native tribes were becoming more and more inclined to rebel. The Mysians
+and Pisidians had for a long time been practically independent. Now the
+Bithynians showed a disposition to shake off the Persian yoke, while
+in Paphlagonia the native monarchs boldly renounced their allegiance.
+Agesilaus, who carried on the war in Asia Minor for three years, knew
+well how to avail himself of all these advantageous circumstances;
+and it is not unlikely that he would have effected the separation
+from Persia of the entire peninsula, had he been able to continue the
+struggle a few years longer. But the league between Argos, Thebes, and
+Corinth, which jealousy of Sparta caused and Persian gold promoted,
+proved so formidable, that Agesilaus had to be summoned home: and
+after his departure, Conon, in alliance with Pharnabazus, recovered the
+supremacy of the sea for Athens, and greatly weakened Spartan influence
+in Asia. Not content with this result, the two friends, in the year B.C.
+393, sailed across the Egean, and the portentous spectacle of a Persian
+fleet in Greek waters was once more seen--this time in alliance with
+Athens! Descents were made upon the coasts of the Peloponnese, and the
+island of Cythera was seized and occupied. The long walls of Athens were
+rebuilt with Persian money, and all the enemies of Sparta were richly
+subsidized. Sparta was made to feel that if she had been able at one
+time to make the Great King tremble for his provinces, or even for
+his throne, the King could at another reach her across the Egean, and
+approach Sparta as nearly as she had, with the Cyreians, approached
+Babylon.
+
+The lesson of the year B.C. 393 was not thrown away on the Spartan
+government. The leading men became convinced that unless they could
+secure the neutrality of the Persians, Sparta must succumb to the
+hostility of her Hellenic enemies. Under these circumstances they
+devised, with much skill, a scheme likely to be acceptable to the
+Persians, which would weaken their chief rivals in Greece--Athens and
+Thebes--while it would leave untouched their own power. They proposed
+a general peace, the conditions of which should be the entire
+relinquishment of Asia to the Persians, and the complete autonomy of all
+the Greek States in Europe. The first attempt to procure the acceptance
+of these terms failed (B.C. 393); but six years later, after Antalcidas
+had explained them at the Persian Court, Artaxerxes sent down an
+ultimatum to the disputants, modifying the terms slightly as regarded
+Athens, extending them as regarded himself so as to include the islands
+of Clazomenae and Cyprus, and requiring their acceptance by all the
+belligerents, on pain of their incurring his hostility. To this threat
+all yielded. A Persian king may be excused if he felt it a proud
+achievement thus to dictate a peace to the Greeks--a peace, moreover,
+which annulled the treaty of Callias, and gave back absolutely into
+his hands a province which had ceased to belong to his Empire more than
+sixty years previously.
+
+It was the more important to Artaxerxes that his relations with the
+European Greeks should be put upon a peaceful footing, since all the
+resources of the Empire were wanted for the repression of disturbances
+which had some years previously broken out in Cyprus. The exact date
+of the Cyprian revolt under Evagoras, the Greek tyrant of Salamis, is
+uncertain; but there is evidence that, at least as early as B.C. 391, he
+was at open war with the power of Persia, and had made an alliance
+with the Athenians, who both in that year and in B.C. 388 sent him aid.
+Assisted also by Achoris, independent monarch of Egypt, and Hecatomnus,
+vassal king of Caria, he was able to take the offensive, to conquer
+Tyre, and extend his revolt into Cilicia and Idumaea. An expedition
+undertaken against him by Autophradates, satrap of Lydia, seems to have
+failed. It was the first object of the Persians, after concluding the
+"Peace of Antalcidas," to crush Evagoras. They collected 300 vessels,
+partly from the Greeks of Asia, and brought together an army of 300,000
+men. The fleet of Evagoras numbered 200 triremes, and with these he
+ventured on an attack, but was completely defeated by Tiribazus, who
+shut him up in Salamis, and, after a struggle which continued for at
+least six years, compelled him to submit to terms (B.C. 380 or 379).
+More fortunate than former rebels, he obtained not merely a promise of
+pardon, which would probably have been violated, but a recognition of
+his title, and permission to remain in his government, with the single
+obligation of furnishing to the Great King a certain annual tribute.
+
+During the continuance of this war, Artaxerxes was personally engaged in
+military operations in another part of his dominions. The Cadusians,
+who inhabited the low and fertile tract between the Elburz range and the
+Caspian, having revolted against his authority, Artaxerxes invaded their
+territory at the head of an army which is estimated at 300,000 foot and
+10,000 horse. The land was little cultivated, rugged, and covered with
+constant fogs; the men were brave and warlike, and having admitted him
+into their country, seem to have waylaid and intercepted his convoys.
+His army was soon reduced to great straits, and forced to subsist on the
+cavalry horses and the baggage-animals. A most disastrous result must
+have followed, had not Tiribazus, who had been recalled from Cyprus
+on charges preferred against him by the commander of the land force,
+Orontes, contrived very artfully to induce the rebels to make their
+submission. Artaxerxes was thus enabled to withdraw from the country
+without serious disaster, having shown in his short campaign that he
+possessed the qualities of a soldier, but was entirely deficient in
+those of a general.
+
+A time of comparative tranquillity seems to have followed the Cadusian
+campaign. Artaxerxes strengthened his hold upon the Asiatic Greeks by
+razing some of their towns and placing garrisons in others. His satraps
+even ventured to commence the absorption of the islands off the coast;
+and there is evidence that Sanaos, at any rate, was reduced and added
+to the Empire. Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Idumaea were doubtless recovered
+soon after the great defeat of Evagoras. There remained only one
+province in this quarter which still maintained its revolt, and enjoyed,
+under native monarchs, the advantages of independence. This was Egypt,
+which had now continued free for above thirty years, since it shook off
+the yoke of Darius Nothus. Artaxerxes, anxious to recover this portion
+of his ancestral dominions, applied in B.C. 375 to Athens for the
+services of her great general, Iphicrates. His request was granted, and
+in the next year a vast armament was assembled at Acre under Iphicrates
+and Pharnabazus, which effected a successful landing in the Delta at the
+Mendesian mouth of the Nile, stormed the town commanding this branch of
+the river, and might have taken Memphis, could the energetic advice of
+the Athenian have stirred to action the sluggish temper of his Persian
+colleague. But Pharnabazus declined to be hurried, and preferred to
+proceed leisurely and according to rule. The result was that the season
+for hostilities passed and nothing had been done. The Nile rose as the
+summer drew on, and flooded most of the Delta; the expedition could
+effect nothing, and had to return. Pharnabazus and Iphicrates parted
+amid mutual recriminations; and the reduction of Egypt was deferred for
+above a quarter of a century.
+
+In Greece, however, the Great King still retained that position of
+supreme arbiter with which he had been invested at the "Peace of
+Antalcidas." In B.C. 372 Antalcidas was sent by Sparta a second time up
+to Susa, for the purpose of obtaining an imperial rescript, prescribing
+the terms on which the then existing hostilities among the Greeks should
+cease. In B.C. 367 Pelopidas and Ismenias proceeded with the same object
+from Thebes to the Persian capital. In the following year a rescript,
+more in their favor than former ones, was obtained by Athens. Thus every
+one of the leading powers of Greece applied in turn to the Great King
+for his royal mandate, so erecting him by common consent into a sort of
+superior, whose decision was to be final in all cases of Greek quarrel.
+
+But this external acknowledgment of the imperial greatness of Persia
+did not, and could not, check the internal decay and tendency to
+disintegration, which was gradually gaining head, and threatening the
+speedy dissolution of the Empire. The long reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon
+was now verging towards its close. He was advanced in years, and
+enfeebled in mind and body, suspicious of his sons and of his nobles,
+especially of such as showed more than common ability. Under these
+circumstances, revolts on the part of satraps grew frequent. First
+Ariobarzanes, satrap of Phrygia, renounced his allegiance (B.C. 366),
+and defended himself with success against Autophradates, satrap of
+Lydia, and Mausolus, native king of Caria under Persia, to whom the
+task of reducing him had been entrusted. Then Aspis, who held a part
+of Cappadocia, revolted and maintained himself by the help of the
+Pisidians, until he was overpowered by Datames. Next Datames himself,
+satrap of the rest of Cappadocia, understanding that Artaxerxes' mind
+was poisoned against him, made a treaty with Ariobarzanes, and assumed
+an independent attitude in his own province. In this position he
+resisted all the efforts of Autophradates to reduce him to obedience;
+and Artaxerxes condescended first to make terms with him and then to
+remove him by treachery. Finally (B.C. 362), there seems to have been
+something like a general revolt of the western provinces, in which the
+satraps of Mysia, Phrygia, and Lydia, Mausolus, prince of Caria, and the
+people of Lycia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Syria, and Phoenicia participated.
+Tachos, king of Egypt, fomented the disturbances, which were also
+secretly encouraged by the Spartans. A terrible conflict appeared to be
+imminent; but it was avoided by the ordinary resources of bribery and
+treachery. Orontes, satrap of Phrygia, and Rheomithras, one of the
+revolted generals, yielding to the attractions of Persian gold, deserted
+and betrayed their confederates. The insurrection was in this way
+quelled, but it had raised hopes in Egypt, which did not at once
+subside. Tachos, the native king, having secured the services of
+Agesilaus as general, and of Chabrias, the Athenian, as admiral of his
+fleet, boldly advanced into Syria, was well received by the Phoenicians,
+and commenced the siege of some of the Syrian cities. Persia might
+have suffered considerable loss in this quarter, had not the internal
+quarrels of the Egyptians among themselves proved a better protection to
+her than her own armies. Two pretenders to the throne sprang up as soon
+as Tachos had quitted the country, and he was compelled to return to
+Egypt in order to resist them. The force intended to strike a vigorous
+blow against the power of Artaxerxes was dissipated in civil conflicts;
+and Persia had once more to congratulate herself on the intestine
+divisions of her adversaries. A few years after this, Artaxerxes died,
+having reigned forty-six years, and lived, if we may trust Plutarch,
+ninety-four. Like most of the later Persian kings, he was unfortunate
+in his domestic relations. To his original queen, Statira, he was indeed
+fondly attached; and she appears to have merited and returned his love,
+but in all other respects his private life was unhappy. Its chief curse
+was Parysatis, the queen-mother. This monster of cruelty held Artaxerxes
+in a species of bondage during almost the whole of his long reign, and
+acted as if she were the real sovereign of the country. She encouraged
+Cyrus in his treason, and brought to most horrible ends all those who
+had been prominent in frustrating it. She poisoned Statira out of hatred
+and jealousy, because she had a certain degree of influence over her
+husband. She encouraged Artaxerxes to contract an incestuous marriage
+with his daughter Atossa, a marriage which proved a fertile source
+of further calamities. Artaxerxes had three sons by Statira--Darius,
+Ariaspes, and Ochus. Of these Darius, as the eldest, was formally
+declared the heir. But Ochus, ambitious of reigning, intrigued with
+Atossa, and sought to obtain the succession by her aid. So good seemed
+to Darius the chances of his brother's success that he took the rash
+step of conspiring against the life of his father, as the only way of
+securing the throne. His conspiracy was detected, and he was seized and
+executed, Ariaspes thereby becoming the eldest son, and so the natural
+heir. Ochus then persuaded Ariaspes that he had offended his father,
+and was about to be put to a cruel and ignominious death, whereupon that
+prince in despair committed suicide. His elder brothers thus removed,
+there still remained one rival, whom Ochus feared. This was Arsames, one
+of his half-brothers, an illegitimate son of Artaxerxes, who stood high
+in his favor. Assassination was the weapon employed to get rid of this
+rival. It is said that this last blow was too much for the aged and
+unhappy king, who died of grief on receiving intelligence of the murder.
+
+Artaxerxes was about the weakest of all the Persian monarchs. He was
+mild in temperament, affable in demeanor, goodnatured, affectionate
+and well-meaning. But, possessing no strength of will, he allowed the
+commission of the most atrocious acts, the most horrible cruelties, by
+those about him, who were bolder and more resolute than himself. The
+wife and son, whom he fondly loved, were plotted against before his
+eyes; and he had neither the skill to prevent nor the courage to avenge
+their fate. Incapable of resisting entreaty and importunity, he granted
+boons which he ought to have refused, and condoned offences which it
+would have been proper to punish. He could not maintain long the most
+just resentment, but remitted punishments even when they were far milder
+than the crime deserved. He was fairly successful in the management
+of his relations with foreign countries, and in the suppression of
+disturbances within his own dominions; but he was quite incapable
+of anything like a strenuous and prolonged effort to renovate and
+re-invigorate the Empire. If he held together the territories which he
+inherited, and bequeathed them to his successor augmented rather than
+diminished, it is to be attributed more to his good fortune than to his
+merits, and to the mistakes of his opponents than to his own prudence or
+sagacity.
+
+Ochus, who obtained the crown in the manner related above, was the most
+cruel and sanguinary of all the Persian kings. He is indeed the only
+monarch of the Achaemenian line who appears to have been bloodthirsty
+by temperament. His first act on finding himself acknowledged king (B.C.
+359) was to destroy, so far as he could, all the princes of the blood
+royal, in order that he might have no rival to fear. He even, if we may
+believe Justin, involved in this destruction a number of the princesses,
+whom any but the most ruthless of despots would have spared. Having
+taken these measures for his own security, he proceeded to show himself
+more active and enterprising than any monarch since Longimanus. It was
+now nearly half a century since one of the important provinces of the
+Empire--Egypt--had successfully asserted its independence and restored
+the throne of its native kings. General after general had been employed
+in vain attempts to reduce the rebels to obedience. Ochus determined
+to attempt the recovery of the revolted province in person. Though
+a rebellion had broken out in Asia Minor, which being supported by
+Thebes, threatened to become serious, he declined to be diverted from
+his enterprise. Levying a vast army, he marched into Egypt, and engaged
+Noctanebo, the king, in a contest for existence. Nectanebo, however,
+having obtained the services of two Greek generals, Diophantus, an
+Athenian, and Lamius, a citizen of Sparta, boldly met his enemy in the
+field, defeated him, and completely repulsed his expedition. Hereupon
+the contagion of revolt spread. Phoenicia assumed independence under the
+leadership of Sidon, expelled or massacred the Persian garrisons, which
+held her cities, and formed an alliance with Egypt. Her example was
+followed by Cyprus, where the kings of the nine principal towns assumed
+each a separate sovereignty.
+
+The chronology of this period is somewhat involved; but it seems
+probable that the attack and failure of Ochus took place about B.C. 351;
+that the revolts occurred in the next year, B.C. 350; while it was not
+till B.C. 346, or four years later, that Ochus undertook his second
+expedition into these regions. He had, however, in the meanwhile,
+directed his generals or feudatories, to attack the rebels, and bring
+them into subjection. The Cyprian war he had committed to Idrieus,
+prince of Caria, who employed on the service a body of 8000 Greek
+mercenaries, commanded by Phocion, the Athenian, and Evagoras, son of
+the former Evagoras, the Cyprian monarch; while he had committed to
+Belesys, satrap of Syria, and Mezseus, satrap of Cilicia, the task of
+keeping the Phoenicians in check. Idrieus succeeded in reducing Cyprus;
+but the two satraps suffered a single defeat at the hands of Tennes, the
+Sidonian king, who was aided by 40,000 Greek mercenaries, sent him by
+Nectanebo, and commanded by Mentor the Rhodian. The Persian forces were
+driven out of Phoenicia; and Sidon had ample time to strengthen its
+defences and make preparations for a desperate resistance. The approach,
+however, of Ochus, at the head of an army of 330,000 men, shook the
+resolution of the Phoenician monarch, who endeavored to purchase his
+own pardon by treacherously delivering up a hundred of the principal
+citizens of Sidon into the hands of the Persian king, and then admitting
+him within the defences of the town. Ochus, with the savage cruelty
+which was his chief characteristic, caused the hundred citizens to be
+transfixed with javelins, and when 500 more came out as suppliants to
+entreat his mercy, relentlessly consigned them to the same fate. Nor did
+the traitor Tennes derive any advantage from his guilty bargain.
+Ochus, having obtained from him all he needed, instead of rewarding his
+desertion, punished his rebellion with death. Hereupon the Sidonians,
+understanding that they had nothing to hope from submission, formed the
+dreadful resolution of destroying themselves and their town. They had
+previously, to prevent the desertion of any of their number, burnt their
+ships. Now they shut themselves up in their houses, and set fire each
+to his own dwelling. Forty thousand persons lost their lives in the
+conflagration; and the city was reduced to a heap of ruins, which Ochus
+sold for a large sum. Thus ended the Phoenician revolt. Among its most
+important results was the transfer of his services to the Persian king
+on the part of Mentor the Rhodian, who appears to have been the ablest
+of the mercenary leaders of whom Greece at this time produced so many.
+
+The reduction of Sidon was followed closely by the invasion of
+Egypt. Ochus, besides his 330,000 Asiatics, had now a force of 14,000
+Greeks--6000 furnished by the Greek cities of Asia Minor; 4000 under
+Mentor, consisting of the troops which he had brought to the aid of
+Tennes from Egypt; 3000 sent by Argos; and 1000 from Thebes. He divided
+his numerous armament into three bodies, and placed at the head of
+each two generals--one Persian and one Greek. The Greek commanders were
+Lacrates of Thebes, Mentor of Rhodes, and Nicostratus of Argos, a man
+of enormous strength, who regarded himself as a second Hercules, and
+adopted the traditional costume of that hero--a club and a lion's skin.
+The Persians were Rhossaces, Aristazanes, and Bagoas, the chief of the
+eunuchs. Nectanebo was only able to oppose to this vast array an army
+less than one third of the size. Twenty thousand, however, out of the
+100,000 troops at his disposal were Greeks; he occupied the Nile and
+its various branches with a numerous navy the character of the country,
+intersected by numerous canals, and full of strongly fortified towns,
+was in his favor; and he might have been expected to make a prolonged,
+if not even a successful, resistance. But he was deficient in generals,
+and over-confident in his own powers of command: the Greek captains
+out-manoeuvred him; and no sooner did he find one line of his defences
+forced than his ill-founded confidence was exchanged for an alarm
+as little reasonable. He hastily fell back upon Memphis, leaving the
+fortified towns to the defence of their garrisons. These consisted of
+mixed troops, partly Greek and partly Egyptian; between whom jealousies
+and suspicions were easily sown by the Persian leaders, who by these
+means rapidly reduced the secondary cities of Lower Egypt, and were
+advancing upon Memphis, when Nectanebo in despair quitted the country
+and fled southwards to Ethiopia. All Egypt submitted to Ochus, who
+demolished the walls of the cities, plundered the temples, and after
+amply rewarding his mercenaries, returned to his own capital with an
+immense booty, and with the glory of having successfully carried through
+a most difficult and important enterprise.
+
+It has been well observed that "the reconquest of Egypt by Ochus must
+have been one of the most impressive events of the age," and that it
+"exalted the Persian Empire in force and credit to a point nearly as
+high as it had ever occupied before." Ochus not only redeemed by means
+of it his former failure, but elevated himself in the opinions of men to
+a pitch of glory such as no previous Persian king had reached, excepting
+Cyrus, Cambyses, and the first Darius. Henceforth we hear of no more
+revolts or rebellions. Mentor and Bagoas, the two generals who had most
+distinguished themselves in the Egyptian campaign, were advanced by the
+gratitude of Ochus to posts of the highest importance, in which their
+vigor and energy found ample room to display themselves. Mentor, who was
+governor of the entire Asiatic sea-board, exerted himself successfully
+to reduce to subjection the many chiefs who during the recent troubles
+had assumed an independent authority, and in the course of a few
+years brought once more the whole coast into complete submission and
+dependence. Bagoas, carried with him by Ochus to the capital, became
+the soul of the internal administration, and maintained tranquillity
+throughout the rest of the Empire. The last six years of the reign of
+Ochus form an exceptional period of vigorous and successful government,
+such as occurs nowhere else in the history of the later Persian
+monarchy. The credit of bringing about such a state of things may be due
+especially to the king's officers, Bagoas and Mentor; but a portion of
+it must reflect upon himself, as the person who selected them, assigned
+them their respective tasks, and permanently maintained them in office.
+
+It was during this period of vigor and renewed life, when the Persian
+monarchy seemed to have recovered almost its pristine force and
+strength, that the attention of its rulers was called to a small cloud
+on the distant horizon, which some were wise enough to see portended
+storm and tempest. The growing power of Macedon, against which
+Demosthenes was at this time in vain warning the careless Athenians,
+attracted the consideration of Ochus or of his counsellors; and orders
+went forth from the Court that Persian influence was to be used to check
+and depress the rising kingdom. A force was consequently despatched to
+assist the Thracian prince, Cersobleptes, to maintain his independence;
+and such effectual aid was given to the city of Perinthus that the
+numerous and well-appointed army with which Philip had commenced its
+siege was completely baffled and compelled to give up the attempt (B.C.
+340). The battle of Chseroneia had not yet been fought, and Macedonia
+was still but one of the many states which disputed for supremacy over
+Greece; but it is evident that she had already awakened the suspicions
+of Persia, which saw a rival and a possible assailant in the rapidly
+growing monarchy.
+
+Greater and more systematic efforts might possibly have been made, and
+the power of Macedon might perhaps have been kept within bounds, had not
+the inveterate evil of conspiracy and revolution once more shown itself
+at the Court, and paralyzed for a time the action of the Empire on
+communities beyond its borders. Ochus, while he was a vigorous ruler
+and administrator, was harsh and sanguinary. His violence and cruelty
+rendered him hateful to his subjects; and it is not unlikely that they
+caused even those who stood highest in his favor to feel insecure.
+Bagoas may have feared that sooner or later he would himself be one
+of the monarch's victims, and have been induced by a genuine alarm
+to remove the source of his terrors. In the year B.C. 338 he poisoned
+Ochus, and placed upon the throne his youngest son, Arses, at the same
+time assassinating all the brothers of the new monarch. It was evidently
+his aim to exercise the supreme power himself, as counsellor to a prince
+who owed his position to him, and who was moreover little more than a
+boy. But Arses, though subservient for a year or two, began, as he grew
+older, to show that he had a will of his own, and was even heard to
+utter threats against his benefactor whereupon Bagoas, accustomed now to
+crime, secured himself by a fresh series of murders. He caused Arses and
+his infant children to be assassinated, and selected one of his friends,
+Codomannus, the son of Arsanes, to fill the vacant throne. About the
+same time (B.C. 336), Philip of Macedon was assassinated by the incensed
+Pausanias; and the two new monarchs--Codomannus, who took the name
+of Darius, and Alexander the Great--assumed their respective sceptres
+almost simultaneously.
+
+Codomannus, the last of the Persian kings, might with some reason have
+complained, like Plato, that nature had brought him in the world too
+late. Personally brave, as he proved himself into the Cadusian war,
+tall and strikingly handsome, amiable in temper, capable of considerable
+exertion, and not altogether devoid of military capacity, he would have
+been a fairly good ruler in ordinary times, and might, had he fallen
+upon such times, have held an honorable place among the Persian
+monarchs. But he was unequal to the difficulties of such a position as
+that in which he found himself. Raised to the throne after the victory
+of Chaeroneia had placed Philip at the head of Greece, and when a
+portion of the Macedonian forces had already passed into Asia, he was
+called upon to grapple at once with a danger of the most formidable
+kind, and had but little time for preparation. It is true that Philip's
+death soon after his own accession gave him a short breathing-space:
+but at the same time it threw him off his guard. The military talents of
+Alexander were untried, and of course unknown; the perils which he had
+to encounter were patent. Codomannus may be excused if for some months
+after Alexander's accession he slackened his preparations for defence,
+uncertain whether the new monarch would maintain himself, whether
+he would overpower the combinations which were formed against him in
+Greece, whether he would inherit his father's genius for war, or adopt
+his ambitious projects. It would have been wiser, no doubt, as the event
+proved, to have joined heart and soul with Alexander's European enemies,
+and to have carried the war at once to the other side of the Egean. But
+no great blame attaches to the Persian monarch for his brief inaction.
+As soon as the Macedonian prince had shown by his campaigns in Thrace,
+Illyria, and Boeotia that he was a person to be dreaded, Darius
+Codomannus renewed the preparations which he had discontinued, and
+pushed them forward with all the speed that was possible. A fleet was
+rapidly got ready: the satraps of Asia Minor were reinforced with troops
+of good quality from the interior of the Empire, and were ordered to
+raise a strong force of mercenaries; money was sent into Greece to the
+Lacedaemonians and others in order to induce them to create disturbances
+in Europe; above all, Memnon the Rhodian, a brother of Mentor, and a
+commander of approved skill, was sent to the Hellespont, at the head of
+a body of Greeks in Persian pay, with an authority co-ordinate to that
+of the satraps.
+
+A certain amount of success at first attended these measures. Memnon
+was able to act on the offensive in North-Western Asia. He marched upon
+Cyzicus and was within a little of surprising it, obtaining from the
+lands and villas without the walls an immense booty. He forced Parmenio
+to raise the seige of Pitane; and when Callas, one of the Macedonian
+leaders, endeavored to improve the condition of things by meeting the
+Persian forces in the open field, he suffered a defeat and was compelled
+to throw himself into Rhoeteum.
+
+These advantages, however, were detrimental rather than serviceable to
+the Persian cause; since they encouraged the Persian satraps to regard
+the Macedonians as an enemy no more formidable than the various tribes
+of Greeks with whom they had now carried on war in Asia Minor for
+considerably more than a century. The intended invasion of Alexander
+seemed to them a matter of no great moment--to be classed with
+expeditions like those of Thimbron and Agesilaus, not to need, as it
+really did, to be placed in a category of its own. Accordingly, they
+made no efforts to dispute the passage of the Hellespont, or to oppose
+the landing of the expedition on the Asiatic shore. Alexander was
+allowed to transport a force of 30,000 foot and 4000 or 5000 horse from
+the Chersonese to Mysia without the slightest interference on the part
+of the enemy, notwithstanding that his naval power was weak and that
+of the Persians very considerable. This is one of those pieces of
+remissness in the Persian conduct of military matters, whereof we have
+already had to note signal instances, and which constantly caused the
+failure of very elaborate and judicious preparations to meet a danger.
+Great efforts had been made to collect and equip a numerous fleet, and
+a few weeks later it was all-powerful in the Egean. But it was absent
+exactly at the time when it was wanted. Alexander's passage and landing
+were unopposed, and the Persians thus admitted within the Empire without
+a struggle the enemy who was fated to destroy it.
+
+When the Persian commanders heard that Alexander was in Asia, they
+were anxious to give him battle. One alone, the Rhodian Greek, Memnon,
+proposed and urged a wholly different plan of operations. Memnon advised
+that a general engagement should be avoided, that the entire country
+should be laid waste, and even the cities burnt, while the army
+should retire, cut off stragglers, and seek to bring the enemy into
+difficulties. At the same time he recommended that the fleet should be
+brought up, a strong land force embarked on board it, and an effort made
+to transfer the war into Europe. But Memnon's colleagues, the satraps
+and commandants of the north-western portion of Asia Minor, could not
+bring themselves to see that circumstances required a line of action
+which they regarded as ignominious. It is not necessary to attribute to
+them personal or selfish motives. They probably thought honestly that
+they were a match for Alexander with the troops at their disposal, and
+viewed retreat before an enemy numerically weaker than themselves as
+a disgrace not to be endured unless its necessity was palpable.
+Accordingly they determined to give the invader battle. Supposing that
+Alexander, having crossed into Asia at Abydos, would proceed to attack
+Dascyleium, the nearest satrapial capital, they took post on the
+Granicus, and prepared to dispute the further advance of the Macedonian
+army. They had collected a force of 20,000 cavalry of the best quality
+that the Empire afforded, and nearly the same number of infantry,
+who were chiefly, if not solely, Greek mercenaries. With these
+they determined to defend the passage of the small stream above
+mentioned--one of the many which flow from the northern flank of Ida
+into the Propontis.
+
+The battle thus offered was eagerly accepted by the Macedonian. If he
+could not defeat with ease a Persian force not greatly exceeding his
+own, he had miscalculated the relative goodness of the soldiers on
+either side, and might as well desist from the expedition. Accordingly,
+he no sooner came to the bank of the river, and saw the enemy drawn up
+on the other side, than, rejecting the advice of Parmenio to wait till
+the next day, he gave orders that the whole army should enter the stream
+and advance across it. The Granicus was in most places fordable; but
+there were occasional deeper parts, which had to be avoided; and there
+was thus some difficulty in reaching the opposite bank in line. That
+bank itself was generally steep and precipitous, but offered also
+several gentle slopes where a landing was comparatively easy. The
+Persians had drawn up their cavalry along the line of the river close to
+the water's edge, and had placed their infantry in the rear. Alexander
+consequently attacked with his cavalry. The engagement began upon the
+right. Amytas and Ptolemy, who were the first to reach the opposite
+bank, met with a strenuous resistance and were driven back into the
+stream by the forces of Memnon and his sons. The battle, however, on
+this side was restored by Alexander himself, who gradually forced the
+Persians back after a long hand-to-hand fight, in which he received
+a slight wound, and slew with his own hand several noble Persians.
+Elsewhere the resistance was less determined. Parmenio crossed on the
+left with comparative ease, by his advance relieving Alexander. The
+Persians found the long spears of the Macedonians and their intermixture
+of light-armed foot with heavy-armed cavalry irresistible. The
+Macedonians seem to have received orders to strike at their adversaries'
+faces--a style of warfare which was as unpleasant to the Persians as it
+was to the soldiers of Pompey at Pharsalia. Their line was broken
+where it was opposed to Alexander and his immediate companions; but the
+contagion of disorder rapidly spread, and the whole body of the cavalry
+shortly quitted the field, after having lost a thousand of their number.
+Only the infantry now remained. Against these the Macedonian phalanx was
+brought up in front, while the cavalry made repeated charges on
+either flank with overwhelming effect. Deserted by their horse, vastly
+outnumbered, and attacked on all sides, the brave mercenaries stood
+firm, fought with desperation, and were mostly slaughtered where they
+stood. Two thousand out of the 20,000--probably wounded men--were made
+prisoners. The rest perished, except a few who lay concealed among the
+heaps of slain.
+
+The Persians lost by the battle 20,000 of their best footmen, and one or
+two thousand horse. Among their slain the proportion of men of rank
+was unusually large. The list included Spithridates, satrap of Lydia,
+Mithrobarzanes, governor of Cappadocia, Pharnaces, a brother-in-law, and
+Mithridates, a son-in-law of Darius, Arbupales, a grandson of Artaxerxes
+Mnemon, Omares, the commander of the mercenaries, Niphates, Petines,
+and Ehoesaces, generals. The Greek loss is said to have been exceedingly
+small. Aristobulus made the total number of the slain thirty-four;
+Arrian gives it as one hundred and fifteen, or a little over. It has
+been suspected that even the latter estimate is below the truth; but the
+analogy furnished by the other great victories of the Greeks over the
+Persians tends rather to confirm Arrian's statement.
+
+The battle of the Granicus threw open to Alexander the whole of Asia
+Minor. There was no force left in the entire country that could venture
+to resist him, unless protected by walls. Accordingly, the Macedonian
+operations for the next twelve months, or during nearly the whole
+space that intervened between the battles of the Granicus and of Issus,
+consist of little more than a series of marches and sieges. The reader
+of Persian history will scarcely wish for an account of these operations
+in detail. Suffice it to say that Alexander rapidly overran Lydia,
+Ionia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Phrygia, besieged and took
+Miletus, Halicarnassus, Marmareis, and Sagalassus, and received the
+submission of Dascyleium, Sardis, Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, the Lycian
+Telmisseis, Pinara, Xanthus, Patara, Phaselis, Side, Aspendus, Celaenee,
+and Gordium. This last city was the capital of Phrygia; and there the
+conqueror for the first time since his landing gave himself and his army
+a few months' rest during the latter part of the winter.
+
+With the first breath of spring his forces were again in motion.
+Hitherto anxious with respect to the state of things on the coast and in
+Greece, he had remained in the western half of Asia Minor, within call
+of his friends in Macedonia, at no time distant more than about 200
+miles from the sea. Now intelligence reached him which made him feel at
+liberty to advance into the interior of Asia. Memnon the Rhodian fell
+sick and died in the early spring of B.C. 333. It is strange that so
+much should have depended on a single life; but it certainly seems that
+there was no one in the Persian service who, on Memnon's death, could
+replace him--no one fitted for the difficult task of uniting Greeks and
+Asiatics together, capable of influencing and managing the one while he
+preserved the confidence of the other. Memnon's death disconcerted all
+the plans of the Great King, who till it occurred had fully intended to
+carry the war into his enemy's country. It induced Darius even to give
+up the notion of maintaining a powerful fleet, and to transfer to the
+land service the most efficient of his naval forces. At the same time it
+set Alexander free to march wherever he liked, liberating him from the
+keen anxiety, which he had previously felt, as to the maintenance of the
+Macedonian power in Europe.
+
+It now became the object of the Persian king to confront the daring
+invader of his Western provinces with an army worthy of the Persian
+name and proportionate to the vastness of the Empire. He had long been
+collecting troops from many of the most warlike nations, and had got
+together a force of several hundred thousand men. Forgetting the lessons
+of his country's previous history, he flattered himself that the host
+which he had brought together was irresistible, and became anxious to
+hurry on a general engagement. Starting from Babylon, probably about the
+time that Alexander left Gordium in Phrygia, he marched up the valley of
+the Euphrates, and took up a position at Sochi, which was situated in
+a large open plain, not far from the modern Lake of Antioch. On his
+arrival there he heard that Alexander was in Cilicia at no great
+distance; and the Greeks in his service assured him that it would not
+be long before the Macedonian monarch would seek him out and accept his
+offer of battle. But a severe attack of illness detained Alexander at
+Tarsus, and when he was a little recovered, troubles in Western Cilicia,
+threatening his communications with Greece, required his presence;
+so that Darius grew impatient, and, believing that his enemy had no
+intention of advancing further than Cilicia, resolved to seek him in
+that country. Quitting the open plain of Sochi, he marched northwards,
+having the range of Amanus on his left, almost as far as the
+thirty-seventh parallel, when turning sharply to the west, he crossed
+the chain, and descended upon Issus, in the inner recess of the gulf
+which bore the same name. Here he came upon Alexander's hospitals, and
+found himself to his surprise in the rear of his adversary, who, while
+Darius was proceeding northwards along the eastern flank of Amanus, had
+been marching southwards between the western flank of the same range and
+the sea. Alexander had crossed the Pylse, or narrowest portion of the
+pass, and had reached Myriandrus--a little beyond Iskonderum--when news
+reached him that Darius had occupied Issus in his rear, and had put
+to death all the sick and wounded Macedonians whom he had found in the
+town. At first he could not credit the intelligence; but when it was
+confirmed by scouts, whom he sent out, he prepared instantly to retrace
+his steps, and to fight his first great battle with the Persian king
+under circumstances which he felt to be favorable beyond anything that
+he could have hoped. The tract of flat land between the base of the
+mountains and the sea on the borders of the Gulf of Issus was nowhere
+broader than about a mile and a half. The range of Amanus on the
+east rose up with rugged and broken hills, so that on this side the
+operations of cavalry were impracticable. It would be impossible to
+form a line of battle containing in the front rank more than about 4000
+men,1048 and difficult for either party to bring into action as many as
+30,000 of their soldiers. Thus the vast superiority of numbers on the
+Persian side became in such a position absolutely useless, and even
+Alexander had more troops than he could well employ. No wonder that the
+Macedonian should exclaim, that "God had declared Himself on the Grecian
+side by putting it into the heart of Darius to execute such a movement."
+It may be that Alexander's superior generalship would have made him
+victorious even on the open plain of Sochi; but in the defile of Issus
+success was certain, and generalship superfluous.
+
+Darius had started from Issus in pursuit of his adversary, and had
+reached the banks of the Pinarus, a small stream flowing westward from
+Amanus into the Mediterranean, when he heard that Alexander had hastened
+to retrace his stops, and was coming to meet him. Immediately he
+prepared for battle. Passing a force of horse and foot across the stream
+in his front, to keep his adversary in check if he advanced too rapidly,
+he drew up his best troops along the line of the river in a continuous
+solid mass, the ranks of which must have been at least twenty deep.
+Thirty thousand Greek mercenaries formed the centre of the line, while
+on either side of them were an equal number of Asiatic "braves"--picked
+probably from the mass of the army. Twenty thousand troops of a lighter
+and inferior class were placed upon the rough hills on the left, the
+outskirts of the Amanian range, where the nature of the ground allowed
+them to encircle the Macedonian right, which, to preserve its ranks
+unbroken, kept the plain. The cavalry, to the number of 30,000, was
+massed upon the other wing, near the sea.
+
+The battle began by certain movements of Alexander against the flank
+force which menaced his right. These troops, assailed by the Macedonian
+light-armed, retreated at once to higher ground, and by their manifest
+cowardice freed Alexander from all anxiety on their account. Leaving 300
+horse to keep the 20,000 in check, he moved on his whole line at a slow
+pace towards the Pinarus till it came within bow-shot of the enemy, when
+he gave the order to proceed at a run. The line advanced as commanded;
+but before it could reach the river, the Persian horse on the extreme
+right, unable to restrain themselves any longer, dashed across the
+shallow stream, and assailed Alexander's left, where they engaged in a
+fierce battle with the Thessalian cavalry, in which neither attained any
+decided advantage. The infantry, meanwhile, came into conflict along
+the rest of the line. Alexander himself, with the right and the
+right-centre, charged the Asiatic troops on Darius's left, who, like
+their brethren at Cunaxa, instantly broke and fled. Parmenio, with the
+left-centre, was less successful. The north bank of the Pinarus was in
+this part steep and defended by stakes in places; the Greek mercenaries
+were as brave as the Macedonians, and fought valiantly. It was not till
+the troops which had routed the Persian right began, to act against
+their centre, assailing it upon the flank, while it was at the same time
+engaged in front, that the mercenaries were overpowered and gave way.
+Seeing their defeat, the horse likewise fled, and thus the rout became
+general.
+
+It is not quite clear what part Darius took in the battle, or how far
+he was answerable for its untoward result. According to Arrian, he was
+struck with a sudden panic on beholding the flight of his left wing, and
+gave orders to his charioteer instantly to quit the field. But Curtius
+and Diodorus represent him as engaged in a long struggle against
+Alexander himself, and as only flying when he was in imminent danger of
+falling into the enemy's hands. Justin goes further, and states that
+he was actually wounded. The character gained by Darius in his earlier
+years makes it improbable that he would under any circumstances have
+exhibited personal cowardice. On the whole it would seem to be most
+probable that the flight of the Persian monarch occurred, not when the
+left wing fled, but when the Greek mercenaries among whom he had placed
+himself began to give way before the irresistible phalanx and the
+impetuous charges of Alexander. Darius, not unwisely, accepted the
+defeat of his best troops as the loss of the battle, and hastily retired
+across Amanus by the pass which had brought him to Issus, whence
+he hurried on through Sochi to the Euphrates, anxious to place that
+obstacle between himself and his victorious enemy. His multitudinous
+host, entangled in the defiles of the mountains, suffered by its own
+weight and size, the stronger fugitives treading down the weaker, while
+at the same time it was ruthlessly slaughtered by the pursuing enemy,
+so long as the waning light allowed. As many as 100,000--90,000 foot and
+10,000 horse--are said to have fallen. The ravines were in places choked
+with the dead bodies, and Ptolemy the son of Lagus related that in one
+instance he and Alexander crossed a gully on a bridge of this kind.
+Among the slain were Sabaces, satrap of Egypt, Bubaces, a noble of high
+rank, and Arsames, Rheomithres, and Atizyes, three of the commanders
+at the Granicus. Forty thousand prisoners were made. The whole of the
+Persian camp and camp-equipage fell into the enemy's hands, who found in
+the royal pavilion the mother, wife, and sister of the king, an
+infant son, two daughters, and a number of female attendants, wives of
+noblemen. The treasure captured amounted to 3000 silver talents. Among
+the trophies of victory were the chariot, bow, shield, and robe of the
+king, which he had abandoned in his hurried flight.
+
+The loss on the side of the Macedonians was trivial. The highest
+estimate places it at 450 killed, the lowest at 182. Besides these,
+504 were wounded. Thus Alexander had less than 1000 men placed hors de
+combat. He himself received a slight wound in the thigh from a sword,
+which, used a little more resolutely, might have changed the fortunes of
+the world.
+
+The defeat of the Persians at Issus seems to have been due simply to the
+fact that, practically, the two adversaries engaged with almost equal
+numbers, and that the troops of Alexander were of vastly superior
+quality to those of Darhis. The Asiatic infantry--notwithstanding their
+proud title of "braves"--proved to be worthless; the Greek mercenaries
+were personally courageous, but their inferior arms and training
+rendered them incapable of coping with the Macedonian phalanx. The
+cavalry was the only arm in which the Persians were not greatly at a
+disadvantage; and cavalry alone cannot gain, or even save a battle.
+When Darius put himself into a position where he lost all the advantages
+derivable from superiority of numbers, he made his own defeat and his
+adversary's triumph certain.
+
+It remained, therefore, before the Empire could be considered as
+entirely lost, that this error should be corrected, this false step
+retrieved. All hope for Persia was not gone, so long as her full force
+had not been met and defeated in a fair and open field. When Darius fled
+from Issus, it was not simply to preserve for a few months longer his
+own wretched life; it was to make an effort to redeem the past--to give
+his country that last chance of maintaining her independence which she
+had a right to claim at his hands--to try what the award of battle
+would be under the circumstances which he had fair grounds for
+regarding as the most favorable possible to his own side and the most
+disadvantageous to his adversary. Before the heart of the Empire
+could be reached from the West, the wide Mesopotamian plain had to be
+traversed--there, in those vast flats, across which the enemy must come,
+a position might be chosen where there would be room for the largest
+numbers that even his enormous Empire could furnish--where cavalry and
+even chariots would be everywhere free to act--where consequently he
+might engage the puny force of his antagonist to the greatest advantage,
+outflank it, envelop it, and perhaps destroy it. Darius would have
+been inexcusable had he given up the contest without trying this last
+chance--the chance of a battle in the open field with the full collected
+force of Persia.
+
+His adversary gave him ample time to prepare for this final struggle.
+The battle of Issus was fought in November, B.C. 333. It was not till
+the summer of B.C. 331, twenty months later that the Macedonian forces
+were set in motion towards the interior of the Empire. More than a year
+and a half was consumed in the reduction of Phoenicia, the siege of
+Gaza, and the occupation of Egypt. Alexander, apparently, was confident
+of defeating Darius in a pitched battle, whenever and under whatever
+circumstances they should again meet; and regarded as the only
+serious dangers which threatened him, a possible interruption of his
+communications with Greece, and the employment of Persian gold and
+Persian naval force in the raising of troubles on the European side of
+the Egean. He was therefore determined, before he plunged into the depth
+of the Asiatic continent, to isolate Persia from Greece, to destroy her
+naval power, and to cripple her pecuniary resources. The event showed
+that his decision was a wise one. By detaching from Persia and bringing
+under his own sway the important countries of Syria, Phoenicia,
+Palestine, Idumsea, and Egypt, he wholly deprived Persia of her navy,
+and transferred to himself the complete supremacy of the sea, he greatly
+increased his own resources while he diminished those of the enemy, and
+he shut out Persia altogether from communication with Greece, excepting
+through his territories. He could therefore commence his march into the
+interior with a feeling of entire security as to his communications and
+his rear. No foe was left on the coast capable of causing him a moment's
+uneasiness. Athens and Sparta might chafe and even intrigue; but without
+the Persian "archers," it was impossible that any force should be raised
+which could in the slightest degree imperil his European dominions.
+
+From Babylon, whither Darius proceeded straight from Issus, he appears
+to have made two ineffectual attempts at negotiating with his enemy. The
+first embassy was despatched soon after his arrival, and, according
+to Arrian, was instructed merely to make proposals for peace, and to
+request the restitution of the Queen, the Queen-mother, Sisygambis, the
+infant prince, and the two princesses, captured by Alexander. To this
+Alexander replied, in haughty and contemptuous terms, that if Darius
+would acknowledge him as Lord of Asia, and deliver himself into his
+power, he should receive back his relatives: if he intended still to
+dispute the sovereignty, he ought to come and fight out the contest, and
+not run away.
+
+The second embassy was sent six or eight months later, while Alexander
+was engaged in the siege of Tyre. Darius now offered, as a ransom for
+the members of his family held in captivity by Alexander, the large sum
+of ten thousand talents (L240,000.), and was willing to purchase peace
+by the cession of all the provinces lying west of the Euphrates, several
+of which were not yet in Alexander's possession. At the same time he
+proposed that Alexander should marry his daughter, Statira, in order
+that the cession of territory might be represented as the bestowal of a
+dowry. The reply of Alexander was, if possible, ruder and haughtier than
+before. "What did Darius mean by offering money and territory? All his
+treasure and all his territory were Alexander's already. As for the
+proposed marriage, if he (Alexander) liked to marry a daughter of
+Darius, he should of course do so, whether her father consented or not.
+If Darius wanted merciful treatment, he had better come and deliver
+himself up at once."
+
+The terms of this reply rendered further negotiation impossible.
+Darius had probably not hoped much from his pacific overtures, and was
+therefore not greatly concerned at their rejection. He knew that the
+members of his family were honorably and even kindly treated by their
+captor, and that, so far at any rate, Alexander had proved himself a
+magnanimous conqueror. He can scarcely have thought that a lasting peace
+was possible between himself and his young antagonist, who had only just
+fleshed his maiden sword, and was naturally eager to pursue his career
+of conquest. Indeed, he seems from the moment of his defeat at Issus to
+have looked forward to another battle as inevitable, and to have been
+unremitting in his efforts to collect and arm a force which might
+contend, with a good hope of victory, against the Macedonians. He
+replaced the panoplies lost at Issus with fresh ones; he armed his
+forces anew with swords and spears longer than the Persians had been
+previously accustomed to employ, on account of the great length of the
+Macedonian weapons; he caused to be constructed 200 scythed chariots; he
+prepared spiked balls to use against his enemy's cavalry; above all, he
+laid under contribution for the supply of troops all the provinces,
+even the most remote, of his extensive Empire, and asked and obtained
+important aid from allies situated beyond his borders. The forces which
+he collected for the final struggle comprised--besides Persians, Medes,
+Babylonians, and Susianians from the centre of the Empire--Syrians from
+the banks of the Orontes, Armenians from the neighborhood of Ararat,
+Cappadocians and Albanians from the regions bordering on the Euxine,
+Cadusians from the Caspian, Bactrians from the Upper Oxus, Sogdians from
+the Jaxartes, Arachosians from Cabul, Arians from Herat, Indians from
+Punjab, and even Sacse from the country about Kashgar and Yarkand, on
+the borders of the Great Desert of Gobi. Twenty-five nations followed
+the standard of the Great King, and swelled the ranks of his vast army,
+which amounted (according to the best authorities) to above a million of
+men. Every available resource that the Empire possessed was brought
+into play. Besides the three arms of cavalry, infantry, and chariots,
+elephants were, for perhaps the first time in the history of military
+science, marshalled in the battle-field, to which they added an unwonted
+element of grotesqueness and savagery.
+
+The field of battle was likewise selected with great care, and
+artificially prepared for the encounter. Darius, it would seem, had
+at last become convinced that his enemy would seek him out wherever he
+might happen to be, and that consequently the choice of ground rested
+wholly with himself. Leaving, therefore, the direct road to Babylon
+by the line of the Euphrates undefended, he selected a position which
+possessed all the advantages of the Mesopotamian plain, being open,
+level, fertile, and well supplied with water, while its vicinity to the
+eastern and northern provinces, made it convenient for a rendezvous.
+This position was on the left or east bank of the Tigris, in the heart
+of the ancient Assyria, not more than thirty miles from the site of
+Nineveh. Here, in the region called by the Greeks Adiabene, extended
+between the Tigris and the river Zab or Lycus, a vast plain broken by
+scarcely any elevations, and wholly bare of both shrubs and trees. The
+few natural inequalities which presented themselves were levelled by
+order of Darius, who made the entire plain in his front practicable not
+only for cavalry but for chariots. At the same time he planted, in the
+places where Alexander's cavalry was likely to charge, spiked balls to
+damage the feet of the horses.
+
+Meanwhile, Alexander had quitted Egypt, and after delaying some months
+in Syria while his preparations were being completed, had crossed the
+Euphrates at Thapsacus and marched through northern Mesopotamia along
+the southern flank of the Mons Masius, a district in which provisions,
+water, and forage were abundant, to the Tigris, which he must have
+reached in about lat. 36 deg. 30', thirty or forty miles above the site of
+Nineveh. No resistance was made to his advance; even the passage of
+the great rivers was unopposed. Arrived on the east bank of the Tigris,
+Alexander found himself in Assyria Proper, with the stream upon his
+right and the mountains of Gordyene Kurdistan at no great distance upon
+his left. But the plain widened as he advanced, and became, as he drew
+near the position of his enemy, a vast level, nowhere less than thirty
+miles in breadth, between the outlying ranges of hills and the great
+river. Darius, whose headquarters had been at Arbela, south of the Zab,
+on learning Alexander's approach, had crossed that stream and taken post
+on the prepared ground to the north, in the neighborhood of a small town
+or village called Gaugamela. Here he drew up his forces in the order
+which he thought best, placing the scythed chariots in front, with
+supports of horse--Scythian, Bactrian, Armenian, and Cappadocian--near
+to them; then, the main line of battle, divided into a centre and two
+wings, and composed of horse and foot intermixed; and finally a reserve
+of Babylonians. Sitaceni, and others, massed in heavy column in the
+rear. His own post was, according to invariable Persian custom, in
+the centre; and about him were grouped the best troops--the Household
+brigade, the Melophori or Persian foot-guards, the Mardian archers, some
+Albanians and Carians, the entire body of Greek mercenaries, and the
+Indians with their elephants.
+
+Alexander, on his side, determined to leave nothing to chance. Advancing
+leisurely, resting his troops at intervals, carefully feeling his way by
+means of scouts, and gradually learning from the prisoners whom he
+took, and the deserters who came over to him, all the dispositions and
+preparations of the enemy, he arrived opposite the position of Darius on
+the ninth day after his passage of the Tigris. His officers were eager
+to attack at once; but with great judgment he restrained them, gave his
+troops a night's rest, and obtained time to reconnoitre completely the
+whole position of the enemy and the arrangement which he had made of his
+forces. He then formed his own dispositions. The army with which he
+was to attack above a million of men consisted of 40,300 foot and 7000
+horse. Alexander drew them up in three lines:
+
+The first consisted of light-armed troops, horse and foot, of good
+quality, which were especially intended to act against the enemy's
+chariots. The next was the main line of battle, and contained the
+phalanx with the rest of the heavy infantry in the centre, the heavy
+cavalry upon the two wings. The third line consisted of light troops,
+chiefly horse, and was instructed to act against such of the Persians as
+should outflank the Macedonian main line and so threaten their rear.
+As at Issus, Alexander took the command of the right wing himself, and
+assigned the left to Parmenio.
+
+As the two armies drew near, Alexander, who found himself greatly
+outflanked on both wings, and saw in front of him smooth ground
+carefully prepared for the operations of chariots and cavalry, began a
+diagonal movement towards the right, which tended at once to place him
+beyond the levelled ground, and to bring him in contact with his enemy's
+left wing rather than with his direct front. The movement greatly
+disconcerted his adversary, who sought to prevent it by extending and
+advancing his own left, which was soon engaged with Alexander's right
+in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict. Alexander still pressed his slanting
+movement, and in resisting it Darius's left became separated from his
+centre, while at the same time he was forced to give the signal for
+launching the chariots against the foe sooner than he had intended, and
+under circumstances that were not favorable. The effect of the operation
+was much the same as at Cunaxa. Received by the Macedonian light-armed,
+the chariots were mostly disabled before the enemy's main line was
+reached; the drivers were dragged from the chariot-boards; and the
+horses were cut to pieces. Such as escaped this fate and charged the
+Macedonian line, were allowed to pass through the ranks, which opened to
+receive them, and were then dealt with by grooms and others in the rear
+of the army.
+
+No sooner had the chariot attack failed, and the space between the two
+lines of battle become clear, than Alexander, with the quick eye of a
+true general, saw his opportunity: to resist his flank movement, the
+Bactrians and Sacae with the greater part of the left wing had broken
+off from the main Persian line, and in pressing towards the left
+had made a gap between their ranks and the centre. Into this gap the
+Macedonian king, at the head of the "Companion" cavalry and a portion of
+the phalanx, plunged. Here he found himself in the near neighborhood
+of Darius, whereupon he redoubled the vigor of his assault, knowing the
+great importance of any success gained in this quarter. The Companions
+rushed on with loud cries, pressing with all their weight, and thrusting
+their spears into the faces of their antagonists--the phalanx, bristling
+with its thick array of lances, bore them down. Alexander found himself
+sufficiently near Darius to hurl a spear at him, which transfixed his
+charioteer. The cry arose that the king had fallen, and the ranks at
+once grew unsteady. The more timid instantly began to break and fly;
+the contagion of fear spread; and Darius was in a little while almost
+denuded of protection on one side. Seeing this, and regarding the battle
+as lost, since his line was broken, his centre and left wing defeated,
+while only his right wing remained firm, the Persian monarch yielded to
+his alarm, and hastily quitting the field, made his way to Arbela. The
+centre and left fled with him. The right, which was under the command
+of the Syrian satrap, Mazseus, made a firmer stand. On this side the
+chariots had done some damage, and the horse was more than a match for
+the Thessalian cavalry. Parmenio found himself in difficulties about the
+time when the Persian king fled. His messengers detained a part of the
+phalanx, which was about to engage in the pursuit, and even recalled
+Alexander, who was hastening upon the track of Darius. The careful
+prince turned back, but before he could make his way through the crowd
+of fugitives to the side of his lieutenant, victory had declared in
+favor of the Macedonians in this part of the field also. Mazseus and his
+troops, learning that the king was fled, regarded further resistance as
+useless, and quitted the field. The Persian army hurriedly recrossed
+the Zab, pursued by the remorseless conquerors, who slew the unresisting
+fugitives till they were weary of slaughter. Arrian says that 300,000
+fell, while a still larger number were taken prisoners. Other writers
+make the loss considerably less. All, however, agree that the army was
+completely routed and dispersed, that it made no attempt to rally, and
+gave no further trouble to the conqueror.
+
+The conduct of Darius in this--the crisis of his fate--cannot be
+approved; but it admits of palliation, and does not compel us to
+withdraw from him that respectful compassion which we commonly accord
+to great misfortunes. After Issus, it was his duty to make at least one
+more effort against the invader. To this object he addressed himself
+with earnestness and diligence. The number and quality of the troops
+collected at Arbela attests at once the zeal and success of his
+endeavors. His choice and careful preparation of the field of battle
+are commendable; in his disposition of his forces there is nothing with
+which to find fault. Every arm of the service had full room to act; all
+were brought into play; if Alexander conquered, it was because he was a
+consummate general, while at the same time he commanded the best troops
+in the world. Arbela was not, like Issus, won by mere fighting. It was
+the leader's victory, rather than the soldiers. Alexander's diagonal
+advance, the confusion which it caused, the break in the Persian line,
+and its prompt occupation by some of the best cavalry and a portion
+of the phalanx, are the turning-points of the engagement. All the
+rest followed as a matter of course. Far too much importance has been
+assigned to Darius's flight, which was the effect rather than the cause
+of victory. When the centre of an Asiatic army is so deeply penetrated
+that the person of the monarch is exposed and his near attendants begin
+to fall, the battle is won. Darius did not--indeed he could not--"set
+the example of flight." Hemmed in by vast masses of troops, it was not
+until their falling away from him on his left flank at once exposed
+him to the enemy and gave him room to escape, that he could extricate
+himself from the melee.
+
+No doubt it would have been nobler, finer, more heroic, had the Persian
+monarch, seeing that all was lost, and that the Empire of the Persians
+was over, resolved not to outlive the independence of his country. Had
+he died in the thick of the fight, a halo of glory would have surrounded
+him. But, because he lacked, in common with many other great kings and
+commanders, the quality of heroism, we are not justified in affixing to
+his memory the stigma of personal cowardice. Like Pompey, like
+Napoleon, he yielded in the crisis of his fate to the instinct of
+self-preservation. He fled from the field where he had lost his crown,
+not to organize a new army, not to renew the contest, but to prolong for
+a few weeks a life which had ceased to have any public value.
+
+It is needless to pursue further the dissolution of the Empire.
+The fatal blow was struck at Arbela--all the rest was but the long
+death-agony. At Arbela the crown of Cyrua passed to the Macedonian;
+the Fifth Monarchy came to an end. The HE-GOAT, with the notable horn
+between his eyes, had come from the west to the ram which had two horns,
+and had run into him with the fury of his power. He had come close to
+him, and, moved with choler, had smitten the ram and broken his two
+horns--there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he had
+cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him--and there was none to
+deliver the ram out of his hand.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The
+Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia, by George Rawlinson
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diff --git a/16165.zip b/16165.zip
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #16165 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16165)
diff --git a/old/16165-h.htm.2021-01-25 b/old/16165-h.htm.2021-01-25
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Seven Great Monarchies, by George Rawlinson, The Fifth Monarchy, Part
+      A.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 2em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 20%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 25%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    pre     { font-family: Times; font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient
+Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia, by George Rawlinson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia
+       The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea,
+              Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian
+              or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
+
+Author: George Rawlinson
+
+Illustrator: George Rawlinson
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2005 [EBook #16165]
+Last Updated: September 6, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      OF THE ANCIENT EASTERN WORLD; OR, THE HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, AND ANTIQUITIES
+      OF CHALDAEA, ASSYRIA BABYLON, MEDIA, PERSIA, PARTHIA, AND SASSANIAN, OR
+      NEW PERSIAN EMPIRE. <b> BY </b> <b> GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., </b> CAMDEN
+      PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN THREE VOLUMES.
+      VOLUME II. WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+        <h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+        <p><a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EXTENT OF THE
+        EMPIRE.</p>
+
+				<p><a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CLIMATE
+        AND PRODUCTIONS.</p>
+
+				<p><a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CHARACTER,
+        MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.</p>
+
+				<p><a href="#linkB2HCH0002"> CHAPTER IV.</a>
+        &nbsp;&nbsp;LANGUAGE AND WRITING.</p>
+
+				<p><a href="#linkB2HCH0003">
+        CHAPTER V.</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;ARCHITECTURE AND OTHER ARTS.</p>
+
+				<p><a href="#linkB2HCH0004"> CHAPTER VI.</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION.</p>
+
+        <p><a href="#linkC2HCH0002"> CHAPTER VII.</a> &nbsp;CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY.</p>
+        </blockquote>
+      <hr />
+      <p>
+        <br /> <br />
+      </p>
+
+        <h4>Illustrations</h4>
+      <blockquote>
+
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0001"> Map </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0002"> Plate XXVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0003"> Plate XXVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0004"> Plate XXVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0005"> Plate XXIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0006"> Plate XXX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0007"> Plate XXXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0008"> Plate XXXII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0009"> Plate XXXIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0010"> Plate XXXIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0011"> Plate XXXV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0012"> Plate XXXVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0013"> Plate XXXVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0014"> Plate XXXVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0001"> Map </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0002"> Page 365 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0003"> Page 366 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0004"> Page 367 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0005"> Page 368 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0006"> Page 369 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0007"> Page 370 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0008"> Page 371 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0009"> Page 372 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0010"> Page 373 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0011"> Page 374 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0012"> Page 375 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0013"> Page 376 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0014"> Page 377 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0015"> Page 378 </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0016"> Plate XXXVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0017"> Plate XXXIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0018"> Plate XL. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0019"> Plate XLI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkplate042"> Plate XLII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0020"> Plate XLIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0021"> Plate XLIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0022"> Plate XLV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0023"> Plate XLVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0024"> Plate XLVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0025"> Plate XLVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0027"> Plate XLIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0026"> Plate L. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0028"> Plate LI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0029"> Plate LII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0030"> Plate LIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0031"> Plate LIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0032"> Plate LV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0033"> Plate LVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0034"> Plate LVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0035"> Plate LVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0036"> Plate LIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkBimage-0038"> Plate LX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0001"> Map </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0002"> Plate LXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0003"> Plate LXII. </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTERS I. TO III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA PROPER.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/map_persia.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="map_persia_th (188K)" src="images/map_persia_th.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE FIFTH MONARCHY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The geographical extent of the Fifth Monarchy was far greater than that of
+      any one of the four which had preceded it. While Persia Proper is a
+      comparatively narrow and poor tract, extending in its greatest length only
+      some seven or eight degrees (less than 500 miles), the dominions of the
+      Persian kings covered a space fifty-six degrees long, and in places more
+      than twenty degrees wide. The boundaries of their empire were the desert
+      of Thibet, the Sutlej, and the Indus, on the east; the Indian Sea, the
+      Persian Gulf, the Arabian and Nubian deserts, on the south; on the west,
+      the Greater Syrtis, the Mediterranean, the Egean, and the Strymon river;
+      on the north, the Danube, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian, and
+      the Jaxartes. Within these limits lay a territory, the extent of which
+      from east to west was little less than 3000 miles, while its width varied
+      between 500 and 1500 miles. Its entire area was probably not less than,
+      two millions of square miles&mdash;or more than half that of modern
+      Europe. It was thus at least eight times as large as the Babylonian Empire
+      at its greatest extent, and was probably more than four times as large as
+      the Assyrian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The provinces included within the Empire may be conveniently divided into
+      the Central, the Western, and the Eastern. The Central are Persia Proper,
+      Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the coast tract of the Caspian, and
+      Sagartia, or the Great Desert. The Western are Paeonia, Thrace, Asia
+      Minor, Armenia, Iberia, Syria and Phoenicia, Palestine, Egypt, and the
+      Cyrenaica. The Eastern are Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria, Chorasmia, Sogdiana,
+      Bactria, Scythia, Gandaria, Sattagydia, India, Paricania, the Eastern
+      AEthiopia, and Mycia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of these countries a considerable number have been already described in
+      these volumes. Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the Caspian coast,
+      Armenia, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, belong to this class; and it may
+      be assumed that the reader is sufficiently acquainted with their general
+      features. It would therefore seem to be enough in the present place to
+      give an account of the regions which have not yet occupied our attention,
+      more especially of Persia Proper&mdash;the home of the dominant race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persia Proper seems to have corresponded nearly to that province of the
+      modern Iran, which still bears the ancient name slightly modified, being
+      called Farsistan or Fars. The chief important difference between the two
+      is, that whereas in modern times the tract called Herman is regarded as a
+      distinct and separate region, Carmania anciently was included within the
+      limits of Persia. Persia Proper lay upon the gulf to which it has given
+      name, extending from the mouth of the Tab (Oroatis) to the point where the
+      gulf joins the Indian Ocean. It was bounded on the west by Susiana, on the
+      north by Media Magna, on the east by Mycia, and on the south by the sea.
+      Its length seems to have been about 450, and its average width about 250
+      miles. It thus contained an area of rather more than 100,000 square miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In modern times it is customary to divide the province of Fars into the <i>ghermsir</i>,
+      or, &ldquo;warm district,&rdquo; and the <i>serdsir</i>, or &ldquo;cold region&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      the physical character of the country must have made such a division
+      thoroughly appropriate at every period. The &ldquo;warm district&rdquo; is a tract of
+      sandy plain, often impregnated with salt, which extends between the
+      mountains and the sea the whole length of the province, being a
+      continuation of the flat region of Susiana, but falling very much short of
+      that region in all the qualities which constitute physical excellence. The
+      soil is poor, consisting of alternate sand and clay&mdash;it is
+      ill-watered, the entire tract possessing scarcely a single stream worthy
+      of the name of river&mdash;and, lying only just without the northern
+      Tropic, the district is by its very situation among the hottest of western
+      Asia. It forms, however, no very large portion of the ancient Persia,
+      being in general a mere strip of land, from ten to fifty miles wide, and
+      thus not constituting more than an eighth part of the territory in
+      question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remaining seven eighths belong to the serdsir, or &ldquo;cold region.&rdquo; The
+      mountain-range which under various names skirts on the east the
+      Mesopotamian lowland, separating off that depressed and generally fertile
+      region from the bare high plateau of Iran, and running continuously in a
+      direction parallel to the course of the Mesopotamian streams&mdash;i.e.
+      from the north-west to the south-east&mdash;changes its course as it
+      approaches the sea, sweeping gradually round between long. 50° and 55°,
+      and becoming parallel to the coast-line, while at the same time it
+      broadens out, till it covers a space of nearly three degrees, or above two
+      hundred miles. Along the high tract thus created lay the bulk of the
+      ancient Persia, consisting of alternate mountain, plain, and narrow
+      valley, curiously intermixed, and as yet very incompletely mapped. This
+      region is of varied character. In places richly, fertile, picturesque, and
+      romantic almost beyond imagination, with lovely wooded dells, green
+      mountain-sides, and broad plains suited for the production of almost any
+      crops, it has yet on the whole a predominant character of sterility and
+      barrenness, especially towards its more northern and eastern portions. The
+      supply of water is everywhere scanty. Scarcely any of the streams are
+      strong enough to reach the sea. After short courses they are either
+      absorbed by the sand or end in small salt lakes, from which the
+      superfluous water is evaporated. Much of the country is absolutely without
+      streams, and would be uninhabitable were it not for the <i>kanats</i>, or
+      <i>karizes</i>, subterranean channels of spring-water, described at length
+      in a former volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only rivers of the district which deserve any attention are the Tab
+      (or Oroatis), whereof a description has been already given, the Kur or
+      Bendamir (called anciently Araxes), with its tributary, the Pulwar (or
+      Cyrus), and the Khoonazaberni or river of Khisht.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Bendamir rises in the mountains of the Bakhtiyari chain, in lat. 30°
+      35&rsquo;, long. 51° 50&rsquo; nearly, and runs with a course which is generally
+      south-east, past the ruins of Persepolis, to the salt lake of Neyriz or
+      Kheir, which it enters in long. 53° 30&rsquo;. It receives, where it approaches
+      nearest to Persepolis, the Pulwar or Kur-ab, a small stream coming from
+      the north-east and flowing by the ruins of both Pasargadae and Persepolis.
+      A little below its junction with this stream the Bendamir is crossed by a
+      bridge of five arches, and further down, on the route between Shiraz and
+      Herman, by another of twelve. Here its waters are to a great extent drawn
+      off by means of canals, and are made to fertilize a large tract of rich
+      flat country on either bank, after which the stream pursues its course
+      with greatly diminished volume to the salt lake in which it ends. The
+      entire course, including only main windings, may be estimated at 140 or
+      150 miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Khoonazaberni or river of Khisht rises near the ruins of Shapur, at a
+      short distance from Kazerun, on the route between Bushire and Shiraz, and
+      flows in a broad valley between lofty mountains towards the south-west,
+      entering the Persian Gulf by three mouths, the chief of which is at
+      Rohilla, twenty miles north of Bushire, where the stream has a breadth of
+      sixty yards, and a depth of about four feet. Above Khisht the river is
+      already thirty yards wide. Its chief tributary is the Dalaki stream, which
+      enters it from the east, nearly in long. 51°. The entire course of the
+      Khisht river may be about 95 or 100 miles. Its water is brackish except
+      near the source.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal lakes are the Lake of Neyriz and the Deriah-i-Nemek. The
+      Deriah-i-Nemek is a small basin distant about ten miles from Shiraz, which
+      receives the waters of the streams that supply that town. It has a length
+      of about fifteen and a breadth of about three or three and a half miles.
+      The lake of Neyriz or Kheir is of far larger size, being from fifty to
+      sixty miles long and from three to six broad, though in the summer season
+      it is almost entirely dried up. Salt is then obtained from the lake in
+      large quantities, and forms an important feature in the commerce of the
+      district. Smaller lakes, also salt or brackish, exist in other parts of
+      the country, as Lake Famur, near Kazerun, which is about six miles in
+      length, and from half a mile to a mile across.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most remarkable feature of the country consists in the extraordinary
+      gorges which pierce the great mountain-chain, and render possible the
+      establishment of routes across that tremendous barrier. Scarped rocks rise
+      almost perpendicularly on either side of the mountain-streams, which
+      descend rapidly with frequent cascades and falls. Along the slight
+      irregularities of these rocks the roads are carried in zigzags, often
+      crossing the streams from side to side by bridges of a single arch, which
+      are thrown over profound chasms where the waters chafe and roar many
+      hundred feet below. <a href="#linkimage-0002">[PLATE XXVI.]</a> The roads
+      have for the most part been artificially cut in the sides of the
+      precipices, which rise from the streams sometimes to the height of 2000
+      feet. In order to cross from the Persian Gulf to the high plateau of Iran,
+      no fewer than three or four of these kotuls, or strange gorge-passes, have
+      to be traversed successively. Thus the country towards the edge of the
+      plateau is peculiarly safe from attack, being defended on the north and
+      east by vast deserts, and on the south by a mountain-barrier of unusual
+      strength and difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate026.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxvi. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      It is in these regions, which combine facility of defence with
+      pleasantness of climate, that the principal cities of the district have at
+      all times been placed. The earliest known capital of the region was
+      Pasargadae, or Persagadae, as the name is sometimes written, of which the
+      ruins still exist near Murgab, in lat. 30° 15&rsquo; long. 53° 17&rsquo;. Here is the
+      famous tomb of Cyrus, whereof a description will be given hereafter; and
+      here are also other interesting remains of the old Persian architecture.
+      Neither the shape nor the extent of the town can be traced. The situation
+      was a plain amid mountains, watered by small streams which found their way
+      to a river of some size (the Pulwar) flowing at a little distance to the
+      west. <a href="#linkimage-0003">[PLATE XXVII Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate027.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxvii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      At the distance of thirty miles from Pasargadae, or of more than forty by
+      the ordinary road, grew up the second capital, Persepolis, occupying a
+      more southern position than the primitive seat of power, but still
+      situated towards the edge of the plateau, having the mountain-barrier to
+      the south-west and the desert at no great distance to the north-east. Like
+      its predecessor, Persepolis was situated in a plain, but in a plain of
+      much larger dimensions and of far greater fertility. The plain of Merdasht
+      is one of the most productive in Persia, being watered by the two streams
+      of the Bendamir and the Pulwar, which unite a few miles below the site of
+      the ancient city. From these two copious and unfailing rivers a plentiful
+      supply of the precious fluid can at all times be obtained; and in Persia
+      such a supply will always create the loveliest verdure, the most abundant
+      crops, and the richest and thickest foliage. The site of Persopolis is
+      naturally far superior to that in which the modern provincial capital,
+      Shiraz, has grown up, at about the same distance from Persepolis as that
+      is from Pasargadae. and in the same&mdash;i.e. in a south-west&mdash;direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides Persepolis and Pasargadse, Persia Proper contained but few cities
+      of any note or name. If we include Carmania in Persia, Carmana, the
+      capital of that country, may indeed be mentioned as a third Persian town
+      of some consequence; but otherwise the names which occur in ancient
+      authors are insignificant, and designate villages rather than towns of any
+      size. Carmana, however, which is mentioned by Ptolemy and Ammianus as the
+      capital of those parts, seems to have been a place of considerable
+      importance. It may be identified with the modern Kerman, which lies in
+      lat. 39° 55&rsquo;, long. 56° 13&rsquo;, and is still one of the chief cities of
+      Persia. Situated, like Pasargadae and Persepolis, in a capacious plain
+      surrounded by mountains, which furnish sufficient water for cultivation to
+      be carried on by means of kanats in most parts of the tract enclosed by
+      them, and occupying a site through which the trade of the country almost
+      of necessity passes, Kerman must always be a town of no little
+      consequence. Its inland and remote position, however, caused it to be
+      little known to the Greeks; and, apparently, the great Alexandrian
+      geographer was the first who made them acquainted with its existence and
+      locality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian towns or villages upon the coast of the Gulf were chiefly
+      Armuza (which gave name to the district of Ar-muzia), opposite the modern
+      island of Ormuz; Sisidona, which must have been near Cape Jerd; Apostana,
+      probably about Shewar; Gogana, no doubt the modern Kongoon; and Taoce on
+      the Granis, famous as having in its neighborhood a royal palace, which we
+      may perhaps place near Dalaki, Taoce itself occupying the position of
+      Rohilla, at the mouth of the Khisht river. Of the inland towns the most
+      remarkable, after Persepolis, Pasargadse, and Carmana, were Gabae, near
+      Pasar-gadae, also the site of a palace; Uxia, or the Uxian city, which may
+      have occupied the position of Mai-Amir, Obroatis, Tragonice, Ardea,
+      Portospana, Hyrba, etc., which it is impossible to locate unless by the
+      merest conjecture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chief districts into which the territory was divided were Paraetacene,
+      a portion of the Bakhtiyari mountain-chain, which some, however, reckoned
+      to Media; Mardyene, or the country of the Mardi, also one of the hill
+      tracts; Taocene, the district about Taoce, part of the low sandy coast
+      region; Ciribo, the more northern portion of the same region; and
+      Carmania, the entire eastern territory. These districts were not divided
+      from one another by any marked natural features, the only division of the
+      country to which such a character attached being the triple one into the
+      high sandy plains north of the mountains, the mountain region, and the
+      Deshtistan, or low hot tract along the coast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this account it will be easy to understand how Persia Proper acquired
+      and maintained the character of &ldquo;a scant land and a rugged,&rdquo; which we find
+      attaching to it in ancient authors. The entire area, as has been already
+      observed was about 100,000 square miles&mdash;little more than half that
+      of Spain, and about one fifth of the area of modern Persia. Even of this
+      space nearly one half was uninhabitable, consisting either of barren stony
+      mountain or of scorching sandy plain, ill supplied with water, and often
+      impregnated with salt, the habitable portion consisted of the valleys and
+      plains among the mountains and along their skirts, together with certain
+      favored spots upon the banks of streams in the flat regions. These flat
+      regions themselves were traversed in many places by rocky ridges of a
+      singularly forbidding aspect. The whole appearance of the country was dry,
+      stony, sterile. As a modern writer observes, &ldquo;the livery of the land is
+      constantly brown or gray; water is scanty; plains and mountains are
+      equally destitute of wood. When the traveller, after toiling over the
+      rocky mountains that separate the plains looks down from the pass he has
+      won with toil and difficulty upon the country below, his eye wanders
+      unchecked and unrested over an uniform brown expanse losing itself in
+      distance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still this character, though predominant, is not universal. Wherever there
+      is water, vegetation springs up. The whole of the mountain region is
+      intersected by valleys and plains which are more or less fertile. The line
+      of country between Bebahan and Shiraz is for above sixty miles &ldquo;covered
+      with wood and verdure,&rdquo; in East of Shiraz, on the route between that city
+      and Kerman the country is said to be in parts &ldquo;picturesque and romantic,&rdquo;
+       consisting of &ldquo;low luxuriant valleys or; plains separated by ranges of low
+      mountains, green to their very summits with beautiful turf.&rdquo; The plains of
+      Khubbes, Merdasht, Ujan, Shiraz, Kazerun, and others, produce abundantly
+      under a very inefficient system of cultivation. Even in the most arid
+      tracts there is generally a time of greenness immediately after the spring
+      rains, when the whole country smiles with verdure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been already remarked that the Empire, which, commencing from
+      Persia Proper, spread itself towards the close of the sixth century before
+      Christ, over the surrounding tracts, included a number of countries not
+      yet described in these volumes, since they formed no part of any of the
+      four Empires which preceded the Persian. To complete, therefore, the
+      geographical survey proper to our subject, it will be necessary to give a
+      sketch of the tracts in question. They will fall naturally into three
+      groups, an eastern, a north-western, and a southwestern&mdash;the eastern
+      extending from the skirts of Mount Zagros to the Indian Desert, the
+      north-western from the Caspian to the Propontis, and the south-western
+      from the borders of Palestine to the shores of the Greater Syrtis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inside the Zagros and Elburz ranges, bounded on the north and west by
+      those mountain-lines, on the east by the ranges of Suliman and Hala, and
+      on the south by the coast-chain which runs from Persia Proper nearly to
+      the Indus, lies a vast tableland, from 3000 to 5000 feet above the
+      sea-level, known to modern geographers as the Great Plateau of Iran. Its
+      shape is an irregular rectangle, or trapezium, extending in its greatest
+      length, which is from west to east, no less than twenty degrees, or above
+      1100 miles, while the breadth from north to south varies from seven
+      degrees, or 480 miles (which is its measure along the line of Zagros), to
+      ten degrees, or 690 miles, where it abuts upon the Indus valley. The area
+      of the tract is probably from 500,000 to 600,000 square miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is calculated that two thirds of this elevated region are absolutely
+      and entirely desert. The rivers which flow from the mountains surrounding
+      it are, with a single exception&mdash;that of the Etymandrus or Helmend&mdash;insignificant,
+      and their waters almost always lose themselves, after a course
+      proportioned to their volume, in the sands of the interior. Only two, the
+      Helmend and the river of Ghuzni, have even the strength to form lakes; the
+      others are absorbed by irrigation, or sucked up by the desert.
+      Occasionally a river, rising within the mountains, forces its way through
+      the barrier, and so contrives to reach the sea. This is the case,
+      especially, on the south, where the coast chain is pierced by a number of
+      streams, some of which have their sources at a considerable distance
+      inland. On the north the Heri-rud, or River of Herat, makes its escape in
+      a similar way from the plateau, but only to be absorbed, after passing
+      through two mountain chains, in the sands of the Kharesm. Thus by far the
+      greater portion of this region is desert throughout the year, while, as
+      the summer advances, large tracts, which in the spring were green, are
+      burnt up&mdash;the rivers shrink back towards their sources&mdash;the
+      whole plateau becomes dry and parched&mdash;and the traveller wonders that
+      any portion of it should be inhabited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must not be supposed that the entire plateau of which we have been
+      speaking is to the eye a single level and unbroken plain. In the western
+      portion of the region the plains are constantly intersected by &ldquo;brown,
+      irregular, rocky ridges,&rdquo; rising to no great height, but serving to
+      condense the vapors held in the air, and furnishing thereby springs and
+      wells of inestimable value to the inhabitants. In the southern and eastern
+      districts &ldquo;immense&rdquo; ranges of mountains are said to occur; and the
+      south-eastern as well as the north-eastern corners of the plateau are
+      little else than confused masses of giant elevations. Vast flats, however,
+      are found. In the Great Salt Desert, which extends from Kashan and Koum to
+      the Deriah or &ldquo;Sea&rdquo; in which the Helmend terminates, and in the sandy
+      desert of Seistan, which lies east and south-east of that lake, reaching
+      from near Furrah to the Mekran mountains, plains of above a hundred miles
+      in extent appear to occur, sometimes formed of loose sand, which the wind
+      raises into waves like those of the sea, sometimes hard and gravelly, or
+      of baked and indurated clay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tract in question, which at the present day is divided between
+      Afghanistan, Beloochistan, and Iran, contained, at the time when the
+      Persian Empire arose, the following nations: the Sagartians, the
+      Cossseans, the Parthians, the Hariva or Arians, the Gandarians, the
+      Sattagydians, the Arachotians, the Thamanseans, the Sarangae, and the
+      Paricanians. The Sagartians and Cossseans dwelt in the western portion of
+      the tract, the latter probably about the Siah-Koh mountains, the former
+      scattered over the whole region from the borders of Persia Proper to the
+      Caspian Gates and the Elburz range. Along its northern edge, east of the
+      Sagartians, were the Parthians, the Arians, and the Gandarians. occurring
+      in that order as we proceed from west to east. The Parthians held the
+      country known now as the Atak or &ldquo;Skirt,&rdquo; the flat tract at the southern
+      base of the Elburz from about Shahrud to Khaff, together with a portion of
+      the mountain region adjoining. This is a rich and valuable territory, well
+      watered by a number of small streams, which, issuing from the ravines and
+      valleys of the Elburz, spread fertility around, but lose themselves after
+      a short, course in the Salt Desert. Adjoining the Parthians upon the east
+      were the Haroyu, Hariva, or Arians, an Iranic race of great antiquity, who
+      held the country along the southern skirts of the mountains from the
+      neighborhood of Khaff to the point where the Heri-rud (Arius) issues from
+      the Paropamisan mountains. The character of this country closely resembles
+      that of Parthia, whereof it is a continuation; but the copious stream of
+      the Heri-rud renders it even more productive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Gandarians held Kabul, and the mountain tract on both sides of the
+      Kabul river as far as the upper course of the Indus, thus occupying the
+      extreme north-eastern corner of the plateau, the region where its
+      elevation is the greatest. Lofty mountain-ridges, ramifying in various
+      directions but tending generally to run east and west, deep gorges, narrow
+      and tremendous passes, like the Khyber, characterize this district. Its
+      soil is generally rocky and barren; but many of the valleys are fertile,
+      abounding with enchanting scenery and enjoying a delightful climate. More
+      especially is this the case in the neighborhood of the city of Kabul,
+      which is perhaps the Caspatyrus of Herodotus, where Darius built the fleet
+      which descended the Indus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      South of Aria and Gandaria, in the tract between the Great Desert and the
+      Indus valley, the plateau was occupied by four nations&mdash;the
+      Thamanseans, the Sarangians, the Sattagydians, and the Arachotians. The
+      Thamanaean country appears to have been that which lies south and
+      south-east of Aria (Herat), reaching from the Haroot-rud or river of
+      Subzawar to the banks of the Helmend about Ghirisk. This is a varied
+      region, consisting on the north and the north-east of several high
+      mountain chains which ramify from a common centre, having between them
+      large tracts of hills and downs, while towards the south and the
+      south-west the country is comparatively low and flat, descending to the
+      level of the desert about the thirty second parallel. Here the Thamanseans
+      were adjoined upon by the Sarangians, who held the land about the lake in
+      which the Helmend terminates&mdash;the Seistan of Modern Persia. Seistan
+      is mainly desert. One third of the surface of the soil is composed of
+      moving sands, and the other two thirds of a compact sand, mixed with a
+      little clay, but very rich in vegetable matter. It is traversed by a
+      number of streams, as the Haroot-rud, the river of Furrah, the river of
+      Khash, the Helmend, and others, and is very productive along their banks,
+      which are fertilized by annual inundations; but the country between the
+      streams is for the most part an arid desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sattagydians and Arachotians divided between them the remainder of
+      Afghanistan, the former probably occupying south-eastern Kabul, from the
+      Ghuzni river and its tributaries to the valley of the Indus, while the
+      latter were located in the modern Candahar, upon the Urghand-ab and Turnuk
+      rivers. The character of these tracts is similar to that of north-western
+      Kabul, but somewhat less rugged and mountainous. Hills and downs alternate
+      with rocky ranges and fairly fertile vales. There is a scantiness of
+      water, but still a certain number of moderate-sized rivers, tolerably well
+      supplied with affluents. The soil, however, is either rocky or sandy; and
+      without a careful system of irrigation great portions of the country
+      remain of necessity barren and unproductive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The south-eastern corner of the plateau, below the countries of the
+      Sarangians and the Arachotians, was occupied by a people, called
+      Paricanians by Herodotus, perhaps identical with the Gedrosians of later
+      writers. This district, the modern Beloochistan, is still very imperfectly
+      known, but appears to be generally mountainous, to have a singularly
+      barren soil, and to be deficient in rivers. The nomadic life is a
+      necessity in the greater part of the region, which is in few places
+      suitable for cultivation, but has good pastures in the mountains or the
+      plains according to the season of the year. The rivers of the country are
+      for the most part mere torrents, which carry a heavy body of water after
+      rains, but are often absolutely dry for several months in succession.
+      Water, however, is generally obtainable by digging wells in their beds;
+      and the liquid procured in this way suffices, not only for the wants of
+      man and beast, but also for a limited irrigation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Great Plateau which has been here described is bordered everywhere,
+      except at its north-eastern and north-western corners, by low regions. On
+      the north the lowland is at first a mere narrow strip intervening between
+      the Elburz range and the Caspian, a strip which has been already described
+      in the account given of the Third Monarchy. Where, however, the Caspian
+      ends, its shore trending away to the northward, there succeeds to this
+      mere strip of territory a broad and ample tract of sandy plain, extending
+      from about the 54th to the 68th degree of east longitude&mdash;a distance
+      of 760 miles&mdash;and reaching from the 36th to the 50th parallel of
+      north latitude&mdash;a distance not much short of a thousand miles! This
+      tract which comprises the modern Khanats of Khiva and Bokhara, together
+      with a considerable piece of Southern Asiatic Russia, is for the most part
+      a huge trackless desert, composed of loose sand, black or red, which the
+      wind heaps up into hills. Scarcely any region on the earth&rsquo;s surface is
+      more desolate. The boundless plain lies stretched before the traveller
+      like an interminable sea, but dead, dull, and motionless. Vegetation, even
+      the most dry and sapless, scarcely exists. For three or four hundred miles
+      together he sees no running stream. Water, salt, slimy, and discolored,
+      lies Occasionally in pools, or is drawn from wells, which yield however
+      only a scanty supply. For anything like a drinkable beverage the traveller
+      has to trust to the skies, which give or withhold their stores with a
+      caprice that is truly tantalizing. Occasionally, but only at long
+      intervals, out of the low sandy region there issues a rocky range, or a
+      plateau of moderate eminence, where the soil is firm, the ground smooth,
+      and vegetation tolerably abundant. The most important of the ranges are
+      the Great and Little Balkan, near the Caspian Sea, between the 39th and
+      40th parallels, the Khalata and Urta Tagh, north-west, of Bokhara, and the
+      Kukuth; still further to the north-west in latitude 42° nearly. The chief
+      plateau is that of Ust-Urt, between the Caspian and the Sea of Aral, which
+      is perhaps not more than three or four hundred feet above the sandy plain,
+      but is entirely different in character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This desolate region of low sandy plain would be wholly uninhabitable,
+      were it not for the rivers. Two great streams, the Amoo or Jyhun
+      (anciently the Oxus), and the Sir or Synuti (anciently the Jaxartes),
+      carry their waters across the desert, and pour them into the basin of the
+      Aral. Several others of less volume, as the Murg-ab, or river of Merv, the
+      Abi Meshed or Tejend, the Heri-rud, the river of Maymene, the river of
+      Balkh, the river of Khulm, the Shehri-Sebz, the Ak Su or river of Bokhara,
+      the Kizil Deria, etc., flow down from the high ground into the plain,
+      where their waters either become lost in the sands, or terminate in small
+      salt pools. Along the banks of these streams the soil is fertile, and
+      where irrigation is employed the crops are abundant. In the vicinity of
+      Khiva, at Kermineh on the Bokhara river, at Samarcand, at Balkh&mdash;and
+      in a few other places, the vegetation is even luxuriant; gardens, meadows,
+      orchards, and cornfields fringe the river-bank; and the natives see in
+      such favored spots resemblances of Paradise! Often, however, even the
+      river-banks themselves are uncultivated, and the desert creeps up to their
+      very edge; but this is in default, not in spite, of human exertion. A
+      well-managed system of irrigation could, in almost every instance, spread
+      on either side of the streams a broad strip of verdure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the time of the Fifth Monarchy, the tract which has been here described
+      was divided among three nations. The region immediately to the east of the
+      Caspian, bounded on the north by the old course of the Oxus and extending
+      eastward to the neighborhood of Merv, though probably not including that
+      city, was Chorasmia, the country of the Chorasmians. Across the Oxus to
+      the north-east was Sogdiana (or Sugd), reaching thence to the Jaxartes,
+      which was the Persian boundary in this direction. South of Sogdiana,
+      divided from it by the Middle and Upper Oxus, was Bactria, the country of
+      the Bakhtars or Bactrians. The territory of this people reached southward
+      to the foot of the Paropamisus, adjoining Chorasmia and Aria on the west,
+      and on the south Sattagydia and Gandaria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      East of the table-land lies the valley of the Indus and its tributaries,
+      at first a broad tract, 350 miles from west to east, but narrowing as it
+      descends, and in places not exceeding sixty or seventy miles, across. The
+      length of the valley is not less than 800 miles. Its area is probably
+      about a hundred thousand square miles. We may best regard it as composed
+      of two very distinct tracts&mdash;one the broad triangular plain towards
+      the north, to which, from the fact of its being watered by five main
+      streams, he natives have given the name of Punj-ab, the other the long and
+      comparatively narrow valley of the single Indus river, which, deriving its
+      appellation from that noble stream, is known in modern geography as Sinde.
+      The Punjab, which contains an area of above fifty thousand square miles,
+      is mountainous towards the north, where it adjoins on Kashmeer and Thibet,
+      but soon sinks down into a vast plain, with a soil which is chiefly either
+      sand or clay, immensely productive under irrigation, but tending to become
+      jungle or desert if left without human care. Sinde, or the Indus valley
+      below the Punjab, is a region of even greater fertility. It is watered,
+      not only by the main stream of the Indus, but by a number of branch
+      channels which the river begins to throw off from about the 28th parallel.
+      It includes, on the right bank of the stream, the important tract called
+      Cutchi Gandava, a triangular plain at the foot of the Suliman and Hala
+      ranges, containing about 7000 square miles of land which is all capable of
+      being made into a garden. The soil is here for the most part rich, black,
+      and loamy; water is abundant; and the climate suitable for the growth of
+      all kinds of grain. Below Cutchi Gandava the valley of the Indus is narrow
+      for about a hundred miles, but about Tatta it expands and a vast delta is
+      formed. This is a third triangle, containing above a thousand square miles
+      of the richest alluvium, which is liable however to floods and to vast
+      changes in the river beds, whereby often whole fields are swept away. Much
+      of this tract is moreover low and swampy; the climate is trying; and rice
+      is almost the only product that can be advantageously cultivated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The low region lying south of the Great Plateau is neither extensive nor
+      valuable. It consists of a mere strip of land along the coast of the
+      Indian Ocean, extending a distance of about nine degrees (550 miles) from
+      the mouth of the Persian Gulf to Cape Monze, near Kurrachee, but in width
+      not exceeding ten or, at the most, twenty miles. This tract was occupied
+      in ancient times mainly by a race which Herodotus called Ethiopians and
+      the historians of Alexander Ichthyophagi (Fish-Eaters). It is an arid,
+      sultry, and unpleasant region, scarcely possessing a perennial stream, and
+      depending for its harvests entirely upon the winter rains, and for its
+      water during the summer on wells which are chiefly brackish. Tolerable
+      pasturage is, however, obtainable in places even during the hottest part
+      of the year, and between Cape Jask and Gwattur the crops produced are far
+      from contemptible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small tract of coast, a continuation of the territory just described,
+      intervening between it and Kerman, was occupied in the early Persian times
+      by a race known to the Persians as Maka, and to the Greeks as Mycians.
+      This district, reaching from about Cape Jask to Gombroon, is one of
+      greater fertility than is usual in these regions, being particularly
+      productive in dates and grain. This fertility seems, however, to be
+      confined to the vicinity of the sea-shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To complete the description of the Eastern provinces two other tracts must
+      be mentioned. The mountain-chain which skirts the Great Plateau on the
+      north, distinguished in these pages by the name of Elburz, broadens out
+      after it passes the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea till it covers
+      a space of nearly three degrees (more than 200 miles). Instead of the
+      single lofty ridge which separates the Salt Desert from the low Caspian
+      region, we find between the fifty-fourth and fifty-ninth degrees of east
+      longitude three or four distinct ranges, all nearly parallel to one
+      another, having a general direction of east and west. Broad and rich
+      valleys are enclosed between these latitudinal ranges which are watered by
+      rivers of a considerable size, as more especially the Ettrek and the
+      Gurgan. Thus a territory is formed capable of supporting a largish
+      population, a territory which possesses a natural unity, being shut in on
+      three sides by mountains, and on the fourth by the Caspian. Here in
+      Persian times was settled a people called Hyrcani; and from them the tract
+      derived the name of Hyrcania (Vehrkana), while the lake on which it
+      adjoined came to be known as &ldquo;the Hyrcanian Sea.&rdquo; The fertility of the
+      region, its broad plains, shady woods and lofty mountains were celebrated
+      by the ancient writers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Further to the east, beyond the low sandy plain, and beyond the mountains
+      in which its great rivers have their source&mdash;on the other side of the
+      &ldquo;Roof of the World,&rdquo; as the natives name this elevated region&mdash;lay a
+      tract unimportant in itself, but valuable to the Persians as the home of a
+      people from whom they obtained excellent soldiers. The plain of Chinese
+      Tartary, the district about Kashgar and Yarkand, seems to have been in
+      possession of certain Sacans or Scythians, who in the flourishing times of
+      the empire acknowledged subjection to the Persian crown. These Sacans, who
+      call themselves Huma-varga or Amyrgians, furnished some of the best and
+      bravest of the Persian troops. Westward they bordered on Sogdiana and
+      Bactria; northward they extended probably to the great mountain-chain of
+      the Tien-chan; on the east they were shut in by the vast desert of Gobi or
+      Shamoo; while southward they must have touched Gandaria and perhaps India.
+      A portion of this country&mdash;that towards the north and west&mdash;was
+      well watered and fairly productive; but the southern and eastern part of
+      it must have been arid and desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this consideration of the Eastern provinces of the Empire, we pass on
+      naturally to those which lay towards the North-West. The Caspian Sea alone
+      intervened between these two groups, which thus approached each other
+      within a distance of some 250 or 260 miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost immediately to the west of the Caspian there rises a high
+      table-land diversified by mountains, which stretches eastward for more
+      than eighteen degrees between the 37th and 41st parallels. This highland
+      may properly be regarded as a continuation of the great Iranean plateau,
+      with which it is connected at its south-eastern corner. It comprises a
+      portion of the modern Persia, the whole of Armenia, and most of Asia
+      Minor. Its principal mountain-ranges are latitudinal or from west to east,
+      only the minor ones taking the opposite or longitudinal direction. Of the
+      latitudinal chains the most important is the Taurus, which, commencing at
+      the southwestern corner of Asia Minor in longitude 29° nearly, bounds the
+      great table-land upon the south, running parallel with the shore at the
+      distance of sixty or seventy miles as far as the Pylse Cilicise, near
+      Tarsus, and then proceeding in a direction decidedly north of east to the
+      neighborhood of Lake Van, where it unites with the line of Zagros. The
+      elevation of this range, though not equal to that of some in Asia, is
+      considerable. In Asia Minor the loftiest of the Taurus peaks seem to
+      attain a height of about 9000 or 10,000 feet. Further to the east the
+      elevation appears to be even greater, the peaks of Ala Dagh, Sapan,
+      Nimrud, and Mut Khan in the tract about Lake Van being all of them
+      considerably above the line of perpetual snow, and therefore probably
+      11,000 or 12,000 feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the opposite side of the table-land, bounding it towards the north,
+      there runs under various names a second continuous range of inferior
+      elevation, which begins near Brusa, in the Keshish Dagh or Mysian Olympus,
+      and proceeds in a line nearly parallel with the northern coast to the
+      vicinity of Kars. Between this and Taurus are two other important ridges,
+      which run westward from the neighborhood of Ararat to about the 34th
+      degree of east longitude, after which they subside into the plain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heart of the mountain-region, the tract extending from the district of
+      Erivan on the east to the upper course of the Kizil-Irmak river and the
+      vicinity of Sivas upon the west, was, as it still is, Armenia. Amidst
+      these natural fastnesses, in a country of lofty ridges, deep and narrow
+      valleys, numerous and copious streams, and occasional broad plains&mdash;a
+      country of rich pasture grounds, productive orchards, and abundant
+      harvests&mdash;this interesting people has maintained itself almost
+      unchanged from the time of the early Persian kings to the present day.
+      Armenia was one of the most valuable portions of the Persian Empire,
+      furnishing, as it did, besides stone and timber, and several most
+      important minerals, an annual supply of 20,000 excellent horses to the
+      stud of the Persian king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The highland west of Armenia, the plateau of Asia Minor, from the
+      longitude of Siwas (37° E.) to the sources of the Meander and the Hermus,
+      was occupied by the two nations of the Cappadocians and Phrygians, whose
+      territories were separated by the Kizil-Irmak or Halys river. This tract,
+      though diversified by some considerable ranges, and possessing one really
+      lofty mountain, that of Argseus, was, compared with Armenia, champaign and
+      level. Its broad plains afforded the best possible pasturage for sheep,
+      while at the same time they bore excellent crops of wheat. The entire
+      region was well-watered; it enjoyed a delightful climate; and besides corn
+      and cattle furnished many products of value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the plateau on the north, on the north-east, on the west, and on
+      the south, lie territories which, in comparison with the high region
+      whereon they adjoined, may be called lowlands. The north-eastern lowland,
+      the broad and rich valley of the Kur, which corresponds closely with the
+      modern Russian province of Georgia, was in the possession of a people
+      called by Herodotus Saspeires or Sapeires, whom we may identify with the
+      Iberians of later writers. Adjoining upon them towards the south, probably
+      in the country about Erivan, and so in the neighborhood of Ararat, were
+      the Alarodians, whose name must be connected with that of the great
+      mountain. On the other side of the Sapeirian country, in the tracts now
+      known as Mingrelia and Imeritia, regions of a wonderful beauty and
+      fertility, were the Colchians&mdash;dependants, but not exactly subjects,
+      of Persia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The northern lowland, which consisted of a somewhat narrow strip of land
+      between the plateau and the Euxine, was a rich and well-wooded region, 630
+      miles in length, and in breadth from forty to a hundred. It was inhabited
+      by a large number of rude and barbarous tribes, each of whom possessed a
+      small portion of the sea-board. These tribes, enumerated in the order of
+      their occurrence from east to west, were the following: the Moschi, the
+      Macrones (or Tzani), the Mosy-noeci, the Mares, the Tibareni, the
+      Chalybes, the Paphlagones, the Mariandyni, the Bithyni, and the Thyni. The
+      Moschi, Macrones, Mosynoeci, Mares, and Tibareni dwelt towards the east,
+      occupying the coast from Batoum to Ordou. The Chalybes inhabited the tract
+      immediately adjoining on Sinope. The Paphlagonians held the rest of the
+      coast from the mouth of the Kizil-Irmak to Cape Baba, where they were
+      succeeded by the Mariandyni, who owned the small tract between Cape Baba
+      and the mouth of the Sakkariyeh (Sangarius). From the Sangarius to the
+      canal of Constantinople dwelt the Thynians and Bithynians intermixed, the
+      former however affecting the coast and the latter the interior of the
+      country. The entire tract was of a nearly uniform character, consisting of
+      wooded spurs from the northern mountain-chain, with, valleys of greater or
+      less width between them. Streams were numerous, and vegetation was
+      consequently rich; but it may be doubted whether the climate was healthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The western lowland comprised the inland regions of Mysia, Lydia, and
+      Caria, together with the coast-tracts which had been occupied by immigrant
+      Greeks, and which were known as Juolis, Doris, and Ionia. The broad and
+      rich plains, the open valleys, the fair grassy mountains, the noble trees,
+      the numerous and copious rivers of this district are too well known to
+      need description here. The western portion of Asia Minor is a terrestrial
+      paradise, well deserving the praises which Herodotus with patriotic
+      enthusiasm bestowed upon it. The climate is delightful, only that it is
+      somewhat too luxurious; the soil is rich and varied in quality; the
+      vegetable productions are abundant; and the mountains, at any rate
+      anciently, possessed mineral treasures of great value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lowland upon the south is narrower and more mountainous than either of
+      the others. It comprised three countries only&mdash;Lycia, Pamphylia, and
+      Cilicia. The tract is chiefly occupied by spurs from Taurus, between which
+      lie warm and richly wooded valleys. In Lycia, however, the mountain-ridges
+      embrace some extensive uplands, on a level not much inferior to that of
+      the central plateau itself, while in Pamphylia and Cilicia are two or
+      three low alluvial plains of tolerable extent and of great fertility. Of
+      these the most remarkable is that near Tarsus, formed by the three streams
+      of the Cydnus, the Sarus, and the Pyramus, which extends along the coast a
+      distance of forty miles and reaches inland about thirty, the region which
+      gave to the tract where it occurs the name of Cilicia Campestris or
+      Pedias.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian dominion in this quarter was not bounded by sea. Opposite to
+      Cilicia lay the large and important island of Cyprus, which was included
+      in the territories of the Great King from the time of Cambyses to the
+      close of the Empire. Further to the west, Rhodes, Cos, Samos, Chios,
+      Lesbos, Tenedos, Lemnus, Imbrus, Samothrace, Thasos, and most of the
+      islands of the Egean were for a time Persian, but were never grasped with
+      such firmness as to be a source of real strength to their conquerors. The
+      same may be said of Thrace and Pseonia, subjugated under Darius, and held
+      for some twenty or thirty years, but not assimilated, not brought into the
+      condition of provinces, and therefore rather a drain upon the Empire than
+      an addition to its resources. It seems unnecessary to lengthen out this
+      description of the Persian territories by giving an account of countries
+      and islands, whose connection with the Empire was at once so slight and so
+      temporary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few words must, however, be said respecting Cyprus. This island, which
+      is 140 miles long from Bafa (Paphos) to Cape Andrea, with an average width
+      for two thirds of its length of thirty-five, and for the remaining third
+      of about six or seven miles, is a mountainous tract, picturesque and
+      varied, containing numerous slopes, and a few plains, well fitted for
+      cultivation. According to Eratosthenes it was in the more ancient times
+      richly wooded, but was gradually cleared by human labor. Its soil was
+      productive, and particularly well suited for the vine and the olive. It
+      grew also sufficient corn for its own use. But its special value arose
+      from its mineral products. The copper mines near Tamasus were enormously
+      productive, and the ore thence derived so preponderated over all other
+      supplies that the later Romans came to use the word Cyprium for the metal
+      generally&mdash;whence the names by which it is even now known in most of
+      the languages of modern Europe. On the whole Cyprus was considered
+      inferior to no known island. Besides its vegetable and mineral products,
+      it furnished a large number of excellent sailors to the Persian fleet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It remains to notice briefly those provinces of the south-west which had
+      not been included within any of the preceding monarchies, and which are
+      therefore as yet undescribed in these volumes. These provinces are the
+      African, and may be best considered under the three heads of Egypt, Libya,
+      and the Cyrenaica.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Egypt, if we include under the name not merely the Nile valley and the
+      Delta, but the entire tract interposed between the Libyan Desert on the
+      one side and the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea on the other, is a country of
+      nearly the size of Italy. It measures 520 miles from Elephantine to the
+      Mediterranean, and has an average width of 150 or 160 miles. It must thus
+      contain an area of about 80,000 square miles. Of this space, however, at
+      least three fourths is valueless, consisting of bare rocky mountain or dry
+      sandy plain. It is only along the course of the narrow valley in which the
+      Nile flows from the Cataracts to beyond Cairo, in the tract known as the
+      Faioum, and in the broad region of the Delta, that cultivation is
+      possible. Even in the Delta itself there are large spaces which are arid,
+      and others which are permanent marshes, so that considerable portions of
+      its surface are unfitted for husbandry. But if the quantity of cultivable
+      land is thus limited in Egypt, the quality is so excellent, in consequence
+      of the alluvial character of the soil, that the country was always in
+      ancient times a sort of granary of the world. The noble river, bringing
+      annually a fresh deposit of the richest soil, and furnishing a supply of
+      water, which is sufficient, if carefully husbanded, to produce a
+      succession of luxuriant crops throughout the year, makes Egypt&mdash;what
+      it is even at the present day&mdash;one of the most fertile portions of
+      the earth&rsquo;s surface&mdash;a land of varied products, all excellent&mdash;but
+      especially a land of corn, to which the principal nations of the world
+      looked for their supplies, either regularly, or at any rate in times of
+      difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      West of Egypt was a dry and sandy tract, dotted with oases, but otherwise
+      only habitable along the shore, which in the time of the Persian Empire
+      was occupied by a number of wild tribes who were mostly in the lowest
+      condition to which savage man is capable of sinking. The geographical
+      extent of this tract was large, exceeding considerably that of Egypt; but
+      its value was slight. Naturally, it produced nothing but dates and hides.
+      The inhumanity of the inhabitants made it, however, further productive of
+      a commodity, which, until the world is christianized, will probably always
+      be regarded as one of high value&mdash;the commodity of negro slaves,
+      which were procured in the Sahara by slave-hunts, and perhaps by purchase
+      in Nigritia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still further to the west, and forming the boundary of the Empire in this
+      direction, lay the district of the Cyrenaica, a tract of singular
+      fertility and beauty. Between Benghazi, in east longitude 20°, and the Ras
+      al Tynn (long. 23° 15&rsquo;), there rises above the level of the adjacent
+      regions an extensive table land, which, attracting the vapors that float
+      over the Mediterranean, condenses them, and so abounds with springs and
+      rills. A general freshness and greenness, with rich vegetation in places,
+      is the consequence. Olives, figs, carobs, junipers, oleanders, cypresses,
+      cedars, myrtles, arbutus-trees, cover the flanks of the plateau and the
+      hollows which break its surface, while the remainder is suitable alike for
+      the cultivation of cereals and for pasturage. Nature has also made the
+      region a special gift in the laserpitium or silphium, which was regarded
+      by the ancients as at once a delicacy and a plant of great medicinal
+      power, and which added largely to the value of the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the geographical extent of the Persian Empire, and such were the
+      chief provinces which it contained besides those previously comprised in
+      the empires of Media or Babylon. Territorially, the great mass of the
+      Empire lay towards the east, between long. 50° and 75°, or between the
+      Zagros range and the Indian Desert. But its most important provinces were
+      the western ones. East of Persepolis, the only regions of much value were
+      the valleys of the Indus and the Oxus. Westward lay Susiana, Babylonia,
+      Assyria, Media, Armenia, Iberia, Cappadocia, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Syria,
+      Palestine, Egypt, the Cyrenaica&mdash;all countries of great, or at least
+      considerable, productiveness. The two richest grain tracts of the ancient
+      world, the best pasture regions, the districts which produced the most
+      valuable horses, the most abundant of known gold-fields, were included
+      within the limits of the Empire, which may be looked upon as
+      self-sufficing, containing within it all that man in those days required,
+      not only for his necessities, but even for his most cherished luxuries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The productiveness of the Empire was the natural result of its possessing
+      so many and such large rivers. Six streams of the first class, having
+      courses exceeding a thousand miles in length, helped to fertilize the
+      lands which owned the sway of the Great King. These were the Nile, the
+      Indus, the Euphrates, the Jaxartes, the Oxus, and the Tigris. Two of the
+      six have been already described in these volumes, and therefore will not
+      need to detain us here; but a few words must be said with respect to each
+      of the remaining four, if our sketch of the geography of the Empire is to
+      make any approach to completeness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Nile was only in the latter part of its course a Persian stream.
+      Flowing, as we now know that it does, from within a short distance of the
+      equator, it had accomplished more than three fourths of its course before
+      it entered a Persian province. It ran, however, through Persian territory
+      a distance of about six hundred miles, and conferred on the tract through
+      which it passed immeasurable benefits. The Greeks sometimes maintained
+      that &ldquo;Egypt was the gift of the river;&rdquo; and, though this was very far from
+      being a correct statement in the sense intended, there is a meaning of the
+      words in which we may accept them as expressing a fact. Egypt is only what
+      she is through her river. The Nile gives her all that makes her valuable.
+      This broad, ample, and unfailing stream not only by its annual inundation
+      enriches the soil and prepares it for tillage in a manner that renders
+      only the lightest further labor necessary, but serves as a reservoir from
+      which inexhaustible supplies of the precious fluid can be obtained
+      throughout the whole of the year. The water, which rises towards the end
+      of June, begins to subside early in October, and for half the year&mdash;from
+      December till June&mdash;Egypt is only cultivable through irrigation. She
+      produces, however, during this period, excellent crops&mdash;even at the
+      present day, when there are few canals&mdash;from the facility with which
+      water is obtained, by means of a very simple engine, out of the channel of
+      the Nile. This unfailing supply enabled the cultivator to obtain a second,
+      a third, and even sometimes a fourth crop from the same land within the
+      space of a year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The course of the Nile from Elephantine, where it entered Egypt, to
+      Cercasorus, near Heliopolis, where it bifurcated, was in general north,
+      with, however, a certain tendency westward. It entered Egypt nearly in
+      long. 33°, and at Neapolis (more than two degrees further north) it was
+      still within 15° of the same meridian; then, however, it took a westerly
+      bend, crossed the 32nd and 31st meridians, and in lat. 28° 23 reached west
+      as far as long. 30° 43&rsquo;. After this it returned a little eastward,
+      recrossed the 31st meridian, and having reached long. 31° 22&rsquo; near
+      Aphroditopolis (lat.29° 25), it proceeded almost due north to Cercasorus
+      in lat. 30° 7&rsquo;. The course of the river up to this point was, from its
+      entry into the country, about 540 miles. At Cercasorus the Delta began.
+      The river threw out two branches, which flowed respectively to the
+      north-east and the north-west, while between them was a third channel, a
+      continuation of the previous course of the stream, which pierced the Delta
+      through its centre, flowing almost due north. Lower down, further branch
+      channels were thrown out, some natural, some artificial, and the
+      triangular tract between the two outer arms of the river was intersected
+      by at least five, and (in later times) by fourteen large streams. The
+      right and left arms appear to have been of about equal in length, and may
+      be estimated at 150 or 160 miles; the central arm had a shorter course,
+      not exceeding 110 miles. The volume of water which the Nile pours into the
+      Mediterranean during a day and night is estimated at from 150,000 millions
+      to 700,000 millions of cubic metres. It was by far the largest of all the
+      rivers of the Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Indus, which was the next largest of the Persian rivers to the Nile,
+      rose (like the Nile) outside the Persian territory. Its source is in the
+      region north of the Himalaya range, about lat. 31°, long. 82° 30&rsquo;. It
+      begins by flowing to the north-west, in a direction parallel to that of
+      the Western Himalayas, along the northern flank of which it continues in
+      this line a distance of about 700 miles, past Ladak, to long. 75° nearly.
+      Here it is met by the Bolor chain, which prevents its further progress in
+      this direction and causes it to turn suddenly nearly at a right angle to
+      the south-west. Entering a transverse valley, it finds a way (which is
+      still very imperfectly known) through the numerous ridges of the Himalaya
+      to the plain at its southern base, on which it debouches about thirty
+      miles above Attock. It is difficult to say at what exact point it crossed
+      the Persian frontier, but probably at least the first 700 miles of its
+      course were through territory not Persian. From Attock to the sea the
+      Indus is a noble river. It runs for 900 miles in a general direction of
+      S.S.W. through the plain in one main stream (which is several hundred
+      yards in width), while on its way it throws off also from time to time
+      small side streamlets, which are either consumed in irrigation or rejoin
+      the main channel. A little below Tatta its Delta begins&mdash;a Delta,
+      however, much inferior in size to that of the Nile. The distance from the
+      apex to the sea is not more than sixty miles, and the breadth of the tract
+      embraced between the two arms does not exceed seventy miles. The entire
+      course of the Indus is reckoned at 1960 miles, of which probably 1260 were
+      through Persian territory. The volume of the stream is always
+      considerable, while in the rainy season it is very great. The Indus is
+      said then to discharge into the Indian ocean 446,000 cubic feet per
+      second, or 4280 millions of cubic yards in the twenty-four hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Oxus rises from an Alpine lake, lying on the western side of the Bolor
+      chain in lat. 37° 40&rsquo;, long. 73° 50&rsquo;. After a rapid descent from the high
+      elevation of the lake, during which it pursues a somewhat serpentine
+      course, it debouches from the hills upon the plain about long. 69° 20&rsquo;,
+      after receiving the river of Fyzabad, and then proceeds, first west and
+      afterwards north-west, across the Great Kharesmian Desert to the Sea of
+      Aral. During the first 450 miles of its course, while it runs among the
+      hills, it receives from both sides numerous and important tributaries; but
+      from the meridian of Balkh those fail entirely, and for above 800 miles
+      the Oxus pursues its solitary way, unaugmented by a single affluent,
+      across the waste of Tartary, rolling through the desert a wealth of
+      waters, which must diminish, but which does not seem very sensibly to
+      diminish, by evaporation. At Kilef, sixty miles north-west of Balkh, the
+      width of the river is 350 yards; at Khodja Salih, thirty miles lower down,
+      it is 823 yards with a depth of twenty feet; at Kerki, seventy miles below
+      Khodja Salih, it is &ldquo;twice the width of the Danube at Buda-Pesth,&rdquo; or
+      about 940 yards; at Betik, on the route between Bokhara and Merv, its
+      width has diminished to 650 yards, but its depth has increased to
+      twenty-nine feet. Finally, at Gorlen Hezaresp near Khiva, the breadth of
+      the Oxus is so great that both banks are hardly distinguishable at the
+      same time; but the stream is here comparatively shallow, ceasing to be
+      navigable at about this point. The present course of the Oxus from its
+      rise in Lake Sir-i-Kol to its termination in the Sea of Aral is estimated
+      at 1400 miles. Anciently its course must have been still longer. The Oxus,
+      in the time of the Achaemenian kings, fell into the Caspian by a channel
+      which can even now be traced. Its length was thus increased by at least
+      450 miles, and, exceeding that of the Jaxartes, fell but little short of
+      the length of the Indus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Oxus, like the Nile and the Indus, has a periodical swell, which lasts
+      from May to October. It does not, however, overflow its hanks. Under a
+      scientific system of irrigation it is probable that a considerable belt of
+      land on either side of its course might be brought under cultivation. But
+      at present the extreme limit to which culture is carried, except in the
+      immediate vicinity of Khiva, seems to be four miles; while often, in the
+      absence of human care, the desert creeps up to the very brink of the
+      river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Jaxartes, or Sir-Deria, rises from two sources in the Thian-chan
+      mountain chain, the more remote of which is in long. 79° nearly. The two
+      streams both flow to the westward in almost parallel valleys, uniting
+      about long. 71°. After their junction the course of the stream is still to
+      the westward for two degrees; but between Khokand and Tashkend the river
+      sweeps round in a semicircle and proceeds to run first due north and then
+      north-west, skirting the Kizil Koum desert to Otrar, where it resumes its
+      original westerly direction and flows with continually diminishing volume
+      across the desert to the Sea of Aral. The Jaxartes is a smaller stream
+      than the Oxus. At Otrar, after receiving its last tributary, it is no more
+      than 250 yards wide. Below this point it continually dwindles, partly from
+      evaporation, partly from the branch stream which it throws off right and
+      left, of which the chief are the Cazala and the Kuvan Deria. On its way
+      through the desert it spreads but little fertility along its banks, which
+      are in places high and arid, in others depressed and swampy. The branch
+      streams are of some service for irrigation; and it is possible that a
+      scientific system might turn the water of the main channel to good
+      account, and by its means redeem from the desert large tracts which have
+      never yet been cultivated. But no such system has hitherto been applied to
+      the Sir, and it is doubtful whether success would attend it. The Sir,
+      where it falls into the Sea of Aral, is very shallow, seldom even in the
+      flood season exceeding four feet. The length of the stream was till
+      recently estimated at more than 1208 miles; but the latest explorations
+      seem to require an enlargement of this estimate by at least 200 or 250
+      miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In rivers of the second class the Persian Empire was so rich that it will
+      be impossible, within the limits prescribed for the present work, to do
+      more than briefly enumerate them. The principal were, in Asia Minor, the
+      Hermus (Ghiediz Chai), and the Maeander (Mendere) on the west, the
+      Sangarius (Sakka-riyeh), the Halys (Kizil Irmak), and the Iris (Yechil
+      Irmak) on the north, the Cydnus (Tersoos Chai), Sarus (Cilician Syhun),
+      and Pyramus (Cilician Jyhun) on the south; in Armenia and the adjacent
+      regions, the Araxes (Aras), Cyrus (Kur), and Phasis (Eion); on the Iranic
+      plateau, the Sefid-rud, the Zenderud or river of Isfahan, the Etymandrus
+      (Helmend), and the Arius (Heri-rud); in the low country east of the
+      Caspian, the Gurgan and Ettrek, rivers of Hyrcania, the Margus Churghab
+      (or river of Merv), the Delias or river of Balkh, the Ak Su or Bokhara
+      river, and the Kizil Deria, a stream in the Khanat of Kokand; in
+      Afghanistan and India, the Kabul river, the Hydaspes (Jelum), the Aoesines
+      (Chenab), the Hydraotes (Ravee), and the Hyphasis (Sutlej or Gharra); in
+      Persia Proper, the Oroatis (Hindyan or Tab), and the Bendamir; in Susiana,
+      the Pasitigris (Kuran), the Hedypnus (Jerahi), the Choaspes (Kerkhah), and
+      the Eulsenus (a branch of the same); in the Upper Zagros region, the
+      Gyndes (Diyaleh), and the Greater and Lesser Zabs; in Mesopotamia, the
+      Chaboras (Kha-bour), and Bilichus (Belik); finally, in Syria and
+      Palestine, the Orontes or river of Antioch (Nahr-el-asy), the Jordan, and
+      the Barada or river of Damascus. Thus, besides the six great rivers of the
+      Empire, forty other considerable streams fertilized and enriched the
+      territories of the Persian monarch, which, though they embraced many arid
+      tracts, where cultivation was difficult, must be pronounced upon the whole
+      well-watered, considering their extent and the latitude in which they lay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Empire possessed, besides its rivers, a number of important lakes.
+      Omitting the Caspian and the Aral, which lay upon its borders, there were
+      contained within the Persian territories the following important basins:
+      the Urumiyeh, Lake Van, and Lake Goutcha or Sivan in Armenia; Lakes
+      Touz-Ghieul, Egerdir, Bey-Shehr, Chardak, Soghla, Buldur, Ghieul-Hissar,
+      Iznik, Abullionte, Maniyas, and many others in Asia Minor; the Sabakhah,
+      the Bahr-el-Melak, and the Lake of Antioch in Northern Syria; the Lake of
+      Hems in the Coele-Syrian valley; the Damascus lakes, the Lake of Merom,
+      the Sea of Tiberias, and the Dead Sea in Southern Syria and Palestine;
+      Lake Moeris and the Natron lakes in Egypt; the Bahr-i-Nedjif in Babylonia;
+      Lake Neyriz in Persia Proper; the Lake of Seistan in the Iranic Desert;
+      and Lake Manchur in the In dus valley. Several of these have been already
+      described in these volumes. Of the remainder the most important were the
+      Lake of Van, the Touz-Ghieul, the great lake of Seistan, and Lake Moeris.
+      These cannot be dismissed without a brief description.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lake Van is situated at a very unusual elevation, being more than 5400
+      feet above the sea level. It is a triangular basin, of which the three
+      sides front respectively S.S.E., N.N.E., and N.W. by W. The sides are all
+      irregular, being broken by rocky promontories; but the chief projection
+      lies to the east of the lake, where a tract is thrown out which suddenly
+      narrows the expanse from about fifty miles to less than five. The greatest
+      length of the basin is from N.E. to S.W., where it extends a distance of
+      eighty miles between Amis and Tadvan; its greatest width is between Aklat
+      and Van, where it measures across somewhat more than fifty miles. The
+      scenery which surrounds it is remarkable for its beauty. The lake is
+      embosomed amid high mountains, picturesque in outline, and all reaching in
+      places the level of perpetual snow. Its waters, generally placid, but
+      sometimes lashed into high waves, are of the deepest blue; while its banks
+      exhibit a succession of orchards, meadows, and gardens which have scarcely
+      their equals in Asia. The lake is fed by a number of small streams flowing
+      down from the lofty ridges which surround it, and, having no outlet, is of
+      course salt, though far less so than the neighboring lake of Urumiyeh.
+      Gulls and cormorants float upon its surface fish can live in it; and it is
+      not distasteful to cattle. Set in the expanse of waters are a few small
+      islets, whose vivid green contrasts well with the deep azure which
+      surrounds them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Touz-Ghieul is a basin of a very different character. Situated on the
+      upland of Phrygia, in lat. 39°, long. 33°, 30&rsquo;, its elevation is not more
+      than 2500 feet. Low hills of sandstone and conglomerate encircle it, but
+      generally at some distance, so that a tract of plain, six or seven miles
+      in width, intervenes between their base and the shore. The shape of the
+      lake is an irregular oval, with the greater axis running nearly due north
+      and south. Its greatest length is estimated at forty-five miles, its width
+      varies, but is generally from ten to sixteen miles. At one point, however,
+      nearly opposite to Kodj Hissar, the lake narrows to a distance of no more
+      than five miles; and here a causeway has been constructed from shore to
+      shore, which, though ruined, still affords a dry pathway in the summer.
+      The water of the Touz-Ghieul is intensely salt, containing at some seasons
+      of the year no less than thirty-two per cent of saline matter, which is
+      considerably more than the amount of such matter in the water of the Dead
+      Sea. The surrounding plain is barren, in places marshy, and often covered
+      with an incrustation of salt. The whole scene is one of desolation. The
+      acrid waters support no animal organization; birds shun them; the plain
+      grows nothing but a few stunted and sapless shrubs. The only signs of life
+      which greet the traveller are the carts of the natives, which pass him
+      laden with the salt that is obtained with ease from the saturated water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Zerreh or Sea of Seistan&mdash;called sometimes the Hamun, or
+      &ldquo;expanse&rdquo;&mdash;is situated in the Seistan Desert on the Great Iranic
+      plateau, and consequently at an elevation of (probably) 3000 feet. It is
+      formed by the accumulation of the waters brought down by the Helmend, the
+      Haroot-rud, the river of Khash, the Furrah-rud and other streams, which
+      flow from the mountains of Afghanistan, with converging courses to the
+      south-west. It is an extensive basin, composed of two arms, an eastern and
+      a western. The western arm, which is the larger of the two, has its
+      greatest length from N.N.E. to S.S.W., and extends in this direction about
+      ninety miles. Its greatest width is about twenty-five miles. The eastern
+      arm is rather more than forty miles long, and from ten to twenty broad. It
+      is shaped much like a fish&rsquo;s tail. The two arms are connected by a strait
+      seven or eight miles in width, which joins them near their northern
+      extremities. The water of the lake, though not salt, is black and has a
+      bad taste. Fish support life in it with difficulty, and never grow to any
+      great size. The lake is shallow, not much exceeding a depth of three or
+      four feet. It contracts greatly in the summer, at which time the strait
+      connecting the two arms is often absolutely dry. The edges of the lake are
+      clothed with tamarisk and other trees; and where the rivers enter it,
+      sometimes by several branches, the soil is rich and cultivation
+      productive; but elsewhere the sand of the desert creeps up almost to the
+      margin of the water, clothed only with some sickly grass and a few
+      scattered shrubs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Birket-el-Keroun, or Lake Moaris of the classical writers, is a
+      natural basin&mdash;not, as Herodotus imagined, an artificial one&mdash;situated
+      on the western side of the Nile valley, in a curious depression which
+      nature has made among the Libyan hills. This depression&mdash;the modern
+      district of the Faioom&mdash;is a circular plain, which sinks gradually
+      towards the north-west, descending till it is more than 100 feet below the
+      surface of the Nile at low water. The Northern and northwestern portion of
+      the depression is occupied by the lake, a sheet of brackish water shaped
+      like a horn (whence the modern name) measuring about thirty-five or
+      thirty-six miles from end to end, and attaining in the middle a width of
+      between five and six miles. The area of the lake is estimated roughly at
+      150 square miles, its circumference at about ninety miles. It has a depth
+      varying from twelve to twenty-four feet. Though the water is somewhat
+      brackish, yet the Birket contains several species of fresh-water fish; and
+      in ancient times its fisheries are said to have been exceedingly
+      productive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal cities of the Empire were, besides Pesargadae and
+      Persepolis, Susa&mdash;the chief city of Susiana&mdash;which became the
+      capital; Babylon, Ecbatana, Rhages, Zadracarta, Bactra (now Balkh),
+      Maracanda (now Samarcand), Aria, or Artacoana (Herat), Caspatyrus on the
+      Upper Indus,Taxila (Attock?), Pura (perhaps Bunpoor), Carmana (Kerman),
+      Arbela, Nisibis, Amida (now Diarbekr); Mazaca in Cappadocia; Trapezus
+      (Trebizond), Sinope, Dascyleium, Sardis, Ephesus, Miletus, Gordium, Perga,
+      and Tarsus in Asia Minor: Damascus, Jerusalem, Sidon, Tyre, Azotus or
+      Ashdod, and Gaza in Syria; Memphis and Thebes in Egypt; Cyrene and Barca
+      in the Cyrenaica. Of these, while Susa had from the time of Darius
+      Hystaspis a decided pre-eminence as the main residence of the court, and
+      consequently as the usual seat of government, there were three others
+      which could boast the distinction of being royal abodes from time to time,
+      either regularly at certain seasons, or occasionally at the caprice of the
+      monarch. These were Babylon, Ecbatana, and Persepolis, the capitals
+      respectively of Chaldaea, Media, and Persia Proper, all great and ancient
+      cities, accustomed to the presence of Courts, and all occupying positions
+      sufficiently central to render them not ill-suited for the business of
+      administration. Next to these in order of dignity may be classed the
+      satrapial residences, often the chief cities of old monarchies, such as
+      Sardis, the capital city of Lydia, Dascyleium of Bithynia, Memphis of
+      Egypt, Bactra of Bactria, and the like; while the third rank was held by
+      the towns, where there was no Court, either royal or satrapial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before this chapter is concluded a few words must be said with respect to
+      the countries which bordered upon the Persian Empire. The Empire was
+      surrounded, for the most part, either by seas or deserts. The
+      Mediterranean, the Egean, the Propontis, the Euxine, the Caspian, the
+      Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Gulf or Bed Sea washed its
+      shores, bounding almost all its western, and much of its northern and
+      southern sides; while the sands of the Sahara, the deserts of Arabia and
+      Syria of India and Thibet, filled up the greater part of the intervening
+      spaces. The only countries of importance which can be viewed as in any
+      sense neighbors of Persia are European and Asiatic Scythia, Hindustan,
+      Arabia, Ethiopia, and Greece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where the Black Sea, curving round to the north, ceased to furnish to the
+      Empire the advantage of a water barrier, a protection of almost equal
+      strength was afforded to it by the mountain-chain of the Caucasus.
+      Excepting on the extreme east, where it slopes gently to the Caspian, this
+      range is one of great elevation, possessing but few passes, and very
+      difficult to traverse. Its fastnesses have always been inhabited by wild
+      tribes, jealous of their freedom; and these tribes may have caused
+      annoyance, but they could at no time have been a serious danger to the
+      Empire. They were weak in numbers, divided in nationality and in
+      interests, and quite incapable of conducting any distant expedition. Like
+      their modern successors, the Circassians, Abassians, and Lesghians, their
+      one and only desire was to maintain themselves in possession of their
+      beloved mountains; and this desire would cause them to resist all attempts
+      that might be made to traverse their country, whether proceeding from the
+      north or from the south, from the inhabitants of Europe or from those of
+      Asia. Persia was thus strongly protected in this quarter; but still she
+      could not feel herself altogether safe. Once at least within historic
+      memory the barrier of the Caucasus had proved to be surmountable. From the
+      vast Steppe which stretches northwards from its base, in part salt, in
+      part grassy, had crossed into Asia&mdash;through its passes or round its
+      eastern flank&mdash;a countless host, which had swept all before it, and
+      brought ruin upon flourishing empires. The Scythian and Samaritan hordes
+      of the steppe-country between the Wolga and the Dnieper were to the
+      monarchies of Western Asia a permanent, if a somewhat distant, peril. It
+      could not be forgotten that they had proved themselves capable of
+      penetrating the rocky barrier which would otherwise have seemed so sure a
+      protection, or that when they swarmed across it in the seventh century
+      before our era, their strength was at first irresistible. The Persians
+      knew, what the great nations of the earth afterwards forgot, that along
+      the northern horizon there lay a black cloud, which might at any time
+      burst, carrying desolation to their homes and bringing ruin upon their
+      civilization. We shall find the course of their history importantly
+      affected by a sense of this danger, and we shall have reason to admire the
+      wisdom of their measures of precaution against it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not only to the west of the Caspian that the danger threatened.
+      East of that sea also was a vast steppe-region&mdash;rolling plains of
+      sand or grass&mdash;the home of nomadic hordes similar in character to
+      those who drank the waters of the Don and Wolga. The Sacse, Massagetse,
+      and Dahse of this country, who dwelt about the Caspian, the Aral, and the
+      Lower Jaxartes, were an enemy scarcely less formidable than the Sarmatians
+      and the Scyths of the West. As the modern Iran now suffers from the
+      perpetual incursions of Uzbegs and Turcomans, so the north-eastern
+      provinces of the ancient Persia were exposed to the raids of the Asiatic
+      Scythians and the Massagetse, who were confined by no such barrier as the
+      Caucasus, having merely to cross a river, probably often fordable during
+      the summer, in order to be in Persia. Hyrcania and Parthia had indeed a
+      certain amount of protection from the Kharesmian Desert; but the upper
+      valleys of the great streams&mdash;the satrapies of Sogdiana and Bactria&mdash;must
+      have suffered considerable annoyance from such attacks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the side of India, the Empire enjoyed a twofold security. From the
+      shores of the Indian Ocean in the vicinity of the Runn of Cutch to the
+      31st parallel of north latitude&mdash;a distance of above 600 miles&mdash;there
+      extends a desert, from one to two hundred miles across, which effectually
+      shuts off the valley of the Indus from the rest of Hindustan. It is only
+      along the skirts of the mountains, by Lahore, Umritsir, and Loodiana, that
+      the march of armies is possible&mdash;by this line alone can the Punjabis
+      threaten Central India, or the inhabitants of Central India attack the
+      Punjab. Hence in this quarter there was but a very narrow tract to guard;
+      and the task of defence was still further lightened by the political
+      condition of the people. The Gangetic Indians, though brave and powerful,
+      were politically weak, from their separation into a number of distinct
+      states under petty Rajahs, who could never hope to contend successfully
+      against the forces of a mighty Empire. Persia, consequently, was safe upon
+      this side, in the division of her adversaries. Nor had she neglected the
+      further security which was obtainable by an interposition between her own
+      actual frontier and her enemies&rsquo; dominions of a number of half-subject
+      dependencies. Native princes were allowed to bear sway in the Punjab
+      region, who acknowledged the suzerainty of Persia, and probably paid her a
+      fixed tribute, but whose best service was that they prevented a collision
+      between the Power of whom they held their crowns and the great mass of
+      their own nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Great Arabian Peninsula, which lay due south of the most central part
+      of the Empire, and bordered it on this side for about thirteen degrees, or
+      (if we follow the line of the boundary) for above a thousand miles, might
+      seem to have been the most important of all the adjacent countries, since
+      it contains an area of a million of square miles, and is a nursery of
+      brave and hardy races. Politically, however, Arabia is weak, as has been
+      shown in a former volume; while geographically she presents to the north
+      her most arid and untraversable regions, so that it is rarely, and only
+      under very exceptional circumstances, that she menaces seriously her
+      northern neighbors. Persia seems never to have experienced any alarm of an
+      Arab invasion; her relations with the tribes that came into closest
+      contact with her were friendly; and she left the bulk of the nation in
+      unmolested enjoyment of their independence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another country adjoining the Persian Empire on the south, and one which
+      might have been expected to cause some trouble, was Ethiopia. To Egypt
+      Ethiopia had always proved an unquiet, and sometimes even a dangerous,
+      neighbor; she was fertile, rich, populous; her inhabitants were tall,
+      strong, and brave; she had a ready means of marching into Egypt down the
+      fertile valley of the Nile; and her hosts had frequently ravaged, and even
+      held for considerable terms of years, that easily subjected country. It is
+      remarkable that during the whole time of the Persian dominion Ethiopia
+      seems to have abstained from any invasion of the Egyptian territory.
+      Apparently, she feared to provoke the power which had seated itself on the
+      throne of the Pharaohs, and preferred the quiet enjoyment of her own
+      wealth and resources to the doubtful issues of a combat with the mistress
+      of Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On her western horizon, clearly discernible from the capes and headlands
+      of the Asiatic coast, but separated from her, except in one or two places,
+      by a tolerably broad expanse of sea, and so&mdash;as it might have seemed&mdash;less
+      liable to come in contact with her than her neighbors upon the land, lay
+      the shores and isles of Greece&mdash;lovely and delightful regions, in
+      possession of a brave and hardy race, as yet uncorrupted by luxury, though
+      in the enjoyment of a fair amount of civilization. As the eye looked
+      across the Egean waters, resting with pleasure on the varied and graceful
+      forms of Sporades and Cyclades, covetous thoughts might naturally arise in
+      the beholder&rsquo;s heart; and the idea might readily occur of conquering and
+      annexing the fair tracts which lay so temptingly near and possessed such
+      numerous attractions. The entire region, continent and islands included,
+      was one of diminutive size&mdash;not half so large as an ordinary Persian
+      satrapy; it was well peopled, but its population could not have amounted
+      to that of the Punjab or of Egypt, countries which Persia had overrun in a
+      single campaign; its inhabitants were warlike, but they were comparatively
+      poor, and the true sinews of war are money; moreover, they were divided
+      amongst themselves, locally split up by the physical conformation of their
+      country, and politically repugnant to anything like centralization or
+      union. A Persian king like Cambyses or Darius might be excused if, when
+      his thoughts turned to Greece, he had a complacent feeling that no danger
+      could threaten him from that quarter&mdash;that the little territory on
+      his western border was a prey which he might seize at any time that it
+      suited his convenience or seemed good to his caprice; so opening without
+      any risk a new world to his ambition. It required a knowledge that the
+      causes of military success and political advance lie deeper than
+      statistics can reach&mdash;that they have their roots in the moral nature
+      of man, in the grandeur of his ideas and the energy of his character&mdash;in
+      order to comprehend the fact, that the puny power upon her right flank was
+      the enemy which Persia had most to fear, the foe who would gradually sap
+      her strength, and finally deal her the blow that would lay her prostrate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It is evident that an Empire which extended over more than twenty degrees
+      of latitude, touching on the one hand the tropic of Cancer, while it
+      reached upon the other to the parallel of Astrakan, and which at the same
+      time varied in elevation, from 20,000 feet above to 1300 below the sea
+      level, must have comprised within it great differences of climate, and
+      have boasted an immense variety of productions. No general description can
+      be applicable to such a stretch of territory; and it will therefore be
+      necessary to speak of the various parts of the Empire successively in
+      order to convey to the reader a true idea of the climatic influences to
+      which it was subject, and the animals, vegetables, and minerals which it
+      produced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Commencing with Persia Proper, the original seat and home of the race with
+      whose history we are specially concerned at present, we may observe that
+      it was regarded by the ancients as possessing three distinct climates&mdash;one
+      along the shore, dry and scorchingly hot; another in the mountain region
+      beyond, temperate and delightful; and a third in the tract further inland,
+      which was thought to be disagreeably cold and wintry. Moderns, on the
+      contrary, find two climates only in Fars&mdash;one that of the Desbistan
+      or &ldquo;low country,&rdquo; extremely hot and dry, with frequent scorching and
+      oppressive winds from the south and the south-east; the other, that of the
+      highlands, which is cold in winter, but in summer pleasant and enjoyable.
+      In the Deshistan snow never falls, and there is but little rain; heavy
+      dews, however, occur at night, so that the mornings are often fresh and
+      cool; but the middle of the day is almost always hot, and from March to
+      November the temperature at noon ranges from 90° to 100° of Fahrenheit.
+      Occasionally it reaches 125°, and is then fearfully oppressive. Fierce
+      gusts laden with sand sweep over the plain, causing vegetation to droop or
+      disappear, and the animal world to hide itself. Man with difficulty
+      retains life at these trying times, feeling a languor and a depression of
+      spirits which are barely supportable.10 All who can do so quit the plains
+      and betake themselves to the upland region till the great heats are past,
+      and the advance of autumn brings at any rate cool nights and mornings. The
+      climate of the uplands is severe in winter. Much snow falls, and the
+      thermometer often marks from ten to fifteen degrees of frost. From time to
+      time there are furious gales, and, as the spring advances, a good deal of
+      wet falls; but the summer and autumn are almost rainless. The heat towards
+      midday is often considerable, but it is tempered by cool winds, and even
+      at the worst is not relaxing. The variations of temperature are great in
+      the twenty-four hours, and the climate is, so far, trying; but, on the
+      whole, it seems to be neither disagreeable nor unhealthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A climate resembling that of the Deshtistan prevailed along the entire
+      southern coast of the Empire, from the mouth of the Tigris to that of the
+      Indus. It was exchanged in the lower valleys of the great streams for a
+      damp close heat, intolerably stifling and oppressive. The upper valleys of
+      these streams and the plains into which they expanded were at once less
+      hot and less moist, but were subject to violent storms, owing to the near
+      vicinity of the mountains. In the mountains themselves, in Armenia and
+      Zagros, and again in the Elburz, the climate was of a more rigorous
+      character&mdash;intensely cold in winter, but pleasant in the summer time.
+      <a href="#linkimage-0003">[PLATE XXVII., Fig. 3.]</a> Asia Minor enjoyed
+      generally a warmer climate than the high mountain regions; and its western
+      and southern coasts, being fanned by fresh breezes from the sea, or from
+      the hills of the interior, and cooled during the whole of the summer by
+      frequent showers, were especially charming. In Syria and Egypt the heats
+      of summer were somewhat trying, more especially in the Ghor or depressed
+      Jordan valley, and in the parts of Egypt adjoining on Ethiopia; but the
+      winters were mild, and the springs and autumns delightful. The rarity of
+      rain in Egypt was remarkable, and drew the attention of foreigners, who
+      recorded, in somewhat exaggerated terms, the curious meteorological
+      phenomenon. In the Cyrenaica there was a delicious summer climate&mdash;an
+      entire absence of rain, with cool breezes from the sea, cloudy skies, and
+      heavy dews at night, these last supplying the moisture which through the
+      whole of summer covered the ground with the freshest and loveliest
+      verdure. The autumn and winter rains were, however, violent; and terrific
+      storms were at that time of no unusual occurrence. The natives regarded it
+      as a blessing, that over this part of Africa the sky was &ldquo;pierced,&rdquo; and
+      allowed moisture to fall from the great reservoir of &ldquo;waters above the
+      firmament;&rdquo; but the blessing must have seemed one of questionable value at
+      the time of the November monsoon, when the country is deluged with rain
+      for several weeks in succession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the opposite side of the Empire, towards the north and the north-east,
+      in Azerbijan, on the Iranian plateau, in the Afghan plains, in the high
+      flat region east of the Bolor, and again in the low plain about the Aral
+      lake and the Caspian, a severe climate prevailed during the winter, while
+      the summer combined intense heat during the day with extraordinary cold&mdash;the
+      result of radiation&mdash;at night. Still more bitter weather was
+      experienced in the mountain regions of these parts&mdash;in the Bolor, the
+      Thian Chan, the Himalaya, and the Paropamisus or Hindu Kush&mdash;where
+      the winters lasted more than half the year, deep snow covering the ground
+      almost the whole of the time, and locomotion being rendered almost
+      impossible; while the summers were only moderately hot. On the other hand,
+      there was in this quarter, at the very extreme east of the Empire, one of
+      the most sultry and disagreeable of all climates&mdash;namely, that of the
+      Indus valley, which is either intolerably hot and dry, with fierce
+      tornadoes of dust that are unspeakably oppressive, or close and moist,
+      swept by heavy storms, which, while they somewhat lower the temperature,
+      increase the unhealthiness of the region. The worst portion of the valley
+      is its southern extremity, where the climate is only tolerable during
+      three months of the year. From March to November the heat is excessive;
+      dust-storms prevail; there are dangerous dews at night; and with the
+      inundation, which commences in April, a sickly time sets in, which causes
+      all the wealthier classes to withdraw from the country till the stagnant
+      water, which the swell always leaves behind it, has dried up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the whole, the climate of the Empire belonged to the warmer class of
+      the climates which are called temperate. In a few parts only, indeed, as
+      in the Indus valley, along the coast from the mouth of the Indus to that
+      of the Tigris, in Lower Babylonia and the adjoining portion of Susiana, in
+      Southern Palestine, and in Egypt, was frost absolutely unknown; while in
+      many places, especially in the high mountainous regions, the winters were
+      bitterly severe; and in all the more elevated portions of the Empire, as
+      in Phrygia and Cappadocia, in Azerbijan, on the great Iranian plateau, and
+      again in the district about Kashgar and Yarkand, there was a prolonged
+      period of sharp and bracing weather. But the summer warmth of almost the
+      whole Empire was great, the thermometer probably ranging in most places
+      from 90° to 120° during the months of June, July, August, and September.
+      The springs and autumns were, except in the high mountain tracts, mild and
+      enjoyable; the Empire had few very unhealthy districts; while the range of
+      the thermometer was in most of the provinces considerable, and the
+      variations in the course of a single day and night were unusually great,
+      there was in the climate, speaking generally, nothing destructive of human
+      vigor&mdash;nothing even inimical to longevity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The vegetable productions of Persia Proper in ancient times (so far as we
+      have direct testimony on the subject) were neither numerous nor very
+      remarkable. The low coast tract supplied dates in tolerable plenty, and
+      bore in a few favored spots, corn, vines, and different kinds of
+      fruit-trees; but its general character was one of extreme barrenness. In
+      the mountain region there was an abundance of rich pasture, excellent
+      grapes were grown, and fruit-trees of almost every sort, except the olive,
+      flourished. One fruit-tree, regarded as indigenous in the country,
+      acquired a special celebrity, and was known to the Romans as the persica,
+      whence the German Pfirsche, the French peche, and our &ldquo;peach.&rdquo; Citrons,
+      which grew in few places, were also a Persian fruit. Further, Persia
+      produced a coarse kind of silphium or assafoetida; it was famous for its
+      walnuts, which were distinguished by the epithet of &ldquo;royal&rdquo;; and it
+      supplied to the pharmacopeia of Greece and Rome a certain number of herbs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The account of Persian vegetable products which we derive from antiquity
+      is no doubt very incomplete; and it is necessary to supplement it from the
+      observations of modern travellers. These persons tell us that, while Fars
+      and Kerman are ill-supplied with forest-trees, they yet produce in places
+      oaks, planes, chenars or sycamores, poplars, willows, pinasters,
+      cypresses, acacias, fan-palms, konars, and junipers. Among shrubs, they
+      bear the wild fig, the wild almond, the tamarisk, the myrtle, the box, the
+      rhododendron, the camel&rsquo;s thorn, the gum tragacanth, the caper plant, the
+      benneh, the blackberry, and the liquorice-plant. They boast a great
+      abundance of fruit-trees&mdash;as date-bearing palms, lemons, oranges,
+      pomegranates, vines, peaches, nectarines, apricots, quinces, pears,
+      apples, plums, figs, cherries, mulberries, barberries, walnuts, almonds,
+      and pistachio-nuts. The kinds of grain chiefly cultivated are wheat,
+      barley, millet, rice, and Indian corn or maize, which has been imported
+      into the country from America. Pulse, beans, sesame, madder, henna,
+      cotton, opium, tobacco, and indigo, are also grown in some places. The
+      three last-named, and maize or Indian corn, are of comparatively recent
+      introduction; but of the remainder it may be doubted whether there is a
+      single one which was unknown to the ancient inhabitants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among Persian indigenous animals may be enumerated the lion, the bear, the
+      wild ass, the stag, the antelope, the ibex or wild goat, the wild boar,
+      the hyena, the jackal, the wolf, the fox, the hare, the porcupine, the
+      otter, the jerboa, the ichneumon, and the marmot. The lion appears to be
+      rare, occurring only in some parts of the mountains. The ichneumon is
+      confined to the Deshtistan. The antelope, the wild boar, the wolf, the
+      fox, the jackal, the porcupine, and the jerboa are common. Wild asses are
+      found only on the northern side of the mountains, towards the salt desert.
+      In this tract they are frequently seen, both singly and in herds, and are
+      hunted by the natives, who regard their flesh as a great delicacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most remarkable of the Persian birds are the eagle, the vulture, the
+      cormorant, the falcon, the bustard, the pheasant, the heath-cock, the
+      red-legged partridge, the small gray partridge, the pin tailed grouse, the
+      sand-grouse, the francolin, the wild swan, the flamingo, the stork, the
+      bittern, the oyster-catcher, the raven, the hooded crow, and the cuckoo.
+      Besides these, the lakes boast all the usual kinds of water-fowl, as
+      herons, ducks, snipe, teal, etc.; the gardens and groves abound with
+      blackbirds, thrushes, and nightingales; curlews and peewits are seen
+      occasionally; while pigeons, starlings, crows, magpies, larks, sparrows,
+      and swallows are common. The francolin is hunted by men on foot in the
+      country between Shiraz and Kerman, and is taken by the hand after a few
+      flights. The oyster-catcher, which is a somewhat rare bird, has been
+      observed only on Lake Neyriz. The bustard occurs both in the low plain
+      along the coast, and on the high plateau, where it is captured by means of
+      hawks. The pheasant and the heath-cock (the latter a black species spotted
+      with white) are found in the woods near Failyun. The sand-grouse and the
+      pin-tailed grouse belong to the eastern portion of the country, the
+      portion known anciently as Carmania or &ldquo;the hot region.&rdquo; The other kinds
+      are diffused pretty generally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shores and rivers of Persia Proper supplied the people very
+      plentifully with fish. The ancient writers tell us that the inhabitants of
+      the coast tract lived almost wholly on a fish diet. The Indian Sea appears
+      in those days to have abounded with whales, which were not unfrequently
+      cast upon the shores, affording a mine of wealth to the natives. The great
+      ribs were used as beams in the formation of huts, while the jaws served as
+      doors and the smaller bones as planking. Dolphins also abounded in the
+      Persian waters; together with many other fish of less bulk, which were
+      more easy to capture. On these smaller fish, which they caught in nets,
+      the maritime inhabitants subsisted principally. They had also an unfailing
+      resource in the abundance of oysters, and other shell-fish along their
+      coast&mdash;the former of excellent quality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the interior, though the lakes, being salt or brackish, had no
+      piscatory stores, the rivers were, for the most part, it would seem, well
+      provided; at least, good fish are still found in many of the streams, both
+      small and large; and in some they are exceedingly plentiful. Modern
+      travellers fail to distinguish the different kinds; but we may presume
+      that they are not very unlike those of the adjoining Media, which appear
+      to be trout, carp, barbel, dace, bleak, and gudgeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reptiles of Persia Proper are not numerous. They are chiefly
+      tortoises, lizards, frogs, land-snakes, and water-snakes. The land-snakes
+      are venomous, but their poison is not of a very deadly character; and
+      persons who have been bitten by them, if properly treated, generally
+      recover. The lizards are of various sizes, some quite small, others more
+      than three feet long, and covered with a coarse rough skin like that of a
+      toad. They have the character of being venomous, and even dangerous to
+      life; but it may be doubted whether they are not, like our toads and
+      newts, in reality perfectly harmless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The traveller in Persia suffers less from reptiles than from insects.
+      Scorpions abound in all parts of the country, and, infesting houses,
+      furniture, and clothes, cause perpetual annoyance. Mosquitoes swarm in
+      certain places and seasons, preventing sleep and irritating the traveller
+      almost beyond endurance. A poisonous spider, a sort of tarantula, is said
+      to occur in some localities; and Chardin further mentions a kind of
+      centipede, the bite of which, according to him, is fatal. To the
+      sufferings which these creatures cause, must be added a constant annoyance
+      from those more vulgar forms of insect life which detract from the
+      delights of travel even in Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persia, moreover, suffers no less than Babylonia and Media, from the
+      ravages of locusts. Constantly, when the wind is from the south-east,
+      there cross from the Arabian coast clouds of these destructive insects,
+      whose numbers darken the air as they move, in flight after flight, across
+      the desert to the spots where nature or cultivation has clothed the earth
+      with verdure. The Deshtistan, or low country, is, of course, most exposed
+      to their attacks, but they are far from being confined to that region. The
+      interior, as far as Shiraz itself, suffers terribly from this scourge,
+      which produces scarcity, or even famine, when (as often happens) it is
+      repeated year after year. The natives at such times are reduced to feeding
+      on the locusts themselves; a diet which they do not relish, but to which
+      necessity compels them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The locusts of Persia Proper are said to be of two kinds. One, which is
+      regarded as bred in the country, bears the name of <i>missri</i>, being
+      identified with the locust of Egypt. The other, which is thought to be
+      blown over from Arabia, and thus to cross the sea, is known as the <i>melelch
+      deriai</i>, or &ldquo;sea-locust.&rdquo; The former is regarded as especially
+      destructive to the crops, the latter to the shrubs and trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The domestic animals in use at the present day within the provinces of
+      Fars and Kerman are identical with those employed in the neighboring
+      country of Media, and will need only a very few words of notice here. The
+      ordinary horse of the country is the Turcoman, a large, strong, but
+      somewhat clumsy animal, possessed of remarkable powers of endurance; but
+      in the Deshtistan the Arabian breed prevails, and travellers tell us that
+      in this region horses are produced which fall but little short of the most
+      admired coursers of Nejd. Cows and oxen are somewhat rare, beef being
+      little eaten, and such cattle being only kept for the supply of the dairy,
+      and for purposes of agriculture. Sheep and goats are abundant, and
+      constitute the chief wealth of the inhabitants; the goat is, on the whole,
+      preferred, and both goats and sheep are generally of a black or brown
+      color. The sheep of Kerman are small and short-legged; they produce a wool
+      of great softness and delicacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is probable that in ancient times the domestic animals of the country
+      were nearly the same as at the present day. The statement of Xenophon,
+      that anciently a horse was a rarity in Persia Proper, is contradicted by
+      the great bulk of the early writers, who tell us that the Persians were
+      from the first expert riders, and that their country was peculiarly well
+      fitted for the breeding of horses. Their camels, sheep, goats, asses, and
+      oxen, are also expressly mentioned by the Greeks, who even indicate a
+      knowledge of the fact that goats were preferred to sheep by the herdsmen
+      of the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mineral treasures of the country appear to have been considerable,
+      though to what extent they were known and made use of in ancient times is
+      open to some question. Mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, red lead, and
+      orpiment are said to have been actually worked under the Persian kings;
+      and some of the other minerals were so patent and obvious, that we can
+      scarcely suppose them to have been neglected. Salt abounded in the region
+      in several shapes. It appeared in some places as rock salt, showing itself
+      in masses of vast size and various colors. In other places it covered the
+      surface of the ground for miles together with a thick incrustation, and
+      could be gathered at all seasons with little labor. It was deposited by
+      the waters of several lakes within the territory, and could be collected
+      round their edges at certain times of the year. Finally, it was held in
+      solution, both in the lakes and in many of the streams; from whose waters
+      it might have been obtained by evaporation. Bitumen and naphtha were
+      yielded by sources near Dalaki, which were certainly known to the
+      ancients. Sulphur was deposited upon the surface of the ground in places.
+      Some of the mountains contained ordinary lead; but it is not unlikely that
+      this metal escaped notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ancient Persia produced a certain number of gems. The pearls of the Gulf,
+      which have still so great a reputation, had attracted the attention of
+      adventurers before the time of Alexander, whose naval captains found a
+      regular fishery established in one of the islands. The Orientals have
+      always set a high value on this commodity; and it appears that in ancient
+      times the Gulf pearls were more highly esteemed than any others. Of hard
+      stones the only kinds that can be distinctly assigned to Persia Proper are
+      the iritis, a species of rock-crystal; the atizoe, a white stone which had
+      a pleasant odor; the mithrax, a gem of many hues, the nipparene, which
+      resembled ivory; and the the lycardios or mule, which was in special favor
+      among the natives of the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this account of the products of Persia Proper we have now to pass to
+      those of the Empire in general&mdash;a wide subject, which it will be
+      impossible to treat here with any completeness, owing to the limits to
+      which the present work is necessarily confined. In order to bring the
+      matter within reasonable compass, the reader may be referred in the first
+      instance to the account which was given in a former volume of the products
+      of the empire of Babylon; and the enquiry may then be confined to those
+      regions which were subject to Persia, but not contained within the limits
+      of the Fourth Monarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the animals belonging to these regions, the following are especially
+      noticeable:&mdash;The tiger, the elephant, the hippopotamus, the
+      crocodile, the monitor, the two-humped camel, the Angora goat, the elk,
+      the monkey, and the spotted hysena, or <i>Felis chaus</i>. The tiger,
+      which is entirely absent from Mesopotamia, and unknown upon the plateau of
+      Iran, abounds in the low tract between the Elburz and the Caspian, in the
+      flat region about the Sea of Aral, and in the Indus valley. The elephant
+      was, perhaps, anciently an inhabitant of Upper Egypt, where the island of
+      Elephantine remained an evidence of the fact. It was also in Persian times
+      a denizen of the Indus valley, though perhaps only in a domesticated
+      state. The hippopotamus, unknown in India, was confined to the single
+      province of Egypt, where it was included among the animals which were the
+      objects of popular worship. The crocodile&mdash;likewise a sacred animal
+      to the Egyptians&mdash;frequented both the Nile and the Indus. Monitors,
+      which are a sort of diminutive crocodiles, were of two kinds: one, the <i>Lacerta
+      Nilotica</i>, was a water animal, and was probably found only in Egypt;
+      the other, <i>Lacerta scincus</i>, frequented dry and sandy spots, and
+      abounded in North Africa and Syria, as well as in the Nile valley. The
+      two-humped camel belonged to Bactria, where he was probably indigenous,
+      but was widely spread over the Empire, on account of his great strength
+      and powers of endurance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Angora goat is, perhaps, scarcely a distinct species. If not identical
+      with the ordinary wild goat of Persia and Mesopotamia (<i>Capra cegagrus</i>),
+      he is at any rate closely allied to it; and it is possible that all his
+      peculiar characteristics may be the effect of climate. He has a soft,
+      white, silky fleece, very long, divided down the back by a strong line of
+      separation, and falling on either side in beautiful spiral ringlets; his
+      fleece weighs from two to four pounds. It is of nearly uniform, length,
+      and averages from five to five and a half inches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elk is said to inhabit Armenia, Affghanistan, and the lower part of
+      the valley of the Indus; but it is perhaps not certain that he is really
+      to be found in the two latter regions. Monkeys abound in Eastern Oabul and
+      the adjoining parts of India. They may have also existed formerly in Upper
+      Egypt. The spotted hyena, <i>Felis chaus</i> (<i>Canis crocuta</i> of
+      Linnaeus), is an Egyptian animal, inhabiting principally the hills on the
+      western side of the Nile. In appearance it is like a large cat, with a
+      tuft of long black hair at the extremities of its ears&mdash;a feature
+      which it has in common with the lynx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the rarer birds of the Empire may be mentioned the ostrich, which
+      occurred in Mesopotamia; parrots, which were found in Cabul and the
+      Punjab; ibises, which abounded in Egypt, and in the Delta of the Indus,
+      the great vulture (Vultur cinereus), which inhabited the Taurus, the
+      Indian owl (<i>Athena Indica</i>), the spoonbill (<i>Platalea nudifrons</i>);
+      the benno (<i>Ardea bubulcus</i>), and the sicsac (<i>Charadrius
+      melanocephalus</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most valuable of the fish belonging to the Persian seas and rivers
+      were the pearl oyster of the Gulf, and the murex of the Mediterranean,
+      which furnished the famous purple dye of Tyre. After these may be placed
+      the sturgeon and sterlet of the Caspian, the silurus of the Sea of Aral,
+      the Aleppo eel, and the palla, a small but excellent fish, which is
+      captured in the Indus during the flood season. The Indian Ocean and the
+      Persian Gulf, as we have seen, were visited by whales; dolphins,
+      porpoises, cod, and mullet abounded in the same seas; the large rivers
+      generally contained barbel and carp; while some of them, together with
+      many of the smaller streams, supplied trout of a good flavor. The Nile had
+      some curious fish peculiar to itself, as the oxyrinchus, the lepidotus,
+      the Perca Nilotica, the Silurus Schilbe Niloticus, the Silurus carmuth and
+      others. Great numbers of fish, mostly of the same species with those of
+      the Nile, were also furnished by the Lake Moeris; and from these a
+      considerable revenue was derived by the Great Kings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the more remarkable of the reptiles which the Empire comprised
+      within its limits may be noticed&mdash;besides the great saurians already
+      mentioned among the larger animals&mdash;the Nile and Euphrates turtles (<i>Trionyx
+      Egypticus</i> and <i>Trionyx Euphraticus</i>), iguanas (<i>Stellio
+      vulgaris</i> and <i>Stellio spinipes</i>), geckos, especially the Egyptian
+      house gecko (<i>O. lobatus</i>), snakes, such as the asp (<i>Coluber haje</i>)
+      and the horned snake (<i>Coluber cerastes</i>), and the chameleon. The
+      Egyptian turtle is a large species, sometimes exceeding three feet in
+      length. It is said to feed on the young of the crocodile. Both it and the
+      Euphrates turtle are of the soft kind, i.e., of the kind which has not the
+      shell complete, but unites the upper and under portions by a coriaceous
+      membrane. The turtle of the Euphrates is of moderate size, not exceeding a
+      a length of two feet. It lives in the river, and on warm days suns itself
+      on the sandbanks with which the stream abounds. It is active, strong,
+      violent, and passionate. When laid on its back it easily recovers itself.
+      If provoked, it will snap at sticks and other objects, and endeavor to
+      tear them to pieces. It is of an olive-green color, with large irregular
+      greenish black spots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Iguanas are found in Egypt, in Syria, and elsewhere. The most common kind
+      (<i>Stellio vulgaris</i>) does not exceed a foot in length, and is of an
+      olive color, shaded with black. It is persecuted and killed by the
+      Mahometans, because they regard its favorite attitude as a derisive
+      imitation of their own attitude of prayer. There is another species, also
+      Egyptian, which is of a much larger size, and of a grass-green color. This
+      is called <i>Stellio spinipes</i>: it has a length of from two to three
+      feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gecko is a kind of nocturnal lizard. Its eyes are large, and the pupil
+      is extremely contractile. It hides itself during the day, and is lively
+      only at nights. It haunts rooms, especially kitchens, in Egypt, where it
+      finds the insects which form its ordinary food. Its feet constitute its
+      most marked characteristic. The five toes are enlarged and furnished with
+      an apparatus of folds, which, by some peculiar action, enable it to adhere
+      to perfectly smooth surfaces, to ascend perpendicular walls, cross
+      ceilings, or hang suspended for hours on the under side of leaves. The
+      Egyptians called it the abu burs, or &ldquo;father of leprosy,&rdquo; and there is a
+      wide-spread belief in its poisonous character; but modern naturalists
+      incline to regard the belief as unfounded, and to place the gecko among
+      reptiles which are absolutely harmless. <a href="#linkimage-0004">[PLATE
+      XXVIII., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate028.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxviii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The asp of Egypt (<i>Coluber haje</i>) is a species of cobra. It is a
+      large snake, varying from three to six feet in length, and is extremely
+      venomous. It haunts gardens, where it is of great use, feeding on mice,
+      frogs, and various small reptiles. It has the power of greatly dilating
+      the skin of the neck, and this it does when angered in a way that is very
+      remarkable. Though naturally irritable, it is easily tamed; and the
+      serpent-charmers of the East make it the object of their art more often
+      than any other species. <a href="#linkimage-0004">[PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 2.]</a>
+      After extracting the fangs or burning out the poison-bag with a red-hot
+      iron, the charmer trains the animal by the shrill sounds of a small flute,
+      and it is soon perfectly docile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cerastes is also employed occasionally by the snake-charmers. It has
+      two long and thin excrescences above the eyes, whereto the name of &ldquo;horns&rdquo;
+       has been given: they stand erect, leaning a little backwards; no
+      naturalist has as yet discovered their use. The cerastes is of a very pale
+      brown color, and is spotted with large, unequal, and irregularly-placed
+      spots. Its bite is exceedingly dangerous, since it possesses a virulent
+      poison; and, being in the habit of nearly burying itself in the sand,
+      which is of the same color with itself, it is the more difficult of
+      avoidance. Its size also favors its escaping notice, since in length it
+      rarely much exceeds a foot. <a href="#linkimage-0004">[PLATE XXVIII., Fig.
+      3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chameleon has in all ages attracted the attention of mankind. It is
+      found in Egypt, and in many others parts of Africa, in Georgia, and in
+      India. The power of changing color which it possesses is not really its
+      most remarkable characteristic. Far more worthy of notice are its slow
+      pace, extraordinary form, awkward movements, vivacity, and control of eye,
+      and marvellous rapidity of tongue. It is the most grotesque of reptiles.
+      With protruding and telescopic eyes, that move at will in the most
+      opposite directions, with an ungainly head, a cold, dry, strange-looking
+      skin, and a prehensile tail, the creature slowly steals along a branch or
+      twig, scarcely distinguishable from the substance along which it moves,
+      and scarcely seeming to move at all, until it has come within reach of its
+      prey. Then suddenly, with a motion rapid as that of the most agile bird,
+      the long cylindrical and readily extensile tongue is darted forth with
+      unerring aim, and the prey is seized and swallowed in a single moment of
+      time. The ordinary color of the chameleon is a pale olive-green. This
+      sometimes fades to a sort of ashen-gray, while sometimes it warms to a
+      yellowish-brown, on which are seen faint spots of red. Modern naturalists,
+      for the most part, attribute the changes to the action of the lungs, which
+      is itself affected chiefly by the emotions of anger, desire, and fear. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0004">[PLATE XXVIII., Fig. 5.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great extent of the Empire caused its vegetable productions to include
+      almost all the forms known to the ancient world. On the one hand, the more
+      northern and more elevated regions bore pines, firs, larches, oaks, birch,
+      beech, ash, ilex, and junipers, together with the shrubs and flowers of
+      the cooler temperate regions; on the other hand, the southern tracts grew
+      palms of various kinds, mangoes, tamarind-trees, lemons, oranges, jujubes,
+      mimosas, and sensitive plants. Between these extremes of tropical and
+      cold-temperate products, the Empire embraced an almost infinite variety of
+      trees, shrubs, and flowers. The walnut and the Oriental plane grew to
+      avast size in many places. Poplars, willows, fig-mulberries, konars,
+      cedars, cypresses, acacias, were common. Bananas, egg-plants,
+      locust-trees, banyans, terebinths, the gum-styrax, the gum-tragacanth, the
+      assafoetida plant, the arbor vitse, the castor-oil plant, the Judas-tree,
+      and other somewhat rare forms, sprang up side by side with the
+      pomegranate, the oleander, the pistachio-nut, the myrtle, the bay, the
+      laurel, the mulberry, the rhododendron, and the arbutus. The Empire grew
+      all the known sorts of grain, and almost all the known fruits. Among its
+      various productions of this class, it is only possible to select for
+      notice a few which were especially remarkable either for their rarity or
+      for their excellent quality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ancients celebrated the wheat of AEolis, the dates of Babylon, the
+      citrons of Media, the Persian peach, the grapes of Carmania, the Hyrcanian
+      fig, the plum of Damascus, the cherries of Pontus, the mulberries of Egypt
+      and of Cyprus, the silphium of Gyrene, the wine of Helbon, the wild-grape
+      of Syria. It is not unlikely that to these might have been added as many
+      other vegetable products of first-rate excellence, had the ancients
+      possessed as good a knowledge of the countries included within the Empire
+      as the moderns. At present, the mulberries of Khiva, the apricots of
+      Bokhara, the roses of Mexar, the quinces and melons of Isfahan, the grapes
+      of Kasvin and Shii-az, the pears of Natunz, the dates of Dalaki, have a
+      wide-spread reputation, which appears in most cases to be well deserved.
+      On the whole, it is certain that for variety and excellence the vegetable
+      products of the Persian Empire will bear comparison with those of any
+      other state or community that has as yet existed, either in the ancient or
+      the modern world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two only of these products seem to deserve a longer description. The
+      Cyrenaic silphium, of which we hear so much, as constituting the main
+      wealth of that province, was valued chiefly for its medicinal qualities. A
+      decoction from its leaves was used to hasten the worst kind of labors; its
+      root and a juice which flowed from it were employed in a variety of
+      maladies. The plant, which is elaborately described by Theophrastus,
+      appears to have been successfully identified by modern travellers in the
+      Cyrenaica, who see it in the drias or derias of the Arabs, an
+      umbelliferous plant, which grows to a height of about three feet, has a
+      deleterious effect on the camels that browse on it, and bears a striking
+      resemblance to the representations of the ancient silphium upon coins and
+      medals. This plant grows only in the tract between Merj and Derna&mdash;the
+      very heart of the old silphium country, while that it has medicinal
+      properties is certain from its effects upon animals; there can thus be
+      little doubt that it is the silphium of the ancients, somewhat
+      degenerated, owing to want of cultivation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptian byblus or papyrus (<i>Cyperus papyrus</i>) was perhaps the
+      most valuable of all the vegetables of the Empire. The plant was a tall
+      smooth reed of a triangular shape. It grew to the height of ten or fifteen
+      feet, and terminated in a tuft or plume of leaves and flowers. Though
+      indigenous in the country, it was the subject of careful cultivation, and
+      was grown in irrigated ground, or in such lands as were naturally marshy.
+      The root of the plant was eaten, while from its stem was made the famous
+      Egyptian paper. The manufacture of the papyrus was as follows; The outer
+      rind having been removed, there was exposed a laminated interior,
+      consisting of a number of successive layers of inner cuticle, generally
+      about twenty. These were carefully separated from one another by the point
+      of a needle, and thus were obtained a number of strips of the raw
+      material, which were then arranged in rows, covered with a paste, and
+      crossed at right angles by another set of strips placed over them, after
+      which the whole was converted into paper by means of a strong pressure. A
+      papyrus roll was made by uniting together a greater or less number of such
+      sheets. The best paper was made from the inmost layers of cuticle. The
+      outer rind of the papyrus was converted into ropes; and this fabric was
+      found to be peculiarly adapted for immersion in water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mineral treasures of the Empire were various and abundant. It has been
+      noticed already that Persia Proper, if we include in it Carmania,
+      possessed mines of gold, silver, copper, iron, red lead, orpiment, and
+      salt, yielding also bitumen, naphtha, sulphur, and most probably common
+      lead. We are further informed by ancient writers that Drangiana, or
+      Sarangia, furnished the rare and valuable mineral tin, without which
+      copper could not be hardened into bronze; that Armenia yielded emery, so
+      necessary for the working and polishing of gems; that the mountains and
+      mines of the Empire supplied almost all the varieties of useful and
+      precious stones; and that thus there was scarcely a mineral known to and
+      required by the ancients for the purposes of their life which the Great
+      King could not command without having recourse to others than his own
+      subjects. It may be likewise noticed that the more important were very
+      abundant, being found in many places and in large quantities. Gold was
+      furnished from the mountains and deserts of Thibet and India, from the
+      rivers of Lydia, and probably from other places where it is still found,
+      as Armenia, Cabul, and the neighborhood of Meshed. Silver, which was the
+      general medium of exchange in Persia, must have been especially plentiful.
+      It was probably yielded, not only by the Kerman mines, but also by those
+      of Armenia, Asia Minor, and the Elburz. Copper was obtained in great
+      abundance from Cyprus, as well as from Carmania; and it may have been also
+      derived, as it is now in very large quantities, from Armenia. Iron, really
+      the most precious of all metals, existed within the Persian territory in
+      the shape of huge boulders, as well as in nodules and in the form of
+      ironstone. Lead was procurable from Bactria, Armenia, Korman, and many
+      parts of Affghanistan; orpiment from Bactria, Kerman, and the Hazareh
+      country; antimony from Armenia, Affghanistan, and Media; hornblende,
+      quartz, talc, and asbestos, from various places in the Taurus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all necessary minerals probably none was so plentiful and so widely
+      diffused as salt. It was not only in Persia Proper that nature had
+      bestowed this commodity with a lavish hand&mdash;there was scarcely a
+      province of the Empire which did not possess it in superfluous abundance.
+      Large tracts were covered by it in North Africa, in Media, in Carmania,
+      and in Lower Babylonia. In Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria, Palestine, and
+      other places, it could be obtained from lakes. In Kerman, and again in
+      Palestine, it showed itself in the shape of large masses, not
+      inappropriately termed &ldquo;mountains.&rdquo; Finally, in India it was the chief
+      material of a long mountain-range, which is capable of supplying the whole
+      world with salt for many ages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bitumen and naptha were also very widely diffused. At the eastern foot of
+      the Caucasus, where it subsides into the Caspian Sea, at various points in
+      the great Mesopotamian plain, in the Deshtistan or low country of Persia
+      Proper, in the Bakh-tiyari mountains, and again in the distant Jordan
+      valley, these two inseparable products are to be found, generally united
+      with indications of volcanic action, present or recent. The bitumen is of
+      excellent quality, and was largely employed by the ancients. The naphtha
+      is of two kinds, black naphtha or petroleum, and white naphtha, which is
+      much preferred to the other. The bitumen-pits also, in some places,
+      yielded salt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another useful mineral with which the Persians were very plentifully
+      supplied, was sulphur. Sulphur is found in Persia Proper, in Carmania, on
+      the coast of Mekran, in Azerbijan, in the Elburz, on the Iranian plateau,
+      in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, and in very large quantities near Mosul.
+      Here it is quarried in great blocks, which are conveyed to considerable
+      distances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Excellent stone for building purposes was obtainable in most parts of the
+      Empire. Egypt furnished an inexhaustible supply of the best possible
+      granite; marbles of various kinds, compact sandstone, limestone, and other
+      useful sorts were widely diffused; and basalt was procurable from some of
+      the outlying ranges of Taurus. In the neighborhood of Nineveh, and in much
+      of the Mesopotamian region, there was abundance of grey alabaster, and a
+      better kind was quarried near Damascus. A gritty silicious rock on the
+      banks of the Euphrates, a little above Hit, was suitable for mill-stones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gems furnished by the various provinces of the Empire are too numerous
+      for mention. They included, it must be remembered, all the kinds which
+      have already been enumerated among the mineral products of the earlier
+      Monarchies. Among them, a principal place must, one would think, have been
+      occupied by the turquoise&mdash;the gem, par excellence, of modern Persia&mdash;although,
+      strange to say, there is no certain mention of it among the literary
+      remains of antiquity. This lovely stone is produced largely by the mines
+      at Nishapur in the Elburz, and is furnished also in less abundance and
+      less beauty by a mine in Kerman, and another near Khojend. It is noticed
+      by an Arabian author as early as the twelfth century of our era. A modern
+      writer on gems supposes that it is mentioned, though not named, by
+      Theophrastus; but this view scarcely seems to be tenable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the gems of most value which the Empire certainly produced were the
+      emerald, the green ruby, the red ruby, the opal, the sapphire, the
+      amethyst, the carbuncle, the jasper, the lapis lazuli, the sard, the
+      agate, and the topaz. Emeralds were found in Egypt, Media, and Cyprus;
+      green rubies in Bactria; common or red rubies in Caria; opals in Egypt,
+      Cyprus, and Asia Minor; sapphires in Cyprus; amethysts also in Cyprus, and
+      moreover in Egypt, Galatia, and Armenia; carbuncles in Caria; jaspers in
+      Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Persia Proper; the lapis lazuli in Cyprus, Egypt,
+      and Media; the sard in Babylonia; the agate in Carmania, Susiana, and
+      Armenia; and the topaz or chrysoprase in Upper Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tales which are told of enormous emeralds are undoubtedly fictions,
+      the material which passed for that precious substance being really in
+      these cases either green jasper or (more probably) glass. But lapis lazuli
+      and agate seem to have existed within the Empire in huge masses. Whole
+      cliffs of the former overhang the river Kashkar in Kaferistan; and the
+      myrrhine vases of antiquity which were (it is probable) of agate, and came
+      mainly from Carmania, seem to have been of a great size.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We may conclude this review by noticing, among stones of less consequence
+      produced within the Empire, jet, which was so called from being found at
+      the mouth of the river Gagis in Lycia, garnets, which are common in
+      Armenia, and beryl, which is a product of the same country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. CHARACTER, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, DRESS, ETC., OF THE PEOPLE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river
+      a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher
+      than the other, and the higher came up last.&rdquo;&mdash;Dan. viii. 3.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ethnic identity of the Persian people with the Medes, and the
+      inclusion of both nations in that remarkable division of the human race
+      which is known to ethnologers as the Ipanic or Arian, have been maintained
+      in a former volume. To the arguments there adduced it seems unnecessary to
+      add anything in this place, since at the present day neither of the two
+      positions appears to be controverted. It is admitted generally, not only
+      that the Persians were of the same stock with the Medes, but that they
+      formed, together with the Medes and a few other tribes and peoples of less
+      celebrity, a special branch of the Indo-European family&mdash;a branch to
+      which the name of Arian may be assigned, not merely for convenience sake,
+      but on grounds of actual tradition and history. Undistinguished in the
+      earlier annals of their race, the Medes and Persians became towards the
+      eighth or seventh century before our era, its leading and most important
+      tribes. Closely united together, with the superiority now inclining to
+      one, now to the other, they claimed and exercised a lordship over all the
+      other members of the stock, and not only over them, but over various alien
+      races also. They had qualities which raised them above their fellows, and
+      a civilization, which was not, perhaps, very advanced, but was still not
+      wholly contemptible. Such details as could be collected, either from
+      ancient authors, or from the extant remains, of the character, mode of
+      life, customs, etc., of the Medes, have already found a place in this
+      work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The greater part of what was there said will apply also to the Persians.
+      The information, however, which we possess, with respect to this latter
+      people, is so much more copious than that which has come down to us with
+      regard to the Medes, that, without repeating anything from the former
+      place, our materials will probably enable us to give to the present
+      chapter considerable dimensions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woodcuts of the preceding volume will have made the reader
+      sufficiently familiar with the physiognomy of the Persians, or, at any
+      rate, with the representation of it which has come down to us upon the
+      Persian monuments. It may be remarked that the type of face and head is
+      uniform upon all of them, and offers a remarkable contrast to the type
+      assigned to themselves by the Assyrians, from whom the Arians evidently
+      adopted the general idea of bas-reliefs, as well as their general mode of
+      treating subjects upon them. The novelty of the physiognomy is a strong
+      argument in favor of its truthfulness; and this is further confirmed by
+      the evidence which we have, that the Persian artists aimed at representing
+      the varieties of the human race, and succeeded fairly in rendering them.
+      Varieties of, physiognomy are represented upon the bas-reliefs with much
+      care, and sometimes with remarkable success, as the annexed head of a
+      negro, taken from one of the royal tombs, will sufficiently indicate. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0005">[PLATE XXIX., Fig.1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate029.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxix. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      According to Herodotus, the skulls of the Persians were extraordinarily
+      thin and weak&mdash;a phenomenon for which he accounted by the national
+      habit of always covering the head. There does not seem to be in reality
+      any ground for supposing that such a practice would at all tend to produce
+      such a result. If, therefore, we regard the fact of thinness as
+      established, we can only view it as an original feature in the physical
+      type of the race. Such a feature would imply, on the supposition that the
+      heads were of the ordinary size, a large brain-cavity, and so an unusual
+      volume of brain, which is generally a concomitant of high intellectual
+      power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians seem, certainly, to have been quick and lively, keen-witted,
+      capable of repartee, ingenious, and, for Orientals, far-sighted. They had
+      fancy and imagination, a relish for poetry and art, and they were not
+      without a certain power of political combination. But we cannot justly
+      ascribe to them any high degree of intellectual excellence. The religious
+      ideas which they held in common with the Medes were, indeed, of a more
+      elevated character than is usual with races not enlightened by special
+      revelation; but these ideas were the common stock of the Iranic peoples,
+      and were inherited by the Persians from a remote ancestry, not excogitated
+      by themselves. Their taste for art, though marked, was neither pure nor
+      high. We shall have to consider, in a future chapter, the architecture and
+      mimetic art of the people to weigh their merits in these respects, and, at
+      the same time, to note their deficiencies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without anticipating the exact verdict then to be pronounced, we may say
+      at once that there is nothing in the remains of the Persian architecture
+      and sculpture that have come down to us indicative of any remarkable
+      artistic genius; nothing that even places them on a par with the best
+      works of the kind produced by Orientals. Again, if the great work of
+      Firdausi represents to us, as it probably does, the true spirit of the
+      ancient poetry of the Persians, we must conclude that, in the highest
+      department of art, their efforts were but of moderate merit. A tone of
+      exaggeration, an imagination exuberant and unrestrained, a preference for
+      glitter over solid excellence, a love of far-fetched conceits,
+      characterize the Shahnameh; and, though we may fairly ascribe something of
+      this to the idiosyncrasy of the poet, still, after we have made all due
+      allowance upon this score, the conviction presses upon us that there was a
+      childish and grotesque character in the great mass of the old Persian
+      poetry, which marks it as the creation of moderate rather than of high
+      intellectual power, and prevents us from regarding it with the respect
+      with which we view the labors of the Greeks and Romans, or, again, of the
+      Hebrews, in this department. A want of seriousness, a want of reality,
+      and, again, a want of depth, characterize the poetry of Iran, whose bards
+      do not touch the chords which rouse what is noblest and highest in our
+      nature. They give us sparkle, prettiness, quaint and ingenious fancies,
+      grotesque marvels, an inflated kind of human heroism; but they have none
+      of the higher excellencies of the poetic art, none of the divine fire
+      which renders the true poet, and the true prophet, one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among moral qualities, we must assign to the Persians as their most marked
+      characteristics, at any rate in the earlier times, courage, energy, and a
+      regard for truth. The valor of their troops in the great combats of
+      Platsea and Thermopylae extorted the admiration of their enemies, who have
+      left on record their belief that, &ldquo;in boldness and warlike spirit, the
+      Persians were not a whit behind the Greeks,&rdquo; and that their defeat was
+      &ldquo;wholly owing to the inferiority of their equipment and training.&rdquo; Without
+      proper shields, with little defensive armor, wielding only short swords
+      and lances that were scarcely more than javelins, they dashed themselves
+      upon the serried ranks of the Spartans, seizing the huge spear-shafts of
+      these latter with their hands, striving to break them, and to force a way
+      in. No conduct could have been braver than this, which the modern
+      historian well compares with brilliant actions of the Romans and the
+      Swiss. The Persians thoroughly deserved to be termed (as they are termed
+      by AEschylus), a &ldquo;valiant-minded people;&rdquo; they had boldness, elan, dash,
+      and considerable tenacity and stubbornness; no nation of Asia or Africa
+      was able to stand against them; if they found their masters in the Greeks,
+      it was owing, as the Greeks themselves tell us, to the superiority of
+      Hellenic arms, equipment, and, above all, of Hellenic discipline, which
+      together rendered the most desperate valor unavailing, when it lacked the
+      support of scientific organization and united simultaneous movement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The energy of the Persians during the earlier years of their ascendancy is
+      no less remarkable than their courage. AEschylus speaks of a mysterious
+      fate which forced them to engage continually in a long series of wars, to
+      take delight in combats of horse, and in the siege and overthrow of
+      cities. Herodotus, in a tone that is not very different, makes Xerxes,
+      soon after his accession, represent himself as bound by the examples of
+      his forefathers to engage his country in some great enterprise, and not
+      suffer the military spirit of his people to decay through want of
+      employment. We shall find, when we come to consider the history of the
+      Empire, that, for eighty years, under four sovereigns, the course
+      indicated by these two writers was in fact pursued&mdash;that war followed
+      on war, expedition on expedition&mdash;the active energy of sovereign and
+      people carrying them on, without rest or pause, in a career of conquest
+      that has few parallels in the history of Oriental nations. In the
+      subsequent period, this spirit is less marked; but, at all times, a
+      certain vigor and activity has characterized the race, distinguishing it
+      in a very marked way from the dreamy and listless Hindus upon the one
+      hand, and the apathetic Turks upon the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian love of truth was a favorite theme with the Greeks, who were,
+      perhaps, the warmer in their praises from a latent consciousness of their
+      own deficiency in the virtue. According to Herodotus, the attention of
+      educators was specially directed to the point, and each young Persian was
+      taught by his preceptors three main things:&mdash;&ldquo;To ride, to draw the
+      bow, and to speak the truth.&rdquo; We find that, in the Zendavesta, and more
+      especially in its earliest and purest portions, truth is strenuously
+      inculcated. Ahura-Mazda himself is &ldquo;true,&rdquo; &ldquo;the father of all truth,&rdquo; and
+      his worshippers are bound to conform themselves to his image. Darius, in
+      his inscriptions, protests frequently against &ldquo;lies,&rdquo; which he seems to
+      regard as the embodiment of all evil. A love of finesse and intrigue is
+      congenital to Orientals; and, in the later period of their sway, the
+      Persians appear to have yielded to this natural inclination, and to have
+      used freely in their struggle with the Greeks the weapons of cunning and
+      deception; but, in the earlier period, a different spirit prevailed; lying
+      was then regarded as the most disgraceful act of which a man could
+      possibly be guilty truth was both admired and practised; Persian kings,
+      entrapped into a promise, stood to it firmly, however much they might wish
+      it recalled; foreign powers had never to complain that the terms of a
+      treaty were departed from; the Persians thus form an honorable exception
+      to the ordinary Asiatic character, and for general truthfulness and a
+      faithful performance of their engagements compare favorably with the
+      Greeks and Romans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian, if we may trust Herodotus, was careful to avoid debt. He had
+      a keen sense of the difficulty with which a debtor escapes subterfuge and
+      equivocation&mdash;forms, slightly disguised, of lying. To buy and sell
+      wares in a market place, to chaffer and haggle over prices, was
+      distasteful to him, as apt to involve falsity and unfairness. He was free
+      and open in speech, bold in act, generous, warm-hearted, hospitable. His
+      chief faults were an addiction to self-indulgence and luxury, a passionate
+      abandon to the feeling of the hour, whatever that might happen to be; and
+      a tameness and subservience in all his relations towards his prince, which
+      seem to moderns almost incompatible with real self-respect and manliness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The luxury of the Persians will be considered when we treat of their
+      manners. In illustration of the two other weak points of their character,
+      it may be observed that, in joy and in sorrow, they were alike immoderate;
+      in the one transported beyond all reasonable bounds, and exhibiting their
+      transports with entire unreserve and openness; in the other
+      proportionately depressed, and quite unrestrained in the expression of
+      their anxiety or misery. AEschylus&rsquo; tragedy of the &ldquo;Persae&rdquo; is, in this
+      respect, true to nature, and represents with accuracy the real habits of
+      the nation. The Persian was a stranger to the dignified reserve which has
+      commonly been affected by the more civilized among Western nations. He
+      laughed and wept, shouted and shrieked, with the unrestraint of a child,
+      who is not ashamed to lay bare his inmost feelings to the eyes of those
+      about him. Lively and excitable, he loved to give vent to every passion
+      that stirred his heart, and cared not how many witnessed his lamentations
+      or his rejoicings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The feeling of the Persian towards his king is one of which moderns can
+      with difficulty form a conception. In Persia the monarch was so much the
+      State, that patriotism itself was, as it were, swallowed up in loyalty;
+      and an absolute unquestioning submission, not only to the deliberate will,
+      but to the merest caprice of the sovereign, was, by habit and education,
+      so engrained into the nature of the people that a contrary spirit scarcely
+      ever manifested itself. In war the safety of the sovereign was the first
+      thought, and the principal care of all. The tales told of the
+      self-devotion of individuals to secure the preservation of the monarch may
+      not be true, but they indicate faithfully the actual tone of men&rsquo;s
+      sentiments about the value of the royal person. If the king suffered, all
+      was lost; if the king escaped, the greatest calamities seemed light, and
+      could be endured with patience. Uncomplaining acquiescence in all the
+      decisions of the monarch&mdash;cheerful submission to his will, whatever
+      it might chance to be&mdash;characterized the conduct of the Persians in
+      time of peace. It was here that their loyalty degenerated into parasitical
+      tameness, and became a defect instead of a virtue. The voice of
+      remonstrance, of rebuke, of warning, was unheard at the Court; and tyranny
+      was allowed to indulge unchecked in the wildest caprices and
+      extravagances. The father, whose innocent son was shot before his eyes by
+      the king in pure wantonness, instead of raising an indignant protest
+      against the crime, felicitated him on the excellence of his archery.
+      Unfortunates, bastinadoed by the royal orders, declared themselves
+      delighted, because his majesty had condescended to recollect them. A tone
+      of sycophancy and servility was thus engendered, which, sapping
+      self-respect, tended fatally to lower and corrupt the entire character of
+      the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In considering the manners and customs of the Persians, it will be
+      convenient to follow the order already observed in treating of Assyria and
+      Media&mdash;that is to say, to treat, in the first instance, of their
+      warlike, and subsequently of their peaceful usages. On the latter the
+      monuments throw considerable light; on the former, the information which
+      they supply is comparatively scanty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians, like the Medes, regarded chariots with disfavor, and
+      composed their armies almost entirely of foot and horse. The ordinary
+      dress of the foot-man was, in the earlier times, a tunic with long
+      sleeves, made of leather, and fitting rather tightly to the frame, which
+      it covered from the neck to the knee. Under this was worn a pair of
+      trousers, also of leather, and tolerably tight-fitting, especially at the
+      ankles, where they met a sort of high shoe, or low boot. The head was
+      protected by a loose round cap, apparently of felt, which projected a
+      little in front, and rose considerably above the top of the head. Round
+      the waist was worn a double girdle or belt, from which depended a short
+      sword. <a href="#linkimage-0004">[PLATE XXVIII Fig. 4.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The offensive arms of the foot-man were, a sword, a spear, and a bow. The
+      sword, which was called by the Persians <i>akinaces</i>, appears to have
+      been a short, straight weapon, suited for stabbing rather than for
+      cutting, and, in fact, not very much better than a dagger. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0005">[PLATE XXIX., Fig. 2.]</a> It was carried in a
+      sheath, and was worn suspended from the girdle on the right side. From the
+      Persepolitan sculptures it would seem not to have hung freely, but to have
+      been attached to the right thigh by a thong which passed round the knee.
+      The handle was short, and generally unprotected by a guard; but, in some
+      specimens, we see a simple cross-bar between the hilt and the blade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spear carried by the Persian foot-man was also short, or, at any rate,
+      much shorter than the Greek. To judge by the representations of guardsmen
+      on the Persepolitan sculptures, it was from six to six and a half or seven
+      feet in length. The Grecian spear was sometimes as much as twenty-one
+      feet. The Persian weapon had a short head, which appears to have been
+      flattish, and which was strengthened by a bar or ridge down the middle.
+      The shaft, which was of cornel wood, tapered gradually from bottom to top,
+      and was ornamented at its lower extremity with a ball, sometimes carved in
+      the shape of an apple or a pomegranate. <a href="#linkimage-0005">[PLATE
+      XXIX., Fig. 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian bow, according to Herodotus and Xenophon, was of unusual size.
+      According to the sculptures, it was rather short, certainly not exceeding
+      four feet. It seems to have been carried strung, either on the left
+      shoulder, with the arm passed through it, or in a bow-case slung at the
+      left side. It was considerably bent in the middle, and had the ends
+      slightly turned back. <a href="#linkimage-0006">[PLATE XXX., Fig. 1.]</a>
+      The arrows, which were of reed, tipped with metal, and feathered, were
+      carried in a quiver, which hung at the back near the left shoulder. To
+      judge from the sculptures, their length must have been about two feet and
+      a half. The arrow-heads, which were either of bronze or iron, seem to have
+      been of various shapes, the most common closely resembling the arrow-heads
+      of the Assyrians. [PLATE XXX., Fig. 3.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate030.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxx. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Other offensive weapons carried occasionally by the Persian foot-men were,
+      a battle-axe, a sling, and a knife. The battle-axe, which appears in the
+      sculptures only in one or two instances, is declared to have been a common
+      Persian weapon by Xenophon, who, upon such a point, would seem to be
+      trustworthy. The use of the sling by the Persian light-armed is quite
+      certain. It is mentioned by Curtius and Strabo, no less than by Xenophon;
+      and the last-named writer speaks with full knowledge on the subject, for
+      he witnessed the effect of the weapon in the hands of Persian slingers
+      during his return with the Ten Thousand. The only missiles which the
+      Persian slingers threw were stones; they did not, like the Rhodians, make
+      use of small lumps of lead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The knife seems also to have been a Persian weapon. Its blade appears to
+      have been slightly curved, like that of a pruning-hook. It was worn in a
+      sheath, and was probably thrust into the belt or girdle like the similar
+      weapon, half knife, half dagger, of a modern Persian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ordinary defence of the Persian against the weapons of his enemy was a
+      shield of wicker-work, which covered him almost from head to foot, and
+      which probably differed little from the wattled shield of the Assyrians.
+      <a href="#linkimage-0006">[PLATE XXX., Fig. 2.]</a> This he commonly
+      planted on the ground, supporting it, perhaps, with a crutch, while he
+      shot his arrows from behind it. Occasionally, he added to this defence the
+      protection of a coat of mail, composed either of scale armor, or of
+      quilted linen, like the corselets of the Egyptians. Armor of the former
+      kind was almost impenetrable, since the scales were of metal&mdash;iron,
+      bronze, or sometimes gold&mdash;and overlapped one another like those of a
+      fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian cavalry was armed, in the early times of the monarchy, almost
+      exactly in the same manner as their infantry. Afterwards, however a
+      considerable change seems to have been made. In the time of the younger
+      Cyrus cavalry soldiers were very fully protected. They wore helmets on
+      their heads, coats of mail about their bodies, and greaves on their legs.
+      Their chief offensive arms seem, then, to have been the short sword, the
+      javelin, and the knife. It is probable that they were without shields,
+      being sufficiently defended by their armor, which (as we have seen) was
+      almost complete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The javelin of the horseman, which was his special weapon, was a short
+      strong spear or pike, with a shaft of cornel-wood, and an iron point. It
+      was common for him to carry two such weapons, one of which he used as a
+      missile, while he retained the other in order to employ it in hand-to-hand
+      combat with the enemy. It was a stout manageable weapon, and though no
+      match for the longer and equally strong spear of the Macedonian cavalry,
+      was preferred by Xenophon to the long weak reed-lance commonly carried by
+      horse-soldiers in his day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the practice of the later Persians to protect with armor, not only
+      the horseman, but the horse. They selected for the service large and
+      powerful animals, chiefly of the Nisaean breed, and cased them almost
+      wholly in mail. The head was guarded by a frontlet, and the neck and chest
+      by a breast-piece; the sides and flanks had their own special covering and
+      cuisses defended the thighs. These defences were not merely, like those of
+      the later Assyrian heavy cavalry, of felt or leather, but consisted, like
+      the cuirasses worn by the riders, of some such material covered with metal
+      scales. The weight which the horse had to sustain was thus very great, and
+      the movements of the cavalry force were, in consequence, slow and
+      hesitating. Flight was difficult; and, in a retreat, the weaker animals
+      were apt to sink under their burdens, and to be trampled to death by the
+      stronger ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There can be no doubt that, besides these heavy horsemen, the Persians
+      employed, even in the latest times, and much more in the earlier, a light
+      and agile cavalry force. Such were the troops which, under Tissaphernes,
+      harassed the Ten Thousand during their retreat; and such, it may be
+      conjectured, was really at all times the great body of their cavalry. The
+      education of the Persian, as we shall see hereafter, was directed to the
+      formation of those habits of quickness and agility in the mounting and
+      managing of horses, which have a military value only as furnishing a good
+      training for the light-cavalry service; and the tendency of the race has
+      at all times been, not to those forms of military organization which are
+      efficient by means of solidity and strength, but to those lighter, more
+      varied, and more elastic branches which compensate for a want of solidity
+      by increased activity, readiness, and ease of movement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the Persians did not set any great store by chariots, as an arm of
+      the military service, they nevertheless made occasional use of them. Not
+      only were their kings and princes, when they commanded their troops in
+      person, accustomed to direct their movements, both on the march and even
+      inaction, from the elevation of a war-chariot, but now and then, in great
+      battles, a considerable force of them was brought into the field, and
+      important consequences were expected from their employment. The wheels of
+      the war-chariots were armed with scythes; and these, when the chariot was
+      set in motion, were regarded as calculated to inflict great damage on the
+      ranks of opponents. Such hopes seem, however, to have been generally
+      disappointed. As every chariot was drawn by at least two horses, and
+      contained at least two persons&mdash;the charioteer and the warrior&mdash;a
+      large mark was offered by each to the missiles of the light troops who
+      were commonly stationed to receive them; and, as practically it was found
+      that a single wound to either horse or man threw the whole equipage into
+      confusion, the charge of a scythed chariot was commonly checked before it
+      reached the line of battle of the enemy. Where this was not the case, the
+      danger was escaped by opening the ranks and letting the chariots pass
+      through them to the rear, a good account being speedily given of any
+      adventurer who thus isolated himself from the support of his own party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian war-chariot was, probably, somewhat loftier than the Assyrian.
+      The wheels appear to have been from, three to four feet in diameter; and
+      the body rose above them to a height from the ground of nearly five feet.
+      The person of the warrior was thus protected up to his middle by the
+      curved board which enclosed the chariot on three sides. The axle-tree is
+      said to have been broad, since breadth afforded a security against being
+      overturned, and the whole construction to have been strong and solid. The
+      wheels had twelve spokes, which radiated from a nave of unusual size. The
+      felloes were narrower than the Assyrian, but were still composed, like
+      them, of two or three distinct layers of wood. The tires were probably of
+      metal, and were indented like the edge of a saw. <a href="#linkimage-0007">[PLATE
+      XXXI., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate031.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxi. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      No great ornamentation of the chariot appears to have been attempted. The
+      body was occasionally patterned with a chequer-work, which maybe compared
+      with a style common in Assyria, and the spokes of the wheels were
+      sometimes of great elegance, but the general character of the workmanship
+      was massive and plain. The pole was short, and terminated with a simple
+      curve. From the evidence of the monuments it would seem that chariots were
+      drawn by two horses only; but the classical writers assure us that the
+      ordinary practice was to have teams of four. The harness used was
+      exceedingly simple, consisting of a yoke, a belly-band, a narrow collar, a
+      head-stall, a bit, and reins. When the charioteer left his seat, the reins
+      could be attached to a loop or bar which projected from the front of the
+      chariot-board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chariots were constructed to contain two, or perhaps, in some instances,
+      three persons. These consisted of the warrior, his charioteer, who stood
+      beside him, and an attendant, whose place was behind, and whose business
+      it was to open and shut the chariot doors. The charioteer wore a visor and
+      a coat of mail, exposing nothing to the enemy but his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The later Persians made use also of elephants in battle, but to a very
+      small extent, and without any results worth mentioning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chief points of Persian tactics were the following. The army was
+      organized into three distinct services&mdash;those of the chariots, the
+      horse, and the foot. In drawing up the line of battle, it was usual, where
+      chariots were employed, to place them in the front rank, in front of the
+      rest of the army. Behind the chariots were stationed the horse and the
+      foot; the former generally massed upon the wings; the latter placed in the
+      middle, drawn up according to nations, in a number of oblong squares,
+      which touched, or nearly touched, one another. The bravest and best armed
+      troops were placed in front; the ranks towards the rear being occupied by
+      those of inferior quality. The depth of the ranks was usually very great,
+      since Oriental troops cannot be trusted to maintain a firm front unless
+      they are strongly supported from behind. No attempt, however, seems to
+      have been made at forming a second line of battle in the rear of the
+      first, nor does there even seem to have been any organized system of
+      reserves. When the battle began, the chariots were first launched against
+      the enemy, whose ranks it was hoped they would confuse, or, at any rate,
+      disturb. After this the main line advanced to the attack, but without any
+      inclination to come at once to close quarters. Planting their shields
+      firmly on the ground in front of them, the Persian heavy-armed shot flight
+      after flight of arrows against their foe, while the slingers and other
+      light-armed in the rear sent clouds of missiles over the heads of their
+      friends into the adverse ranks beyond them. It was usually the enemy which
+      brought this phase of the battle to an end, by pressing onward and closing
+      with the Persian main line in a hand:to-hand combat. Here the struggle was
+      commonly brief&mdash;a very few minutes often decided the engagement. If
+      the Persian line of battle was forced or broken, all was immediately
+      regarded as lost&mdash;flight and rout followed. The cavalry, from its
+      position on the wings, might attempt, by desperate charges on the flanks
+      of the advancing foe, to stay his progress, and restore the fortune of the
+      day, but such efforts were usually unavailing. Its line of battle once
+      broken, a Persian army lost heart; its commander commonly set the example
+      of flight, and there was a general rush of all arms from the battle-field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For success the Persians trusted mainly to their numbers, which enabled
+      them, in some cases, to renew an attack time after time with fresh troops,
+      in others to outflank and surround their adversary. Their best troops were
+      undoubtedly their cavalry, both heavy and light. The heavy, armed in the
+      old times with bows, and in the later with the javelins, highly
+      distinguished itself on many important occasions. The weight of its charge
+      must have been great; its offensive weapons were good; and its armor made
+      it almost invulnerable to ordinary weapons. The light cavalry was
+      celebrated for the quickness and dexterity of its manoeuvres. It had the
+      loose organization of modern Bashi-Bazouks or Cossacks; it hung in clouds
+      on the enemy&mdash;assailed, retreated, rallied, re-advanced&mdash;fled,
+      and even in flight was formidable, since each rider was trained to
+      discharge his arrows backwards with a sure aim. against the pursuing foe.
+      The famous skill of the Parthians in their horse-combats was inherited
+      from their Persian predecessors, who seem to have invented the practice
+      which the later people carried to perfection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though mainly depending for success on their numbers, the Persians did not
+      wholly despise the use of contrivance and stratagem. At Arbela, Darius
+      Codomannus had spiked balls strewn over the ground where he expected the
+      Greek cavalry to make its attacks. <a href="#linkimage-0006">[PLATE XXX.,
+      Fig. 5]</a>; and, at Sardis, Cyrus obtained his victory over the Lydian
+      horse by frightening them with the grotesque and unfamiliar camel. Other
+      instances will readily occur to the reader, whereby it appears that the
+      art of war was studied, and ingenuity allowed its due place in military
+      matters, by this people, who showed a fair share of Oriental subtlety in
+      the devices which they employed against their enemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is doubtful whether we are to include among these devices the use of
+      military engines. On the one hand, we have several distinct statements by
+      the author of the &ldquo;Cyrpoasdia,&rdquo; to the effect that engines were well known
+      to the Persians; on the other, we remark an entire absence from the works
+      of other ancient writers of any notice that they actually employed them,
+      either in their battles or their sieges. The silence of Scripture, of
+      Herodotus, of the inscriptions, of Quintus Curtius, of Arrian, may fairly
+      be regarded as outweighing the unsupported authority of the
+      romance-writer, Xenophon; and though it would be rash to decide that such
+      things as siege-towers, battering rams, and balistce&mdash;all of which
+      are found to have been in constant use under the Assyrian and Babylonian
+      monarchies&mdash;were wholly discarded by, or unknown to, their successors
+      in the government of Asia, yet a wise criticism will conclude, that they
+      were, at any rate, unfamiliar to the Persians, rarely and sparingly (if at
+      all) employed by them, other methods of accomplishing the ends whereto
+      they served having more approved themselves to this ingenious people. In
+      ordinary sieges it would seem that they trusted to the bank or mound,
+      while sometimes they drove mines under the walls, and sought in this way
+      to effect a breach. Where the place attacked was of great strength, they
+      had recourse in general either to stratagem or to blockade. Occasionally
+      they employed the destructive force of fire, and no doubt they often
+      succeeded by the common method of escalade. On the whole, it must
+      certainly be said that they were successful in their sieges, exhibiting in
+      their conduct of them courage, activity, and considerable fertility of
+      resource.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A Persian army was usually, though not always, placed under a single
+      commander. This commander was the monarch, if he was present; if not, it
+      was a Persian, or a Mede, nominated by him. Under the commander-in-chief
+      were a number of general officers, heads of corps or divisions, of whom we
+      find, in one instance, as many as nine. Next in rank to these were the
+      chiefs of the various ethnic contingents composing the army, who were,
+      probably, in general the satraps of the different provinces. Thus far
+      appointments were held directly from the crown; but beyond this the system
+      was changed. The ethnic or satrapial commanders appointed the officers
+      next below themselves, the captains over a thousand, and (if their
+      contingent was large enough to admit it) the captains over ten thousand;
+      who, again, nominated their subordinates, commanders of a hundred, and
+      commanders of ten. Thus, in the main, a decimal scale prevailed. The
+      lowest rank of officers commanded each ten men, the next lowest a hundred,
+      the next to that a thousand, the next ten thousand. The officer over ten
+      thousand was sometimes a divisional chief; sometimes he was subject to the
+      commander of an ethnic contingent, who was himself under the orders of the
+      head of a division. Altogether there were six ranks of officers, exclusive
+      of the commander-in-chief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The proper position of the commander-in-chief was considered to be the
+      centre of the line of battle. He was regarded as safer there than he would
+      have been on either wing; and it was seen that, from such a position, his
+      orders would be most rapidly conveyed to all parts of the battlefield. It
+      was not, however, thought to be honorable that he should keep aloof from
+      the fight, or avoid risking his own person. On the contrary, he was
+      expected to take an active part in the combat; and therefore, though his
+      place was not exactly in the very foremost ranks, it was towards the
+      front, and the result followed that he was often exposed to imminent
+      danger. The consequences of this arrangement were frequently disastrous in
+      the extreme, the death or flight of the commander producing universal
+      panic, stopping the further issue of any general order, and thus
+      paralyzing the whole army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The numbers of a Persian army, though no doubt exaggerated by the Greeks,
+      must have been very great, amounting, probably, on occasions, to more than
+      a million of combatants. Troops were drawn from the entire empire, and
+      were marshalled in the field according to nations, each tribe accoutred in
+      its own fashion. Here were seen the gilded breastplates and scarlet kilts
+      of the Persians and Medes; there the woollen shirt of the Arab, the
+      leathern jerkin of the Berber, or the cotton dress of the native of
+      Hindustan. Swart savage Ethiops from the Upper Nile, adorned with a
+      war-paint of white and red, and scantily clad with the skins of leopards
+      or lions, fought in one place with huge clubs, arrows tipped with stone,
+      and spears terminating in the horn of an antelope. In another, Scyths,
+      with their loose spangled trousers and their tall pointed caps, dealt
+      death around from their unerring blows; while near them Assyrians,
+      helmeted, and wearing corselets of quilted linen, wielded the tough spear,
+      or the still more formidable iron mace. Rude weapons, like cane bows,
+      unfeathered arrows, and stakes hardened at one end in the fire, were seen
+      side by side with keen swords and daggers of the best steel, the finished
+      productions of the workshops of Phoenicia and Greece. Here the bronze
+      helmet was surmounted with the ears and horns of an ox; there it was
+      superseded by a fox-skin, a leathern or wooden skull-cap, or a head-dress
+      fashioned out of a horse&rsquo;s scalp. Besides horses and mules, elephants,
+      camels, and wild asses, diversified the scene, and rendered it still more
+      strange and wonderful to the eye of a European. One large body of cavalry
+      was accustomed to enter the field apparently unarmed; besides the dagger,
+      which the Oriental never lays aside, they had nothing but a long leathern
+      thong. They used this, however, just as the lasso is used by the natives
+      of Brazil, and the wretch at whom they aimed their deadly noose had small
+      chance of escape. The Persians, like the Assyrians, usually avoided
+      fighting during the winter, and marched out their armies against the enemy
+      in early spring. With the great hosts which they moved a fixed order of
+      march was most necessary; and we find evidence of so much attention being
+      paid to this point that confusion and disorder seem scarcely ever to have
+      arisen. When the march lay within their own country, it was usual to send
+      on the baggage and the sumpter-beasts in advance, after which came about
+      half the troops, moving slowly in a long and continuous column along the
+      appointed line of route. At this point a considerable break occurred, in
+      order that all might be clear for the most important part of the army,
+      which was now to follow. A guard, consisting of a thousand horse and a
+      thousand foot, picked men of the Persian people, prepared the way for what
+      was most holy in the eyes of the nation&mdash;the emblems of their
+      religion, and their king. The former consisted of sacred horses and cars;
+      perhaps, in the later times, of silver altars also, bearing the perpetual
+      and heaven-kindled fire, which was a special object of Persian religious
+      regard, and which the superstition of the people viewed as a sort of
+      palladium, sure to bring the blessings of heaven upon their arms. Behind
+      the sacred emblems followed the Great King himself, mounted on a car drawn
+      by Nissean steeds, and perhaps protected on either side by a select band
+      of his relatives. Behind the royal chariot came a second guard,
+      consisting, like the first, of a thousand foot and a thousand horse. Then
+      followed ten thousand picked foot, probably the famous &ldquo;Immortals;&rdquo; then
+      came a body of ten thousand picked Persian horsemen. After these a space
+      of four hundred yards (nearly a quarter of a mile) was left vacant; then
+      marched, in a second continuous column, the remainder of the host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On entering an enemy&rsquo;s country, or drawing near a hostile force in their
+      own, certain alterations in these dispositions became necessary, and were
+      speedily effected. The baggage-train was withdrawn, and instead of moving
+      before the army, followed at some little distance in the rear. Horsemen
+      were thrown out in front, to feel for the enemy and notify his arrival.
+      Sometimes, if the host was large, a division of the troops was made, and
+      several <i>corps d&rsquo;armee</i> advanced against the foe simultaneously by
+      distinct routes. When this took place, the commander-in-chief was careful
+      to accompany the central force, so as to find himself in his proper
+      position if he was suddenly compelled to give battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Night movements were seldom attempted by the Persians. They marched from
+      sunrise to sunset, halting, probably, during the midday heat. In their
+      most rapid marches they seldom accomplished more than from twenty to
+      twenty-five miles in the day; and when this rate was attempted for any
+      continuance, it was necessary to rest the men at intervals for as much as
+      three days at a time. The great drag upon rapidity of movement was the
+      baggage-train, which consisted ordinarily of a vast multitude of camels,
+      horses, asses, mules, oxen, etc., in part carrying burthens upon their
+      backs, in part harnessed to carts laden with provisions, tents, and other
+      necessaries. The train also frequently comprised a number of litters, in
+      which the wives or female companions of the chief men were luxuriously
+      conveyed, amid a crowd of eunuchs and attendants, and with all the
+      cumbrous paraphernalia of female wardrobes. Roads, it must be remembered,
+      did not exist; rivers were not bridged, except occasionally by boats; the
+      army marched on the natural ground along an established line of route
+      which no art had prepared for the passage of man or beast. Portions of the
+      route would often be soft and muddy; the carts and litters would become
+      immovable, their wheels sinking into the mire up to the axles; all the
+      efforts of the teams would be unavailing; it must have been imperative to
+      halt the main line, and employ the soldiers in the release of the
+      vehicles, which had to be lifted and carried forward till the ground was
+      sufficiently firm to bear them. When a river crossed the line of route, a
+      ford had to be sought, boats procured, or rafts extemporized. The Persians
+      were skilful in the passage of streams, to which they became accustomed in
+      their first campaigns under Cyrus; but the march was necessarily retarded
+      by these and similar obstacles, and we cannot be surprised that the
+      average rate of movement was slow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As evening approached the Persians sought a suitable place for their camp.
+      An open plain was preferred for the purpose, and the vicinity of water was
+      a necessity. If an enemy was thought to be at hand, a ditch was rapidly
+      dug, and the earth thrown up inside; or if the soil was sandy, sacks were
+      filled with it, and the camp was protected with sand-bags. Immediately
+      within the rampart were placed the <i>gerrhophori</i>, or Persians armed
+      with large wicker shields. The rest of the soldiers had severally their
+      appointed places, the position assigned to the commander-in-chief being
+      the centre. All the army had tents, which were pitched so as to face the
+      east. The horses of the cavalry were tethered and hobbled in front of the
+      tents of their owners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians disliked encamping near to their enemy. They preferred an
+      interval of seven or eight miles, which they regarded as a considerable
+      security against a surprise. As their most important arm was the cavalry,
+      and as it was impossible for the cavalry to unfasten and unhobble their
+      steeds, to equip them properly, to arm themselves, and then to mount in a
+      short space of time, when darkness and confusion reigned around, a night
+      attack on the part of an enterprising enemy would have been most perilous
+      to a Persian army. Hence the precaution which they observed against its
+      occurrence&mdash;a precaution which was seldom or never omitted where they
+      felt any respect for their foe, and which seems to have been effective,
+      since we do not hear of their suffering any disaster of the kind which
+      they so greatly feared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians do not seem to have possessed any special corps of pioneers.
+      When the nature of the country was such as to require the felling of
+      timber or the removal of brushwood, the army was halted, and the work was
+      assigned to a certain number of the regular soldiers. For the construction
+      of bridges, however, in important places, and for other works on a grand
+      scale intended to facilitate an expedition, preparations were made
+      beforehand, the tasks being entrusted either to skilled workmen, or to the
+      crews of ships, if they were tolerably easy of performance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Commissariat arrangements were generally made by the Persians on a large
+      scale, and with the best possible results. An ample baggage-train conveyed
+      corn sufficient to supply the host during some months and in cases where
+      scarcity was apprehended, further precautions were taken. Ships laden with
+      corn accompanied the expedition as closely as possible, and supplemented
+      any deficiency that might arise from a failure on the part of the land
+      transport department. Sometimes, too, magazines were established at
+      convenient points along the intended line of march previously to the
+      setting forth of the army, and stores were thus accumulated at places
+      where it was probable they would be found of most service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Requisitions for supplies were also made upon the inhabitants of the towns
+      and villages through which lay the route of the army. Whenever the host
+      rested for a night at a place of any consequence, the inhabitants seem to
+      have been required to furnish sufficient bread for a meal to each man,
+      and, in addition, to provide a banquet for the king (or general) and his
+      suite, which was always very numerous. Such requisitions, often
+      intolerably burthensome to those upon whom they were laid, must have
+      tended greatly to relieve the strain upon their own resources, which the
+      sustentation of such enormous hosts as the Persian kings were in the habit
+      of moving, cannot have failed to produce in many cases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effectiveness of these various arrangements for the provisioning of
+      troops upon a march was such that Persian armies were rarely, if ever, in
+      any difficulty with respect to their subsistence. Once only in the entire
+      course of their history do we hear of the Persian forces suffering to any
+      considerable extent from a want of supplies. According to Herodotus,
+      Cambyses, when he invaded Ethiopia, neglected the ordinary precautions and
+      brought his army into such straits that his men began to eat each other.
+      This caused the total failure of his expedition, and the loss of a great
+      proportion of the troops employed in it. There is, however, reason to
+      suspect that, even in this case, the loss and difficulty which occurred
+      have been much exaggerated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians readily gave quarter to the enemy who asked it, and generally
+      treated their prisoners of war with much kindness. Personages of
+      importance, as monarchs or princes, either preserved their titles and
+      their liberty, with even a certain nominal authority, or received
+      appanages in other parts of the Persian territory, or, finally, were
+      retained about the Court as friends and table-companions of the Great
+      King. Those of less rank were commonly given lands and houses in some
+      province remote from their own country, and thenceforth held the same
+      position as the great mass of the subject races. Exchanges of prisoners do
+      not seem to have been thought of. In a few cases, persons, whom we should
+      regard as prisoners of war, experienced some severities, but probably only
+      when they were viewed by the Persians, not as fair enemies, but as rebels.
+      Rebels were, of course, liable to any punishment which the king might
+      think it right to inflict upon them, and there were occasions after a
+      revolt when sentences of extreme rigor were passed upon the persons
+      considered to have been most in fault. According to Herodotus, three
+      thousand Babylonians were crucified by order of Darius, to punish their
+      revolt from him; and, though this is probably an exaggeration, it is
+      certain that sometimes, where an example was thought to be required, the
+      Persians put to death, not only the leader of a rebellion, but a number of
+      his chief adherents. Crucifixion, or, at any rate, impalement of some
+      sort, was in such cases the ordinary punishment. Sometimes, before a rebel
+      was executed, he was kept for a while chained at the king&rsquo;s door, in order
+      that there might be no doubt of his capture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the minor punishments of rebellion were branding, and removal of the
+      rebels <i>en masse</i> from their own country, to some remote locality. In
+      this latter case, they were merely treated in the same way as ordinary
+      prisoners of war. In the former, they probably became royal slaves
+      attached to the household of the monarch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the Persians were not themselves a nautical people, they were quite
+      aware of the great importance of a navy, and spared no pains to provide
+      themselves with an efficient one. The conquests of Phoenicia, Cyprus,
+      Egypt, and the Greek islands were undertaken, it is probable, mainly with
+      this object; and these parts of the Empire were always valued chiefly as
+      possessing skilled seamen, vessels, and dockyards, from which the Great
+      King could draw an almost inexhaustible supply of war-ships and
+      transports. Persia at times had the complete command of the Mediterranean
+      Sea, and bore undisputed sway in the Levant during almost the whole period
+      of her existence as an empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The war-ship preferred by the best naval powers during the whole period of
+      the Persian rule was the trireme, or decked galley impelled by rowers
+      sitting in three tiers, or banks, one above another. This vessel, the
+      invention of the Corinthians, had been generally adopted by the nations
+      bordering on the Mediterranean in the interval between B.C. 700 and B.C.
+      525, when by the reduction of Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Egypt, the Persians
+      obtained the command of the sea. Notwithstanding the invention of
+      quadriremes by the Carthaginians before B.C. 400, and of quinqueremes by
+      Dionysius the Elder soon after, the trireme stood its ground, and from
+      first to last the Persian fleets were mainly composed of this class of
+      vessels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trireme was a vessel of a considerable size, and was capable of
+      accommodating two hundred and thirty persons. Of these, two hundred
+      constituted the crew, while the remaining thirty were men-at-arms,
+      corresponding to our own &ldquo;marines.&rdquo; By far the greater number of the crew
+      consisted of the rowers, who probably formed at least nine-tenths of the
+      whole, or one hundred and eighty out of the two hundred. The rowers sat,
+      not on benches running right across the vessel, but on small seats
+      attached to its side. They were arranged, as before stated, in three
+      tiers, not, however, directly one over the head of another, but obliquely,
+      each at once above and behind his fellow. Each rower had the sole
+      management of a single oar, which he worked through a hole pierced in the
+      side of the vessel. To prevent his oar from slipping he had a leathern
+      strap, which he twisted round it, and fastened to the thole, probably by
+      means of a button. The remainder of the crew comprised the captain, the
+      steersman, the petty officers, and the sailors proper, or those whose
+      office it was to trim the sails and look to the rigging. The trireme of
+      Persian times had, in all cases, a mast, and at least one sail, which was
+      of a square shape, hung across the mast by means of a yard or spar, like
+      the &ldquo;square-sail&rdquo; of a modern vessel. The rudder was composed of two
+      broad-bladed oars, one on either side of the stern, united, however, by a
+      cross-bar, and managed by a single steersman. The central part of a
+      trireme was always decked, and on this deck, which was generally level
+      with the bulwarks, stood and fought the men-at-arms, whose business it was
+      to engage the similar force of the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weapon of the trireme, with which she was intended chiefly to attack
+      her foe, was the beak. <a href="#linkimage-0007">[PLATE XXXI., Fig. 3.]</a>
+      This consisted of a projection from the prow of the ship, either above or
+      below the water-line, strongly shod with a casting of iron, and
+      terminating either in the head of an animal, or in one or more sharp
+      points. A trireme was expected, like a modern &ldquo;ram,&rdquo; to use this implement
+      against the sides of her adversary&rsquo;s vessels, so as to crush them in and
+      cause the vessels to sink. Driven by the full force of her oars, which
+      impelled her almost at the rate of a modern steamer, she was nearly
+      certain, if she struck her adversary full, to send ship and men to the
+      bottom. She might also, it is true, greatly damage herself; but, to
+      preclude this, it was customary to make the whole prow of a trirene
+      exceedingly strong, and, more particularly, to support it with beams at
+      the side which tended to prevent the timbers from starting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides triremes, which constituted the bulk of the Persian navy, there
+      were contained in their fleet various other classes of vessels, as
+      triaconters, penteconters, cercuri, and others. Triaconters were long,
+      sharp-keeled ships, shaped very much like a trireme, rowed by thirty
+      rowers, who sat all upon a level, like the rowers in modern boats, fifteen
+      on either side of the vessel. <a href="#linkimage-0007">[PLATE XXXI., Fig.
+      2.]</a> Penteconters were very similar, the only difference being in the
+      number of the oars and oarsmen. <a href="#linkimage-0007">[PLATE XXXI.,
+      Fig. 4.]</a> Both these classes of vessels seem to have been frequently
+      without sails. Cercuri were light boats, very long and swift. They are
+      said to have been invented by the Cyprians, and were always peculiar to
+      Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The transports of the Persians were either for the conveyance of horses or
+      of food. Horse-transports were large clumsy vessels, constructed expressly
+      for the service whereon they were used, possessing probably a special
+      apparatus for the embarkation and disembarkation of the animals which they
+      were built to carry. Corn-transports seem to have been of a somewhat
+      lighter character. Probably, they varied very considerably in their size
+      and burthen, including huge and heavy merchantmen on the one hand, and a
+      much lighter and smaller craft on the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians used their ships of war, not only for naval engagements, but
+      also for the conveyance of troops and the construction of bridges.
+      Accustomed to pass the great streams which intersect Western Asia by
+      bridges of boats, which were permanently established wherever an
+      unfordable river crossed any of the regular routes connecting the
+      provinces with the capital, the Persians, when they proceeded to carry
+      their arms from Asia into Europe, conceived the idea of bridging the
+      interval between the continents, which did not much exceed the width of
+      one of the Mesopotamian streams, by constructions similar in principle and
+      general character to those wherewith long use had made them familiar in
+      their own country. Ranging a number of vessels side by side, at no great
+      distance one from another, parallel with the course of the stream, which
+      ran down the straits, anchoring each vessel stem and stern to keep it in
+      place, and then laying upon these supports a long wooden platform, they
+      made a floating bridge of considerable strength, reaching from the Asiatic
+      to the European coast, on which not only men, but horses, camels,
+      chariots, and laden carts passed over safely from the one continent to the
+      other. Only, as the water which they had to cross was not a river, but an
+      arm of the real salt sea, and might, therefore, in case of a storm, show a
+      might and fury far beyond a river&rsquo;s power, they thought it necessary to
+      employ, in lieu of boats, the strongest ships which they possessed,
+      namely, triremes and pentecon-ters, as best capable of withstanding the
+      force of an angry sea. Bridges of this kind were intended sometimes for
+      temporary, sometimes for permanent constructions. In the latter case,
+      great care and much engineering skill was lavished on their erection. The
+      shore cables, which united the ships together, and sustained the actual
+      bridge or platform, were made of most carefully selected materials, and
+      must have been of enormous strength; the ships were placed in close
+      proximity one to another; and by the substitution of a double for a single
+      line&mdash;of two bridges, in fact, for one&mdash;the solidity of the work
+      was very largely augmented. Yet, rare as was the skill shown, solid and
+      compact as were the causeways thus thrown by human art over the sea, they
+      were found inadequate to the end desired. The great work of Xerxes, far
+      the most elaborate of its class, failed to withstand the fury of the
+      elements for a single year; the bridge, constructed in one autumn, was
+      utterly swept away in the next; and the army which had crossed into Europe
+      by its aid had to embark as it best could, and return on board ship to
+      Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the furnishing of the Persian fleet was left wholly to the subject
+      nations of the Empire, so was its manning intrusted to them almost
+      entirely. Phoenicians, Syrians, Egyptians, Cypriots, Cilicians, Lycians,
+      Pamphylians, Carians, Greeks, equipped in the several costumes of their
+      countries, served side by side in their respective contingents of ships,
+      thereby giving the fleet nearly the same motley appearance which was
+      presented by the army. In one respect alone did the navy exhibit superior
+      uniformity to their sister service&mdash;the <i>epibatae</i>, or
+      &ldquo;marines,&rdquo; who formed the whole fighting force of the fleet while it kept
+      the sea, was a nearly homogeneous body, consisting of three races only
+      (two of which were closely allied), namely, Persians, Medes, and Sacse.
+      Every ship had thirty such men on board; all, it is probable, uniformly
+      armed, and all animated by one and the same spirit. To this force the
+      Persians must have owed it mainly that their great fleets were not mere
+      congeries of mutually repellant atoms, but were capable of acting against
+      an enemy with a fair amount of combination and singleness of purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a fleet accompanied a land army upon an expedition, it was usually
+      placed under the same commander. This commander, however, was not expected
+      to adventure himself on board much less to take the direction of a
+      sea-fight. He intrusted the fleet to an officer, or officers, whom he
+      nominated, and was content himself with the conduct of operations ashore.
+      Occasionally the land and sea forces were assigned to distinct commanders
+      of co-ordinate authority&mdash;an arrangement which led naturally, to
+      misunderstanding and quarrel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tactics of a Persian fleet seem to have been of the simplest kind
+      Confident in their numbers, until experience had taught them the
+      fallaciousness of such a ground of hope, they were chiefly anxious that
+      their enemy should not escape. To prevent this they endeavored to surround
+      the ships opposed to them, advancing their line in a crescent form, so as
+      to enclose their adversary&rsquo;s wings, or even detaching squadrons to cut off
+      his retreat. They formed their line several ships deep and when the hour
+      of battle came, advanced directly at their best speed against the enemy,
+      endeavoring to run down his vessels by sheer force, and never showing any
+      acquaintance with or predilection for manoeuvres of a skilful antagonist,
+      who avoided or successfully withstood this first onset, they were apt
+      through their very numbers to be thrown into disorder: the first line
+      would become entangled with the second, the second with the third, and
+      inextricable confusion would be the result. Confusion placed them at the
+      mercy of their antagonist, who, retaining complete command over his own
+      vessels, was able to strike theirs in vulnerable parts, and, in a short
+      time, to cover the sea with shattered and sinking wrecks. The loss to the
+      Persians in men as well as in material, was then sure to be very great;
+      for their sailors seldom knew how to swim, and were consequently drowned,
+      even when the shore was but a few yards distant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, from deficiency in their numbers, or distrust of their own nautical
+      skill in comparison with that of their enemy, the commanders of a Persian
+      fleet wished to avoid an engagement, a plan sometimes adopted was to run
+      the ships ashore upon a smooth soft beach, and, after drawing them
+      together, to surround them with such a rampart as could be hastily made,
+      and defend this rampart with the sailors. The crews of the Persian vessels
+      were always more or less completely armed, in order that, if occasion
+      arose, they might act as soldiers ashore, and were thus quite capable of
+      fighting effectively behind a rampart. They might count, too, under such
+      circumstances, upon assistance from such of their own land forces as might
+      happen to be in the neighborhood, who would be sure to come with all speed
+      to their aid, and might be expected to prove a sure protection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The subject nations who furnished the Persians with their fleet were, in
+      the earlier times, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Cypriots, the
+      Cilicians, the Syrians of Palestine, the Pamphylians, the Lycians, the
+      Carians, and the Greeks of Asia Minor and the islands. The Greeks seem to
+      have furnished the largest number of ships; the Phoenicians, the next
+      largest; then the Egyptians; after them the Cypriots; then the Cilicians;
+      then the Carians; next the Lycians; while the Pamphylians furnished the
+      least. The best ships and the best sailors were the Phoenicians,
+      especially those of Sidon. In later times, ships were drawn either from
+      Phoenicia alone, or from Phoenicia, Cilicia, and Cyprus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The limits assigned to the present work forbid the further prosecution of
+      this branch of our inquiry, and require us now to pass on from the
+      consideration of the Persian usages in war, to that of their manners and
+      customs, their habits and proceedings, in time of peace. And here it will
+      once more be convenient to follow a division of the subject with which the
+      reader is familiar, and to treat first of the public life of the King and
+      Court, and next of the private life of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian king held the same rank and position in the eyes of his
+      subjects which the great monarch of Western Asia, whoever he might be, had
+      always occupied from time immemorial. He was their lord and master,
+      absolute disposer of their lives, liberties, and property; the sole
+      fountain of law and right, incapable himself of doing wrong, irresponsible
+      irresistable&mdash;a sort of God upon earth; one whose favor was
+      happiness, at whose frown men trembled, before whom all bowed themselves
+      down with the lowest and humblest obeisance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a personage so exhalted, a state and pomp of the utmost magnificence
+      was befitting. The king&rsquo;s ordinary dress in time of peace was the long
+      flowing &ldquo;Median garment,&rdquo; or <i>candys</i>&mdash;made in his case (it is
+      probable) of richest silk, which, with its ample folds, its wide hanging
+      sleeves, and its close fit about the neck and chest, gave dignity to
+      almost any figure, and excellently set off the noble presence of an
+      Achaemenian prince. The royal robe was either of purple throughout, or
+      sometimes of purple embroidered with gold. It descended below the ankles;
+      resting on the foot even when the monarch was seated. A broad girdle
+      confined it at the waist. Under it was worn a tunic, or shirt, which
+      reached from the neck to the knee, and had tight-fitting sleeves that
+      covered the arm to the wrist. The tunic was purple in color, like the <i>candys</i>,
+      or robe, but striped or mixed with white. The lower limbs were encased in
+      trousers of a crimson hue. On his feet the the king wore shoes like those
+      of the Medes, long and taper at the toe buttoned in front, and reaching
+      very high up the instep: their color was deep yellow or saffron. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0008">[PLATE XXXII., Fig.1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate032.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Thus far the monarch&rsquo;s costume, though richer in material than the dress
+      of the Persian nobles, and in some points different in color, was on the
+      whole remarkably like that of the upper class of his subjects. It was,
+      however, most important that his dress should possess some distinguishing
+      feature, and that that feature should be one of very marked prominency. In
+      an absolute monarchy the king must be unmistakable, at almost any
+      distance, and almost in any light. Consequences of the gravest kind may
+      follow from any mistake of the royal identity; and it is therefore
+      essential to the comfort both of prince and subject that some very
+      conspicuous badge shall mark and notify the monarch&rsquo;s presence.
+      Accordingly, it appears that the Persian ruler was to be known by his
+      headdress, which was peculiar alike in shape and in color, and was
+      calculated to catch the eye in both respects. It bore the name <i>kitaris</i>
+      or <i>hidaris</i>, and was a tall stiff cap, slightly swelling as it
+      ascended, flat at top, and terminating in a ring or circle which projected
+      beyond the lines of the sides. Round it, probably near the bottom, was
+      worn a fillet or band&mdash;the diadem proper&mdash;which was blue,
+      spotted with white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the other Persians wore either simple fillets round their heads, or
+      soft, rounded, and comparatively low caps, with no band round them, the
+      king&rsquo;s headdress, which would tower above theirs and attract attention by
+      its color, could readily be distinguished even in the most crowded Court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been asserted that the <i>kidaris</i>, or tiara of the Persian
+      kings, was &ldquo;commonly adorned with gold and jewelry;&rdquo; and this may possibly
+      have been the case, but there is no evidence that it was so. Its material
+      was probably either cloth or felt, and it was always of a bright color,
+      though not (apparently) always of the same color. Its distinguishing
+      features were its height, its stiffness, and the blue and white fillet
+      which encircled it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among other certain indications of the royal presence may be mentioned the
+      golden sceptre, and the parasol. The sceptre, which is seen frequently in
+      the king&rsquo;s hands, was a plain rod, about five feet in length, ornamented
+      with a ball, or apple, at its upper end, and at its lower tapering nearly
+      to a point. The king held it in his right hand, grasping it near, but not
+      at, the thick end, and rested the thin end on the ground in his front.
+      When he walked, he planted it upright before him, as a spearman would
+      plant his spear. When he sate, he sloped it outwards, still, however,
+      touching the ground with its point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The parasol, which has always been in the East a mark of dignity, seems in
+      Persia, as in Assyria, to have been confined, either by law or usage, to
+      the king. The Persian implement resembled the later Assyrian, except that
+      it was not tasselled, and had no curtain or flap. It had the same
+      tent-like shape, the same long thick stem, and the same ornament at the
+      top. It only differed in being somewhat shallower, and in having the
+      supports, which kept it open, curved instead of straight. It was held over
+      the king&rsquo;s head on state occasions by an attendant who walked immediately
+      behind him. <a href="#linkimage-0008">[PLATE XXXII., Fig. 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The throne of the monarch was an elevated seat, with a high back, but
+      without arms, cushioned, and ornamented with a fringe, and with moldings
+      or carvings along the back and legs. The ornamentation consisted chiefly
+      of balls and broad rings, and contained little that was artistic or
+      elaborate. The legs, however, terminated in lions&rsquo; feet, resting upon half
+      balls, which were ribbed or fluted. The sides of the chair below the seat
+      appear to have been panelled, like the thrones of the Assyrians, but were
+      not adorned with any carving. The seat of the throne was very high from
+      the ground, and without a rest the legs would have dangled. A footstool
+      consequently was provided, which was plain, like the throne, but was
+      supported on legs terminating in the feet of bulls. Thus the lion and the
+      bull, so frequent in the symbolism of the East, were here again brought
+      together, being represented as the supports of the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With respect to the material whereof the throne was composed, there can be
+      no doubt that it was something splendid and costly. Late writers describe
+      it as made of pure gold; but, as we hear of its having silver feet, we may
+      presume that parts at least were of the less precious metal. Ivory is not
+      said to have been used in its composition. We may, perhaps, conjecture,
+      that the frame of the throne was wood, and that this was overlaid with
+      plates of gold or silver, whereby the whole of the woodwork was concealed
+      from view, and an appearance of solid metal presented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The person of the king was adorned with golden ornaments. He had earrings
+      of gold in his ears, often inlaid with jewels he wore golden bracelets
+      upon his wrists; and he had a chain or collar of gold about his neck. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0009">[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 1.]</a> In his girdle, which
+      was also of gold, he carried a short sword, the sheath of which was formed
+      of a single precious stone. The monuments, unfortunately, throw little
+      light on the character and workmanship of these portions of the royal
+      costume. We may gather from them, perhaps, that the bracelets had a large
+      jewel set in their centre, and that the collars were of twisted work, worn
+      loosely around the neck. The sword seems to have differed little from that
+      of the ordinary Persians. It had a short straight blade, a mere crossbar
+      for a guard, and a handle almost devoid of ornament. This plainness was
+      compensated, if we may trust Curtius, by the magnificence of the sheath,
+      which was, perhaps, of jasper, agate, or lapis lazuli. [PLATE XXXIII.,
+      Fig. 2.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate033.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate033a (59K)" src="images/plate033a.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The officers in most close attendance on the monarch&rsquo;s person were, in
+      war, his charioteer, his stool-bearer, his bow-bearer, and his
+      quiver-bearer; in peace, his parasol-bearer, and his fan bearer, who was
+      also privileged to carry what has been termed &ldquo;the royal
+      pocket-handkerchief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The royal charioteer is seemingly unarmed. His head is protected merely by
+      a fillet. He sits in front of his master, and both his hands are fully
+      occupied with the management of the reins. He has no whip, and seems to
+      urge his horses forward simply by leaning forward himself, and slackening
+      or shaking the reins over them. He was, no doubt, in every case a Persian
+      of the highest rank, such near proximity to the Royal person being a
+      privilege to which none but the very noblest could aspire. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0009">[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 2.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The office of the stool-bearer, was to assist the king as he mounted his
+      chariot or dismounted from it. He carried a golden stool, and followed the
+      royal chariot closely, in order that he might be at hand whenever his
+      master felt disposed to alight. On a march, the king was wont to vary the
+      manner of his travelling, exchanging, when the inclination took him, his
+      chariot for a litter, and riding in that more luxurious vehicle till he
+      was tired of it, after which he returned to his chariot for a space. The
+      services of the stool-bearer were thus in constant requisition, since it
+      was deemed quite impossible that his Majesty could ascend or descend his
+      somewhat lofty war-car without such aid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rank of the bow-bearer was probably nearly as great as that of the
+      driver of the chariot. He was privileged to stand immediately behind the
+      monarch on grand occasions, so carrying in his left hand the weapon from
+      which he derived his appellation. The quiver-bearer had the next place.
+      Both wore the Median costume&mdash;the <i>candys</i>, or flowing robe, the
+      girdle, the high shoe, and the stiff fluted cap, or, perhaps, occasionally
+      the simple fillet. Sometimes the two offices would seem to have been held
+      by the same person, unless we are to attribute this appearance, where it
+      occurs, to the economy of the artist, who may have wished to save himself
+      the trouble of drawing two separate figures. <a href="#linkimage-0009">[PLATE
+      XXXIII., Fig. 5.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The parasol-bearer was attired as the bow and quiver bearers, except that
+      he was wholly unarmed, and had the fillet for his proper head-dress.
+      Though not a military officer, he accompanied the monarch in his
+      expeditions, since in the midst of war there might be occasions of state
+      when his presence would be convenient. The officer who bore the royal fan
+      and handkerchief had generally the same costume; but sometimes his head
+      was enveloped in a curious kind of cowl or muffler, which covered the
+      whole of it except the forehead, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and the
+      upper portion of the cheeks. <a href="#linkimage-0010">[PLATE XXXIV., Fig.
+      1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate034.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxiv. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The fan, or fly-chaser, had a long straight handle, ornamented with a sort
+      of beading, which held a brush of some springy fibrous matter. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0009">[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 4.]</a> The bearer, whose
+      place was directly behind the monarch, held his implement, which bent
+      forward gracefully, nearly at arm&rsquo;s length over his master&rsquo;s head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would seem that occasionally the bearer of the handkerchief laid aside
+      his fly-chaser, and assumed in lieu of it a small bottle containing
+      perfumery. <a href="#linkimage-0010">[PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 4.]</a> In a
+      sculptured tablet at Persepolis, given by Ker Porter, an attendant in the
+      Median robe, with a fillet upon his head, who bears the handkerchief in
+      the usual way in his left hand, carries in the palm of his right what
+      seems to be a bottle, not-unlike the scent-bottle of a modern lady. It has
+      always been an Oriental custom to wash the hands before meals, and the
+      rich commonly mix some perfumery or other with the water. We may presume
+      that this was the practice at the Persian Court, and that the Great King
+      therefore took care to have an officer, who should at all times be ready
+      to provide his guests, or himself, with the scent which was most rare or
+      most fashionable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians seem to have been connoisseurs in scents. We are told that,
+      when the royal tiara was not in wear, it was laid up carefully with a
+      mixture of myrrh and <i>labyzus</i>, to give it an agreeable odor.
+      Unguents were thought to have been a Persian invention, and at any rate
+      were most abundantly used by the upper classes of the nation. The monarch
+      applied to his own person an ointment composed of the fat of lions, palm
+      wine, saffron, and the herb helianthes, which was considered to increase
+      the beauty of the complexion. He carried with him, even when he went to
+      the wars, a case of choice unguents; and such a treasure fell into the
+      hands of Alexander, with the rest of Darius&rsquo;s camp equipage, at Arbela. It
+      may be suspected that the &ldquo;royal ointment&rdquo; of the Parthian kings, composed
+      of cinnamon, spikenard, myrrh, cassia, gum styrax, saffron, cardamum,
+      wine, honey, and sixteen other ingredients, was adopted from the Persians,
+      who were far more likely than the rude Parthians to have invented so
+      recondite a mixture. Nor were scents used only in this form by the
+      ingenious people of whom we are speaking. Arabia was required to furnish
+      annually to the Persian crown a thousand talents&rsquo; weight of frankincense;
+      and there is reason to believe that this rare spice was largely employed
+      about the Court, since the walls of Persepolis have several
+      representations of censers, which are sometimes carried in the hands of an
+      attendant, while sometimes they stand on the ground immediately in front
+      of the Great King. <a href="#linkimage-0010">[PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 2.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The box or vase in which the Persians commonly kept their unguents was of
+      alabaster. This stone, which abounded in the country, was regarded as
+      peculiarly suited for holding ointments, not only by the Persians, but
+      also by the Egyptians, the Greeks, and (probably) the Assyrians. The
+      Egyptian variety of stone seems to have been especially valued; and vases
+      appear to have been manufactured in that country for the use of the
+      Persian monarch, which were transmitted to the Court, and became part of
+      the toilet furniture of the palace.330 <a href="#linkimage-0010">[PLATE
+      XXXIV., Fig. 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the officers of the Court, less closely attached to the person of
+      the monarch than those above enumerated, may be mentioned the steward of
+      the household; the groom or master of the horse; the chief eunuch, or
+      keeper of the women; the king&rsquo;s &ldquo;eyes&rdquo; and &ldquo;ears,&rdquo; persons whose business
+      it was to keep him informed on all matters of importance; his scribes or
+      secretaries, who wrote his letters and his edicts; his messengers, who
+      went his errands; his ushers, who introduced strangers to him; his
+      &ldquo;tasters,&rdquo; who tried the various dishes set before him lest they should be
+      poisoned; his cupbearers who handed him his wine, and tasted it; his
+      chamberlains, who assisted him to bed; and his musicians, who amused him
+      with song and harp. Besides these, the Court comprised various classes of
+      guards, and also doorkeepers, huntsmen, grooms, cooks, and other domestic
+      servants in great abundance, together with a vast multitude of visitors
+      and guests, princes, nobles, captives of rank, foreign refugees,
+      ambassadors, travellers. We are assured that the king fed daily within the
+      precincts of his palace as many as fifteen thousand persons, and that the
+      cost of each day&rsquo;s food was four hundred talents. A thousand beasts were
+      slaughtered for each repast, besides abundance of feathered game and
+      poultry. The beasts included not only sheep, goats, and oxen, but also
+      stags, asses, horses, and camels. Among the feathered delicacies were
+      poultry, geese, and ostriches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monarch himself rarely dined with his guests. For the most part he was
+      served alone. Sometimes he admitted to his table the queen and two or
+      three of his children. Sometimes, at a &ldquo;banquet of wine,&rdquo; a certain number
+      of privileged boon companions were received, who drank in the royal
+      presence, not, however, of the same wine, nor on the same terms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monarch reclined on a couch with golden feet, and sipped the rich wine
+      of Helbon; the guests drank an inferior beverage, seated upon the floor.
+      At a great banquet, it was usual to divide the guests into two classes.
+      Those of lower degree were entertained in an outer court or chamber to
+      which the public had access, while such as were of higher rank entered the
+      private apartments, and drew near to the king. Here they were feasted in a
+      chamber opposite to the king&rsquo;s chamber, which had a curtain drawn across
+      the door, concealing him from their gaze, but not so thick as to hide them
+      from their entertainer. Occasionally, on some very special occasion, as,
+      perhaps, on the Royal birthday, or other great festival, the king presided
+      openly at the banquet, drinking and discoursing with his lords, and
+      allowing the light of his countenance to shine freely upon a large number
+      of guests, whom, on these occasions, he treated as if they were of the
+      same flesh and blood with himself. Couches of gold and silver were spread
+      for all, and &ldquo;royal wine in abundance&rdquo; was served to them in golden
+      goblets. On these, and, indeed, on all occasions, the guests, if they
+      liked, carried away any portion of the food set before them which they did
+      not consume at the time, conveying it to their homes, where it served to
+      support their families.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The architecture of the royal palace will be discussed in another chapter;
+      but a few words may be said in this place with respect to its furniture
+      and general appearance. The pillared courts and halls of the vast edifices
+      which the Achaemenian monarchs raised at Susa and Persepolis would have
+      had a somewhat bare and cold aspect, if it had not been for their internal
+      fittings. The floors were paved with stones of various hues, blue, white,
+      black, and red, arranged doubtless into patterns, and besides were covered
+      in places with carpeting. The spaces between the pillars were filled with
+      magnificent hangings, white green, and violet, which were fastened with
+      cords of fine linen (?) and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble,
+      screening the guests from sight, while they did not too much exclude the
+      balmy summer breeze. The walls of the apartments were covered with plates
+      of gold. All the furniture was rich and costly. The golden throne of the
+      monarch stood under an embroidered canopy or awning supported by four
+      pillars of gold inlaid with precious stones. <a href="#linkimage-0011">[PLATE
+      XXXV.]</a> Couches resplendent with silver and gold filled the rooms. The
+      private chamber of the monarch was adorned with a number of objects, not
+      only rich and splendid, but valuable as productions of high art. Here,
+      impending over the royal bed, was the golden vine, the work of Theodore of
+      Samos, where the grapes were imitated by means of precious stones, each of
+      enormous value. Here, probably, was the golden plane-tree, a worthy
+      companion to the vine, though an uncourtly Greek declared it was too small
+      to shade a grasshopper. Here, finally, was a bowl of solid gold, another
+      work of the great Samian metallurgist, more precious for its artistic
+      workmanship than even for its material.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate035.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxv. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Nothing has hitherto been said of the Royal harem or seraglio, which,
+      however, as a feature of the Court always important, and ultimately
+      preponderating over all others, claims a share of our attention. In the
+      early times, it would appear that the Persian kings were content with
+      three or four wives, and a moderate number of concubines. Of the wives
+      there was always one who held the most exalted place, to whom alone
+      appertained the title of &ldquo;Queen,&rdquo; and who was regarded as &ldquo;wife&rdquo; in a
+      different sense from the others. Such was Atossa to Darius Hystaspis,
+      Amestris to Xerxes, Statira to Darius Codomannus. Such, too, were Vashti
+      and Esther to the prince, whoever he was, whose deeds are recorded in
+      Scripture under the name of Ahasuerus. The chief wife, or Queen-Consort,
+      was privileged to wear on her head a royal tiara or crown. She was the
+      acknowledged head of the female apartments or Gynaeceum, and the
+      concubines recognized her dignity by actual prostration. On great
+      occasions, when the king entertained the male part of the Court, she
+      feasted all the females in her own part of the palace. She had a large
+      revenue of her own, assigned her, not so much by the will of her husband,
+      as by an established law or custom. Her dress was splendid, and she was
+      able to indulge freely that love of ornament of which few Oriental women
+      are devoid. Though legally subject to her husband as much as the meanest
+      of his slaves, she could venture on liberties which would have been fatal
+      to almost any one else, and often, by her influence over the monarch,
+      possessed a very considerable share of power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The status of the other wives was very inferior to this; and it is
+      difficult to see how such persons were really in a position much superior
+      to that of the concubines. As daughters of the chief nobles&mdash;for the
+      king could only choose a wife within a narrow circle&mdash;they had, of
+      course, a rank and dignity independent of that acquired by marriage; but
+      otherwise they must have been almost on a par with those fair inmates of
+      the Gynaeceum who had no claim even to the name of consort. Each wife had
+      probably a suite of apartments to herself, and a certain number of
+      attendants&mdash;eunuchs, and tirewomen&mdash;at her disposal; but the
+      inferior wives saw little of the king, being only summoned each in their
+      turn to share his apartment, and had none of the privileges which made the
+      position of chief wife so important.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The concubines seem to have occupied a distinct part of the Gynaeceum,
+      called &ldquo;the second house of the women.&rdquo; They were in the special charge of
+      one of the eunuchs, and were no doubt kept under strict surveillance. The
+      Empire was continually searched for beautiful damsels to fill the harem, a
+      constant succession being required, as none shared the royal couch more
+      than once, unless she attracted the monarch&rsquo;s regard very particularly. In
+      the later times of the Empire, the number of the concubines became
+      enormous, amounting (according to one authority) to three hundred and
+      twenty-nine, (according to another) to three hundred and sixty. They
+      accompanied the king both in his wars and in his hunting expeditions. It
+      was a part of their duty to sing and play for the royal delectation; and
+      this task, according to one author, they had to perform during the whole
+      of each night. It is a more probable statement that they entertained the
+      king and queen with music while they dined, one of them leading, and the
+      others singing and playing in concert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Gynaeceum&mdash;in the Susa palace, at any rate&mdash;was a building
+      distinct from the general edifice, separated from the &ldquo;king&rsquo;s house&rdquo; by a
+      court. It was itself composed of at least three sets of apartments&mdash;viz.
+      apartments for the virgins who had not yet gone into the king, apartments
+      for the concubines, and apartments for the Queen-Consort and the other
+      wives. These different portions were under the supervision of different
+      persons. Two eunuchs of distinction had the charge respectively of the
+      &ldquo;first&rdquo; and of the &ldquo;second house of the women.&rdquo; The Queen-Consort was, at
+      any rate nominally, paramount in the third, her authority extending over
+      all its inmates, male and female.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes there was in the Gynaeceum a personage even more exalted than
+      any which have as yet been mentioned. The mother of the reigning prince,
+      if she outlived his father, held a position at the Court of her son beyond
+      that even of his Chief Wife. She kept the ensigns of royalty which she had
+      worn during the reign of her husband; and wielded, as Queen-Mother, a far
+      weightier and more domineering authority than she ever exercised as
+      Queen-Consort. The habits of reverence and obedience, in which the boy had
+      been reared, retained commonly their power over the man; and the monarch
+      who in public ruled despotically over millions of men, succumbed, within
+      the walls of the seraglio, to the yoke of a woman, whose influence he was
+      too weak to throw off. The Queen-Mother had her seat at the royal table
+      whenever the king dined with his wife; and, while the wife sat below, she
+      sat above the monarch. She had a suite of eunuchs distinct from those of
+      her son. Ample revenues were secured to her, and were completely at her
+      disposal. She practically exercised&mdash;though she could not perhaps
+      legally claim&mdash;a power of life and death. She screened offenders from
+      punishment, procuring for them the royal pardon, or sheltering them in her
+      own apartments; and she poisoned, or openly executed, those who provoked
+      her jealousy or resentment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The service of the harem, so far as it could not be fitly performed by
+      women, was committed to eunuchs. Each legitimate wife&mdash;as well as the
+      Queen-Mother&mdash;had a number of these unfortunates among her
+      attendants; and the king intrusted the house of the concubines, and also
+      that of the virgins, to the same class of persons. His own attendants seem
+      likewise to have been chiefly eunuchs. In the later times, the eunuchs
+      acquired a vast political authority, and appear to have then filled all
+      the chief offices of state. They were the king&rsquo;s advisers in the palace,
+      and his generals in the field. They superintended the education of the
+      young princes, and found it easy to make them their tools. The plots and
+      conspiracies, the executions and assassinations, which disfigure the later
+      portion of the Persian annals, maybe traced chiefly to their intrigues and
+      ambition. But the early Persian annals are free from these horrors; and it
+      is clear that the power of the eunuchs was, during this period, kept
+      within narrow bounds. We hear little of them in authentic history till the
+      reign of Xerxes. It is remarkable that the Persepolitan sculptures,
+      abounding as they do in representations of Court life, of the officers and
+      attendants who approached at all closely to the person of the monarch,
+      contain not a single figure of a eunuch in their entire range. We may
+      gather from this that there was at any rate a marked difference between
+      the Assyrian and the early Persian Court in the position which eunuchs
+      occupied at them respectively: we should not, however, be justified in
+      going further and questioning altogether the employment of eunuchs by the
+      Persian monarchs during the early period, since their absence from the
+      sculptures may be accounted for on other grounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is peculiarly noticeable in the Persian sculptures and inscriptions
+      that they carry to excess that reserve which Orientals have always
+      maintained with regard to women. The inscriptions are wholly devoid of all
+      reference to the softer sex, and the sculptures give us no representation
+      of a female. In Persia, at the present day, it is regarded as a gross
+      indecorum to ask a man after his wife; and anciently it would seem that
+      the whole sex fell under a law of taboo, which required that, whatever the
+      real power and influence of women, all public mention of them, as well as
+      all representations of the female form, should be avoided. If this were
+      so, it must of course still more have been the rule that the women&mdash;or,
+      at any rate, those of the upper classes&mdash;should not be publicly seen.
+      Hence the indignant refusal of Vashti to obey the command of King
+      Aha-suerus to show herself to his Court. Hence, too, the law which made it
+      a capital offence to address or touch one of the royal concubines or even
+      to pass their litters upon the road. The litters of women were always
+      curtained; and when the Queen Statira rode in hers with the curtains
+      drawn, it was a novelty which attracted general attention, as a relaxation
+      of the ordinary etiquette, though only females were allowed to come near
+      her. Married women might not even see their nearest male relatives, as
+      their fathers and brothers; the unmarried had, it is probable, a little
+      more liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the employment of eunuchs at the Persian Court was mainly in the harem,
+      and in offices connected therewith, it is no wonder that they shared, to
+      some extent, in the law of taboo, which forbade the representation of
+      women. Their proper place was in the female courts and apartments, or in
+      close attendance upon the litters, when members of the seraglio travelled,
+      or took the air&mdash;not in the throne-room, or the antechambers, or the
+      outer courts of the palace, which alone furnished the scenes regarded as
+      suitable for representation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of right, the position at the Persian Court immediately below that of the
+      king belonged to the members of certain privileged families. Besides the
+      royal family itself&mdash;or clan of the Achaemenidae&mdash;there were six
+      great houses which had a rank superior to that of all the other grandees.
+      According to Herodotus these houses derived their special dignity from the
+      accident that their heads had been fellow-conspirators with Darius
+      Hystaspis; but there is reason to suspect that the rank of the families
+      was precedent to the conspiracy in question, certain families conspiring
+      because they were great, and not becoming great because they conspired. At
+      any rate, from the time of Darius I., there seem to have been seven great
+      families, including that of the Achaemenidae, whose chiefs had the
+      privilege of free communication with the monarch, and from which he was
+      legally bound to choose his legitimate wives. The chiefs appear to have
+      been known as &ldquo;the Seven Princes,&rdquo; or &ldquo;the Seven Counsellors,&rdquo; of the
+      king. They sat next to him at public festivals; they were privileged to
+      tender him their advice, whenever they pleased; they recommended important
+      measures of state, and were, in part, responsible for them; they could
+      demand admission to the monarch&rsquo;s presence at any time, unless he were in
+      the female apartments; they had precedence on all great occasions of
+      ceremony, and enjoyed a rank altogether independent of office. Sometimes&mdash;perhaps
+      most commonly&mdash;they held office; but they rather conferred a lustre
+      on the position which they consented to fill, than derived any additional
+      splendor from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It does not appear that the chiefs of the seven great families had any
+      peculiar insignia. Officers of the Court, on the contrary, seem to have
+      always carried, as badges marking their position, either wands about three
+      feet in length, or an ornament resembling a lotos blossom, which is
+      sometimes seen in the hands of the monarch himself. Such officers wore, at
+      their pleasure, either the long Median robe and the fluted cap, or the
+      close-fitting Persian tunic and trousers, with the loose felt [Greek
+      name]. All had girdles, in which sometimes a dagger was placed; and all
+      had collars of gold about their necks, and earrings of gold in their ears.
+      The Median robes were of various colors&mdash;scarlet, purple, crimson,
+      dark gray, etc. Over the Persian tunic a sleeved cloak, or great coat,
+      reaching to the ankles, was sometimes worn; this garment was fastened by
+      strings in front, and descended loosely from the shoulders, no use being
+      commonly made of the sleeves, which hung empty at the wearer&rsquo;s side. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0012">[PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate036.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxvi. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      An elaborate Court ceremonial was the natural accompaniment of the ideas
+      with respect to royalty embodied in the Persian system. Excepting the
+      &ldquo;Seven Princes,&rdquo; no one could approach the royal person unless introduced
+      by a Court usher, Prostration&mdash;the attitude of worship&mdash;was
+      required of all as they entered the presence. The hands of the persons
+      introduced had to be hidden in their sleeves so long as their audience
+      lasted. In crossing the Palace Courts it was necessary to abstain
+      carefully from touching the carpet which was laid for the king to walk on.
+      Coming into the king&rsquo;s presence unsummoned was a capital crime, punished
+      by the attendants with instant death, unless the monarch himself, as a
+      sign that he pardoned the intrusion, held out towards the culprit the
+      golden sceptre which he bore in his hands. It was also a capital offence
+      to sit down, even unknowingly, upon the royal throne; and it was a grave
+      misdemeanor to wear one of the king&rsquo;s cast-off dresses. Etiquette was
+      almost as severe on the monarch himself as on his subjects. He was
+      required to live chiefly in seclusion; to eat his meals, for the most
+      part, alone; never to go on foot beyond the palace walls; never to revoke
+      an order once given, however much he might regret it; never to draw back
+      from a promise, whatever ill results he might anticipate from its
+      performance. To maintain the quasi-divine character which attached to him
+      it was necessary that he should seem infallible, immutable, and wholly
+      free from the weakness of repentance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As some compensation for the restrictions laid upon him, the Persian king
+      had the sole enjoyment of certain luxuries. The wheat of Assos was sent to
+      the Court to furnish him with bread, and the vines of Helbon were
+      cultivated for the special purpose of supplying him with wine. Water was
+      conveyed to Susa for his use from distant streams regarded as specially
+      sweet and pure; and in his expeditions he was accompanied, by a train of
+      wagons, which were laden with silver flasks, filled from the clear stream
+      of the Choaspes. The oasis of Ammon contributed the salt with which he
+      seasoned his food. All the delicacies that the Empire anywhere produced
+      were accumulated on his board, for the supply of which each province was
+      proud to send its best and choicest products.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chief amusements in which the Great King indulged were hunting and
+      playing at dice. Darius Hystaspis, who followed the chase with such ardor
+      as on one occasion to dislocate his ankle in the pursuit of a wild beast,
+      had himself represented on his signet-cylinder as engaged in a lion-hunt.
+      From this representation, we learn that the Persian monarchs, like the
+      Assyrian, pursued the king of beasts in their chariots, and generally
+      despatched him by means of arrows. Seated in a light car, and attended by
+      a single unarmed charioteer, they invaded the haunts of these fiercest of
+      brutes, rousing them from their lairs&mdash;probably with Indian hounds,
+      and chasing them at full speed if they fled, or, if they faced the danger,
+      attacking them with arrows or with the javelin. <a href="#linkimage-0012">[PLATE
+      XXXVI., Fig. 2.]</a> Occasionally the monarch might indulge in this sport
+      alone; but generally he was (it seems) accompanied by some of his
+      courtiers, who shared the pleasures of the chase with him on the condition
+      that they never ventured to let fly their weapons before he had discharged
+      his. If they disregarded this rule they were liable to capital punishment,
+      and might esteem themselves fortunate if they escaped with exile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides lions, the Persian monarch chased, it is probable, stages,
+      antelopes, wild asses, wild boars, bears, wild sheep, and leopards. <a
+      href="#linkimage-0012">[PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 3.]</a> These animals all
+      abounded in the neighborhood of the royal palaces, and they are enumerated
+      by Xenophon among the beasts hunted by Cyrus. The mode of chasing the wild
+      ass was for the horsemen to scatter themselves over the plain, and to
+      pursue the animal in turns, one taking up the chase when the horse of
+      another was exhausted. The speed of the creature is so great that no horse
+      with a rider on his back can long keep pace with him; and thus relays were
+      necessary to tire him out, and enable the hunters to bring him within the
+      range of their weapons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When game was scarce in the open country, or when the kings were too
+      indolent to seek it in its native haunts, they indulged their inclination
+      for sport by chasing the animals which they kept in their own &ldquo;paradises.&rdquo;
+       These were walled enclosures of a large size, well wooded, and watered
+      with sparkling streams, in which were bred or kept wild beasts of various
+      kinds, chiefly of the more harmless sorts, as stags, antelopes, and wild
+      sheep. These the kings pursued and shot with arrows, or brought down with
+      the javelin; but the sport was regarded as tame, and not to be compared
+      with hunting in the open field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within the palace the Persian monarchs are said to have amused themselves
+      with dice. They played, it is probable, chiefly with their near relatives,
+      as their wives, or the Queen-Mother. The stakes, as was to be expected,
+      ran high, as much as a thousand darics (nearly L 1100.) being sometimes
+      set on a single throw. Occasionally they played for the persons of their
+      slaves, eunuchs, and others, who, when lost, became the absolute property
+      of the winner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another favorite royal amusement was carving or planing wood. According to
+      AElian, the Persian king, when he took a journey, always employed himself,
+      as he sat in his carriage, in this way; and Ctesias speaks of the
+      occupation as pursued also within the walls of the palace. Manual work of
+      this kind has often been the refuge of those rulers, who, sated with
+      pleasure and devoid of literary tastes, have found time hang heavy upon
+      their hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In literature a Persian king seems rarely to have taken any pleasure at
+      all. Occasionally, to beguile the weary hours, a monarch may have had the
+      &ldquo;Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Persia and Media&rdquo; read before him;
+      but the kings themselves never opened a book, or studied any branch of
+      science or learning. The letters, edicts, and probably even the
+      inscriptions, of the monarch were the composition of the Court scribes,
+      who took their orders from the king or his ministers, and clothed them in
+      their own language. They did not even call upon their master to sign his
+      name to a parchment; his seal, on which his name was engraved,
+      sufficiently authenticated all proclamations and edicts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the more serious occupations of the monarch were the holding of
+      councils, the reviewing of troops, the hearing of complaints, and the
+      granting or refusing of redress, the assignment of rewards, perhaps, in
+      some cases, the trying of causes, and, above all, the general direction of
+      the civil administration and government of the Empire. An energetic king
+      probably took care to hear all the reports which were sent up to the Court
+      by the various officials employed in the actual government of the numerous
+      provinces, as well as those sent in by the persons who from time to time
+      inspected, on the part of the Crown, the condition of this or that
+      satrapy. Having heard and considered these reports, and perhaps taken
+      advice upon them, such a monarch would give clear directions as to the
+      answers to be sent, which would be embodied in despatches by his
+      secretaries, and then read over to him, before he affixed his seal to
+      them. The concerns of an empire so vast as that of Persia would have given
+      ample employment for the greater part of the day to any monarch who was
+      determined not only to reign, but to govern. Among the Persian sovereigns
+      there seems to have been a few who had sufficient energy and self-denial
+      to devote themselves habitually to the serious duties of their office.
+      Generally, however, the cares of government were devolved upon some
+      favorite adviser, a relative, or a eunuch, who was entrusted by the
+      monarch with the entire conduct of affairs, in order that he might give
+      himself up to sensual pleasures, to the sports of the field, or to light
+      and frivolous amusements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The passion for building, which we have found so strong in Assyria and
+      Babylonia, possessed, but in a minor degree, a certain number of the
+      Persian monarchs. The simplicity of their worship giving little scope for
+      architectural grandeur in the buildings devoted to religion, they
+      concentrated their main efforts upon the construction of palaces and
+      tombs. The architectural character of these works will be considered in a
+      later chapter. It is sufficient to note here that a good deal of the time
+      and attention of many monarchs were directed to these objects; and
+      particularly it is interesting to remark, that, notwithstanding their
+      worldly greatness, and the flattering voices of their subjects, which were
+      continually bidding them &ldquo;live for ever,&rdquo; the Persian kings were quite
+      aware of the frail tenure by which man holds his life, and, while they
+      were still in vigorous health, constructed their own tombs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an important principle of the Magian religion that the body should
+      not after death be allowed to mingle with, and so pollute, any one of the
+      four elements. Either from a regard for this superstition, or from the
+      mere instinctive desire to preserve the lifeless clay as long as possible,
+      the Persians entombed their kings in the following way. The body was
+      placed in a golden coffin, which was covered with a close-fitting lid, and
+      deposited either in a massive building erected to serve at once as a tomb
+      and a monument, or in a chamber cut out of some great mass of solid rock,
+      at a considerable elevation above its base. In either case, the entrance
+      into the tomb was carefully closed, after the body had been deposited in
+      it, by a block or blocks of stone. <a href="#linkimage-0013">[PLATE
+      XXXVII., Fig. 1.]</a> Inside the tomb were placed, together with the
+      coffin, a number of objects, designed apparently for the king&rsquo;s use in the
+      other world, as rich cloaks and tunics, trousers, purple robes, collars of
+      gold, earrings of gold, set with gems, daggers, carpets, goblets, and
+      hangings. Generally the tomb was ornamented with sculptures, and
+      sometimes, though rarely, it had an inscription (or inscriptions) upon it,
+      containing the name and titles of the monarch whose remains reposed
+      within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate037.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate037a (290K)" src="images/plate037a.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      If the tomb were a building, and not rock-hewn, the ground in the vicinity
+      was formed into a park or garden, which was planted with all manner of
+      trees. Within the park, at some little distance from the tomb, was a
+      house, which formed the residence of a body of priests, who watched over
+      the safety of the sepulchre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Greeks seem to have believed that divine honors were sometimes paid to
+      a monarch after his decease; but the spirit of the Persian religion was so
+      entirely opposed to any such observance that it is most probable the
+      Greeks were mistaken. Observing that sacrifices were offered once a month
+      in the vicinity of some of the royal tombs, they assumed that the object
+      of the cult was the monarch himself, whereas it was no doubt really
+      addressed either to Ormazd or to Mithras. The Persians cannot rightly be
+      accused of the worship of dead men, a superstition from which both the
+      Zoroastrian and the Magian systems were entirely free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this account of the Persian monarchs and their Court, we may now turn
+      to a subject which moderns regard as one of much greater interest&mdash;the
+      general condition, manners, and customs of the Persian people. Our
+      information on these points is unfortunately far less full than on the
+      subject which we have been recently discussing, but still it is perhaps
+      sufficient to give us a tolerably complete notion of the real character of
+      the nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians, according to Herodotus, were divided into ten tribes, of
+      which four were nomadic and three agricultural. The nomadic were the Dai,
+      the Mardi, the Dropici, and the Sagartii; the agricultural were the
+      Panthilaei, the Derusisei, and the Germanii, or Carmanians. What the
+      occupation of the other three tribes was Herodotus does not state; but, as
+      one of them&mdash;the Pasargadae&mdash;was evidently the ruling class,
+      consisting, therefore (it is probable), of land owners, who did not
+      themselves till the soil, we may perhaps assume that all three occupied
+      this position, standing in Persia somewhat&mdash;as the three tribes of
+      Dorians stood to the other Greeks in the Peloponnese. If this were the
+      case, the population would have been really divided broadly into the two
+      classes of settled and nomade, whereof the former class was subdivided
+      into those who were the lords of the soil, and those who cultivated it,
+      either as farmers or as laborers, under them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ordinary dress of the poorer class, whether agricultural or nomade,
+      was probably the tunic and trousers of leather which have been already
+      mentioned as the true national costume of the people. The costume was
+      completed by a loose felt cap upon the head, a strap or belt round the
+      waist, and a pair of high shoes upon the feet, tied in front with a
+      string. <a href="#linkimage-0014">[PLATE XXXVIII., Fig. 2.]</a> In later
+      times a linen or muslin rag replaced the felt cap, and the tunic was
+      lengthened so as to reach half way between the knee and the ankle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate038.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxviii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The richer classes seem generally to have adopted the Median costume which
+      was so prevalent at the Court. They wore long purple or flowered robes
+      with loose hanging sleeves, flowered tunics reaching to the knee, also
+      sleeved, embroidered trousers, tiaras, and shoes of a more elegant shape
+      than the ordinary Persian. Nor was this the whole of their dress. Under
+      their trousers they wore drawers, under their tunics shirts, on their
+      hands gloves, and under their shoes socks or stockings&mdash;luxuries
+      these, one and all, little known in the ancient world. The Persians were
+      also, like most Orientals, extremely fond of ornaments. Men of rank
+      carried, almost as a matter of course, massive chains or collars of gold
+      about their necks, and bracelets of gold upon their arms. The sheaths and
+      handles of their swords and daggers were generally of gold, sometimes,
+      perhaps, studded with gems. Many of them wore earrings. Great expense was
+      lavished on the trappings of the horses which they rode or drove; the
+      bridle, or at least the bit, was often of solid gold, and the rest of the
+      equipment was costly. Among the gems which were especially affected, the
+      pearl held the first place. Besides being set in the ordinary way, it was
+      bored and strung, in order that it might be used for necklaces, bracelets,
+      and ankles. Even children had sometimes golden ornaments, which were
+      preferred when the gold was of a reddish color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very costly and rich too was the furniture of the better class of houses.
+      The tables were plated or inlaid with silver and gold. Splendid couches,
+      spread with gorgeous coverlets, invited the inmates to repose at their
+      ease; and, the better to insure their comfort, the legs of the couches
+      were made to rest upon carpets, which were sufficiently elastic to act as
+      a sort of spring, rendering the couches softer and more luxurious than
+      they would otherwise have been. Gold and silver plate, especially in the
+      shape of drinking-cups, was largely displayed in all the wealthy mansions,
+      each household priding itself on the show which it could make of the
+      precious metals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In respect of eating and drinking, the Persians, even better sort, were in
+      the earlier times noted for their temperance and sobriety. Their ordinary
+      food was wheaten bread, barley-cakes, and meat simply roasted or boiled,
+      which they seasoned with salt and with bruised cress-seed, a substitute
+      for mustard. The sole drink in which they indulged was water. Moreover, it
+      was their habit to take one meal only each day. The poorer kind of people
+      were contented with even a simpler diet, supporting themselves, to a great
+      extent, on the natural products of the soil, as dates, figs, wild pears,
+      acorns, and the fruit of the terebinth-tree. But these abstemious habits
+      were soon laid aside, and replaced by luxury and self-indulgence, when the
+      success of their arms had put it in their power to have the full and free
+      gratification of all their desires and propensities. Then, although the
+      custom of having but one meal in the day was kept up, the character of the
+      custom was entirely altered by beginning the meal early and making it last
+      till night. Not many sorts of meat were placed on the board, unless the
+      occasion was a grand one; but course after course of the lighter kinds of
+      food flowed on in an almost endless succession, intervals of some length
+      being allowed between the courses to enable the guests to recover their
+      appetites. Instead of water, wine became the usual beverage; each man
+      prided himself on the quantity he could drink; and the natural result
+      followed that most banquets terminated in general intoxication.
+      Drunkenness even came to be a sort of institution. Once a year, at the
+      feast of Mithras, the king of Persia, according to Duris, was bound to be
+      drunk. A general practice arose of deliberating on all important affairs
+      under the influence of wine, so that, in every household, when a family
+      crisis impended, intoxication was a duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians ate, not only the meats which we are in the habit of
+      consuming, but also the flesh of goats, horses, asses, and camels. The
+      hump of the last-named animal is considered, even at the present day, a
+      delicacy in many parts of the East; but in ancient Persia it would seem
+      that the entire animal was regarded as fairly palatable. The horse and
+      ass, which no one would touch in modern Persia, were thought, apparently,
+      quite as good eating as the ox; and goats, which were far commoner than
+      sheep, appeared, it is probable, oftener at table. The dietery of a grand
+      house was further varied by the admission into it of poultry and game&mdash;the
+      game including wild boars, stags, antelopes, bustards, and probably
+      partridges; the poultry consisting of geese and chickens. Oysters and
+      other fish were used largely as food by the inhabitants of the
+      coast-region.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grades of society were strongly marked among the Persians; and the
+      etiquette of the Court travelled down to the lowest ranks of the people.
+      Well-known rules determined how each man was to salute his equal, his
+      inferior, or his superior; and the observance of these rules was
+      universal. Inferiors on meeting a decided superior prostrated themselves
+      on the ground; equals kissed each other on the lips; persons nearly but
+      not quite equals kissed each other&rsquo;s cheeks. The usual Oriental rules
+      prevailed as to the intercourse of the sexes. Wives lived in strict
+      seclusion within the walls of the Gynaeceum, or went abroad in litters,
+      seeing no males except their sons, their husbands, and their husbands&rsquo;
+      eunuchs. Concubines had somewhat more freedom, appearing sometimes at
+      banquets, when they danced, sang, and played to amuse the guests of their
+      master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian was allowed to marry several wives, and might maintain in
+      addition as many concubines as he thought proper. Most of the richer class
+      had a multitude of each, since every Persian prided himself on the number
+      of his sons, and it is even said that an annual prize was given by the
+      monarch to the Persian who could show most sons living. The concubines
+      were not unfrequently Greeks, if we may judge by the case of the younger
+      Cyrus, who took two Greek concubines with him when he made his expedition
+      against his brother. It would seem that wives did not ordinarily accompany
+      their husbands, when these went on military expeditions, but that
+      concubines were taken to the wars by most Persians of consideration. Every
+      such person had a litter at her disposal, and a number of female
+      attendants, whose business it was to wait upon her and execute her orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the best authorities are agreed that great pains were taken by the
+      Persians&mdash;or, at any rate, by those of the leading clans&mdash;in the
+      education of their sons. During the first five years of his life the boy
+      remained wholly with the women, and was scarcely, if at all, seen by his
+      father. After that time his training commenced. He was expected to rise
+      before dawn, and to appear at a certain spot, where he was exercised with
+      other boys of his age in running, slinging stones, shooting with the bow,
+      and throwing the javelin. At seven he was taught to ride, and soon
+      afterwards he was allowed to begin to hunt. The riding included, not only
+      the ordinary management of the horse, but the power of jumping on and off
+      his back when he was at speed, and of shooting with the bow and throwing
+      the javelin with unerring aim, while the horse was still at full gallop.
+      The hunting was conducted by state-officers, who aimed at forming by its
+      means in the youths committed to their charge all the qualities needed in
+      war. The boys were made to bear extremes of heat and cold, to perform long
+      marches, to cross rivers without wetting their weapons, to sleep in the
+      open air at night, to be content with a single meal in two days, and to
+      support themselves occasionally on the wild products of the country,
+      acorns, wild pears, and the fruit of the terebinth-tree. On days when
+      there was no hunting they passed their mornings in athletic exercises, and
+      contests with the bow or the javelin, after which they dined simply on the
+      plain food mentioned above as that of the men in the early times, and then
+      employed themselves during the afternoon in occupations regarded as not
+      illiberal&mdash;for instance, in the pursuits of agriculture, planting,
+      digging for roots, and the like, or in the construction of arms and
+      hunting implements, such as nets and springes. Hardy and temperate habits
+      being secured by this training, the point of morals on which their
+      preceptors mainly insisted was the rigid observance of truth. Of
+      intellectual education they had but little. It seems to have been no part
+      of the regular training of a Persian youth that he should learn to read.
+      He was given religious notions and a certain amount of moral knowledge by
+      means of legendary poems, in which the deeds of gods and heroes were set
+      before him by his teachers, who recited or sung them in his presence, and
+      afterwards required him to repeat what he had heard, or, at any rate, to
+      give some account of it. This education continued for fifteen years,
+      commencing when the boy was five, and terminating when he reached the age
+      of twenty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect of this training was to render the Persian an excellent soldier
+      and a most accomplished horseman. Accustomed from early boyhood to pass
+      the greater part of every day in the saddle, he never felt so much at home
+      as when mounted upon a prancing steed. On horseback he pursued the stag,
+      the boar, the antelope, even occasionally the bear or the lion, and shot
+      his arrows, or slung his stones, or hurled his javelin at them with deadly
+      aim, never pausing for a moment in his career. <a href="#linkimage-0013">[PLATE
+      XXXVII., Fig. 2.]</a> Only when the brute turned on his pursuers, and
+      stood at bay, or charged them in its furious despair, they would sometimes
+      descend from their coursers, and receive the attack, or deal the <i>coup
+      de grace</i> on foot, using for the purpose a short but strong
+      hunting-spear. <a href="#linkimage-0013">[PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 3.]</a> The
+      chase was the principal delight of the upper class of Persians, so long as
+      the ancient manners were kept up, and continued an occupation in which the
+      bolder spirits loved to indulge long after decline had set in, and the
+      advance of luxury had changed, to a great extent, the character of the
+      nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At fifteen years of age the Persian was considered to have attained to
+      manhood, and was enrolled in the ranks of the army, continuing liable to
+      military service from that time till he reached the age of fifty. Those of
+      the highest rank became the body-guard of the king, and these formed the
+      garrison of the capital. They were a force of not less than fourteen or
+      fifteen thousand men. Others, though liable to military service, did not
+      adopt arms as their profession, but attached themselves to the Court and
+      looked to civil employment, as satraps, secretaries, attendants, ushers,
+      judges, inspectors, messengers. A portion, no doubt, remained in the
+      country districts, and there followed those agricultural pursuits which
+      the Zoroastrian religion regarded as in the highest degree honorable. But
+      the bulk of the nation must, from the time of the great conquests, have
+      passed their lives mainly, like the Roman legionaries under the Empire, in
+      garrison duty in the provinces. The entire population of Persia Proper can
+      scarcely have exceeded two millions. Not more than one fourth of this
+      number would be males between the ages of fifteen and fifty. This body of
+      500,000 men, besides supplying the official class at the Court and
+      throughout the provinces, and also furnishing to Persia Proper those who
+      did the work of its cultivation, had to supply to the whole Empire those
+      large and numerous garrisons on whose presence depended the maintenance of
+      the Persian dominion in every province that had been conquered. According
+      to Herodotus, the single country of Egypt contained, in his day, a
+      standing army of 120,000 Persians; and, although this was no doubt an
+      exceptional case, Egypt being more prone to revolt than any other satrapy,
+      yet there is abundant evidence that elsewhere, in almost every part of the
+      Empire, large bodies of troops were regularly maintained; troops which are
+      always characterized as &ldquo;Persians.&rdquo; We may suspect that under the name
+      were included the kindred nation of the Medes, and perhaps some other
+      Arian races, as the Hyrcanians, and the Bactrians, for it is difficult to
+      conceive that such a country as Persia Proper could alone have kept up the
+      military force which the Empire required for its preservation; but to
+      whatever extent the standing army was supplemented from these sources,
+      Persia must still have furnished the bulk of it; and the demands of this
+      service must have absorbed, at the very least, one third if not one half
+      of the adult male population.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For trade and commerce the Persians were wont to express extreme contempt.
+      The richer classes made it their boast that they neither bought nor sold,
+      being supplied (we must suppose) from their estates, and by their slaves
+      and dependents, with all that they needed for the common purposes of life.
+      Persians of the middle rank would condescend to buy, but considered it
+      beneath them to sell; while only the very lowest and poorest were actual
+      artisans and traders. Shops were banished from the more public parts of
+      the towns; and thus such commercial transactions as took place were veiled
+      in what was regarded as a decent obscurity. The reason assigned for this
+      low estimation of trade was that shopping and bargaining involved the
+      necessity of falsehood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      According to Quintus Curtius, the Persian ladies had the same objection to
+      soil their hands with work that the men had to dirty theirs with commerce.
+      The labors of the loom, which no Grecian princess regarded as unbecoming
+      her rank, were despised by all Persian women except the lowest; and we may
+      conclude that the same idle and frivolous gossip which resounds all day in
+      the harems of modern Iran formed the main occupation of the Persian ladies
+      in the time of the Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the general advance of luxury under Xerxes and his successors, of
+      which something has been already said, there were introduced into the
+      Empire a number of customs of an effeminate and demoralizing character.
+      From the earliest times the Persians seem to have been very careful of
+      their beards and hair, arranging the latter in a vast number of short
+      crisp curls, and partly curling the former, partly training it to hang
+      straight from the chin. After a while, not content with this degree of
+      care for their personal appearance, they proceeded to improve it by
+      wearing false hair in addition to the locks which nature had given them,
+      by the use of cosmetics to increase the delicacy of their complexions, and
+      by the application of a coloring matter to the upper and lower eyelids,
+      for the purpose of giving to the eye an appearance of greater size and
+      beauty. They employed a special class of servants to perform these
+      operations of the toilet, whom the Greeks called &ldquo;adorners&rdquo;. Their
+      furniture increased, not merely in splendor, but in softness; their floors
+      were covered with carpets, their beds with numerous and delicate
+      coverlets; they could not sit upon the ground unless a cloth was first
+      spread upon it; they would not mount a horse until he was so caparisoned
+      that the seat on his back was softer even than their couches. At the same
+      time they largely augmented the number and variety of their viands and of
+      their sauces, always seeking after novel delicacies, and offering rewards
+      to the inventors of &ldquo;new pleasures.&rdquo; A useless multitude of lazy menials
+      was maintained in all rich households, each servant confining himself
+      rigidly to a single duty, and porters, bread-makers, cooks, cup-bearers,
+      water-bearers, waiters at table, chamberlains, &ldquo;awakers,&rdquo; &ldquo;adorners,&rdquo; all
+      distinct from one another, crowded each noble mansion, helping forward the
+      general demoralization. It was probably at this comparatively late period
+      that certain foreign customs of a sadly lowering character were adopted by
+      this plastic and impressible people, who learnt the vice of paederasty
+      from the Greeks, and adopted from the Assyrians the worship of Beltis,
+      with its accompaniment of religious prostitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the whole the Persians may seem to have enjoyed an existence free from
+      care, and only too prosperous to result in the formation of a high and
+      noble character. They were the foremost Asiatic people of their time, and
+      were fully conscious of their pre-eminency. A small ruling class in a vast
+      Empire, they enjoyed almost a monopoly of office, and were able gradually
+      to draw to themselves much of the wealth of the provinces. Allowed the use
+      of arms, and accustomed to lord it over the provincials, they themselves
+      maintained their self-respect, and showed, even towards the close of their
+      Empire, a spirit and an energy seldom exhibited by any but a free people.
+      But there was nevertheless a dark side to the picture&mdash;a lurking
+      danger which must have thrown a shadow over the lives of all the nobler
+      and richer of the nation, unless they were utterly thoughtless. The
+      irresponsible authority and cruel dispositions of the kings, joined to the
+      recklessness with which they delegated the power of life and death to
+      their favorites, made it impossible for any person of eminence in the
+      whole Empire to feel sure that he might not any day be seized and accused
+      of a crime, or even without the form of an accusation be taken and put to
+      death, after suffering the most excruciating tortures. To produce this
+      result, it was enough to have failed through any cause whatever in the
+      performance of a set task, or to have offended, even by doing him too
+      great a service, the monarch or one of his favorites. Nay, it was enough
+      to have provoked, through a relation or a connection, the anger or
+      jealousy of one in favor at Court; for the caprice of an Oriental would
+      sometimes pass over the real culprit and exact vengeance from one quite
+      guiltless&mdash;even, it may be, unconscious&mdash;of the offence given.
+      Theoretically, the Persian was never to be put to death for a single
+      crime; or at least he was not to suffer until the king had formally
+      considered the whole tenor of his life, and struck a balance between his
+      good and his evil deeds to see which outweighed the other. Practically,
+      the monarch slew with his own hand any one whom he chose, or, if he
+      preferred it, ordered him to instant execution, without trial or inquiry.
+      His wife and his mother indulged themselves in the same pleasing liberty
+      of slaughter, sometimes obtaining his tacit consent to their proceedings,
+      sometimes without consulting him. It may be said that the sufferers could
+      at no time be very many in number, and that therefore no very wide-spread
+      alarm can have been commonly felt; but the horrible nature of many of the
+      punishments, and the impossibility of conjecturing on whom they might next
+      fall, must be set against their infrequency; and it must be remembered
+      that an awful horror, from which no precautions can save a man, though it
+      happen to few, is more terrible than a score of minor perils, against
+      which it is possible to guard. Noble Persians were liable to be beheaded,
+      to be stoned to death, to be suffocated with ashes, to have their tongues
+      torn out by the roots, to be buried alive, to be shot in mere wantonness,
+      to be flayed and then crucified, to be buried all but the head, and to
+      perish by the lingering agony of &ldquo;the boat.&rdquo; If they escaped these modes
+      of execution, they might be secretly poisoned, or they might be exiled, or
+      transported for life. Their wives and daughters might be seized and
+      horribly mutilated, or buried alive, or cut into a number of fragments.
+      With these perils constantly impending over their heads, the happiness of
+      the nobles can scarcely have been more real than that of Damocles upon the
+      throne of Dionysius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In conclusion, we may notice as a blot upon the Persian character and
+      system, the cruelty and barbarity which was exhibited, not only in these
+      abnormal acts of tyranny and violence, but also in the regular and legal
+      punishments which were assigned to crimes and offences. The criminal code,
+      which&mdash;rightly enough&mdash;made death the penalty of murder, rape,
+      treason, and rebellion, instead of stopping at this point, proceeded to
+      visit with a like severity even such offences as deciding a cause
+      wrongfully on account of a bribe, intruding without permission on the
+      king&rsquo;s privacy, approaching near to one of his concubines, seating
+      oneself, even accidentally, on the throne, and the like. The modes of
+      execution were also, for the most part, unnecessarily cruel. Poisoners
+      were punished by having their heads placed upon a broad stone, and then
+      having their faces crushed, and their brains beaten out by repeated blows
+      with another stone. Ravishers and rebels were put to death by crucifixion.
+      The horrible punishment of &ldquo;the boat&rdquo; seems to have been no individual
+      tyrant&rsquo;s cruel conception, but a recognized and legal form of execution.
+      The same may be said also of burying alive. Again the Persian secondary
+      punishments were for the most part exceedingly barbarous. Xenophon tells
+      us, as a proof of the good government maintained by the younger Cyrus, in
+      his satrapy, that under his sway it was common to see along all the most
+      frequented roads numbers of persons who had had their hands or feet cut
+      off, or their eyes put out, as a punishment for thieving and rascality.
+      And other writers relate that similar mutilations were inflicted on
+      rebels, and even on prisoners of war. It would seem, indeed, that
+      mutilation and scourging were the ordinary forms of secondary punishment
+      used by the Persians, who employed imprisonment solely for the safe
+      custody of an accused person between his arrest and his execution, while
+      they had recourse to transportation and exile only in the case of
+      political offenders. and exile only in the case of political offenders.
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linkB2HCH0001" id="linkB2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTERS IV. TO VI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2H_4_0002" id="linkB2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA PROPER.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0001" id="linkBimage-0001">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/map_persia.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="map_persia_th (188K)" src="images/map_persia_th.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2H_4_0003" id="linkB2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE FIFTH MONARCHY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2H_4_0004" id="linkB2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2HCH0002" id="linkB2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. LANGUAGE AND WRITING.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It has been intimated in the account of the Median Empire which was given
+      in a former-volume that the language of the Persians, which was identical,
+      or almost identical, with that of the Medes, belonged to the form of
+      speech known to moderns as Indo-European. The characteristics of that form
+      of speech are a certain number of common, or at least widely spread,
+      roots, a peculiar mode of inflecting, together with a resemblance in the
+      inflections, and a similarity of syntax or construction. Of the old
+      Persian language the known roots are, almost without exception, kindred
+      forms to roots already familiar to the philologist through the Sanscrit,
+      or the Zend, or both; while many are of that more general type of which we
+      have spoken&mdash;forms common to all, or most of the varieties of the
+      Indo-European stock. To instance in a few very frequently recurring words&mdash;&ldquo;father&rdquo;
+       is in old Persian (as in Sanscrit) <i>pitar</i>, which differs only in the
+      vocalization from the Zendic <i>patar</i>, the Greek [ ], and the Latin <i>pater</i>,
+      and of which cognate forms are the Gothic <i>fadar</i>, the German voter,
+      the English <i>father</i>, and the Erse <i>athair</i>.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [See the html version for the following pages of this
+     chapter which is a section with hundreds of Greek
+     words.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0002" id="linkBimage-0002">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0365.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 365 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0003" id="linkBimage-0003">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0366.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 366 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0004" id="linkBimage-0004">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0367.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 367 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0005" id="linkBimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0368.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 368 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0006" id="linkBimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0369.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 369 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0007" id="linkBimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0370.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 370 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0008" id="linkBimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0371.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 371 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0009" id="linkBimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0372.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 372 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0010" id="linkBimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0373.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 373 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0011" id="linkBimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0374.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 374 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0012" id="linkBimage-0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0375.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 375 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0013" id="linkBimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0376.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 376 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0014" id="linkBimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0377.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 377 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0015" id="linkBimage-0015">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/page0378.jpg" width="100%" alt="Page 378 " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The ordinary Persian writing was identical with that which has been
+      described in the second volume of this work as Median. A cuneiform
+      alphabet, consisting of some thirty-six or thirty-seven forms, expressive
+      of twenty-three distinct sounds, sufficed for the wants of the people,
+      whose language was simple and devoid of phonetic luxuriance. Writing was
+      from left to right, as with the Arian nations generally. Words were
+      separated from one another by an oblique wedge; and were divided at any
+      point at which the writer happened to reach the end of a line. Enclitics
+      were joined without any break to the words which they accompanied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian writing which has come down to us is almost entirely upon
+      stone. It comprises various rock tablets, a number of inscriptions upon
+      buildings, and a few short legends upon vases and cylinders. It is in
+      every case incised or cut into the material. The letters are of various
+      sizes, some (as those at Elwend) reaching a length of about two inches,
+      others (those, for instance, on the vases) not exceeding the sixth of an
+      inch. The inscriptions cover a space of at least a hundred and eighty
+      years, commencing with Cyrus, and terminating with Artaxerxes Ochus, the
+      successor of Mnemon. The style of the writing is, on the whole, remarkably
+      uniform, the latter inscriptions containing only two characters unknown to
+      the earlier times. Orthography, however, and grammar are in these later
+      inscriptions greatly changed, the character of the changes being
+      indicative of corruption and decline, unless, indeed, we are to ascribe
+      them to mere ignorance on the part of the engravers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There can be little doubt that, besides the cuneiform character, which was
+      only suited for inscriptions, the Persians employed a cursive writing for
+      common literary purposes. Ctesias informs us that the royal archives were
+      written on parchment; and there is abundant evidence that writing was an
+      art perfectly familiar to the educated Persian. It might have been
+      supposed that the Pehlevi, as the lineal descendant of the Old Persian
+      language, would have furnished valuable assistance towards solving the
+      question of what character the Persians employed commonly; but the
+      alphabetic type of the Pehlevi inscriptions is evidently Semitic; and it
+      would thus seem that the old national modes of writing had been completely
+      lost before the establishment by Ardeshir, son of Babek, of the new
+      Persian Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2HCH0003" id="linkB2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. ARCHITECTURE AND OTHER ARTS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="page0379 (16K)" src="images/page0379.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If in the old world the fame of the Persians, as builders and artists,
+      fell on the whole below that of the Assyrians and Babylonians&mdash;their
+      instructors in art, no less than in letters and science&mdash;it was not
+      so much that they had not produced works worthy of comparison with those
+      which adorned Babylon and Nineveh, as that, boasting less antiquity and
+      less originality than those primitive races, they did not strike in the
+      same way the imagination of the lively Greeks, who moreover could not but
+      feel a certain jealousy of artistic successes, which had rewarded the
+      efforts of a living and rival people. It happened, moreover, that the
+      Persian masterpieces were less accessible to the Greeks than the
+      Babylonian, and hence there was actually less knowledge of their real
+      character in the time when Greek literature was at its best. Herodotus and
+      Xenophon, who impressed on their countrymen true ideas of the grandeur and
+      magnificence of the Mesopotamian structures, never penetrated to Persia
+      Proper, and perhaps never beheld a real Persian building. Ctesias, it is
+      true, as a resident at the Achaemenian Court for seventeen years, must
+      certainly have seen Susa and Ecbatana, if not even Persepolis, and he
+      therefore must have been well acquainted with the character of Persian
+      palaces; but, so far as appears from the fragments of his work which have
+      come down to us, he said but little on the subject of these edifices. It
+      was not until Alexander led his cohorts across the chain of Zagros to the
+      high plateau beyond, that a proper estimate of the great Persian buildings
+      could be made; and then the most magnificent of them all was scarcely seen
+      before it was laid in ruins. The barbarous act of the great Macedonian
+      conqueror, in committing the palace of Persepolis to the flames, tended to
+      prevent a full recognition of the real greatness of Persian art even after
+      the Greeks had occupied the country; but we find from this time a certain
+      amount of acknowledgment of its merits&mdash;a certain number of passages,
+      which, like that which forms the heading to this chapter, admit alike its
+      grandeur and its magnificence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, however, the ancients did less than justice to the efforts of the
+      Persians in architecture, sculpture, and the kindred arts, moderns have,
+      on the contrary, given them rather an undue prominence. From the middle of
+      the seventeenth century, when Europeans first began freely to penetrate
+      the East, the Persian ruins, especially those of Persepolis, drew the
+      marked attention of travellers; and in times when the site of Babylon had
+      attracted but scanty notice, and that of Nineveh and the other great
+      Assyrian cities was almost unknown, English, French, and German savans
+      measured, described, and figured the Persian remains with a copiousness
+      and exactness that left little to desire. Chardin, the elder Mebuhr, Le
+      Brun, Ouseley, Ker Porter, exerted themselves with the most praiseworthy
+      zeal to represent fully and faithfully the marvels of the Chehl Minar; and
+      these persevering efforts were followed within no very lengthy period by
+      the splendid and exhaustive works of the Baron Texier and of MM. Flandin
+      and Coste. Persepolis rose again from its ashes in the superb and costly
+      volumes of these latter writers, who represented on the grandest scale,
+      and in the most finished way, not only the actual but the ideal&mdash;not
+      only the present but the past&mdash;placing before our eyes at once the
+      fullest and completest views of the existing ruins, and also restorations
+      of the ancient structures, some of them warm with color and gilding,
+      which, though to a certain extent imaginary, probably give to a modern the
+      best notion that it is now possible to form of an old Persian edifice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is impossible within the limits of the present work, and with the
+      resources at the author&rsquo;s command, to attempt a complete description of
+      the Persian remains, or to vie with writers who had at their disposal all
+      the modern means of illustration. By the liberality of a well-known
+      authority on architecture, he is able to present his readers with certain
+      general views of the most important structures; and he also enjoys the
+      advantage of illustrating some of the most curious of the details with
+      engravings from a set of photographs recently taken. These last have, it
+      is believed, an accuracy beyond that of any drawings hitherto made, and
+      will give a better idea than words could possibly do of the merit of the
+      sculptures. With these helps, and with the addition of reduced copies from
+      some of MM. Flandin and Coste&rsquo;s plates, the author hopes to be able to
+      make his account fairly intelligible, and to give his readers the
+      opportunity of forming a tolerably correct judgment on the merit of the
+      Persian art in comparison with that of Babylon and Assyria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persian architectural art displayed itself especially in two forms of
+      building&mdash;the palace and the tomb. Temples were not perhaps unknown
+      in Persia, though much of the worship may always have been in the open
+      air; but temples, at least until the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon, were
+      insignificant, and neither attracted the attention of contemporaries, nor
+      were of such a character as to leave traces of themselves to after times.
+      The palaces of the Persian kings, on the other hand, and the sepulchres
+      which they prepared for themselves, are noticed by many ancient writers as
+      objects of interest; and, notwithstanding certain doubts which have been
+      raised in recent years, it seems tolerably certain that they are to be
+      recognized in the two chief classes of ancient ruins which still exist in
+      the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persian palatial buildings, of which traces remain, are four in
+      number. One was situated at Ecbatana, the Median capital, and was a sort
+      of adjunct to the old residence of the Median kings. Of this only a very
+      few vestiges have been hitherto found; and we can merely say that it
+      appears to have been of the same general character with the edifices which
+      will be hereafter described. Another was built by Darius and his son
+      Xerxes on the great mound of Susa; and of this we have the ground-plan, in
+      a great measure, and various interesting details. A third stood within the
+      walls of the city of Persepolis, but of this not much more is left than of
+      the construction at Ecbatana. Finally, there was in the neighborhood of
+      Persepolis, but completely distinct from the town, the Great Palace,
+      which, as the chief residence, at any rate of the later kings, Alexander
+      burnt, and of which the remains still to be seen are ample, constituting
+      by far the most remarkable group of buildings now existing in this part of
+      Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is to this last edifice, or group of edifices, that the reader&rsquo;s
+      attention will be specially directed in the following pages. Here the
+      greatest of the Persian monarchs seem to have built the greatest of their
+      works. Here the ravages of time and barbarism, sadly injurious as they may
+      have been, have had least effect. Here, moreover, modern research has
+      spent its chief efforts, excavations having been made, measurements
+      effected, and ground-plans laid down with accuracy. In describing the
+      Persepolitan buildings we have aids which mostly fail us elsewhere&mdash;charts,
+      plans, drawings in extraordinary abundance and often of high artistic
+      value, elaborate descriptions, even photographs. <a href="#linkBimage-0016">[PLATE
+      XXXVIII., Fig. 3.]</a> If the describer has still a task of some
+      difficulty to perform, it is because an overplus of material is apt to
+      cause almost as much embarrassment as too poor and scanty a supply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0016" id="linkBimage-0016">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate038.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxviii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The buildings at Persepolis are placed upon a vast platform. It was the
+      practice of the Persians, as of the Assyrians and Babylonians, to elevate
+      their palaces in this way. They thus made them at once more striking to
+      the eye, more dignified, and more easy to guard. In Babylonia an elevated
+      habitation was also more healthy and more pleasant, being raised above the
+      reach of many insects, and laid open to the winds of heaven, never too
+      boisterous in that climate. Perhaps the Assyrians and Persians in their
+      continued use of the custom, to some extent followed a fashion, elevating
+      their royal residences, not so much for security or comfort, as because it
+      had come to be considered that a palace ought to have a lofty site, and to
+      look down on the habitations of meaner men; but, however this may have
+      been, the custom certainly prevailed, and at Persepolis we have, in an
+      almost perfect condition, this first element of a Persian palace. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0017">[PLATE XXXIX.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0017" id="linkBimage-0017">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate039.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xxxix. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The platform at Persepolis is built at the foot of a high range of rocky
+      hills, on which it abuts towards the east. It is composed of solid masses
+      of hewn stone, which were united by metal clamps, probably of iron or
+      lead. The masses were not cut to a uniform size, nor even always to a
+      right angle, but were fitted together with a certain amount of
+      irregularity, which will be the best understood from the woodcut overleaf.
+      Many of the blocks were of enormous size; and their quarrying, transport,
+      and elevation to their present places, imply very considerable mechanical
+      skill. They were laid so as to form a perfectly smooth perpendicular wall,
+      the least height of which above the plain below is twenty feet. The
+      outline of the platform was somewhat irregular. Speaking roughly, we may
+      call it an oblong square, with a breadth about two thirds of its length;
+      but this description, unless qualified, will give an idea of far greater
+      uniformity than actually prevails. <a href="#linkBimage-0018">[PLATE XL.,
+      Fig. 1.]</a> The most serious irregularity is on the north side, the
+      general line of which is not parallel to the south side, nor at right
+      angles with the western one, but forms with the general line of the
+      western an angle of about eighty degrees. The cause of this deviation lay
+      probably in the fact that, on this side, a low rocky spur ran out from the
+      mountain-range in this direction, and that it was thought desirable to
+      accommodate the line of the structure to the natural irregularities of the
+      ground. In addition to the irregularity of general outline thus produced,
+      there is another of such perpetual occurrence that it must be regarded as
+      an essential element of the original design, and therefore probably as
+      approving itself to the artistic notions of the builder. This is the
+      occurrence of frequent angular projections and indentations, which we
+      remark on all three sides of the platform equally, and which would
+      therefore seem to have been regarded in Persia, no less than in Assyria,
+      as ornamental.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0018" id="linkBimage-0018">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate040.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xl. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The whole of the platform is not of a uniform height. On the contrary, it
+      seems to have been composed, as originally built, of several quite
+      distinct terraces. Three of these still remain, exhibiting towards the
+      west a very marked difference of elevation. The lowest of the three is on
+      the south side, and it may therefore be termed the Southern Terrace. It
+      extends from east to west a distance of about 800 feet, with a width of
+      about 170 or 180, and has an elevation above the plain of from twenty to
+      twenty-three feet. Opposite to this, on the northern side of the platform,
+      is a second terrace, more than three times the breadth of the southern
+      one, which may be called, by way of distinction, the Northern Terrace.
+      This has an elevation above the plain of thirty-five feet. Intermediate
+      between these two is the great Central or Upper Terrace, standing
+      forty-five feet above the plain, having a length of 770 feet along the
+      west face of the platform, and a width of about 400. Upon this Upper
+      Terrace were situated almost all the great and important buildings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The erection of a royal residence on a platform composed of several
+      terraces involved the necessity of artificial ascents, which the Persian
+      architects managed by means of broad and solid staircases. These
+      staircases constitute one of the most remarkable features of the place,
+      and seem to deserve careful and exact description. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0019">[PLATE XLI., Fig. 2.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0019" id="linkBimage-0019">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate041a.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate041a (193K)" src="images/plate041.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The first, and grandest in respect of scale, is on the west front of the
+      platform towards its northern end, and leads up from the plain to the
+      summit of the northern terrace, furnishing the only means by which the
+      platform can even now be ascended. It consists of two distinct sets of
+      steps, each composed of two flights, with a broad landing-place between
+      them, the steps themselves running at right angles to the platform wall,
+      and the two lower flights diverging, while the two upper ones converge to
+      a common landing-place on the top. The slope of the stairs is so gentle
+      that, though each step has a convenient width, the height of a step is in
+      no case more than from three to four inches. It is thus easy to ride
+      horses both up and down the staircase, and travellers are constantly in
+      the habit of ascending and descending it in this way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The width of the staircase is twenty-two feet&mdash;space sufficient to
+      allow of ten horsemen ascending each flight of steps abreast. Altogether
+      this ascent, which is on a plan unknown elsewhere, is pronounced to be the
+      noblest example of a flight of stairs to be found in any part of the
+      world. It does not project beyond the line of the platform whereto it
+      leads, but is, as it were, taken out of it. <a href="#linkplate042">[PLATE
+      XLII.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkplate042" id="linkplate042"></a> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate042 (129K)" src="images/plate042.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next, and in some respects the most remarkable of all the staircases,
+      conducts from the level of the northern platform to that of the central or
+      upper terrace. This staircase fronts northward, and opens on the view as
+      soon as the first staircase (A on the plan) has been ascended, lying to
+      the right of the spectator at the distance of about fifty or sixty yards.
+      It consists of four single flights of steps, two of which are central,
+      facing one another, and leading to a projecting landing-place (B), about
+      twenty feet in width; while the two others are on either side of the
+      central flights, distant from them about twenty-one yards. The entire
+      length of this staircase is 212 feet; its greatest projection in front of
+      the line of the terrace whereon it abuts, is thirty-six feet. The steps,
+      which are sixteen feet wide, rise in the same gentle way as those of the
+      lower or platform staircase. The height of each is under four inches; and
+      thus there are thirty-one steps in an ascent of ten feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The feature which specially distinguishes this staircase from the lower
+      one already described is its elaborate ornamentation. The platform
+      staircase is perfectly plain. The entire face which this staircase
+      presents to the spectator is covered with sculptures. In the first place,
+      on the central projection, which is divided perpendicularly into three
+      compartments, are represented, in the spandrels on either side, a lion
+      devouring a bull, and in the compartment between the spandrels eight
+      colossal Persian guardsmen, armed with spears and either with sword or
+      shield. Further, above the lion and bull, towards the edge of the spandrel
+      where it slopes, forming a parapet to the steps, <a href="#linkBimage-0020">[PLATE
+      XLIII., Fig. 1.]</a> there was a row of cypress trees, while at the end of
+      the parapet and along the whole of its inner face were a set of small
+      figures, guardsmen habited like those in the central compartment, but
+      carrying mostly a bow and quiver instead of a shield. Along the extreme
+      edge of the parapet externally was a narrow border thickly set with
+      rosettes. <a href="#linkBimage-0020">[PLATE XLIII., Fig. 2.]</a> Next, in
+      the long spaces between the central stairs and those on either side of
+      them, the spandrels contain repetitions of the lion and bull sculpture,
+      while between them and the central stairs the face of the wall is divided
+      horizontally into three bands, each of which has been ornamented with a
+      continuous row of figures. The highest row of the three is unfortunately
+      mutilated, the upper portion of all the bodies being lost in consequence
+      of their having been sculptured upon a parapet wall built originally to
+      protect the edge of the terrace, but now fallen away. The middle and
+      lowest rows are tolerably perfect, and possess considerable interest, as
+      well as some artistic merit. The entire scene represented on the right
+      side seems to be the bringing of tribute or presents to the monarch by the
+      various nations under his sway. On the left-hand side this subject was
+      continued to a certain extent; but the greater part of the space was
+      occupied by representations of guards and officers of the court, the
+      guards being placed towards the centre, and, as it were, keeping the main
+      stairs, while the officers were at a greater distance. The three rows of
+      figures were separated from one another by narrow bands, thickly set with
+      rosettes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0020" id="linkBimage-0020">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate043.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xliii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The builder of this magnificent work was not content to leave it to
+      history or tradition to connect his name with his construction, but
+      determined to make the work itself the means of perpetuating his memory.
+      In three conspicuous parts of the staircase, slabs were left clear of
+      sculpture, undoubtedly to receive inscriptions commemorative of the
+      founder. The places selected were the front of the middle staircase, the
+      exact centre of the whole work, and the space adjoining the spandrels to
+      the extreme right and the extreme left. In one instance alone, however,
+      was this part of the work completed. On the right hand, or western
+      extremity of the staircase, an inscription of thirty lines in the old
+      Persian language informs us that the constructor was &ldquo;Xerxes, the Great
+      King, the King of Kings, the son of King Darius, the Achaemenian.&rdquo; The
+      central and left-hand tablets, intended probably for Babylonian and
+      Scythic translations of the Persian legend, were never inscribed, and
+      remain blank to the present day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remaining staircases will not require very lengthy or elaborate
+      descriptions. They are six in number, and consist, in most instances, of a
+      double flight of steps, similar to the central portion of the staircase
+      which has been just described. Two of them (e and f) belonged to the
+      building marked as the &ldquo;Palace of Darius&rdquo; on the plan, and gave entrance
+      to it from the central platform above which it is elevated about fourteen
+      or fifteen feet. Two others (c and d) belonged to the &ldquo;Palace of Xerxes.&rdquo;
+       These led up to a broad paved space in front of that building, which
+      formed a terrace, elevated about ten feet above the general level of the
+      central platform. Their position was at the two ends of the terrace,
+      opposite to one another; but in other respects they cannot be said to have
+      matched. The eastern, which consisted of two double flights, was similar
+      in general arrangement to the staircase by which the platform was mounted
+      from the plain, excepting that it was not recessed, but projected its full
+      breadth beyond the line of the terrace. It was decidedly the more elegant
+      of the two, and evidently formed the main approach. It was adorned with
+      the usual bull and lion combats, with figures of guardsmen, and with
+      attendants carrying articles needed for the table or the toilet. The
+      inscriptions upon it declare it to be the work of Xerxes. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0021">[PLATE XLIV.]</a> The western staircase was
+      composed merely of two single flights, facing one another, with a narrow
+      landing-place between them. It was ornamented like the eastern, but
+      somewhat less elaborately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0021" id="linkBimage-0021">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate044.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xliv. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      A staircase, very similar to this last, but still one with certain
+      peculiarities, was built by Artaxerxes Ochus, at the west side of the
+      Palace of Darius, in order to give it a second entrance. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0022">[PLATE XLV., Fig. 1.]</a> There the spandrels have
+      the usual figures of the lion and bull; but the intermediate space is
+      somewhat unusually arranged. It is divided vertically and horizontally
+      into eight squared compartments, three on either side, and two in the
+      middle. The upper of these two contains nothing but a winged circle, the
+      emblem of Divinity being thus placed reverently by itself. Below, in a
+      compartment of double size, is an inscription of Ochus, barbarous in
+      language, but very religious in tone. The six remaining compartments had
+      each four figures, representing tribute-bearers introduced to the royal
+      presence by a court officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0022" id="linkBimage-0022">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate045.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xlv. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The other, and original, staircase to this palace (f on the plan) was
+      towards the north, and led up to the great portico, which was anciently
+      its sole entrance. Two flights of steps, facing each other, conducted to a
+      paved space of equal extent with the portico and projecting in front of it
+      about five feet. On the base of the staircase were sculptures in a single
+      line&mdash;the lion and bull in either spandrel&mdash;and between the
+      spandrels eighteen colossal guardsmen, nine facing either way towards a
+      central inscription, which was repeated in other languages on slabs placed
+      between the guardsmen and the bulls. Above the spandrels, on the parapet
+      which fenced the stairs, was a line of figures representing attendants
+      bringing into the palace materials for the banquet. A similar line adorned
+      the inner wall of the staircase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Opposite to this, at the distance of about thirty-two yards, was another
+      very similar staircase, leading up to the portico of another building,
+      erected (apparently) by Artaxerxes Ochus, which occupied the south-western
+      corner of the upper platform. The sculptures here seem to have been of the
+      usual character but they are so mutilated that no very decided opinion can
+      be passed upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Last of all, a staircase of a very peculiar character, (h on the plan)
+      requires notice. This is a flight of steps cut in the solid rock, which
+      leads up from the southern terrace to the upper one, at a point
+      intervening between the south-western edifice, or palace of Artaxerxes,
+      and the palace of Xerxes, or central southern edifice. These steps are
+      singular in facing the terrace to which they lead, instead of being placed
+      sideways to it. They are of rude construction, being without a parapet,
+      and wholly devoid of sculpture or other ornamentation. They furnish the
+      only communication between the southern and central terraces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a peculiarity of the Persepolitan ruins that they are not
+      continuous, but present to the modern inquirer the appearance, at any
+      rate, of a number of distinct buildings. Of these the platform altogether
+      contains ten, five of which are of large size, while the remainder are
+      comparatively insignificant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the five large buildings four stand upon the central or upper terrace,
+      while one lies east of that terrace, between it and the mountains. The
+      four upon the central terrace comprise three buildings made up of several
+      sets of chambers, together with one great open pillared hall, to which are
+      attached no subordinate apartments. The three complex edifices will be
+      here termed &ldquo;palaces,&rdquo; and will take the names of their respective
+      founders, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes Ochus: the fourth will be called
+      the &ldquo;Great Hall of Audience.&rdquo; The building between the upper terrace and
+      the mountains will be termed the &ldquo;Great Eastern Edifice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;Palace of Darius,&rdquo; which is one of the most interesting of the
+      Persepolitan buildings, stands near the western edge of the platform,
+      midway between the &ldquo;Great Hall of Audience&rdquo; and the &ldquo;Palace of Artaxerxes
+      Ochus.&rdquo; <a href="#linkBimage-0023">[PLATE XLVI., Fig. 1.]</a> It is a
+      building about one hundred and thirty five feet in length, and in breadth
+      a little short of a hundred. Of all the existing buildings on the platform
+      it occupies the most exalted position, being elevated from fourteen to
+      fifteen feet above the general level of the central terrace, and being
+      thus four or five feet higher than the &ldquo;Palace of Xerxes.&rdquo; It fronted
+      towards the south, where it was approached by a double staircase of the
+      usual character, which led up to a deep portico of eight pillars arranged
+      in two rows. On either side of the portico were guard-rooms, which opened
+      upon it, in length twenty-three feet, and in breadth thirteen. Behind the
+      portico lay the main chamber, which was a square of fifty feet, having a
+      roof supported by sixteen pillars, arranged in four rows of four, in line
+      with the pillars of the portico. <a href="#linkBimage-0022">[PLATE XLV.,
+      Fig. 2.]</a> The bases for the pillars alone remain; and it is thus
+      uncertain whether their material was stone or wood. They were probably
+      light and slender, not greatly interrupting the view. The hall was
+      surrounded on all sides by walls from four to five feet in thickness, in
+      which were doors, windows, and recesses, symmetrically arranged. The
+      entrance from the portico was by a door in the exact centre of the front
+      wall, on either side of which were two windows, looking into the portico.
+      The opposite, or back, wall was pierced by two doors, which faced the
+      intercolumniations of the side rows of pillars, as the front door faced
+      the intercolumniation of the central rows. Between the two doors which
+      pierced the back wall was a squared recess, and similar recesses
+      ornamented the same wall on either side of the doors. The side walls were
+      each pierced originally by a single doorway, between which and the front
+      wall was a squared recess, while beyond, between the doorways and the back
+      wall, were two recesses of the same character. Curiously enough, these
+      side doorways and recesses fronted the pillars, not the
+      intercolumniations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0023" id="linkBimage-0023">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate046a.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate046a (149K)" src="images/plate046.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      No sculpture, so far as appears, adorned this apartment, excepting in the
+      doorways, which however had in every case this kind of ornamentation. The
+      doorways in the back wall exhibited on their jambs figures of the king
+      followed by two attendants, one holding a cloth, and the other a
+      fly-chaser. <a href="#linkBimage-0022">[PLATE XLV., Fig. 3.]</a> These
+      figures had in every case their faces turned towards the apartment. The
+      front doorway showed on its jambs the monarch followed by the
+      parasol-bearer and the bearer of the fly-chaser, with his back turned to
+      the apartment, issuing forth, as it were, from it. On the jambs of the
+      doors of the side apartments was represented the king in combat with a
+      lion or a monster, the king here in every case facing outwards, and
+      seeming to guard the entrances to the side chambers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the back of the hall, and at either side, were chambers of very
+      moderate dimensions. The largest were to the rear of the building, where
+      there seems to have been one about forty feet by twenty-three, and another
+      twenty-eight feet by twenty. The doorways here had sculptures,
+      representing attendants bearing napkins and perfumes. The side chambers,
+      five in number, were considerably smaller than those behind the great
+      hall, the largest not exceeding thirty-four feet by thirteen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems probable that this palace was without any second story. There is
+      no vestige in any part of it of a staircase&mdash;no indication of its
+      height having ever exceeded from twenty-two to twenty-five feet. It was a
+      modest building, simple and regular, covering less than half the space of
+      an ordinary palace in Assyria. <a href="#linkBimage-0022">[PLATE XLV.,
+      Fig. 2.]</a> Externally, it must have presented an appearance not very
+      dissimilar to that of the simpler Greek temples; distinguished from them
+      by peculiarities of ornamentation, but by no striking or important
+      feature, excepting the grand and elaborately sculptured staircase.
+      Internally, it was remarkable for the small number of its apartments,
+      which seem not to have been more than twelve or thirteen, and for the
+      moderate size of most of them. Even the grand central hall covered a less
+      area than three out of the five halls in the country palace of Sargon. The
+      effect of this room was probably fine, though it must have been somewhat
+      over-crowded with pillars. If these were, however (as is probable), light
+      wooden posts, plated with silver or with gold, and if the ceiling
+      consisted (as it most likely did) of beams, crossing each other at right
+      angles, with square spaces between them, all likewise coated with the
+      precious metals; if moreover the cold stone walls, excepting where they
+      were broken by a doorway, or a window, were similarly decked; if curtains
+      of brilliant hues hung across the entrances; if the pavement was of
+      many-colored stones, and in places covered with magnificent carpets; if an
+      elevated golden throne, under a canopy of purple, adorned the upper end of
+      the room, standing against the wall midway between the two doors&mdash;if
+      this were in truth the arrangement and ornamentation of the apartment, we
+      can well understand that the <i>coup d&rsquo;oeil</i> must have been effective,
+      and the impression made on the spectator highly pleasing. A room fifty
+      feet square, and not much more than twenty high, could not be very grand;
+      but elegance of form, combined with richness of material and splendor of
+      coloring, may have more than compensated for the want of that grandeur
+      which results from mere size.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If it be inquired how a palace of the dimensions described can have
+      sufficed even for one of the early Persian kings, the reply must seemingly
+      be that the building in question can only have contained the public
+      apartments of the royal residence&mdash;the throne-room, banqueting-rooms,
+      guard-rooms, etc.,&mdash;and that it must have been supplemented by at
+      least one other edifice of a considerable size, the Gynaeceum or &ldquo;House of
+      the Women.&rdquo; There is ample room on the platform for such a building,
+      either towards the east, where the ground is now occupied by a high mound
+      of rubbish, or on the west, towards the edge of the platform, where traces
+      of a large edifice were noted by Niebuhr. On the whole, this latter
+      situation seems to be the more probable; and the position of the Gynaeceum
+      in this quarter may account for the alteration made by Artaxerxes Ochus in
+      the palace of Darius, which now seriously interferes with its symmetry.
+      Artaxerxes cut a doorway in the outer western wall, and another opposite
+      to it in the western wall of the great hall, adding at the same time a
+      second staircase to the building, which thus became accessible from the
+      west no less than from the south. It has puzzled the learned in
+      architecture to assign a motive for this alteration. May we not find an
+      adequate one in the desire to obtain a ready and comparatively private
+      access to the Gynaeceum, which must have been somewhere on the platform,
+      and which may well have lain in this direction?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The minute account which has been now given of this palace will render
+      unnecessary a very elaborate description of the remainder. Two grand
+      palatial edifices seem to have been erected on the platform by later kings&mdash;one
+      by Xerxes and the other by Artaxerxes Ochus; but the latter of these is in
+      so ruined a condition, and the former is so like the palace of Darius,
+      that but few remarks need be made upon either. The palace of Xerxes is
+      simply that of Darius on a larger scale, the pillars in the portico being
+      increased from two rows of four to two rows of six, and the great hall
+      behind being a square of eighty instead of a square of fifty feet, with
+      thirty-six instead of sixteen pillars to support its roof. On either side
+      of the hall, and on either side of the portico, were apartments like those
+      already described as abutting on the same portions of the older palace,
+      differing from them chiefly in being larger and more numerous. The two
+      largest, which were thirty-one feet square, had roofs supported on
+      pillars, the numbers of such supports being in each case four. The only
+      striking difference in the plans of the two buildings consisted in the
+      absence from the palace of Xerxes of any apartments to the rear of the
+      great hall. In order to allow space for an ample terrace in front, the
+      whole edifice was thrown back so close to the edge of the upper platform
+      that no room was left for any chambers at the back, since the hall itself
+      was here brought almost to the very verge of the sheer descent from the
+      central to the low southern terrace. In ornamentation the palaces also
+      very closely resembled each other, the chief difference being that the
+      combats of the king with lions and mythological monsters, which form the
+      regular ornamentation of the side-chambers in the palace of Darius, occur
+      nowhere in the residence of his son, where they are replaced by figures of
+      attendants bringing articles for the toilet or the table, like those which
+      adorn the main staircase of the older edifice. Figures of the same kind
+      also ornament all the windows in the palace of Xerxes. A tone of mere
+      sensual enjoyment is thus given to the later edifice, which is very far
+      from characterizing the earlier; and the decline of morals at the Court,
+      which history indicates as rapid about this period, is seen to have
+      stamped itself, as such changes usually do, upon the national
+      architecture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small building, at the distance of about twenty or twenty-five yards
+      from the eastern wall of the palace of Xerxes, possesses a peculiar
+      interest, in consequence of its having some claims to be considered the
+      most ancient structure upon the platform. It consists of a hall and
+      portico, in size, proportions, and decoration almost exactly resembling
+      the corresponding parts of Darius&rsquo;s palace, but unaccompanied by any trace
+      of circumjacent chambers, and totally devoid of inscriptions. The building
+      is low, on the level of the northern, rather than on that of the central
+      terrace, and is indeed half buried in the rubbish which has accumulated at
+      its base. Its fragments are peculiarly grand and massive, while its
+      sculptures are in strong and bold relief. There can be little doubt but
+      that it was originally, like the hall and portico of Darius, surrounded on
+      three sides by chambers. These, however, have entirely disappeared, having
+      probably been pulled down to furnish materials for more recent edifices.
+      Like the palaces of Xerxes and Artaxerxes Ochus, and unlike the palace of
+      Darius, the building faces to the north, which is the direction naturally
+      preferred in such a climate. We may suppose it to have been the royal
+      residence of the earlier times, the erection of Cyrus or Cambyses, and to
+      have been intended especially for summer use, for which its position well
+      fitted it. Darius, wishing for a winter palace at Persepolis, as well as a
+      summer one, took probably this early palace for his model, and built one
+      as nearly as possible resembling it, except that, for the sake of greater
+      warmth, he made his new erection face southwards. Xerxes, dissatisfied
+      with the size of the old summer palace, built a new one at its side of
+      considerably larger dimensions, using perhaps some of the materials of the
+      old palace in his new building. Finally, Artaxerxes Ochus made certain
+      additions to the palace of Xerxes on its western side, and at the same
+      time added a staircase and a doorway to the winter residence of Darius.
+      Thus the Persepolitan palace, using the word in its proper sense of royal
+      residence, attained its full dimensions, occupying the southern half of
+      the great central platform, and covering with its various courts and
+      buildings a space 500 feet long by 375 feet wide, or nearly the space
+      covered by the less ambitious of the palaces of Assyria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides edifices adapted for habitation, the Persepolitan platform
+      sustained two other classes of buildings. These were propylaea, or
+      gateways&mdash;places commanding the approach to great buildings, where a
+      guard might be stationed to stop and examine all comers&mdash;and halls of
+      a vast size, which were probably throne-rooms, where the monarch held his
+      court on grand occasions, to exhibit himself in full state to his
+      subjects. The propylaea upon the platform appear to have been four in
+      number. One, the largest, was directly opposite the centre of the
+      landing-place at the top of the great stairs which gave access to the
+      platform from the plain. This consisted of a noble apartment, eighty-two
+      feet square, with a roof supported by four magnificent columns, each
+      between fifty and sixty feet high. The walls of the apartment were from
+      sixteen to seventeen feet thick. Two grand portals, each twelve feet wide
+      by thirty-six feet high, led into this apartment, one directly facing the
+      head of the stairs, and the other opposite to it, towards the east. Both
+      were flanked with colossal bulls, those towards the staircase being
+      conventional representations of the real animal, while the opposite pair
+      are almost exact reproductions of the winged and human-headed bulls, with
+      which the Assyrian discoveries have made us so familiar. The accompanying
+      illustration <a href="#linkBimage-0024">[PLATE XLVII., Fig. 1.]</a>, which
+      is taken from a photograph, exhibits this inner pair in their present
+      condition. The back of one of the other pair is also visible. Two of the
+      pillars&mdash;which alone are still standings appear in their places,
+      intervening between the front and the back gateway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0024" id="linkBimage-0024">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate047.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xlvii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The walls which enclosed this chamber, notwithstanding their immense
+      thickness, have almost entirely disappeared. On the southern side alone,
+      where there seems to have been a third doorway, unornamented, are there
+      any traces of them. We must conclude that they were either of burnt brick
+      or of small blocks of stone, which the natives of the country in later
+      times found it convenient to use as material for their own buildings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An edifice, almost exactly similar to this, but of very inferior
+      dimensions, occupied a position due east of the palace of Darius, and a
+      little to the north of the main staircase leading to the terrace in front
+      of the palace of Xerxes. The bases of two pillars and the jambs of three
+      doorways remain, from which it is easy to reconstruct the main building.
+      Its position seems to mark it as designed to give entrance to the
+      structure, whatever it was, which occupied the site of the great mound (M
+      on the Plan) east of Darius&rsquo;s palace, and north of the palace of his son.
+      The ornamentation, however, would rather connect it with the more eastern
+      of the two great pillared halls, which will have to be described
+      presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A third edifice of the same kind stood in front of the great eastern hall,
+      at the distance of about seventy yards from its portico. This building is
+      more utterly ruined than either of the preceding, and its dimensions are
+      open to some doubt. On the whole, it seems probable that it resembled the
+      great propylaea at the head of the stairs leading from the plain rather
+      than the central propylaea just described. Part of its ornamentation was
+      certainly a colossal bull, though whether human-headed or not cannot be
+      determined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fourth of the propylaea was on the terrace whereon stood the palace of
+      Xerxes, and directly fronting the landing-place at the head of its
+      principal stairs, just as the propylaea first described fronted the great
+      stairs leading up from the plain. Its dimensions were suited to those of
+      the staircase which led to it, and of the terrace on which it was placed.
+      It was less than one fourth the size of the great propylaea, and about
+      half that of the propylaea which stood the nearest to it. The bases of the
+      four pillars alone remain in situ; but, from the proportions thus
+      obtained, the position of the walls and doorways is tolerably certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have now to pass to the most magnificent of the Perse-politan buildings&mdash;the
+      Great Pillared Halls&mdash;which constitute the glory of Arian
+      architecture, and which, even in their ruins, provoke the wonder and
+      admiration of modern Europeans, familiar with all the triumphs of Western
+      art, with Grecian temples, Roman baths and amphitheatres, Moorish palaces,
+      Turkish mosques, and Christian cathedrals. Of these pillared halls, the
+      Persepolitan platform supports two, slightly differing in their design,
+      but presenting many points of agreement. They bear the character of an
+      earlier and a later building&mdash;a first effort in the direction which
+      circumstances compelled the architecture of the Persians to take, and the
+      final achievement of their best artists in this kind of building.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nearly midway in the platform between its northern and its southern edges,
+      and not very far from the boundary of rocky mountain on which the platform
+      abuts towards the east, is the vast edifice which has been called with
+      good reason the &ldquo;Hall of a Hundred Columns,&rdquo; since its roof was in all
+      probability supported by that number of pillars. This building consisted
+      of a single magnificent chamber, with a portico, and probably guard-rooms,
+      in front, of dimensions quite unequalled upon the platform. The portico
+      was 183 feet long by 52 feet deep, and was sustained by sixteen pillars,
+      about 33 feet high, arranged in two rows of eight. The great chamber
+      behind was a square of 227 feet, and had therefore an area of about 51,000
+      feet. Over this vast space were distributed, at equal distances from one
+      another, one hundred columns, each 35 feet high, arranged in ten rows of
+      ten each, every pillar thus standing at a distance of nearly 20 feet from
+      any other. The four walls which enclosed this great hall had a uniform
+      thickness of 10 1/2 feet, and were each pierced at equal intervals by two
+      doorways, the doorways being thus exactly opposite to one another, and
+      each looking down an avenue of columns. In the spaces of wall on either
+      side of the doorways, eastward, westward, and southward, were three
+      niches, all square-topped, and bearing the ornamentation which is
+      universal in the case of all niches, windows, and doorways in the
+      Persepolitan ruins. <a href="#linkBimage-0024">[PLATE XLVII., Fig. 2.]</a>
+      In the northern, or front, wall, the niches were replaced by windows
+      looking upon the portico, excepting towards the angles of the building,
+      where niches were retained, owing to a peculiarity in the plan of the
+      edifice which has now to be noticed. The portico, instead of being, as in
+      every other Persian instance, of the same width with the building which it
+      fronted, was 44 feet narrower, its antce projecting from the front wall,
+      not at either extremity, but at the distance of 11 feet from the corner.
+      While the porch was thus contracted, so that the pillars had to be eight
+      in each row instead of ten, space was left on either side for a narrow
+      guard-room opening on to the porch, indications of which are seen in the
+      doorways placed at right angles to the front wall, which are ornamented
+      with the usual figures of soldiers armed with spear and shield. It has
+      been suggested that the hall was, like the smaller pillared chambers upon
+      the platform, originally surrounded on three sides by a number of lesser
+      apartments; and this is certainly possible: but no trace remains of any
+      such buildings. The ornamentation which exists seems to show that the
+      building was altogether of a public character. Instead of exhibiting
+      attendants bringing articles for the toilet or the banquet, it shows on
+      its doors the monarch, either engaged in the art of destroying symbolical
+      monsters, or seated on his throne under a canopy, with the tiara on his
+      head, and the golden sceptre in his right hand. The throne representations
+      are of two kinds. On the jambs of the great doors leading out upon the
+      porch, we see in the top compartment the monarch seated under the canopy,
+      accompanied by five attendants, while below him are his guards, arranged
+      in five rows of ten each, some armed with spears and shields, others with
+      spears, short swords, bows and quivers. Thus the two portals together
+      exhibit the figures of 200 Persian guardsmen in attendance on the person
+      of the king. The doors at the back of the building present us with a still
+      more curious sculpture. On these the throne appears elevated on a lofty
+      platform, the stages of which, three in number, are upheld by figures in
+      different costumes, representing apparently the natives of all the
+      different provinces of the Empire. It is a reasonable conjecture that this
+      great hall was intended especially for a throne-room, and that in the
+      representations on these doorways we have figured a structure which
+      actually existed under its roof (probably at t in the plan)&mdash;a
+      platform reached by steps, whereon, in the great ceremonies of state, the
+      royal throne was placed, in order that the monarch might be distinctly
+      seen at one and the same time by the whole Court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0025" id="linkBimage-0025">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate048.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xlviii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The question of the lighting of this huge apartment presents some
+      difficulties. On three sides, as already observed, the hall had (so far as
+      appears) no windows&mdash;the places where windows might have been
+      expected to occur being occupied by niches. The apparent openings are
+      consequently reduced to some fifteen, viz., the eight doorways, and seven
+      windows, which looked out upon the portico, and were therefore overhung
+      and had a north aspect. It is clear that sufficient light could not have
+      entered the apartment from these&mdash;the only visible&mdash;apertures.
+      We must therefore suppose either that the walls above the niches were
+      pierced with windows, which is quite possible, or else that light was in
+      some way or other admitted from the roof. The latter is the supposition of
+      those most competent to decide. M. Flandin conjectures that the roof had
+      four apertures, placed at the points where the lines drawn from the
+      northern to the southern, and those drawn from the eastern to the western,
+      doors would intersect one another. He seems to suppose that these openings
+      were wholly unprotected, in which case they would have admitted, in a very
+      inconvenient way, both the sun and the rain. May we not presume that, if
+      such openings existed, they were guarded by louvres such as have been
+      regarded as probably lighting the Assyrian halls, and of which a
+      representation has already been given?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The portico of the Hall of a Hundred Columns was flanked on either side by
+      a colossal bull, standing at the inner angle of the antes, and thus in
+      some degree narrowing the entrance. Its columns were fluted, and had in
+      every case the complex capital, which occurs also in the great propylaea
+      and in the Hall of Xerxes. It was built of the same sort of massive blocks
+      as the south-eastern edifice, or Ancient Palace&mdash;blocks often ten
+      feet square by seven feet thick, and may be ascribed probably to the same
+      age as that structure. Like that edifice, it is situated somewhat low; it
+      has no staircase, and no inscription. We may fairly suppose it to have
+      been the throne-room or great hall of audience of the early king who built
+      the South-eastern Palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have now to describe the most remarkable of all the Persepolitan
+      edifices&mdash;a building the remains of which stretch nearly 350 feet in
+      one direction, while in the other they extend 246 feet. Its ruins consist
+      almost entirely of pillars, which are divided into four groups. The
+      largest of these was a square of thirty-six pillars, arranged in six rows
+      of six, all exactly equidistant from one another, and covering an area of
+      above 20,000 square feet. On three sides of this square, eastward,
+      northward, and westward, were magnificent porches, each consisting of
+      twelve columns, arranged in two rows, in line with the pillars of the
+      central cluster. These porches stood at the distance of seventy feet from
+      the main building, and have the appearance of having been entirely
+      separate from it. They are 143 feet long, by thirty broad, and thus cover
+      each an area of 4260 feet. The most astonishing feature in the whole
+      building is the height of the pillars. These, according to the
+      measurements of M. Flandin, had a uniform altitude throughout the building
+      of sixty-four feet. Even in their ruin, they tower over every other
+      erection upon the platform, retaining often, in spite of the effects of
+      time, an elevation of sixty feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The capitals of the pillars were of three kinds. Those of the side
+      colonnades were comparatively simple: they consisted, in each case, of a
+      single member, formed, in the eastern colonnade, of two half-griffins,
+      with their heads looking in opposite directions <a href="#linkBimage-0024">[PLATE
+      XLVII, Fig. 2]</a>; and, in the western colonnade, of two half-bulls,
+      arranged in the same manner <a href="#linkBimage-0024">[PLATE XLVII., Fig.
+      3]</a>. The capitals of the pillars in the northern colonnade, which faced
+      the great sculptured staircase, and constituted the true front of the
+      building, were of a very complex character. They may be best viewed as
+      composed of three distinct members&mdash;first, a sort of lotos-bud,
+      accompanied by pendent leaves; then, above that, a member, composed of
+      volutes like those of the Ionic order, but placed in a perpendicular
+      instead of a horizontal direction; and at the top, a member composed of
+      two half-bulls, exactly similar to that which forms the complete capital
+      of the western group of pillars. The pillars of the groat central cluster
+      had capitals exactly like those of the northern colonnade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bases of the colonnade pillars are of singular beauty. Bell-shaped,
+      and ornamented with a double or triple row of pendent lotus-leaves, some
+      rounded, some narrowed to a point; they are as graceful as they are rare
+      in their forms, and attract the admiration of all beholders. Above them
+      rise the columns, tapering gently as they ascend, but without any swell or
+      entasis. They consist of several masses of stone, carefully joined
+      together, and secured at the joints by an iron cramp in the direction of
+      the column&rsquo;s axis. All are beautifully fluted along their entire length,
+      the number of the incisions or flutings being from forty-eight to
+      fifty-two in each pillar. They are arcs of circles smaller than
+      semicircles, thus resembling those of the Doric, rather than those of the
+      Ionic or Corinthian order. The cutting of all is very exact and regular.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There can be little doubt but that both the porches, and the great central
+      pillar-cluster, were roofed in. The double-bull and double-griffin capital
+      are exactly suited to receive the ends of beams, which would stretch from
+      pillar to pillar, and support a roof and an entablature. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0026">[PLATE L., Fig.1.]</a> We may see in the entrances
+      to the royal tombs the true use of pillars in a Persian building, and the
+      character of the entablature which, they were intended to sustain,
+      Assuming, then, that both the great central pillar phalanx and the three
+      detached colonnades supported a roof, the question arises, were the
+      colonnades in any way united with the main building, or did they stand
+      completely detached from it? It has been supposed that they were all
+      porticos <i>in antis</i>, connected with the main building by solid walls&mdash;that
+      the great central column-cluster was surrounded on all sides by a wall of
+      a very massive description, from the four corners of which similar
+      barriers were carried down to the edge of the terrace, abutting in front
+      upon the steps of the great sculptured staircase, and extending eastward
+      and westward, so as to form the antce of an eastern and a western portico.
+      In the two corners between the northern in <i>antae</i> of the side
+      porticos and the <i>antae</i> of the portico in front are supposed to have
+      been large guard-rooms, entirely filling up the two angles. The whole
+      building is thus brought into close conformity with the &ldquo;Palace of
+      Xerxes,&rdquo; from which it is distinguished only by its superior size, its use
+      of stone pillars, and the elongation of the tetrastyle chambers at the
+      sides of that edifice into porticos of twelve pillars each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0026" id="linkBimage-0026">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate050.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate L. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The ingenuity of this conception is unquestionable; and one is tempted at
+      first sight to accept a solution which removes so much that is puzzling,
+      and establishes so remarkable a harmony between works whose outward aspect
+      is so dissimilar. It seems like the inspiration of genius to discern so
+      clearly the like in the unlike, and one inclines at first to believe that
+      what is so clever cannot but be true. But a rigorous examination of the
+      evidence leads to an opposite conclusion, and if it does not absolutely
+      disprove Mr. Fergusson&rsquo;s theory, at any rate shows it to be in the highest
+      degree doubtful. Such walls as he describes, with their <i>antae</i> and
+      their many doors and windows, should have left very marked traces of their
+      existence in great squared pillars at the sides of porticos, in huge
+      door-frames and window-frames, or at least in the foundations of walls,
+      or, the marks of them, on some part of the paved terrace. Now the entire
+      absence of squared pillars for the ends of antce, of door-frames, and
+      window-frames, or even of such sculptured fragments as might indicate
+      their former existence, is palpable and is admitted; nor is there any even
+      supposed trace of the walls, excepting in one of the lines which by the
+      hypothesis they would occupy. In front of the building, midway between the
+      great pillar-cluster and the north colonnade, are the remains of four
+      stone bases, parallel to one another, each seventeen feet long by five
+      feet six inches wide. Mr. Fergusson regards these bases as marking the
+      position of the doors in his front wall; and they are certainly in places
+      where doors might have been looked for, if the building had a front wall,
+      since the openings are exactly opposite the inter-columniations of the
+      pillars, both in the portico and in the main cluster. But there are
+      several objections to the notion of these bases being the foundations of
+      the jambs of doors. In the first place, they are too wide apart, being at
+      the distance from one another of seventeen feet, whereas no doorway on the
+      platform exceeds a width of twelve or thirteen feet. In the second place,
+      if these massive stone bases were prepared for the jambs of doors, it
+      could only have been for massive stone jambs like those of the other
+      palaces; but in that case, the jambs could not have disappeared. Thirdly,
+      if the doorways on this side were thus marked, why were they not similarly
+      marked on the other sides of the building? On the whole, the supposition
+      of M. Flandin, that the bases were pedestals for ornamental statues,
+      perhaps of bulls, seems more probable than that of Mr. Fergusson; though,
+      no doubt, there are objections also to M. Flandin&rsquo;s hypothesis, and it
+      would be perhaps best to confess that we do not know the use of these
+      strange foundations, which have nothing that at all resembles them upon
+      the rest of the platform.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another strong objection to Mr. Fergusson&rsquo;s theory, and one of which he,
+      to a certain extent, admits the force, is the existence of drains, running
+      exactly in the line of his side walls, which, if such walls existed, would
+      be a curious provision on the part of the architect for undermining his
+      own work. Mr. Fergusson supposes that they might be intended to drain the
+      walls themselves and keep them dry. But as it is clear that they must have
+      carried off the whole surplus water from the roof of the building, and as
+      there is often much rain and snow at Persepolis, their effect on the
+      foundations of such a wall as Mr. Fergusson imagines would evidently be
+      disastrous in the extreme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To these minute and somewhat technical objections may be added the main
+      one, whereof all alike can feel the force&mdash;namely, the entire
+      disappearance of such a vast mass of building as Mr. Fergusson&rsquo;s
+      hypothesis supposes. To account for this, Mr. Fergusson is obliged to lay
+      it down, that in this magnificent structure, with its solid stone
+      staircase, its massive pavement of the same material, and its seventy-two
+      stone pillars, each sixty-four feet high, the walls were of mud. Can we
+      believe in this incongruity? Can we imagine that a prince, who possessed
+      an unbounded command of human labor, and an inexhaustible supply of stone
+      in the rocky mountains close at hand, would have had recourse to the
+      meanest of materials for the walls of an edifice which he evidently
+      intended to eclipse all others upon the platform. And, especially, can we
+      suppose this, when the very same prince used solid blocks of stone, in the
+      walls of the very inferior edifice which he constructed in this same
+      locality? Mr. Fergusson, in defence of his hypothesis, alleges the
+      frequent combination of meanness with magnificence in the East, and
+      softens down the meanness in the present case by clothing his mud walls
+      with enamelled tiles, and painting them with all the colors of the
+      rainbow. But here again the hypothesis is wholly unsupported by fact.
+      Neither at Persepolis, nor at Pasargadae, nor at any other ancient Persian
+      site, has a single fragment of an enamelled tile or brick been discovered.
+      In Babylonia and Assyria, where the employment of such an ornamentation
+      was common, the traces of it which remain are abundant. Must not the
+      entire absence of such traces from all exclusively Persian ruins be held
+      to indicate that this mode of adorning edifices was not adopted in Persia?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If then we resign the notion of this remarkable building having been a
+      walled structure, we must suppose that it was a summer throne-room, open
+      to all the winds of heaven, except so far as it was protected by curtains.
+      For the use of these by the Persians in pillared edifices, we have
+      important historical authority in the statement already quoted from the
+      Book of Esther. The Persian palace, to which that passage directly refers,
+      contained a structure almost the exact counterpart of this at Persepolis;
+      and it is probable that at both places the interstices between the outer
+      pillars of, at any rate, the great central colonnade, were filled with
+      &ldquo;hangings of white and green and blue, fastened with cords of white and
+      purple to silver rings,&rdquo; which were attached to the &ldquo;pillars of marble;&rdquo;
+       and that by these means an undue supply of light and air, as well as an
+      unseemly publicity, were prevented. A traveller in the country well
+      observes, in allusion to this passage from Esther: Nothing could be more
+      appropriate than this method at Susa and Persepolis, the spring residences
+      of the Persian monarchs. It must be considered that these columnar halls
+      were the equivalents of the modern throne-rooms, that here all public
+      business was dispatched, and that here the king might sit and enjoy the
+      beauties of the landscape. With the rich plains of Susa and Persepolis
+      before him, he could well, after his winter&rsquo;s residence at Babylon,
+      dispense with massive walls, which would only check the warm fragrant
+      breeze from those verdant prairies adorned with the choicest flowers. A
+      massive roof, covering the whole expanse of columns, would be too cold and
+      dismal, whereas curtains around the central group would serve to admit
+      both light and warmth. Nothing can be conceived better adapted to the
+      climate or the season.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the central cluster of pillars was thus adapted to the purposes of a
+      throne-room, equally well may the isolated colonnades have served as
+      ante-chambers or posts for guards. Protected, perhaps, with curtains or
+      awnings of their own, of a coarser material than those of the main
+      chamber, or at any rate casting, when the sun was high, a broad and deep
+      shadow, they would give a welcome shelter to those who had to watch over
+      the safety of the monarch, or who were expecting but had not yet received
+      their summons to the royal presence. Except in the very hottest weather,
+      the Oriental does not love to pass his day within doors. Seated on the
+      pavement in groups, under the deep shadows of these colonnades, which
+      commanded a glorious view of the vast fertile plain of the Bendamir, of
+      the undulating mountain-tract beyond, and of the picturesque hills known
+      now as Koh-Istakhr, or Koh-Rhamgherd, the subjects of the Great King, who
+      had business at Court, would wait, agreeably enough, till their turn came
+      to approach the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our survey of the Persepolitan platform is now complete; but, before we
+      entirely dismiss the subject of Persian palaces, it seems proper to say a
+      few words with respect to the other palatial remains of Achasmenian times,
+      remains which exist in three places&mdash;at Murgab or Pasargadse, at
+      Istakr, and at the great mound of Susa. The Murgab and Istakr ruins were
+      carefully examined by MM. Coste and Flandin; while General Williams and
+      Mr. Loftus diligently explored, and completely made out, the plan of the
+      Susian edifice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ruins at Murgab, which are probably the most ancient in Persia,
+      comprise, besides the well-known &ldquo;Tomb of Cyrus,&rdquo; two principal buildings.
+      The largest of these was of an oblong-square shape, about 147 feet long by
+      116 wide. It seems to have been surrounded by a lofty wall, in which were
+      huge portals, consisting of great blocks of stone, partially hollowed out,
+      to render them portable. There was an inscription on the jambs of each
+      portal, containing the words, &ldquo;I am Cyrus the King, the Achaemenian.&rdquo;
+       Within the walled enclosure which may have been skirted internally by a
+      colonnade was a pillared building, of much greater height than the
+      surrounding walls, as is evident from the single column which remains.
+      This shaft, which is perfectly plain, and shows no signs of a capital, has
+      an altitude of thirty-six feet, with a diameter of three feet four inches
+      at the base. On the area around, which was carefully paved, are the bases
+      of seven other similar pillars, arranged in lines, and so situated as
+      apparently to indicate an oblong hall, supported by twelve pillars, in
+      three rows of four each. The chief peculiarity of the arrangement is, a
+      variety in the width of the intercolumniations, which measure twenty-seven
+      feet ten inches in one direction, but twenty-one feet only in the other.
+      The smaller building, which is situated at only a short distance from the
+      larger one, covers a space of 125 feet by fifty. It consists of twelve
+      pillar bases, arranged in two rows of six each, the pillars being somewhat
+      thicker than those of the other building, and placed somewhat closer
+      together. <a href="#linkBimage-0027">[PLATE XLIX., Fig. 5.]</a> The form
+      of the base is very singular. It exhibits at the side a semicircular
+      bulge, ornamented with a series of nine flutings, which are carried
+      entirely round the base in parallel horizontal circles. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0026">[PLATE L., Fig. 2.]</a> In front of the pillar
+      bases, at the distance of about twenty-three feet from the nearest, is a
+      square column, still upright, on which is sculptured a curious
+      mythological figure, together with the same curt legend, which appears on
+      the larger building&mdash;&ldquo;I am Cyrus, the King, the Achaemenian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0027" id="linkBimage-0027">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate049.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Xlix. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      There are two other buildings at Murgab remarkable for their masonry. One
+      is a square tower, with slightly projecting corners, built of hewn blocks
+      of stone, very regularly laid, and carried to a height of forty-two feet.
+      The other is a platform, exceedingly massive and handsome, composed
+      entirely of squared stone, and faced with blocks often eight or ten feet
+      long, laid in horizontal courses, and rusticated throughout in a manner
+      that is highly ornamental. <a href="#linkBimage-0026">[PLATE L. Fig. 3.]</a>
+      The style resembles that of the substructions of the Temple of Jerusalem.
+      It occurs occasionally, though somewhat rarely, in Greece; but there is
+      said to exist nowhere so extensive and beautiful a specimen of it as that
+      of the platform at this ancient site. <a href="#linkBimage-0026">[PLATE
+      L., Fig. 4.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The palace at Istakr is in better preservation than either of the two
+      pillared edifices at Murgab; but still, it is not in such a condition as
+      to enable us to lay down with any certainty even its ground-plan. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0028">[PLATE LI., Fig. 1.]</a> One pillar only remains
+      erect; but the bases of eight others have been found in situ; the walls
+      are partly to be traced, and the jambs of several doorways and niches are
+      still standing. These remains show that in many respects, as in the
+      character of the pillars, which were fluted and had capitals like those
+      already described, in the massiveness of the door and window jambs, and in
+      the thickness of the walls, the Istakr Palace resembled closely the
+      buildings on the Persepolitan platform; but at the same time they indicate
+      that its plan was wholly different, and thus our knowledge of the platform
+      buildings in no degree enables us to complete, or even to carry forward to
+      any appreciable extent, the ground-plan of the edifice derived from actual
+      research. The height of the columns, which is inferior to that of the
+      lowest at the great platform, would seem to indicate, either that the
+      building was the first in which stone pillars were attempted, or that it
+      was erected at a time when the Persians no longer possessed the mechanical
+      skill required to quarry, transport, and raise into place the enormous
+      blocks used in the best days of the nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0028" id="linkBimage-0028">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate051.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Li. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The palace of Susa, exhumed by Mr. Loftus and General Williams, consisted
+      of a great Hall or Throne-room, almost exactly a duplicate of the Chehl
+      Minar at Persepolis, and of a few other very inferior buildings. It stood
+      at the summit of the great platform, a quadrilateral mass of unburnt
+      brick, which from a remote antiquity had supported the residence of the
+      old Susian kings. It fronted a little west of north, and commanded a
+      magnificent view over the Susianian plains to the mountains of Lauristan.
+      An inscription, repeated on four of its pillar-bases, showed that it was
+      originally built by Darius Hystaspis, and afterwards repaired by
+      Artaxerxes Longimanus. As it was so exactly a reproduction of an edifice
+      already minutely described, no further account of it need be here given.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the palaces of the Persian kings we may now pass to their tombs,
+      remarkable structures which drew the attention of the ancients, and which
+      have been very fully examined and represented in modern times. These tombs
+      are eight in number, but present only two types, so that it will be
+      sufficient to give in this place a detailed account of two tombs&mdash;one
+      of each description.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most ancient, and, on the whole, the most remarkable of the tombs, is
+      almost universally allowed to be that of the Great Cyrus. It is unique in
+      design, totally different from all the other royal sepulchres; and, though
+      it has been often described, demands, and must receive, notice in any
+      account that is given of the ancient Persian constructions. The historian
+      Arrian calls it &ldquo;a house upon a pedestal;&rdquo; and this brief description
+      exactly expresses its general character. On a base, composed of huge
+      blocks of the most beautiful white marble,1 which rises pyramidically in
+      seven steps of different heights, there stands a small &ldquo;house&rdquo; of similar
+      material, crowned with a stone roof, which is formed in front and rear
+      into a pediment resembling that of a Greek temple. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0028">[PLATE LI., Fig.3.]</a> The &ldquo;house&rdquo; has no window,
+      but one of the end walls was pierced by a low and narrow doorway, which
+      led into a small chamber or cell, about eleven feet long, seven broad, and
+      seven high. Here, as ancient writers inform us, the body of the Great
+      Cyrus was deposited in a golden coffin. Internally the chamber is
+      destitute of any inscription, and indeed seems to have been left perfectly
+      plain. Externally, there is a cornice of some elegance below the pediment,
+      a good molding over the doorway, which is also doubly recessed&mdash;and
+      two other very slight moldings, one at the base of the &ldquo;house,&rdquo; and the
+      other at the bottom of the second step. <a href="#linkBimage-0028">[PLATE
+      LI., Fig. 2.]</a> Except for these, the whole edifice is perfectly plain.
+      Its present height above the ground is thirty-six feet, and it may
+      originally have been a foot or eighteen inches higher, for the top of the
+      roof is worn away. It measures at the base forty-seven feet by forty-three
+      feet nine inches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tomb stands within a rectangular area, marked out by pillars, the
+      bases or broken shafts of which are still to be seen. They appear to have
+      been twenty-four in number; all of them circular and smooth, not fluted;
+      six pillars occupied each side of the rectangle, and they stood distant
+      from each other about fourteen feet. It is probable that they originally
+      supported a colonnade, which skirted internally a small walled court,
+      within which the tomb was placed. The capitals of the pillars, if they had
+      any, have wholly disappeared; and the researches conducted on the spot
+      have failed to discover any trace of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remainder of the Persian royal sepulchres are rock-tombs, excavations
+      in the sides of mountains, generally at a considerable elevation, so
+      placed as to attract the eye of the beholder, while they are extremely
+      difficult of approach. Of this kind of tomb there are four in the face of
+      the mountain which bounds the Pulwar Valley on the north-west, while there
+      are three others in the immediate vicinity of the Persepolitan platform,
+      two in the mountain which overhangs it, and one in the rocks a little
+      further to the south. The general shape of the excavations, as it presents
+      itself to the eye of the spectator, resembles a Greek cross. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0029">[PLATE LII., Fig. 1.]</a> This is divided by
+      horizontal lines into three portions, the upper one (corresponding with
+      the topmost limb of the cross) containing a very curious sculptured
+      representation of the monarch worshipping Ormazd; the middle one, which
+      comprises the two side limbs, together with the space between them, being
+      carved architecturally so as to resemble a portico; and the third
+      compartment (corresponding with the lowest limb of the cross) being left
+      perfectly plain. In the centre of the middle compartment is sculptured on
+      the face of the rock the similitude of a doorway, closely resembling those
+      which still stand on the great platform; that is to say, doubly recessed,
+      and ornamented at the top with lily-work. The upper portion of this
+      doorway is filled with the solid rock, smoothed to a flat surface and
+      crossed by three horizontal bars. The lower portion, to the height of four
+      or five feet, is cut away; and thus entrance is given to the actual tomb,
+      which is hollowed out in the rock behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0029" id="linkBimage-0029">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate052.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Thus far the rock tombs, are, with scarcely an exception, of the same
+      type. The excavations, however, behind their ornamental fronts, present
+      some curious differences. In the simplest case of all, we find, on
+      entering, an arched chamber, thirteen feet five inches long by seven feet
+      two inches wide, from which there opens out, opposite to the door and at
+      the height of about four feet from the ground, a deep horizontal recess,
+      arched, like the chamber. Near the front of this recess is a further
+      perpendicular excavation, in length six feet ten inches, in width three
+      feet three inches, and in depth the same. This was the actual sarcophagus,
+      and was covered, or intended to be covered, by a slab of stone. In the
+      deeper part of the recess there is room for two other such sarcophagi; but
+      in this case they have not been excavated, one burial only having, it
+      would seem, taken place in this tomb. Other sepulchres present the same
+      general features, but provide for a much greater number of interments. In
+      that of Darius Hystaspis the sepulchral chamber contains three distinct
+      recesses, in each of which are three sarcophagi, so that the tomb would
+      hold nine bodies. It has, apparently, been cut originally for a single
+      recess, on the exact plan of the tomb described above, but has afterwards
+      been elongated towards the left. <a href="#linkBimage-0030">[PLATE LIII.,
+      Fig. 1.]</a> Two of the tombs show a still more elaborate ground-plan&mdash;one
+      in which curved lines take to some extent the place of straight ones. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0029">[PLATE LII., Fig. 2.]</a> The tombs above the
+      platform of Persepolis are more richly ornamented than the others, the
+      lintels and sideposts of the doorways being covered with rosettes, and the
+      entablature above the cornice bearing a row of lions, facing on either
+      side towards the centre. <a href="#linkBimage-0030">[PLATE LIII., Fig. 2.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0030" id="linkBimage-0030">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate053.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Liii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      A curious edifice, belonging probably to the later Achaemenian times,
+      stands immediately in front of the four royal tombs at Nakhsh-i-Eustam.
+      This is a square tower, composed of large blocks of marble, cut with great
+      exactness, and joined together without mortar or cement of any kind. The
+      building is thirty-six feet high; and each side of it measures, as near as
+      possible, twenty-four feet. It is ornamented with pilasters at the corners
+      and with six recessed niches, or false windows, in three ranks, one over
+      the other, on three out of its four faces. On the fourth face are two
+      niches only, one over the other; and below them is a doorway with a
+      cornice. The surface of the walls between the pilasters is also ornamented
+      with a number of rectangular depressions, resembling the sunken ends of
+      beams. The doorway, which looks north, towards the tombs, is not at the
+      bottom of the building, but half-way up its side, and must have been
+      reached either by a ladder or by a flight of steps. It leads into a square
+      chamber, twelve feet wide by nearly eighteen high, extending to the top of
+      the building, and roofed in with four large slabs of stone, which reach
+      entirely across from side to side, being rather more than twenty-four feet
+      long, six feet wide, and from eighteen inches to three feet in thickness.
+      <a href="#linkBimage-0030">[PLATE LIII., Fig. 3.]</a> On the top these
+      slabs are so cut that the roof has every way a slight incline; at their
+      edges they are fashioned between the pilasters, into a dentated cornice,
+      like that which is seen on the tomb. Externally they were clamped together
+      in the same careful way which we find to have been in use both at
+      Persepolis and Parsargadae. The building seems to have been closed
+      originally by two ponderous stone doors. <a href="#linkBimage-0031">[PLATE
+      LIV., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0031" id="linkBimage-0031">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate054.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Liv. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Another remarkable construction, which must belong to a very ancient
+      period in the history of the country, is a gateway composed of enormous
+      stones, which forms a portion of the ruins of Istakr. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0031">[PLATE LIV., Fig. 2.]</a> It has generally been
+      regarded as one of the old gates of the city; but its position in the
+      gorge between the town wall and the opposite mountain, and the fact that
+      it lies directly across the road from Pasargadae into the plain of
+      Merdasht, seem rather to imply that it was one of those fortified &ldquo;gates,&rdquo;
+       which we know to have been maintained by the Persians, at narrow points
+      along their great routes, for the purpose of securing them, and stopping
+      the advance of an enemy. On either side were walls of vast thickness, on
+      the one hand abutting upon the mountain, on the other probably connected
+      with the wall of the town, while between them were three massive pillars,
+      once, no doubt, the supports of a tower, from which the defenders of the
+      gate would engage its assailants at a great advantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have now described (so far as our data have rendered it possible) all
+      the more important of the ancient edifices of the Persians, and may
+      proceed to consider the next branch of the present inquiry, namely, their
+      skill in the mimetic arts. Before, however, the subject of their
+      architecture is wholly dismissed, a few words seem to be required on its
+      general character and chief peculiarities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First, then, the simplicity and regularity of the style are worthy of
+      remark. In the ground-plans of buildings the straight line only is used;
+      all the angles are right angles; all the pillars fall into line; the
+      intervals between pillar and pillar are regular, and generally equal;
+      doorways are commonly placed opposite intercolumniations; where there is
+      but one doorway, it is in the middle of the wall which it pierces; where
+      there are two, they correspond to one another. Correspondence is the
+      general law. Not only does door correspond to door, and pillar to pillar,
+      but room to room, window to window, and even niche to niche. Most of the
+      buildings are so contrived that one half is the exact duplicate of the
+      other; and where this is not the case, the irregularity is generally
+      either slight, or the result of an alteration, made probably for
+      convenience sake. Travellers are impressed with the Grecian character of
+      what they behold, though there is an almost entire absence of Greek forms.
+      The regularity is not confined to single buildings, but extends to the
+      relations of different edifices one to another. The sides of buildings
+      standing on one platform, at whatever distance they may be, are parallel.
+      There is, however, less consideration paid than we should have expected to
+      the exact position, with respect to a main building, in which a
+      subordinate one shall be placed. Propylaea, for instance, are not opposite
+      the centre of the edifice to which they conduct, but slightly on one side
+      of the centre. And generally, excepting in the parallelism of their sides,
+      buildings seem placed with but slight regard to neighboring ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For effect, the Persian architecture must have depended, firstly, upon the
+      harmony that is produced by the observance of regularity and proportion;
+      and, secondly, upon two main features of the style. These were the grand
+      sculptured staircases which formed the approaches to all the principal
+      buildings, and the vast groves of elegant pillars in and about the great
+      halls. The lesser buildings were probably ugly, except in front. But such
+      edifices as the Chehl Minar at Persepolis, and its duplicate at Susa&mdash;where
+      long vistas of columns met the eye on every side, and the great central
+      cluster was supported by lighter detached groups, combining similarity of
+      form with some variety of ornament, where richly colored drapings
+      contrasted with the cool gray stone of the building, and a golden roof
+      overhung a pavement of many hues&mdash;must have been handsome, from
+      whatever side they were contemplated, and for general richness and harmony
+      of effect may have compared favorably with any edifices which, up to the
+      time of their construction, had been erected in any country or by any
+      people. If it may seem to some that they were wanting in grandeur, on
+      account of their comparatively low height&mdash;a height which, including
+      that of the platform, was probably in no case much more than a hundred
+      feet&mdash;it must be remembered that the buildings of Greece and (except
+      the Pyramids) those of Egypt, had the same defect, and that, until the
+      constructive powers of the arch came to be understood, it was almost
+      impossible to erect a building that should be at once lofty and elegant.
+      Height, moreover, if the buildings are for use, implies inconvenience, a
+      waste of time and power being involved in the ascent and descent of steps.
+      The ancient architects, studying utility more than effect, preferred
+      spreading out their buildings to piling them up, and rarely, unless in
+      thickly-peopled towns, even introduced a second story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spectator, however, was impressed with a sense of grandeur in another
+      way. The use of huge blocks of stone, not only in platforms, but in the
+      buildings themselves, in the shafts of pillars, the antae of porticos, the
+      jambs of doorways, occasionally in roofs, and perhaps in epistylia,
+      produced the same impression of power, and the same feeling of personal
+      insignificance in the beholder, which is commonly effected by great size
+      in the edifice, and particularly by height. The mechanical skill required
+      to transport and raise into place the largest of these blocks must have
+      been very considerable, and their employment causes not merely a blind
+      admiration of those who so built on the part of ignorant persons, but a
+      profound respect for them on the part of those who are by their studies
+      and tastes best qualified for pronouncing on the relative and absolute
+      merits of architectural masterpieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the less pleasing peculiarities of the Persian architecture may be
+      mentioned a general narrowness of doors in proportion to their height, a
+      want of passages, a thickness of walls, which is architecturally clumsy,
+      but which would have had certain advantages in such a climate, an
+      inclination to place the doors of rooms near one corner, an allowance of
+      two entrances into a great hall from under a single portico, a peculiar
+      position of propylaea, and the very large employment of pillars in the
+      interior of buildings. In many of these points, and also in the
+      architectural use which was made of sculpture, the style of building
+      resembled, to some extent, that of Assyria; the propylaea, however, were
+      less Assyrian than Egyptian; while in the main and best features of the
+      architecture, it was (so far as we can tell) original. The solid and
+      handsome stone platforms, the noble staircases, and the profusion of light
+      and elegant stone columns, which formed the true glory of the architecture&mdash;being
+      the features on which its effect chiefly depended&mdash;have nowhere been
+      discovered in Assyria; and all the evidence is against their existence.
+      The Arians found in Mesopotamia an architecture of which the pillar was
+      scarcely an element at all&mdash;which was fragile and unenduring&mdash;and
+      which depended for its effect on a lavish display of partially colored
+      sculpture and more richly tinted enamelled brick. Instead of imitating
+      this, they elaborated for themselves, from the wooden buildings of their
+      own mountain homes, a style almost exactly the reverse of that with which
+      their victories had brought them into contact. Adopting, of main features,
+      nothing but the platform, they imparted even to this a new character, by
+      substituting in its construction the best for the worst of materials, and
+      by further giving to these stone structures a massive solidity, from the
+      employment of huge, blocks, which made them stand in the strongest
+      possible contrast to the frail and perishable mounds of Babylonia and
+      Assyria. Having secured in this way a firm and enduring basis, they
+      proceeded to erect upon it buildings where the perpendicular line was
+      primary and the horizontal secondary&mdash;buildings of almost, the same
+      solid and massive character as the platform itself&mdash;forests of light
+      but strong columns, supporting a wide-spreading roof, sometimes open to
+      the air, sometimes enclosed by walls, according as they were designed for
+      summer or winter use, or for greater or less privacy. To edifices of this
+      character elaborate ornamentation was unnecessary; for the beauty of the
+      column is such that nothing more is needed to set off a building.
+      Sculpture would thus be dispensed with, or reserved for mere occasional
+      use, and employed not so much on the palace itself as on its outer
+      approaches; while brick enamelling could well be rejected altogether, as
+      too poor and fragile a decoration for buildings of such strength and
+      solidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The origination of this columnar architecture must be ascribed to the
+      Medes, who, dwelling in or near the more wooden parts of the Zagros range,
+      constructed, during the period of their empire, edifices of considerable
+      magnificence, whereof wooden pillars were the principal feature, the
+      courts being surrounded by colonnades, and the chief buildings having
+      porticos, the pillars in both cases being of wood. A wooden roof rested on
+      these supports, protected externally by plates of metal. We do not know if
+      the pillars had capitals, or if they supported an entablature; but
+      probability is in favor of both these arrangements having existed. When
+      the Persians succeeded the Medes in the sovereignty of Western Asia, they
+      found Arian architecture in this condition. As stone, however, was the
+      natural material of their country, which is but scantily wooded and is
+      particularly barren towards the edge of the great plateau, where their
+      chief towns were situated, and as they had from the first a strong desire
+      of fame and a love for the substantial and the enduring, they almost
+      immediately substituted for the cedar and cypress pillars of the Medes,
+      stone shafts, plain or fluted, which they carried to a surprising height,
+      and fixed with such firmness that many of them have resisted the
+      destructive powers of time, of earthquakes, and of vandalism for more than
+      three-and-twenty centuries, and still stand erect and nearly as perfect as
+      when they received the last touch from the sculptor&rsquo;s hand more than 2000
+      years ago. It is the glory of the Persians in art to have invented this
+      style, which they certainly did not learn from the Assyrians, and which
+      they can scarcely be supposed to have adopted from Egypt, where the
+      conception of the pillar and its ornamentation were wholly different. We
+      can scarcely doubt that Greece received from this quarter the impulse
+      which led to the substitution of the light and elegant forms which
+      distinguish the architecture of her best period from the rude and clumsy
+      work of the more ancient times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the mimetic art of the Persians we do not possess any great amount, or
+      any great variety, of specimens. The existing remains consist of reliefs,
+      either executed on the natural rock or on large slabs of hewn stone used
+      in building, of impressions upon coins, and of a certain number of
+      intaglios cut upon gems. We possess no Persian statues, no modelled
+      figures, no metal castings, no carvings in ivory or in wood, no
+      enamellings, no pottery even. The excavations on Persian sites have been
+      singularly barren of those minor results which flowed so largely from the
+      Mosopotamian excavations, and have yielded no traces of the furniture,
+      domestic implements, or wall-ornamentation of the people; have produced,
+      in fact, no small objects at all, excepting a few cylinders and some spear
+      and arrow heads, thus throwing scarcely any light on the taste or artistic
+      genius of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nearest approach to statuary which we meet with among the Persian
+      remains are the figures of colossal bulls, set to guard portals, or
+      porticos, which are not indeed sculptures in the round, but are specimens
+      of exceedingly high relief, and which, being carved in front as well as
+      along the side, do not fall very far short of statues. Of such figures, we
+      find two varieties&mdash;one representing the real animal, the other a
+      monster with the body and legs of a bull, the head of a man, and the wings
+      of an eagle. There is considerable merit in both representations. They are
+      free from the defect of flatness, or want of breadth in comparison with
+      the length, which characterizes the similar figures of Assyrian artists;
+      and they are altogether grand, massive, and imposing. The general
+      proportions of the bulls are good, the limbs are accurately drawn, the
+      muscular development is well portrayed, and the pose of the figure is
+      majestic. Even the monstrous forms of human-headed bulls have a certain
+      air of quiet dignity, which is not without its effect on the beholder;
+      and, although implying no great artistic merit, since they are little more
+      than reproductions of Assyrian models, indicate an appreciation of some of
+      the best qualities of Assyrian art&mdash;the combination of repose with
+      strength, of great size with the most careful finish, and of strangeness
+      with the absence of any approach to grotesqueness or absurdity. The other
+      Persian reliefs may be divided under four heads:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (1) Mythological representations of a man&mdash;the king apparently&mdash;engaged
+      in combat with a lion, a bull, or a monster; (2) Processions of guards,
+      courtiers, attendants, or tribute-bearers; (3) Representations of the
+      monarch walking, seated upon his throne, or employed in the act of
+      worship; and (4) Representations of lions and bulls, either singly or
+      engaged in combat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the jambs of doorways in three of the Persepolitan buildings, a human
+      figure, dressed in the Median robe, but with the sleeve thrown back from
+      the right arm, is represented in the act of killing either a lion, a bull,
+      or a grotesque monster. In every case the animal is rampant, and assails
+      his antagonist with three of his feet, while he stands on the fourth. The
+      lion and bull have nothing about them that is very peculiar; but the
+      monsters present most strange and unusual combinations. One of them has
+      the griffin head, which we have already seen in use in the capitals of
+      columns, a feathered crest and neck, a bird&rsquo;s wings, a scorpion&rsquo;s tail,
+      and legs terminating in the claws of an eagle. The other has an eagle&rsquo;s
+      head, ears like an ass, feathers on the neck, the breast, and the back,
+      with the body, legs, and tail of a lion. <a href="#linkBimage-0032">[PLATE
+      LV., Fig. 1.]</a> Figures of equal grotesqueness, some of which possess
+      certain resemblances to these, are common in the mythology of Assyria, and
+      have been already represented in these volumes; but the Persian specimens
+      are no servile imitations of these earlier forms. The idea of the Assyrian
+      artist has, indeed, been borrowed; but Persian fancy has worked it out in
+      its own way, adding, modifying, and subtracting in such a manner as to
+      give to the form produced a quite peculiar, and (so to speak) native
+      character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0032" id="linkBimage-0032">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate055a.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate055a (217K)" src="images/plate055.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Persian gems abound with monstrous forms, of equal, or even superior
+      grotesqueness. As the Gothic architects indulged their imagination in the
+      most wonderful combinations to represent evil spirits or the varieties of
+      vice and sensualism, so the Persian gem-engravers seem to have allowed
+      their fancy to run riot in the creation of monsters, representative of the
+      Powers of Darkness or of different kinds of evil, The stones exhibit the
+      king in conflict with a vast variety of monsters, some nearly resembling
+      the Persepolitan, while others have strange shapes unseen elsewhere.
+      Winged lions, with two tails and with the horns of a ram or an antelope,
+      sphinxes and griffins of half a dozen different kinds, and various other
+      nondescript creatures, appear upon the Persian gems and cylinders,
+      furnishing abundant evidence of the quaint and prolific fancy of the
+      designers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The processional subjects represented by the Persian artists are of three
+      kinds. In the simplest and least interesting the royal guards, or the
+      officers of the court, are represented in one or more lines of very
+      similar figures, either moving in one direction, or standing in two
+      bodies, one facing the other, in the attitude of quiet expectation. In
+      these subjects there is a great sameness, and a very small amount of
+      merit. The proportion of the forms is, indeed, fairly good, the heads and
+      hands are well drawn, and there is some grace in certain of the figures,
+      but the general effect is tame and somewhat heavy; the attitudes are
+      stiff, and present little variety, while, nevertheless, they are sometimes
+      impossible; there is a monotonous repetition of identically the same
+      figure, which is tiresome, and a want of grouping which is very
+      inartistic. If Persia had produced nothing better than this in sculpture,
+      she would have had to be placed not only behind Assyria, but behind Egypt,
+      as far as the sculptor&rsquo;s art is concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Processional scenes of a more attractive character are, however, tolerably
+      frequent. Some exhibit to us the royal purveyors arriving at the palace
+      with their train of attendants, and bringing with them the provisions
+      required for the table of the monarch. Here we have some varieties of
+      costume which are curious, and some representations of Persian utensils,
+      which are not without a certain interest. Occasionally, too, we are
+      presented with animal forms, as kids, which have considerable merit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But by far the most interesting of the processional scenes, are those
+      which represent the conquered nations bringing to the monarch those
+      precious products of their several countries which the Lord of Asia
+      expected to receive annually, as a sort of free gift from his subjects, in
+      addition to the fixed tribute which was exacted from them. Here we have a
+      wonderful variety of costume and equipment, a happy admixture of animal
+      with human forms, horses, asses, chariots, sheep, cattle, camels,
+      interspersed among men, and the whole divided into groups by means of
+      cypress-trees, which break the series into portions, and allow the eye to
+      rest in succession upon a number of distinct pictures. Processions of this
+      kind occurred on several of the Persepolitan staircases; but by far the
+      most elaborate and complete is that on the grand steps in front of the
+      Chehl Minar, or Great Hall of Audience, where we see above twenty such
+      groups of figures, each with it own peculiar features, and all finished
+      with the utmost care and delicacy. The illustration <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0032">[PLATE LV., Fig. 2]</a>, which is taken from a
+      photograph, will give a tolerable idea of the general character of this
+      relief; it shows the greater portion of six groups, whereof two are much
+      injured by the fall of the parapet-wall on which they were represented,
+      while the remaining four are in good preservation. It will be noticed that
+      the animal forms&mdash;the Bactrian camel and the humped ox&mdash;are
+      superior to the human, and have considerable positive merit as works of
+      art. This relative superiority is observable throughout the entire series,
+      which contains, besides several horses (some of which have been already
+      represented in these volumes), a lioness, an excellent figure of the wild
+      ass, and two tolerably well-drawn sheep. <a href="#linkBimage-0033">[PLATE
+      LVI., Fig. 2 and 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0033" id="linkBimage-0033">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate056.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lvi. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The representations of the monarch upon the reliefs are of three kinds. In
+      the simplest, he is on foot, attended by the parasol-bearer and the
+      napkin-bearer, or by the latter only, apparently in the act of proceeding
+      from one part of the palace to another. In the more elaborate he is either
+      seated on an elevated throne, which is generally supported by numerous
+      caryatid figures, or he stands on a platform similarly upheld, in the act
+      of worship before an altar. This latter is the universal representation
+      upon tombs, while the throne scenes are reserved for palaces. In both
+      representations the supporting figures are numerous; and it is here
+      chiefly that we notice varieties of physiognomy, which are evidently
+      intended to recall the differences in the physical type of the several
+      races by which the Empire was inhabited. In one case, we have a negro very
+      well portrayed; in others we trace the features of Scyths or Tatars. It is
+      manifest that the artist has not been content to mark the nationality of
+      the different figures by costume alone, but has aimed at reproducing upon
+      the stone the physiognomic peculiarities of each race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The purely animal representations which the bas-reliefs bring before us
+      are few in number, and have little variety of type. The most curious and
+      the most artistic is one which is several times repeated at Persepolis,
+      where it forms the usual ornamentation of the triangular spaces on the
+      facades of stairs. This is a representation of a combat between a lion and
+      a bull, or (perhaps, we should rather say) a representation of a lion
+      seizing and devouring a bull; for the latter animal is evidently powerless
+      to offer any resistance to the fierce beast which has sprung upon him from
+      behind, and has fixed both fangs and claws in his body. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0033">[PLATE LVI., Fig. 4.]</a> In his agony the bull
+      rears up his fore-parts, and turns his head feebly towards his assailant,
+      whose strong limbs and jaws have too firm a hold to be dislodged by such
+      struggles as his unhappy victim is capable of making. In no Assyrian
+      drawing is the massiveness and strength of the king of beasts more
+      powerfully rendered than in this favorite group, which the Persian
+      sculptors repeated without the slightest change from generation to
+      generation. The contour of the lion, his vast muscular development, and
+      his fierce countenance are really admirable, and the bold presentation of
+      the face in full, instead of in profile, is beyond the ordinary powers of
+      Oriental artists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Drawings of bulls and lions in rows, where each animal is the exact
+      counterpart of all the others, are found upon the friezes of some of the
+      tombs, and upon the representations of canopies over the royal throne.
+      These drawings are fairly spirited, but have not any extraordinary merit.
+      They reproduce forms well known in Assyria. A figure of a sitting lion
+      seems also to have been introduced occasionally on the facades of
+      staircases, occurring in the central compartment of the parapet-wall at
+      top. These figures, in no case, remain complete; but enough is left to
+      show distinctly what the attitude was, and this appears not to have
+      resembled very closely any common Assyrian type. <a href="#linkBimage-0034">[PLATE
+      LVII., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0034" id="linkBimage-0034">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate057.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lvii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Persian gem-engravings have considerable merit, and need not fear a
+      comparison with those of any other Oriental nation. They occur upon hard
+      stones of many different kinds, as cornelian, onyx, rock-crystal,
+      sapphirine, sardonyx, chalcedony, etc., and are executed for the most part
+      with great skill and delicacy. The designs which they embody are in
+      general of a mythological character; but sometimes scenes of real life
+      occur upon them, and then the drawing is often good, and almost always
+      spirited. In proof of this, the reader may be referred to the
+      hunting-scenes already given, which are derived wholly from this source,
+      as well as to the gems figured <a href="#linkBimage-0033">[PLATE LVI.,
+      Fig. 3]</a>, one of which is certainly, and the other almost certainly, of
+      Persian workmanship. In the former we see the king, not struggling with a
+      mythological lion but engaged apparently in the actual chase of the king
+      of beasts Two lions have been roused from their lairs, and the monarch
+      hastily places an arrow on the string, anxious to despatch one of his foes
+      before the other can come to close quarters The eagerness of the hunter
+      and the spirit and boldness of the animals are well represented. In the
+      other gem, while there is less of artistic excellence, we have a scene of
+      peculiar interest placed before us. A combat between two Persians and two
+      Cythians seems to be represented. The latter marked by their peaked cap
+      and their loose trousers, fight with the bow and the battle-axe, the
+      former with the bow and the sword One Scyth is receiving his death-wound,
+      the other is about to let loose a shaft, but seems at the same time half
+      inclined to fly The steady confidence of the warriors on the one side
+      contrasts well with the timidity and hesitancy of their weaker and smaller
+      rivals. <a href="#linkBimage-0034">[PLATE LVII., Fig. 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The vegetable forms represented on the gems are sometimes graceful and
+      pleasing. This is especially the case with palm-trees, a favorite subject
+      of the artists, who delineated with remarkable success the feathery
+      leaves, the pendant fruit and the rough bark of the stem. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Fig 1.]</a> The lion-hunter
+      represented on the signet-cylinder of Darius Hystaspis takes place in a
+      palm-grove, and furnishes the accompanying example of this form of
+      vegetable life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0035" id="linkBimage-0035">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate058.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lviii. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      One gem, ascribed on somewhat doubtful grounds to the Persians of
+      Achaemenian times, contains what appears to be a portrait. It is thought
+      to be the bust of a satrap of Salamis in Cyprus, and is very carefully
+      executed. If really of Persian workmanship, it would indicate a
+      considerable advance in the power of representing the human countenance
+      between the time of Darius Hystaspis and that of Alexander <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0034">[PLATE LVII. Fig. 2.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persian coins are of three principal types. The earliest have on the one
+      side the figure of a monarch bearing the diadem and armed with the bow and
+      javelin, while on the other there is an irregular indentation of the same
+      nature with the <i>quadratum incusum</i> of the Greeks. This rude form is
+      replaced in later times by a second design, which is sometimes a horseman,
+      sometimes the forepart of a ship, sometimes the king drawing an an arrow
+      from his quiver. Another type exhibits on the obverse the monarch in
+      combat with a lion while the reverse shows a galley, or a towered and
+      battlemented city with two lions standing below it, back to back. The
+      third common type has on the obverse the king in his chariot, with his
+      charioteer in front of him, and (generally) an attendant carrying a
+      fly-chaser behind. The reverse has either the trireme or the battlemented
+      city. A specimen of each type is given. <a href="#linkBimage-0034">[PLATE
+      LVII., Fig. 4.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artistic merit of these medals is not great. The relief is low, and
+      the drawing generally somewhat rude. The head of the monarch in the early
+      coins is greatly too large. The animal forms are, however, much superior
+      to the human, and the horses which draw the royal chariot, the lions
+      placed below the battlemented city, and the bulls which are found
+      occasionally in the same position, must be pronounced truthful and
+      spirited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the Persian taste in furniture, utensils, personal ornaments and the
+      like, we need say but little. The throne and footstool of the monarch are
+      the only pieces of furniture represented in the sculptures, and these,
+      though sufficiently elegant in their forms, are not very remarkable.
+      Costliness of material seems to have been more prized than beauty of
+      shape; and variety appears to have been carefully eschewed, one single
+      uniform type of each article occurring in all the representations. The
+      utensils represented are likewise few in number, and limited to certain
+      constantly repeated forms. The most elaborate is the censer, which has
+      been already given. With this is usually seen a sort of pail or basket,
+      shaped like a lady&rsquo;s reticule, in which the aromatic gums for burning were
+      probably kept. <a href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Fig. 5.]</a> A
+      covered dish, and a goblet with an inverted saucer over it, are also forms
+      of frequent occurrence in the hands of the royal attendants; and the
+      tribute-bearers frequently carry, among their other offerings, bowls or
+      basons, which, though not of Persian manufacture, were no doubt left at
+      the court, and took their place among the utensils of the palace. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Figs. 2 and 3.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the matter of personal ornaments the taste of the Persians seems to
+      have been peculiarly simple. Earrings were commonly plain rings of gold;
+      bracelets mere bands of the same metal. Collars were circlets of gold
+      twisted in a very inartificial fashion. There was nothing artistic in the
+      sheaths or hilts of swords, though spear-shafts were sometimes adorned
+      with the representation of an apple or a pomegranate. Dresses seem not to
+      have been often patterned, but to have depended generally for their effect
+      on make and color. In all these respects we observe a remarkable contrast
+      between the Arian and the Semitic races, extreme simplicity characterizing
+      the one, while the most elaborate ornamentation was affected by the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persia was not celebrated in antiquity for the production of any special
+      fabrics. The arts of weaving and dyeing were undoubtedly practised in the
+      dominant country, as well as in most of the subject provinces, and the
+      Persian dyes seem even to have had a certain reputation; but none of the
+      productions of their looms acquired a name among foreign nations. Their
+      skill, indeed, in the mechanical arts generally was, it is probable, not
+      more than moderate. It was their boast that they were soldiers, and had
+      won a position by their good swords which gave them the command of all
+      that was most exquisite and admirable, whether in the natural world or
+      among the products of human industry. So long as the carpets of Babylon
+      and Sardis, the shawls of Kashmir and India, the fine linen of Borsippa
+      and Egypt, the ornamental metal-work of Greece, the coverlets of Damascus,
+      the muslins of Babylonia, the multiform manufactures of the Phoenician
+      towns, poured continually into Persia Proper in the way of tribute, gifts,
+      or merchandise, it was needless for the native population to engage
+      largely in industrial enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To science the ancient Persians contributed absolutely nothing. The genius
+      of the nation was adverse to that patient study and those laborious
+      investigations from which alone scientific progress ensues. Too light and
+      frivolous, too vivacious, too sensuous for such pursuits, they left them
+      to the patient Babylonians, and the thoughtful, many-sided Greeks. The
+      schools of Orchoe, Borsippa, and Miletus flourished under their sway, but
+      without provoking their emulation, possibly without so much as attracting
+      their attention. From first to last, from the dawn to the final close of
+      their power, they abstained wholly from scientific studies. It would seem
+      that they thought it enough to place before the world, as signs of their
+      intellectual vigor, the fabric of their Empire and the buildings of Susa
+      and Persepolis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB2HCH0004" id="linkB2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. RELIGION.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The original form of the Persian religion has been already described under
+      the head of the third or Median monarchy. It was identical with the
+      religion of the Medes in its early shape, consisting mainly in the worship
+      of Ahura-Mazda, the acknowledgment of a principle of evil&mdash;Angro-Mainyus,
+      and obedience to the precepts of Zoroaster. When the Medes, on
+      establishing a wide-spread Empire, chiefly over races by whom Magism had
+      been long professed, allowed the creed of their subjects to corrupt their
+      own belief, accepted the Magi for their priests, and formed the mixed
+      religious system of which an account has been given in the second volume
+      of this work, the Persians in their wilder country, less exposed to
+      corrupting influences, maintained their original faith in undiminished
+      purity, and continued faithful to their primitive traditions. The
+      political dependence of their country upon Media during the period of the
+      Median sway made no difference in this respect; for the Medes were
+      tolerant, and did not seek to interfere with the creed of their subjects.
+      The simple Zoroastrian belief and worship, overlaid by Magism in the now
+      luxurious Media, found a refuge in the rugged Persian uplands, among the
+      hardy shepherds and cultivators of that unattractive region, was professed
+      by the early Achaemenian princes, and generally acquiesced in by the
+      people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The main feature of the religion daring this first period was the
+      acknowledgment and the worship of a single supreme God&mdash;&ldquo;the Lord God
+      of Heaven&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;the giver (i.e. maker) of heaven and earth&rdquo;&mdash;the
+      disposer of thrones, the dispenser of happiness. The foremost place in
+      inscriptions and decrees was assigned, almost universally, to the &ldquo;great
+      god, Ormazd.&rdquo; Every king, of whom we have an inscription more than two
+      lines in length, speaks of Ormazd as his upholder; and the early monarchs
+      mention by name no other god. All rule &ldquo;by the grace of Ormazd.&rdquo; From
+      Ormazd come victory, conquest, safety, prosperity, blessings of every
+      kind. The &ldquo;law of Ormazd&rdquo; is the rule of life. The protection of Ormazd is
+      the one priceless blessing for which prayer is perpetually offered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While, however, Ormazd holds this exalted and unapproachable position,
+      there is still an acknowledgment made, in a general way, of &ldquo;other gods.&rdquo;
+       Ormazd is &ldquo;the greatest of the gods&rdquo; (<i>mathista baganam</i>). It is a
+      usual prayer to ask for the protection of Ormazd, together with that of
+      these lesser powers (<i>hada bagaibish</i>). Sometimes the phrase is
+      varied, and the petition is for the special protection of a certain class
+      of Deities&mdash;the <i>Dii familiares</i>&mdash;or &ldquo;deities who guard the
+      house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The worship of Mithra, or the Sun, does not appear in the inscriptions
+      until the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, the victor of Cunaxa. It is,
+      however, impossible to doubt that it was a portion of the Persian
+      religion, at least as early as the date of Herodotus. Probably it belongs,
+      in a certain sense, to primitive Zoroastrianism, but was kept in the
+      background during the early period, when a less materialistic worship
+      prevailed than suited the temper of later times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor can it be doubted that the Persians held during this early period that
+      Dualistic belief which has been the distinguishing feature of
+      Zoroastrianism from a time long anterior to the commencement of the Median
+      Empire down to the present day. It was not to be expected that this belief
+      would show itself in the inscriptions, unless in the faintest manner; and
+      it can therefore excite no surprise that they are silent, or all but
+      silent, on the point in question. Nor need we wonder that this portion of
+      their creed was not divulged by the Persians to Herodotus or to Xenophon,
+      since it is exactly the sort of subject on which reticence was natural and
+      might have been anticipated. Neither the lively Halicarnassian, nor the
+      pleasant but somewhat shallow Athenian, had the gift of penetrating very
+      deeply into the inner mind of a foreign people; added to which, it is to
+      be remembered that they were unacquainted with Persia Proper, and drew
+      their knowledge of Persian opinions and customs either from hearsay or
+      from the creed and practices of the probably mixed garrisons which held
+      Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persian worship, in these early times, was doubtless that enjoined by the
+      Zendavesta, comprising prayer and thanksgiving to Ormazd and the good
+      spirits of his creation, the recitation of Gathas or hymns, the
+      performance of sacrifice, and participation in the Soma ceremony. Worship
+      seems to have taken place in temples, which are mentioned (according to
+      the belief of most cuneiform scholars) in the Behistun inscription. Of the
+      character of these buildings we can say nothing. It has been thought that
+      those two massive square towers so similar in construction, which exist in
+      a more or less ruined condition at Murgab and Nakhsh-i-Rustam, are Persian
+      temples of the early period, built to contain an altar on which the
+      priests offered victims. But the absence of any trace of an altar from
+      both, the total want of religious emblems, and the extremely small size of
+      the single apartment which each tower contains, make strongly against the
+      temple theory; not to mention that a much more probable use may be
+      suggested for the buildings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With respect to the altars upon which sacrifice was offered, we are not
+      left wholly without evidence. The Persian monarchs of the early period,
+      including Darius Hystaspis, represented themselves on their tombs in the
+      act of worship. Before them, at the distance of a few feet, stands an
+      altar, elevated on three steps, and crowned with the sacrificial fire. Its
+      form is square, and its only ornaments are a sunken squared recess, and a
+      strongly projecting cornice at top. The height of the altar, including the
+      steps, was apparently about four and a half feet. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Fig. 4.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians&rsquo; favorite victim was the horse; but they likewise sacrificed
+      cattle, sheep, and goats. Human sacrifices seem to have been almost, if
+      not altogether, unknown to them, and were certainly alien to the entire
+      spirit of the Zoroastrian system. The flesh of the victim was probably
+      merely shown to the sacred fire, after which it was eaten by the priests,
+      the sacrificer, and those whom the latter associated with himself in the
+      ceremony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spirit of the Zendavesta is wholly averse to idolatry, and we may
+      fully accept the statement of Herodotus that images of the gods were
+      entirely unknown to the Persians. Still, they did not deny themselves a
+      certain use of symbolic representations of their deities, nor did they
+      even scruple to adopt from idolatrous nations the forms of their religious
+      symbolism. The winged circle, with or without the addition of a human
+      figure, which was in Assyria the emblem of the chief Assyrian deity,
+      Asshur, became with the Persians the ordinary representation of the
+      Supreme God, Ormazd, and, as such, was placed in most conspicuous
+      positions on their rock tombs and on their buildings. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Fig. 7.]</a> Nor was the general
+      idea only of the emblem adopted, but all the details of the Assyrian model
+      were followed, with one exception. The human figure of the Assyrian
+      original wore the close-fitting tunic, with short sleeves, which was the
+      ordinary costume in Assyria, and had on its head the horned cap which
+      marked a god or a genius. In the Persian counterpart this costume was
+      exchanged for the Median robe, and a tiara, which was sometimes that
+      proper to the king,23 sometimes that worn with the Median robe by court
+      officers. <a href="#linkBimage-0035">[PLATE LVIII., Fig. 7.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mithra, or the Sun, is represented in Persian sculptures by a disk or orb,
+      which is not four-rayed like the Assyrian, but perfectly plain and simple.
+      In sculptures where the emblems of Ormazd and Mithra occur together, the
+      position of the former is central, that of the latter towards the right
+      hand of the tablet. The solar emblem is universal on sculptured tombs, but
+      is otherwise of rare occurrence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spirits of good and evil, the Ahuras and Devas of the mythology, were
+      represented by the Persians under human, animal, or monstrous forms. There
+      can be little doubt that it is a good genius&mdash;perhaps the
+      &ldquo;well-formed, swift, tall Serosh&rdquo;&mdash;who appears on one of the square
+      pillars set up by Cyrus at Pasargadae. This figure is that of a colossal
+      man, from whose shoulders issue four wings, two of which spread upwards
+      above his head, while the other two droop and reach nearly to his feet. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0036">[PLATE LIX.]</a> It stands erect, in profile, with
+      both arms raised and the hands open. The costume of the figure is
+      remarkable. It consists of a long fringed robe reaching from the neck to
+      the ankles&mdash;apparently of a stiff material, which conceals the form&mdash;and
+      of a very singular head-dress. This is a striped cap, closely fitting the
+      head, overshadowed by an elaborate ornament, of a character purely
+      Egyptian. First there rise from the top of the cap two twisted horns,
+      which, spreading right and left, become a sort of basis for the other
+      forms to rest upon. These consist of two grotesque human-headed figures,
+      one at either side, and of a complex triple ornament between them,
+      clumsily imitated from a far more elegant Egyptian model. <a
+      href="#linkBimage-0038">[PLATE LX., Fig. 1.]</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0036" id="linkBimage-0036">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate059.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lix. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The winged human-headed bulls, which the Persians adopted from the
+      Assyrians, with very slight modifications, were also, it is probable,
+      regarded as emblems of some god or good genius. They would scarcely
+      otherwise have been represented on Persian cylinders as upholding the
+      emblem of Ormazd in the same way that human-headed bulls uphold the
+      similar emblem of Asshur on Assyrian cylinders. <a href="#linkBimage-0038">[PLATE
+      LX., Fig. 2.]</a> Their position, too, at Persepolis, where they kept
+      watch over the entrance to the palace, accords with the notion that they
+      represented guardian spirits, objects of the favorable regard of the
+      Persians. Yet this view is not wholly free from difficulty. The bull
+      appears in the bas-reliefs of Persepolis among the evil, or at any rate
+      hostile, powers, which the king combats and slays; and though in these
+      representations the animal is not winged or human-headed, yet on some
+      cylinders apparently Persian, the monarch contends with bulls of exactly
+      the same type as that which is assigned in other cylinders to the
+      upholders of Ormazd. It would seem therefore that in this case the
+      symbolism was less simple than usual, the bull in certain combinations and
+      positions representing a god or a good spirit, while in others he was the
+      type of a deva or evil genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkBimage-0038" id="linkBimage-0038"></a> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate060 (104K)" src="images/plate060.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most common representatives of the Evil Powers of the mythology were
+      lions, winged or unwinged, and monsters of several different descriptions.
+      At Persepolis the lions which the king stabs or strangles are of the
+      natural shape, and this type is found also upon gems and cylinders; but on
+      these last the king&rsquo;s antagonist is often a winged, while sometimes he is
+      a winged and horned, lion. <a href="#linkBimage-0038">[PLATE LX., Fig. 3.]</a>
+      The monsters are of two principal types. In both the forms of a bird and a
+      beast are commingled; but in the one the bird, and in the other the beast
+      predominates. Specimens are given <a href="#linkBimage-0038">[PLATE LX.,
+      Fig. 4]</a> taken from Persian gems and cylinders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such seems to have been, in outline, the purer and more ancient form of
+      the Persian religion. During its continuance a fierce iconoclastic spirit
+      animated the princes of the Empire, who took every opportunity of showing
+      their hatred and contempt for the idolatries of the neighboring nations,
+      burning temples, confiscating or destroying images, scourging or slaying
+      idolatrous priests, putting a stop to festivals, disturbing tombs, smiting
+      with the sword animals believed to be divine incarnations. Within their
+      own dominions the fear of stirring up religious wars compelled them to be
+      moderately tolerant, unless it were after rebellion, when a province lay
+      at their mercy; but when they invaded foreign countries, they were wont to
+      exhibit in the most open and striking way their aversion to materialistic
+      religions. In Greece, during the great invasion, they burned every temple
+      that they came near; in Egypt, on their first attack, they outraged every
+      religious feeling of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was during this time of comparative purity, when the anti-idolatrous
+      spirit was in full force, that a religious sympathy seems to have drawn
+      together the two nations of the Persians and the Jews. Cyrus evidently
+      identified Jehovah with Ormazd, and, accepting as a divine command the
+      prophecy of Isaiah, undertook to rebuild their temple for a people who,
+      like his own, allowed no image of God to defile the sanctuary. Darius,
+      similarly, encouraged the completion of the work, after it had been
+      interrupted by the troubles which followed the death of Cambyses. The
+      foundation was thus laid for that friendly intimacy between the two
+      peoples, of which we have abundant evidence in the books of Ezra,
+      Nehemiah, and Esther, a friendly intimacy which caused the Jews to
+      continue faithful to Persia to the last, and to brave the conqueror of
+      Issus rather than desert masters who had shown them kindness and sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first trace that we have of a corrupting influence being brought to
+      bear on the Persian religion is connected with the history of the
+      pseudo-Smerdis. According to Herodotus, Cambyses, when he set out on his
+      Egyptian expedition, left a Magus, Patizeithes, at the capital, as
+      comptroller of the royal household. The conferring of an office of such
+      importance on the priest of an alien religion is the earliest indication
+      which we have of a diminution of zeal for their ancestral creed on the
+      part of the Achaemenian kings, and the earliest historical proof of the
+      existence of Magism beyond the limits of Media. Magism was really, it is
+      probable, an older creed than Zoroastrianism in the country where the
+      Persians were settled; but it now, for the first time since the Persian
+      conquest, began to show itself, to thrust itself into high places, and to
+      attract general notice. From being the religion of the old Scythic tribes
+      whom the Persians had conquered and whom they held in subjection, it had
+      passed into being the religion of great numbers of the Persians
+      themselves. The same causes which had corrupted Zoroastrianism in Media
+      soon after the establishment of the Empire, worked also, though more
+      slowly, in Persia, and a large section of the nation was probably weaned
+      from its own belief, and won over to Magism, before Cambyses went into
+      Egypt. His prolonged absence in that country brought matters to a crisis.
+      The Magi took advantage of it to attempt a substitution of Magism for
+      Zoroastrianism as the religion of the state. When this attempt failed,
+      there was no doubt a reaction for a time, and Zoroastrianism thought
+      itself triumphant. But a foe is generally most dangerous when he is
+      despised. Magism, repulsed in its attempt to oust the rival religion,
+      derived wisdom from the lesson, and thenceforth set itself to sap the
+      fortress which it could not storm. Little by little it crept into favor,
+      mingling itself with the old Arian creed, not displacing it, but only
+      adding to it. In the later Persian system the Dualism of Zoroaster and the
+      Magian elemental worship were jointly professed&mdash;the Magi were
+      accepted as the national priests&mdash;the rights and ceremonies of the
+      two religions were united&mdash;a syncretism not unusual in the ancient
+      world blended into one two creeds originally quite separate and distinct,
+      but in few respects antagonistic&mdash;and the name of Zoroaster being
+      still fondly cherished in the memory of the nation, while in their
+      practical religion Magian rites predominated, the mixed religion acquired
+      the name, by which it was known to the later Greeks, of &ldquo;the Magism of
+      Zoroaster.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Magian rites have been described in the chapter on the Median
+      Religion. Their leading feature was the fire-worship, which is still
+      cherished among those descendants of the ancient Persians who did not
+      submit to the religion of Islam. On lofty spots in the high mountain-chain
+      which traversed both Media and Persia, fire-altars were erected, on which
+      burnt a perpetual flame, watched constantly lest it should expire, and
+      believed to have been kindled from heaven. Over the altar in most
+      instances a shrine or temple was built; and on these spots day after day
+      the Magi chanted their incantations, displayed their barsoms or
+      divining-rods, and performed their choicest ceremonies. Victims were not
+      offered on these fire-altars. When a sacrifice took place, a fire was laid
+      hard-by with logs of dry wood, stript of their bark, and this was lighted
+      from the flame which burned on the altar. On the fire thus kindled was
+      consumed a small part of the fat of the victim; but the rest was cut into
+      joints, boiled, and eaten or sold by the worshipper. The true offering,
+      which the god accepted, was, according to the Magi, the soul of the
+      animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If human victims were ever really offered by the Persians as sacrifices,
+      it is to Magian influence that the introduction of this horrid practice
+      must be attributed, since it is utterly opposed to the whole spirit of
+      Zoroaster&rsquo;s teaching. An instance of the practice is first reported in the
+      reign of Xerxes, when Magism, which had been sternly repressed by Darius
+      Hystaspis, began once more to lift its head, crept into favor at Court,
+      and obtained a status which it never afterwards forfeited. According to
+      Herodotus, the Persians, on their march into Greece, sacrificed, at Ennea
+      Hodoi on the Strymon river, nine youths and nine maidens of the country,
+      by burying them alive. Herodotus seems to have viewed the act as done in
+      propitiation of a god resembling the Grecian Pluto; but it is not at all
+      certain that he interpreted it correctly. Possibly he mistook a vengeance
+      for a religious ceremony. The Brygi, who dwelt at this time in the
+      vicinity of Ennea Hodoi, had given Mardonius a severe defeat on a former
+      occasion; and the Persians were apt to treasure up such wrongs, and visit
+      them, when occasion offered, with extreme severity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Persians had once yielded to the syncretic spirit so far as to
+      unite the Magian tenets and practices with their primitive belief, they
+      were naturally led on to adopt into their system such portions of the
+      other religions, with which they were brought into close contact, as
+      possessed an attraction for them. Before the date of Herodotus they had
+      borrowed from the Babylonians the worship of a Nature-Goddess, whom the
+      Greeks identified at one time with Aphrodite, at another with Artemis, at
+      another (probably) with Here, and had thus made a compromise with one of
+      the grossest of the idolatries which, theoretically, they despised and
+      detested. The Babylonian Venus, called in the original dialect of her
+      native country Nana, was taken into the Pantheon of the Persians, under
+      the name of Nansea, Anaea, Anaitis, or Tanata, and became in a little
+      while one of the principal objects of Persian worship. At first idolatry,
+      in the literal sense, was avoided; but Artaxerxes Mnemon, the conqueror of
+      Cunaxa, an ardent devotee of the goddess, not content with the mutilated
+      worship which he found established, resolved to show his zeal by
+      introducing into all the chief cities of the Empire the image of his
+      patroness. At Susa, at Persepolis, at Babylon, at Ecbatana, at Damascus,
+      at Sardis, at Bactra, images of Anaitis were set up by his authority for
+      the adoration of worshippers. It is to be feared that at this time, if not
+      before, the lascivious rites were also adopted, which throughout the East
+      constituted the chief attraction of the cult of Venus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the idolatry thus introduced, another came soon to be joined. Mithra,
+      so long an object of reverence, if not of actual worship, to the
+      Zoroastrians, was in the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, honored, like
+      Anaitis, with a statue, and advanced into the foremost rank of deities.
+      The exact form which the image took is uncertain; but probability is in
+      favor of the well-known type of a human figure slaying a prostrate bull,
+      which was to the Greeks and Romans the essential symbol of the Mithraic
+      worship. The intention of this oft-repeated group has been well explained
+      by Hyde, who regards it as a representation of the Sun quitting the
+      constellation of Taurus, the time when in the East his fructifying power
+      is the greatest. The specimens which we possess of this group belong to
+      classical art and to times later than Alexander; but we can scarcely
+      suppose the idea to have been Occidental. The Western artists would
+      naturally adopt the symbolism of those from whom they took the rites,
+      merely modifying its expression in accordance with their own aesthetic
+      notions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards the close of the Empire two other gods emerged from the obscurity
+      in which the lower deities of the Zoroastrian system were shrouded during
+      the earlier and purer period. Vohu-manu, or Bah-man, and Amerdat, or
+      Amendat, two of the councillors of Ormazd, became the objects of a
+      worship, which was clearly of an idolatrous character. Shrines were built
+      in their honor, and were frequented by companies of Magi, who chanted
+      their incantations, and performed their rites of divination in these new
+      edifices as willingly as in the old Fire-temples. The image of Bah-man was
+      of wood, and was borne in procession on certain occasions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus as time went on, the Persian religion continually assimilated itself
+      more and more to the forms of belief and worship which prevailed in the
+      neighboring parts of Asia. Idolatries of several kinds came into vogue,
+      some adopted from abroad, others developed out of their own system.
+      Temples, some of which had a character of extraordinary magnificence, were
+      erected to the honor of various gods; and the degenerate descendants of
+      pure Zoroastrian spiritualists bowed down to images, and entangled
+      themselves in the meshes of a sensualistic and most debasing
+      Nature-worship. Still, amid whatsoever corruptions, the Dualistic faith
+      was maintained. The supremacy of Ormazd was from first to last admitted.
+      Ahriman retained from first to last the same character and position,
+      neither rising into an object of worship, nor sinking into a mere
+      personification of evil. The inquiries which Aristotle caused to be made,
+      towards the very close of the Empire, into the true nature of the Persian
+      Religion, showed him Ormazd and Ahriman still recognized as Principles,
+      still standing in the same hostile and antithetical attitude, one towards
+      the other, which they occupied when the first Fargard of the Vendidad was
+      written, long anterior to the rise of the Persian Power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linkC2H_4_0002" id="linkC2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA PROPER.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0001" id="linkCimage-0001">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/map_persia.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="map_persia_th (188K)" src="images/map_persia_th.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkC2H_4_0003" id="linkC2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE FIFTH MONARCHY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkC2H_4_0004" id="linkC2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PERSIA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkC2HCH0002" id="linkC2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw the man pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no
+      beast might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out
+      of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.&rdquo;&mdash;Daniel,
+      viii. 4.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The history of the Persian Empire dates from the conquest of Astyages by
+      Cyrus, and therefore commences with the year B.C. 558. But the present
+      inquiry must be carried considerably further back, since in this, as in
+      most other cases, the Empire grew up out of a previously existing
+      monarchy. Darius Hystaspis reckons that there had been eight Persians
+      kings of his race previously to himself; and though it is no doubt
+      possible that some of the earlier names may be fictitious, yet we can
+      scarcely suppose that he was deceived, or that he wished to deceive, as to
+      the fact that long anterior to his own reign, or that of his elder
+      contemporary, Cyrus, Persia had been a monarchy, governed by a line of
+      princes of the same clan, or family, with himself. It is our business in
+      this place, before entering upon the brilliant period of the Empire, to
+      cast a retrospective glance over the earlier ages of obscurity, and to
+      collect therefrom such scattered notices as are to be found of the
+      Persians and their princes or kings before they suddenly attracted the
+      general attention of the civilized world by their astonishing achievements
+      under the great Cyrus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The more ancient of-the sacred books of the Jews, while distinctly
+      noticing the nation of the Medes, contain no mention at all of Persia or
+      the Persians. The Zendavesta, the sacred volume of the people themselves,
+      is equally silent on the subject. The earliest appearance of the Persians
+      in history is in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings, which begin to
+      notice them about the middle of the ninth century B.C. At this time
+      Shalmaneser II. found them in south-western Armenia, where they were in
+      close contact with the Medes, of whom, however, they seem to have been
+      wholly independent. Like the modern Kurds in this same region, they owned
+      no subjection to a single head, but were under the government of numerous
+      petty chieftains, each the lord of a single town or of a small mountain
+      district. Shalmaneser informs us that he took tribute from twenty-five
+      such chiefs. Similar tokens of submission were paid also to his son and
+      grandson. After this the Assyrian records are silent as to the Persians
+      for nearly a century, and it is not until the reign of Sennacherib that we
+      once more find them brought into contact with the power which aspired to
+      be mistress of Asia. At the time of their reappearance they are no longer
+      in Armenia, but have descended the line of Zagros and reached the
+      districts which lie north and north-east of Susiana, or that part of the
+      Bakhtiyari chain which, if it is not actually within Persia Proper, at any
+      rate immediately adjoins upon it. Arrived thus far, it was easy for them
+      to occupy the region to which they have given permanent name; for the
+      Bakhtiyari mountains command it and give a ready access to its valleys and
+      plains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians would thus appear not to have completed their migrations till
+      near the close of the Assyrian period, and it is probable that they did
+      not settle into an organized monarchy much before the fall of Nineveh. At
+      any rate we hear of no Persian ruler of note or name in the Assyrian
+      records, and the reign of petty chiefs would seem therefore to have
+      continued at least to the time of Asshur-bani-pal, up to which date we
+      have ample records. The establishment, however, about the year B.C. 660,
+      or a little later, of a powerful monarchy in the kindred and neighboring
+      Media, could not fail to attract attention, and might well provoke
+      imitation in Persia; and the native tradition appears to have been that
+      about this time. Persian royalty began in the person of a certain
+      Achaemenes (Hakhamanish), from whom all their later monarchs, with one
+      possible exception, were proud to trace their descent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The name Achaemenes cannot fail to arouse some suspicion. The Greek
+      genealogies render us so familiar with heroes eponymi&mdash;imaginary
+      personages, who owe their origin to the mere fact of the existence of
+      certain tribe or race names, to account for which they were invented&mdash;that
+      whenever, even in the history of other nations, we happen upon a name
+      professedly personal, which stands evidently in close connection with a
+      tribal designation, we are apt at once to suspect it of being fictitious.
+      But in the East tribal and even ethnic names were certainly sometimes
+      derived from actual persons; and it may be questioned whether the
+      Persians, or the Iranic stock generally, had the notion of inventing
+      personal eponyms. The name Achaemenes, therefore, in spite of its
+      connection with the royal clan name of Achaemenidae, may stand as perhaps
+      that of a real Persian king, and, if so, as probably that of the first
+      king, the original founder of the monarchy, who united the scattered
+      tribes in one, and thus raised Persia into a power of considerable
+      importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The immediate successor of Achaemenes appears to have been his son,
+      Teispes. Of him and of the next three monarchs, the information that we
+      possess is exceedingly scanty. The very names of one or two in the series
+      are uncertain. One tradition assigns either to the second or the fourth
+      king of the list the establishment of friendly relations with a certain
+      Pharnaces, King of Cappadocia, by an intermarriage between a Persian
+      princess, Atossa, and the Cappadocian monarch. The existence of
+      communication at this time between petty countries politically
+      unconnected, and placed at such a distance from one another as Cappadocia
+      and Persia, is certainly what we should not have expected; but our
+      knowledge of the general condition of Western Asia at the period is too
+      slight to justify us in a positive rejection of the story, which
+      indicates, if it be true, that even during this time of comparative
+      obscurity, the Persian monarchs were widely known, and that their alliance
+      was thought a matter of importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The political condition of Persia under these early monarchs is a more
+      interesting question than either the names of the kings or the foreign
+      alliances which they attracted. According to Herodotus, that condition was
+      one of absolute and unqualified subjection to the sway of the Medes, who
+      conquered Persia and imposed their yoke upon the people before the year
+      B.C. 634. The native records, however, and the accounts which Xenophon
+      preferred, represent Persia as being at this time a separate and powerful
+      state, either wholly independent of Media, or, at any rate, held in light
+      bonds of little more than nominal dependence. On the whole, it appears
+      most probable that the true condition of the country was that which this
+      last phrase expresses. It maybe doubted whether there had ever been a
+      conquest; but the weaker and less developed of the two kindred states
+      owned the suzerainty of the stronger, and though quite unshackled in her
+      internal administration, and perhaps not very much interfered with in her
+      relations towards foreign countries, was, formally, a sort of Median fief,
+      standing nearly in the position in which Egypt now stands to Turkey. The
+      position was irksome to the sovereigns rather than unpleasant to the
+      people. It detracted from the dignity of the Persian monarchs, and injured
+      their self-respect; it probably caused them occasional inconvenience,
+      since from time to time they would have to pay their court to their
+      suzerain; and it seems towards the close of the Median period to have
+      involved an obligation which must have been felt, if not as degrading, at
+      any rate as very disagreeable. The monarch appears to have been required
+      to send his eldest son as a sort of hostage to the Court of his superior,
+      where he was held in a species of honorable captivity, not being allowed
+      to quit the Court and return home without leave, but being otherwise well
+      treated. The fidelity of the father was probably supposed to be in this
+      way secured while it might be hoped that the son would be conciliated, and
+      made an attached and willing dependent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Persian history first fairly opens upon us in the pages of Xenophon
+      and of Nicolaus Damascenus, this is the condition of things which we find
+      existing. Cambyses, the father of Cyrus the Great&mdash;called Atradates
+      by the Syrian writer&mdash;is ruler of Persia, and resides in his native
+      country, while his son Cyrus is permanently, or at any rate usually,
+      resident at the Median Court, where he is in high favor with the reigning
+      monarch, Astyages. According to Xenophon, who has here the support of
+      Herodotus, he is Astyages&rsquo; grandson, his father, Cambyses, being married
+      to Mandane, that monarch&rsquo;s daughter. According to Nicolaus, who in this
+      agrees with Ctesias, he is no way related to Astyages, who retains him at
+      his court because he is personally attached to him. In the narrative of
+      the latter writer, which has already been preferred in these volumes, the
+      young prince, while at the Court, conceives the idea of freeing his own
+      country by a revolt, and enters into secret communication with his father
+      for the furtherance of his object. His father somewhat reluctantly
+      assents, and preparations are made, which lead to the escape of Cyrus and
+      the commencement of a war of independence. The details of the struggle, as
+      they are related by Nicolaus, have been already given. After repeated
+      defeats, the Persians finally make a stand at Pasargadae, their capital,
+      where in two great battles they destroy the power of Astyages, who himself
+      remains a prisoner in the hands of his adversary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the course of the struggle the father of Cyrus had fallen, and its
+      close, therefore, presented Cyrus himself before the eyes of the Western
+      Asiatics as the undisputed lord of the great Arian Empire which had
+      established itself on the ruins of the Semitic. Transfers of sovereignty
+      are easily made in the East, where independence is little valued, and each
+      new conqueror is hailed with acclamations from millions. It mattered
+      nothing to the bulk of Astyages&rsquo; subjects whether they were ruled from
+      Ecbatana or Pasargadae, by Median or Persian masters. Fate had settled
+      that a single lord was to bear sway over the tribes and nations dwelling
+      between the Persian Gulf and the Euxine; and the arbitrament of the sword
+      had now decided that this single lord should be Cyrus. We may readily
+      believe the statement of Nicolaus that the nations previously subject to
+      the Medes vied with each other in the celerity and zeal with which they
+      made their submission to the Persian conqueror. Cyrus succeeded at once to
+      the full inheritance of which he had dispossessed Astyages, and was
+      recognized as king by all the tribes between the Halys and the desert of
+      Khorassan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was at this time, if we may trust Dino, exactly forty years of age, and
+      was thus at that happy period in life when the bodily powers have not yet
+      begun to decay, while the mental are just reaching their perfection.
+      Though we may not be able to trust implicitly the details of the war of
+      independence which have come down to us, yet there can be no doubt that he
+      had displayed in its course very remarkable courage and conduct. He had
+      intended, probably, no more than to free his country from the Median yoke;
+      by the force of circumstances he had been led on to the destruction of the
+      Median power, and to the establishment of a Persian Empire in its stead.
+      With empire had come an enormous accession of wealth. The accumulated
+      stores of ages, the riches of the Ninevite kings&mdash;the &ldquo;gold,&rdquo; the
+      &ldquo;silver,&rdquo; and the &ldquo;pleasant furniture&rdquo; of those mighty potentates, of
+      which there was &ldquo;none end&rdquo;&mdash;together with all the additions made to
+      these stores by the Median monarchs, had fallen into his hands, and from
+      comparative poverty he had come per saltum into the position of one of the
+      wealthiest&mdash;if not of the very wealthiest&mdash;of princes. An
+      ordinary Oriental would have been content with such a result, and have
+      declined to tempt fortune any more. But Cyrus was no ordinary Oriental.
+      Confident in his own powers, active, not to say restless, and of an
+      ambition that nothing could satiate, he viewed, the position which he had
+      won simply as a means of advancing himself to higher eminence. According
+      to Ctesias, he was scarcely seated upon the throne, when he led an
+      expedition to the far north-east against the renowned Bactrians and
+      Sacans; and at any rate, whether this be true or no&mdash;and most
+      probably it is an anticipation of later occurrences&mdash;it is certain
+      that, instead of folding his hands, Cyrus proceeded with scarcely a pause
+      on a long career of conquest, devoting his whole life to the carrying out
+      of his plans of aggression, and leaving a portion of his schemes, which
+      were too extensive for one life to realize, as a legacy to his successor.
+      The quarter to which he really first turned his attention seems to have
+      been the north-west. There, in the somewhat narrow but most fertile tract
+      between the river Halys and the Egean Sea, was a state which seemed likely
+      to give him trouble&mdash;a state which had successfully resisted all the
+      efforts of the Medes to reduce it, and which recently, under a warlike
+      prince, had shown a remarkable power of expansion. An instinct of danger
+      warned the scarce firmly-settled monarch to fix his eye at once upon
+      Lydia; in the wealthy and successful Croesus, the Lydian king, he saw one
+      whom dynastic interests might naturally lead to espouse the quarrel of the
+      conquered Mede, and whose power and personal qualities rendered him a
+      really formidable rival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lydian monarch, on his side, did not scruple to challenge a contest.
+      The long strife which his father had waged with the great Cyaxares had
+      terminated in a close alliance, cemented by a marriage, which made Croesus
+      and Astyages brothers. The friendship of the great power of Western Asia,
+      secured by this union, had set Lydia free to pursue a policy of
+      self-aggrandizement in her own immediate, neighborhood. Rapidly, one after
+      another, the kingdoms of Asia Minor had been reduced; and, excepting the
+      mountain districts of Lycia and Cilicia, all Asia within the Halys now
+      owned the sway of the Lydian king. Contented with his successes, and
+      satisfied that the tie of relationship secured him from attack on the part
+      of the only power which he had need to fear, Croesus had for some years
+      given himself up to the enjoyment of his gains and to an ostentatious
+      display of his magnificence. It was a rude shock to the indolent and
+      self-complacent dreams of a sanguine optimism, which looked that
+      &ldquo;to-morrow should be as to-day, only much more abundant,&rdquo; when tidings
+      came that revolution had raised its head in the far south-east, and that
+      an energetic prince, in the full vigor of life, and untrammelled by
+      dynastic ties, had thrust the aged Astyages from his throne, and girt his
+      own brows with the Imperial diadem. Croesus, according to the story, was
+      still in deep grief on account of the untimely death of his eldest son,
+      when the intelligence reached him. Instantly rousing himself from his
+      despair, he set about his preparations for the struggle, which his
+      sagacity saw to be inevitable. After consultation of the oracles of
+      Greece, he allied himself with the Grecian community, which appeared to
+      him on the whole to be the most powerful. At the same time he sent
+      ambassadors to Babylon and Memphis, to the courts of Labynetus and Amasis,
+      with proposals for an alliance offensive and defensive between the three
+      secondary powers of the Eastern world against that leading power whose
+      superior strength and resources were felt to constitute a common danger.
+      His representations were effectual. The kings of Babylon and Egypt, alive
+      to their own peril, accepted his proposals; and a joint league was formed
+      between the three monarchs and the republic of Sparta for the purpose of
+      resisting the presumed aggressive spirit of the Medo-Persians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cyrus, meanwhile, was not idle. Suspecting that a weak point in his
+      adversary&rsquo;s harness would be the disaffection of some of his more recently
+      conquered subjects, he sent emissaries into Asia Minor to sound the
+      dispositions of the natives. These emissaries particularly addressed
+      themselves to the Asiatic Greeks, who, coming of a freedom-loving stock,
+      and having been only very lately subdued, would it was thought, be likely
+      to catch at an opportunity of shaking off the yoke of their conqueror.
+      But, reasonable as such hopes must have seemed, they were in this instance
+      doomed to disappointment. The Ionians, instead of hailing Cyrus as a
+      liberator, received his overtures with suspicion. They probably thought
+      that they were sure not to gain, and that they might possibly lose, by a
+      change of masters. The yoke of Croesus had not, perhaps, been very
+      oppressive; at any rate it seemed to them preferable to &ldquo;bear the ills
+      they had,&rdquo; rather than &ldquo;fly to others&rdquo; which might turn out less
+      tolerable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Disappointed in this quarter, the Persian prince directed his efforts to
+      the concentration of a large army, and its rapid advance into a position
+      where it would be excellently placed both for defence and attack. The
+      frontier province of Cappadocia, which was only separated from the
+      dominions of the Lydian monarch by a stream of moderate size, the Halys,
+      was a most defensible country, extremely fertile and productive, abounding
+      in natural fastnesses, and inhabited by a brave and warlike population.
+      Into this district Cyrus pushed forward his army with all speed, taking,
+      as it would seem, not the short route through Diarbekr, Malatiyah, and
+      Gurun, along which the &ldquo;Royal Road&rdquo; afterwards ran, but the more
+      circuitous one by Erzerum, which brought him into Northern Cappadocia, or
+      Pontus, as it was called by the Romans. Here, in a district named Pteria,
+      which cannot have been very far from the coast, he found his adversary,
+      who had crossed the Halys, and taken several Cappadocian towns, among
+      which was the chief city of the Pterians. Perceiving that his troops
+      considerably outnumbered those of Crcesus, he lost no time in giving him
+      battle. The action was fought in the Pterian country, and was stoutly
+      contested, terminating at nightfall without any decisive advantage to
+      either party. The next day neither side made any movement; and Crcesus,
+      concluding from his enemy&rsquo;s inaction that, though he had not been able to
+      conquer him, he had nothing to fear from his desire of vengeance or his
+      spirit of enterprise, determined on a retreat. He laid the blame of his
+      failure, we are told, on the insufficient number of his troops, and
+      purposed to call for the contingents of his allies, and renew the war with
+      largely augmented forces in the ensuing spring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cyrus, on his part, allowed the Lydians to retire unmolested, thus
+      confirming his adversary in the mistaken estimate which he had formed of
+      Persian courage and daring. Anticipating the course which Croesus would
+      adopt under the circumstances, he kept his army well in hand, and, as soon
+      as the Lydians were clean gone, he crossed the Halys, and marched straight
+      upon Sardis. Croesus, deeming himself safe from molestation, had no sooner
+      reached his capital than he had dismissed the bulk of his troops to their
+      homes for the winter, merely giving them orders to return in the spring,
+      when he hoped to have received auxiliaries from Sparta, Babylon, and
+      Egypt. Left thus almost without defence, he suddenly heard that his
+      audacious foe had followed on his steps, had ventured into the heart of
+      his dominions, and was but a short distance from the capital. In this
+      crisis he showed a spirit well worthy of admiration. Putting himself at
+      the head of such an army of native Lydians as he could collect at a few
+      hours&rsquo; notice, he met the advancing foe in the rich plain a little to the
+      east of Sardis, and gave him battle immediately. It is possible that even
+      under these disadvantageous circumstances he might in fair fight have been
+      victorious, for the Lydian cavalry were at this time excellent, and
+      decidedly superior to the Persian. But Cyrus, aware of their merits, had
+      recourse to stratagem, and by forming his camels in front, so frightened
+      the Lydian horses that they fled from the field. The riders dismounted and
+      fought on foot, but their gallantry was unavailing. After a prolonged and
+      bloody combat the Lydian army was defeated, and forced to take refuge
+      behind the walls of the capital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Croesus now in hot haste sent off fresh messengers to his allies, begging
+      them to come at once to his assistance. He had still a good hope of
+      maintaining himself till their arrival, for his city was defended by
+      walls, and was regarded by the natives as impregnable. An attempt to storm
+      the defences failed; and the siege must have been turned into a blockade
+      but for an accidental discovery. A Persian soldier had approached to
+      reconnoitre the citadel on the side where it was strongest by nature, and
+      therefore guarded with least care, when he observed one of the garrison
+      descend the rock after his helmet, which had fallen from his head, pick it
+      up, and return with it. Being an expert climber, he attempted the track
+      thus pointed out to him, and succeeded in reaching the summit. Several of
+      his comrades followed in his steps; the citadel was surprised, and the
+      town taken and plundered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus fell the greatest city of Asia Minor after a siege of fourteen days.
+      The Lydian monarch, it is said, narrowly escaped with his life from the
+      confusion of the sack; but, being fortunately recognized in time, was made
+      prisoner, and brought before Cyrus. Cyrus at first treated him with some
+      harshness, but soon relented, and, with that clemency which was a common
+      characteristic of the earlier Persian kings, assigned him a territory for
+      his maintenance, and gave him an honorable position at Court, where he
+      passed at least thirty years, in high favor, first with Cyrus, and then
+      with Cambyses. Lydia itself was absorbed at once into the Persian Empire,
+      together with most of its dependencies, which submitted as soon as the
+      fall of Sardis was known. There still, however, remained a certain amount
+      of subjugation to be effected. The Greeks of the coast, who had offended
+      the Great King by their refusal of his overtures, were not to be allowed
+      to pass quietly into the condition of tributaries; and there were certain
+      native races in the south-western corner of Asia Minor which declined to
+      submit without a struggle to the new conqueror. But these matters were not
+      regarded by Cyrus as of sufficient importance to require his own personal
+      superintendence. Having remained at Sardis for a few weeks, during which
+      time he received an insulting message from Sparta, whereto he made a
+      menacing reply, and having arranged for the government of the
+      newly-conquered province and the transmission of its treasures to
+      Ecbatana, he quitted Lydia for the interior, taking Croesus with him, and
+      proceeded towards the Median capital. He was bent on prosecuting without
+      delay his schemes of conquest in other quarters&mdash;schemes of a
+      grandeur and a comprehensiveness unknown to any previous monarch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely, however, was he departed when Sardis became the scene of an
+      insurrection. Pactyas, a Lydian, who had been entrusted with the duty of
+      conveying the treasures of Croesus and his more wealthy subjects to
+      Ecbatana, revolted against Tabalus, the Persian commandant of the town,
+      and being joined by the native population and numerous mercenaries,
+      principally Greeks, whom he hired with the treasure that was in his hands,
+      made himself master of Sardis, and besieged Tabalus in the citadel. The
+      news reached Cyrus while he was upon his march; but, estimating the degree
+      of its importance aright, he did not suffer it to interfere with his
+      plans. He judged it enough to send a general with a strong body of troops
+      to put down the revolt, and continued his own journey eastward. Mazares, a
+      Mede, was the officer selected for the service. On arriving before Sardis,
+      he found that Pactyas had relinquished his enterprise and fled to the
+      coast, and that the revolt was consequently at an end. It only remained to
+      exact vengeance. The rebellious Lydians were disarmed. Pactyas was pursued
+      with unrelenting hostility, and demanded, in succession, of the Cymaeans,
+      the Mytilenseans, and the Chians, of whom the last-mentioned surrendered
+      him. The Greek cities which had furnished Pactyas with auxiliaries were
+      then attacked, and the inhabitants of the first which fell, Priene, were
+      one and all sold as slaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mazares soon afterwards died, and was succeeded by Ha-pagus, another Mede,
+      who adopted a somewhat milder policy towards the unfortunate Greeks.
+      Besieging their cities one by one, and taking them by means of banks or
+      mounds piled up against the walls, he, in some instances, connived at the
+      inhabitants escaping in their ships, while, in others, he allowed them to
+      take up the ordinary position of Persian subjects, liable to tribute and
+      military service, but not otherwise molested. So little irksome were such
+      terms to the Ionians of this period that even those who dwelt in the
+      islands off the coast, with the single exception of the Samians&mdash;though
+      they ran no risk of subjugation, since the Persians did not possess a
+      fleet&mdash;accepted voluntarily the same position, and enrolled
+      themselves among the subjects of Cyrus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One Greek continental town alone suffered nothing during this time of
+      trouble. When Cyrus refused the offers of submission, which reached him
+      from the Ionian and AEolian Greeks after his capture of Sardis, he made an
+      exception in favor of Miletus, the most important of all the Grecian
+      cities in Asia. Prudence, it is probable, rather than clemency, dictated
+      this course, since to detach from the Grecian cause the most powerful and
+      influential of the states was the readiest way of weakening the resistance
+      they would be able to make. Miletus singly had defied the arms of four
+      successive Lydian kings, and had only succumbed at last to the efforts of
+      the fifth, Croesus. If her submission had been now rejected, and she had
+      been obliged to take counsel of her despair, the struggle between the
+      Greek cities and the Persian generals might have assumed a different
+      character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still more different might have been the result, if the cities generally
+      had had the wisdom to follow a piece of advice which the great philosopher
+      and statesman of the time, Thales, the Milesian, is said to have given
+      them. Thales suggested that the Ionians should form themselves into a
+      confederation, to be governed by a congress which should meet at Teos, the
+      several cities retaining their own laws and internal independence, but
+      being united for military purposes into a single community. Judged by the
+      light which later events, the great Ionian revolt especially, throw upon
+      it, this advice is seen to have been of the greatest importance. It is
+      difficult to say what check, or even reverse, the arms of Persia might not
+      have at this time sustained, if the spirit of Thales had animated his
+      Asiatic countrymen generally; if the loose Ionic Amphictyony, which in
+      reality left each state in the hour of danger to its own resources, had
+      been superseded by a true federal union, and the combined efforts of the
+      thirteen Ionian communities had been directed to a steady resistance of
+      Persian aggression and a determined maintenance of their own independence.
+      Mazares and Harpagus would almost certainly have been baffled, and the
+      Great King himself would probably have been called off from his eastern
+      conquests to undertake in person a task which after all he might have
+      failed to accomplish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fall of the last Ionian town left Harpagus free to turn his attention
+      to the tribes of the south-west which had not yet made their submission&mdash;the
+      Carians, the Dorian Greeks, the Caunians, and the people of Lycia.
+      Impressing the services of the newly-conquered Ionians and AEolians, he
+      marched first against Caria, which offered but a feeble resistance. The
+      Dorians of the continent, Myndians, Halicarnassians, and Cnidians.
+      submitted still more tamely, without any struggle at all; but the Caunians
+      and Lycians showed a different spirit. These tribes, which were ethnically
+      allied, and of a very peculiar type, had never yet, it would seem, been
+      subdued by any conqueror. Prizing highly the liberty they had enjoyed so
+      long, they defended themselves with desperation. When they were defeated
+      in the field they shut themselves up within the walls of their chief
+      cities, Caunus and Xanthus, where, finding resistance impossible, they set
+      fire to the two places with their own hands, burned their wives, children,
+      slaves, and valuables, and then sallying forth, sword in hand, fell on the
+      besiegers&rsquo; lines, and fought till they were all slain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Cyrus was pursuing a career of conquest in the far east. It was
+      now, according to Herodotus, who is, beyond all question, a better
+      authority than Ctesias for the reign of Cyrus, that the reduction of the
+      Bactrians and the Sacans, the chief nations of what is called by moderns
+      Central Asia, took place. Bactria was a country which enjoyed the
+      reputation of having been great and glorious at a very early date. In one
+      of the most ancient portions of the Zendavesta it was celebrated as
+      &ldquo;Bahhdi eredhwo-drafsha,&rdquo; or &ldquo;Bactria&rdquo; with the lofty banner; and
+      traditions not wholly to be despised made it the native country of
+      Zoroaster. There is good reason to believe that, up to the date of Cyras,
+      it had maintained its independence, or at any rate that it had been
+      untouched by the great monarchies which for above seven hundred years had
+      borne sway in the western parts of Asia. Its people were of the Iranic
+      stock, and retained in their remote and somewhat savage country the simple
+      and primitive habits of the race. Though their arms were of indifferent
+      character, they were among the best soldiers to be found in the East, and
+      always showed themselves a formidable enemy. According to Ctesias, when
+      Cyrus invaded them, they fought a pitched battle with his army, in which
+      the victory was with neither party. They were not, he said, reduced by
+      force of arms at all, but submitted voluntarily when they found that Cyrus
+      had married a Median princess. Herodotus, on the contrary, seems to
+      include the Bactrians among the nations which Cyrus subdued, and
+      probability is strongly in favor of this view of the matter. So warlike a
+      nation is not likely to have submitted unless to force; nor is there any
+      ground to believe that a Median marriage, had Cyrus contracted one, would
+      have made him any the more acceptable to the Bactrians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the conquest of Bactria followed, we may be tolerably sure, an attack
+      upon the Sacae. This people, who must certainly have bordered on the
+      Bactrians, dwelt probably either on the Pamir Steppe, or on the high plain
+      of Chinese Tartary, east of the Bolar range&mdash;the modern districts of
+      Kashgar and Yarkand. They were reckoned excellent soldiers. They fought
+      with the bow, the dagger, and the battle-axe, and were equally formidable
+      on horseback and on foot. In race they were probably Tatars or Turanians,
+      and their descendants or their congeners are to be seen in the modern
+      inhabitants of these regions. According to Ctesias, their women took the
+      field in almost equal numbers with their men; and the mixed army which
+      resisted Cyrus amounted, including both sexes, to half a million. The king
+      who commanded them was a certain Amorges, who was married to a wife called
+      Sparethra. In an engagement with the Persians he fell into the enemy&rsquo;s
+      hands, whereupon Sparethra put herself at the head of the Sacan forces,
+      defeated Cyrus, and took so many prisoners of importance that the Persian
+      monarch was glad to release Amorges in exchange for them. The Sacse,
+      however, notwithstanding this success, were reduced, and became subjects
+      and tributaries of Persia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among other countries subdued by Cyrus in this neighborhood, probably
+      about the same period, may be named Hyrcania, Parthia, Chorasmia,
+      Sogdiana, Aria (or Herat), Drangiana, Arachosia, Sattagydia, and Gandaria.
+      The brief epitome which we possess of Ctesias omits to make any mention of
+      these minor conquests, while Herodotus sums them all up in a single line;
+      but there is reason to believe that the Cnidian historian gave a
+      methodized account of their accomplishment, of which scattered notices
+      have come down to us in various writers. Arrian relates that there was a
+      city called Cyropolis, situated on the Jaxartes, a place of great strength
+      defended by very lofty walls, which had been founded by the Great Cyrus.
+      This city belonged to Sogdiana. Pliny states that Capisa, the chief city
+      of Capisene, which lay not far from the upper Indus, was destroyed by
+      Cyrus. This place is probably Kafshan, a little to the north of Kabul.
+      Several authors tell us that the Ariaspse, a people of Drangiana, assisted
+      Cyrus with provisions when he was warring in their neighborhood, and
+      received from him in return a new name, which the Greeks rendered by
+      &ldquo;Euergetse&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Benefactors.&rdquo; The Ariaspae must have dwelt near the
+      Hamoon, or Lake of Seistan. We have thus traces of the conqueror&rsquo;s
+      presence in the extreme north on the Jaxartes, in the extreme east in
+      Affghanistan, and towards the south as far as Seistan and the Helmend; nor
+      can there be any reasonable doubt that he overran and reduced to
+      subjection the whole of that vast tract which lies between the Caspian on
+      the west, the Indus valley and the desert of Tartary towards the east, the
+      Jaxartes or Sir Deria on the north, and towards the south the Great
+      Deserts of Seistan and Khorassan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More uncertainty attaches to the reduction of the tract lying south of
+      these deserts. Tradition said that Cyrus had once penetrated into Gedrosia
+      on an expedition against the Indians, and had lost his entire army in the
+      waterless and trackless desert; but there is no evidence at all that he
+      reduced the country. It appears to have been a portion of the Empire in
+      the reign of Darius Hystaspis, but whether that monarch, or Cambyses, or
+      the great founder of the Persian power conquered it, cannot at present be
+      determined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conquest of the vast tract lying between the Caspian and the Indus,
+      inhabited (as it was) by a numerous, valiant, and freedom-loving
+      population, may well have occupied Cyrus for thirteen or fourteen years.
+      Alexander the Great spent in the reduction of this region, after the
+      inhabitants had in a great measure lost their warlike qualities, as much
+      as five years, or half the time occupied by his whole series of conquests.
+      Cyrus could not have ventured on prosecuting his enterprises, as did the
+      Macedonian prince, continuously and without interruption, marching
+      straight from one country to another without once revisiting his capital.
+      He must from time to time have returned to Ecbatana or Pasargadae; and it
+      is on the whole most probable that, like the Assyrian monarchs, he marched
+      out from home on a fresh expedition almost every year. Thus it need cause
+      us no surprise that fourteen years were consumed in the subjugation of the
+      tribes and nations beyond the Iranic desert to the north and the
+      north-east, and that it was not till B.C. 539, when he was nearly sixty
+      years of age, that the Persian monarch felt himself free to turn his
+      attention to the great kingdom of the south.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The expedition of Cyrus against Babylon has been described already. Its
+      success added to the Empire the rich and valuable provinces of Babylonia,
+      Susiana, Syria, and Palestine, thus augmenting its size by about 240,000
+      or 250,000 square miles. Far more important, however, than this
+      geographical increase was the removal of the last formidable rival&mdash;the
+      complete destruction of a power which represented to the Asiatics the old
+      Semitic civilization, which with reason claimed to be the heir and the
+      successor of Assyria, and had a history stretching back for a space of
+      nearly two thousand years. So long as Babylon, &ldquo;the glory of kingdoms,&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;the praise of the whole earth,&rdquo; retained her independence, with her vast
+      buildings, her prestige of antiquity, her wealth, her learning, her
+      ancient and grand religious system, she could scarcely fail to be in the
+      eyes of her neighbors the first power in the world, if not in mere
+      strength, yet in honor, dignity, and reputation. Haughty and contemptuous
+      herself to the very last, she naturally imposed on men&rsquo;s minds, alike by
+      her past history and her present pretensions; nor was it possible for the
+      Persian monarch to feel that he stood before his subjects as indisputably
+      the foremost man upon the earth until he had humbled in the dust the pride
+      and arrogance of Babylon. But, with the fall of the Great City, the whole
+      fabric of Semetic greatness was shattered. Babylon became &ldquo;an astonishment
+      and a hissing&rdquo;&mdash;all her prestige vanished&mdash;and Persia stepped
+      manifestly into the place, which Assyria had occupied for so many
+      centuries, of absolute and unrivalled mistress of Western Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fall of Babylon was also the fall of an ancient, widely spread, and
+      deeply venerated religious system. Not of course, that the religion
+      suddenly disappeared or ceased to have votaries, but that, from a dominant
+      system, supported by all the resources of the state, and enforced by the
+      civil power over a wide extent of territory, it became simply one of many
+      tolerated beliefs, exposed to frequent rebuffs and insults, and at all
+      times overshadowed by a new and rival system&mdash;the comparatively pure
+      creed of Zoroastrianism, The conquest of Babylon by Persia was,
+      practically, if not a death-blow, at least a severe wound, to that
+      sensuous idol-worship which had for more than twenty centuries been the
+      almost universal religion in the countries between the Mediterranean and
+      the Zagros mountain range. The religion never recovered itself&mdash;was
+      never reinstated. It survived, a longer or a shorter time, in places. To a
+      slight extent it corrupted Zoroastrianism; but, on the whole, from the
+      date of the fall of Babylon it declined. &ldquo;Bel bowed down; Nebo stooped;&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;Merodach was broken in pieces.&rdquo; Judgment was done upon the Babylonian
+      graven images; and the system, of which they formed a necessary part,
+      having once fallen from its proud pre-eminence, gradually decayed and
+      vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Parallel with the decline of the old Semitic idolatry was the advance of
+      its direct antithesis, pure spiritual Monotheism. The same blow which laid
+      the Babylonian religion in the dust struck off the fetters from Judaism.
+      Purified and refined by the precious discipline of adversity, the Jewish
+      system, which Cyrus, feeling towards it a natural sympathy, protected,
+      upheld, and replaced in its proper locality, advanced from this time in
+      influence and importance, leavening little by little the foul mass of
+      superstition and impurity which came in contact with it. Proselytism grew
+      more common. The Jews spread themselves wider. The return from, the
+      captivity, which Cyrus authorized almost immediately after the capture of
+      Babylon, is the starting point from which we may trace a gradual
+      enlightenment of the heathen world by the dissemination of Jewish beliefs
+      and practices&mdash;such dissemination being greatly helped by the high
+      estimation in which the Jewish system was held by the civil authority,
+      both while the empire of the Persians lasted, and when power passed to the
+      Macedonians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the fall of Babylon its dependencies seem to have submitted to the
+      conqueror, with a single exception. Phoenicia, which had never acquiesced
+      contentedly either in Assyrian or in Babylonian rule, saw, apparently, in
+      the fresh convulsion that was now shaking the East, an opportunity for
+      recovering autonomy. It was nearly half a century since her last struggle
+      to free herself had terminated unsuccessfully. A new generation had grown
+      up since that time&mdash;a generation which had seen nothing of war, and
+      imperfectly appreciated its perils. Perhaps some reliance was placed on
+      the countenance and support of Egypt, which, it must have been felt, would
+      view with satisfaction any obstacle to the advance of a power wherewith
+      she was sure, sooner or later, to come into collision. At any rate, it was
+      resolved to make the venture. Phoenicia, on the destruction of her distant
+      suzerain, quietly resumed her freedom; abstained from making any act of
+      submission to the conqueror; while, however, at the same time, she
+      established friendly relations for commercial purposes with one of the
+      conqueror&rsquo;s vassals, the prince who had been sent into Palestine to
+      re-establish the Jews at Jerusalem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It might have been expected that Cyrus, after his conquest of Babylon,
+      would have immediately proceeded towards the south-west. The reduction of
+      Egypt had, according to Herodotus, been embraced in the designs which he
+      formed fifteen years earlier. The non-submission of Phoenicia must have
+      been regarded as an act of defiance which deserved signal chastisement. It
+      has been suspected that the restoration of the Jews was prompted, at least
+      in part, by political motives, and that Cyrus, when he re-established them
+      in their country, looked to finding them of use to him in the attack which
+      he was meditating upon Egypt. At any rate it is evident that their
+      presence would have facilitated his march through Palestine, and given him
+      a <i>point d&rsquo;appui</i>, which could not but have been of value. These
+      considerations make it probable that an Egyptian expedition would have
+      been determined on, had not circumstances occurred to prevent it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What the exact circumstances were, it is impossible to determine.
+      According to Herodotus, a sudden desire seized Cyrus to attack the
+      Massagetae, who bordered his Empire to the north-east. He led his troops
+      across the Araxes (Jaxartes?), defeated the Massagetae by stratagem in a
+      great battle, but was afterwards himself defeated and slain, his body
+      falling into the enemy&rsquo;s hands, who treated it with gross indignity.
+      According to Ctesias, the people against whom he made his expedition were
+      the Derbices, a nation bordering upon India, Assisted by Indian allies,
+      who lent them a number of elephants, this people engaged Cyrus, and
+      defeated him in a battle, wherein he received a mortal wound. Reinforced,
+      however, by a body of Sacae, the Persians renewed the struggle, and gained
+      a complete victory, which was followed by the submission of the nation.
+      Cyrus, however, died of his wound on the third day after the first battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This conflict of testimony clouds with uncertainty the entire closing
+      scene of the life of Cyrus. All that we can lay down as tolerably well
+      established is, that instead of carrying out his designs against Egypt, he
+      engaged in hostilities with one of the nations on his north-eastern
+      frontier, that he conducted the war with less than his usual success, and
+      in the course of it received a wound of which he died (B.C. 529), after he
+      had reigned nine-and-twenty years. That his body did not fall into the
+      enemy&rsquo;s hands appears, however, to be certain from the fact that it was
+      conveyed into Persia Proper, and buried at Pasargadae.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be suspected that this expedition, which proved so disastrous to
+      the Persian monarch, was not the mere wanton act which it appears to be in
+      the pages of our authorities. The nations of the north-east were at all
+      times turbulent and irritable, with difficulty held in check by the
+      civilized power that bore rule in the south and west. The expedition of
+      Cyrus, whether directed against the Massagetae or the Derbices, was
+      probably intended to strike terror into the barbarians of these regions,
+      and was analogous to those invasions which were undertaken under the
+      wisest of the Roman Emperors, across the Rhine and Danube, against
+      Germans, Goths, and Sarmatae. The object of such inroads was not to
+      conquer, but to alarm&mdash;it was hoped by an imposing display of
+      organized military force to deter the undisciplined hordes of the prolific
+      North from venturing across the frontier and carrying desolation through
+      large tracts of the Empire. Defensive warfare has often an aggressive
+      look. It may have been solely with the object of protecting his own
+      territories from attack that Cyrus made his last expedition across the
+      Jaxertes, or towards the upper Indus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character of Cyrus, as represented to us by the Greeks, is the most
+      favorable that we possess of any early Oriental monarch. Active,
+      energetic, brave, fertile in stratagems, he has all the qualities required
+      to form a successful military chief. He conciliates his people by friendly
+      and familiar treatment, but declines to spoil them by yielding to their
+      inclinations when they are adverse to their true interests. He has a ready
+      humor, which shows itself in smart sayings and repartees, that take
+      occasionally the favorite Oriental turn of parable or apologue. He is mild
+      in his treatment of the prisoners that fall into his hands, and ready to
+      forgive even the heinous crime of rebellion. He has none of the pride of
+      the ordinary eastern despot, but converses on terms of equality with those
+      about him. We cannot be surprised that the Persians, contrasting him with
+      their later monarchs, held his memory in the highest veneration, and were
+      even led by their affection for his person to make his type of countenance
+      their standard of physical beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The genius of Cyrus was essentially that of a conqueror, not of an
+      administrator. There is no trace of his having adopted anything like a
+      uniform system for the government of the provinces which he subdued. In
+      Lydia he set up a Persian governor, but assigned certain important
+      functions to a native; in Babylon he gave the entire direction of affairs
+      into the hands of a Mede, to whom he allowed the title and style of king;
+      in Judaea he appointed a native, but made him merely &ldquo;governor&rdquo; or
+      &ldquo;deputy;&rdquo; in Sacia he maintained as tributary king the monarch who had
+      resisted his arms. Policy may have dictated the course pursued in each
+      instance, which may have been suited to the condition of the several
+      provinces; but the variety allowed was fatal to consolidation, and the
+      monarchy, as Cyrus left it, had as little cohesion as any of those by
+      which it was preceded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though originally a rude mountain-chief, Cyrus, after he succeeded to
+      empire, showed himself quite able to appreciate the dignity and value of
+      art. In his constructions at Pasargadae he combined massiveness with
+      elegance, and manifested a taste at once simple and refined. He ornamented
+      his buildings with reliefs of an ideal character. It is probably to him
+      that we owe the conception of the light tapering stone shaft, which is the
+      glory of Persian architecture. If the more massive of the Persepolitan
+      buildings are to be ascribed to him, we must regard him as haying fixed
+      the whole plan and arrangement which was afterwards followed in all
+      Persian palatial edifices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his domestic affairs Cyrus appears to have shown the same moderation
+      and simplicity which we observe in his general conduct. He married, as it
+      would seem, one wife only, Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes, who was
+      a member of the royal family. By her he had issue two sons and at least
+      three daughters. The sons were Cambyses and Smerdis; the daughters Atossa,
+      Artystone, and one whose name is unknown to us. Cassandane died before her
+      husband, and was deeply mourned by him. Shortly before his own death he
+      took the precaution formally to settle the succession. Leaving the general
+      inheritance of his vast dominions to his elder son, Cambyses, he declared
+      it to be his will that the younger should be entrusted with the actual
+      government of several large and important provinces. He thought by this
+      plan to secure the well-being of both the youths, never suspecting that he
+      was in reality consigning both to untimely ends, and even preparing the
+      way for an extraordinary revolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ill effect of the unfortunate arrangement thus made appeared almost
+      immediately. Cambyses was scarcely settled upon the throne before he grew
+      jealous of his brother, and ordered him to be privately put to death. His
+      cruel orders were obeyed, and with so much secrecy that neither the mode
+      of the death, nor even the fact, was known to more than a few. Smerdis was
+      generally believed to be still alive; and thus an opportunity was
+      presented for personation&mdash;a form of imposture very congenial to
+      Orientals, and one which has often had very disastrous consequences. We
+      shall find in the sequel this opportunity embraced, and results follow of
+      a most stirring and exciting character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It required time, however, to bring to maturity the fruits of the crime so
+      rashly committed. Cambyses, in the meanwhile, quite unconscious of danger,
+      turned his attention to military matters, and determined on endeavoring to
+      complete his father&rsquo;s scheme of conquest by the reduction of Egypt.
+      Desirous of obtaining a ground of quarrel less antiquated than the
+      alliance, a quarter of a century earlier, between Amasis and Croesus, he
+      demanded that a daughter of the Egyptian king should be sent to him as a
+      secondary wife. Amasis, too timid to refuse, sent a damsel named Nitetis,
+      who was not his daughter; and she, soon after her arrival, made Cambyses
+      acquainted with the fraud. A ground of quarrel was thus secured, which
+      might be put forward when it suited his purpose; and meanwhile every nerve
+      was being strained to prepare effectually for the expedition. The
+      difficulty of a war with Egypt lay in her inaccessibility. She was
+      protected on all sides by seas or deserts; and, for a successful advance
+      upon her from the direction of Asia, it was desirable both to obtain a
+      quiet passage for a large army through the desert of El-Tij, and also to
+      have the support of a powerful fleet in the Mediterranean. This latter was
+      the paramount consideration. An army well supplied with camels might carry
+      its provisions and water through the desert, and might intimidate or
+      overpower the few Arab tribes which inhabited it; but, unless the command
+      of the sea was gained and the navigation of the Nile closed, Memphis might
+      successfully resist attack. Cambyses appears to have perceived with
+      sufficient clearness the conditions on which victory depended, and to have
+      applied himself at once to securing them. He made a treaty with the Arab
+      Sheikh who had the chief influence over the tribes of the desert; and at
+      the same time he set to work to procure the services of a powerful naval
+      force. By menaces or negotiations he prevailed upon the Phoenicians to
+      submit themselves to his yoke, and having thus obtained a fleet superior
+      to that of Egypt, he commenced hostilities by robbing her of a dependency
+      which possessed considerable naval strength, in this way still further
+      increasing the disparity between his own fleet and that of his enemy.
+      Against the combined ships of Phoenicia, Cyprus, Ionia, and AEolis, Egypt
+      was powerless, and her fleets seem to have quietly yielded the command of
+      the sea. Cambyses was thus able to give his army the support of a naval
+      force, as it marched along the coast, from Carmel probably to Pelusium;
+      and when, having defeated the Egyptians at the last-named place, he
+      proceeded against Memphis, he was able to take possession of the Nile, and
+      to blockade the Egyptian capital both by land and water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It appears that four years were consumed by the Persian monarch in his
+      preparations for his Egyptian expedition. It was not until B.C. 525 that
+      he entered Egypt at the head of his troops, and fought the great battle
+      which decided the fate of the country. The struggle was long and bloody.
+      Psammenitus, who had succeeded his father Amasis, had the services, not
+      only of his Egyptian subjects, but a large body of mercenaries besides,
+      Greeks and Carians. These allies were zealous in his cause, and are said
+      to have given him a horrible proof of their attachment. One of their body
+      had deserted to the Persians some little time before the expedition, and
+      was believed to have given important advice to the invader. He had left
+      his children behind in Egypt; and these his former comrades now seized,
+      and led out in front of their lines, where they slew them before their
+      father&rsquo;s eyes, and, having so done, mixed their blood in a bowl with water
+      and wine, and drank, one and all, of the mixture. The battle followed
+      immediately after; but, in spite of their courage and fanaticism, the
+      Egyptian army was completely defeated. According to Ctesias, fifty
+      thousand fell on the vanquished side, while the victors lost no more than
+      seven thousand. Psammenitus, after his defeat, threw himself into Memphis,
+      but, being blockaded by land and prevented from receiving supplies from
+      the sea, after a stout resistance, he surrendered. The captive monarch
+      received the respectful treatment which Persian clemency usually accorded
+      to fallen sovereigns. Herodotus even goes so far as to intimate that, if
+      he had abstained from conspiracy, he would probably have been allowed to
+      continue ruler of Egypt, exchanging, of course, his independent
+      sovereignty for a delegated kingship held at the pleasure of the Lord of
+      Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conquest of Egypt was immediately followed by the submission of the
+      neighboring tribes. The Libyans of the desert tract which borders the Nile
+      valley to the west, and even the Greeks of the more remote Barca and
+      Cyrene, sent gifts to the conqueror and consented to become his
+      tributaries. But Cambyses placed little value on such petty accessions to
+      his power. Inheriting the grandeur of view which had characterized his
+      father, he was no sooner master of Egypt than he conceived the idea of a
+      magnificent series of conquests in this quarter, whereby he hoped to
+      become Lord of Africa no less than of Asia, or at any rate to leave
+      himself without a rival of any importance on the vast continent which his
+      victorious arms had now opened to him. Apart from Egypt, Africa possessed
+      but two powers capable, by their political organization and their military
+      strength, of offering him serious resistance. These were Ethiopia and
+      Carthage&mdash;the one the great power of the South, the equal, if not
+      even the superior, of Egypt&mdash;the other the great power of the West&mdash;remote,
+      little known, but looming larger for, the obscurity in which she was
+      shrouded, and attractive from her reputed wealth. The views of Cambyses
+      comprised the reduction of both these powers, and also the conquest of the
+      oasis of Ammon. As a good Zoroastrian, he was naturally anxious to exhibit
+      the superiority of Ormazd to all the &ldquo;gods of the nations;&rdquo; and, as the
+      temple of Ammon in the oasis had the greatest repute of all the African
+      shrines, this design would be best accomplished by its pillage and
+      destruction. It is probable that he further looked to the subjugation of
+      all the tribes on the north coast between the Nile valley and the
+      Carthaginian territory; for he would undoubtedly have sent an army along
+      the shore to act in concert with his fleet, had he decided ultimately on
+      making the expedition. An unexpected obstacle, however, arose to prevent
+      him. The Phoenicians, who formed the main strength of his navy, declined
+      to take any part in an attack on Carthage, since the Carthaginians were
+      their colonists, and the relations between the two people had always been
+      friendly. Cambyses did not like to force their inclinations, on account of
+      their recent voluntary submission; and as, without their aid, his navy was
+      manifestly unequal to the proposed service, he felt obliged to desist from
+      the undertaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the Carthaginian scheme was thus nipped in the bud, the enterprises
+      which Cambyses attempted to carry out led to nothing but disaster. An
+      army, fifty thousand strong, despatched from Thebes against Ammon,
+      perished to a man amid the sands of the Libyan desert. A still more
+      numerous force, led by Cambyses himself towards the Ethiopian frontier,
+      found itself short of supplies on its march across Nubia, and was forced
+      to return, without glory, after suffering considerable loss. It became
+      evident that the abilities of the Persian monarch were not equal to his
+      ambition&mdash;that he insufficiently appreciated the difficulties and
+      dangers of enterprises&mdash;while a fatal obstinacy prevented him from
+      acknowledging and retrieving an error while retrieval was possible. The
+      Persians, we may be sure, grew dispirited under such a leader; and the
+      Egyptians naturally took heart. It seems to have been shortly after the
+      return of Cambyses from his abortive expedition against Ethiopia that
+      symptoms of an intention to revolt began to manifest themselves in Egypt.
+      The priests declared an incarnation of Apis, and the whole country burst
+      out into rejoicings. It was probably now that Psammenitus, who had
+      hitherto been kindly treated by his captor, was detected in treasonable
+      intrigues, condemned to death, and executed. At the same time, the native
+      officers who had been left in charge of the city of Memphis were
+      apprehended and capitally punished. Such stringent measures had all the
+      effect that was expected from them; they wholly crushed the nascent
+      rebellion; they left, however, behind them a soreness, felt alike by the
+      conqueror and the conquered, which prevented the establishment of a good
+      understanding between the Great King and his new subjects. Cambyses knew
+      that he had been severe, and that his severity had made him many enemies;
+      he suspected the people, and still more suspected the priests, their
+      natural leaders; he soon persuaded himself that policy required in Egypt a
+      departure from the principles of toleration which were ordinarily observed
+      towards their subjects by the Persians, and a sustained effort on the part
+      of the civil power to bring the religion, and its priests, into contempt.
+      Accordingly, he commenced a serious of acts calculated to have this
+      effect. He stabbed the sacred calf, believed to be incarnate Apis; he
+      ordered the body of priests who had the animal in charge to be publicly
+      scourged; he stopped the Apis festival by making participation in it a
+      capital offence; he opened the receptacles of the dead, and curiously
+      examined the bodies contained in them, he intruded himself into the chief
+      sanctuary at Memphis, and publicly scoffed at the grotesque image of
+      Phtha; finally, not content with outraging in the same way the inviolable
+      temple of the Cabeiri, he wound up his insults by ordering that their
+      images should be burnt. These injuries and indignities rankled in the
+      minds of the Egyptians, and probably had a large share in producing that
+      bitter hatred of the Persian yoke which shows itself in the later history
+      on so many occasions; but for the time the policy was successful: crushed
+      beneath the iron heel of the conqueror&mdash;their faith in the power of
+      their gods shaken, their spirits cowed, their hopes shattered&mdash;the
+      Egyptian subjects of Cambyses made up their minds to submission. The
+      Oriental will generally kiss the hand that smites him, if it only smite
+      hard enough. Egypt became now for a full generation the obsequious slave
+      of Persia, and gave no more trouble to her subjugator than the weakest or
+      the most contented of the provinces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The work of subjection completed, Cambyses, having been absent from his
+      capital longer than was at all prudent, prepared to return home. He had
+      proceeded on his way as far as Syria, when intelligence reached him of a
+      most unexpected nature. A herald suddenly entered his camp and proclaimed,
+      in the hearing of the whole army, that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, had ceased
+      to reign, and that the allegiance of all Persian subjects was henceforth
+      to be paid to Smerdis, son of Cyrus. At first, it is said, Cambyses
+      thought that his instrument had played him false, and that his brother was
+      alive and had actually seized the throne; but the assurances of the
+      suspected person, and a suggestion which he made, convinced him of the
+      contrary, and gave him a clue to the real solution of the mystery.
+      Prexaspes, the nobleman inculpated, knew that the so-called Smerdis must
+      be an impostor, and suggested his identity with a certain Magus, whose
+      brother had been intrusted by Cambyses with the general direction of his
+      household and the care of the palace. He was probably led to make the
+      suggestion by his knowledge of the resemblance borne by this person to the
+      murdered prince, which was sufficiently close to make personation
+      possible. Cambyses was thus enabled to appreciate the gravity of the
+      crisis, and to consider whether he could successfully contend with it or
+      no. Apparently, he decided in the negative. Believing that he could not
+      triumph over the conspiracy which had decreed his downfall, and unwilling
+      to descend to a private station&mdash;perhaps even uncertain whether his
+      enemies would spare his life&mdash;he resolved to fly to the last refuge
+      of a dethroned king, and to end all by suicide. Drawing his short sword
+      from its sheath, he gave himself a wound, of which he died in a few days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is certainly surprising that the king formed this resolution. He was at
+      the head of an army, returning from an expedition, which, if not wholly
+      successful, had at any rate added to the empire an important province. His
+      father&rsquo;s name was a tower of strength; and if he could only have exposed
+      the imposture that had been practised on them, he might have counted
+      confidently on rallying the great mass of the Persians to his cause. How
+      was it that he did not advance on the capital, and at least strike one
+      blow for empire? No clear and decided response can be made to this
+      inquiry; but we may indistinctly discern a number of causes which may have
+      combined to produce in the monarch&rsquo;s mind the feeling of despondency
+      whereto he gave way. Although he returned from Egypt a substantial
+      conqueror, his laurel wreath was tarnished by ill-success; his army,
+      weakened by its losses, and dispirited by its failures, was out of heart;
+      it had no trust in his capacity as a commander, and could not be expected
+      to fight with enthusiasm on his behalf. There is also reason to believe
+      that he was generally unpopular on account of his haughty and tyrannical
+      temper, and his contempt of law and usage, where they interfered with the
+      gratification of his desires. Though we should do wrong to accept as true
+      all the crimes laid to his charge by the Egyptians, who detested his
+      memory, we cannot doubt the fact of his incestuous marriage with his
+      sister, Atossa, which was wholly repugnant to the religious feelings of
+      his nation. Nor can we well imagine that there was no foundation at all
+      for the stories of the escape of Croesus, the murder of the son of
+      Prexaspes, and the execution in Egypt on a trivial charge of twelve noble
+      Persians. His own people called Cambyses a &ldquo;despot&rdquo; or &ldquo;master,&rdquo; in
+      contrast with Cyrus, whom they regarded as a &ldquo;father,&rdquo; because, as
+      Herodotus says, he was &ldquo;harsh and reckless,&rdquo; whereas his father was mild
+      and beneficent. Further, there was the religious aspect of the revolution,
+      which had taken place, in the background. Cambyses may have known that in
+      the ranks of his army there was much sympathy with Magism, and may have
+      doubted whether, if the whole conspiracy were laid bare, he could count on
+      anything like a general adhesion of his troops to the Zoroastrian cause.
+      These various grounds, taken together, go far towards accounting for a
+      suicide which at first sight strikes us as extraordinary, and is indeed
+      almost unparalleled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the general character of Cambyses little more need be said. He was
+      brave, active, and energetic, like his father: but he lacked his father&rsquo;s
+      strategic genius, his prudence, and his fertility in resources. Born in
+      the purple, he was proud and haughty, careless of the feelings of others,
+      and impatient of admonition or remonstrance. His pride made him obstinate
+      in error; and his contempt of others led on naturally to harshness, and
+      perhaps even to cruelty. He is accused of &ldquo;habitual drunkenness,&rdquo; and was
+      probably not free from the intemperance which was a common Persian
+      failing; but there is not sufficient ground for believing that his
+      indulgence was excessive, much less that it proceeded to the extent of
+      affecting his reason. The &ldquo;madness of Cambyses,&rdquo; reported to and believed
+      in by Herodotus, was a fiction of the Egyptian priests, who wished it to
+      be thought that their gods had in this way punished his impiety. The
+      Persians had no such tradition, but merely regarded him as unduly severe
+      and selfish. A dispassionate consideration of all the evidence on the
+      subject leads to the conclusion that Cambyses lived and died in the
+      possession of his reason, having neither destroyed it through inebriety
+      nor lost it by the judgment of Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The death of Cambyses (B.C. 522) left the conspirators, who had possession
+      of the capital, at liberty to develop their projects, and to take such
+      steps as they thought best for the consolidation and perpetuation of their
+      power. The position which they occupied was one of peculiar delicacy. On
+      the one hand, the impostor had to guard against acting in any way which
+      would throw suspicion on his being really Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. On
+      the other, he had to satisfy the Magian priests, to whom he was well
+      known, and on whom he mainly depended for support, if his imposture should
+      be detected. These priests must have desired a change of the national
+      religion, and to effect this must have been the true aim and object of the
+      revolution. But it was necessary to proceed with the utmost caution. An
+      open proclamation that Magism was to supersede Zoroastrianism would have
+      seemed a strange act in an Achaemenian prince, and could scarcely have
+      failed to arouse doubts which might easily terminate in discovery. The
+      Magian brothers shrank from affronting this peril, and resolved, before
+      approaching it, to obtain for the new government an amount of general
+      popularity which would make its overthrow in fair fight difficult.
+      Accordingly the new reign was inaugurated by a general remission of
+      tribute and military service for the space of three years&mdash;a measure
+      which was certain to give satisfaction to all the tribes and nations of
+      the Empire, except the Persians. Persia Proper was at all times exempt
+      from tribute, and was thus, so far, unaffected by the boon granted, while
+      military service was no doubt popular with the ruling nation, for whose
+      benefit the various conquests were effected. Still Persia could scarcely
+      take umbrage at an inactivity which was to last only three years, while to
+      the rest of the Empire the twofold grace accorded must have been
+      thoroughly acceptable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Further to confirm his uncertain hold upon the throne, the Pseudo-Smerdis
+      took to wife all the widows of his predecessor. This is a practice common
+      in the East; and there can be no doubt that it gives a new monarch a
+      certain prestige in the eyes of his people. In the present case, however,
+      it involved a danger. The wives of the late king were likely to be
+      acquainted with the person of the king&rsquo;s brother; Atossa, at any rate,
+      could not fail to know him intimately. If the Magus allowed them to
+      associate together freely, according to the ordinary practice, they would
+      detect his imposture and probably find a way to divulge it. He therefore
+      introduced a new system into the seraglio. Instead of the free intercourse
+      one with another which the royal consorts had enjoyed previously, he
+      established at once the principle of complete isolation. Each wife was
+      assigned her own portion of the palace; and no visiting of one wife by
+      another was permitted. Access to them from without was altogether
+      forbidden, even to their nearest relations; and the wives were thus cut
+      off wholly from the external world, unless they could manage to
+      communicate with it by means of secret messages. But precautions of this
+      kind, though necessary, were in themselves suspicious; they naturally
+      suggested an inquiry into their cause and object. It was a possible
+      explanation of them that they proceeded from an extreme and morbid
+      jealousy; but the thought could not fail to occur to some that they might
+      be occasioned by the fear of detection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, as time went on, and no discovery was actually made, the Magus
+      grew bolder, and ventured to commence that reformation of religion which
+      he and his order had so much at heart. He destroyed the Zoroastrian
+      temples in various places, and seems to have put down the old worship,
+      with its hymns in praise of the Zoroastrian deities. He instituted Magian
+      rites in lieu of the old ceremonies, and established his brother Magians
+      as the priest-caste of the Persian nation. The changes introduced were no
+      doubt satisfactory to the Medes, and to many of the subject races
+      throughout the Empire. They were even agreeable to a portion of the
+      Persian people, who leant towards a more material worship and a more
+      gorgeous ceremonial than had contented their ancestors. If the faithful
+      worshippers of Ormazd saw them with dismay, they were too timid to resist,
+      and tacitly acquiesced in the religious revolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one remote province the change gave a fresh impulse to a religious
+      struggle which was there going on, adding strength to the side of
+      intolerance. The Jews had now been engaged for fifteen or sixteen years in
+      the restoration of their temple, according to the permission granted them
+      by Cyrus. Their enterprise was distasteful to the neighboring Samaritans,
+      who strained every nerve to prevent its being brought to a successful
+      issue, and as each new king mounted the Persian throne, made a fresh
+      effort to have the work stopped by authority. Their representations had
+      had no effect upon Cambyses; but when they were repeated on the accession
+      of the Pseudo-Smerdis, the result was different. An edict was at once sent
+      down to Palestine, reversing the decree of Cyrus, and authorizing the
+      inhabitants of Samaria to interfere forcibly in the matter, and compel the
+      Jews to desist from building. Armed with this decree, the Samaritan
+      authorities hastened to Jerusalem, and &ldquo;made the Jews to cease by force
+      and power.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These revelations of a leaning towards a creed diverse from that of the
+      Achaemenian princes, combined with the system of seclusion adopted in the
+      palace&mdash;a system not limited to the seraglio, but extending also to
+      the person of the monarch, who neither quitted the palace precincts
+      himself, nor allowed any of the Persian nobles to enter them&mdash;must
+      have turned the suspicions previously existing into a general belief and
+      conviction that the monarch seated on the throne was not Smerdis the son
+      of Cyrus, but an impostor. Yet still there was for a while no outbreak. It
+      mattered nothing to the provincials who ruled them, provided that order
+      was maintained, and that the boons granted them at the opening of the new
+      reign were not revoked or modified. Their wishes were no doubt in favor of
+      the prince who had remitted their burthens; and in Media a peculiar
+      sympathy would exist towards one who had exalted Magism. Such discontent
+      as was felt would be confined to Persia, or to Persia and a few provinces
+      of the north-east, where the Zoroastrian faith may have maintained itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, among the chief Persians, rumors began to arise. These were
+      sternly repressed at the outset, and a reign of terror was established,
+      during which men remained silent through fear. But at length some of the
+      principal nobles, convinced of the imposture, held secret council
+      together, and discussed the measures proper to be adopted under the
+      circumstances. Nothing, however, was done until the arrival at the capital
+      of a personage felt by all to be the proper leader of the nation in the
+      existing crisis. This was Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a prince of the
+      blood royal who probably stood in the direct line of the succession,
+      failing the issue of Cyrus. At the early age of twenty he had attracted
+      the attention of that monarch, who suspected him even then of a design to
+      seize the throne. He was now about twenty-eight years of age, and
+      therefore at a time of life suited for vigorous enterprise; which was
+      probably the reason why his father, Hystaspes, who was still alive, sent
+      him to the capital, instead of proceeding thither in person. Youth and
+      vigor were necessary qualifications for success in a struggle against the
+      holders of power; and Hystaspes no longer possessed those advantages. He
+      therefore yielded to his son that headship of the movement to which his
+      position would have entitled him; and, with the leadership in danger, he
+      yielded necessarily his claim to the first place, when the time of peril
+      should be past and the rewards of victory should come to be apportioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius, on his arrival at the capital, was at once accepted as head of the
+      conspiracy, and with prudent boldness determined on pushing matters to an
+      immediate decision. Overruling the timidity of a party among the
+      conspirators, who urged delay, he armed his partisans, and proceeded,
+      without a moment&rsquo;s pause, to the attack. According to the Greek
+      historians, he and his friends entered the palace in a body, and surprised
+      the Magus in his private apartments, where they slew him after a brief
+      struggle. But the authority of Darius discredits the Greek accounts, and
+      shows us, though with provoking brevity, that the course of events must
+      have been very different. The Magus was not slain in the privacy of his
+      palace, at Susa or Ecbatana, but met his death in a small and
+      insignificant fort in the part of Media called &ldquo;the Maesan plain,&rdquo; or,
+      more briefly, &ldquo;Nisaea,&rdquo; whither he appears to have fled with a band of
+      followers. Whether he was first attacked in the capital, and escaping
+      threw himself into this stronghold, or receiving timely warning of his
+      danger withdrew to it before the outbreak occurred, or merely happened to
+      be at the spot when the conspirators decided to make their attempt, we
+      have no means of determining. We only know that the scene of the last
+      struggle was Sictachotes, in Media; that Darius made the attack
+      accompanied by six Persian nobles of high rank; and that the contest
+      terminated in the slaughter of the Magus and of a number of his adherents,
+      who were involved in the fall of their master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor did the vengeance of the successful conspirators stop here. Speeding
+      to the capital, with the head of the Magus in their hands, and exhibiting
+      everywhere this proof at once of the death of the late king and of his
+      imposture, they proceeded to authorize and aid in carrying out, a general
+      massacre of the Magian priests, the abettors of the later usurpation.
+      Every Magus who could be found was poniarded by the enraged Persians; and
+      the caste would have been well-nigh exterminated, if it had not been for
+      the approach of night. Darkness brought the carnage to an end; and the
+      sword, once sheathed, was not again drawn. Only, to complete the
+      punishment of the ambitious religionists who had insulted and deceived the
+      nation, the day of the massacre was appointed to be kept annually as a
+      solemn festival, under the name of the Magophonia; and a law was passed
+      that on that day no Magus should leave his house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The accession of Darius to the vacant throne now took place (Jan. 1, B.C.
+      521). According to Herodotus it was preceded by a period of debate and
+      irresolution, during which the royal authority was, as it were, in
+      commission among the Seven; and in this interval he places not only the
+      choice of a king, but an actual discussion on the subject of the proper
+      form of government to be established. Even his contemporaries, however,
+      could see that this last story was unworthy of credit and it may be
+      questioned whether any more reliance ought to be placed on the remainder
+      of the narrative. Probably the true account of the matter is, that, having
+      come to a knowledge of the facts of the case, the heads of the seven great
+      Persian clans or families met together in secret conclave and arranged all
+      their proceedings beforehand. No government but the monarchical could be
+      thought of for a moment, and no one could assert any claim to be king but
+      Darius. Darius went into the conspiracy as a pretender to the throne: the
+      other six were simply his &ldquo;faithful men,&rdquo; his friends and well-wishers.
+      While, however, the six were far from disputing Darius&rsquo;s right, they
+      required and received for themselves a guarantee of certain privileges,
+      which may either have belonged to them previously, by law or custom, as
+      the heads of the great clans, or may have been now for the first time
+      conceded. The king-bound himself to choose his wives from among the
+      families of the conspirators only, and sanctioned their claim to have free
+      access to his person at all times without asking his permission. One of
+      their number, Otanes, demanded and obtained even more. He and his house
+      were to remain &ldquo;free,&rdquo; and were to receive yearly a magnificent kaftan, or
+      royal present. Thus, something like a check on unbridled despotism was
+      formally and regularly established; an hereditary nobility was
+      acknowledged; the king became to some extent dependent on his grandees; he
+      could not regard himself as the sole fountain of honor; six great nobles
+      stood round the throne as its supports; but their position was so near the
+      monarch that they detracted somewhat from his prestige and dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The guarantee of these privileges was, we may be sure, given, and the
+      choice of Darius as king made, before the attack upon the. Magus began. It
+      would have been madness to allow an interval of anarchy. When Darius
+      reached the capital, with the head of the Pseudo-Smerdis in his
+      possession, he no doubt proceeded at once to the palace and took his seat
+      upon the vacant throne. No opposition was offered to him. The Persians
+      gladly saw a scion of their old royal stock installed in power. The
+      provincials were too far off to interfere. Such malcontents as might be
+      present would be cowed by the massacre that was going on in the streets.
+      The friends and intimates of the fallen monarch would be only anxious to
+      escape notice. The reign of the new king no doubt commenced amid those
+      acclamations which are never wanting in the East when a sovereign first
+      shows himself to his subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The measures with which the new monarch inaugurated his reign had for
+      their object the re-establishment of the old worship. He rebuilt the
+      Zoroastrian temples which the Magus had destroyed, and probably restored
+      the use of the sacred chants and the other accustomed ceremonies. It may
+      be suspected that his religious zeal proceeded often to the length of
+      persecution, and that the Magian priests were not the only persons who,
+      under the orders which he issued, felt the weight of the secular arm. His
+      Zoroastrian zeal was soon known through the provinces; and the Jews
+      forthwith resumed the building of their temple, trusting that their
+      conduct would be consonant with his wishes. This trust was not misplaced:
+      for, when the Samaritans once more interfered and tried to induce the new
+      king to put a stop to the work, the only result was a fresh edict,
+      confirming the old decree of Cyrus, forbidding interference, and assigning
+      a further grant of money, cattle, corn, etc., from the royal stores, for
+      the furtherance of the pious undertaking. Its accomplishment was declared
+      to be for the advantage of the king and his house, since, when the temple
+      was finished, sacrifices would be offered in it to &ldquo;the God of Heaven,&rdquo;
+       and prayer would be made &ldquo;for the life of the king and of his sons.&rdquo; Such
+      was the sympathy which still united pure Zoroastrianism with the worship
+      of Jehovah. But the reign, which, so far, might have seemed to be
+      auspiciously begun, was destined ere long to meet opposition, and even to
+      encounter armed hostility, in various quarters. In the loosely organized
+      empires of the early type, a change of sovereign, especially if
+      accompanied by revolutionary violence, is always regarded as an
+      opportunity for rebellion. Doubt as to the condition of the capital
+      paralyzes the imperial authority in the provinces; and bold men, taking
+      advantage of the moment of weakness, start up in various places, asserting
+      independence, and seeking to obtain for themselves kingdoms out of the
+      chaos which they see around them. The more remote provinces are especially
+      liable to be thus affected, and often revolt successfully on such an
+      occasion. It appears that the circumstances under which Darius obtained
+      the throne were more than usually provocative of the spirit of
+      disaffection and rebellion. Not only did the governors of remote
+      countries, like Egypt and Lydia, assume an attitude incompatible with
+      their duty as subjects, but everywhere, even in the very heart of the
+      Empire, insurrection raised its head; and for six long years the new king
+      was constantly employed in reducing one province after another to
+      obedience. Susiana, Babylonia, Persia itself, Media, Assyria, Armenia,
+      Hyrcania, Parthia, Margiana, Sagartia, and Sacia, all revolted during this
+      space, and were successively chastised and recovered. It may be suspected
+      that the religious element entered into some of these struggles, and that
+      the unusual number of the revolts and the obstinate character of many of
+      them were connected with the downfall of Magism and the restoration of the
+      pure Zoroastrian faith, which Darius was bent on effecting. But this
+      explanation can only be applied partially. We must suppose, besides, a
+      sort of contagion of rebellion&mdash;an awakening of hopes, far and wide,
+      among the subject nations, as the rumor that serious troubles had broken
+      out reached them, and a resolution to take advantage of the critical state
+      of things, spreading rapidly from one people to another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A brief sketch of these various revolts must now be given. They commenced
+      with a rising in Susiana, where a certain Atrines assumed the name and
+      state of king, and was supported by the people. Almost simultaneously a
+      pretender appeared in Babylon, who gave out that he was the son of the
+      late king, Nabonidus, and bore the world-renowned name of Nebuchadnezzar.
+      Darius, regarding this second revolt as the more important of the two,
+      while he dispatched a force to punish the Susianians, proceeded in person
+      against the Babylonian pretender. The rivals met at the river Tigris,
+      which the Babylonians held with a naval force, while their army was posted
+      on the right bank, ready to dispute the passage. Darius, however, crossed
+      the river in their dispute, and, defeating the troops of his antagonist,
+      pressed forward against the capital. He had nearly reached it, when the
+      pretender gave him battle for the second time at a small town on the banks
+      of the Euphrates. Fortune again declared in favor of the Persians, who
+      drove the host of their enemy into the water and destroyed great numbers.
+      The soi-disant Nebuchadnezzar escaped with a few horsemen and threw
+      himself into Babylon; but the city was ill prepared for a siege, and was
+      soon taken, the pretender falling into the hands of his enemy, who caused
+      him to be executed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, in Susiana, Atrines, the original leader of the rebellion, had
+      been made prisoner by the troops sent against him, and, being brought to
+      Darius while he was on his march against Babylon, was put to death. But
+      this severity had little effect. A fresh leader appeared in the person of
+      a certain Martes, a Persian who, taking example from the Babylonian rebel,
+      assumed a name which connected him with the old kings of the country, and
+      probably claimed to be their descendant, but the hands of Darius were now
+      free by the termination of the Babylonian contest, and he was able to
+      proceed towards Susiana himself. This movement, apparently, was
+      unexpected; for when the Susianians heard of it they were so alarmed that
+      they laid hands on the pretender and slew him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A more important rebellion followed. Three of the chief provinces of the
+      empire, Media, Armenia, and Assyria, revolted in concert. A Median monarch
+      was set up, who called himself Xathrites, and claimed descent from the
+      great Oyaxares; and it would seem that the three countries immediately
+      acknowledged his sway. Darius, seeing how formidable the revolt was,
+      determined to act with caution. Settling himself at the newly-conquered
+      city of Babylon, he resolved to employ his generals against the rebels,
+      and in this way to gauge the strength of the outbreak, before adventuring
+      his own person into the fray. Hydarnes, one of the Seven conspirators, was
+      sent into Media with an army, while Dadarses, an Armenian, was dispatched
+      into Armenia, and Vomises, a Persian, was ordered to march through Assyria
+      into the same country. All three generals were met by the forces of the
+      pretender, and several battles were fought, with results that seem not to
+      have been very decisive. Darius claims the victory on each occasion for
+      his own generals; but it is evident that his arms made little progress,
+      and that, in spite of several small defeats, the rebellion maintained a
+      bold front, and was thought not unlikely to be successful. So strong was
+      this feeling that two of the eastern provinces, Hyrcania and Parthia,
+      deserted the Persian cause in the midst of the struggle, and placed
+      themselves under the rule of Xathrites. Either this circumstance, or the
+      general position of affairs, induced Darius at length to take the field in
+      person. Quitting Babylon, he marched into Media, and being met by the
+      pretender near a town called Kudrus, he defeated him in a great battle.
+      This is no doubt the engagement of which Herodotus speaks, and which he
+      rightly regards as decisive. The battle of Kudrus gave Ecbatana into the
+      hands of Darius, and made the Median prince an outcast and a fugitive. He
+      fled towards the East, probably intending to join his partisans in
+      Hyrcania and Parthia, but was overtaken in the district of Rhages and made
+      prisoner by the troops of Darius. The king treated his captive with
+      extreme severity. Having cut off his nose, ears, and tongue, he kept him
+      for some time chained to the door of his palace, in order that there might
+      be no doubt of his capture. When this object had been sufficiently
+      secured, the wretched sufferer was allowed to end his miserable existence.
+      He was crucified in his capital city, Ecbatana, before the eyes of those
+      who had seen his former glory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rebellion was thus crushed in its original seat, but it had still to
+      be put down in the countries whereto it had extended itself. Parthia and
+      Hyrcania, which had embraced the cause of the pretender, were still
+      maintaining a conflict with their former governor, Hystaspes, Darius&rsquo;s
+      father. Darius marched as far as Rhages to his father&rsquo;s assistance, and
+      dispatched from that point a body of Persian troops to reinforce him. With
+      this important aid Hystaspes once more gave the rebels battle, and
+      succeeded in defeating them so entirely that they presently made their
+      submission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Troubles, meanwhile, had broken out in Sagartia. A native chief, moved
+      probably by the success which had for a while attended the Median rebel
+      who claimed to rule as the descendant and representative of Cyaxares, came
+      forward with similar pretensions, and was accepted by the Sargartians as
+      their monarch. This revolt, however, proved unimportant. Darius suppressed
+      it with the utmost facility by means of a mixed army of Persians and
+      Medes, whom he placed under a Median leader, Tachamaspates. The pretender
+      was captured and treated almost exactly in the same way as the Mede whose
+      example he had followed. His nose and ears were cut off; he was chained
+      for a while at the palace door; and finally he was crucified at Arbela.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another trifling revolt occurred about the same time in Margiana. The
+      Margians rebelled and set up a certain Phraates, a native, to be their
+      king. But the satrap of Bactria, within whose province Margiana lay,
+      quelled the revolt almost immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hitherto, however thickly troubles had come upon him, Darius could have
+      the satisfaction of feeling that he was contending with foreigners, and
+      that his own nation at any rate was faithful and true. But now this
+      consolation was to be taken from him. During his absence in the provinces
+      of the north-east Persia itself revolted against his authority, and
+      acknowledged for king an impostor, who, undeterred by the fate of Gomates,
+      and relying on the obscurity which still hung over the end of the real
+      Smerdis, assumed his name, and claimed to be the legitimate occupant of
+      the throne. The Persians at home were either deceived a second time, or
+      were willing to try a change of ruler; but the army of Darius, composed of
+      Persians and Medes, adhered to the banner under which they had so often
+      marched to victory, and enabled Darius, after a struggle of some duration,
+      to re-establish his sway. The impostor suffered two defeats at the hands
+      of Artabardes, one of Darius&rsquo;s generals, while a force which he had
+      detached to excite rebellion in Arachosia was engaged by the satrap of
+      that province and completely routed. The so-called Smerdis was himself
+      captured, and suffered the usual penalty of unsuccessful revolt,
+      crucifixion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before, however, these results were accomplished&mdash;while the fortune
+      of war still hung in the balance&mdash;a fresh danger threatened.
+      Encouraged by the disaffection which appeared to be so general, and which
+      had at length reached the very citadel of the Empire, Babylon revolted for
+      the second time. A man, named Aracus, an Armenian by descent, but settled
+      in Babylonia, headed the insurrection, and, adopting the practice of
+      personation so usual at the time, assumed the name and style of
+      &ldquo;Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus.&rdquo; Less alarmed on this occasion than at
+      the time of the first revolt, the king was content to send a Median
+      general against the new pretender. This officer, who is called Intaphres,
+      speedily chastised the rebels, capturing Babylon, and taking Aracus
+      prisoner. Crucifixion was again the punishment awarded to the rebel
+      leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A season of comparative tranquillity seems now to have set in; and it may
+      have been in this interval that Darius found time to chastise the remoter
+      governors, who without formally declaring themselves independent, or
+      assuming the title of king, had done acts savoring of rebellion. Oroetes,
+      the governor of Sardis, who had comported himself strangely even under
+      Cambyses, having ventured to entrap and put to death an ally of that
+      monarch&rsquo;s, Polycrates of Samos, had from the time of the Magian revolution
+      assumed an attitude quite above that of a subject. Having a quarrel with
+      Mitrobates, the governor of a neighboring province, he murdered him and
+      annexed his territory. When Darius sent a courier to him with a message
+      the purport of which he disliked, he set men to waylay and assassinate
+      him. It was impossible to overlook such acts; and Darius must have sent an
+      army into Asia Minor, if one of his nobles had not undertaken to remove
+      Oroetes in another way. Arming himself with several written orders bearing
+      the king&rsquo;s seal, he went to Sardis, and gradually tried the temper of the
+      guard which the satrap kept round his person. When he found them full of
+      respect for the royal authority and ready to do whatever the king
+      commanded, he produced an order for the governor&rsquo;s execution, which they
+      carried into effect immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The governor of Egypt, Aryandes, had shown a guilty ambition in a more
+      covert way. Understanding that Darius had issued a gold coinage of
+      remarkable purity, he, on his own authority and without consulting the
+      king, issued a silver coinage of a similar character. There is reason to
+      believe that he even placed his name upon his coins; an act which to the
+      Oriental mind distinctly implied a claim of independent sovereignty.
+      Darius taxed him with a design to revolt, and put him to death on the
+      charge, apparently without exciting any disturbance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still, however, the Empire was not wholly tranquillized. A revolt in
+      Susiana, suppressed by the conspirator Gobryas, and another among the
+      Sacse of the Tigris, quelled by Darius in person, are recorded on the rock
+      of Behistun, in a supplementary portion of the Inscription. We cannot
+      date, unless it be by approximation, these various troubles; but there is
+      reason to believe that they were almost all contained within a space not
+      exceeding five or six years. The date of the Behistun Inscription is fixed
+      by internal evidence to about B.C. 516-515&mdash;in other words, to the
+      fifth or sixth year of the reign of Darius. Its erection seems to mark the
+      termination of the first period of the reign, or that of disturbance, and
+      the commencement of the second period, or that of tranquillity, internal
+      progress, and patronage of the fine arts by the monarch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was natural that Darius, having with so much effort and difficulty
+      reduced the revolted provinces to obedience, should proceed to consider
+      within himself how the recurrence of such a time of trouble might be
+      prevented. His experience had shown him how weak were the ties which had
+      hitherto been thought sufficient to hold the Empire together, and how
+      slight an obstacle they opposed to the tendency, which all great empires
+      have, to disruption. But, however natural it might be to desire a remedy
+      for the evils which afflicted the State, it was not easy to devise one.
+      Great empires had existed in Western Asia for above seven hundred years,
+      and had all suffered more or less from the same inherent weakness; but no
+      one had as yet invented a cure, or even (so far as appears) conceived the
+      idea of improving on the rude system of imperial sway which the first
+      conqueror had instituted. It remained for Darius, not only to desire, but
+      to design&mdash;not only to design, but to bring into action&mdash;an
+      entirely new form and type of government. He has been well called &ldquo;the
+      true founder of the Persian state.&rdquo; He found the Empire a crude and
+      heterogeneous mass of ill-assorted elements, hanging loosely together by
+      the single tie of subjection to a common head; he left it a compact and
+      regularly organized body, united on a single well-ordered system,
+      permanently established everywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the nature and details of this system it will be necessary to speak at
+      some length. It was the first, and probably the best, instance of that
+      form of government which, taking its name from the Persian word for
+      provincial ruler, is known generally as the system of &ldquo;satrapial&rdquo;
+       administration. Its main principles were, in the first place, the
+      reduction of the whole Empire to a quasi-uniformity by the substitution of
+      one mode of governing for several; secondly, the substitution of fixed and
+      definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable and uncertain calls;
+      and thirdly, the establishment of a variety of checks and counterpoises
+      among the officials to whom it was necessary that the crown should
+      delegate its powers, which tended greatly to the security of the monarch
+      and the stability of the kingdom. A consideration of the modes in which
+      these three principles were applied will bring before us in a convenient
+      form the chief points of the system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Uniformity, or a near approach to it, was produced, not so much by the
+      abolition of differences as by superadding one and the same governmental
+      machinery in all parts of the Empire. It is an essential feature of the
+      satrapial system that it does not aim at destroying differences, or
+      assimilating to one type the various races and countries over which it is
+      extended. On the contrary, it allows, and indeed encourages, the several
+      nations to retain their languages, habits, manners, religion, laws, and
+      modes of local government. Only it takes care to place above all these
+      things a paramount state authority, which is one and the same everywhere,
+      whereon the unity of the kingdom is dependent. The authority instituted by
+      Darius was that of his satraps. He divided the whole empire into a number
+      of separate governments&mdash;a number which must have varied at different
+      times, but which seems never to have fallen short of twenty. Over each
+      government he placed a satrap, or supreme civil governor, charged with the
+      collection and transmission of the revenue, the administration of justice,
+      the maintenance of order, and the general supervision of the territory.
+      These satraps were nominated by the king at his pleasure from any class of
+      his subjects, and held office for no definite term, but simply until
+      recalled, being liable to deprivation or death at any moment, without
+      other formality than the presentation of the royal firman. While, however,
+      they remained in office they were despotic&mdash;they represented the
+      Great King, and were clothed with a portion of his majesty&mdash;they had
+      palaces, Courts, body-guards, parks or &ldquo;paradises,&rdquo; vast trains of eunuchs
+      and attendants, well-filled, seraglios. They wielded the power of life and
+      death. They assessed the tribute on the several towns and villages within
+      their jurisdiction at their pleasure, and appointed deputies&mdash;called
+      sometimes, like themselves, satraps&mdash;over cities or districts within
+      their province, whose office was regarded as one of great dignity. They
+      exacted from the provincials, for their own support and that of their
+      Court, over and above the tribute due to the crown, whatever sum they
+      regarded them as capable of furnishing. Favors, and even justice, had to
+      be purchased from them by gifts. They were sometimes guilty of gross
+      outrages on the persons and honor of their subjects. Nothing restrained
+      their tyranny but such sense of right as they might happen to possess, and
+      the fear of removal or execution if the voice of complaint reached the
+      monarch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides this uniform civil administration, the Empire was pervaded
+      throughout by one and the same military system. The services of the
+      subject nations as soldiers were, as a general rule, declined, unless upon
+      rare and exceptional cases. Order was maintained by large and numerous
+      garrisons of foreign troops&mdash;Persians and Medes&mdash;quartered on
+      the inhabitants, who had little sympathy with those among whom they lived,
+      and would be sure to repress sternly any outbreak. All places of much
+      strength were occupied in this way; and special watch was kept upon the
+      great capitals, which were likely to be centres of disaffection. Thus a
+      great standing army, belonging to the conquering race, stood everywhere on
+      guard throughout the Empire, offending the provincials no doubt by their
+      pride, their violence, and their contemptuous bearing, but rendering a
+      native revolt under ordinary circumstances hopeless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some exceptions to the general uniformity had almost of necessity to be
+      made in so vast and heterogeneous an empire as the Persian. Occasionally
+      it was thought wise to allow the continuance of a native dynasty in a
+      province; and the satrap had in such a case to share with the native
+      prince a divided authority. This was certainly the case in Cilicia, and
+      probably in Paphlagonia and Phoenicia. Tribes also, included within the
+      geographical limits of a satrapy, were sometimes recognized as
+      independent; and petty wars were carried on between these hordes and their
+      neighbors. Robber bands in many places infested the mountains, owing no
+      allegiance to any one, and defied alike the satrap and the standing army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The condition of Persia Proper was also purely exceptional. Persia paid no
+      tribute, and was not counted as a satrapy. Its inhabitants were, however,
+      bound, when the king passed through their country, to bring him gifts
+      according to their means. This burthen may have been felt sensibly by the
+      rich, but it pressed very lightly on the poor, who, if they could not
+      afford an ox or a sheep, might bring a little milk or cheese, a few dates,
+      or a handful of wild fruit. On the other hand, the king was bound,
+      whenever he visited Pasargadae, to present to each Persian woman who
+      appeared before him a sum equal to twenty Attic drachmas, or about sixteen
+      shillings of our money. This custom commemorated the service rendered by
+      the sex in the battle wherein Cyrus first repulsed the forces of Astyages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The substitution of definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable
+      and uncertain charges was aimed at, rather than effected, by the new
+      arrangement of the revenue which is associated with the name of Darius.
+      This arrangement consisted in fixing everywhere the amount of tribute in
+      money and in kind which each satrapy was to furnish to the crown. A
+      definite money payment, varying, in ordinary satrapies, from 170 to 1000
+      Babylonian silver talents,330 or from L42,000. to L250,000. of our money,
+      and amounting, in the exceptional case of the Indian satrapy, to above a
+      million sterling, was required annually by the sovereign, and had to be
+      remitted by the satrap to the capital. Besides this, a payment, the nature
+      and amount of which was also fixed, had to be made in kind, each province
+      being required to furnish that commodity, or those commodities, for which
+      it was most celebrated. This latter burthen must have pressed very
+      unequally on different portions of the Empire, if the statement of
+      Herodotus be true that Babylonia and Assyria paid one-third of it. The
+      payment seems to have been very considerable in amount. Egypt had to
+      supply grain sufficient for the nutriment of 120,000 Persian troops
+      quartered in the country. Media had to contribute 100,000 sheep, 4000
+      mules, and 3000 horses; Cappadocia, half the above number of each kind of
+      animal; Armenia furnished 20,000 colts; Cilicia gave 360 white horses and
+      a sum of 140 talents (L35,000.) in lieu of further tribute in kind.
+      Babylonia, besides corn, was required to furnish 500 boy eunuchs. These
+      charges, however, were all fixed by the crown, and may have been taken
+      into consideration in assessing the money payment, the main object of the
+      whole arrangement evidently being to make the taxation of each province
+      proportionate to its wealth and resources.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The assessment of the taxation upon the different portions of his province
+      was left to the satrap. We do not know on what principles he ordinarily
+      proceeded, or whether any uniform principles at all were observed
+      throughout the Empire. But we find some evidence that, in places at least,
+      the mode of exaction and collection was by a land-tax. The assessment upon
+      individuals, and the actual collection from them, devolved, in all
+      probability, on the local authorities, who distributed the burthen imposed
+      upon their town, village, or district as they thought proper. Thus the
+      foreign oppressor did not come into direct contact with the mass of the
+      conquered people, who no doubt paid the calls made upon them with less
+      reluctance through the medium of their own proper magistrates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the taxation of the subject had stopped here, he would have had no just
+      ground of complaint against his rulers. The population of the Empire
+      cannot be estimated at less than forty millions of souls. The highest
+      estimate of the value of the entire tribute, both in money and kind, will
+      scarcely place it at more than ten millions sterling. Thus far, then, the
+      burthen of taxation would certainly not have exceeded five shillings a
+      head per annum. Perhaps it would not have reached half that amount. But,
+      unhappily, neither was the tribute the sole tax which the crown exacted
+      from its subjects, nor had the crown the sole right of exacting taxation.
+      Persian subjects in many parts of the Empire paid, besides their tribute,
+      a water-rate, which is expressly said to have been very productive. The
+      rivers of the Empire were the king&rsquo;s; and when water was required for
+      irrigation, a state officer superintended the opening of the sluices, and
+      regulated the amount of the precious fluid which might be drawn off by
+      each tribe or township. For the opening of the sluices a large sum was
+      paid to the officer, which found its way into the coffers of the state.
+      Further, it appears that such things as fisheries&mdash;and if so,
+      probably salt-works, mines, quarries, and forests&mdash;were regarded as
+      crown property, and yielded large sums to the revenue. They appear to have
+      been farmed to responsible persons, who undertook to pay at a certain
+      fixed rate, and made what profit they could by the transaction. The price
+      of commodities thus farmed would be greatly enhanced to the consumer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By these means the actual burthen of taxation upon the subject was
+      rendered to some extent uncertain and indefinite, and the benefits of the
+      fixed tribute system were diminished. But the chief drawback upon it has
+      still to be mentioned. While the claims of the crown upon its subjects
+      were definite and could not be exceeded, the satrap was at liberty to make
+      any exactions that he pleased beyond them. There is every reason to
+      believe that he received no stipend, and that, consequently, the burthen
+      of supporting him, his body-guard, and his Court was intended to fall on
+      the province which had the benefit of his superintendence. Like a Roman
+      proconsul, he was to pay himself out of the pockets of his subjects; and,
+      like that class of persons, he took care to pay himself highly. It has
+      been calculated that one satrap of Babylon drew from his province annually
+      in actual coin a sum equal to L100,000. of our money. We can scarcely
+      doubt that the claims made by the provincial governors were, on the
+      average, at least equal to those of the crown; and they had the
+      disadvantage of being irregular, uncertain, and purely arbitrary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, what was gained by the new system was not so much the relief of the
+      subject from uncertain taxation as the advantage to the crown of knowing
+      beforehand what the revenue would be, and being able to regulate its
+      expenditure accordingly. Still a certain amount of benefit did undoubtedly
+      accrue to the provincials from the system; since it gave them the crown
+      for their protector. So long as the payments made to the state were
+      irregular, it was, or at least seemed to be, for the interest of the crown
+      to obtain from each province as much as it could anyhow pay. When the
+      state dues were once fixed, as the crown gained nothing by the rapacity of
+      its officers, but rather lost, since the province became exhausted, it was
+      interested in checking greed, and seeing that the provinces were
+      administered by wise and good satraps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The control of its great officers is always the main difficulty of a
+      despotic government, when it is extended over a large space of territory
+      and embraces many millions of men. The system devised by Darius for
+      checking and controlling his satraps was probably the best that has ever
+      yet been brought into operation. His plan was to establish in every
+      province at least three officers holding their authority directly from the
+      crown, and only responsible to it, who would therefore act as checks one
+      upon another. These were the satrap, the military commandant, and the
+      secretary. The satrap was charged with the civil administration, and
+      especially with the department of finance. The commandant was supreme over
+      the troops. The office of the secretary is less clearly defined; but it
+      probably consisted mainly in keeping the Court informed by despatches of
+      all that went on in the province. Thus, if the satrap were inclined to
+      revolt, he had, in the first place, to persuade the commandant, who would
+      naturally think that, if he ran the risk, it might as well be for himself;
+      and, further, he had to escape the lynx eyes of the secretary, whose
+      general right of superintendence gave him entrance everywhere, and whose
+      prospects of advancement would probably depend a good deal upon the
+      diligence and success with which he discharged the office of &ldquo;King&rsquo;s Eye&rdquo;
+       and &ldquo;Ear.&rdquo; So, if the commandant were ambitious of independent sway, he
+      must persuade the satrap, or he would have no money to pay his troops; and
+      he too must blind the secretary, or else bribe him into silence. As for
+      the secretary, having neither men nor money at his command, it was
+      impossible that he should think of rebellion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the precautions taken against revolt did not end here. Once a year,
+      according to Xenophon, or more probably at irregular intervals, an officer
+      came suddenly down from the Court with a commission to inspect a province.
+      Such persons were frequently of royal rank, brothers or sons of the king.
+      They were accompanied by an armed force, and were empowered to correct
+      whatever was amiss in the province, and in case of necessity to report to
+      the crown the insubordination or incompetency of its officers. If this
+      system had been properly maintained, it is evident that it would have
+      acted as a most powerful check upon misgovernment, and would have rendered
+      revolt almost impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another mode by which it was sought to secure the fidelity of the satraps
+      and commandants was by choosing them from among the king&rsquo;s blood
+      relations, or else attaching them to the crown by marriage with one of the
+      princesses. It was thought that the affection of sons and brothers would
+      be a restraint upon their ambition, and that even connections by marriage
+      would feel that they had an interest in upholding the power and dignity of
+      the great house with which they had been thought worthy of alliance. This
+      system, which was entensively followed by Darius, had on the whole good
+      results, and was at any rate preferable to that barbarous policy of
+      prudential fratricide which has prevailed widely in Oriental governments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The system of checks, while it was effectual for the object at which it
+      specially aimed, had one great disadvantage. It weakened the hands of
+      authority in times of difficulty. When danger, internal or external,
+      threatened, it was an evil that the powers of government should be
+      divided, and the civil authority lodged in the hands of one officer, the
+      military in those of another. Concentration of power is needed for rapid
+      and decisive action, for unity of purpose, and secrecy both of plan and of
+      execution. These considerations led to a modification of the original idea
+      of satrapial government, which was adopted partially at first&mdash;in
+      provinces especially exposed to danger, internal or external&mdash;but
+      which ultimately became almost universal. The offices of satrap, or civil
+      administrator, and commandant, or commander of the troops, were vested in
+      the same person, who came in this way to have that full and complete
+      authority which is possessed by Turkish pashas and modern Persian khans or
+      beys&mdash;an authority practically uncontrolled. This system was
+      advantageous for the defence of a province against foes; but it was
+      dangerous to the stability of the Empire, since it led naturally to the
+      occurrence of formidable rebellions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two minor points in the scheme of Darius remain to be noticed, before this
+      account of his governmental system can be regarded as complete. These are
+      his institution of posts, and his coinage of money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Darius&rsquo;s idea of government was included rapidity of communication.
+      Regarding it as of the utmost importance that the orders of the Court
+      should be speedily transmitted to the provincial governors, and that their
+      reports and those of the royal secretaries should be received without
+      needless delay, he established along the lines of routes already existing
+      between the chief cities of the Empire a number of post-houses, placed at
+      regular intervals, according to the estimated capacity of a horse to
+      gallop at his best speed without stopping. At each post-house were
+      maintained, at the cost of the state, a number of couriers and several
+      relays of horses. When a despatch was to be forwarded it was taken to the
+      first post-house along the route, where a courier received it, and
+      immediately mounting on horseback galloped with it to the next station.
+      Here it was delivered to a new courier, who, mounted on a fresh horse,
+      took it the next stage on its journey; and thus it passed from hand to
+      hand till it reached its destination. According to Xenophon, the
+      messengers travelled by night as well as by day; and the conveyance was so
+      rapid that some even compared it to the flight of birds. Excellent inns or
+      caravanserais were to be found at every station; bridges or ferries were
+      established upon all the streams; guard-houses occurred here and there,
+      and the whole route was kept secure from the brigands who infested the
+      Empire. Ordinary travellers were glad to pursue so convenient a line of
+      march; it does not appear, however, that they could obtain the use of
+      post-horses even when the government was in no need of them. The coinage
+      of Darius consisted, it is probable, both of a gold and silver issue. It
+      is not perhaps altogether certain that he was the first king of Persia who
+      coined money; but, if the term &ldquo;daric&rdquo; is really derived from his name,
+      that alone would be a strong argument in favor of his claim to priority.
+      In any case, it is indisputable that he was the first Persian king who
+      coined on a large scale, and it is further certain that his gold coinage
+      was regarded in later times as of peculiar value on account of its purity.
+      His gold darics appear to have contained, on an average, not quite 124
+      grains of pure metal, which would make their value about twenty two
+      shillings of our money. They were of the type usual at the time both in
+      Lydia and in Greece&mdash;flattened lumps of metal, very thick in
+      comparison with the size of their surface, irregular, and rudely stamped.
+      The silver darics were similar in general character, but exceeded the gold
+      in size. Their weight was from 224 to 230 grains, and they would thus have
+      been worth not quite three shillings of our money. It does not appear that
+      any other kinds of coins besides these were ever issued from the Persian
+      mint. They must, therefore, it would seem, have satisfied the commercial
+      needs of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this review of the governmental system of Darius we must now return
+      to the actions of his later life. The history of an Oriental monarchy must
+      always be composed mainly of a series of biographies; for, as the monarch
+      is all in all in such communities, his sayings, doings, and character, not
+      only determine, but constitute, the annals of the State. In the second
+      period of his reign, that which followed on the time of trouble and
+      disturbance, Darius (as has been already observed) appears to have pursued
+      mainly the arts of peace. Bent on settling and consolidating his Empire,
+      he set up everywhere the satrapial form of government, organized and
+      established his posts, issued his coinage, watched over the administration
+      of justice, and in various ways exhibited a love of order and method, and
+      a genius for systematic arrangement. At the same time he devoted
+      considerable attention to ornamental and architectural works, to
+      sculpture, and to literary composition. He founded the royal palace at
+      Susa, which was the main residence of the later kings. At Persepolis he
+      certainly erected one very important building; and it is on the whole most
+      probable that he designed&mdash;if he did not live to execute&mdash;the
+      Chehl Minor itself&mdash;the chief of the magnificent structures upon the
+      great central platform. The massive platform itself, with its grand and
+      stately steps, is certainly of his erection, for it is inscribed with his
+      name. He gave his works all the solidity and strength that is derivable
+      from the use of huge blocks of a good hard material. He set the example of
+      ornamenting the stepped approached to a palace with elaborate bas-reliefs.
+      He designed and caused to be constructed in his own lifetime the rock-tomb
+      at Nakhsh-i-Rustam, in which his remains were afterwards laid. The
+      rock-sculpture at Behistun was also his work. In attention to the creation
+      of permanent historical records he excelled all the Persian kings, both
+      before him and after him. The great Inscription of Behistun has no
+      parallel in ancient times for length, finish, and delicacy of execution,
+      unless it be in Assyria or in Egypt. The only really historical
+      inscription at Persepolis is one set up by Darius. He was the only Persian
+      king, except perhaps one, who placed an inscription upon his tomb. The
+      later monarchs in their records do little more than repeat certain
+      religious phrases and certain forms of self-glorification which occur in
+      the least remarkable inscriptions of their great predecessor. He alone
+      oversteps those limits, and presents us with geographical notices and
+      narratives of events profoundly interesting to the historian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this period of comparative peace, which may have extended from
+      about B.C. 516 to B.C. 508 or 507, the general tranquillity was
+      interrupted by at least one important expedition. The administrational
+      merits of Darius are so great that they have obscured his military
+      glories, and have sent him down to posterity with the character of an
+      unwarlike monarch&mdash;if not a mere &ldquo;peddler,&rdquo; as his subjects said,
+      yet, at any rate, a mere consolidator and arranger. But the son of
+      Hystaspes was no carpet prince. He had not drawn the sword against his
+      domestic foes to sheath it finally and forever when his triumph over them
+      was completed. On the contrary, he regarded it as incumbent on him to
+      carry on the aggressive policy of Cyrus and Cambyses, his great
+      predecessors, and like them to extend in one direction or another the
+      boundaries of the Empire. Perhaps he felt that aggression was the very law
+      of the Empire&rsquo;s being, since if the military spirit was once allowed to
+      become extinct in the conquering nation, they would lose the sole
+      guarantee of their supremacy. At any rate, whatever his motive, we find
+      him, after he had snatched a brief interval of repose, engaging in great
+      wars both towards his eastern and his western frontier&mdash;wars which in
+      both instances had results of considerable importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first grand expedition was towards the East. Cyrus, as we have seen,
+      had extended the Persian sway over the mountains of Affghanistan and the
+      highlands from which flow the tributaries of the Upper Indus. From these
+      eminences the Persian garrisons looked down on a territory possessing
+      every quality that could attract a powerful conqueror. Fertile,
+      well-watered, rich in gold, peopled by an ingenious yet warlike race,
+      which would add strength no less than wealth to its subjugators, the
+      Punjab lay at the foot of the Sufeid Koh and Suliman ranges, inviting the
+      attack of those who could swoop down when they pleased upon the low
+      country. It was against this region that Darius directed his first great
+      aggressive effort. Having explored the course of the Indus from Attock to
+      the sea by means of boats, and obtained, we may suppose, in this way some
+      knowledge of the country and its inhabitants, he led or sent an expedition
+      into the tract, which in a short time succeeded in completely reducing it.
+      The Punjab, and probably the whole valley of the Indus, was annexed, and
+      remained subject till the later times of the Empire. The results of this
+      conquest were the acquisition of a brave race, capable of making excellent
+      soldiers, an enormous increase of the revenue, a sudden and vast influx of
+      gold into Persia, which led probably to the introduction of the gold
+      coinage, and the establishment of commercial relations with the natives,
+      which issued in a regular trade carried on by coasting-vessels between the
+      mouths of the Indus and the Persian Gulf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next important expedition&mdash;one probably of still greater
+      magnitude&mdash;took exactly the opposite direction. The sea which bounded
+      the Persian dominion to the west and the north-west narrowed in two places
+      to dimensions not much exceeding those of of the greater Asiatic rivers.
+      The eye which looked across the Thracian Bosphorus or the Hellespont
+      seemed to itself to be merely contemplating the opposite bank of a pretty
+      wide stream. Darius, consequently being master of Asia Minor, and
+      separated by what seemed to him so poor a barrier from fertile tracts of
+      vast and indeed indefinite extent, such as were nowhere else to be found
+      on the borders of his empire, naturally turned his thoughts of conquest to
+      this quarter. His immediate desire was, probably, to annex Thrace; but he
+      may have already entertained wider views, and have looked to embracing in
+      his dominions the lovely isles and coasts of Greece also, so making good
+      the former threats of Cyrus. The story of the voyage and escape of
+      Democedes, related by Herodotus with such amplitude of detail, and
+      confirmed to some extent from other sources, cannot be a mere myth without
+      historical foundation. Nor is it probable that the expedition was designed
+      merely for the purpose of &ldquo;indulging the exile with a short visit to his
+      native country,&rdquo; or of collecting &ldquo;interesting information.&rdquo; If by the
+      king&rsquo;s orders a vessel was fitted out at Sidon to explore the coasts of
+      Greece under the guidance of Democedes, which proceeded as far as Crotona
+      in Magna Grsecia, we may be tolerably sure that a political object lay at
+      the bottom of the enterprise. It would have exactly the same aim and end
+      as the eastern voyage of Scylax, and would be intended, like that, to pave
+      the way for a conquest. Darius was therefore, it would seem, already
+      contemplating the reduction of Greece Proper, and did not require to have
+      it suggested to him by any special provocation. Mentally, or actually,
+      surveying the map of the world, so far as it was known to him, he saw that
+      in this direction only there was an attractive country readily accessible.
+      Elsewhere his Empire abutted on seas, sandy deserts, or at best barren
+      steppes; here, and here only, was there a rich prize close at hand and (as
+      it seemed) only waiting to be grasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if the aggressive force of Persia was to be turned in this direction,
+      if the stream of conquest was to be set westward along the flanks of
+      Rhodope and Haemus, it was essential to success, and even to safety, that
+      the line of communication with Asia should remain intact. Now, there lay
+      on the right flank of an army marching into Europe a vast and formidable
+      power, known to be capable of great efforts, which, if allowed to feel
+      itself secure from attack, might be expected at any time to step in, to
+      break the line of communication between the east and west, and to bring
+      the Persians who should be engaged in conquering Pseonia, Macedonia, and
+      Greece, into imminent danger. It is greatly to the credit of Darius that
+      he saw this peril&mdash;saw it and took effectual measures to guard
+      against it. The Scythian expedition was no insane project of a frantic
+      despot, burning for revenge, or ambitious of an impossible conquest. It
+      has all the appearance of being a well-laid plan, conceived by a moderate
+      and wise prince, for the furtherance of a great design, and the permanent
+      advantage of his empire. The lord of South-Western Asia was well aware of
+      the existence beyond his northern frontier of a standing menace to his
+      power. A century had not sufficed to wipe out the recollection of that
+      terrible time when Scythian hordes had carried desolation far and wide
+      over the fairest of the regions that were now under the Persian dominion.
+      What had occurred once might recur. Possibly, as a modern author suggests,
+      &ldquo;the remembrance of ancient injuries may have been revived by recent
+      aggressions.&rdquo; It was at any rate essential to strike terror into the
+      hordes of the Steppe Region in order that Western Asia might attain a
+      sense of security. It was still more essential to do so if the north-west
+      was to become the scene of war, and the Persians were to make a vigorous
+      effort to establish themselves permanently in Europe. Scythia, it must be
+      remembered, reached to the banks of the Danube. An invader, who aspired to
+      the conquest even of Thrace, was almost forced into collision with her
+      next neighbor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius, having determined on his course, prefaced his expedition by a
+      raid, the object of which was undoubtedly to procure information. He
+      ordered Ariaramnes, satrap of Cappadocia, to cross the Euxine with a small
+      fleet, and, descending suddenly upon the Scythian coast, to carry off a
+      number of prisoners. Ariaramnes executed the commission skilfully, and was
+      so fortunate as to make prize of a native of high rank, the brother of a
+      Scythian chief or king. From this person and his companions the Persian
+      monarch was able to obtain all the information which he required. Thus
+      enlightened, he proceeded to make his preparations. Collecting a fleet of
+      600 ships, chiefly from the Greeks of Asia, and an army estimated at from
+      700,000 to 800,000 men, which was made up of contingents from all the
+      nations under his rule, he crossed the Bosphorus by a bridge of boats
+      constructed by Mandrocles a Samian; marched through Thrace along the line
+      of the Little Balkan, receiving the submission of the tribes as he went;
+      crossed the Great Balkan; conquered the Getae, who dwelt between that
+      range and the Danube; passed the Danube by a bridge, which the Ionian
+      Greeks had made with their vessels just above the apex of the Delta; and
+      so invaded Scythia. The natives had received intelligence of his approach,
+      and had resolved not to risk a battle. They retired as he advanced, and
+      endeavored to bring his army into difficulties by destroying the forage,
+      driving off the cattle, and filling in the wells. But the commissariat of
+      the Persians was, as usual, well arranged. Darius remained for more than
+      two months in Scythia without incurring any important losses. He succeeded
+      in parading before the eyes of the whole nation the immense military power
+      of his empire. He no doubt inflicted considerable damage on the hordes,
+      whose herds he must often have captured, and whose supplies of forage he
+      curtailed. It is difficult to say how far he penetrated. Herodotus was
+      informed that he marched east to the Tanais (Don), and thence north to the
+      country of the Budini, where he burnt the staple of Gelonus, which cannot
+      well have been below the fiftieth parallel, and was probably not far from
+      Voronej. It is certainly astonishing that he should have ventured so far
+      inland, and still more surprising that, having done so, he should have
+      returned with his army well-nigh intact. But we can scarcely suppose the
+      story that he destroyed the staple of the Greek trade a pure fiction. He
+      would be glad to leave his mark in the country, and might make an
+      extraordinary effort to reach the only town that was to be found in the
+      whole steppe region. Having effected his purpose by its destruction, he
+      would retire, falling back probably upon the coast, where he could obtain
+      supplies from his fleet. It is beyond dispute that he returned with the
+      bulk of his army, having suffered no loss but that of a few invalid troops
+      whom he sacrificed. Attempts had been made during his absence to induce
+      the Greeks, who guarded the bridge over the Danube, to break it, and so
+      hinder his return; but they were unsuccessful. Darius recrossed the river
+      after an interval of somewhat more than two months, victorious according
+      to his own notions, and regarded himself as entitled thenceforth to
+      enumerate among the subject races of his empire &ldquo;the Scyths beyond the
+      sea.&rdquo; On his return march through Thrace, he met, apparently, with no
+      opposition. Before passing the Bosphorus, he gave a commission to one of
+      his generals, a certain Megabazus, to complete the reduction of Thrace,
+      and assigned him for the purpose a body of 80,000 men, who remained in
+      Europe while Darius and the rest of his army crossed into Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Megabazus appears to have been fully worthy of the trust reposed in him.
+      In a single campaign (B.C. 506) he overran and subjugated the entire tract
+      between the Propontis and the Strymon, thus pushing forward the Persian
+      dominion to the borders of Macedonia. Among the tribes which he conquered
+      were the Perinthians, Greeks; the Pseti, Cicones, Bistones, Sapaei,
+      Dersaei and Edoni, Thracians; and the Paeoplae and Siripasones, Pseonians.
+      These last, to gratify a whim of Darius, were transported into Asia. The
+      Thracians who submitted were especially those of the coast, no attempt,
+      apparently, being made to penetrate the mountain fastnesses and bring
+      under subjection the tribes of the interior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first contact between Persia and Macedonia possesses peculiar interest
+      from the circumstances of the later history. An ancestor of Alexander the
+      Great sat upon the throne of Macedon when the general of Darius was
+      brought in his career of conquest to the outskirts of the Macedonian
+      power. The kingdom was at this time comparatively small, not extending
+      much beyond Mount Bermius on the one hand, and not reaching very far to
+      the east of the Axius on the other. Megabazus saw in it, we may be sure,
+      not the fated destroyer of the Empire which he was extending, but a petty
+      state which the mere sound of the Persian name would awe into subjection.
+      He therefore, instead of invading the country, contented himself with
+      sending an embassy, with a demand for earth and water, the symbols,
+      according to Persian custom, of submission. Amyntas, the Macedonian king,
+      consented, to the demand at once; and though, owing to insolent conduct on
+      the part of the ambassadors, they were massacred with their whole retinue,
+      yet this circumstance did not prevent the completion of Macedonian
+      vassalage. When a second embassy was sent to inquire into the fate of the
+      first, Alexander, the son of Amyntas, who had arranged the massacre,
+      contrived to have the matter hushed up by bribing one of the envoys with a
+      large sum of money and the hand of his sister, Gygsea. Macedonia took up
+      the position of a subject kingdom, and owned for her true lord the great
+      monarch of Western Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Megabazus, having accomplished the task assigned him, proceeded to Sardis,
+      where Darius had remained almost, if not quite, a full year His place was
+      taken by Otanes, the son of Sisamnes, a different person from the
+      conspirator, who rounded off the Persian conquests in these parts by
+      reducing, probably in B.C. 505, the cities of Byzantium, Chalcedon,
+      Antandrus, and Lamponium, with the two adjacent islands of Letnnos and
+      Imbrus. The inhabitants of all were, it appears, taxable, either with
+      having failed to give contingents towards the Scythian expedition, or with
+      having molested it on its return&mdash;crimes these, which Otanes thought
+      it right to punish by their general enslavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius, meanwhile, had proceeded to the seat of government, which appears
+      at this time to have been Susa. He had perhaps already built there the
+      great palace, whose remains have been recently disinterred by English
+      enterprise; or he may have wished to superintend the work of construction.
+      Susa, which was certainly from henceforth the main Persian capital,
+      possessed advantages over almost any other site. Its climate was softer
+      than that of Ecbatana and Persepolis, less sultry than that of Babylon.
+      Its position was convenient for communicating both with the East and with
+      the West. Its people were plastic, and probably more yielding and
+      submissive than the Medes or the Persians. The king, fatigued with his
+      warlike exertions, was glad for a while to rest and recruit himself at
+      Susa, in the tranquil life of the Court. For some years he appears to have
+      conceived no new aggressive project; and he might perhaps have forgotten
+      his designs upon Greece altogether, had not his memory been stirred by a
+      signal and extraordinary provocation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The immediate circumstances which led to the Ionian Revolt belong to Greek
+      rather than to Persian history, and have been so fully treated of by the
+      historians of the Hellenic race that a knowledge of them may be assumed as
+      already possessed by the reader. What is chiefly remarkable about them is,
+      that they are so purely private and personal. A chance quarrel between
+      Aristagoras of Miletus and the Persian Megabates, pecuniary difficulties
+      pressing on the former, and the natural desire of Histiseus, father-in-law
+      of Aristagoras, to revisit his native place, were undoubtedly the direct
+      and immediate causes of what became a great national outbreak. That there
+      must have been other and wider predisposing causes can scarcely be
+      doubted. Among them two may be suggested. The presence of Darius in Asia
+      Minor, and his friendliness towards the tyrants who bore sway in most of
+      the Greek cities, were calculated to elate those persons in their own
+      esteem, and to encourage in them habits and acts injurious or offensive to
+      their subjects. Their tyranny under these circumstances would become more
+      oppressive and galling. At the same time the popular mind could not fail
+      to associate together the native despot and the foreign lord, who (it was
+      clear to all) supported and befriended each other. If the Greeks of Asia,
+      like so many of their brethren in Europe, had grown weary of their tyrants
+      and were desirous of rising against them, they would be compelled to
+      contemplate the chances of a successful resistance to the Persians. And
+      here there were circumstances in the recent history calculated to inspirit
+      them and give them hopes. Six hundred Greek ships, manned probably by
+      120,000 men, had been lately brought together, and had formed a united
+      fleet. The fate of the Persian land-army had depended on their fidelity.
+      It is not surprising that a sense of strength should have been developed,
+      and something like a national spirit should have grown up in such a
+      condition of things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If this were the state of feeling among the Greeks, the merit of
+      Aristagoras would be, that he perceived it, and, regardless of all class
+      prejudices, determined to take advantage of the chance which it gave him
+      of rising superior to his embarrassments. Throwing himself on the popular
+      feeling, the strength of which he had estimated aright, he by the same act
+      gave freedom to the cities, and plunged his nation into a rebellion
+      against Persia. It was easy for reason to show, when the matter was calmly
+      debated, that the probabilities of success against the might of Darius
+      were small. But the arrest of the tyrants by Aristagoras, and his
+      deliverance of them into the hands of their subjects, was an appeal to
+      passion against which reason was powerless. No state could resist the
+      temptation of getting rid of the tyranny under which it groaned. But the
+      expulsion of the vassal committed those who took part in it to resist in
+      arms the sovereign lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the original revolt appear to have been included only the cities of
+      Ionia and AEolis. Aristagoras felt that some further strength was needed,
+      and determined to seek it in European Greece. Repulsed from Sparta, which
+      was disinclined to so distant an expedition, he applied for aid to cities
+      on which he had a special claim. Miletus counted Athens as her mother
+      state; and Eretria was indebted to her for assistance in her great war
+      with Chalcis. Applying in these quarters Aristagoras succeeded better, but
+      still obtained no very important help. Athens voted him twenty ships,
+      Eretria five and with the promise of these succors he hastened back to
+      Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The European contingent soon afterwards arrived; and Aristagoras, anxious
+      to gain some signal success which should attract men to his cause,
+      determined on a most daring enterprise. This was no less than an attack on
+      Sardis, the chief seat of the Persian power in these parts, and by far the
+      most important city of Asia Minor. Sailing to Ephesus, he marched up the
+      valley of the Cayster, crossed Mount Tmolus, and took the Lydian capital
+      at the first onset. Artaphernes, the satrap, was only able to save the
+      citadel; the invaders began to plunder the town, and in the confusion it
+      caught fire and was burnt. Aristagoras and his troops hastily retreated,
+      but were overtaken before they could reach Ephesus by the Persians
+      quartered in the province, who fell upon them and gave them a severe
+      defeat. The expedition then broke up; the Asiatic Greeks dispersed among
+      their cities; the Athenians and Eretrians took ship and sailed home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Results followed that could scarcely have been anticipated. The failure of
+      the expedition was swallowed up in the glory of its one achievement. It
+      had taken Sardis&mdash;it had burnt one of the chief cities of the Great
+      King. The news spread like wildfire on every side, and was proclaimed
+      aloud in places where the defeat of Ephesus was never even whispered.
+      Everywhere revolt burst out. The Greeks of the Hellespont&mdash;not only
+      those of Asia but likewise those of Europe&mdash;the Carians and Caunians
+      of the south-western coast&mdash;even the distant Cyprians broke into
+      rebellion; the Scythians took heart and made a plundering raid through the
+      Great King&rsquo;s Thracian territories;4 vassal monarchs, like Miltiades,
+      assumed independence, and helped themselves to some of the fragments of
+      the Empire that seemed falling to pieces. If a great man, a Miltiades or a
+      Leondias, had been at the head of the movement, and if it had been
+      decently supported from the European side, a successful issue might
+      probably have been secured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Aristagoras was unequal to the occasion; and the struggle for
+      independence, which had promised so fair, was soon put down. Despite a
+      naval victory gained by the Greeks over the Phoenician fleet off Cyprus,
+      that island was recovered by the Persians within a year. Despite a courage
+      and a perseverance worthy of a better fate, the Carians were soon
+      afterwards forced to succumb. The reduction of the Hellespontine Greeks
+      and of the AEolians followed. The toils now closed around Ionia, and her
+      cities began to be attacked one by one; whereupon the incapable
+      Aristagoras, deserting the falling cause, betook himself to Europe, where
+      a just Nemesis pursued him: he died by a Thracian sword. After this the
+      climax soon arrived. Persia concentrated her strength upon Miletus, the
+      cradle of the revolt, and the acknowledged chief of the cities; and though
+      her sister states came gallantly to her aid, and a fleet was collected
+      which made it for a while doubtful which way victory might incline, yet
+      all was of no avail. Laziness and insubordination began and treachery
+      completed the work which all the force of Persia might have failed to
+      accomplish; the combined Ionian fleet was totally defeated in the battle
+      of Lade; and soon after Miletus herself fell. The bulk of her inhabitants
+      were transported into inner Asia and settled upon the Persian Gulf. The
+      whole Ionian coast was ravaged, and the cities punished by the loss of
+      their most beautiful maidens and youths. The islands off the coast were
+      swept of their inhabitants. The cities on the Hellespont and Sea of
+      Marmora were burnt. Miltiades barely escaped from the Chersonese with the
+      loss of his son and his kingdom. The flames of rebellion were everywhere
+      ruthlessly trampled out; and the power of the Great King was once more
+      firmly established over the coasts and islands of the Propontis and the
+      Egean Sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It remained, however, to take vengeance upon the foreigners who had dared
+      to lend their aid to the king&rsquo;s revolted subjects, and had borne a part in
+      the burning of Sardis. The pride of the Persians felt such interference as
+      an insult of the grossest kind: and the tale may well be true that Darius,
+      from the time that he first heard the news, employed an officer to bid him
+      daily &ldquo;remember Athens.&rdquo; The schemes which he had formerly entertained
+      with respect to the reduction of Greece recurred with fresh force to his
+      mind; and the task of crushing the revolt was no sooner completed than he
+      proceeded to attempt their execution. Selecting Mardonius, son of Gobryas
+      the conspirator, and one of his own sons-in-law, for general, he gave him
+      the command of a powerful expedition, which was to advance by way of
+      Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, against Eretria and Athens. At the same
+      time, with a wisdom which we should scarcely have expected in an Oriental,
+      he commissioned him, ere he quitted Asia, to depose the tyrants who bore
+      rule in the Greek cities, and to allow the establishment of democracies in
+      their stead. Such a measure was excellently calculated to preserve the
+      fidelity of the Hellenic population and to prevent any renewal of
+      disturbance. It gave ample employment to unquiet spirits by opening to
+      them a career in their own states&mdash;and it removed the grievance
+      which, more than anything else, had produced the recent rebellion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mardonius having effected this change proceeded into Europe. He had a
+      large land force and a powerful navy, and at first was successful both by
+      land and sea. The fleet took Thasos, an island valuable for its mines; and
+      the army forced the Macedonians to exchange their position of
+      semi-independence for that of full Persian subjects, liable to both
+      tribute and military service. But this fair dawn was soon overcast. As the
+      fleet was rounding Athos a terrible tempest arose which, destroyed 300
+      triremes and more than 20,000 men, some of whom were devoured by
+      sea-monsters, while the remainder perished by drowning. On shore, a night
+      attack of the Brygi, a Thracian tribe dwelling in the tract between the
+      Strymon and the Axius, brought disaster upon the land force, numbers of
+      which were slain, while Mardonius himself received a wound. This disgrace,
+      indeed, was retrieved by subsequent operations, which forced the Brygi to
+      make their submission; but the expedition found itself in no condition to
+      advance further, and Mardonius retreated into Asia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius, however, did not allow failure to turn him from his purpose. The
+      attack of Mardonius was followed within two years by the well-known
+      expedition under Datis (B.C. 490), which, avoiding the dangers of Athos,
+      sailed direct to its object, crossing the Egean by the line of the
+      Cyclades, and falling upon Eretria and Attica. Eretria&rsquo;s punishment warned
+      the Athenians to resist to the uttermost; and the skill of Miltiades,
+      backed by the valor of his countrymen, gave to Athens the great victory of
+      Marathon. Datis fell back upon Asia, having suffered worse disasters than
+      his predecessor, and bore to the king the melancholy tidings that his vast
+      force of from 100,000 to 200,000 men had been met and worsted by 20,000
+      Athenians and Plataeans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still Darius was not shaken in his resolution. He only issued fresh orders
+      for the collection of men, ships, and materials. For three years Asia
+      resounded with the din of preparation; and it is probable that in the
+      fourth year a fresh expedition would have been led into Greece, had not an
+      important occurrence prevented it. Egypt, always discontented with its
+      subject position under a race which despised its religion, and perhaps
+      occasionally persecuted it, broke out into open revolt (B.C. 487). Darius,
+      it seems, determined to divide his forces, and proceed simultaneously
+      against both enemies; he even contemplated leading one of the two
+      expeditions in person; but before his preparations were completed his
+      vital powers failed. He died in the year following the Egyptian revolt
+      (B.C. 486), in the sixty-third year of his age, and the thirty-sixth of
+      his reign, leaving his crown to his eldest son by Atossa, Xerxes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character of Darius will have revealed itself with tolerable clearness
+      in the sketch which has been here given of the chief events of his reign.
+      But a brief summary of some of its main points may not be superfluous.
+      Darius Hystaspis was, next to Cyrus, the greatest of the Persian kings;
+      and he was even superior to Cyrus in some particulars. His military talent
+      has been underrated. Though not equal to the founder of the Empire in this
+      respect, he deserves the credit of energy, vigor, foresight, and judicious
+      management in his military expeditions, of promptness in resolving and
+      ability in executing, of discrimination in the selection of generals, and
+      of a power of combination not often found in Oriental commanders. He was
+      personally brave, and quite willing to expose himself, even in his old
+      age, to dangers and hardships. But he did not unnecessarily thrust himself
+      into peril. He was content to employ generals, where the task to be
+      accomplished did not seem to be beyond their powers; and he appears to
+      have been quite free from an unworthy jealousy of their successes. He was
+      a man of kindly and warm feeling&mdash;strongly attached to his friends;
+      he was clement and even generous towards conquered foes. When he thought
+      the occasion required it, he could be severe but his inclination was
+      towards mildness and indulgence. He excelled all the other Persian kings
+      in the arts of peace. To him, and him alone, the Empire owed its
+      organization. He was a skilful administrator, a good financier, and a wise
+      and far-seeing ruler. Of all the Persian princes he is the only one who
+      can be called &ldquo;many-sided.&rdquo; He was organizer, general, statesman,
+      administrator, builder, patron of arts and literature, all in one. Without
+      him Persia would probably have sunk as rapidly as she rose, and would be
+      known to us only as one of the many meteor powers which have shot athwart
+      the horizon of the East.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xerxes, the eldest son of Darius by Atossa, succeeded his father by virtue
+      of a formal act of choice. It was a Persian custom that the king, before
+      he went out of his dominions on an expedition, should nominate a
+      successor. Darius must have done this before his campaign in Thrace and
+      Scythia; and if Xerxes was then, as is probable, a mere boy, it is
+      impossible that he should have received the appointment. Artobazanes, the
+      eldest of all Darius&rsquo;s sons, whose mother, a daughter of Gobryas, was
+      married to Darius before he became king, was most likely then nominated,
+      and was thenceforth regarded as the heir-apparent. When, however, towards
+      the close of his reign Darius again proposed to head a foreign expedition,
+      an opportunity occurred of disturbing this arrangement, of which Atossa,
+      Darius&rsquo;s favorite wife, whose influence over her husband was unbounded,
+      determined to take advantage. According to the law, a fresh signification
+      of the sovereign&rsquo;s will was now requisite; and Atossa persuaded Darius to
+      make it in favor of Xerxes. The pleas put forward were, first, that he was
+      the eldest son of the king, and secondly, that he was descended from
+      Cyrus. This latter argument could not fail to have weight. Backed by the
+      influence of Atossa, it prevailed over all other considerations; and hence
+      Xerxes obtained the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If we may trust the informants of Herodotus, it was the wish of Xerxes on
+      his accession to discontinue the preparations against Greece, and confine
+      his efforts to the re-conquest of Egypt. Though not devoid of ambition, he
+      may well have been distrustful of his own powers; and, having been
+      nurtured in luxury, he may have shrunk from the perils of a campaign in
+      unknown regions. But he was surrounded by advisers who had interests
+      opposed to his inclinations, and who worked on his facile temper till they
+      prevailed on him to take that course which seemed best calculated to
+      promote their designs. Mardonius was anxious to retrieve his former
+      failure, and expected, if Greece were conquered, that the rich prize would
+      become his own satrapy. The refugee princes of the family of Pisistratus
+      hoped to be reinstated under Persian influence as dependent despots of
+      Athens. Demaratus of Sparta probably cherished a similar expectation with
+      regard to that capital. The Persian nobles generally, who profited by the
+      spoils of war, and who were still full of the military spirit, looked
+      forward with pleasure to an expedition from which they anticipated
+      victory, plunder, and thousands of valuable captives. The youthful king
+      was soon persuaded that the example of his predecessors required him to
+      undertake some fresh conquest, while the honor of Persia absolutely
+      demanded that the wrongs inflicted upon her by Athens should be avenged.
+      Before, however, turning his arms against Greece, two revolts required his
+      attention. In the year B.C. 485&mdash;the second of his reign&mdash;he
+      marched into Egypt, which he rapidly reduced to obedience and punished by
+      increasing its burthens. Soon afterwards he seems to have provoked a
+      rebellion of the Babylonians by acts which they regarded as impious, and
+      avenged by killing their satrap, Zopyrus, and proclaiming their
+      independence. Megabyzus, the son of Zopyrus, recovered the city, which was
+      punished by the plunder and ruin of its famous temple and the desolation
+      of many of its shrines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xerxes was now free to bend all his efforts against Greece, and,
+      appreciating apparently to the full the magnitude and difficulty of the
+      task, resolved that nothing should be left undone which could possibly be
+      done in order to render success certain. The experience of former years
+      had taught some important lessons. The failure of Datis had proved that
+      such an expedition as could be conveyed by sea across the Egean would be
+      insufficient to secure the object sought, and that the only safe road for
+      a conqueror whose land force constituted his real strength was along the
+      shores of the European continent. But if a large army took this long and
+      circuitous route, it must be supported by a powerful fleet; and this
+      involved a new danger. The losses of Mardonius off Athos had shown the
+      perils of Egean navigation, and taught the lesson that the naval force
+      must be at first far more than proportionate to the needs of the army, in
+      order that it might still be sufficient notwithstanding some considerable
+      disasters. At the same time they had indicated one special place of
+      danger, which might be avoided, if proper measures were taken. Xerxes, in
+      the four years which followed on the reduction of Egypt, continued
+      incessantly to make the most gigantic preparations for his intended attack
+      upon Greece, and among them included all the precautions which a wise
+      foresight could devise in order to ward off every conceivable peril. A
+      general order was issued to all the satraps throughout the Empire, calling
+      on them to levy the utmost force of their province for the new war; while,
+      as the equipment of Oriental troops depends greatly on the purchase and
+      distribution of arms by their commander, a rich reward was promised to the
+      satrap whose contingent should appear at the appointed place and time in
+      the most gallant array. Orders for ships and transports of different kinds
+      were given to the maritime states, with such effect that above 1200
+      triremes and 3000 vessels of an inferior description were collected
+      together. Magazines of corn were formed at various points along the
+      intended line of route. Above all, it was determined to bridge the
+      Hellespont by a firm and compact structure, which it was thought would
+      secure the communication of the army from interruption by the elements;
+      and at the same time it was resolved to cut through the isthmus which
+      joined Mount Athos to the continent, in order to preserve the fleet from
+      disaster at that most perilous part of the proposed voyage. These
+      remarkable works, which made a deep impression on the minds of the Greeks,
+      have been ascribed to a mere spirit of ostentation on the part of Xerxes;
+      the vain-glorious monarch wished, it is supposed, to parade his power, and
+      made a useless bridge and an absurd cutting merely for the purpose of
+      exhibiting to the world the grandeur of his ideas and the extent of his
+      resources. But there is no necessity for travelling beyond the line of
+      ordinary human motive in order to discover a reason for the works in
+      question. The bridge across the Hellespont was a mere repetition of the
+      construction by which Darius had passed into Europe when he made his
+      Scythian expedition, and probably seemed to a Persian not a specially
+      dignified or very wonderful way of crossing so narrow a strait, but merely
+      the natural mode of passage. The only respect in which the bridge of
+      Xerxes differed from constructions with which the Persians were thoroughly
+      familiar, was in its superior solidity and strength. The shore-cables were
+      of unusual size and weight, and apparently of unusual materials; the
+      formation of a double line&mdash;of two bridges, in fact, instead of one&mdash;was
+      almost without a parallel; and the completion of the work by laying on the
+      ordinary plank-bridge a solid causeway composed of earth and brushwood,
+      with a high bulwark on either side, was probably, if not unprecedented, at
+      any rate very uncommon. Boat-bridges were usually, as they are even now in
+      the East, somewhat rickety constructions, which animals unaccustomed to
+      them could with difficulty be induced to cross. The bridge of Xerxes was a
+      high-road, as AEschylus calls it along, which men, horses, and vehicles
+      might pass with as much comfort and facility as they could move on shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The utility of such a work is evident. Without it Xerxes must have been
+      reduced to the necessity of embarking in ships, conveying across the
+      strait, and disembarking, not only his entire host, but all its stores,
+      tents, baggage, horses, camels, and sumpter-beasts. If the numbers of his
+      army approached even the lowest estimate that has been formed of them, it
+      is not too much to say that many weeks must have been spent in this
+      operation. As it was, the whole expedition marched across in seven days.
+      In the case of ship conveyance, continual accidents would have happened:
+      the transport would from time to time have been interrupted by bad
+      weather; and great catastrophes might have occurred. By means of the
+      bridge the passage was probably effected without any loss of either man or
+      beast. Moreover, the bridge once established, there was a safe line of
+      communication thenceforth between the army in Europe and the headquarters
+      of the Persian power in Asia, along which might pass couriers, supplies,
+      and reinforcements, if they should be needed. Further, the grandeur,
+      massiveness, and apparent stability of the work was calculated to impose
+      upon the minds of men, and to diminish their power of resistance by
+      impressing them strongly with a sense of the irresistible greatness and
+      strength of the invader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The canal of Athos was also quite a legitimate and judicious undertaking.
+      <a href="#linkCimage-0002">[PLATE LXI.]</a> No portion of the Greek coast
+      is so dangerous as that about Athos. Greek boatmen even at the present day
+      refuse to attempt the circumnavigation; and probably any government less
+      apathetic than that of the Turks would at once re-open the old cutting.
+      The work was one of very little difficulty, the breadth of the isthmus
+      being less than a mile and a half, the material sand and marl, and the
+      greatest height of the natural ground above the level of the sea about
+      fifty feet. The construction of a canal in such a locality was certainly
+      better than the formation of a ship-groove or Diolcus&mdash;the substitute
+      for it proposed by Ferodotus, <a href="#linkCimage-0002">[PLATE LXI.]</a>
+      not to mention that it is doubtful whether at the time that this cutting
+      was made ship-grooves were known even to the Greeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0002" id="linkCimage-0002">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/plate061.jpg" width="100%" alt="Plate Lxi. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Xerxes, having brought his preparations into a state of forwardness,
+      having completed his canal and his bridge&mdash;after one failure with the
+      latter, for which the constructors and the sea were punished&mdash;proceeded,
+      in the year B.C. 481, along the &ldquo;Royal Road&rdquo; from Susa to Sardis, and
+      wintered at the Lydian capital. His army is said to have accompanied him;
+      but more probably it joined him in the spring, flocking in, contingent
+      after contingent, from the various provinces of his vast Empire.
+      Forty-nine nations, according to Herodotus, served under his standard; and
+      their contingents made up a grand total of eighteen hundred thousand men.
+      Of these, eighty thousand were cavalry, while twenty thousand rode in
+      chariots or on camels; the remainder served on foot. There are no
+      sufficient means of testing these numbers. Figures in the mouth of an
+      Oriental are vague and almost unmeaning; armies are never really counted:
+      there is no such thing as a fixed and definite &ldquo;strength&rdquo; of a division or
+      a battalion. Herodotus tells us that a rough attempt at numbering the
+      infantry of the host was made on this occasion; but it was of so rude and
+      primitive a description that little dependence can be placed on the
+      results obtained by it. Ten thousand men were counted, and were made to
+      stand close together; a line was then drawn round them, and a wall built
+      on the line to the height of a man&rsquo;s waist; within the enclosure thus made
+      all the troops in turn entered, and each time that the enclosure appeared
+      to be full, ten thousand were supposed to be within it. Estimated in this
+      way, the infantry was regarded as amounting to 1,700,000. It is clear that
+      such mode of counting was of the roughest kind, and might lead to gross
+      exaggeration. Each commander would wish his troops to be thought more
+      numerous than they really were, and would cause the enclosure to appear
+      full when several thousands more might still have found room within it.
+      Nevertheless there would be limits beyond which exaggeration could not go;
+      and if Xerxes was made to believe that the land force which he took with
+      him into Europe amounted to nearly two millions of men, it is scarcely
+      doubtful but that it must have exceeded one million.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The motley composition of such a host has been described in a former
+      chapter. Each nation was armed and equipped after its own fashion, and
+      served in a body, often under a distinct commander. The army marched
+      through Asia in a single column, which was not, however, continuous, but
+      was broken into three portions. The first portion consisted of the baggage
+      animals and about half of the contingents of the nations; the second was
+      composed wholly of native Persians, who preceded and followed the emblems
+      of religion and the king; the third was made up of the remaining national
+      contingents. The king himself rode alternately in a chariot and in a
+      litter. He was preceded immediately by ten sacred horses, and a sacred
+      chariot drawn by eight milk-white steeds. Round him and about him were the
+      choicest troops of the whole army, twelve thousand horse and the same
+      number of foot, all Persians, and those too not taken at random, but
+      selected carefully from the whole mass of the native soldiery. Among them
+      seem to have been the famous &ldquo;Immortals&rdquo;&mdash;a picked body of 10,000
+      footmen, always maintained at exactly the same number, and thence deriving
+      their appellation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The line of march from Sardis to Abydos was only partially along the
+      shore. The army probably descended the valley of the Hermus nearly to its
+      mouth, and then struck northward into the Caicus vale, crossing which it
+      held on its way, with Mount Kara-dagh (Cane) on the left, across the
+      Atarnean plain, and along the coast to Adramytium (Adramyti) and
+      Antandros, whence it again struck inland, and, crossing the ridge of Ida,
+      descended into the valley of the Scamander. Some losses were incurred from
+      the effects of a violent thunderstorm amid the mountains; but they cannot
+      have been of a any great consequence. On reaching the Scamander the army
+      found its first difficulty with respect to water. That stream was probably
+      low, and the vast host of men and animals were unable to obtain from it a
+      supply sufficient for their wants. This phenomenon, we are told,
+      frequently recurred afterwards; it surprises the English reader, but is
+      not really astonishing, since, in hot countries, even considerable streams
+      are often reduced to mere threads of water during the summer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rounding the hills which skirt the Scamander valley upon the east, the
+      army marched past Rhoeteum, Ophrynium, and Dardanus to Abydos. Here
+      Xerxes, seated upon a marble throne, which the people of Abydos had
+      erected for him on the summit of a hill, was able to see at one glance his
+      whole, armament, and to feast his eyes with the sight. It is not likely
+      that any misgivings occurred to him at such a moment. Before him lay his
+      vast host, covering with its dense masses the entire low ground between
+      the hills and the sea; beyond was the strait, and to his left the open
+      sea, white with the sails of four thousand ships; the green fields of the
+      Chersonese smiled invitingly a little further on; while, between him and
+      the opposite shore, the long lines of his bridges lay darkling upon the
+      sea, like a yoke placed upon the neck of a captive. Having seen all, the
+      king gave his special attention to the fleet, which he now perhaps beheld
+      in all its magnitude for the first time. Desirous of knowing which of his
+      subjects were the best sailors, he gave orders for a sailing-match, which
+      were at once carried out. The palm was borne off by the Phoenicians of
+      Sidon, who must have beaten not only their own countrymen of Tyre, but the
+      Greeks of Asia and the islands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the next day the passage took place. It was accompanied by religious
+      ceremonies. Waiting for the sacred hour of sunrise, the leader of the
+      host, as the first rays appeared, poured a libation from a golden goblet
+      into the sea, and prayed to Mithra that he might effect the conquest of
+      Europe. As he prayed he cast into the sea the golden goblet, and with it a
+      golden bowl and a short Persian sword. Meanwhile the multitude strewed all
+      the bridge with myrtle boughs, and perfumed it with clouds of incense. The
+      &ldquo;Immortals&rdquo; crossed first, wearing garlands on their heads. The king, with
+      the sacred chariot and horses passed over on the second day. For seven
+      days and seven nights the human stream flowed on without intermission
+      across one bridge, while the attendants and the baggage-train made use of
+      the other. The lash was employed to quicken the movements of laggards. At
+      last the whole army was in Europe, and the march resumed its regularity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is unnecessary to follow in detail the advance of the host along the
+      coast of Thrace, across Chalcidice, and round the Thermaic Gulf into
+      Pieria. If we except the counting of the fleet and army at Doriscus no
+      circumstances of much interest diversified this portion of the march,
+      which lay entirely through territories that had previously submitted to
+      the Great King. The army spread itself over a wide tract of country,
+      marching generally in three divisions, which proceeded by three parallel
+      lines&mdash;one along the coast, another at some considerable distance
+      inland, and a third, with which was Xerxes himself, midway between them.
+      At every place where Xerxes stopped along his line of route the natives
+      had, besides furnishing corn for his army, to entertain him and his suite
+      at a great banquet, the cost of which was felt as a heavy burthen.
+      Contributions of troops or ships were also required from all the cities
+      and tribes; and thus both fleet and army continually swelled as they
+      advanced onward. In crossing the track between the Strymon and the Axius
+      some damage was suffered by the baggage-train from lions, which came down
+      from the mountains during the night and devoured many of the camels; but
+      otherwise the march was effected without loss, and the fleet and army
+      reached the borders of Thessaly intact, and in good condition. Here it was
+      found that there was work for the pioneers, and a reconnaissance of the
+      enemy&rsquo;s country before entering it was probably also thought desirable.
+      The army accordingly halted some days in Pieria, while preparations were
+      being made for crossing the Olympic range into the Thessalian lowland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the halt intelligence arrived which seemed to promise the invader
+      an easy conquest. Xerxes, while he was staying at Sardis, had sent heralds
+      to all the Grecian states, excepting Athens and Sparta, with a demand for
+      earth and water, the recognized symbols of submission. His envoys now
+      returned, and brought him favorable replies from at least one-third of the
+      continental Greeks&mdash;from the Perrhaebians, Thessalians, Dolopians,
+      Magnetians, Achaeans of Phthiotis, Enianians, Malians, Locrians, and from
+      most of the Boeotians. Unless it were the insignificant Phocis, no hostile
+      country seemed to intervene between the place where his army lay and the
+      great object of the expedition, Attica. Xerxes, therefore, having first
+      viewed the pass of Tempe, and seen with his own eyes that no enemy lay
+      encamped beyond, passed over the Olympic range by a road cut through the
+      woods by his army, and proceeded southwards across Thessaly and Achaea
+      Phthiotis into Malis, the fertile plain at the mouth of the Spercheius
+      river. Here, having heard that a Greek force was in the neighborhood, he
+      pitched his camp not far from the small town of Trachis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus far had the Greeks allowed the invader to penetrate their country
+      without offering him any resistance. Originally there had been an
+      intention of defending Thessaly, and an army under Evsenetus, a Spartan
+      polemarch, and Themistocles, the great Athenian, had proceeded to Tempe,
+      in order to cooperate with the Thessalians in guarding the pass. But the
+      discovery that the Olympic range could be crossed in the,place where the
+      army of Xerxes afterwards passed it had shown that the position was
+      untenable; and it had been then resolved that the stand should be made at
+      the next defensible position, Thermopylae. <a href="#linkCimage-0003">[PLATE
+      LXII.]</a> Here, accordingly, a force was found&mdash;small, indeed, if it
+      be compared with the number of the assailants, but sufficient to defend
+      such a position as that where it was posted against the world in arms.
+      Three hundred Spartans, with their usual retinue of helots, 700
+      Lacedaemonians, other Peloponnesians to the number of 2800, 1000 Phocians,
+      the same number of Locrians, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, formed an
+      army of 9000 men&mdash;quite as numerous a force as could be employed with
+      any effect in the defile they were sent to guard. The defile was a long
+      and narrow pass shut in between a high mountain, Callidromus, and the sea,
+      and crossed at one point by a line of wall in which was a single gateway.
+      Unless the command of the sea were gained, or another mode of crossing the
+      mountains discovered, the pass could scarcely be forced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0003" id="linkCimage-0003">
+      <!-- IMG --></a> <a href="images/plate062.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="plate062th (143K)" src="images/plate062th.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Xerxes, however, confident in his numbers&mdash;after waiting four days at
+      Trachis, probably in the hope that his fleet would join him&mdash;proceeded
+      on the fifth day to the assault. First the Medes and Cissians, then the
+      famous &ldquo;Immortals&rdquo; were sent into the jaws of the pass against the
+      immovable foe; but neither detachment could make any impression. The long
+      spears, large shields, and heavy armor of the Greeks, their skilful
+      tactics, and steady array, were far more than a match for the inferior
+      equipments and discipline of the Asiatics. Though the attack was made with
+      great gallantry, both on this day and the next, it failed to produce the
+      slightest effect. Very few of the Greeks were either slain or wounded; and
+      it seemed as if the further advance of a million of men was to be stopped
+      by a force less than a hundredth part of their number.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now information reached Xerxes which completely changed the face of
+      affairs. There was a rough mountain-path leading from Trachis up the gorge
+      of the Asopus and across Callidromus to the rear of the Greek position,
+      which had been unknown to the Greeks when they decided on making their
+      first stand at Thermopylae, and which they only discovered when their
+      plans no longer admitted of alteration. It was, perhaps, not much more
+      than a goat-track, and apparently they had regarded it as scarcely
+      practicable, since they had thought its defence might be safely entrusted
+      to a thousand Phocians. Xerxes, however, on learning the existence of the
+      track, resolved at once to make trial of it. His Persian soldiers were
+      excellent mountaineers. He ordered Hydarnes to take the &ldquo;Immortals,&rdquo; and,
+      guided by a native, to proceed along the path by night, and descend with
+      early dawn into the rear of the Greeks, who would then be placed between
+      two fires. The operation was performed with complete success. The Phocian
+      guard, surprised at the summit, left the path free while they sought a
+      place of safety. The Greeks in the pass below, warned during the night of
+      their danger, in part fled, in part resolved on death. When morning came,
+      Leonidas, at the head of about half his original army, moved forward
+      towards the Malian plain, and there met the advancing Persians. A bloody
+      combat ensued, in which the Persians lost by far the greater number; but
+      the ranks of the Greeks were gradually thinned, and they were beaten back
+      step by step into the narrowest part of the pass, where finally they all
+      perished, except the four hundred Thebans, who submitted and were made
+      prisoners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So terminated the first struggle on the soil of Greece, between the
+      invaders and the invaded. It seemed to promise that, though at vast cost,
+      Persia would be victorious. If her loss in the three days&rsquo; combat was
+      20,000 men, as Herodotus states, yet, as that of her enemy was 4000, the
+      proportionate advantage was on her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, for the conquest of such a country as Greece, it was requisite, not
+      only that the invader should succeed on land, but also that he should be
+      superior at sea. Xerxes had felt this, and had brought with him a fleet,
+      calculated, as he imagined, to sweep the Greek navy from the Egean. As far
+      as the Pagasaean Gulf, opposite the northern extremity of Euboea, his
+      fleet had advanced without meeting an enemy. It had encountered one
+      terrible storm off the coast of Magnesia, and had lost 400 vessels; but
+      this loss was scarcely felt in so vast an armament. When from Aphetse, at
+      the mouth of the gulf, the small Greek fleet, amounting to no more than
+      271 vessels, was seen at anchor off Artemisium, the only fear which the
+      Persian commanders entertained was lest it should escape them. They at
+      once detached 200 vessels to sail round the Coast coast of Euboea, and cut
+      off the possibility of retreat. When, however, these vessels were all lost
+      in a storm, and when in three engagements on three successive days, the
+      Greek fleet showed itself fully able to contend against the superior
+      numbers of its antagonist, the Persians themselves could not fail to see
+      that their naval supremacy was more than doubtful. The fleet at Artemisium
+      was not the entire Greek naval force; on another occasion it might be
+      augumented, while their own could scarcely expect to receive
+      reinforcements. The fights at Artemisium foreshadowed a day when the rival
+      fleets would no longer meet and part on equal terms, but Persia would have
+      to acknowledge herself inferior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, however, the balance of advantage rested with the invaders. The
+      key of Northern Greece was won, and Phocis, Locris, Boeotia, Attica, and
+      the Megarid lay open to the Persian army. The Greek fleet could gain
+      nothing by any longer maintaining the position of Artemisium, and fell
+      back towards the south, while its leaders anxiously considered where it
+      should next take up its station. The Persians pressed on both by land and
+      sea. A rapid march through Phocis and Boeotia brought Xerxes to Athens,
+      soon after the Athenians, knowing that resistance would be vain, had
+      evacuated it. The Acropolis, defended by a few fanatics, was taken and
+      burnt. One object of the expedition was thus accomplished. Athens lay in
+      ruins; and the whole of Attica was occupied by the conqueror. The Persian
+      fleet, too, finding the channel of the Euripus clear, sailed down it, and
+      rounding Sunium, came to anchor in the bay of Phalerum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the councils of the Greeks all was doubt and irresolution. The army,
+      which ought to have mustered in full force at Thermopylae and Callidromus,
+      and which, after those passes were forced, might have defended Cithseron
+      and Parnes, had never ventured beyond the Isthmus of Corinth, and was
+      there engaged in building a wall across the neck of land from sea to sea.
+      The fleet lay off Salamis, where it was detained by the entreaties of the
+      Athenians, who had placed in that island the greater part of the
+      non-combatant population; but the inclination was strong on the part of
+      many to withdraw westward and fight the next battle, if a battle must be
+      fought, in the vicinity of the land force, which would be a protection in
+      case of defeat. Could Xerxes have had patience for a few days, the
+      combined fleet would have broken up. The Peloponnesian contingents would
+      have withdrawn to the isthmus; and the Athenians, despairing of success,
+      would probably have sailed away to Italy. But the Great King, when he saw
+      the vast disproportion between his own fleet and that of the enemy, could
+      not believe in the possibility of the Greeks offering a successful
+      resistance. Like a modern emperor, who imagined that, if only he could
+      have been with his fleet, all would necessarily have gone well, Xerxes
+      supposed that by having the sea-fight under his own eye he would be sure
+      of victory. Thus again, as at Artemisium, the only fear felt was lest the
+      Greeks should fly, and in that way escape chastisement. Orders were
+      therefore issued to the Persian fleet to close up at once, and blockade
+      the eastern end of the Salaminian strait, while a detachment repeated the
+      attempted manoeuvre at Euboea, and sailed round the island to guard the
+      channel at its western outlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These movements were executed late in the day on which the Persian fleet
+      arrived at Phalerum. During the night intelligence reached the commanders
+      that the retreat of the Greeks was about to commence at once; whereupon
+      the Persian right wing was pushed forward into the strait, and carried
+      beyond the Greek position so as to fill the channel where it opens into
+      the bay of Eleusis. The remainder of the night passed in preparations for
+      the battle on both sides. At daybreak both fleets advanced from their
+      respective shores, the Persians being rather the assailants. Their
+      thousand vessels were drawn up in three lines, and charged their
+      antagonists with such spirit that the general inclination on the part of
+      the Greeks was at first to retreat. Some of their ships had almost touched
+      the shore, when the bold example of one of the captains, or a cry of
+      reproach from unknown lips, produced a revulsion of feeling, and the whole
+      line advanced in good order. The battle was for a short time doubtful; but
+      soon the superiority of Greek naval tactics began to tell. The Persian
+      vessels became entangled one with another, and crashing together broke
+      each other&rsquo;s oars. The triple line increased their difficulties. If a
+      vessel, overmatched, sought to retreat, it necessarily came into collision
+      with the ships stationed in its rear. These moreover pressed too eagerly
+      forward, since their captains were anxious to distinguish themselves in
+      order to merit the approval of Xerxes. The Greeks found themselves able to
+      practice with good effect their favorite manoeuvre of the <i>periplus</i>,
+      and thus increased the confusion. It was not long before the greater part
+      of the Persian fleet became a mere helpless mass of shattered or damaged
+      vessels. Five hundred are said to have been sunk&mdash;the majority by the
+      enemy, but some even by their own friends. The sea was covered with
+      wrecks, and with wretches who clung to them, till the ruthless enemy slew
+      them or forced them to let go their hold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This defeat was a death-blow to the hopes of Xerxes, and sealed the fate
+      of the expedition. From the moment that he realized to himself the fact of
+      the entire inability of his fleet to cope with that of the Greeks, Xerxes
+      made up his mind to return with all haste to Asia. From over-confidence he
+      fell into the opposite extreme of despair, and made no effort to retrieve
+      his ill fortune. His fleet was ordered to sail straight for the
+      Hellespont, and to guard the bridges until he reached them with his army.
+      He himself retreated hastily along the same road by which he had advanced,
+      his whole army accompanying him as far as Thessaly, where Marnonius was
+      left with 260,000 picked men, to prevent pursuit, and to renew the attempt
+      against Greece in the ensuing year. Xerxes pressed on to the Hellespont,
+      losing vast numbers of his troops by famine and sickness on the way, and
+      finally returned into Asia, not by his magnificent bridge, which a storm
+      had destroyed, but on board a vessel, which, according to some, narrowly
+      escaped shipwreck during the passage. Even in Asia disaster pursued him.
+      Between Abydos and Sardis his army suffered almost as much from
+      over-indulgence as it had previously suffered from want; and of the mighty
+      host which had gone forth from the Lydian capital in the spring not very
+      many thousands can have re-entered it in the autumn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still, however, there was a possibility that the success which his own
+      arms had failed to achieve might reward the exertions of his lieutenants.
+      Mardonius had expressed himself confident that with 300,000 picked
+      soldiers he could overpower all resistance, and make Greece a satrapy of
+      Persia. Xerxes had raised his forces to that amount by sending Artabazus
+      back from Sestos at the head of a <i>corps d&rsquo;armee</i> numbering 40,000
+      men. The whole army of 300,000 wintered in Thessaly; and Mardonius, when
+      spring came, having vainly endeavored to detach the Athenians from the
+      Grecian ranks, marched through Boeotia in Attica, and occupied Athens for
+      the second time. Hence he proceeded to menace the Peloponnese, where he
+      formed an alliance with the Argives, who promised him that they would
+      openly embrace the Persian cause. At the same time the Athenians, finding
+      that Sparta took no steps to help them, began to waver in their
+      resistance, and to contemplate accepting the terms which Mardonius was
+      still willing to grant them. The fate of Greece trembled in the balance,
+      and apparently was determined by the accident of a death and a succession,
+      rather than by any wide-spread patriotic feeling or any settled course of
+      policy. Cleombrotus, regent for the young son of Leonidas, died, and his
+      brother Pausanias&mdash;a brave, clever, and ambitious man&mdash;took his
+      place. We can scarcely be wrong in ascribing&mdash;at least in part&mdash;to
+      this circumstance the unlooked-for change of policy, which electrified the
+      despondent ambassadors of Athens almost as soon as Pausanias was installed
+      in power. It was suddenly announced that Sparta would take the offensive.
+      Ten thousand hoplites and 400,000 light-armed&mdash;the largest army that
+      she ever levied&mdash;took the field, and, joined at the isthmus by above
+      25,000 Peloponnesians, and soon afterwards by almost as many Athenians and
+      Megarians, proceeded to seek the foreigners, first in Attica, and then in
+      the position to which they had retired in Boeotia. On the skirts of
+      Citheeron, near Platsea, a hundred and eight thousand Greeks confronted
+      more than thrice their number of Persians and Persian subjects; and now at
+      length the trial was to be made whether, in fair and open fight on land,
+      Greece or Persia would be superior. A suspicion of what the result would
+      be might have been derived from Marathon. But there the Persians had been
+      taken at a disadvantage, when the cavalry, their most important arm, was
+      absent. Here the error of Datis was not likely to be repeated. Mardonius
+      had a numerous and well-armed cavalry, which he handled with no little
+      skill. It remained to be seen, when the general engagement came, whether,
+      with both arms brought fully into play, the vanquished at Marathon would
+      be the victors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle of Plataea was brought on under circumstances very unfavorable
+      to the Greeks. Want of water and a difficulty about provisions had
+      necessitated a night movement on their part. The cowardice of all the
+      small contingents, and the obstinacy of an individual Spartan,
+      disconcerted the whole plan of the operation, and left the Lacedaemonians
+      and the Athenians at daybreak separated from each other, and deserted by
+      the whole body of their allies. Mardonius attacked at once, and prevented
+      the junction of the two allies, so that two distinct and separate
+      engagements went on at the same time. In both the Greeks were victorious.
+      The Spartans repulsed the Persian horse and foot, slew Mardonius and were
+      the first to assail the Persian camp. The Athenians defeated the <i>medizing</i>
+      Greeks, and effected a breach in the defences of the camp, on which the
+      Spartans had failed to make any impression. A terrible carnage followed.
+      The contingent of 40,000 troops under Artabazus alone drew off in good
+      order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remainder were seized with panic, and were either slaughtered like
+      sheep or fled in complete disarray. Seventy thousand Greeks not only
+      defeated but destroyed the army of 300,000 barbarians, which melted away
+      and disappeared making no further stand anywhere. The disaster of Marathon
+      was repeated on a larger scale, and without the resource of an
+      embarkation. Henceforth the immense superiority of Greek troops to Persian
+      was well known on both sides; and nothing but the distance from Greece of
+      her vital parts, and the quarrels of the Greek states among themselves,
+      preserved for nearly a century and a half the doomed empire of Persia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The immediate result of the defeats of Salamis and Platsea was a
+      contraction of the Persian boundary towards the west. Though a few Persian
+      garrisons maintained themselves for some years on the further side of the
+      straits, soothing thereby the wounded vanity of the Great King, who liked
+      to think that he had still a hold on Europe; yet there can be no doubt
+      that, after the double flight of Xerxes and Artabazus, Macedonia, Pseonia,
+      and Thrace recovered their independence. Persia lost her European
+      provinces, and began the struggle to retain those of Asia. Terminus
+      receded, and having once receded never advanced again in this quarter. The
+      Greeks took the offensive. Sailing to Asia, they not only liberated from
+      their Persian bondage the islands which lay along the coast, but landing
+      their men on the continent, attacked and defeated an army of 60,000
+      Persians at Mycale, and destroyed the remnant of the ships that had
+      escaped from Salamis. Could they have made up their minds to maintain a
+      powerful fleet permanently on the coast of Asia, they might at once have
+      deprived Persia of her whole sea-hoard on the Propontis and the Egean; but
+      neither of the two great powers of Greece was prepared for such a resolve.
+      Sparta disliked distant expeditions; and Athens did not as yet see her way
+      to undertaking the protection of the continental Greeks. She had much to
+      do at home, and had not yet discovered those weak points in her
+      adversary&rsquo;s harness, which subsequently enabled her to secure by treaty
+      the freedom of the Greek cities upon the mainland. For the present,
+      therefore, Persia only lost the bulk of her European possessions, and the
+      islands of the Propontis and the Egean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The circumstances which caused a renewal of Greek agressions upon Asia
+      towards the close of the reign of Xerxes are not very clearly narrated by
+      the authors who speak of them. It appears, however, that after twelve
+      years of petty operations, during which Eion was recovered, and Doriscus
+      frequently attacked, but without effect, the Athenians resolved, in B.C.
+      466, upon a great expedition to the eastward. Collecting a fleet of 300
+      vessels, which was placed under the command of Cimon, the son of
+      Miltiades, they sailed to the coast of Caria and Lycia, where they drove
+      the Persian garrisons out of the Greek towns, and augmenting their navy by
+      fresh contingents at every step, proceeded along the shores of Pamphylia
+      as far as the mouth of the river Eurymedon, where they found a Phoenician
+      fleet of 340 vessels, and a Persian army, stationed to protect the
+      territory. Engaging first the fleet they defeated it, and drove it ashore,
+      after which they disembarked and gained a victory over the Persian army.
+      As many as two hundred triremes were taken or destroyed. They then sailed
+      on towards Cyprus, where they met and destroyed a squadron of eighty
+      ships, which was on its way to reinforce the fleet at the Eurymedon. Above
+      a hundred vessels, 20,000 captives, and a vast amount of plunder were the
+      prize of this war; which had, however, no further effect on the relations
+      of the two powers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the following year the reign of Xerxes came to an end abruptly. With
+      this monarch seems to have begun those internal disorders of the seraglio,
+      which made the Court during more than a hundred and forty years a
+      perpetual scene of intrigues, assassinations, executions, and
+      conspiracies. Xerxes, who appears to have only one wife, Amestris, the
+      daughter (or grand-daughter) of the conspirator, Otanes, permitted himself
+      the free indulgence of illicit passion among the princesses of the Court,
+      the wives of his own near relatives. The most horrible results followed.
+      Amestris vented her jealous spite on those whom she regarded as guilty of
+      stealing from her the affections of her husband; and to prevent her
+      barbarities from producing rebellion, it was necessary to execute the
+      persons whom she had provoked, albeit they were near relations of the
+      monarch. The taint of incontinence spread among the members of the royal
+      family; and a daughter of the king, who was married to one of the most
+      powerful nobles, became notorious for her excesses. Eunuchs rose into
+      power, and fomented the evils which prevailed. The king made himself
+      bitter enemies among those whose position was close to his person. At
+      last, Artabanus, chief of the guard, a courtier of high rank, and
+      Aspamitres, a eunuch, who held the office of chamberlain, conspired
+      against their master, and murdered him in his sleeping apartment, after he
+      had reigned twenty years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character of Xerxes falls below that of any preceding monarch.
+      Excepting that he was not wholly devoid of a certain magnanimity, which
+      made him listen patiently to those who opposed his views or gave him
+      unpalatable advice and which prevented him from exacting vengeance on some
+      occasions, he had scarcely a trait whereon the mind can rest with any
+      satisfaction. Weak and easily led, puerile in his gusts of passion and his
+      complete abandonment of himself to them&mdash;selfish, fickle, boastful,
+      cruel, superstitious, licentious&mdash;he exhibits to us the Oriental
+      despot in the most contemptible of all his aspects&mdash;that wherein the
+      moral and the intellectual qualities are equally in defect, and the career
+      is one unvarying course of vice and folly. From Xerxes we have to date at
+      once the decline of the Empire in respect of territorial greatness and
+      military strength, and likewise its deterioration in regard to
+      administrative vigor and national spirit. With him commenced the
+      corruption of the Court&mdash;the fatal evil, which almost universally
+      weakens and destroys Oriental dynasties. His expedition against Greece
+      exhausted and depopulated the Empire; and though, by abstaining from
+      further military enterprises, he did what lay in his power to recruit its
+      strength, still the losses which his expedition caused were certainly not
+      repaired in his lifetime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a builder, Xerxes showed something of the same grandeur of conception
+      which is observable in his great military enterprise and in the works by
+      which it was accompanied. His Propylaea, and the sculptured staircase in
+      front of the Chebl Minar, which is undoubtedly his work, are among the
+      most magnificent erections upon the Persepolitan platform; and are quite
+      sufficient to place him in the foremost rank of Oriental builders. If we
+      were to ascribe the Chehl Minar itself to him, we should have to give him
+      the palm above all other kings of Persia; but on the whole it is most
+      probable that that edifice and its duplicate at Susa were conceived, and
+      in the main, constructed, by Darius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xerxes left behind him three sons&mdash;Darius, Hystaspes, and Artaxerxes&mdash;and
+      two daughters, Amytis and Rhodogune. Hystaspes was satrap of Bactria, and
+      at the time of their father&rsquo;s death, only Darius and Artaxerxes were at
+      the Court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fearing the eldest son most, Artabanus persuaded Artaxerxes that the
+      assassination of Xerxes was the act of his brother, whereupon Artaxerxes
+      caused him to be put to death, and himself ascended the throne (B.C. 465).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Troubles, as usual, accompanied this irregular accession. Artabanus, not
+      content with exercising an influence under Artaxerxes such as has caused
+      some authors to speak of him as king, aimed at removing the young prince,
+      and making himself actual monarch. But his designs being betrayed to
+      Artaxerxes by Megabyzus, and at the same time his former crimes coming to
+      light, he was killed, together with his tool Aspamitres, seven months
+      after the murder of Xerxes. The sons of Artabanus sought to avenge his
+      death, but were defeated by Megabyzus in an engagement, wherein they lost
+      their lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, in Bactria, Hystaspes, who had a rightful claim to the throne,
+      raised the standard of revolt. Artaxerxes marched against him in person,
+      and engaged him in two battles, the first of which was indecisive, while
+      in the second the Bactrians suffered defeat, chiefly (according to
+      Ctesias) because the wind blew violently in their faces. So signal was
+      victory, that Bactria at once submitted. Hystaspes&rsquo; fate is uncertain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not long after the reduction of Bactria, Egypt suddenly threw off the
+      Persian yoke (B.C. 460). Inarus, a king of the wild African tribes who
+      bordered the Nile valley on the west, but himself perhaps a descendant of
+      the old monarchs of Egypt, led the insurrection, and, in conjunction with
+      an Egyptian, named Amyrtseus, attacked the Persian troops stationed in the
+      country, who were commanded by Achaemenes, the satrap. A battle was fought
+      near Papremis in the Delta, wherein the Persians were defeated, and
+      Achaemenes fell by the hand of Inarus himself. The Egyptians generally now
+      joined in the revolt; and the remnant of the Persian army was shut up in
+      Memphis. Inarus had asked the aid of Athens; and an Athenian fleet of 200
+      sail was sent to his assistance. This fleet sailed up the Nile, defeated a
+      Persian squadron, and took part in the capture of Memphis and the siege of
+      its citade (White Castle). When the Persian king first learned what had
+      happened, he endeavored to rid himself of his Athenian enemies by inducing
+      the Spartans to invade their country; but, failing in his attempt, he had
+      recourse to arms, and, levying a vast host, which he placed under the
+      command of Megabyzus, sent that officer to recover the revolted province.
+      Megabyzus marched upon Memphis, defeated the Egyptians and their allies in
+      a great battle, relieved the citadel of Memphis from its siege, and
+      recovered the rest of the town. The Athenians fled to the tract called
+      Prosopitis, which was a a portion of the Delta, completely surrounded by
+      two branch streams of the Nile. Here they were besieged for eighteen
+      months, till Megabyzus contrived to turn the water from one of the two
+      streams, whereby the Athenian ships were stranded, and the Persian troops
+      were able to march across the river bed, and overwhelm the Athenians with
+      their numbers. A few only escaped to Cyrene. The entire fleet fell into
+      the enemy&rsquo;s hands; and a reinforcement of fifty more ships, arriving soon
+      after the defeat, was attacked unawares after it had entered the river,
+      and lost more than half its number. Inarus was betrayed by some of his own
+      men, and, being carried prisoner to Persia, suffered death by crucifixion.
+      Amyrtseus fled to the fens, where for a while he maintained his
+      independence. Egypt, however, was with this exception recovered to the
+      Empire (B.C. 455); and Athens was taught that she could not always invade
+      the dominions of the Great King with impunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Six years after this, the Athenians resolved on another effort. A fleet of
+      200 ships was equipped and placed under the command of the victor of the
+      Eurymedon, Cimon, with orders to proceed into the Eastern Mediterranean,
+      and seek to recover the laurels lost in Egypt. Cimon sailed to Cyprus,
+      where he received a communication from Amyrtseus, which induced him to
+      dispatch sixty ships to Egypt, while with the remaining one hundred and
+      forty he commenced the siege of Citium. Here he died, either of disease or
+      from the effects of a wound; and his armament, pressed for provisions, was
+      forced soon afterwards to raise the siege, and address itself to some
+      other enterprise. Sailing past Salamis, it found there a Cilician and
+      Phoenician fleet, consisting of 300 vessels, which it immediately attacked
+      and defeated, notwithstanding the disparity of number. Besides the ships
+      which were sunk, a hundred triremes were taken; and the sailors then
+      landed and gained a victory over a Persian army upon the shore.
+      Artaxerxes, upon this, fearing lest he should lose Cyprus altogether, and
+      thinking that, if Athens became mistress of this important island, she
+      would always be fomenting insurrection in Egypt, made overtures for peace
+      to the generals who were now in command. His propositions were favorably
+      received. Peace was made on the following terms:&mdash;Athens agreed to
+      relinquish Cyprus, and recall her squadron from Egypt; while the king
+      consented to grant freedom to all the Greek cities on the Asiatic
+      continent, and not to menace them either by land or water. The sea was
+      divided between the two powers, Persian ships of war were not to sail to
+      the west of Phaselis in the Levant, or of the Cyanean islands in the
+      Euxine; and Greek war-ships, we may assume, were not to show themselves
+      east of those limits. On these conditions there was to be peace and amity
+      between the Greeks and the Persians, and neither nation was to undertake
+      any expeditions against the territories of the other. Thus terminated the
+      first period of hostility between Greece and Persia, a period of exactly
+      half a century, commencing B.C. 499 and. ending B.C. 449, in the
+      seventeenth year of Artaxerxes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was probably not many years after the conclusion of this peace that a
+      rebellion broke out in Syria. Megabyzus, the satrap of that important
+      province, offended at the execution of Inarus, in violation of the promise
+      which he had himself made to him, raised a revolt against his sovereign,
+      defeated repeatedly the armies sent to reduce him to obedience, and
+      finally treated with Artaxerxes as to the terms on which he would consent
+      to be reconciled. Thus was set an example, if not of successful
+      insurrection, yet at any rate of the possibility of rebelling with
+      impunity&mdash;an example which could not fail to have a mischievous
+      effect on the future relations of the monarch with his satraps. It would
+      have been better for the Empire had Megabyzus suffered the fate of
+      Oroetes, instead of living to a good old age in high favor with the
+      monarch whose power he had weakened and defied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Artaxerxes survived the &ldquo;Peace of Callias&rdquo; twenty-four years. His
+      relations with the Greeks continued friendly till his demise, though, on
+      the occasion of the revolt of Samos (B.C. 440), Pissuthnes, satrap of
+      Sardis, seems to have transgressed the terms of the treaty, and to have
+      nearly brought about a renewal of hostilities. It was probably in
+      retaliation for the aid given to the revolted Samians, that the Athenians,
+      late in the reign of Artaxerxes, made an expedition against Caunus, which
+      might have had important consequences, if the Caunians had not been firm
+      in their allegiance. A revolt of Lycia and Caria under Zopyrus, the son of
+      Megabyzus, assisted by the Greeks, might have proved even more difficult
+      to subdue than the rebellion of Syria under his father. Persia, however,
+      escaped this danger; and Artaxerxes, no doubt, saw with pleasure a few
+      years later the Greeks turn their arms against each other&mdash;Athens,
+      his great enemy, being forced into a contest for existence with the
+      Peloponnesian confederacy under Sparta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character of Artaxerxes, though it receives the approval of Plutarch
+      and Diodorus, must be pronounced on the whole poor and contemptible. His
+      ready belief of the charge brought by Artabanus against his brother,
+      Darius, admits perhaps of excuse, owing to his extreme youth; but his
+      surrender of Inarus to Amestris on account of her importunity, his
+      readiness to condone the revolt of Megabyzus, and his subjection
+      throughout almost the whole of his life to the evil influence of Amytis,
+      his sister, and Amestris, his mother&mdash;both persons of ill-regulated
+      lives&mdash;are indications of weakness and folly quite unpardonable in a
+      monarch. That he was mild in temperament, and even kind and good-natured,
+      is probable. But he had no other quality that deserves the slightest
+      commendation. In the whole course of his long reign he seems never once to
+      have adventured himself in the field against an enemy. He made not a
+      single attempt at conquest in any direction. We have no evidence that he
+      patronized either literature or the arts. His peace with Athens was
+      necessary perhaps, but disgraceful to Persia. The disorders of the Court
+      increased under his reign, from the license (especially) which he allowed
+      the Queen-mother, who sported with the lives of his subjects. The decay of
+      the Empire received a fatal impulse from the impunity which he permitted
+      to Megabyzus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like his father, Artaxerxes appears to have had but one legitimate wife.
+      This was a certain Damaspia, of whom nothing is known, except that she
+      died on the same day as her husband, and was the mother of his only
+      legitimate son, Xerxes. Seventeen other sons, who survived him, were the
+      issue of various concubines, chiefly&mdash;it would appear&mdash;Babylonians.
+      Xerxes II. succeeded to the throne on the death of his father (B.C. 425),
+      but reigned forty-five days only, being murdered after a festival, in
+      which he had indulged too freely, by his half-brother, Secydianus or
+      Sogdianus. Secydianus enjoyed the sovereignty for little more than half a
+      year, when he was in his turn put to death by another, brother, Ochus, who
+      on ascending the throne took the name of Darius, and became known to the
+      Greeks as Darius Nothus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius Nothus had in his father&rsquo;s lifetime been made satrap of Hyrcania,
+      and had married his aunt, Parysatis, a daughter of Xerxes. He had already
+      two children at his accession,&mdash;a daughter, Amestris, and a son,
+      Arsaces, who succeeded him as Artaxerxes. His reign, which lasted nineteen
+      years, was a constant scene of insurrections and revolts, some of which
+      were of great importance, since they had permanent and very disastrous
+      consequences. The earliest of all was raised by his full-brother, Arsites,
+      who rebelled in conjunction with a son of Megabyzus, and, obtaining the
+      support of a number of Greek mercenaries, gained two victories over the
+      forces dispatched against him by the king. At last, however, the fortune
+      of war changed. Persian gold was used to corrupt the mercenaries; and the
+      rebels being thus reduced to extremities, were forced to capitulate,
+      yielding themselves on the condition that their lives should be spared.
+      Parysatis induced her husband to disregard the pledges given and execute
+      both Arsites and his fellow-conspirator&mdash;thus proclaiming to the
+      world that, unless by the employment of perfidy, the Empire was incapable
+      of dealing with those who rebelled against its authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The revolt of Pissuthnes, satrap of Lydia, was the next important
+      outbreak. Its exact date is uncertain; but it seems not to have very long
+      preceded the Athenian disasters in Sicily. Pissuthnes, who had held his
+      satrapy for more than twenty years, was the son of a Hystaspes, and
+      probably a member of the royal family. His wealth&mdash;the accumulations
+      of so long a term of office&mdash;enabled him to hire the services of a
+      body of Greek mercenaries, who were commanded by an Athenian, called
+      Lycon. On these troops he placed his chief dependence; but they failed him
+      in the hour of need. Tissaphernes, the Persian general sent against him,
+      bribed Lycon and his men, who thereupon quitted Pissuthnes and made common
+      cause with his adversaries. The unfortunate satrap could no longer resist,
+      and therefore surrendered upon terms, and accompanied Tissaphernes to the
+      Court. Darius, accustomed now to disregard the pledged word of his
+      officers, executed him forthwith, and made over his satrapy to
+      Tissaphernes, as a reward for his zeal. Lycon, the Athenian traitor,
+      received likewise a handsome return for his services, the revenues of
+      several towns and districts being assigned him by the Great King.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rebellion, however, was not wholly crushed by the destruction of its
+      author, Amorges, a bastard son of Pissuthnes, continued to maintain
+      himself in Caria, where he was master of the strong city of Iasus, on the
+      north coast of the Sinus Iasicus, and set the power of Tissaphernes at
+      defiance. Having probably inherited the wealth of his father, he hired a
+      number of Peloponnesian mercenaries, and succeeded in maintaining himself
+      as an independent monarch for some years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the condition of things in Asia Minor, when intelligence arrived
+      of the fearful disasters which had befallen the Athenians in Sicily&mdash;disasters
+      without a parallel since those of Salamis&mdash;sudden, unexpected,
+      overwhelming. The news, flying through Asia, awoke everywhere a belief
+      that the power of Athens was broken, and that her hostility need no longer
+      be dreaded. The Persian monarch considered that under the altered
+      circumstances it would be safe to treat the Peace of Callias as a dead
+      letter, and sent down orders to the satraps of Lydia and Bithynia that
+      they were once more to demand and collect the tribute of the Greek cities
+      within their provinces. The satraps began to speculate on the advantages
+      which they might derive from alliance with the enemies of Athens, and
+      looked anxiously to see a Peloponnesian fleet appear off the coast of
+      Asia. Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus vied with each other in the tempting
+      offers which they made to Sparta, and it was not long before a formal
+      treaty was concluded between that state and Persia, by which the two
+      powers bound themselves to carry on war conjointly against Athens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the contest between Persia and her rival entered upon a new phase.
+      Henceforth until the liberties of Greece were lost, the Great King could
+      always count on having for his ally one of the principal Grecian powers.
+      His gold was found to possess attractions which the Greeks were quite
+      unable to resist. At one time Sparta, at another Athens, at another Thebes
+      yielded to the subtle influence; Greek generals commanded the Persian
+      armies; Greek captains manoeuvered the Persian fleets; the very rank and
+      file of the standing army came to be almost as much Greek as Persian.
+      Acting on the maxim, <i>Divide et impera</i>, Persia prolonged for eighty
+      years her tottering Empire, by the skilful use which she made of the
+      mutual jealousies and divisions of the Hellenic states.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It scarcely belongs to the history of Persia to trace in detail the
+      fortunes of the contending powers during the latter portion of the
+      Peloponnesian war. We need only observe that the real policy of the Court
+      of Susa, well understood, and, on the whole, tolerably well carried out by
+      the satraps, was to preserve the balance of power between Athens and
+      Sparta, to allow neither to obtain too decided a preponderance, to help
+      each in turn, and encourage each to waste the other&rsquo;s strength, but to
+      draw back whenever the moment came for striking a decisive blow against
+      either side. This policy skilfully pursued by Tissaphernes (who had a
+      genius for intrigue and did not require an Alcibiades to give him lessons
+      in state-craft), more clumsily by Pharnabazus, whose character was
+      comparatively sincere and straightforward, prevailed until the younger
+      Cyrus made his appearance upon the scene, when a disturbing force came
+      into play which had disastrous effects both on the fortunes of Greece and
+      on those of Persia. The younger Cyrus had personal views of
+      self-aggrandizement which conflicted with the true interests of his
+      nation, and was so bent on paving the way for his own ascent to sovereign
+      power that he did not greatly care whether he injured his country or no.
+      As the accomplishment of his designs depended mainly on his obtaining a
+      powerful land-force, he regarded a Spartan as preferable to an Athenian
+      alliance; and, having once made his choice, he lent his ally such
+      effectual aid that in two years from the time of his coming down to the
+      coast the war was terminated. Persian gold manned and partly built the
+      fleet which conquered at AEgos-Potami; perhaps it contributed in a still
+      more decisive manner to the victory. Cyrus, by placing his stores at the
+      entire command of Lysander, deserved and acquired the cordial good-will of
+      Sparta and the Peloponnesians generally&mdash;an advantage of which we
+      shall find him in the sequel making good use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gain to Persia from the dominion which she had reacquired over the
+      Greeks of Asia was more than counter-balanced by a loss of territory in
+      another quarter, which seems to have occurred during the reign of Darius
+      Nothus, though in what exact year is doubtful. The revolt of Egypt is
+      placed by Heeren and Clinton in B.C. 414, by Eusebius in B.C. 411, by
+      Manetho in the last year of Darius Nothus, or B.C. 405. The earlier dates
+      depend on the view that the Amyrtseus of Manetho&rsquo;s twenty-eighth dynasty
+      was the leader of the rebellion, and had a reign of six years at this
+      period&mdash;a view which is perhaps unsound. Manetho probably represented
+      Nepherites (Nefaorot) as the leader; and it is quite clear that he placed
+      the re-establishment of the old throne of the Pharaohs in the year that
+      Darius Nothus died. As his authority is the best that we can obtain upon
+      this obscure point, we may regard the last days of the Persian monarch as
+      clouded by news of a rebellion, which had been perhaps for some time
+      contemplated, but which did not break out until he was known to be in a
+      moribund condition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few years earlier, B.C. 408 or 409, the Medes had made an unsuccessful
+      attempt to recover their independence. The circumstances of this revolt,
+      which is mentioned by no writer but Xenophon, are wholly unknown, but we
+      may perhaps connect it with the rebellion of Terituchmes, a son-in-law of
+      the king. The story of Terituchmes, which belongs to this period, deserves
+      at any rate to be told, as illustrating, in a very remarkable way, the
+      corruption, cruelty, and dissoluteness of the Persian Court at the time to
+      which we have now come. Terituchmes was the son of Idernes, a Persian
+      noble of high rank, probably a descendant of the conspirator Hydarnes. On
+      the death of his father, he succeeded to his satrapy, as to a hereditary
+      fief, and being high in favor with Darius Nothus, he received in marriage
+      that monarch&rsquo;s daughter, Amestris. Having, however, after his marriage
+      become enamored of his own half-sister, Roxana, and having persuaded her
+      to an incestuous commerce, he grew to detest his wife, and as he could not
+      rid himself of her without making an enemy of the king, he entered into a
+      conspiracy with 300 others, and planned to raise a rebellion. The bond of
+      a common crime, cruel and revolting in its character, was to secure the
+      fidelity of the rebels one to another. Amestris was to be placed in a
+      sack, and each conspirator in turn was to plunge his sword into her body.
+      It is not clear whether this intended murder was executed or no. Hoping to
+      prevent it, Darius commissioned a certain Udiastes, who was in the service
+      of Terituchmes, to save his daughter by any means that might be necessary;
+      and Udiastes, collecting a band, set upon Terituchmes and slew him after a
+      strenuous resistance. After this, his mother, brothers, and sisters were
+      apprehended by the order of Parysatis, the queen, who caused Roxana to be
+      hewn in pieces, and the other unfortunates to be buried alive. It was with
+      great difficulty that Arsaces, the heir-apparent, afterwards Artaxerxes
+      Mnemon, preserved his own wife, Statira, from the massacre. It happened
+      that she was sister to Terituchmes, and, though wholly innocent of his
+      offence, she would have been involved in the common destruction of her
+      family had not her husband with tears and entreaties begged her life of
+      his parents. The son of Terituchmes maintained himself for a while in his
+      father&rsquo;s government; but Parysatis succeeded in having him taken off by
+      poison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character of Darius Nothus is seen tolerably clearly in the account of
+      his reign which has been here given. He was at once weak and wicked.
+      Contrary to his sworn word, he murdered his brothers, Secydianus and
+      Arsites. He broke faith with Pissuthnes. He sanctioned the wholesale
+      execution of Terituchmes&rsquo; relatives. Under him the eunuchs of the palace
+      rose to such power that one of them actually ventured to aspire to the
+      sovereignty. Parysatis, his wife, one of the most cruel and malignant even
+      of Oriental women, was in general his chosen guide and counsellor. His
+      severities cannot, however, in all eases be ascribed to her influence, for
+      he was anxious that she should put the innocent Statira to death, and,
+      when she refused, reproached her with being foolishly lenient. In his
+      administration of the Empire he was unsuccessful; for, if he gained some
+      tracts of Asia Minor, he lost the entire African satrapy. Under him we
+      trace a growing relaxation of the checks by which the great officers of
+      the state were intended to have been held under restraint. Satraps came to
+      be practically uncontrolled in their provinces, and the dangerous custom
+      arose of allowing sons to succeed, almost as a matter of course, to the
+      governments of their fathers. Powers unduly large were lodged in the hands
+      of a single officer, and actions, that should have brought down upon their
+      perpetrators sharp and signal punishment, were timorously or negligently
+      condoned by the supreme authority. Cunning and treachery were made the
+      weapons wherewith Persia contended with her enemies. Manly habits were
+      laid aside, and the nation learned to trust more and more to the swords of
+      mercenaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly before the death of Darius there seems to have been a doubt raised
+      as to the succession. Parysatis, who preferred her second son to her
+      first-born, imagined that her influence was sufficient to induce her
+      husband to nominate Cyrus, instead of Arsaces, to succeed him; and Cyrus
+      is said to have himself expected to be preferred above his brother. He had
+      the claim, if claim it can be called, that he was the first son born to
+      his father after he became king; but his main dependence was doubtless on
+      his mother. Darius, however, proved less facile in his dying moments than
+      he had been during most of his life, and declined to set aside the rights
+      of the eldest son on the frivolous pretence suggested to him. His own
+      feelings may have inclined him towards Arsaces, who resembled him far more
+      than Cyrus did in character; and Cyrus, moreover, had recently offended
+      him, and been summoned to court, to answer a very serious charge. Arsaces,
+      therefore, was nominated, and took the name of Artaxerxes&mdash;as one of
+      a king who had reigned long, and, on the whole, prosperously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An incident of ill omen accompanied the commencement of the new reign
+      (B.C. 405). The inauguration of the monarch was a religious ceremony, and
+      took place in a temple at Pasargadae, the old capital, to which a peculiar
+      sanctity was still regarded as attaching. Artaxerxes had proceeded to this
+      place, and was about to engage in the ceremonies, when he was interrupted
+      by Tissaphernes, who informed him that his life was in danger. Cyrus, he
+      said, proposed to hide himself in the temple, and assassinate him as he
+      changed his dress, a necessary part of the formalities. One of the
+      officiating priests&mdash;a Magus, as it would seem&mdash;confirmed the
+      charge. Cyrus was immediately arrested, and would have been put to death
+      on the spot, had not his mother interfered, and, embracing him in her
+      arms, made it impossible for the executioner to perform his task. With
+      some difficulty she persuaded Artaxerxes to spare his brother&rsquo;s life and
+      allow him to return to his government, assuring him, and perhaps
+      believing, that the charges made against her favorite were without
+      foundation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cyrus returned to Asia Minor with the full determination of attacking his
+      brother at the earliest opportunity. He immediately began the collection
+      of a mercenary force, composed wholly of Greeks, on whose arms he was
+      disposed to place far more reliance than on those of Orientals. As
+      Tissaphernes had returned to the coast with him, and was closely watching
+      all his proceedings, it was necessary to exercise great caution, lest his
+      intentions should become known before he was ready to put them into
+      execution. He therefore had recourse to three different devices. Having
+      found a cause of quarrel with Tissaphernes in the ambiguous terms of their
+      respective commissions, he pressed it on to an actual war, which enabled
+      him to hire troops openly, as against this enemy; and in this way he
+      collected from 5000 to 6000 Greeks&mdash;chiefly Peloponnesians. He
+      further gave secret commissions to Greek officers, whose acquaintance he
+      had made when he was previously in these parts, to collect men for him,
+      whom they were to employ in their own quarrels until he needed their
+      services. From 3000 to 4000 troops were gathered for him by these persons.
+      Finally, when he found himself nearly ready to commence his march, he
+      discovered a new foe in the Pisidians of the Western Taurus, and proceeded
+      to levy a force against them, which amounted to some thousands more. In
+      all, he had in readiness 11,000 heavy-armed and about 2000 light-armed
+      Greeks before his purpose became so clear that Tissaphernes could no
+      longer mistake it, and therefore started off to carry his somewhat tardy
+      intelligence to the capital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The aims of Cyrus were different from those of ordinary rebel satraps; and
+      we must go back to the times of Darius Hystaspis in order to find a
+      parallel to them. Instead of seeking to free a province from the Persian
+      yoke, or to carve out for himself an independent sovereignty in some
+      remote corner of the Empire, his intention was to dethrone his brother,
+      and place on his own brows the diadem of his great namesake. It was
+      necessary for him therefore to assume the offensive. Only by a bold
+      advance, and by taking his enemy to some extent unprepared, and so at a
+      disadvantage, could he hope to succeed in his audacious project. It is not
+      easy to see that he could have had any considerable party among the
+      Persians, or any ground for expecting to be supported by any of the
+      subject nations. His following must have been purely personal; and though
+      it may be true that he was of a character to win more admiration and
+      affection than his brother, yet Artaxerxes himself was far from being
+      unpopular with his subjects, whom he pleased by a familiarity and a
+      good-nature to which they were little accustomed. Cyrus knew that his
+      principal dependence must be on himself, on his Greeks, and on the
+      carelessness and dilatoriness of his adversary, who was destitute of
+      military talent and was even thought to be devoid of personal bravery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it was important to advance as soon as possible. Cyrus therefore
+      quitted Sardis before all his troops were collected (B.C. 401), and
+      marched through Lydia and Phrygia, by the route formally followed in the
+      reverse direction by the army of Xerxes, as far as Celsense, where the
+      remainder of his mercenaries joined him. With his Greek force thus raised
+      to 13,000 men, and with a native army not much short of 100,000, he
+      proceeded on through Phrygia and Lycaonia to the borders of Cilicia,
+      having determined on taking the shortest route to Babylon, through the
+      Cilician and Syrian passes, and then along the course of the Euphrates. At
+      Caystrupedion he was met by Epyaxa, consort of Syennesis, the tributary
+      king of Cilicia, who brought him a welcome supply of money, and probably
+      assured him of the friendly disposition of her husband, who was anxious to
+      stand well with both sides. In Lycaonia, Cyrus divided his forces, and
+      sending a small body of troops under Menon to escort Epyaxa across the
+      mountains and enter Cilicia by the more western of the two practicable
+      passes he proceeded himself with the bulk of his troops to the famous
+      Pylae Cilicias, where he probably knew that Syennesis would only make a
+      feint of resistance. He found the pass occupied; but it was evacuated the
+      next day, on the receipt of intelligence that Menon had already entered
+      the country and that the fleet of Cyrus&mdash;composed partly of his own
+      ships, partly of a squadron furnished to him by Sparta&mdash;had appeared
+      off the coast and threatened a landing. Cyrus thus crossed the most
+      difficult and dangerous of all the passes that separated him from the
+      heart of the Empire, without the loss of a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus far it would appear that Cyrus had to a certain extent masked his
+      plans. The Greek captains must have guessed, if they had not actually
+      learnt, his intentions; but to the bulk of the soldiery they had been
+      hitherto absolutely unknown. It was only in Cilicia that the light broke
+      in upon them, and they began to suspect that they were being marched into
+      the interior of Asia, there to engage in a contest with the entire power
+      of the Great King. Something of the horror which is ascribed to Cleomenes,
+      when it was suggested to him a century earlier that he should conduct his
+      Spartans the distance of a three months&rsquo; journey from the sea, appears to
+      have taken possession of the minds of the mercenaries on their awaking to
+      this conviction. They at once refused to proceed. It was only by the most
+      skilful management on the part of their captains, joined to a judicious
+      liberality on the part of Cyrus, that they were induced to forego their
+      intention of returning home at once, and so breaking up the expedition. A
+      perception of the difficulty of effecting a retreat, together with an
+      increase of pay, extorted a reluctant assent to continue the march, of
+      which the real term and object were even now not distinctly avowed. Cyrus
+      said he proposed to attack the army of Abrocomas, which he believed to be
+      posted on the Euphrates. If he did not find it there, a fresh consultation
+      might be held to consider any further movement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The march now proceeded rapidly. The gates of Syria&mdash;a narrow pass on
+      the east coast of the Gulf of Issus, shut in, like Thermopylae, between
+      the mountains and the sea, and strengthened moreover by fortifications&mdash;were
+      left unguarded by Abrocomas; and the army, having traversed them without
+      loss, crossed the Amanus range by the pass of Beilan, and in twenty-nine
+      days from Tarsus reached Thapsacus on the Euphrates. The forces of
+      Artaxerxes had nowhere made their appearance&mdash;Abrocomas, though he
+      had 300,000 men at his disposal, had weakly or treacherously abandoned all
+      these strong and easily defensible positions; he does not seem even to
+      have wasted the country; but, having burnt the boats at Thapsacus, he was
+      content to fall back upon Phoenicia, and left the way to Babylon and Susa
+      open. At Thapsacus there was little difficulty in persuading the Greeks,
+      who had no longer the sea before their eyes, to continue the march; they
+      only stipulated for a further increase of pay, which was readily promised
+      them by the sanguine prince, who believed himself on the point of
+      obtaining by their aid the inexhaustible treasures of the Empire. The
+      river, which happened to be unusually low for the time of year, was easily
+      forded. Cyrus entered Mesopotamia, and continued his march down the left
+      bank of the Euphrates at the quickest rate that it was possible to move a
+      hundred thousand Orientals. In thirty-three days he had accomplished above
+      600 miles, and had approached within 120 miles of Babylon without seeing
+      any traces of an enemy. His only difficulties were from the nature of the
+      country, which, after the Khabour is passed, becomes barren, excepting
+      close along the river. From want of fodder there was a great mortality
+      among the baggage-animals; the price of grain rose; and the Greeks had to
+      subsist almost entirely upon meat. At last, when the Babylonian alluvium
+      was reached, with its abundance of fodder and corn, signs of the enemy
+      began to be observed. Artaxerxes, who after some doubts and misgivings had
+      finally determined to give his enemy battle in the plain, was already on
+      his way from Babylon, with an army reckoned at 900,000 men and had sent
+      forward a body of horse, partly to reconnoitre, partly to destroy the
+      crops, in order to prevent Cyrus and his troops from benefiting by them.
+      Cyrus now advanced slowly and cautiously, at the rate of about fourteen
+      miles a day, expecting each morning to fight a general engagement before
+      evening came. On the third night, believing the battle to be imminent, he
+      distributed the commands and laid down a plan of operations. But morning
+      brought no appearance of the enemy, and the whole day passed tranquilly.
+      In the course of it, he came upon a wide and deep trench cut through the
+      plain for a distance of above forty miles&mdash;a recent work, which
+      Artaxerxes had intended as a barrier to stop the progress of his enemy.
+      But the trench was undefended and incomplete, a space of twenty feet being
+      left between its termination and the Euphrates. Cyrus, having passed it,
+      began to be convinced that his brother would not risk a battle in the
+      plain, but would retreat to the mountains and make his stand at Persepolis
+      or Ecbatana. He therefore continued his march negligently. His men piled
+      their arms on the wagons or laid them, across the beasts of burthen; while
+      he himself exchanged the horse which he usually rode for a chariot, and
+      proceeded on his way leisurely, having about his person a small escort,
+      which preserved their ranks, while all the rest of the troops were allowed
+      to advance in complete disarray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, as the army was proceeding in this disorderly manner through the
+      plain, a single horseman was perceived advancing at full gallop from the
+      opposite quarter, his steed all flecked with foam. As he drew near, he
+      shouted aloud to those whom he met, addressing some in Greek, others in
+      Persian, and warning them that the Great King, with his whole force, was
+      close at hand, and rapidly approaching in order of battle. The news took
+      every one by surprise, and at first all was hurry and confusion. The
+      Greeks, however, who were on the right, rapidly marshalled their line,
+      resting it upon the river; while Cyrus put on his armor, mounted his
+      horse, and arranged the ranks of his Asiatics. Ample time was given for
+      completing all the necessary dispositions; since three hours, at the
+      least, must have elapsed from the announcement of the enemy&rsquo;s approach
+      before he actually appeared. Then a white cloud of dust arose towards the
+      verge of the horizon, below which a part of the plain began soon to
+      darken; presently gleams of light were seen to flash out from the dense
+      mass which was advancing, the serried lines of spears came into view, and
+      the component parts of the huge army grew to be discernible. On the
+      extreme left was a body of horsemen with white cuirasses, commanded by
+      Tissaphernes; next came infantry, carrying the long wicker shield, or <i>gerrhum</i>
+      then a solid square of Egyptians, heavily armed, and bearing wooden
+      shields that reached to the feet; then the contingents of many different
+      nations, some on foot, some on horseback, armed with bows and other
+      weapons. The line stretched away to the east further than the Greeks, who
+      were stationed on the right, could see, extending (as it would seem) more
+      than twice the distance which was covered by the army of Cyrus. Artaxerxes
+      was in the centre of his line, on horseback, surrounded by a mounted guard
+      of 6000 Persians. In front of the line, towards the river, were drawn up
+      at wide intervals a hundred and fifty scythed chariots, which were
+      designed to carry terror and confusion into the ranks of the Greeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other side, Cyrus had upon the extreme right a thousand
+      Paphlagonian cavalry with the more lightly armed of the Greeks; next, the
+      Greek heavy-armed, under Clearchus; and then his Asiatics, stretching in a
+      line to about the middle of his adversary&rsquo;s army, his own special command
+      being in the centre; and his left wing being led by the satrap, Ariaeus.
+      With Ariseus was posted the great mass of the cavalry; but a band of six
+      hundred, clad in complete armor, with their horses also partially armed,
+      waited on Cyrus himself, and accompanied him wherever he went. As the
+      enemy drew near, and Cyrus saw how much he was outflanked upon the left,
+      he made an attempt to remedy the evil by ordering Clearchus to move with
+      his troops from the extreme right to the extreme left of the line, where
+      he would be opposite to Artaxerxes himself. This, no doubt, would have
+      been a hazardous movement to make in the face of a superior enemy; and
+      Clearchus, feeling this, and regarding the execution of the order as left
+      to his discretion, declined to move away from the river. Cyrus, who
+      trusted much to the Greek general&rsquo;s judgment, did not any further press
+      the change, but prepared to fight the battle as he stood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The combat began upon the right. When the enemy had approached within six
+      or seven hundred yards, the impatience of the Greeks to engage could not
+      be restrained. They sang the paean and started forwards at a pace which in
+      a short time became a run. The Persians did not await their charge. The
+      drivers leaped from their chariots, the line of battle behind them
+      wavered, and then turned and fled without striking a blow. One Greek only
+      was wounded by an arrow. As for the scythed chariots, they damaged their
+      own side more than the Greeks; for the frightened horses in many cases,
+      carried the vehicles into the thick of the fugitives, while the Greeks
+      opened their ranks and gave passage to such as charged in an opposite
+      direction. Moderating their pace so as to preserve their tactical
+      arrangement, but still advancing with great rapidity, the Greeks pressed
+      on the flying enemy, and pursued him a distance of two or three miles,
+      never giving a thought to Cyrus, who, they supposed, would conquer those
+      opposed to him with as much ease as themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the prince meanwhile was in difficulties. Finding himself outnumbered
+      and outflanked, and fearing that his whole army would be surrounded, and
+      even the victorious Greeks attacked in the rear, he set all upon one
+      desperate cast and charged with his Six Hundred against the six thousand
+      horse who protected his brother. Artagerses, their commander, who met him
+      with a Homeric invective, he slew with his own hand. The six thousand were
+      routed and took to flight; the person of the king was exposed to view; and
+      Cyrus, transported at the sight, rushed forward shouting, &ldquo;I see the man,&rdquo;
+       and hurling his javelin, struck him straight upon the breast, with such
+      force that the cuirass was pierced and a slight flesh-wound inflicted. The
+      king fell from his horse; but at the same moment Cyrus received a wound
+      beneath the eye from the javelin of a Persian, and in the melee which
+      followed he was slain with eight of his followers. The Six Hundred could
+      lend no effectual aid, because they had rashly dispersed in pursuit of the
+      flying enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the whole contest was a personal one, the victory was now decided.
+      Fighting, however, continued till nightfall. On learning the death of
+      their leader, the Asiatic troops under Ariseus fled&mdash;first to their
+      camp, and then, when Artaxerxes attacked them there, to the last night&rsquo;s
+      station. The Grecian camp was assaulted by Tissaphernes, who at the
+      beginning of the battle had charged through the Greek light-armed, without
+      however, inflicting on them any loss, and had then pressed on, thinking to
+      capture the Grecian baggage. But the guard defended their camp with
+      success, and slew many of the assailants. Tissaphernes and the king drew
+      off after a while, and retraced their steps, in order to complete the
+      victory by routing the troops of Clearchus. Clearchus was at the same time
+      returning from his pursuit, having heard that his camp was in danger, and
+      as the two bodies of troops approached, he found his right threatened by
+      the entire host of the enemy, which might have lapped round it and
+      attacked it in front, in flank, and in rear. To escape this peril he was
+      about to wheel his line and make it rest alone its whole extent upon the
+      river, when the Persians passed him and resumed the position which they
+      had occupied at the beginning of the battle. They were then about to
+      attack, when once more the Greeks anticipated them and charged. The effect
+      was again ludicrous. The Persians would not abide the onset, but fled
+      faster than before. The Greeks pursued them to a village, close by which
+      was a knoll or mound, whither the fugitives had betaken themselves. Again
+      the Greeks made a movement in advance, and immediately the flight
+      recommenced. The last rays of the setting sun fell on scattered masses of
+      Persian horse and foot flying in all directions over the plain from the
+      little band of Greeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle of Cunaxa was a double blow to the Persian power. By the death
+      of Cyrus there was lost the sole chance that existed of such a
+      re-invigoration of the Empire as might have enabled it to start again on a
+      new lease of life, with ability to held its own, and strength to resume
+      once more the aggressive attitude of former times. The talents of Cyrus
+      have perhaps been overrated, but he was certainly very superior to most
+      Orientals; and there can be no doubt that the Empire would have greatly
+      gained by the substitution of his rule for that of his brother. He was
+      active, energetic, prompt indeed, ready in speech, faithful in the
+      observance of his engagements, brave, liberal&mdash;he had more foresight
+      and more self-contro than most Asiatics; he knew how to deal with
+      different classes of men; he had a great power of inspiring affection and
+      retaining it; he was free from the folly of national prejudice, and could
+      appreciate as they deserved both the character and the institutions of
+      foreigners. It is likely that he would have proved a better administrator
+      and ruler than any king of Persia since Darius Hystaspis. He would,
+      therefore, undoubtedly have raised his country to some extent. Whether he
+      could really have arrested its decline, and enabled it to avenge the
+      humiliations of Marathon, Salamis, and the peace of Callias, is, however,
+      exceedingly doubtful. For Cyrus, though he had considerable merits, was
+      not without great and grievous defects. As the Tartar is said always to
+      underlie the Russ, so the true Oriental underlay that coating of Grecian
+      manners and modes of thought and act, with which a real admiration of the
+      Hellenic race induced Cyrus to conceal his native barbarism. When he slew
+      his cousins for an act which he chose to construe as disrespect, and when
+      he executed Orontes for contemplated desertion, secretly and silently, so
+      that no one knew his fate, when transported with jealous rage he rushed
+      madly upon his brother, exposing to hazard the success of all his
+      carefully formed plans, and in fact ruining his cause, the acquired habits
+      of the Phil-Hellene gave way, and the native ferocity of the Asiatic came
+      to the surface. We see Cyrus under favorable circumstances, while
+      conciliation, tact, and self-restraint were necessities of his position,
+      without which he could not possibly gain his ends&mdash;we do not know
+      what effect success and the possession of supreme power might have had
+      upon his temper and conduct; but from the acts above-mentioned we may at
+      any rate suspect that the result would have been very injurious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, intellectually, Cyrus is only great for an Asiatic. He has more
+      method, more foresight, more power of combination, more breadth of mind
+      than the other Asiatics of his day, or than the vast mass of Asiatics of
+      any day. But he is not entitled to the praise of a great administrator or
+      of a great general. His three years&rsquo; administration of Asia Minor was
+      chiefly marked by a barbarous severity towards criminals, and by a lavish
+      expenditure of the resources of his government, which left him in actual
+      want at the moment when he was about to commence his expedition. His
+      generalship failed signally at the battle of Cunaxa, for the loss of which
+      he is far more to be blamed than Clearchus. As he well knew that
+      Artaxerxes was sure to occupy the centre of his line of battle, he should
+      have placed his Greeks in the middle of his own line, not at one
+      extremity. When he saw how much his adversary outflanked him on the left&mdash;a
+      contingency which was so probable that it ought to have occurred to him
+      beforehand&mdash;he should have deployed his line in that direction,
+      instead of ordering such a movement as Clearchus, not unwisely, declined
+      to execute. He might have trusted the Greeks to fight in line, as they had
+      fought at Marathon; and by expanding their ranks, and moving off his
+      Asiatics to the left, he might, have avoided the danger of being
+      outflanked and surrounded. But his capital error was the wildness and
+      abandon of his charge with the Six Hundred&mdash;a charge which it was
+      probably right to make under the circumstances, but which required a
+      combination of coolness and courage that the Persian prince evidently did
+      not possess when his feelings were excited. Had he kept his Six Hundred
+      well in hand, checked their pursuit, and abstained from thrusting his own
+      person into unnecessary danger, he might have joined the Greeks as they
+      returned from their first victory and participated in their final triumph.
+      At the same time, Clearchus cannot but be blamed for pushing his suit too
+      far. If, when the enemy in his front fled, he had at once turned against
+      those who were engaging Cyrus, taking them on their left flank, which must
+      have been completely uncovered, he might have been in time to prevent the
+      fatal results of the rash charge made by his leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the death of Cyrus, though a calamity to Persia, was scarcely the
+      great loss which it has been represented. A far worse result of the
+      Cyreian expedition was the revelation which it made of the weakness of
+      Persia, and of the facility with which a Greek force might penetrate to
+      the very midst of the Empire, defeat the largest army that could be
+      brought against it, and remain, or return, as it might think proper.
+      Hitherto Babylon and Susa had been, even to the mind of a Greek statesman,
+      remote localities, which it would be the extreme of rashness to attempt to
+      reach by force of arms, and from which it would be utter folly to suppose
+      that a single man could return alive except by permission of the Great
+      King. Henceforth these towns were looked upon as prizes quite within the
+      legitimate scope of Greek ambition, and their conquest came to be viewed
+      as little more than a question of time. The opinion of inaccessibility,
+      which had been Persia&rsquo;s safeguard hitherto, was gone, and in its stead
+      grew up a conviction that the heart of the Empire might be reached with
+      very little difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It required, however, for the production of this whole change, not merely
+      that the advance to Cunaxa should have been safely made, and the
+      immeasurable superiority of Greek to Asiatic soldiers there exhibited, but
+      also that the retreat should have been effected, as it was effected,
+      without disaster. Had the Ten Thousand perished under the attacks of the
+      Persian horse, or even under the weapons of the Kurds, or amid the snows
+      of Armenia, the opinion of Persian invulnerability would have been
+      strengthened rather than weakened by the expedition. But the return to
+      Greece of ten thousand men, who had defeated the hosts of the Great King
+      in the centre of his dominions, and fought their way back to the sea
+      without suffering more than the common casualties of war, was an evidence
+      of weakness which could not but become generally known, and of which all
+      could feel the force. Hence the retreat was as important as the battle. If
+      in late autumn and mid-winter a small Greek army, without maps or guides,
+      could make its way for a thousand miles through Asia, and encounter no foe
+      over whom it could not easily triumph, it was clear that the fabric of
+      Persian power was rotten, and would collapse on the first serious attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still, it will not be necessary to trace in detail the steps of the
+      retreat. It was the fact of the return, rather than the mode of its
+      accomplishment, which importantly affected the subsequent history of
+      Persia. We need only note that the retreat was successfully conducted in
+      spite, not merely of the military power of the Empire, but of the most
+      barefaced and cruel treachery&mdash;a fact which showed clearly the strong
+      desire that there was to hinder the invaders&rsquo; escape. Persia did not set
+      much store by her honor at this period; but she would scarcely have
+      pledged her word and broken it, without the slightest shadow of excuse,
+      unless she had regarded the object to be accomplished as one of vast
+      importance, and seen no other way which offered any prospect of the
+      desired result. Her failure, despite the success of her treachery, places
+      her military weakness in the strongest possible light. The Greeks, though
+      deprived of their leaders, deceived, surprised, and hemmed in by superior
+      numbers, amid terrific mountains, precipices, and snows, forced their way
+      by sheer dogged perseverance through all obstacles, and reached Trebizond
+      with the loss of not one fourth of their original number.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was also another discovery made during the return which partly
+      indicated the weakness of the Persian power, and partly accounted for it.
+      The Greeks had believed that the whole vast space enclosed between the
+      Black Sea, Caucasus, Caspian, and Jaxartes on the one hand, and the
+      Arabian Desert, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean on the other, was bound
+      together into one single centralized monarchy, all the resources of which
+      were wielded by a single arm. They now found that even towards the heart
+      of the empire, on the confines of Media and Assyria, there existed
+      independent tribes which set the arms of Persia at defiance; while towards
+      the verge of the old dominion whole provinces, once certainly held in
+      subjection, had fallen away from the declining State, and succeeded in
+      establishing their freedom. The nineteenth satrapy of Herodotus existed no
+      more; in lieu of it was a mass of warlike and autonomous tribes&mdash;Chalybes,
+      Taochi, Chaldeans, Macronians, Scythians, Colchians, Mosynoecians,
+      Tibarenians&mdash;whose services, if he needed them, the King of Persia
+      had to buy, while ordinarily their attitude towards him was one of
+      distrust and hostility. Judging of the unknown from the known, the Greeks
+      might reasonably conclude that in all parts of the Empire similar
+      defections had occurred, and that thus both the dimensions and the
+      resources of the state had suffered serious diminution, and fell far below
+      the conception which they had been accustomed to form of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The immediate consequence of the Cyreian expedition was a rupture between
+      Persia and Sparta. Sparta had given aid to Cyrus, and thus provoked the
+      hostility of the Great King. She was not inclined to apologize or to
+      recede. On the contrary, she saw in the circumstances of the expedition
+      strong grounds for anticipating great advantages to herself from a war
+      with so weak an antagonist. Having, therefore, secured the services of the
+      returned Ten Thousand, she undertook the protection of the Asiatic Greeks
+      against Persia, and carried on a war upon the continent against the
+      satraps of Lydia and Phrygia for the space of six years (B.C. 399 to B.C.
+      394). The disorganization of the Persian Empire became very manifest
+      during this period. So jealous were the two satraps of each other, that
+      either was willing at any time to make a truce with the Spartans on
+      condition that they proceeded to attack the other; and, on one occasion,
+      as much as thirty silver talents was paid by a satrap on the condition
+      that the war should be transferred from his own government to that, of his
+      rival. At the same time the native tribes were becoming more and more
+      inclined to rebel. The Mysians and Pisidians had for a long time been
+      practically independent. Now the Bithynians showed a disposition to shake
+      off the Persian yoke, while in Paphlagonia the native monarchs boldly
+      renounced their allegiance. Agesilaus, who carried on the war in Asia
+      Minor for three years, knew well how to avail himself of all these
+      advantageous circumstances; and it is not unlikely that he would have
+      effected the separation from Persia of the entire peninsula, had he been
+      able to continue the struggle a few years longer. But the league between
+      Argos, Thebes, and Corinth, which jealousy of Sparta caused and Persian
+      gold promoted, proved so formidable, that Agesilaus had to be summoned
+      home: and after his departure, Conon, in alliance with Pharnabazus,
+      recovered the supremacy of the sea for Athens, and greatly weakened
+      Spartan influence in Asia. Not content with this result, the two friends,
+      in the year B.C. 393, sailed across the Egean, and the portentous
+      spectacle of a Persian fleet in Greek waters was once more seen&mdash;this
+      time in alliance with Athens! Descents were made upon the coasts of the
+      Peloponnese, and the island of Cythera was seized and occupied. The long
+      walls of Athens were rebuilt with Persian money, and all the enemies of
+      Sparta were richly subsidized. Sparta was made to feel that if she had
+      been able at one time to make the Great King tremble for his provinces, or
+      even for his throne, the King could at another reach her across the Egean,
+      and approach Sparta as nearly as she had, with the Cyreians, approached
+      Babylon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lesson of the year B.C. 393 was not thrown away on the Spartan
+      government. The leading men became convinced that unless they could secure
+      the neutrality of the Persians, Sparta must succumb to the hostility of
+      her Hellenic enemies. Under these circumstances they devised, with much
+      skill, a scheme likely to be acceptable to the Persians, which would
+      weaken their chief rivals in Greece&mdash;Athens and Thebes&mdash;while it
+      would leave untouched their own power. They proposed a general peace, the
+      conditions of which should be the entire relinquishment of Asia to the
+      Persians, and the complete autonomy of all the Greek States in Europe. The
+      first attempt to procure the acceptance of these terms failed (B.C. 393);
+      but six years later, after Antalcidas had explained them at the Persian
+      Court, Artaxerxes sent down an ultimatum to the disputants, modifying the
+      terms slightly as regarded Athens, extending them as regarded himself so
+      as to include the islands of Clazomenae and Cyprus, and requiring their
+      acceptance by all the belligerents, on pain of their incurring his
+      hostility. To this threat all yielded. A Persian king may be excused if he
+      felt it a proud achievement thus to dictate a peace to the Greeks&mdash;a
+      peace, moreover, which annulled the treaty of Callias, and gave back
+      absolutely into his hands a province which had ceased to belong to his
+      Empire more than sixty years previously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the more important to Artaxerxes that his relations with the
+      European Greeks should be put upon a peaceful footing, since all the
+      resources of the Empire were wanted for the repression of disturbances
+      which had some years previously broken out in Cyprus. The exact date of
+      the Cyprian revolt under Evagoras, the Greek tyrant of Salamis, is
+      uncertain; but there is evidence that, at least as early as B.C. 391, he
+      was at open war with the power of Persia, and had made an alliance with
+      the Athenians, who both in that year and in B.C. 388 sent him aid.
+      Assisted also by Achoris, independent monarch of Egypt, and Hecatomnus,
+      vassal king of Caria, he was able to take the offensive, to conquer Tyre,
+      and extend his revolt into Cilicia and Idumaea. An expedition undertaken
+      against him by Autophradates, satrap of Lydia, seems to have failed. It
+      was the first object of the Persians, after concluding the &ldquo;Peace of
+      Antalcidas,&rdquo; to crush Evagoras. They collected 300 vessels, partly from
+      the Greeks of Asia, and brought together an army of 300,000 men. The fleet
+      of Evagoras numbered 200 triremes, and with these he ventured on an
+      attack, but was completely defeated by Tiribazus, who shut him up in
+      Salamis, and, after a struggle which continued for at least six years,
+      compelled him to submit to terms (B.C. 380 or 379). More fortunate than
+      former rebels, he obtained not merely a promise of pardon, which would
+      probably have been violated, but a recognition of his title, and
+      permission to remain in his government, with the single obligation of
+      furnishing to the Great King a certain annual tribute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the continuance of this war, Artaxerxes was personally engaged in
+      military operations in another part of his dominions. The Cadusians, who
+      inhabited the low and fertile tract between the Elburz range and the
+      Caspian, having revolted against his authority, Artaxerxes invaded their
+      territory at the head of an army which is estimated at 300,000 foot and
+      10,000 horse. The land was little cultivated, rugged, and covered with
+      constant fogs; the men were brave and warlike, and having admitted him
+      into their country, seem to have waylaid and intercepted his convoys. His
+      army was soon reduced to great straits, and forced to subsist on the
+      cavalry horses and the baggage-animals. A most disastrous result must have
+      followed, had not Tiribazus, who had been recalled from Cyprus on charges
+      preferred against him by the commander of the land force, Orontes,
+      contrived very artfully to induce the rebels to make their submission.
+      Artaxerxes was thus enabled to withdraw from the country without serious
+      disaster, having shown in his short campaign that he possessed the
+      qualities of a soldier, but was entirely deficient in those of a general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A time of comparative tranquillity seems to have followed the Cadusian
+      campaign. Artaxerxes strengthened his hold upon the Asiatic Greeks by
+      razing some of their towns and placing garrisons in others. His satraps
+      even ventured to commence the absorption of the islands off the coast; and
+      there is evidence that Sanaos, at any rate, was reduced and added to the
+      Empire. Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Idumaea were doubtless recovered soon
+      after the great defeat of Evagoras. There remained only one province in
+      this quarter which still maintained its revolt, and enjoyed, under native
+      monarchs, the advantages of independence. This was Egypt, which had now
+      continued free for above thirty years, since it shook off the yoke of
+      Darius Nothus. Artaxerxes, anxious to recover this portion of his
+      ancestral dominions, applied in B.C. 375 to Athens for the services of her
+      great general, Iphicrates. His request was granted, and in the next year a
+      vast armament was assembled at Acre under Iphicrates and Pharnabazus,
+      which effected a successful landing in the Delta at the Mendesian mouth of
+      the Nile, stormed the town commanding this branch of the river, and might
+      have taken Memphis, could the energetic advice of the Athenian have
+      stirred to action the sluggish temper of his Persian colleague. But
+      Pharnabazus declined to be hurried, and preferred to proceed leisurely and
+      according to rule. The result was that the season for hostilities passed
+      and nothing had been done. The Nile rose as the summer drew on, and
+      flooded most of the Delta; the expedition could effect nothing, and had to
+      return. Pharnabazus and Iphicrates parted amid mutual recriminations; and
+      the reduction of Egypt was deferred for above a quarter of a century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Greece, however, the Great King still retained that position of supreme
+      arbiter with which he had been invested at the &ldquo;Peace of Antalcidas.&rdquo; In
+      B.C. 372 Antalcidas was sent by Sparta a second time up to Susa, for the
+      purpose of obtaining an imperial rescript, prescribing the terms on which
+      the then existing hostilities among the Greeks should cease. In B.C. 367
+      Pelopidas and Ismenias proceeded with the same object from Thebes to the
+      Persian capital. In the following year a rescript, more in their favor
+      than former ones, was obtained by Athens. Thus every one of the leading
+      powers of Greece applied in turn to the Great King for his royal mandate,
+      so erecting him by common consent into a sort of superior, whose decision
+      was to be final in all cases of Greek quarrel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this external acknowledgment of the imperial greatness of Persia did
+      not, and could not, check the internal decay and tendency to
+      disintegration, which was gradually gaining head, and threatening the
+      speedy dissolution of the Empire. The long reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon was
+      now verging towards its close. He was advanced in years, and enfeebled in
+      mind and body, suspicious of his sons and of his nobles, especially of
+      such as showed more than common ability. Under these circumstances,
+      revolts on the part of satraps grew frequent. First Ariobarzanes, satrap
+      of Phrygia, renounced his allegiance (B.C. 366), and defended himself with
+      success against Autophradates, satrap of Lydia, and Mausolus, native king
+      of Caria under Persia, to whom the task of reducing him had been
+      entrusted. Then Aspis, who held a part of Cappadocia, revolted and
+      maintained himself by the help of the Pisidians, until he was overpowered
+      by Datames. Next Datames himself, satrap of the rest of Cappadocia,
+      understanding that Artaxerxes&rsquo; mind was poisoned against him, made a
+      treaty with Ariobarzanes, and assumed an independent attitude in his own
+      province. In this position he resisted all the efforts of Autophradates to
+      reduce him to obedience; and Artaxerxes condescended first to make terms
+      with him and then to remove him by treachery. Finally (B.C. 362), there
+      seems to have been something like a general revolt of the western
+      provinces, in which the satraps of Mysia, Phrygia, and Lydia, Mausolus,
+      prince of Caria, and the people of Lycia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Syria, and
+      Phoenicia participated. Tachos, king of Egypt, fomented the disturbances,
+      which were also secretly encouraged by the Spartans. A terrible conflict
+      appeared to be imminent; but it was avoided by the ordinary resources of
+      bribery and treachery. Orontes, satrap of Phrygia, and Rheomithras, one of
+      the revolted generals, yielding to the attractions of Persian gold,
+      deserted and betrayed their confederates. The insurrection was in this way
+      quelled, but it had raised hopes in Egypt, which did not at once subside.
+      Tachos, the native king, having secured the services of Agesilaus as
+      general, and of Chabrias, the Athenian, as admiral of his fleet, boldly
+      advanced into Syria, was well received by the Phoenicians, and commenced
+      the siege of some of the Syrian cities. Persia might have suffered
+      considerable loss in this quarter, had not the internal quarrels of the
+      Egyptians among themselves proved a better protection to her than her own
+      armies. Two pretenders to the throne sprang up as soon as Tachos had
+      quitted the country, and he was compelled to return to Egypt in order to
+      resist them. The force intended to strike a vigorous blow against the
+      power of Artaxerxes was dissipated in civil conflicts; and Persia had once
+      more to congratulate herself on the intestine divisions of her
+      adversaries. A few years after this, Artaxerxes died, having reigned
+      forty-six years, and lived, if we may trust Plutarch, ninety-four. Like
+      most of the later Persian kings, he was unfortunate in his domestic
+      relations. To his original queen, Statira, he was indeed fondly attached;
+      and she appears to have merited and returned his love, but in all other
+      respects his private life was unhappy. Its chief curse was Parysatis, the
+      queen-mother. This monster of cruelty held Artaxerxes in a species of
+      bondage during almost the whole of his long reign, and acted as if she
+      were the real sovereign of the country. She encouraged Cyrus in his
+      treason, and brought to most horrible ends all those who had been
+      prominent in frustrating it. She poisoned Statira out of hatred and
+      jealousy, because she had a certain degree of influence over her husband.
+      She encouraged Artaxerxes to contract an incestuous marriage with his
+      daughter Atossa, a marriage which proved a fertile source of further
+      calamities. Artaxerxes had three sons by Statira&mdash;Darius, Ariaspes,
+      and Ochus. Of these Darius, as the eldest, was formally declared the heir.
+      But Ochus, ambitious of reigning, intrigued with Atossa, and sought to
+      obtain the succession by her aid. So good seemed to Darius the chances of
+      his brother&rsquo;s success that he took the rash step of conspiring against the
+      life of his father, as the only way of securing the throne. His conspiracy
+      was detected, and he was seized and executed, Ariaspes thereby becoming
+      the eldest son, and so the natural heir. Ochus then persuaded Ariaspes
+      that he had offended his father, and was about to be put to a cruel and
+      ignominious death, whereupon that prince in despair committed suicide. His
+      elder brothers thus removed, there still remained one rival, whom Ochus
+      feared. This was Arsames, one of his half-brothers, an illegitimate son of
+      Artaxerxes, who stood high in his favor. Assassination was the weapon
+      employed to get rid of this rival. It is said that this last blow was too
+      much for the aged and unhappy king, who died of grief on receiving
+      intelligence of the murder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Artaxerxes was about the weakest of all the Persian monarchs. He was mild
+      in temperament, affable in demeanor, goodnatured, affectionate and
+      well-meaning. But, possessing no strength of will, he allowed the
+      commission of the most atrocious acts, the most horrible cruelties, by
+      those about him, who were bolder and more resolute than himself. The wife
+      and son, whom he fondly loved, were plotted against before his eyes; and
+      he had neither the skill to prevent nor the courage to avenge their fate.
+      Incapable of resisting entreaty and importunity, he granted boons which he
+      ought to have refused, and condoned offences which it would have been
+      proper to punish. He could not maintain long the most just resentment, but
+      remitted punishments even when they were far milder than the crime
+      deserved. He was fairly successful in the management of his relations with
+      foreign countries, and in the suppression of disturbances within his own
+      dominions; but he was quite incapable of anything like a strenuous and
+      prolonged effort to renovate and re-invigorate the Empire. If he held
+      together the territories which he inherited, and bequeathed them to his
+      successor augmented rather than diminished, it is to be attributed more to
+      his good fortune than to his merits, and to the mistakes of his opponents
+      than to his own prudence or sagacity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ochus, who obtained the crown in the manner related above, was the most
+      cruel and sanguinary of all the Persian kings. He is indeed the only
+      monarch of the Achaemenian line who appears to have been bloodthirsty by
+      temperament. His first act on finding himself acknowledged king (B.C. 359)
+      was to destroy, so far as he could, all the princes of the blood royal, in
+      order that he might have no rival to fear. He even, if we may believe
+      Justin, involved in this destruction a number of the princesses, whom any
+      but the most ruthless of despots would have spared. Having taken these
+      measures for his own security, he proceeded to show himself more active
+      and enterprising than any monarch since Longimanus. It was now nearly half
+      a century since one of the important provinces of the Empire&mdash;Egypt&mdash;had
+      successfully asserted its independence and restored the throne of its
+      native kings. General after general had been employed in vain attempts to
+      reduce the rebels to obedience. Ochus determined to attempt the recovery
+      of the revolted province in person. Though a rebellion had broken out in
+      Asia Minor, which being supported by Thebes, threatened to become serious,
+      he declined to be diverted from his enterprise. Levying a vast army, he
+      marched into Egypt, and engaged Noctanebo, the king, in a contest for
+      existence. Nectanebo, however, having obtained the services of two Greek
+      generals, Diophantus, an Athenian, and Lamius, a citizen of Sparta, boldly
+      met his enemy in the field, defeated him, and completely repulsed his
+      expedition. Hereupon the contagion of revolt spread. Phoenicia assumed
+      independence under the leadership of Sidon, expelled or massacred the
+      Persian garrisons, which held her cities, and formed an alliance with
+      Egypt. Her example was followed by Cyprus, where the kings of the nine
+      principal towns assumed each a separate sovereignty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chronology of this period is somewhat involved; but it seems probable
+      that the attack and failure of Ochus took place about B.C. 351; that the
+      revolts occurred in the next year, B.C. 350; while it was not till B.C.
+      346, or four years later, that Ochus undertook his second expedition into
+      these regions. He had, however, in the meanwhile, directed his generals or
+      feudatories, to attack the rebels, and bring them into subjection. The
+      Cyprian war he had committed to Idrieus, prince of Caria, who employed on
+      the service a body of 8000 Greek mercenaries, commanded by Phocion, the
+      Athenian, and Evagoras, son of the former Evagoras, the Cyprian monarch;
+      while he had committed to Belesys, satrap of Syria, and Mezseus, satrap of
+      Cilicia, the task of keeping the Phoenicians in check. Idrieus succeeded
+      in reducing Cyprus; but the two satraps suffered a single defeat at the
+      hands of Tennes, the Sidonian king, who was aided by 40,000 Greek
+      mercenaries, sent him by Nectanebo, and commanded by Mentor the Rhodian.
+      The Persian forces were driven out of Phoenicia; and Sidon had ample time
+      to strengthen its defences and make preparations for a desperate
+      resistance. The approach, however, of Ochus, at the head of an army of
+      330,000 men, shook the resolution of the Phoenician monarch, who
+      endeavored to purchase his own pardon by treacherously delivering up a
+      hundred of the principal citizens of Sidon into the hands of the Persian
+      king, and then admitting him within the defences of the town. Ochus, with
+      the savage cruelty which was his chief characteristic, caused the hundred
+      citizens to be transfixed with javelins, and when 500 more came out as
+      suppliants to entreat his mercy, relentlessly consigned them to the same
+      fate. Nor did the traitor Tennes derive any advantage from his guilty
+      bargain. Ochus, having obtained from him all he needed, instead of
+      rewarding his desertion, punished his rebellion with death. Hereupon the
+      Sidonians, understanding that they had nothing to hope from submission,
+      formed the dreadful resolution of destroying themselves and their town.
+      They had previously, to prevent the desertion of any of their number,
+      burnt their ships. Now they shut themselves up in their houses, and set
+      fire each to his own dwelling. Forty thousand persons lost their lives in
+      the conflagration; and the city was reduced to a heap of ruins, which
+      Ochus sold for a large sum. Thus ended the Phoenician revolt. Among its
+      most important results was the transfer of his services to the Persian
+      king on the part of Mentor the Rhodian, who appears to have been the
+      ablest of the mercenary leaders of whom Greece at this time produced so
+      many.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reduction of Sidon was followed closely by the invasion of Egypt.
+      Ochus, besides his 330,000 Asiatics, had now a force of 14,000 Greeks&mdash;6000
+      furnished by the Greek cities of Asia Minor; 4000 under Mentor, consisting
+      of the troops which he had brought to the aid of Tennes from Egypt; 3000
+      sent by Argos; and 1000 from Thebes. He divided his numerous armament into
+      three bodies, and placed at the head of each two generals&mdash;one
+      Persian and one Greek. The Greek commanders were Lacrates of Thebes,
+      Mentor of Rhodes, and Nicostratus of Argos, a man of enormous strength,
+      who regarded himself as a second Hercules, and adopted the traditional
+      costume of that hero&mdash;a club and a lion&rsquo;s skin. The Persians were
+      Rhossaces, Aristazanes, and Bagoas, the chief of the eunuchs. Nectanebo
+      was only able to oppose to this vast array an army less than one third of
+      the size. Twenty thousand, however, out of the 100,000 troops at his
+      disposal were Greeks; he occupied the Nile and its various branches with a
+      numerous navy the character of the country, intersected by numerous
+      canals, and full of strongly fortified towns, was in his favor; and he
+      might have been expected to make a prolonged, if not even a successful,
+      resistance. But he was deficient in generals, and over-confident in his
+      own powers of command: the Greek captains out-manoeuvred him; and no
+      sooner did he find one line of his defences forced than his ill-founded
+      confidence was exchanged for an alarm as little reasonable. He hastily
+      fell back upon Memphis, leaving the fortified towns to the defence of
+      their garrisons. These consisted of mixed troops, partly Greek and partly
+      Egyptian; between whom jealousies and suspicions were easily sown by the
+      Persian leaders, who by these means rapidly reduced the secondary cities
+      of Lower Egypt, and were advancing upon Memphis, when Nectanebo in despair
+      quitted the country and fled southwards to Ethiopia. All Egypt submitted
+      to Ochus, who demolished the walls of the cities, plundered the temples,
+      and after amply rewarding his mercenaries, returned to his own capital
+      with an immense booty, and with the glory of having successfully carried
+      through a most difficult and important enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been well observed that &ldquo;the reconquest of Egypt by Ochus must have
+      been one of the most impressive events of the age,&rdquo; and that it &ldquo;exalted
+      the Persian Empire in force and credit to a point nearly as high as it had
+      ever occupied before.&rdquo; Ochus not only redeemed by means of it his former
+      failure, but elevated himself in the opinions of men to a pitch of glory
+      such as no previous Persian king had reached, excepting Cyrus, Cambyses,
+      and the first Darius. Henceforth we hear of no more revolts or rebellions.
+      Mentor and Bagoas, the two generals who had most distinguished themselves
+      in the Egyptian campaign, were advanced by the gratitude of Ochus to posts
+      of the highest importance, in which their vigor and energy found ample
+      room to display themselves. Mentor, who was governor of the entire Asiatic
+      sea-board, exerted himself successfully to reduce to subjection the many
+      chiefs who during the recent troubles had assumed an independent
+      authority, and in the course of a few years brought once more the whole
+      coast into complete submission and dependence. Bagoas, carried with him by
+      Ochus to the capital, became the soul of the internal administration, and
+      maintained tranquillity throughout the rest of the Empire. The last six
+      years of the reign of Ochus form an exceptional period of vigorous and
+      successful government, such as occurs nowhere else in the history of the
+      later Persian monarchy. The credit of bringing about such a state of
+      things may be due especially to the king&rsquo;s officers, Bagoas and Mentor;
+      but a portion of it must reflect upon himself, as the person who selected
+      them, assigned them their respective tasks, and permanently maintained
+      them in office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was during this period of vigor and renewed life, when the Persian
+      monarchy seemed to have recovered almost its pristine force and strength,
+      that the attention of its rulers was called to a small cloud on the
+      distant horizon, which some were wise enough to see portended storm and
+      tempest. The growing power of Macedon, against which Demosthenes was at
+      this time in vain warning the careless Athenians, attracted the
+      consideration of Ochus or of his counsellors; and orders went forth from
+      the Court that Persian influence was to be used to check and depress the
+      rising kingdom. A force was consequently despatched to assist the Thracian
+      prince, Cersobleptes, to maintain his independence; and such effectual aid
+      was given to the city of Perinthus that the numerous and well-appointed
+      army with which Philip had commenced its siege was completely baffled and
+      compelled to give up the attempt (B.C. 340). The battle of Chseroneia had
+      not yet been fought, and Macedonia was still but one of the many states
+      which disputed for supremacy over Greece; but it is evident that she had
+      already awakened the suspicions of Persia, which saw a rival and a
+      possible assailant in the rapidly growing monarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Greater and more systematic efforts might possibly have been made, and the
+      power of Macedon might perhaps have been kept within bounds, had not the
+      inveterate evil of conspiracy and revolution once more shown itself at the
+      Court, and paralyzed for a time the action of the Empire on communities
+      beyond its borders. Ochus, while he was a vigorous ruler and
+      administrator, was harsh and sanguinary. His violence and cruelty rendered
+      him hateful to his subjects; and it is not unlikely that they caused even
+      those who stood highest in his favor to feel insecure. Bagoas may have
+      feared that sooner or later he would himself be one of the monarch&rsquo;s
+      victims, and have been induced by a genuine alarm to remove the source of
+      his terrors. In the year B.C. 338 he poisoned Ochus, and placed upon the
+      throne his youngest son, Arses, at the same time assassinating all the
+      brothers of the new monarch. It was evidently his aim to exercise the
+      supreme power himself, as counsellor to a prince who owed his position to
+      him, and who was moreover little more than a boy. But Arses, though
+      subservient for a year or two, began, as he grew older, to show that he
+      had a will of his own, and was even heard to utter threats against his
+      benefactor whereupon Bagoas, accustomed now to crime, secured himself by a
+      fresh series of murders. He caused Arses and his infant children to be
+      assassinated, and selected one of his friends, Codomannus, the son of
+      Arsanes, to fill the vacant throne. About the same time (B.C. 336), Philip
+      of Macedon was assassinated by the incensed Pausanias; and the two new
+      monarchs&mdash;Codomannus, who took the name of Darius, and Alexander the
+      Great&mdash;assumed their respective sceptres almost simultaneously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Codomannus, the last of the Persian kings, might with some reason have
+      complained, like Plato, that nature had brought him in the world too late.
+      Personally brave, as he proved himself into the Cadusian war, tall and
+      strikingly handsome, amiable in temper, capable of considerable exertion,
+      and not altogether devoid of military capacity, he would have been a
+      fairly good ruler in ordinary times, and might, had he fallen upon such
+      times, have held an honorable place among the Persian monarchs. But he was
+      unequal to the difficulties of such a position as that in which he found
+      himself. Raised to the throne after the victory of Chaeroneia had placed
+      Philip at the head of Greece, and when a portion of the Macedonian forces
+      had already passed into Asia, he was called upon to grapple at once with a
+      danger of the most formidable kind, and had but little time for
+      preparation. It is true that Philip&rsquo;s death soon after his own accession
+      gave him a short breathing-space: but at the same time it threw him off
+      his guard. The military talents of Alexander were untried, and of course
+      unknown; the perils which he had to encounter were patent. Codomannus may
+      be excused if for some months after Alexander&rsquo;s accession he slackened his
+      preparations for defence, uncertain whether the new monarch would maintain
+      himself, whether he would overpower the combinations which were formed
+      against him in Greece, whether he would inherit his father&rsquo;s genius for
+      war, or adopt his ambitious projects. It would have been wiser, no doubt,
+      as the event proved, to have joined heart and soul with Alexander&rsquo;s
+      European enemies, and to have carried the war at once to the other side of
+      the Egean. But no great blame attaches to the Persian monarch for his
+      brief inaction. As soon as the Macedonian prince had shown by his
+      campaigns in Thrace, Illyria, and Boeotia that he was a person to be
+      dreaded, Darius Codomannus renewed the preparations which he had
+      discontinued, and pushed them forward with all the speed that was
+      possible. A fleet was rapidly got ready: the satraps of Asia Minor were
+      reinforced with troops of good quality from the interior of the Empire,
+      and were ordered to raise a strong force of mercenaries; money was sent
+      into Greece to the Lacedaemonians and others in order to induce them to
+      create disturbances in Europe; above all, Memnon the Rhodian, a brother of
+      Mentor, and a commander of approved skill, was sent to the Hellespont, at
+      the head of a body of Greeks in Persian pay, with an authority co-ordinate
+      to that of the satraps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain amount of success at first attended these measures. Memnon was
+      able to act on the offensive in North-Western Asia. He marched upon
+      Cyzicus and was within a little of surprising it, obtaining from the lands
+      and villas without the walls an immense booty. He forced Parmenio to raise
+      the seige of Pitane; and when Callas, one of the Macedonian leaders,
+      endeavored to improve the condition of things by meeting the Persian
+      forces in the open field, he suffered a defeat and was compelled to throw
+      himself into Rhoeteum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These advantages, however, were detrimental rather than serviceable to the
+      Persian cause; since they encouraged the Persian satraps to regard the
+      Macedonians as an enemy no more formidable than the various tribes of
+      Greeks with whom they had now carried on war in Asia Minor for
+      considerably more than a century. The intended invasion of Alexander
+      seemed to them a matter of no great moment&mdash;to be classed with
+      expeditions like those of Thimbron and Agesilaus, not to need, as it
+      really did, to be placed in a category of its own. Accordingly, they made
+      no efforts to dispute the passage of the Hellespont, or to oppose the
+      landing of the expedition on the Asiatic shore. Alexander was allowed to
+      transport a force of 30,000 foot and 4000 or 5000 horse from the
+      Chersonese to Mysia without the slightest interference on the part of the
+      enemy, notwithstanding that his naval power was weak and that of the
+      Persians very considerable. This is one of those pieces of remissness in
+      the Persian conduct of military matters, whereof we have already had to
+      note signal instances, and which constantly caused the failure of very
+      elaborate and judicious preparations to meet a danger. Great efforts had
+      been made to collect and equip a numerous fleet, and a few weeks later it
+      was all-powerful in the Egean. But it was absent exactly at the time when
+      it was wanted. Alexander&rsquo;s passage and landing were unopposed, and the
+      Persians thus admitted within the Empire without a struggle the enemy who
+      was fated to destroy it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Persian commanders heard that Alexander was in Asia, they were
+      anxious to give him battle. One alone, the Rhodian Greek, Memnon, proposed
+      and urged a wholly different plan of operations. Memnon advised that a
+      general engagement should be avoided, that the entire country should be
+      laid waste, and even the cities burnt, while the army should retire, cut
+      off stragglers, and seek to bring the enemy into difficulties. At the same
+      time he recommended that the fleet should be brought up, a strong land
+      force embarked on board it, and an effort made to transfer the war into
+      Europe. But Memnon&rsquo;s colleagues, the satraps and commandants of the
+      north-western portion of Asia Minor, could not bring themselves to see
+      that circumstances required a line of action which they regarded as
+      ignominious. It is not necessary to attribute to them personal or selfish
+      motives. They probably thought honestly that they were a match for
+      Alexander with the troops at their disposal, and viewed retreat before an
+      enemy numerically weaker than themselves as a disgrace not to be endured
+      unless its necessity was palpable. Accordingly they determined to give the
+      invader battle. Supposing that Alexander, having crossed into Asia at
+      Abydos, would proceed to attack Dascyleium, the nearest satrapial capital,
+      they took post on the Granicus, and prepared to dispute the further
+      advance of the Macedonian army. They had collected a force of 20,000
+      cavalry of the best quality that the Empire afforded, and nearly the same
+      number of infantry, who were chiefly, if not solely, Greek mercenaries.
+      With these they determined to defend the passage of the small stream above
+      mentioned&mdash;one of the many which flow from the northern flank of Ida
+      into the Propontis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle thus offered was eagerly accepted by the Macedonian. If he
+      could not defeat with ease a Persian force not greatly exceeding his own,
+      he had miscalculated the relative goodness of the soldiers on either side,
+      and might as well desist from the expedition. Accordingly, he no sooner
+      came to the bank of the river, and saw the enemy drawn up on the other
+      side, than, rejecting the advice of Parmenio to wait till the next day, he
+      gave orders that the whole army should enter the stream and advance across
+      it. The Granicus was in most places fordable; but there were occasional
+      deeper parts, which had to be avoided; and there was thus some difficulty
+      in reaching the opposite bank in line. That bank itself was generally
+      steep and precipitous, but offered also several gentle slopes where a
+      landing was comparatively easy. The Persians had drawn up their cavalry
+      along the line of the river close to the water&rsquo;s edge, and had placed
+      their infantry in the rear. Alexander consequently attacked with his
+      cavalry. The engagement began upon the right. Amytas and Ptolemy, who were
+      the first to reach the opposite bank, met with a strenuous resistance and
+      were driven back into the stream by the forces of Memnon and his sons. The
+      battle, however, on this side was restored by Alexander himself, who
+      gradually forced the Persians back after a long hand-to-hand fight, in
+      which he received a slight wound, and slew with his own hand several noble
+      Persians. Elsewhere the resistance was less determined. Parmenio crossed
+      on the left with comparative ease, by his advance relieving Alexander. The
+      Persians found the long spears of the Macedonians and their intermixture
+      of light-armed foot with heavy-armed cavalry irresistible. The Macedonians
+      seem to have received orders to strike at their adversaries&rsquo; faces&mdash;a
+      style of warfare which was as unpleasant to the Persians as it was to the
+      soldiers of Pompey at Pharsalia. Their line was broken where it was
+      opposed to Alexander and his immediate companions; but the contagion of
+      disorder rapidly spread, and the whole body of the cavalry shortly quitted
+      the field, after having lost a thousand of their number. Only the infantry
+      now remained. Against these the Macedonian phalanx was brought up in
+      front, while the cavalry made repeated charges on either flank with
+      overwhelming effect. Deserted by their horse, vastly outnumbered, and
+      attacked on all sides, the brave mercenaries stood firm, fought with
+      desperation, and were mostly slaughtered where they stood. Two thousand
+      out of the 20,000&mdash;probably wounded men&mdash;were made prisoners.
+      The rest perished, except a few who lay concealed among the heaps of
+      slain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians lost by the battle 20,000 of their best footmen, and one or
+      two thousand horse. Among their slain the proportion of men of rank was
+      unusually large. The list included Spithridates, satrap of Lydia,
+      Mithrobarzanes, governor of Cappadocia, Pharnaces, a brother-in-law, and
+      Mithridates, a son-in-law of Darius, Arbupales, a grandson of Artaxerxes
+      Mnemon, Omares, the commander of the mercenaries, Niphates, Petines, and
+      Ehoesaces, generals. The Greek loss is said to have been exceedingly
+      small. Aristobulus made the total number of the slain thirty-four; Arrian
+      gives it as one hundred and fifteen, or a little over. It has been
+      suspected that even the latter estimate is below the truth; but the
+      analogy furnished by the other great victories of the Greeks over the
+      Persians tends rather to confirm Arrian&rsquo;s statement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle of the Granicus threw open to Alexander the whole of Asia
+      Minor. There was no force left in the entire country that could venture to
+      resist him, unless protected by walls. Accordingly, the Macedonian
+      operations for the next twelve months, or during nearly the whole space
+      that intervened between the battles of the Granicus and of Issus, consist
+      of little more than a series of marches and sieges. The reader of Persian
+      history will scarcely wish for an account of these operations in detail.
+      Suffice it to say that Alexander rapidly overran Lydia, Ionia, Caria,
+      Lycia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Phrygia, besieged and took Miletus,
+      Halicarnassus, Marmareis, and Sagalassus, and received the submission of
+      Dascyleium, Sardis, Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, the Lycian Telmisseis,
+      Pinara, Xanthus, Patara, Phaselis, Side, Aspendus, Celaenee, and Gordium.
+      This last city was the capital of Phrygia; and there the conqueror for the
+      first time since his landing gave himself and his army a few months&rsquo; rest
+      during the latter part of the winter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the first breath of spring his forces were again in motion. Hitherto
+      anxious with respect to the state of things on the coast and in Greece, he
+      had remained in the western half of Asia Minor, within call of his friends
+      in Macedonia, at no time distant more than about 200 miles from the sea.
+      Now intelligence reached him which made him feel at liberty to advance
+      into the interior of Asia. Memnon the Rhodian fell sick and died in the
+      early spring of B.C. 333. It is strange that so much should have depended
+      on a single life; but it certainly seems that there was no one in the
+      Persian service who, on Memnon&rsquo;s death, could replace him&mdash;no one
+      fitted for the difficult task of uniting Greeks and Asiatics together,
+      capable of influencing and managing the one while he preserved the
+      confidence of the other. Memnon&rsquo;s death disconcerted all the plans of the
+      Great King, who till it occurred had fully intended to carry the war into
+      his enemy&rsquo;s country. It induced Darius even to give up the notion of
+      maintaining a powerful fleet, and to transfer to the land service the most
+      efficient of his naval forces. At the same time it set Alexander free to
+      march wherever he liked, liberating him from the keen anxiety, which he
+      had previously felt, as to the maintenance of the Macedonian power in
+      Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It now became the object of the Persian king to confront the daring
+      invader of his Western provinces with an army worthy of the Persian name
+      and proportionate to the vastness of the Empire. He had long been
+      collecting troops from many of the most warlike nations, and had got
+      together a force of several hundred thousand men. Forgetting the lessons
+      of his country&rsquo;s previous history, he flattered himself that the host
+      which he had brought together was irresistible, and became anxious to
+      hurry on a general engagement. Starting from Babylon, probably about the
+      time that Alexander left Gordium in Phrygia, he marched up the valley of
+      the Euphrates, and took up a position at Sochi, which was situated in a
+      large open plain, not far from the modern Lake of Antioch. On his arrival
+      there he heard that Alexander was in Cilicia at no great distance; and the
+      Greeks in his service assured him that it would not be long before the
+      Macedonian monarch would seek him out and accept his offer of battle. But
+      a severe attack of illness detained Alexander at Tarsus, and when he was a
+      little recovered, troubles in Western Cilicia, threatening his
+      communications with Greece, required his presence; so that Darius grew
+      impatient, and, believing that his enemy had no intention of advancing
+      further than Cilicia, resolved to seek him in that country. Quitting the
+      open plain of Sochi, he marched northwards, having the range of Amanus on
+      his left, almost as far as the thirty-seventh parallel, when turning
+      sharply to the west, he crossed the chain, and descended upon Issus, in
+      the inner recess of the gulf which bore the same name. Here he came upon
+      Alexander&rsquo;s hospitals, and found himself to his surprise in the rear of
+      his adversary, who, while Darius was proceeding northwards along the
+      eastern flank of Amanus, had been marching southwards between the western
+      flank of the same range and the sea. Alexander had crossed the Pylse, or
+      narrowest portion of the pass, and had reached Myriandrus&mdash;a little
+      beyond Iskonderum&mdash;when news reached him that Darius had occupied
+      Issus in his rear, and had put to death all the sick and wounded
+      Macedonians whom he had found in the town. At first he could not credit
+      the intelligence; but when it was confirmed by scouts, whom he sent out,
+      he prepared instantly to retrace his steps, and to fight his first great
+      battle with the Persian king under circumstances which he felt to be
+      favorable beyond anything that he could have hoped. The tract of flat land
+      between the base of the mountains and the sea on the borders of the Gulf
+      of Issus was nowhere broader than about a mile and a half. The range of
+      Amanus on the east rose up with rugged and broken hills, so that on this
+      side the operations of cavalry were impracticable. It would be impossible
+      to form a line of battle containing in the front rank more than about 4000
+      men,1048 and difficult for either party to bring into action as many as
+      30,000 of their soldiers. Thus the vast superiority of numbers on the
+      Persian side became in such a position absolutely useless, and even
+      Alexander had more troops than he could well employ. No wonder that the
+      Macedonian should exclaim, that &ldquo;God had declared Himself on the Grecian
+      side by putting it into the heart of Darius to execute such a movement.&rdquo;
+       It may be that Alexander&rsquo;s superior generalship would have made him
+      victorious even on the open plain of Sochi; but in the defile of Issus
+      success was certain, and generalship superfluous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Darius had started from Issus in pursuit of his adversary, and had reached
+      the banks of the Pinarus, a small stream flowing westward from Amanus into
+      the Mediterranean, when he heard that Alexander had hastened to retrace
+      his stops, and was coming to meet him. Immediately he prepared for battle.
+      Passing a force of horse and foot across the stream in his front, to keep
+      his adversary in check if he advanced too rapidly, he drew up his best
+      troops along the line of the river in a continuous solid mass, the ranks
+      of which must have been at least twenty deep. Thirty thousand Greek
+      mercenaries formed the centre of the line, while on either side of them
+      were an equal number of Asiatic &ldquo;braves&rdquo;&mdash;picked probably from the
+      mass of the army. Twenty thousand troops of a lighter and inferior class
+      were placed upon the rough hills on the left, the outskirts of the Amanian
+      range, where the nature of the ground allowed them to encircle the
+      Macedonian right, which, to preserve its ranks unbroken, kept the plain.
+      The cavalry, to the number of 30,000, was massed upon the other wing, near
+      the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The battle began by certain movements of Alexander against the flank force
+      which menaced his right. These troops, assailed by the Macedonian
+      light-armed, retreated at once to higher ground, and by their manifest
+      cowardice freed Alexander from all anxiety on their account. Leaving 300
+      horse to keep the 20,000 in check, he moved on his whole line at a slow
+      pace towards the Pinarus till it came within bow-shot of the enemy, when
+      he gave the order to proceed at a run. The line advanced as commanded; but
+      before it could reach the river, the Persian horse on the extreme right,
+      unable to restrain themselves any longer, dashed across the shallow
+      stream, and assailed Alexander&rsquo;s left, where they engaged in a fierce
+      battle with the Thessalian cavalry, in which neither attained any decided
+      advantage. The infantry, meanwhile, came into conflict along the rest of
+      the line. Alexander himself, with the right and the right-centre, charged
+      the Asiatic troops on Darius&rsquo;s left, who, like their brethren at Cunaxa,
+      instantly broke and fled. Parmenio, with the left-centre, was less
+      successful. The north bank of the Pinarus was in this part steep and
+      defended by stakes in places; the Greek mercenaries were as brave as the
+      Macedonians, and fought valiantly. It was not till the troops which had
+      routed the Persian right began, to act against their centre, assailing it
+      upon the flank, while it was at the same time engaged in front, that the
+      mercenaries were overpowered and gave way. Seeing their defeat, the horse
+      likewise fled, and thus the rout became general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not quite clear what part Darius took in the battle, or how far he
+      was answerable for its untoward result. According to Arrian, he was struck
+      with a sudden panic on beholding the flight of his left wing, and gave
+      orders to his charioteer instantly to quit the field. But Curtius and
+      Diodorus represent him as engaged in a long struggle against Alexander
+      himself, and as only flying when he was in imminent danger of falling into
+      the enemy&rsquo;s hands. Justin goes further, and states that he was actually
+      wounded. The character gained by Darius in his earlier years makes it
+      improbable that he would under any circumstances have exhibited personal
+      cowardice. On the whole it would seem to be most probable that the flight
+      of the Persian monarch occurred, not when the left wing fled, but when the
+      Greek mercenaries among whom he had placed himself began to give way
+      before the irresistible phalanx and the impetuous charges of Alexander.
+      Darius, not unwisely, accepted the defeat of his best troops as the loss
+      of the battle, and hastily retired across Amanus by the pass which had
+      brought him to Issus, whence he hurried on through Sochi to the Euphrates,
+      anxious to place that obstacle between himself and his victorious enemy.
+      His multitudinous host, entangled in the defiles of the mountains,
+      suffered by its own weight and size, the stronger fugitives treading down
+      the weaker, while at the same time it was ruthlessly slaughtered by the
+      pursuing enemy, so long as the waning light allowed. As many as 100,000&mdash;90,000
+      foot and 10,000 horse&mdash;are said to have fallen. The ravines were in
+      places choked with the dead bodies, and Ptolemy the son of Lagus related
+      that in one instance he and Alexander crossed a gully on a bridge of this
+      kind. Among the slain were Sabaces, satrap of Egypt, Bubaces, a noble of
+      high rank, and Arsames, Rheomithres, and Atizyes, three of the commanders
+      at the Granicus. Forty thousand prisoners were made. The whole of the
+      Persian camp and camp-equipage fell into the enemy&rsquo;s hands, who found in
+      the royal pavilion the mother, wife, and sister of the king, an infant
+      son, two daughters, and a number of female attendants, wives of noblemen.
+      The treasure captured amounted to 3000 silver talents. Among the trophies
+      of victory were the chariot, bow, shield, and robe of the king, which he
+      had abandoned in his hurried flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The loss on the side of the Macedonians was trivial. The highest estimate
+      places it at 450 killed, the lowest at 182. Besides these, 504 were
+      wounded. Thus Alexander had less than 1000 men placed hors de combat. He
+      himself received a slight wound in the thigh from a sword, which, used a
+      little more resolutely, might have changed the fortunes of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The defeat of the Persians at Issus seems to have been due simply to the
+      fact that, practically, the two adversaries engaged with almost equal
+      numbers, and that the troops of Alexander were of vastly superior quality
+      to those of Darhis. The Asiatic infantry&mdash;notwithstanding their proud
+      title of &ldquo;braves&rdquo;&mdash;proved to be worthless; the Greek mercenaries were
+      personally courageous, but their inferior arms and training rendered them
+      incapable of coping with the Macedonian phalanx. The cavalry was the only
+      arm in which the Persians were not greatly at a disadvantage; and cavalry
+      alone cannot gain, or even save a battle. When Darius put himself into a
+      position where he lost all the advantages derivable from superiority of
+      numbers, he made his own defeat and his adversary&rsquo;s triumph certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It remained, therefore, before the Empire could be considered as entirely
+      lost, that this error should be corrected, this false step retrieved. All
+      hope for Persia was not gone, so long as her full force had not been met
+      and defeated in a fair and open field. When Darius fled from Issus, it was
+      not simply to preserve for a few months longer his own wretched life; it
+      was to make an effort to redeem the past&mdash;to give his country that
+      last chance of maintaining her independence which she had a right to claim
+      at his hands&mdash;to try what the award of battle would be under the
+      circumstances which he had fair grounds for regarding as the most
+      favorable possible to his own side and the most disadvantageous to his
+      adversary. Before the heart of the Empire could be reached from the West,
+      the wide Mesopotamian plain had to be traversed&mdash;there, in those vast
+      flats, across which the enemy must come, a position might be chosen where
+      there would be room for the largest numbers that even his enormous Empire
+      could furnish&mdash;where cavalry and even chariots would be everywhere
+      free to act&mdash;where consequently he might engage the puny force of his
+      antagonist to the greatest advantage, outflank it, envelop it, and perhaps
+      destroy it. Darius would have been inexcusable had he given up the contest
+      without trying this last chance&mdash;the chance of a battle in the open
+      field with the full collected force of Persia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His adversary gave him ample time to prepare for this final struggle. The
+      battle of Issus was fought in November, B.C. 333. It was not till the
+      summer of B.C. 331, twenty months later that the Macedonian forces were
+      set in motion towards the interior of the Empire. More than a year and a
+      half was consumed in the reduction of Phoenicia, the siege of Gaza, and
+      the occupation of Egypt. Alexander, apparently, was confident of defeating
+      Darius in a pitched battle, whenever and under whatever circumstances they
+      should again meet; and regarded as the only serious dangers which
+      threatened him, a possible interruption of his communications with Greece,
+      and the employment of Persian gold and Persian naval force in the raising
+      of troubles on the European side of the Egean. He was therefore
+      determined, before he plunged into the depth of the Asiatic continent, to
+      isolate Persia from Greece, to destroy her naval power, and to cripple her
+      pecuniary resources. The event showed that his decision was a wise one. By
+      detaching from Persia and bringing under his own sway the important
+      countries of Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, Idumsea, and Egypt, he wholly
+      deprived Persia of her navy, and transferred to himself the complete
+      supremacy of the sea, he greatly increased his own resources while he
+      diminished those of the enemy, and he shut out Persia altogether from
+      communication with Greece, excepting through his territories. He could
+      therefore commence his march into the interior with a feeling of entire
+      security as to his communications and his rear. No foe was left on the
+      coast capable of causing him a moment&rsquo;s uneasiness. Athens and Sparta
+      might chafe and even intrigue; but without the Persian &ldquo;archers,&rdquo; it was
+      impossible that any force should be raised which could in the slightest
+      degree imperil his European dominions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Babylon, whither Darius proceeded straight from Issus, he appears to
+      have made two ineffectual attempts at negotiating with his enemy. The
+      first embassy was despatched soon after his arrival, and, according to
+      Arrian, was instructed merely to make proposals for peace, and to request
+      the restitution of the Queen, the Queen-mother, Sisygambis, the infant
+      prince, and the two princesses, captured by Alexander. To this Alexander
+      replied, in haughty and contemptuous terms, that if Darius would
+      acknowledge him as Lord of Asia, and deliver himself into his power, he
+      should receive back his relatives: if he intended still to dispute the
+      sovereignty, he ought to come and fight out the contest, and not run away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second embassy was sent six or eight months later, while Alexander was
+      engaged in the siege of Tyre. Darius now offered, as a ransom for the
+      members of his family held in captivity by Alexander, the large sum of ten
+      thousand talents (L240,000.), and was willing to purchase peace by the
+      cession of all the provinces lying west of the Euphrates, several of which
+      were not yet in Alexander&rsquo;s possession. At the same time he proposed that
+      Alexander should marry his daughter, Statira, in order that the cession of
+      territory might be represented as the bestowal of a dowry. The reply of
+      Alexander was, if possible, ruder and haughtier than before. &ldquo;What did
+      Darius mean by offering money and territory? All his treasure and all his
+      territory were Alexander&rsquo;s already. As for the proposed marriage, if he
+      (Alexander) liked to marry a daughter of Darius, he should of course do
+      so, whether her father consented or not. If Darius wanted merciful
+      treatment, he had better come and deliver himself up at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The terms of this reply rendered further negotiation impossible. Darius
+      had probably not hoped much from his pacific overtures, and was therefore
+      not greatly concerned at their rejection. He knew that the members of his
+      family were honorably and even kindly treated by their captor, and that,
+      so far at any rate, Alexander had proved himself a magnanimous conqueror.
+      He can scarcely have thought that a lasting peace was possible between
+      himself and his young antagonist, who had only just fleshed his maiden
+      sword, and was naturally eager to pursue his career of conquest. Indeed,
+      he seems from the moment of his defeat at Issus to have looked forward to
+      another battle as inevitable, and to have been unremitting in his efforts
+      to collect and arm a force which might contend, with a good hope of
+      victory, against the Macedonians. He replaced the panoplies lost at Issus
+      with fresh ones; he armed his forces anew with swords and spears longer
+      than the Persians had been previously accustomed to employ, on account of
+      the great length of the Macedonian weapons; he caused to be constructed
+      200 scythed chariots; he prepared spiked balls to use against his enemy&rsquo;s
+      cavalry; above all, he laid under contribution for the supply of troops
+      all the provinces, even the most remote, of his extensive Empire, and
+      asked and obtained important aid from allies situated beyond his borders.
+      The forces which he collected for the final struggle comprised&mdash;besides
+      Persians, Medes, Babylonians, and Susianians from the centre of the Empire&mdash;Syrians
+      from the banks of the Orontes, Armenians from the neighborhood of Ararat,
+      Cappadocians and Albanians from the regions bordering on the Euxine,
+      Cadusians from the Caspian, Bactrians from the Upper Oxus, Sogdians from
+      the Jaxartes, Arachosians from Cabul, Arians from Herat, Indians from
+      Punjab, and even Sacse from the country about Kashgar and Yarkand, on the
+      borders of the Great Desert of Gobi. Twenty-five nations followed the
+      standard of the Great King, and swelled the ranks of his vast army, which
+      amounted (according to the best authorities) to above a million of men.
+      Every available resource that the Empire possessed was brought into play.
+      Besides the three arms of cavalry, infantry, and chariots, elephants were,
+      for perhaps the first time in the history of military science, marshalled
+      in the battle-field, to which they added an unwonted element of
+      grotesqueness and savagery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The field of battle was likewise selected with great care, and
+      artificially prepared for the encounter. Darius, it would seem, had at
+      last become convinced that his enemy would seek him out wherever he might
+      happen to be, and that consequently the choice of ground rested wholly
+      with himself. Leaving, therefore, the direct road to Babylon by the line
+      of the Euphrates undefended, he selected a position which possessed all
+      the advantages of the Mesopotamian plain, being open, level, fertile, and
+      well supplied with water, while its vicinity to the eastern and northern
+      provinces, made it convenient for a rendezvous. This position was on the
+      left or east bank of the Tigris, in the heart of the ancient Assyria, not
+      more than thirty miles from the site of Nineveh. Here, in the region
+      called by the Greeks Adiabene, extended between the Tigris and the river
+      Zab or Lycus, a vast plain broken by scarcely any elevations, and wholly
+      bare of both shrubs and trees. The few natural inequalities which
+      presented themselves were levelled by order of Darius, who made the entire
+      plain in his front practicable not only for cavalry but for chariots. At
+      the same time he planted, in the places where Alexander&rsquo;s cavalry was
+      likely to charge, spiked balls to damage the feet of the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Alexander had quitted Egypt, and after delaying some months in
+      Syria while his preparations were being completed, had crossed the
+      Euphrates at Thapsacus and marched through northern Mesopotamia along the
+      southern flank of the Mons Masius, a district in which provisions, water,
+      and forage were abundant, to the Tigris, which he must have reached in
+      about lat. 36° 30&rsquo;, thirty or forty miles above the site of Nineveh. No
+      resistance was made to his advance; even the passage of the great rivers
+      was unopposed. Arrived on the east bank of the Tigris, Alexander found
+      himself in Assyria Proper, with the stream upon his right and the
+      mountains of Gordyene Kurdistan at no great distance upon his left. But
+      the plain widened as he advanced, and became, as he drew near the position
+      of his enemy, a vast level, nowhere less than thirty miles in breadth,
+      between the outlying ranges of hills and the great river. Darius, whose
+      headquarters had been at Arbela, south of the Zab, on learning Alexander&rsquo;s
+      approach, had crossed that stream and taken post on the prepared ground to
+      the north, in the neighborhood of a small town or village called
+      Gaugamela. Here he drew up his forces in the order which he thought best,
+      placing the scythed chariots in front, with supports of horse&mdash;Scythian,
+      Bactrian, Armenian, and Cappadocian&mdash;near to them; then, the main
+      line of battle, divided into a centre and two wings, and composed of horse
+      and foot intermixed; and finally a reserve of Babylonians. Sitaceni, and
+      others, massed in heavy column in the rear. His own post was, according to
+      invariable Persian custom, in the centre; and about him were grouped the
+      best troops&mdash;the Household brigade, the Melophori or Persian
+      foot-guards, the Mardian archers, some Albanians and Carians, the entire
+      body of Greek mercenaries, and the Indians with their elephants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexander, on his side, determined to leave nothing to chance. Advancing
+      leisurely, resting his troops at intervals, carefully feeling his way by
+      means of scouts, and gradually learning from the prisoners whom he took,
+      and the deserters who came over to him, all the dispositions and
+      preparations of the enemy, he arrived opposite the position of Darius on
+      the ninth day after his passage of the Tigris. His officers were eager to
+      attack at once; but with great judgment he restrained them, gave his
+      troops a night&rsquo;s rest, and obtained time to reconnoitre completely the
+      whole position of the enemy and the arrangement which he had made of his
+      forces. He then formed his own dispositions. The army with which he was to
+      attack above a million of men consisted of 40,300 foot and 7000 horse.
+      Alexander drew them up in three lines:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first consisted of light-armed troops, horse and foot, of good
+      quality, which were especially intended to act against the enemy&rsquo;s
+      chariots. The next was the main line of battle, and contained the phalanx
+      with the rest of the heavy infantry in the centre, the heavy cavalry upon
+      the two wings. The third line consisted of light troops, chiefly horse,
+      and was instructed to act against such of the Persians as should outflank
+      the Macedonian main line and so threaten their rear. As at Issus,
+      Alexander took the command of the right wing himself, and assigned the
+      left to Parmenio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the two armies drew near, Alexander, who found himself greatly
+      outflanked on both wings, and saw in front of him smooth ground carefully
+      prepared for the operations of chariots and cavalry, began a diagonal
+      movement towards the right, which tended at once to place him beyond the
+      levelled ground, and to bring him in contact with his enemy&rsquo;s left wing
+      rather than with his direct front. The movement greatly disconcerted his
+      adversary, who sought to prevent it by extending and advancing his own
+      left, which was soon engaged with Alexander&rsquo;s right in a fierce
+      hand-to-hand conflict. Alexander still pressed his slanting movement, and
+      in resisting it Darius&rsquo;s left became separated from his centre, while at
+      the same time he was forced to give the signal for launching the chariots
+      against the foe sooner than he had intended, and under circumstances that
+      were not favorable. The effect of the operation was much the same as at
+      Cunaxa. Received by the Macedonian light-armed, the chariots were mostly
+      disabled before the enemy&rsquo;s main line was reached; the drivers were
+      dragged from the chariot-boards; and the horses were cut to pieces. Such
+      as escaped this fate and charged the Macedonian line, were allowed to pass
+      through the ranks, which opened to receive them, and were then dealt with
+      by grooms and others in the rear of the army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had the chariot attack failed, and the space between the two
+      lines of battle become clear, than Alexander, with the quick eye of a true
+      general, saw his opportunity: to resist his flank movement, the Bactrians
+      and Sacae with the greater part of the left wing had broken off from the
+      main Persian line, and in pressing towards the left had made a gap between
+      their ranks and the centre. Into this gap the Macedonian king, at the head
+      of the &ldquo;Companion&rdquo; cavalry and a portion of the phalanx, plunged. Here he
+      found himself in the near neighborhood of Darius, whereupon he redoubled
+      the vigor of his assault, knowing the great importance of any success
+      gained in this quarter. The Companions rushed on with loud cries, pressing
+      with all their weight, and thrusting their spears into the faces of their
+      antagonists&mdash;the phalanx, bristling with its thick array of lances,
+      bore them down. Alexander found himself sufficiently near Darius to hurl a
+      spear at him, which transfixed his charioteer. The cry arose that the king
+      had fallen, and the ranks at once grew unsteady. The more timid instantly
+      began to break and fly; the contagion of fear spread; and Darius was in a
+      little while almost denuded of protection on one side. Seeing this, and
+      regarding the battle as lost, since his line was broken, his centre and
+      left wing defeated, while only his right wing remained firm, the Persian
+      monarch yielded to his alarm, and hastily quitting the field, made his way
+      to Arbela. The centre and left fled with him. The right, which was under
+      the command of the Syrian satrap, Mazseus, made a firmer stand. On this
+      side the chariots had done some damage, and the horse was more than a
+      match for the Thessalian cavalry. Parmenio found himself in difficulties
+      about the time when the Persian king fled. His messengers detained a part
+      of the phalanx, which was about to engage in the pursuit, and even
+      recalled Alexander, who was hastening upon the track of Darius. The
+      careful prince turned back, but before he could make his way through the
+      crowd of fugitives to the side of his lieutenant, victory had declared in
+      favor of the Macedonians in this part of the field also. Mazseus and his
+      troops, learning that the king was fled, regarded further resistance as
+      useless, and quitted the field. The Persian army hurriedly recrossed the
+      Zab, pursued by the remorseless conquerors, who slew the unresisting
+      fugitives till they were weary of slaughter. Arrian says that 300,000
+      fell, while a still larger number were taken prisoners. Other writers make
+      the loss considerably less. All, however, agree that the army was
+      completely routed and dispersed, that it made no attempt to rally, and
+      gave no further trouble to the conqueror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conduct of Darius in this&mdash;the crisis of his fate&mdash;cannot be
+      approved; but it admits of palliation, and does not compel us to withdraw
+      from him that respectful compassion which we commonly accord to great
+      misfortunes. After Issus, it was his duty to make at least one more effort
+      against the invader. To this object he addressed himself with earnestness
+      and diligence. The number and quality of the troops collected at Arbela
+      attests at once the zeal and success of his endeavors. His choice and
+      careful preparation of the field of battle are commendable; in his
+      disposition of his forces there is nothing with which to find fault. Every
+      arm of the service had full room to act; all were brought into play; if
+      Alexander conquered, it was because he was a consummate general, while at
+      the same time he commanded the best troops in the world. Arbela was not,
+      like Issus, won by mere fighting. It was the leader&rsquo;s victory, rather than
+      the soldiers. Alexander&rsquo;s diagonal advance, the confusion which it caused,
+      the break in the Persian line, and its prompt occupation by some of the
+      best cavalry and a portion of the phalanx, are the turning-points of the
+      engagement. All the rest followed as a matter of course. Far too much
+      importance has been assigned to Darius&rsquo;s flight, which was the effect
+      rather than the cause of victory. When the centre of an Asiatic army is so
+      deeply penetrated that the person of the monarch is exposed and his near
+      attendants begin to fall, the battle is won. Darius did not&mdash;indeed
+      he could not&mdash;&ldquo;set the example of flight.&rdquo; Hemmed in by vast masses
+      of troops, it was not until their falling away from him on his left flank
+      at once exposed him to the enemy and gave him room to escape, that he
+      could extricate himself from the melee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No doubt it would have been nobler, finer, more heroic, had the Persian
+      monarch, seeing that all was lost, and that the Empire of the Persians was
+      over, resolved not to outlive the independence of his country. Had he died
+      in the thick of the fight, a halo of glory would have surrounded him. But,
+      because he lacked, in common with many other great kings and commanders,
+      the quality of heroism, we are not justified in affixing to his memory the
+      stigma of personal cowardice. Like Pompey, like Napoleon, he yielded in
+      the crisis of his fate to the instinct of self-preservation. He fled from
+      the field where he had lost his crown, not to organize a new army, not to
+      renew the contest, but to prolong for a few weeks a life which had ceased
+      to have any public value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is needless to pursue further the dissolution of the Empire. The fatal
+      blow was struck at Arbela&mdash;all the rest was but the long death-agony.
+      At Arbela the crown of Cyrua passed to the Macedonian; the Fifth Monarchy
+      came to an end. The HE-GOAT, with the notable horn between his eyes, had
+      come from the west to the ram which had two horns, and had run into him
+      with the fury of his power. He had come close to him, and, moved with
+      choler, had smitten the ram and broken his two horns&mdash;there was no
+      power in the ram to stand before him, but he had cast him down to the
+      ground and stamped upon him&mdash;and there was none to deliver the ram
+      out of his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The
+Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia, by George Rawlinson
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+</pre>
+  </body>
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