Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/595

EMPIRE.] PERSIA 567 Babylon seem to have submitted without resistance to the PersTans. The fortress of Gaza alone, in the land of the Philistines, perhaps defended itself for a time. 1 On the other hand, the Phoenician cities, some of which offered a sturdy resistance to other conquerors, submitted immedi ately, and remained steadily obedient to the Persians down almost to the end of the empire. It seems, however, that, as the real prop of the naval power of Persia, they were almost always treated with special consideration by the latter. In the very first year of his reign in Babylon 2 (538) Cyrus gave the Jewish exiles in Babylon leave to return home (2 Chron. xxxvi. 22 sq. = Ezra i. 1 sq.). Compara tively few availed themselves of this permission, but these few formed the starting-point of a development which has been of infinite importance for the history of the world. How far to the east Cyrus extended his dominion we do not know, but it is probable that all the countries to the east which are mentioned in the older inscriptions of Darius as in subjection or rebellion were already subject in the time of Cyrus. In this case Chorasmia (Kharezm ; the modern Khiva) and Sogdiana (Samarkand and Bokhara) belonged to him. Agreeably with this, Alexander found a city of Cyrus (Cyropolis) 3 on the Jaxartes, in the neighbour hood of the modern Kh6kand. He doubtless ruled also over large portions of the modern Afghanistan, though it is hardly likely that he ever made his way into the land of the Indus. The story of his unsuccessful march on India 4 seems to have been invented by way of contrast to Alexander s fortunate expedition. Different accounts of Cyrus s death were early current. Herodotus gives the well-known didactic story of the battle with Tomyris, queen of the Massageta?, as the most prob able of many which were told. If we accept Herodotus s statements, we must look for the Massagetae beyond the Jaxartes. In Ctesias Cyrus is mortally wounded in battle with the Derbices, who probably dwelt near the middle or upper Oxus. A fragment of Berosus 5 says that Cyrus fell in the land of the Dai (Dahas), i.e., in the modern Turkoman desert, perhaps in the southern or south-western portion of it ; this account may very well be derived from contem porary Babylonian records. Be that as it may, Cyrus met his death in battle with a savage tribe of the north-east. The battle was probably lost, but the Persians rescued his body, which was buried at Pasargadoe in the ancient land of his race. To this day there is to be seen at Murghab, north of Persepolis (on the telegraph line from Abiishehr to Teheran), the empty tomb and other remains of the great mausoleum, which Aristobulus, a companion of Alexander, described from his own observation 6 ; and on some pillars there the inscription is to be read : "I am Cyrus, the king, the Achsemenian." Till lately the same inscription was also to be found high on the pillar which bears in bas-relief a winged figure of a king. This figure is furnished with a "pshent," i.e., such an ornamented crown as is worn by kings and gods on Egyptian monuments. 7 This was no happened that, e.g. , the Behistun inscriptions of Darius should have been described to Ctesias as those of Semiramis (Diod. , ii. 13). 1 According to the conjecture of Valesius in Polyb., xvi. 40, rrv Ilepcruw, which, though not absolutely certain, is still the best emenda tion of the passage. 2 This statement goes to show that the small remainder of the year after the taking of Babylon was not reckoned in Cyrus s first year. For he had at that time something more important to do than to trouble himself straightway about the Israelites. 3 Arrian, iv. 2 sq. ; Curtius, vii. 6, 16, vii. 6, 20 ; Strabo, 517 ; Ptol., vi. 12 ; Steph. Byz. ; Plin., vi. 49 ; Solinus, xlix. 4. 4 Nearchus, in Arrian, vi. 24, 2 ; Strabo, 686, 742. 5 Euseb., Chron., p. 29. 8 See Strabo, 730 ; Arrian, vi. 29, 4 sq. 7 See the copies in the great works of Texier and of Flandin and Coste. The most exact representations are those from photographs in Stolze, Persepolis (Berlin, 1882), tab. 128 sq., 132 sq. The proof that this is really the grave of Cyrus is given in Stolze s Introduction, as doubt meant by Cambyses as a special mark of honour to his 539-525. father, whose monument must have required years to finish. It is quite natural that the ancient art of Egypt should have made a deep impression even upon those of its conquerors who in other respects had little liking for Egyptian ways. If one could accept without question the judgment of the His Persians as recorded by Herodotus (iii. 89, 160), expanded character, by Xenophon, and repeated by later writers (from Plato downwards), Cyrus must have been the most perfect model of a ruler. But we must view with great suspicion a tribute of praise like this paid to the founder of an empire by those who reaped the fruits of his labours. The founder of the Sasanian empire is also described as a paragon of wisdom and virtue, though his deeds strikingly belie such an estimate. We must be content to know that we are no better informed about the character of many other great men of the past than about that of Cyrus. That he was a very remarkable man and a great king is a matter of course. Whether he deserves the reputat.on of a great statesman, which even in modern times has been accorded to him, we cannot say. Certain it is he left the empire still in a very unformed condition. To expend the immense treasures of Ecbatana, Sardis, and Babylon for the benefit of the empire was to be sure an idea which certainly would never have entered into the head of any Eastern conqueror. The treasures simply became the property of the king, though of course a large part went to the leading Persians and Medes who filled the most important offices. Cyrus died in the beginning of the year 529. He left behind him two sons, Smerdis 8 (Persian Bardiya) and Cambyses (Kambujiyci) their common mother was accord ing to Herodotus an Achaernenian, according to Ctesias the daughter of the Median king. The great inscription of Darius states that Cambyses caused Smerdis to be put Cam- to death without the people being aware of it. From this byses. it follows that the partition of the kingdom between the two brothers, of which Ctesias speaks, can hardly have taken place ; for the murder of a king or consort could not have remained concealed. Besides, in both the Baby lonian inscriptions, of which mention has been frequently made, Cambyses is spoken of in a way which distinctly shows him to have been heir -apparent. This fratricide, the true motives of which we do not know, was the fore runner of many similar horrors in the dynasty. The inscription proves, as against Herodotus, that the deed was done before the expedition to Egypt. Nothing else is told us about the earlier part of the reign of Cambyses. It is only when we come to his conquest of Egypt that Conquest we have more exact information. The pretexts for the Egyptian war meed not detain us. The riches of Egypt had from of old allured the lords of the neighbouring lands, and Herodotus takes it for a matter of course that Cyrus had occupied himself with plans against Egypt. According to the statements of Manetho 9 and of the Egyptian monu ments, the conquest of Egypt took place in the spring of 525. Vast warlike preparations preceded the expedition. The Greeks, of Asia Minor, the Cyprians, who had just submitted, and the Phoenicians had to furnish the fleet. A countryman of Herodotus, the mercenary captain Phanes of Halicarnassus, deserted from the Egyptians to the well as in his paper in the Verhandl. der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1883, Nos. 5 and 6 (p. 19 sq. of the separate edition). 8 So Herodotus (the name being assimilated to a genuine Greek name Smerdies, Smerdes). ^Eschyl., Pers., 774, has Mardos ; Justin, i. 9, 9 sq., Mergis ; the scholium on Jsch., I. c., Merdias. 9 See Wiedemann, Geschichte ^Egyptens von Psamm-etich I. bis auf Alexander den Grossen, p. 218 sq. ; comp. too Diod., i. 68. For what follows, and for all that concerns the relations between Egypt and Persia, the work of Wiedemann is to be consulted. At the same time the assumption of the year 525 as the date of the conquest is open to some objections ; there are many arguments in favour of 527.