Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/602

574 PERSIA [MEDO-PERSIAN 464-445. rising of the Bactrians immediately after his accession to the throne, which may have been instigated by Hystaspes, the king s elder brother, who was then in his satrapy of Bactria (Diod., xi. 69). Two battles took place, the second of which ended in a decisive victory for the royalists, so that Bactria was once more reduced to sub jection. In the early part of the reign of Artaxerxes falls the appearance of Themistocles at the Persian court ; so say the contemporary Charon of Lampsacus (Plut., Tkemist., 27), and also Tlmcydides (i. 137).; to their authority that of all later writers, who here mention Xerxes, must give way. On calmly weighing the trustworthy accounts and taking into consideration the circumstance that even at a later time Themistocles as a " traitor " was refused a grave in Attic earth, we can hardly avoid concluding that the gifted saviour of Greece, the founder of the Attic sea- power, a man far superior intellectually to Pausanias, but of boundless ambition, and with a strong propensity to intrigue, was really guilty of entering into traitorous communication with the Persians in his own interest. Certainly he knew admirably how to give himself out as an old friend of the Persians, 1 and to hold out to them the prospect of still doing them valuable service against his countrymen. The king gave him Magnesia on the Maeander in Lydia and two other towns ; as the tyrant of these places under Persian supremacy the victor of Salamis lived some time longer. 2 Like this illustrious fugitive, other Greek exiles or adventurers came to the Persian court from time to time, and played there occa sionally a certain role. Second Hardly was Artaxerxes seated on the throne when the Egyptian second great revolt of Egypt broke out. Inarus, son of revolt. Psammetichus, a Libyan prince, placed himself at the head of the Egyptians and was made king of the whole country. The satrap Achsemenes, son of Darius, fell in battle. Inarus summoned to his aid the Athenians, who were still at Avar with the Persians, and the Athenians were rash enough to involve themselves in the struggle (about 460). They had just come once more to Cyprus with 200 ships. They sailed to Egypt, and with the help of the Egyptians shut up the Persians and the Egyptians who sided with them in the castle of Memphis. Persia had recourse to diplomacy : an embassy was sent to Sparta in order to stir up the Spar tans to make a vigorous diversion against Athens. When this attempt failed, a large army was at last despatched under Megabyzus, son of Zopyrus, which subdued the country after hard fighting ; for, with all their hatred of the Persians, the Egyptians were no match for them in battle. The Athenians in Egypt were annihilated (prob ably 455) ; the same fate befell a reinforcement of fifty ships. Inarus fell by treachery into the hands of the Persians and was crucified. His son Thannyras, however, received (Herod., iii. 15) his original province (probably the Libyan nome), which points to the war having been concluded by a treaty, of which Ctesias also makes mention. In the swamps of the Delta Amyrtaeus (Amun-art-rut) maintained himself as an independent king ; and by him the Athenians were once more invited to Egypt (450 or 449). Cimon, who was again at Cyprus with 200 ships, despatched sixty to his help, but they soon returned, probably without accomplishing much. Cimon died during the siege of Citium, one of the most important cities of Cyprus, and the mainstay of the Phoenician nationality on 1 But the letter in Thuc., i. 137, cannot be regarded as an authentic document. 2 Here, too, he coined money. Of the two specimens known to us, one is plated, "which seems to show that with the coinage the cunning Athenian combined a financial speculation," Brandis, Munz-, Mass-, und Gewichtwesen V order asiens, p. 459. that island. The Athenians raised the siege, but achieved on their retreat once more a brilliant victory by sea and land. 3 These are the last contests of the Athenians and their Peace allies with the Persians. Peace must have been concluded hetweo shortly aftersvards. We cannot here enumerate and criticize *?* the arguments which have often been adduced for and Atheni against the supposition that a regular peace (though not a " peace of Cimon ") was concluded. No one probably would have questioned the reality of such a peace were it not that the Attic orators of the 4th century, by grossly exaggerating the terms of a treaty which in their time had long been a dead letter, had rendered the very existence of the treaty open to suspicion, and that the able historian Theopompus, moved apparently by dislike of the Athenian democracy and a desire to gratify his powerful patron, King Alexander, had attempted by false though learned arguments to disprove the genuineness of the original treaty of peace, of which only a copy was extant in his time. The text of the original document was given by the best authority on Attic decrees, Craterus. 4 It is hardly conceivable that the great war should have died out of itself without the Athenians getting some security that their possessions and their widely ramifying commerce would be left unmolested. Moreover, all that we are told or can infer as to the contents of the treaty agrees perfectly with the political relations of the time. The treaty was not at all in the spirit of the high-flying plans of Cimon s party ; for, while the Persians acknowledged the independ ence of the Greek towns on the west coast, including the Lycian, and pledged themselves to send no ships of war into Greek waters, the Athenians in return renounced all rights in the eastern seas. The most sagacious of the Athenians had perceived that Cyprus, and much more Egypt and Phoenicia, lay outside the natural sphere of Athenian power. We can understand, however, that Callias, the author of the treaty, earned the dislike of the Athenians for his pains. The balance of advantages secured by the peace was on the side of Athens, but the Persians resigned nothing which they actually possessed, and they were now secured against Athenian raids. It was certainly anomalous that the great empire Avhich owned the rest of Asia Minor should have no rights over the narrow strip of coast, which could everywhere be overlooked from the interior. Even the capital of the Hellespontine-Phrygian satrapy, Dascyl- ium, from which that province is sometimes called Dascyl- itis, was now a member of the Attic naval confederacy. The satraps were still obliged as before to pay to the king the taxes due from the coast-lands, and this must have been a constant incitement to them to reconquer those lands. There was no Persian fleet in the Black Sea. The Greek towns on its coast were free, and some of them belonged to the Athenian league and were occasionally visited by Athenian war- ships. At most a portion of the natives of the countries round about the Black Sea were in a state of loose dependence on the Persian empire. In Lycia and Caria there were districts which obeyed neither the king nor Athens, or at least were not closely dependent on any foreign power. 5 The condition of Egypt at this time is very obscure. Amyrtasus had no doubt been finally overthrown by the Persians, but his son Pausiris was left by them in posses sion of his father s kingdom. In the year 445 we find an Egyptian or Libyan king, Psammetichus, who presented the Athenians with a great quantity of corn. This was 3 The epigram which Diodorus (xi. 62) wrongly applies to the battle of the Eurymedon refers to this battle. 4 Shortly after Alexander. 5 Compare Thuc. , ii. 69; iii. 19. 6 Philochorus, in schol. Aristoph. Vcsp., 716 ; schol. Aristoph. 1 lnt., 178 ; Plut., Pericles, 37.