Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/610

582 PERSIA [GREEK Persian empire 333-331. the most important parts of Asia Minor, and then set out on his forward march. At the farthest extremity of Cilicia Darius in person met him at the head of a huge army, but the field of battle was so badly chosen that the numerical superiority of the Persians did not come into full play. The brilliant victory of Issus (about November 333) and the flight of Darius threw wide regions into the power of Alexander, who, with all his daring, was also cautious, and did not follow the Persian king in his flight into the in terior. He sought first to make himself master of the whole Phoenician coast, in order to cut off from the Per sians every possibility of annoying him any longer at sea. And in reality the fleet, which was chiefly furnished by the Phoenicians, melted away when Alexander had taken possession of their country. The Cyprian ships, too, re turned home, and Cyprus also submitted. But Tyre with stood the great conqueror for seven months 1 (332), and had to pay a dreadful penalty for its resistance. Gaza, too, defended itself bravely. Egypt welcomed exultingly the Macedonian who freed them from the hated Persians. After the acquisition of Egypt Alexander possessed a territory large and strong enough to be able to survive, if need be, a reverse. In the spring of 331 he left Egypt and marched through Syria and Mesopotamia to Assyria proper, where Darius awaited him at the head of vast masses of troops, and this time in a favourable position. Over- But on 1st October 331 Alexander defeated the king at throw of Gaugamela so decisively that henceforward the Persian empire, as such, was shattered. Darius fled to Media. Without striking another blow Alexander captured the capitals, Babylon and Susa, with their vast treasures. In vain the wild independent Uxians (better " Huxians ") barred a difficult mountain-pass against him, in vain did a Persian army do the same : he quickly forced a passage through the mountains and marched into Persia proper. Pasargadse and Persepolis, the cradle of the monarchy, were his. Persepolis, in the immediate neighbourhood of which another conflict took place, was given up by him to his soldiers to plunder ; the royal palace he caused to be burned. 2 In this act we discern, in opposition to the usual view, a well-considered measure, excellently calcu lated to work upon the Asiatic mind. The burning of the royal castle was meant to show the Asiatics that their empire was utterly overthrown, and that Alexander was their only lord. Besides the Greeks might see in the step an act of vengeance for the destruction of the Greek temples by Xerxes, as the official phrase ran. Thereupon Alexander hastened to Media in pursuit, once for all, of Darius. The latter fled eastwards. He had still a considerable army with him, but only the Greek mercen aries were absolutely true to him, like the Swiss guard to Bessus. Louis XVI. At last Bessus, satrap of Bactria (and Sogdiana apparently), seized the person of the king, in order either to make use of him for his own ambitious purposes or to put him out of the way. As a matter of fact, he murdered him in Parthia, just when the pursuing Alexander had nearly overtaken him (July or August 330). Such was the melancholy end of the last of the Achiemenian great kings. Bessus thereupon hastened into his satrapy and assumed the title of king and the name of Artaxerxes (IV.). We know that he was a " kinsman " of Darius ; perhaps in his case this means more than that he was merely con nected with him by marriage, and this satrap of Bactria 1 The resistance of the Tyrians is certainly not explained by their attachment to the Persians, scarcely either by their love of freedom. We suspect here again a religious motive. Alexander desired to offer sacrifice in the temple of Heracles, and probably the pious Canaanites would as little allow this as the Jews would have permitted any foreign ruler to enter their temple. 2 Cp. the article PERSEPOLIS. may have actually belonged to the race of the Achremenians, like his predecessors the princes Masistes and Hystaspes. It would thus be more easy to explain why various grandees favoured his undertaking, and why he was recog nized as king, e.g., by the satrap of Aria (the district of Her At), and vigorously supported. That he enjoyed the royal title for some time is due only to the circumstance that Alexander first made himself securely master of eastern Iran before he marched into Bactria and Sogdiana. After many adventures Bessus fell into Alexander s power on the farther side of the Oxus, and was put to death. After the return from India the satrap of Media con ducted in chains to Alexander a certain Baryaxes, who during Alexander s absence had declared himself king of the Persians and Medes. Of course he was .executed. He is said to have been a Mede, not a Persian. Certainly his movement had never even a momentary importance ; he is only once mentioned (Arrian, vi. 29, 3). But such last throes of a mighty monarchy are, after all, worthy of attention. Literature. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vols. ii. , iii. (2d ed., London, 1871), gives a useful account of the Medo-Persian history down to Alexander, as does also vol. ii. of Fr. Spiegel s Erdnischc Altcrthumskunde (Leipsic, 1873). Neither work is ex haustive, and in both we frequently miss true historical criticism. For the time down to Xerxes Duncker s Geschichte des Altcrthums, vol.iv.(5th ed., Berlin, 1880 ; Eng. tr. by Abbot, 1877-83), is recom mended by its very careful use of all the sources and its acute mode of combining them, though the latter quality often leads to some what arbitrary construction. Owing to the close contact between Persian and Greek history the larger works on the latter are obliged to cover much of the same ground as the former. In this department Grote 6 irdi>v is to be named above all; unfortunately at the time he wrote it was not in his power to make use of the important Persian inscriptions. (TH. N.) SECTION II. GREEK AND PARTHIAN EMPIRES. After the decisive battle of Gaugamela (331 B.C.) Alex ander proclaimed himself king of Asia. 3 He never ac cepted the compromise recommended by Parmenio, which would have left to the Persians the upper satrapies east of Mount Zagrus, and established a sharply-marked natural and ethnographic frontier. Soon a symbolic act, the burning of the palace of Persepolis, announced to the Asiatics that the Acliaemenian monarchy was dead, and that Alexander claimed its whole inheritance. The punish ment of Bessus, exactly modelled on that inflicted on pretenders by Darius I., showed that Alexander claimed to be the legal heir of the Achaemenians. Bessus s ears and nose were cut off, and he was brought to Ecbatana for execution before the assembled Medes and Persians, for " this Bessus lied and said, I am Artaxerxes king of Persia." After Alexander had by his rapid and effective move- Complc ments taken actual possession of the whole empire, Media tlon ^ was swiftly traversed, but the eastern frontier was not g^ subdued and secured so easily. Crossing the mountain- wall that separates the southern margin of the Caspian from the rest of Iran, Alexander received in person the homage of the coast-lands. Khorasan and the region of the Oxus were traversed by his armies in all directions ; from Bactria the march was obliquely through Sogdiana to the Jaxartes on the farthest limits of the empire, and an onslaught was even made on the Scythians beyond that river. 4 Alexander was determined to secure a frontier so important for the trade of Central Asia, and to free the peaceful industry of Iran from the incursions of its here- 3 Pint., Alex., 34, 37, does not prove that there was another, still less a preferable account of the date of this occurrence. 4 Here perhaps occurs the first trace in history of the Turkish race. Carthasis, the brother of the Srythian king in Curtius (vii. 7, 1), may be, as Noldeke observes, Turkish kardOshy, " his brother," from ddsh, of which tush, is the older form.