Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/227

GROWTH vF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE, 2M CHAPTER XXXIII. GROWTH OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. In the preceding chapter an account has been given, the best which we can pick out from Herodotus, of the steps by which the Asiatic Greeks became subject to Persia. And if his narra- tive is meagre, on a matter which vitally concerned not only so many of his brother Greeks, but even his own native city, we can hardly expect that he should tell us much respecting the other conquests of Cyrus. He seems to withhold intentionally various details which had come to his knowledge, and merely intimates in general terms that while Harpagus was engaged on the coast of the ^Egean, Cyrus himself assailed and subdued all the nations of Upper Asia, "not omitting anyone of them." 1 He alludes to the Baktrians and the Sakse, 2 who are also named by Ktesias as having become subject partly by force, partly by capitulation ; but he deems only two of the exploits of Cyrus worthy of special notice, the conquest of Babylon, and the final expedition against the Massagetse. In the short abstract which we now possess of the lost work of Ktesias, no mention appears of the important conquest of Babylon ; but his narra- tive, as far as the abstract enables us to follow it, diverges materially from that of Herodotus, and must have been founded on data altogether different. " I shall mention (says Herodotus) 3 those conquests which gave Cyrus most trouble, and are most memorable : after he had subdued all the rest of the continent, he attacked the Assyrians." Those who recollect the description of Babylon and its surround- ing territory, as given in a former chapter, will not be surprised to learn that the capture of it gave the Persian aggressor much trouble : their anly surprise will be, how it could ever have been 1 Herodot. i, 177. * Herodot. i, 153. 3 Herodot. i, 177. T& Se oi Trapeffx e ifovov re irleioTov, KOI aZiamjyi;. orara koTi, TOVTUV iTriuvfjaoftai. VOL, TV. 14OC.