Max Duncker
The History of Antiquity, Vol. 6 (of 6)

CHAPTER VI
THE FALL OF THE LYDIAN EMPIRE

After the fall of Nineveh, Media, Babylonia, and Lydia had continued to exist side by side in peace and friendship. The successful rebellion of Cyrus altered at one blow the state of Asia. He had not been contented with winning independence for the Persians; he had subjected Media to his power. In the place of a friendly and allied house, the kings of Lydia and Babylonia saw Astyages deprived of his throne, and Media in the hands of a bold and ambitious warrior. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia would hardly have allowed the sovereignty of the table-land of Iran to pass out of the power of a near kinsman into that of Cyrus without offering some resistance; but he was no longer alive to prevent or revenge the overthrow of his brother-in-law. His son Evil-merodach had also come by his death before Astyages succumbed to the arms of Cyrus, and after a short reign Neriglissar left the kingdom to a boy (III. 392). On the other hand, the Lydian empire was in its fullest vigour. We are acquainted with the successes which fell to the lot of Alyattes after his alliance with Media; we saw with what rapidity his son Crœsus brought to a happy conclusion the long struggle against the Greek cities of the coast. His kingdom now embraced the whole of Asia Minor, as far as the Halys; the Lycians alone remained independent in their small mountain canton. Loved and honoured by his people, as Herodotus indicates, Crœsus saw his complete and compact empire in the greatest prosperity; his treasury was full to overflowing; his metropolis was the richest city in Asia after Babylon. The Lydian infantry were excellent and trustworthy; the cavalry were dreaded; in past days they had measured themselves with success against the Medes.¹ Thus in the third or fourth year of his reign, in the pride of his position, surrounded by inexhaustible treasures and the most splendid magnificence, on his lofty citadel at Sardis, Crœsus could declare himself, against the opinion of the Athenian Solon, the man most favoured by fortune (III. 458). Two years afterwards Astyages, whose wife Aryanis was Crœsus' sister, was overthrown. Crœsus had reason enough to take the field for his brother-in-law, and anticipate the danger which might arise for Lydia out of this change in the East. He might hope that his example would set the Babylonians in motion against the usurper of the Median throne, and cause the Medes themselves to revolt against their new master. But he appears to have been afraid of embarking in an uncertain and dangerous war at a great distance from his own borders. It was not clear that victory at the first onset would imply lasting success, and Lydia had no attack to fear so long as Cyrus was occupied in establishing his new dominion in Media, and engaged in conflicts in the East and North. In Sardis it might be assumed that the usurper would find great difficulties in his way. Herodotus represents Sandanis, a distinguished Lydian, as asking Crœsus whether he would take the field against men who clad themselves in leather, and did not eat what they liked, but what they had, and lived in a rugged country – who drank water and not wine, and had not even figs or any other thing that was pleasant? What could the king, if victorious, take from them, when they had nothing? On the other hand, if conquered, he had much to lose, and if the Persians once tasted any of the good things of Lydia, they would never be driven out of the land again.² Crœsus hesitated. It was of the greatest importance for Cyrus that Lydia and Babylonia should not interfere in favour of Astyages and the Medes, that they remained inactive during the revolution, and allowed him to establish his dominion in Media without disturbance, to direct his aim unimpeded against the neighbours of Media, and to subjugate without opposition the Parthians, Hyrcanians, and Cadusians.

The manner in which war eventually broke out between Lydia and Persia, the course of the war, and the fortune which overtook Crœsus, are narrated by Herodotus in the following manner: "Solon had scarcely left Crœsus (III. 454, note 3) when the latter saw in a dream the vision which portended the fate of his son. He had two sons: one was deaf and dumb, but the other, Attys, was greatly distinguished above all his companions. The dream told him that he would lose this son by an iron spear-head. In alarm Crœsus found a wife for his son, would not allow him to go out with the army as before, and removed into the armoury all the armour which was in the chambers, that nothing might fall upon him. At the time when Crœsus was occupied with the marriage of Attys, a Phrygian came to Sardis, Adrastus by name, the son of Gordius, the grandson of Midas, who had unintentionally killed his brother, and had been banished by his father, and Crœsus received him. At the same time a great boar appeared on the Mysian Olympus, which ravaged the lands of the Mysians, and as they could not master it, they sent messengers to Crœsus praying him to allow Attys and some chosen youths to come with dogs to set them free from the monster. Crœsus would not let his son go, for he had just been married. But the son complained to his father: Previously he had won great glory in war, and in the chase, now he was kept back from both; how would men look upon him in the market-place? – in what light would he appear to the citizens and his young wife? Crœsus told him the dream, but Attys replied that the boar had no hands, and no iron point: Crœsus therefore allowed him to go, and bade Adrastus accompany his son and watch over him. Adrastus promised to bring back his son uninjured, so far as lay in his power, in return for the kindness which Crœsus had shown him. The boar was surrounded on Olympus, and javelins thrown at it from every side; the spear of Adrastus missed the boar and hit Attys. Thus was the dream of Crœsus fulfilled. Adrastus went with the corpse to Crœsus, and besought him to slay him as a sacrifice to the dead. But Crœsus replied that Adrastus had made recompense enough in condemning himself to death. He had his son buried with proper honours; but Adrastus slew himself on the grave."

"Two years were spent by Crœsus in mourning for his son. Then the destruction of the empire of Astyages by Cyrus, and the growing power of the Persians, put an end to the mourning, and caused him to consider whether he could check the rise of the Persians before they became great. With this thought in his mind, he determined to test the oracles, both those of the Greeks and that in Libya, and ascertain whether they could tell the truth; to the oracle which he found truthful, he would propose the question, whether he should undertake a campaign against the Persians. So he sent to the oracles of the Greeks, to Miletus, Delphi, Abae, and Trophonius, to the sanctuary of Amphiaraus at Thebes, and to Dodona, to the temple of Ammon in Libya, bidding his messengers inquire on the hundredth day after their departure from Sardis, what Crœsus, the son of Alyattes, the king of Lydia, was doing on that day. The answers were to be written down, and brought back to him. What the other oracles said no one has narrated, but when the Lydians came into the temple at Delphi and propounded their question, the priestess answered: 'I know the number of the sand, and the measure of the sea; I understand the dumb, and hear him who speaks not. The scent of the hard-shelled tortoise comes into my nostrils which is being cooked in brass with lamb's flesh; brass is below, and brass is above.' The Lydians wrote this down, and returned to Sardis; and when the other messengers came back, Crœsus opened their letters. He paid no attention to the rest, but when he came to the answer from Delphi he recognised the power of the god, and saw that the Delphic oracle alone had been aware of what he was doing. For on the day appointed he had cooked the flesh of a tortoise and lamb in a brazen vessel, covered with a brazen lid, thinking that it would be impossible to discover or invent such a thing. What answer was brought back from Amphiaraus I cannot say, for it is nowhere recorded, but Crœsus is said to have considered this oracle as truthful. Then Crœsus won the favour of the god of Delphi by great sacrifices. He offered 3000 victims of every kind, and erected a great pile of wood on which he burned couches covered with gold and silver, golden goblets, purple robes and garments, in the hope that he would thereby gain the favour of the god yet more, and bade the Lydians sacrifice to their deity whatever each possessed. And as the sacrifice left behind an enormous mass of molten gold, Crœsus caused bricks to be made, six palms in length, three in breadth, and one in depth; in all there were 117 bricks. Of these, four were of the purest gold, each two and a half talents in weight; and the rest of white gold (i. e. of mingled gold and silver), each two talents in weight. In addition, there was a golden lion which weighed ten talents. When these were finished, Crœsus sent them to Delphi, and added two very large mixing-bowls, one of gold, weighing eight talents and a half and twelve minæ, and one of silver, the work of Theodorus of Samos, as the Delphians say, and I believe it, for it is the work of no ordinary artificer; four silver jars, and two vessels for holy water, one of gold and the other of silver, circular casts of silver, a golden statue of a woman, three cubits high, and the necklace and girdles of his queen. All these things he sent to Delphi, and to Amphiaraus a golden shield and a spear, of which both the stem and the point were of gold."

"Crœsus bade the envoys who carried these gifts ask the oracles, whether he should march against the Persians, or collect allies. The answer of both oracles was to the same effect: they told him, that if he went against Cyrus he would destroy a great empire, and at the same time advised him to find out who were the most powerful among the Greeks, and take them as allies. Crœsus was greatly delighted when he received this answer; in the certainty that he would overthrow the empire of Cyrus, he sent again to Delphi and presented each Delphian with two staters. The Delphians in return bestowed on the Lydians for all future time the right to consult the priestess first, the best seats, freedom from contributions, and the citizenship of Delphi to any Lydian who should wish to become a Delphian. Crœsus inquired of the oracle for the third time: whether his reign would be of long continuance, and the priestess replied: 'When a mule becomes king of the Medes, then, O soft-footed Lydian, fly from the pebbly Hermus; stay not, and take no shame to be a coward.' Then Crœsus was yet more delighted, for he thought that a mule would never rule over the Medes instead of a man, and therefore neither he nor his descendants would lose their power. Then he inquired who were the most mighty among the Hellenes, and when he found that the greatest part of the Peloponnesus was subject to the Lacedæmonians, he sent messengers with presents to Sparta to conclude an alliance. The Lacedæmonians were filled with joy; they knew the oracle which had been given to Crœsus, and made him a friend and ally, as they had previously received many kindnesses at his hands."

"Crœsus now marched to Cappadocia in the hope of crushing Cyrus and the Persians; he also intended to add Cappadocia to his kingdom, but above all he wished to take vengeance on Cyrus, who had defeated his brother-in-law Astyages, and had got him in his power. When he came to the Halys, which was the boundary between the Lydian and the Persian kingdoms, he crossed the river by the bridges, and came into the part of Cappadocia, which is called Pteria (this region, the strongest in the whole country, lies towards Sinope and the Pontus Euxinus). There he pitched his camp, desolated the land, took the city of the Pterians, and enslaved the inhabitants, conquered the neighbouring cities, and drove out the Syrians, who had done him no harm whatever. But Cyrus collected his army, adding to it all the nations in his march, and took up a position against Crœsus. Previous to setting out, he had sent heralds to the Ionians, and requested them to revolt from Crœsus. To this request the Ionians did not listen. Then Cyrus encamped opposite Crœsus, and the two armies tried their strength in the land of Pteria. A fierce battle was fought; many fell on both sides; neither was victorious, and when night came they desisted from the battle. Crœsus found that his force was not strong enough; his army was inferior in numbers to that of the enemy, and when Cyrus did not venture to attack him on the next day, he returned to Sardis. His object was to summon the Egyptians, for he had made a treaty with Amasis the king of Egypt before entering into terms with the Lacedæmonians, to send to the Babylonians – for with them also and their king Labynetus he had made an alliance – and to call on the Lacedæmonians to join him at a fixed time. After uniting these, and collecting all his forces, he intended, as soon as the winter was over, to march out against the Persians. So when he arrived at Sardis he sent heralds to his allies, bidding them assemble in the fifth month at Sardis, and dismissed all the mercenaries in the army which had fought against Cyrus. He did not expect that Cyrus, who had contended in the battle without success, would march against Sardis. When Crœsus retired immediately after the battle in Pteria, and it was discovered that the Lydian forces were to be disbanded, Cyrus saw that it would be much to his advantage to march upon Sardis with all speed, before the Lydian army could be collected a second time. He was so rapid in his movements, that he announced his own arrival to Crœsus."

"Though in great difficulties, inasmuch as things had turned out contrary to his expectations, Crœsus led out the Lydians to battle. And at that time there was no braver and more warlike nation in Asia. They fought on horseback, armed with long lances, and were excellent riders. The armies met in the large open plain before Sardis. The cavalry of Crœsus caused alarm to Cyrus, and on the advice of Harpagus the Mede, he collected all the camels which carried the food and baggage of the army, took off their burdens, and had them mounted by armed men. These he placed before the army, then followed the infantry, and after them the Persian horse. He bade them not to slay Crœsus, even though he should seek to defend himself when taken captive. When the battle broke out, the Lydian horses were alarmed at the sight and smell of the camels, and turned, and so the hopes of Crœsus were destroyed. Yet the Lydians did not lose their courage; they sprang from their horses and met the Persians on foot. At length, when many had fallen on both sides, the Lydians fled; they were driven into the walls, and besieged by the Persians. Crœsus thought that the siege would occupy a long time, and sent fresh messengers to his confederates, and also to the Lacedæmonians, bidding them come as soon as possible. When they arrived at Sparta three hundred Spartans had been slain by the Argives, yet they determined to send assistance; their men were armed and ready to sail, when there came a second message that Sardis was captured, and Crœsus a prisoner."

"Sardis had been invested fourteen days when Cyrus announced to his army that the man who first climbed the walls should receive presents. Attempts were made, but as they failed, they were given up. Nevertheless Hyroeades, a Mardian, determined to climb the citadel at a place where no watch had been set. It was never supposed possible that the city could be taken on this side, for the mountain fell precipitously down towards Mt. Tmolus, and storming was impossible. On the previous day Hyroeades had seen a Lydian, whose helmet had fallen down, descend after it, and then climb back with it. He also ascended, others followed, and when sufficient Persians were on the top, Sardis was taken and the whole city plundered. After the citadel had been captured a Persian rushed at Crœsus, whom he did not know, to cut him down. When the dumb son of Crœsus saw this, through fear and horror he broke out into speech, and cried out: 'Man, do not slay Crœsus.' And ever after he was able to speak."

"The Persians led Crœsus to Cyrus, who caused a great pyre to be built, and Crœsus to be led to it in chains with twice seven Lydian boys; whether it was that he intended to offer the firstlings of the victory to some god, and discharge a vow, or whether he knew that Crœsus was eminent for piety, and wished to see if a god would protect him from being burnt alive. When Crœsus was on the pyre, the words of Solon came into his mind, in his distress, that no one among living men was to be accounted happy. When this occurred to him, he sighed deeply after a long silence, and called out thrice, Solon! On hearing this Cyrus commanded the interpreters to ask Crœsus whom he was calling upon. At first he was silent; on being pressed, he said: 'On him, whose words I count it above great treasures that all rulers should hear.' As what he said was unintelligible, the question was put to him again, and when they insisted on hearing the whole, he told them, while the pyre was being kindled at the outer edge, what Solon the Athenian had said to him. When Cyrus heard this from the interpreters he reflected that he, a man, was condemning to the flames a man of no less power than himself; in fear of vengeance, and considering that there was nothing certain among men, he changed his mind, and gave orders to quench the fire, and bring down Crœsus and those with him. When all attempted in vain to quench the flames, Crœsus, according to the Lydian account, called on Apollo, entreating him to aid him now if he had ever offered pleasant gifts, and save him in his extremity. When Crœsus was praying in tears to the god, the sky, which had been clear and still, was suddenly covered with clouds; a storm burst upon them, and the fire was quenched by torrents of rain. And Cyrus then saw that Crœsus was a man beloved by the gods, and asked him why he had marched against his land, and made him his enemy instead of his friend? Crœsus replied, that he had been induced to do this by his own bad fortune and the good fortune of Cyrus. The god of the Hellenes had urged him to take the field against Cyrus. Then Cyrus caused the fetters to be struck off him, and placed him near himself. When Crœsus saw the Persians plundering the city, he inquired of Cyrus: 'What is all this multitude doing with so much eagerness?' Cyrus answered: 'They are plundering your city and treasures.' He replied: 'They are mine no longer; it is your property which they are plundering and sacking. The Persians, courageous by nature, are poor; if you allow them to plunder and carry off much booty, it may be that the man who gains the most will rebel against you. If it pleases you, do as I advise. Place your body-guard at the gates, and bid them take from the plunderers what they are carrying out, and tell them that a tenth must be offered to Zeus. You will escape their ill-will, and they will gladly obey you.' This advice pleased Cyrus. He followed it, and promised Crœsus to grant him a favour in return."

"The favour which Crœsus asked was this: Cyrus must allow him to send the fetters, which he wore, to the Delphic god, and ask whether it was his manner to deceive those who showed him kindness. Cyrus granted the prayer with a smile, and promised that he would not refuse a further request. So Lydians went with the fetters to Delphi, and asked the god whether he was not ashamed to have urged Crœsus to make war upon Cyrus, who had taken much spoil from him; and at the same time they showed the fetters. The priestess answered, as it is recorded, that even a god could not escape his destiny; Crœsus was paying the penalty for his fifth ancestor, who had seized a throne which did not belong to him. The god had endeavoured to bring it to pass that the punishment should not fall on Crœsus but on his children, but he had only been able to defer the capture of Sardis for three years; let Crœsus know that he had been taken captive three years later than was ordained. Moreover, the god had sent him help when on the pyre. It was announced that he would destroy a great empire if he went against Cyrus, but what empire was not said. Nor had Crœsus understood the response about the mule. Cyrus was the mule, the son of a Persian father and Median mother, a subject and his mistress. When Crœsus heard this, he saw that he and not the god was in fault."

Only a meagre excerpt remains of the account given by Ctesias of the conflict of Cyrus and Crœsus. The king of the Sacæ, Amorges, marched with Cyrus against Crœsus and Sardis. When the Lydians were shut up in the city, Crœsus, deceived by the portents of the gods, gave his son as a hostage to Cyrus, and when he subsequently sought to deceive him in the negotiations, Cyrus caused the son to be slain before the father's eyes. The mother, when she saw the execution of her son, threw herself down from the turrets of the walls. Then Cyrus, on the advice of Oebares, caused wooden figures of Persians to be placed on long poles and laid against the turrets, that the Lydians might be filled with terror at the sight of them. In this way the citadel, and the city itself, was taken. Crœsus fled for refuge into the temple of Apollo, where Cyrus caused him to be placed in chains, but though seals were set on them, and Oebares was commissioned to keep watch, the fetters were three times removed from Crœsus in a miraculous manner. Then those who had been put in chains with him were beheaded, as though they had conspired to liberate their king, and Cyrus brought Crœsus into the palace and caused yet heavier chains to be put upon him; but the fetters again fell to the ground, this time amid thunder and lightning. At length Cyrus liberated Crœsus, showed him great kindness, and presented him with the large city of Barene, near Ecbatana, which had been garrisoned by 5000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry.³

Polyaenus relates that Crœsus, after his defeat in Cappadocia by Cyrus, withdrew his troops in the night by a pass. This pass he then filled with a quantity of timber, to which he set fire in order to check the pursuit of the Persians. When the armies met a second time for battle, Cyrus rendered the numerous cavalry of the Lydians, in which they trusted, useless by placing camels opposite them. Thus they were at once put to flight, and trod down the infantry, so that Cyrus was again victorious. At Sardis Crœsus once more tried the fortune of battle. As his Greek allies delayed their coming, he provided the strongest and tallest Lydians with Greek armour. The sight of the strange arms checked the Persians. They were terrified by the sound of the spears striking against the brazen shields, and the glitter of the shields caused their horses to take fright and turn. They retired, and Cyrus concluded a treaty for three days with Crœsus, in which he was to withdraw his forces from Sardis. But as soon as it was night he turned his army again upon Sardis, and attacked the city unexpectedly. The ascent of the walls by scaling ladders was successful, yet Crœsus maintained the citadel and defended it bravely in the deceptive hope that his allies would arrive. Then Cyrus caused the relatives of those who were with Crœsus in the citadel to be seized and bound, and brought before the walls; and he announced to their kinsmen on the towers that if the citadel were given up the captives would be set at liberty, if not they would all be hanged. This induced the Lydians in the citadel to open the gates. But in another passage Polyaenus repeats the version of Ctesias about the capture of the city. Cyrus caused figures in Persian clothing, and wearing beards, with quivers on their shoulders and bows in their hands, to be placed on tall poles of equal length, and in the night these were laid against the walls of the citadel so that the figures rose above the wall. At break of day Cyrus attacked the part of the city underneath the citadel. The attacks were beaten off, but on turning round some Lydians saw the figures above the citadel, and thinking that it had been stormed by the Persians, they fled, and Cyrus took Sardis by storm.⁴

In Xenophon the Persians and Medes are contending against Babylonia. On the representation of the king of Babylon that those two nations would subjugate all the world, unless measures were taken to prevent them, Crœsus marches out to aid the king,⁵ with an army of 40,000 horse, and about 150,000 light-armed infantry and bowmen. But the united army of the Lydians and Babylonians, though it reached nearly 60,000 cavalry and more than 200,000 infantry,⁶ was defeated. Cyrus turned his steps towards Lydia, and Crœsus collected a new army on the Pactolus of Lydians, Phrygians, Paphlagonians, and Lycaonians, who were joined by the Cilicians and Cappadocians. The Egyptians and Cyprians came on board ship; envoys went to Lacedæmon to ask for troops. With this army Crœsus marched to meet Cyrus at Thymbrara. Here the battle took place. Cyrus had placed two archers on each of the camels; these were ranged opposite the enemy's cavalry, and even from a distance the Lydian horses sought to avoid the camels; some turn round, others rear, and press upon each other. So the Persians succeeded in overthrowing the disorganised cavalry. But the battle had to be fought out with the javelin, lance, and sword; the Persians were not victorious without great bloodshed. Crœsus flies to Sardis, the Lydians alone remain faithful, the rest of his army disperses. Cyrus pursues him on the next morning, and at once invests Sardis. In the very night after the camp was pitched before Sardis, Chaldæans (i. e. Gordyæans, Carduchians)⁷, and Persians climb the fortifications where they seem to be steepest. They were led by a Persian, who having formerly been the slave of one on the watch in the citadel, knew the place where the rocks could be climbed from the river. The Lydians abandoned the walls, as soon as they saw the citadel taken. Crœsus shut himself up in his palace, and asked for quarter. Cyrus had him brought into his presence, and said that it was not his intention to abandon to his soldiers the richest city in Asia after Babylon, but they must have some reward for their efforts and dangers which they had undergone. Crœsus replied that the sack of the city would destroy the sources of wealth, the woven stuffs and industry of the place; if it were spared the Lydians would gladly bring the best of what they had, and in a year's time the city would once more be in great prosperity. Then Cyrus asked Crœsus how it came to pass that he who was such a zealous servant of Apollo, and did everything by his direction, had fallen into calamity. Crœsus replied that he had brought upon him the aversion of the god by putting it to the test whether his announcements were true. He believed indeed that he had appeased his wrath by rich presents of gold and silver, and when he lost his youthful son he had further asked how he could most happily pass the rest of his life, and the god had answered, "By knowing thyself, thou wilt live happily." He had regarded this condition of happiness as a very easy one; a man might have some difficulty in learning to know others, but himself he could know quite easily. "But I did not know myself," Crœsus continues in Xenophon, "when I fancied that I was equal to you in war; you are descended from the gods, from a series of kings, and from your youth have been exercised in brave deeds. My ancestor was a slave who became king. Now I know myself." Cyrus allowed him to retain his wife and daughters, gave him servants and entertainment, and took him with him wherever he went, either because he held the advice of Crœsus to be useful, or because this seemed to him the safest thing to do.⁸

Only fragments have come down to us of Diodorus' narrative of the fall of Crœsus; in some respects these agree with the account of Herodotus; more frequently they differ from it. He may have borrowed from Ephorus.⁹ Diodorus began with the death of Attys by the javelin of the Phrygian Adrastus. Crœsus at first threatens to have Adrastus burnt alive, but forgives his offence when he offers his own life for it. But he voluntarily slays himself at the tomb of Attys. Diodorus then gives an account of the oracles – the first, which Crœsus received at Delphi before the war on behalf of his dumb son, – Crœsus was foolish in wishing to hear the much-desired voice of his child; he would speak in a day of disaster – the second, about the consequences of crossing the Halys; the third, about the mule. Crœsus sent Eurybatus of Ephesus with gold, apparently to Delphi, but in reality to the Peloponnesus, in order to receive as many Hellenes as possible into his pay; but Eurybatus passed over to Cyrus, and revealed everything to him. This act of treachery was held in such detestation by the Greeks, that to his day a villain was called Eurybatus. When Cyrus had reached the passes of Cappadocia with his united forces he sent heralds to Crœsus, to discover his forces, and to tell him that Cyrus would pardon his former offences and nominate him satrap of Lydia, if he would appear at his gates and there proclaim himself a servant like the rest. Crœsus replied that Cyrus and the Persians would sooner endure to be his slaves, as in former times they had been the servants of the Medes; as regarded himself, he had never obeyed the order of another person. When Crœsus had been taken captive, and the flames of the pyre quenched, Diodorus represents Crœsus putting to Cyrus the question which we find in Herodotus (p. 14), about the sacking of the city; Cyrus puts an end to the plundering, and orders the possessions of the inhabitants to be brought into the palace. We are further told, that as the rain had suddenly come down and quenched the flames, Cyrus regarded Crœsus as a pious man. Moreover, he kept Solon's saying in mind; he held Crœsus in honour, and made him his adviser, regarding one who had associated with so many wise men as being himself prudent and able.¹⁰

Justin's excerpt from Pompeius Trogus gives a brief account of the fall of the Lydian kingdom. When Cyrus had reduced the greater part of the nations which had previously been subject to the Medes, Crœsus, the king of Lydia, whose power and wealth were then very great, came to the help of the Babylonians. He was conquered and retired into his kingdom. When Cyrus had settled his quarrel with Babylon, he engaged in war with Lydia. He easily put to flight the Lydian army, already dispirited by the previous defeat. Crœsus himself was captured. "But the less the danger of the war, the milder was the use made of the victory. To Crœsus was given his life, portions of his property, and the city of Barka, where he lived a life, which, if not that of a king, approached nearly to royal magnificence."¹¹

The end only of the account of Nicolaus of Damascus, containing the story of the intended burning of Crœsus, has come down to us. Cyrus, we are told, had great sympathy with the misfortune of Crœsus, but the Persians insisted that he should be burnt as an enemy. A great pyre was erected at the foot of a hill. Cyrus marched out with all his army; a great multitude of natives and foreigners gathered together. When Crœsus and fourteen Lydians were brought out in chains, all the Lydians broke out into sighs and lamentations, and beat their heads, so that the weeping and wailing of men and women was greater now than it had been at the capture of the city. This showed what affection Crœsus inspired among his subjects. "They tore their garments, and thousands of women ran weeping forward. Crœsus advanced without tears, and with a firm countenance, and when he reached Cyrus he asked with a loud voice that his son might be brought to him. This was done. The son embraced his father, and said with tears: 'Woe is me, my father. Of what avail was your piety; when will the gods help us? Have they granted me speech only to bewail our misfortunes?' Turning to the Persians he said: 'Burn me also; I am no less your enemy than my father.' But Crœsus checked him with these words: 'I alone determined on the war, and no one else of the Lydians; therefore I alone must pay the penalty.' When numerous servants of the Lydian women had brought rich garments and ornaments of every kind to be burned with him, Crœsus kissed his son and the Lydians who were standing by, and ascended the pyre; but the son raised his hands to heaven and cried aloud: 'King Apollo, and all ye gods to whom my father has done honour, come now to our help, that the piety of mankind may not be destroyed with Crœsus.' His friends could hardly restrain him from casting himself on the pyre. But on a sudden Herophile, the sibyl of Ephesus, appeared, and descended from the height, and cried: 'Ye fools, what injustice is this? Supreme Zeus, and Phœbus, and glorious Amphiaraus will not permit it. Obey the truthful sayings of my words, that the god may not visit your frenzy with grievous destruction.' Cyrus caused the oracle to be interpreted to the Persians that they might desist from their purpose, but they set the pile on fire with torches on every side. Then Crœsus called thrice on the name of Solon, and Cyrus wept, that he should be compelled by the Persians to do an unrighteous act, and burn a king who was no less in honour than himself. When the Persians looked on Cyrus and saw his distress, they changed their minds, and the king bade those who were near him put out the fire. But the pile was on fire and no one could quench it. Then Crœsus called on Apollo for help, because his enemies wished to save him and could not. From the morning the day had been cloudy, but without rain, but when Crœsus had prayed, dark clouds rolled up from every side, lightning and thunder followed fast, and the rain poured down in such streams that not only was the pyre quenched but men could hardly withstand the storm. A purple canopy was quickly spread over Crœsus, but the Persians, terrified at the storm, the darkness, and the panic which had come upon the horses owing to the tempest, were seized with fear of the gods. They thought of the saying of the sibyl and the commands of Zoroaster, cast themselves on the earth, and cried for pardon. From this date the rule of Zoroaster, which had existed among the Persians for a long time, not to burn their dead nor pollute fire in any way, was strictly observed. Cyrus led Crœsus into the palace, treated him as a friend, seeing that he was a pious man, and bade him ask without hesitation for any favour that he chose. Crœsus asked that he might send his fetters to Delphi and ask the god, why he had deceived him by his responses and driven him into war, when he had sent him such trophies; the messengers were also to ask whether the gods of the Greeks paid no heed to the gifts which they received. Cyrus granted this request with a smile and said that he would not refuse Crœsus even a greater favour; he made him his friend, and when he left Sardis, restored his wives and children, and took him as a companion. Some say that he would have made him viceroy of Sardis, if he had not been afraid that this would induce the Lydians to revolt."¹²

We have already noticed how deep was the impression made on the Greeks by the greatness and splendour of the Lydian kingdom. Lydia was the power of the East with which they first came into immediate contact, the first Oriental court which they had before their eyes. A king of Lydia had subjugated the great cities of the coast; his wide dominion, power, and wisdom were the admiration of the Greeks; his glory and treasures excited their astonishment; he had shown himself kindly and gracious towards them, and sent the richest gifts to their gods – and this king it was who fell by a sudden overthrow from his splendid position. He succumbed to a foreign and distant nation, whose name up to that time was hardly known to Greece, and his fall brought with it distress and mischief for the Greeks of the west coast of Asia Minor. This sudden fall of Crœsus was a striking event, and most disastrous for the Greeks, the more striking owing to the unexpected and rapid nature of the change. How could so brave, wise, and religious a ruler fall from the summit of fortune into the deepest distress, and come by a mischance which brought disaster not only on himself and his kingdom, but also on the Greek cities? How could this be the result of an undertaking begun on the authority of the god of Delphi? These questions forced themselves on the Greeks of Anatolia, and beyond the sea, and their legends were at pains to solve the problem. In the mind of Herodotus the solution was the punishment which sooner or later overtakes every unrighteous act. Gyges, the ancestor of Crœsus, had robbed the ancient royal family of the Lydians, the race of Sandon, of their throne. It was the vengeance for this crime which overtook Crœsus. It was a widely-spread and favourite story among the Greeks, how Solon of Athens, unmoved by the successes, the prosperity, and splendour of Crœsus, had warned him in his proud citadel at Sardis of the mutability of human things, and preferred to his brilliant position as a sovereign the modest lot of a life well spent in the performance of duty. We have observed (III. 458) that this narrative is not without some basis of fact. Could there be a more impressive illustration of the saying of Solon than the fate which had overtaken Crœsus? The tradition of the Greeks, especially of the Delphian priesthood, was aware of several oracular responses which had been given to Crœsus. Herodotus' point of view led him to believe that no one, though warned by portents, dreams, and oracles, could escape the doom which hung over him. In this fact lay the justification of the Delphian oracle in regard to the prophecies given to Crœsus. It had announced what was correct, but owing to the blindness sent upon him by fate, Crœsus had not been able to understand its meaning.

Guided by these views, Herodotus represents misfortune as coming on Crœsus in one blow upon another immediately after he had displayed the splendour of his empire to Solon, and in foolish vainglory had declared himself to be the most fortunate of men. That Crœsus had two sons, one a youth of promise, the other dumb, and that he lost the former in the bloom of his youth, are facts mentioned by Xenophon as well as Herodotus.¹³ A dream indicates to Crœsus the death which is destined for his noble son; and the means which he adopts to avert the death serve to bring it about. Adrastus, who first slays his own brother, then the son of Crœsus, and at length slays himself on the young man's grave, is called a scion of the old Phrygian royal family of Midas and Gordius; hence there is a close connection between the fall of the Phrygian and Lydian houses. The Greeks worshipped Nemesis Adrastea, i. e. the doom which none can escape, on the Granicus, and on a mountain near Cyzicus.¹⁴ In the tradition of the Lydians, Attys was their first king, whom Herodotus calls the son of the god Manes; according to the legend of the Phrygians and Lydians, he had been slain by a boar.¹⁵ As we saw, the Phrygians mourned each year for the death of Attys, who had been carried off in the bloom of youth (I. 532). When death had overtaken this son, Crœsus sent to Delphi to ascertain whether his remaining son should ever receive the gift of speech; and the answer was returned that he would speak on a day of great misfortune. Thus the prescience of the Delphic priestess is brought forward in the most emphatic manner.

The overthrow of Astyages caused Crœsus to examine a whole series of oracles that he might ascertain whether they knew what was hidden from men, before he inquired whether he should march against Cyrus. Before this examination, Crœsus had sought and received many prophecies at Delphi, and now he tests not this oracle only, but many others. The mixture of belief and scepticism which would give rise to such an examination is not in itself incredible, but the manner in which the test is carried out in the narrative of Herodotus, or rather of the Delphian priesthood, is wholly beyond belief. The frivolous question – what was the king of the Lydians doing on a certain day – the drift of which was so obvious, would certainly be left unanswered by any oracle of repute which was believed to receive revelations from the gods. If we consider the nature of the Delphic prophecy, which claimed rather to announce the responses of Apollo than to bring to light the past or the future; the religious solemnity of the ceremonies, which they who would consult the oracle had to perform; the small number of the days on which the priestess spoke, we may be quite sure that the priests would have rejected the question. Herodotus cannot give the answers of the other oracles – not even the answer of Amphiaraus (which is also mentioned in the account of Nicolaus), and yet this oracle must have stood the test no less than Delphi, for Crœsus sent presents to it, and laid before it his second question. To Apollo of Miletus, whose answer to the first question Herodotus does not know, and of whom the second question is not asked, Crœsus dedicates exactly the same gifts as those sent to Apollo of Delphi after he had stood the test. Hence it is quite clear that the supposed examination of the oracles is merely a story invented by the Greeks to glorify the Delphic shrine. Crœsus fell, in spite of the splendid presents he had made to the Delphic god, on whose advice he had acted; in order to maintain the divine wisdom of the oracle against this charge, it must be proved to have knowledge of the most secret things. And it is true that Crœsus had put the oracle to the test, though in another manner, by following up the answer to his question whether he should go against the Persians, with a second question – whether his empire would continue. The story how splendidly Delphi had stood the test then received an apparently certain foundation in the hexameters about the lamb's flesh and tortoise, which was subsequently manufactured in Delphi in the name of the priestess.

The narrative of the campaign in Herodotus is obviously intended to put Crœsus in the wrong, and burden him with guilt of his own in addition to the offence of his ancestor. Sandanis warns him in vain (p. 5). Cyrus has done nothing to injure Crœsus, and therefore Crœsus is the aggressor. He crosses the Halys, invades the territory of Cyrus, in order to conquer Cappadocia and avenge Astyages on Cyrus; he causes the land of the Cappadocians to be desolated; and Herodotus lays stress on the fact that this nation was quite innocent. Guilt is followed by incapacity, after the indecisive battle. Crœsus disbands his army for the singular reason that it "was inferior in numbers to that of Cyrus." He is then surprised in Sardis; the citadel is naturally ascended in the very place where in old days king Meles omitted to carry the lion which was to make the walls of Sardis impregnable, because he thought it unnecessary, the place being inaccessible. (I. 561). Crœsus is saved from instant death, because the deaf and dumb son receives his speech on a day of misfortune, as Delphi had announced. The son can not only speak, but knows how to address his father by name. The favour of the gods, who turn again to Crœsus when he has expiated the guilt of Gyges and himself by his overthrow, is shown in this miracle, and more plainly still on the funeral pyre. The wisdom of the Greeks, and of Solon, is set in the clearest light, when Crœsus in his deepest distress, on the brink of a terrible death, remembers the warning once given him by Solon. If such a recollection forms the most brilliant evidence of the insight of the Greeks, it might also give the motive for the rescue of Crœsus.

The occurrences on and at the pyre partake so strongly of the miraculous that Herodotus himself is puzzled. What reason could Cyrus, whose gentleness Herodotus himself extols, have for condemning Crœsus to a death by fire, and with him fourteen Lydian youths? Herodotus knows that fire is a god in the eyes of the Persians, and that corpses could not be burnt.¹⁶ He says: "Cyrus either wished to offer first-fruits to some god, or to fulfil a vow, or to ascertain whether Apollo would assist the pious Crœsus." When narrating the astonishing incidents which took place on the pyre, he drops the positive tone, and continues the story with "the Lydians say." The pyre is already kindled when the question is asked by the interpreters, What is the meaning of the cry "Solon"? Crœsus is at first obstinately silent, then answers obscurely; and only after long pressure tells of his meeting with Solon, which could not be done very briefly if it was to be made intelligible to Cyrus, and the narrative had to be translated by the interpreters, as Herodotus himself relates. Then Cyrus is seized with remorse for the execution he has commanded, and the attempt is made to quench the pyre. Impossible as all this is, Crœsus at the last moment confesses that Solon is right, and Solon's deep insight moves the heart of the great sovereign of the Persians, and rescues the once prosperous but now fallen king.

In his minute account of the cremation, which, in his rhetorical manner, he connects with the recovery of speech by the deaf and dumb son, Nicolaus of Damascus felt difficulties like those in Herodotus. The law bidding the Persians not to pollute fire, nor to "burn the dead," is well known to him. He removes the contradiction by representing the cremation as taking place against the will of Cyrus, and remarks that after this incident the regulation was more strictly observed. In his story also the change is made by the mention of Solon's name. When Cyrus had ascertained what Solon had said to Crœsus, he began to weep, and saw that he had done wrong, and the pain of their king touches the heart of the Persians. This movement is assisted in Nicolaus by the sibyl of Ephesus; in which no doubt he follows the legend of Ephesus; Crœsus had made large presents to the temple of Artemis in that city (III. 451).

In Herodotus, as in Diodorus and Nicolaus, it is the rain, by which the pyre is quenched, which causes Cyrus to continue his gentle treatment of Crœsus. Moreover, the excellent advice, which Crœsus with immediate prudence gives, for putting an end to the plunder of Sardis, and other matters in Herodotus, in Diodorus, and Xenophon, co-operate in influencing Cyrus to hold such a wise man in respect. Xenophon knows, or at any rate says, nothing of the burning of Crœsus. Ctesias knows nothing of it: in his account miracles of another kind are vouchsafed to the imprisoned Crœsus by Apollo in his temple; the triple loosing of the bonds, and their final removal with thunder and lightning, determine Cyrus to set him at liberty and make provision for him.

Lastly, it was incumbent on Herodotus and the Greek narratives to justify the Delphian oracle with regard to the responses given to Crœsus. In Herodotus and Nicolaus this justification is introduced and pointed by the sending of the fetters, which Crœsus had worn, as the first-fruits of the promised victory to Delphi, and the question whether it was the manner of the Greek gods to deceive those who had done them kindness. Following, no doubt, the legend of the Delphic priesthood, Herodotus then gives the defence of the priestess, that Crœsus had not rightly understood the oracles, – though as we shall see, he had understood them correctly enough. The priestess further tells Crœsus, that he was destined to pay the penalty for the offence, which his ancestor Gyges had committed against Candaules, though the Delphic oracle had sanctioned this crime and carried it out. Then destiny has to bear the blame. No man can escape his doom; the god of Delphi had deferred the fall of Crœsus for three years, and saved him from the flames of the funeral pyre. The god of Delphi had thus announced the truth (to prove this Cyrus is made the son of a Median mother), and had shown his gratitude for the gifts of Crœsus by delaying his overthrow, and rescuing him from the flames, as Crœsus must himself confess. Xenophon dwells yet more on the justification. Crœsus had placed himself in the wrong with the god, by putting it to the test whether he could tell the truth; then he hopes that he has appeased him by rich presents, but he misunderstands the further response of the god, "that he will be happy when he knows himself," for in descent, bravery, and generalship he holds himself the equal of Cyrus. In Herodotus and Nicolaus the gift of speech to the deaf and dumb son, the quenching of the pyre, – in Herodotus also the delay of destiny, and in Ctesias, the miraculous loosing of the fetters, – are proofs that the dedicatory gifts of Crœsus and his piety had not been in vain. They could not avert his doom, but they had alleviated it; the god of the Greeks, whom he serves, has at the last saved him from the most cruel fate, and brought it about that Crœsus ends his days, if not as a ruler, yet in peace and dignity.

In spite of all the national and individual points of view which mark Herodotus' account of the fall of Crœsus, and the legends which he has woven into it, and used for his own purposes – the fanciful colours which stamp it as fabulous – it nevertheless contains a nucleus of historical truth, and we can give it a place before the rest as a narrative of facts. We have seen above how suddenly the successful rebellion of Cyrus put an end to the close relations between Babylonia, Lydia, and Media; how Lydia was touched by this change, how clearly the intervention of Lydia was needed, and what reasons could induce Crœsus to defer it. Crœsus was obviously brought to abandon his delay by the successes which Cyrus achieved in establishing his dominion over the Medes, and extending it to North and South, but above all by his conquests in the West and the advance of the Persian border to the Halys. Herodotus' account shows us very clearly that Cappadocia had become subject to Cyrus. When, on a previous occasion, the Medes reached the Halys, Alyattes, the father of Crœsus, had taken up arms; was he to fall short of this example, in the presence of a power which had grown up more rapidly and threatened greater danger than the Medes? As Herodotus told us, it was his intention to attack Cyrus before he became too powerful. We may conclude with certainty from what Herodotus relates, that Crœsus did not hide from himself the importance and difficulty of the undertaking. Above all he sought to win the favour of Sandon the national deity (I. 564). The Lydians offered large burnt-sacrifices to this deity, their sun-god; on a huge pyre they burnt numerous victims, gold and silver vessels, and costly robes in his honour. Herodotus tells us that Crœsus bade the Lydians sacrifice from their own stores on that occasion; hence the great sacrifice, the gold of which Crœsus dedicated to the god of Miletus and Delphi, was a national offering, which Crœsus presented to Sandon. We have already shown that the Greeks recognised in the sun-god of the Lydians their own Apollo and Hercules, while the Lydians found their solar deity in the Apollo of the Greeks. When Gyges undertook to overthrow the old royal family which claimed to spring from this sun-god, and could not succeed in his attempt, an answer was sought from the sun-god of Delphi. The god of the Greeks then dethroned the descendants of the Lydian deity. In the year 556 B.C.¹⁷ Crœsus had already sent to Delphi, and given dedicatory offerings to the god of Delphi and to the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes; and at the present time, when he had resolved to enter on a severe struggle for his throne and kingdom, he called to mind the god, to whose oracle his house owed its position; he would now receive by his favour both kingdom and crown. So Apollo of Miletus and Delphi received silver and gold which had been consecrated by the fire. The bricks into which it was formed were intended to bear the lion which was also fashioned out of the same gold – the symbol of the burning sun, the image of the Lydian god. The four golden bricks formed the uppermost steps. The total amount of the gold dedicated at Delphi and Miletus reached 270 talents. For the presents at Miletus Crœsus used the property of Sadyattes, which he had confiscated at the beginning of his reign, dedicated, and applied as an offering.¹⁸ When Crœsus sent the gifts to Delphi, he inquired of the oracle, as Gyges had previously done. At this time – about 140 years before Crœsus – the question had been who was to ascend the throne of Lydia; now the question was, whether the descendant of Gyges would maintain it in the conflict against Persia. The answer of the priestess, which Aristotle and Diodorus have preserved in metre,¹⁹– "That Crœsus by crossing the Halys would destroy a great kingdom" – is genuine, and was certainly given in the meaning that Crœsus should undertake the war and would destroy the kingdom of his opponent. The object of Crœsus in asking the question was to know whether he would be fortunate in his attack on Persia. If it was the object of the priesthood to give a dubious answer to this question, they could not possibly have answered the further question – whether he should take allies to help him, – with the command that he must take the "most powerful of the Hellenes." At that time the Spartans were beyond all question the most powerful of the Hellenes. How could the priests of Delphi, who owing to the close connection in which they stood to Sparta were well aware that the oracle would be a law to that state, send the Spartans to defeat and destruction, if they foresaw such a thing?²⁰ That at Delphi, owing to the impression made on the Greeks by the power, greatness, and splendour of the Lydian empire, the remote and unknown Persians were underrated is quite probable, and indeed sufficiently proved by the subsequent embassy of the Spartans to Cyrus. The first response did not entirely remove the doubts of Crœsus, so he asked a second time – "whether his dominion would continue long," and this question received a thoroughly satisfactory answer, i. e. an answer which, in the obscure form purposely adopted by oracles, deferred the defeat of the Lydians to distant times, and impossible conditions.

Crœsus had not waited for the oracle to provide himself with sufficient support in his undertaking. Yet it suited him to enter into negotiations with the Spartans, who after a series of successful contests against the Pisatae, Argos, and some cantons of Arcadia, had obtained the foremost place in the Peloponnesus. At an earlier time Crœsus had sent the Spartans a considerable present for the erection of a statue of Apollo, and their grateful feeling towards him would certainly be strengthened by the authority of the Delphian oracle, whose response was known to the Spartans, as Herodotus expressly states (p. 9). Even in Xenophon's account they declared themselves ready to send auxiliary troops to Sardis.²¹ Crœsus did not stop here: he sent Eurybatus to obtain yet more troops in Hellas. Herodotus told us that Crœsus was in league with Egypt and Babylonia against Persia before he made the treaty with Sparta. Amasis, king of Egypt, had determined to support Crœsus, perhaps in return for the service which Gyges had once rendered to Psammetichus, when he sent soldiers to aid him against his fellow-princes, the vassals of Assyria (III. 301). The attitude of Babylonia must be decisive. If Lydia and Babylonia, who were both equally threatened by the new power, united in a firm military alliance, they might hope to contend successfully with the prince of the Persians. At Babylon, after the accession of Nabonetus in the year 555 B.C., the royal power was again in strong hands. According to Herodotus, there was a league between Crœsus and Nabonetus against Persia. Xenophon represents Crœsus as coming to the aid of the king of Babylon. Justin states that Cyrus was at war with Babylon when Crœsus attacked him; Cyrus drove him back, came to terms with Babylonia, and carried the war to Lydia. From all this we may assume that Lydia and Babylonia were united, and that they undertook the war against Persia in common.

Crœsus then might consider that careful preparations had been made for his enterprise, when in the year 549 B.C., and as we may pre-suppose with certainty, in the spring of the year, he took the field.²² He crossed the Halys, and directed his course to the commanding plateau of Pteria, which Herodotus rightly regards as the strongest position in those regions. He took Pteria, and the neighbouring cities, and laid waste the land, with the view no doubt of making it impossible for the Persian army to support itself. There he remained, either because he shrank from going further, and seeking a decisive conflict at a distance from his own borders, or because he expected a diversion on the part of the Babylonians.

The attack of Crœsus was unexpected by Cyrus. He was also engaged with another enemy. These conclusions we may draw from the fact that it was autumn according to Herodotus before the armies stood opposite each other. Herodotus further remarks that Babylon, the Bactrians, and the Sacæ caused Cyrus to return out of Asia Minor.²³ By lingering in Cappadocia Crœsus had given Cyrus time to collect his army and add to it the troops of the countries through which he passed on his march to the West. With his usual circumspection he sought to avail himself of the weak points in his enemy. He sent ambassadors to the Greek cities subject to Crœsus, on the West coast, to urge them to revolt that he might raise up enemies in the rear of the Lydians. Crœsus awaited the attack of the Persians in the neighbourhood of the conquered Pteria. Herodotus tells that the contest was severe. In spite of the considerable superiority of numbers on the Persian side, the Lydians did not give way. The battle was not decided, when night came on. In truth the victory was with the Lydians, whose bravery made such an impression on Cyrus that he would not renew the battle. But the timidity of Crœsus put in his hands all the advantages of a victory. After the bloody day it seemed better to Crœsus, as is the case with men of weaker mould, not to risk everything, but to put off the final decision; he thought it safer to retire, in order to strengthen his army and so fight with equal numbers. Under the supposition that Cyrus would not venture to advance "as the winter was at the gate," he retired to Lydia. He intended to use the winter for collecting the forces of his confederates at Sardis. He requested Nabonetus of Babylon, the Lacedæmonians and the Pharaoh, to embark their forces on the Syrian coast, the Laconian Gulf, and at the mouths of the Nile, in time for them to reach Sardis in the fifth month, i. e. in the early spring. To the want of resolution which had suggested the thought of retreat, Crœsus, when returning, added another great act of folly. He disbanded "the mercenaries" of his army (Alyattes had made use of hired soldiers), bidding them come again to Sardis in the spring, and returned home with the Lydians alone. Such a series of blunders could not go unpunished in the presence of a general like Cyrus. In no case could he remain in the devastated country of the Cappadocians. He must go either forwards or backwards. To choose the latter was voluntarily to abandon the advantages which the retreat of Crœsus offered. Yet he did not content himself with slowly following the unexpected retreat of the Lydians. He appears to have been informed of the plans of Crœsus by Eurybatus of Ephesus, whose treason is not only mentioned by Diodorus after Ephorus, but alluded to by Plato, Demosthenes, and Aeschines.²⁴ By a rapid march upon the enemy's metropolis Cyrus intended to cripple the Lydian forces, hit Crœsus in the very centre of his power, and bring the war to an end at a blow. He came so quickly, that, as Herodotus says, he announced his own arrival. The sudden appearance of the Persian army in the neighbourhood of Sardis completely startled and terrified Crœsus. He retired in order to be able to place in the field a number of warriors equal to the army of Cyrus, and now he was compelled to shut himself up in the walls of Sardis or fight with far smaller numbers than took the field at Pteria. He chose the latter, and awaited the attack on the plain of the Hermus, which was large enough to provide a field for his excellent cavalry.

Though he had a great advantage in his forces, and in the consciousness of his superiority to his enemy, Cyrus omitted no means for securing the victory. He had experienced at Pteria the attack of the Lydian horse, their superiority to his own cavalry, in spite of the practice in riding which the Persians underwent from their youth up, and the excellence of the Median horse. To render useless the attack of these horsemen, Cyrus caused the camels which carried the baggage and supplies of his army to be mounted, and placed them in the first line. This arrangement is mentioned not only by Herodotus but also by Xenophon. No doubt the Lydian horse would be frightened by the noise and unwonted aspect of these animals. Though robbed of their best arm and mode of fighting, the Lydians nevertheless resolved to dismount and carry on the battle on foot. They pressed courageously on the Persians, and could only be driven into the gates of Sardis after a bloody battle. Crœsus was now limited to the walls of his city, and compelled to defend them. He hoped to be able to hold the city till his confederates should come, to whom on the approach of Cyrus he had sent with appeals for immediate assistance. But on the fourteenth day after the investment of the city, as Herodotus maintains, Cyrus brought matters to a decision. Then the Mardian climbed the steep rock on the Pactolus, on which the citadel lay, at a place where no guard was set, the citadel and city were taken, and Crœsus became a prisoner. A picture at Pompeii exhibits Cyrus before his tent, and Harpagus beside him, at the moment when Crœsus is brought forward.

Herodotus' narrative of the ascent of the citadel of Sardis is confirmed by a precisely analogous incident which took place more than three centuries later. Antiochus III. had besieged his brother-in-law Achæus for more than a year in Sardis, and in vain. All hope of taking the city except by starvation was given up, when Lagoras, a Cretan, observed that the walls must be left without a guard where the citadel and the city met. At this point the walls rose on steep rocks above a cleft into which the besieged threw from the towers their dead along with the carcasses of beasts of burden and horses. As the birds of prey when they had eaten the corpses settled on the walls, Lagoras concluded that no guards were stationed there. By night he examined whether it was quite impossible to climb up and plant scaling-ladders there. When he discovered a ravine by which this seemed practicable, he acquainted the king. The necessary preparations were made; in the night, towards morning, when the moon had set, Lagoras with sixteen companions climbed up the rocks; 2000 men were ready to support him. The spur on which the wall lay was so steep that even when the morning broke a jutting piece of rock prevented the garrison from seeing what was going on, and when Antiochus led his army against the Persian gate the garrison went to meet them. Meanwhile the assailants by means of two ladders scaled the walls close against the citadel and opened the nearest door; the confusion which ensued put the city in the hands of Antiochus after a short struggle. Yet Achæus maintained the citadel; by a secret steep and dangerous path in the rear he was able to keep up a communication with Ptolemy Philopator of Egypt, and finally he attempted to escape by this means, but he was betrayed and fell into the hands of Antiochus (213 B.C.).²⁵

Crœsus determined not to survive the great overthrow and sudden disaster which he had brought upon Lydia by his campaign. The Lydians had become the slaves of the Persians, but it might be possible to appease the wrath of Sandon, from whom all this misfortune must have come; it might be that the god would again show favour to his people, turn aside their misfortune and slavery, and raise up the kingdom from the depths. In vain had Crœsus attempted by lavish presents to win the favour of Sandon-Apollo; there still remained the last great sacrifice. So he resolved to offer himself as a peace-offering for his land and people. In this way he might succeed in laying the foundation of the future liberation and rise of Lydia, in conquering by his death his successful opponent. The sacrifice of the heir to the throne and of the king himself in his purple to avert the anger of the sun-god was not unknown in Semitic rites. Zimri of Israel had burnt himself with his citadel in Tirzah; Ahaz of Judah, when defeated by the Damascenes, had sacrificed his son as a burnt-offering; Manasses of Judah "caused his son to pass through the fire in the valley of Ben Hinnom" (III. 43, 209); the last king of Asshur had burnt himself with his palace in the year 607 B.C.; Hamilcar, the son of Hanno, threw himself into the flames of the sacrificial fire in order to turn the battle of Himera. Cyrus had no reason for preventing the death of his opponent, if he chose to die. Though he was offering himself as a sacrifice to his gods, these gods were false in the eyes of the Persians – they were evil spirits or demons. The Persian king could quite understand the resolution of Crœsus not to outlive the fall of a prosperous and mighty kingdom, and to escape a long imprisonment, and would probably look on it as worthy of a brave man. Still less could he object to the wish of a king to die in his royal robes. That the cremation was a sacrifice and not an execution is further proved by the circumstance that Crœsus is accompanied by twice seven youths. It could never have entered the mind of Cyrus to seize and execute fourteen youths, but they might be quite ready to sacrifice themselves with their king. The seventh planet belonged to Adar-Sandon, i. e. to the angry sun-god, and Crœsus had sat on the throne fourteen years. The gifts also which the Lydian women bring or send to the pyre (costly robes and ornaments of every kind, as was customary in the great sacrifices of Sandon), are a distinct proof of a peace-offering. In the picture at Pompeii Crœsus has laurel branches round his head, and a wand of laurel in his right hand, and this marks him out, though in the Greek manner, as dedicated to Sandon; a vase in the Louvre presents him seated on the pyre, in a royal robe, with a crown of laurel on his head. In his left hand he holds a sceptre, with the right he is pouring libations from a goblet, while a servant is sprinkling with water the already burning pyre.²⁶ But the sun-god would not accept the royal sacrifice and peace-offering. It was no favourable sign that the weather was gloomy (χειμών) on that day, as Nicolaus, who here, no doubt, follows Xanthus the Lydian, tells us, though no rain had fallen. The pyre was kindled; Crœsus prayed that Sandon would graciously accept the offering – the invocation of the god by Crœsus with tears Herodotus gives on the authority of the Lydians²⁷– but the prayer is not heard; a storm of rain descends, and the pyre is quenched. This was an unmistakable sign, the clearly-pronounced decision of the god, that he did not and would not accept the sacrifice. Crœsus must abandon his purpose.²⁸

At no time can Cyrus have had the intention of doing any further injury to the captive king of the Lvdians. Herodotus told us that before the battle at Sardis he bade his soldiers spare Crœsus. And he would be the more inclined to show favour and grace to a man whose death heaven had openly prevented. As Ctesias told us (p. 16), he allotted to Crœsus the city of Barene, near Ecbatana, as a residence or means of support. Ptolemy mentions the city of Uarna in the neighbourhood of Ragha, and the Avesta speaks of Varena in the same region.²⁹ After that day Crœsus submitted to his fate; we find him at the court of Cyrus as well as at that of Cambyses in an honourable position; both Cyrus and his successor at times apply to him for advice.

The convulsion which Cyrus had caused in the Median empire might have ended with placing the Persians at the summit instead of the Medes, and establishing the power of Cyrus within the old borders of the Median kingdom. Had Lydia and Babylonia resolved to recognise this change; had they reasons for the assumption that Cyrus would not go beyond these limits, the old relation of the three powers might have been renewed, though it would not have been confirmed by the bonds of alliance. But Lydia no less than Babylonia believed that they were threatened by the advance of Cyrus. At the time when Crœsus attacked him, Cyrus certainly did not intend to proceed to the West beyond the borders of Cappadocia. This is proved by the fact that he kept within the Halys after the conquest of that country. He must establish his power in the East before he could extend his views to the distant West and Asia Minor. It was Babylon which at that time was threatened, if not actually attacked, by Cyrus. The advance of the Persians to the West, which Crœsus intended to prevent by his attack, was really caused by it. He brought on the storm which he sought to allay before it burst upon him. By attempting to check the advance of Cyrus in the midst of Asia he invited him to Sardis. The dominion of the Mermnadæ was at an end; Crœsus had lost it 140 years after his ancestor Gyges had won it. It is seldom that a sovereign is hurled so suddenly as Crœsus from the summit of power and prosperity; that the splendour of a high and glorious position stands in such close and striking proximity to the deepest humiliation. There is hardly any instance of a warlike and brave nation passing so suddenly and utterly into obscurity as the Lydians; and never has so ancient, so flourishing, and powerful a kingdom, while yet in the period of its growth, been so swiftly overthrown, never to rise again.

CHAPTER VII
THE SUBJUGATION OF ASIA MINOR

However unexpected the attack of the Lydians had been by the ruler of the Medes and Persians, however inconvenient the war with them, he had brought it to a rapid and prosperous decision. Though he had entertained no thought of conquests in the distant West before Crœsus took up arms against him, he resolved to maintain the advantage which the war had brought him to such a surprising extent. Great as was the distance between Sardis and Pasargadae, Lydia was to be embodied in his empire, and the Ægean was to form its western boundary. His army took up winter quarters in Lydia; from Sardis he arranged in person the new government of the land, and the fate of the nations which had been subject to the Lydians. We do not know whether the Phrygians, Bithynians, and Paphlagonians submitted to the change of dominion without resistance. Æschylus represents Cyrus as subjugating Phrygia. According to Xenophon, Phrygia was reduced by Cyrus as he returned from Sardis; the Paphlagonians submitted voluntarily, like the Cilicians; this was the reason why no satraps were sent there, yet the fortresses were occupied with Persian garrisons, and the Paphlagonians and Cilicians had to pay tribute and perform service in war.³⁰ Cilicia had not been subject to the Lydians; ever since the irruption of the Scyths had broken the cohesion of the Assyrian power, her princes were independent, though they had paid tribute to Assurbanipal (III. 166, 178), They bore the standing title of Syennesis. More than sixty years previously Nabopolassar of Babylon and Syennesis of Cilicia had brought about peace and alliance between Cyaxares of Media and Alyattes of Lydia (V. 295). That Cilicia now voluntarily submitted to Cyrus, if it had not done so previously, can be concluded with certainty from the fact that we subsequently find kings named Syennesis at the head of Cilicia, who are bound to pay tribute to the Persian empire and render service in war.³¹

Cyrus met more vigorous resistance in the west of Asia Minor. The Lycians, who maintained their independence against the Lydians in their mountains to the south, were not inclined to submit to the Persians, nor were their neighbours in the south-west, the Carians. The cities of the Greeks, who possessed the entire western coast, hesitated which course to take. After their ancestors had set foot on this coast, 400 years previously, they had succeeded in maintaining their ground for a century and a half against the rising power of the Lydians under the Mermnads; indeed it was during this period that they had extended their trade and colonisation, and risen to be a second naval power beside the Phenicians, – the centre of a commerce, which on the one hand included the Black Sea and the Maeotis, and on the other almost all the Mediterranean – which included in its empire Cyprus and Sicily and Corsica, Egypt and the mouths of the Po and Rhone, and even extended to the banks of the Bætis. Along with the trade and wealth of these cities, poetry had burst into a new bloom, plastic art and architecture were eagerly cultivated, the foundations were laid for Greek science, natural history, geography, history, and philosophy. Life was pleasant and luxurious; no doubt the morals of the Lydians had found their way into the cities, but the old vigour still remained in the inhabitants by sea and land. At last they had succumbed to Crœsus, not because they did not know how to fight, but because they had not followed the advice of Thales of Miletus, who urged them to carry on the war in common, and place at their head a council with dictatorial powers (III. 450). But the supremacy of Crœsus, to which they did not submit for much more than a decade, had not been of an oppressive character. It had left the cities unchanged in their internal trade, and in fact had increased rather than destroyed it. Crœsus had contented himself with yearly tributes from the cities, and we have seen to what a large extent Greek art and manners found protection, favour, and advancement at the court of Crœsus. Now these cities suddenly found themselves in the presence of a power of which they had hardly heard the name, and which had prostrated with a mighty blow the kingdom of Crœsus. As they were not pledged to provide soldiers for the king of the Lydians, they had looked on in irresolute neutrality during the war. And they had paid no heed to the request of Cyrus that they would join his side. Previously it might have been to their interest to weaken the power of Lydia, in order to regain their full independence, but when Cyrus marched upon Sardis it became much more imperative to prevent a stronger power from taking the place of the Lydians. A diversion on the part of the Greek cities when Cyrus was besieging Sardis, would have delayed the fate of the city, and might have rendered possible the arrival of the allies. But they had done nothing, and now found themselves alone in the presence of the conqueror. Their danger prompted them to offer submission to the king of the Persians on the same terms as those on which they had served Crœsus. Cyrus rejected the offer which the ambassadors of the Ionian and Aeolian cities brought to Sardis. Mere recognition of his supremacy and payment of tribute he did not consider sufficient to secure the obedience of cities so remote, and he was strong enough to insist on a more dependent relation without great efforts. But ever cautious and provident, he took means to separate the cities. To Miletus, the strongest, he offered a continuance of the relations in which she had stood to Lydia. When Miletus, "from fear," as Herodotus remarks, accepted these conditions, Cyrus had already won the victory. The cities were divided, robbed of their strongest power and natural head.

Conscious that their submission on the conditions proposed had been refused, the cities of the Ionian tribe took counsel at their old common place of sacrifice on the shore of the sea, opposite Samos, under Mount Mycale. Miletus, it is true, was absent; but among the Ionians there was far too much pride, far too great a sense of freedom, to offer unconditional submission to Cyrus. The defection of Miletus seemed to be compensated when ambassadors of the cities of the Aeolian tribe appeared on the same day as the Ionians, which had never occurred before, and declared their common resolution "to follow the Ionians wherever they led."³² It was resolved to fortify the cities, to make a resistance to the Persians, and for this object to call as quickly as possible on the mother country for help. A common embassy of the Ionian and Aeolian cities went to Sparta, in order to ask aid of the Dorians there, the leading state in the peninsula. But in vain did Pythermus of Phocaea, the mouthpiece of the embassy, put on his purple robe in order to manifest the importance and wealth of the cities, when the ephors introduced the legation before the common assembly. Though the Spartans at that time were at the height of their power, and had promised help to Crœsus, though the ships had been equipped and the contingent was ready to embark when the news came of the capture of Sardis, Sparta now refused to send aid, regardless of the fate of her countrymen. She merely resolved to despatch ambassadors to Cyrus with the request that he would leave the Greek cities in peace. A ship of fifty oars carried the embassy to Asia, with the real object, as Herodotus supposes, of ascertaining the position of affairs in Ionia and with Cyrus. It landed at Phocaea. Lacrines, the spokesman of the ambassadors, found Cyrus in Sardis, and there warned him in Sparta's name, "to do no harm to any Hellenic city, for Sparta would not allow such conduct to go unpunished." Without the support of an army this warning was an empty and foolish threat, which Cyrus treated as it deserved.³³

There must have been some urgent necessity which summoned Cyrus to the East before he subjected the Lydians, Carians, and Greeks of the coast. Herodotus tells us that he intended to conquer Babylon, the Bactrian nation, the Sacæ and Egyptians. In the early spring he set out with the bulk of his army to Ecbatana.³⁴ Crœsus was in his train. He had given the government of Lydia to Tabalus, a Persian, but the management of the revenues to Pactyas, a Lydian.³⁵ He may have thought that Lydia was more peaceable than it really was, or more reconciled to its fate by his gentle treatment of Crœsus, and the nomination of a Lydian as manager of the taxes. The dominion of the Persians had come upon the Lydians suddenly; they refused to recognise the superior power of their rulers, and could not finally accept the rapid change which had so suddenly overthrown their ancient kingdom and their fame in arms. So far from being subdued, they hardly considered themselves seriously beaten. The rapid and decisive action, in which they had been defeated, might appear to them rather a fortunate surprise, than a victory won by the Persians. It was Pactyas, whom Cyrus had made manager of the revenues, who raised the standard of revolt. He collected the Lydians, and induced the inhabitants of the coast, i. e. the cities of the Greeks, to join him. Tabalus could not resist in the open field the sudden outburst of rebellion. When Pactyas marched against Sardis, he was compelled to shut himself up in the citadel, and was there besieged. While yet on his march Cyrus received the news of the revolt. Yet his presence in upper Asia was so necessary that he did not return in person; he sent Mazares, a Mede, with a part of the army, to bring the Lydians once more to obedience. The rebellion appears to have been undertaken in haste without sufficient preparations, and Pactyas was not the man to lead it with energy. He did not venture to await the arrival of Mazares; the citadel of Sardis was delivered; Tabalus was free; the rebellion was crushed; Pactyas fled to the Greeks on the coast, to Cyme, the leading city of the Aeolians. When Mazares demanded that he should be given up, the oracle of Apollo at Miletus twice ordered the Cymæans, in answer to their repeated inquiry, to surrender him. The priests of that temple, the Branchidæ, well knew that the arrangement which their city had made with Cyrus, pledged her to carry out the wishes of the Persians. The Cymæans did not obey even the second response, but first took Pactyas in safety to Mytilene in Lesbos, and when they found that the Mytileneans were ready to give him up, they took him to Chios. But the Chians, though, like the Lesbians, they had nothing to fear from the Persians in their island, nevertheless surrendered him.³⁶

The hopes which the Greek cities might have built upon the rebellion of the Lydians were quickly broken. The mother country had refused any help. Sparta would not come to their assistance, and Athens, torn as she was by internal dissensions, could not. No one in the cantons of the Greek peninsula roused themselves to give aid to an important section of the Greek nation, to the colonies which had outstripped the mother country in their development, or strove to save the most vigorous centres of Greek nationality from subjection to a foreign people, which had come out of the remote part of Asia. If the voice of a common blood and the sense of nationality failed to warn the Greeks beyond the sea against giving over to strangers for plunder such rich and flourishing cities, was there no one in Hellas who foresaw that if the establishment of the Persian dominion on the coasts of Asia Minor were not prevented, and the cities of the coast with their navy were allowed to fall into the hands of the Persians, Greece itself would not be safe from their attack, and they would be able to visit the coasts of Hellas in Greek ships? Yet even without assistance the power of the Hellenic cities would have sufficed for a considerable resistance to the Persians – for the position of affairs in Asia did not allow Cyrus to bring any great force against these distant coasts – if they had been able to understand and take to heart the lessons of their own past. If they had neglected to unite their forces against the Lydians, such union was now doubly necessary. They had learned from experience the evil of delay, and the danger was now greater than ever. The Greek cities were in uncontested possession of the sea,³⁷ and thus in a position to give help in common to any city which the Persians might attack. An organisation which permitted the whole force of the city to be used for the benefit of each one, would have given a prospect of successful resistance. But no step whatever was taken in this direction. Each city turned its attention to strengthening its own walls, and awaiting the attack of the Persians.

After the subjugation of the Lydians, Mazares, as Herodotus tells us, turned his arms against "those who had besieged Tabalus along with Pactyas." He invested Priene, took the city, and reduced the inhabitants to slavery; then the plain of the Maeander was laid waste, the city of Magnesia taken, and its inhabitants enslaved. After the capture of Magnesia Mazares fell sick and died. Cyrus sent Harpagus the Mede as his successor. He marched northwards from the valley of the Maeander; in the first instance against Phocaea, which appeared to have taken the leading part in resistance, or at any rate had done most to gain the help of Sparta; after Miletus it was the most powerful city of the Ionians. The trade in the Adriatic and the Tyrrhene sea, on the coasts of Gallia and Iberia, was in the hands of the Phocaeans. A strong and magnificent wall, well built of large stones, surrounded the city, the circuit of which, as Herodotus says, reached "not a few stadia." Harpagus invested Phocaea, and threw up works round the walls; he then sent intelligence to the Phocaeans that he should be content if they would pull down but one tower, and solemnly give up to him the possession of one dwelling. The Phocaeans must have thought that they could no longer hold the city or repulse an attack. According to Herodotus, they answered the offer of Harpagus with a request that he would allow them a day for consideration, and for that day would lead his army from the wall. Harpagus replied that he knew very well what their intentions were, but he would give them time for consideration. When Harpagus led his forces from the wall, the Phocaeans drew their ships to the sea, put upon them their wives and children, and everything that they could carry away, even the images of the gods and the votive offerings, and then embarked and sailed to Chios. It was their intention to purchase from the Chians the Oenussæ, islands lying off Chios, and to settle there. But the Chians refused to sell them, fearing that their trade would go there. Then the Phocaeans turned their course back to Phocaea; Harpagus had taken possession of the empty city and left a garrison in it. This the Phocaeans cut down; then they sunk a large mass of iron in the sea, with an oath that they would not return again to the city till the iron should float, and shaped their course to the distant Western sea, for the island of Cyrnus (Corsica), where twenty years previously they had founded the colony of Alalia. Harpagus is said to have burnt Phocaea, thus punishing the houses and temples for the attack on the garrison.³⁸ After the capture of this city, he besieged Teos, and gained possession of the walls by means of the works which he threw up. The Teians then went on board their ships, one and all, sailed to the north, and settled on the coast of Thrace opposite Thasos, where they founded Abdera.³⁹ "So all the Ionians," says Herodotus, "with the exception of the Milesians, who had come to terms with Cyrus, fought against Harpagus, and showed themselves brave warriors, each for his own city; but Harpagus took them one after the other by investing them and throwing up works against the walls. Thus conquered they remained in their cities, with the exception of those exiles, and did what they were bid." After the subjugation of the Ionians, Harpagus turned to the North, reduced the cities of the Aeolians, and bade their military forces join his army.

The line of conquest had now reached the Dorian cities of the coast, the Carians and Lycians. The Dorians and Carians made but little resistance.⁴⁰ The Greeks of Asia had not only been abandoned by their kinsmen beyond the sea, but also by their gods, or at any rate by their oracles. As Apollo of Miletus had bidden the Cymaeans to give up Pactyas, so Apollo of Delphi bade the Cnidians to desist from making their city impregnable. Cnidus lay on the western edge of a long and narrow promontory. The inhabitants had begun to cut a channel through the land with a view of securing themselves against the attack of the Persians. But though a large number of hands were engaged, the work did not make progress in the hard rock; and as many of the workmen were injured the city sent to Delphi to inquire the cause of their misfortunes. The priestess answered, according to the Cnidian account: "Ye must not fortify the Isthmus, nor cut through it; Zeus would have made it an island if he had wished."⁴¹ The Cnidians desisted, and surrendered without a struggle to Harpagus on his approach. Among the Carians, the Pedasians alone, who had fortified Mount Lida, made a vigorous resistance; it cost Harpagus much trouble to take this fortification. The Lycians, who had never been subject to the kings of the Lydians, marched out against Harpagus. In the open field they fought bravely, though few against many. When conquered and driven into their city Xanthus (Arna, I. 577), they brought their wives and children, their servants, and their goods into the citadel and set them on fire; then they bound themselves by an oath, fell upon the Persian army, and maintained the conflict to the last man. Then the remaining towns of the Lycians, being robbed of their best defenders, submitted. The Caunians alone, as Herodotus tells us, followed almost exactly the example of the city of Xanthus.⁴² Even the sea put no limit to the supremacy of the Persians. The Greeks of the islands of Chios and Lesbos voluntarily submitted to them, though, as Herodotus assures us, "they had nothing to fear," "for the Persians were not mariners, and the Phenicians were not their subjects at that time."⁴³ The two islands would not give up all hope of the possession of the districts on the coasts opposite.

About three years after Cyrus had left Sardis in the spring of the year 548 B.C. his power in Lydia was not only firmly founded, but the whole western coast, with all its harbours and landing-places, together with two considerable islands, was subject to him. As Aeschylus tells us, he had reduced Ionia by force. The East had again overpowered the colonists of the West on its western edge. Asia Minor, beyond the Halys, was subjugated to Cyrus in even greater extent than to Crœsus; in fact it was wholly in his power.⁴⁴ He placed two viceroys over it. One, the viceroy of Phrygia, was to govern the north-eastern; the other, the viceroy of Lydia, was to govern the south-western half of this wide region. The first took up his position at Dascyleum, not far from the shore of the Propontis; the other in the citadel at Sardis.⁴⁵ Among the cities of the Greeks, Priene and Magnesia on the Maeander had been destroyed, and their inhabitants enslaved; Phocaea had been burned. The rest had not been injured by Harpagus after their capture; he had not placed any Persian governors over them, nor introduced garrisons. It was not intended in any way to destroy their nationality or their religious worship. Their social life, their forms of government, their autonomy remained; even the common sacrifices and assemblies of the Ionian cities at Mycale were permitted to continue. They had only to recognise the supreme authority of the king of the Persians and his viceroys, to pay yearly tribute to the king, the amount of which each city fixed for itself, and furnish a contingent to the army when called upon by the viceroy to do so. When the Ionians again met at the common place of sacrifice for the first time after their subjugation, Bias of Priene, who had escaped the destruction of his country, proposed that all the Ionian cities should follow the example of the Phocaeans and Teians; that there should be a general emigration to Sardinia, in order that all might obtain a new country there. They were then to form one great community; one city was to be founded by all in common. Had this proposal been carried out, the achievements of Cyrus would have exercised a far deeper influence over the distant West, than the mere settlement of the Phocaeans in Alalia, who moreover were not able to maintain themselves in their new settlement. The centre of Hellenic colonisation would have been transplanted from East to West, and the fate of Italy would have been changed; the Greeks would have retired before the supremacy of the East in order to establish a strong insular power among the weak communities of the West. But the Ionians could not rise to the height of such a revolution. Among the Greeks, the attachment to their ancient soil, their homes and temples, was peculiarly strong. If men could and would forget independence, the supremacy of the Persians did not seem very oppressive. It limited the trade of the Greeks as little as it repressed their social life; on the contrary, it rather advanced commerce, which now received the protection of the Persian king throughout the whole of his wide dominions. The ruin of Phocaea also aided the trade of Miletus which had suffered neither war nor siege.

Yet the cities of the Greeks were essentially weakened by the war and their subjugation. In Phocaea, it is true, a community again grew up. Half of the emigrants, in spite of their solemn vow, were seized with a longing for their ancient home; they returned to their desolated city. But for fifty years after this time the new Phocaea would or could furnish no more than three ships of war. In Priene also and Teos sufficient inhabitants gradually assembled to establish small communities.⁴⁶ Other circumstances weighed more heavily even than their natural losses. Cyrus knew well that it would not be easy to retain in secure obedience cities so distant in situation, so important in population and military resources. At such a distance isolated garrisons would have been exposed to great danger; yet without them the cities would have closed their gates to the Persians at any moment, manned their walls, and entered into combinations beyond the sea. Every rebellion of this kind made new sieges necessary, and these were the more difficult as Persia had no fleet, and could only use the ships of the Greeks. Situated at the extreme edge of the kingdom, and supported by the opposite shore of the Ægean, each of the larger cities could offer a long resistance. With the unerring political insight which distinguished him, Cyrus saw that he must gain adherents within the cities, and have on his side influential interests of sufficient weight to keep the cities in obedience. Yet he did not aim at supporting one or other of the parties who contended in the Greek cities for the leadership of the community; on the other hand, his favour and that of his viceroys was given to this or that party-leader. His allegiance was to be secured and certain advantages were held out in prospect to the city when led by him. Cyrus intended to govern the cities of the Greeks by Greeks, who were not to be his officers, but to rule the cities as their lords and princes for their own advantage and profit. By their position, which they owed to the favour of Persia, and could only maintain with the help of Persia against their fellow-citizens, by the interested desire to retain this power in their families and bequeath it to their children, by the concentration of the princely authority, as opposed to the republican institutions and republican spirit of their cities – which authority rested on the Persian court, and was closely connected with it – these rulers in union with the viceroys and their troops must be in a position to secure the subjection of the cities. Thus it came to pass that not in Cyme only, the most important city of the Aeolians, but in almost all the towns of the Greeks, men were raised to power by the favour and support of the Persian satraps, who managed the public affairs, and in the place of autonomous communities came despotisms and principalities, in reality if not in name. How correct Cyrus was is proved by the result.⁴⁷ He was able to secure the obedience of the Lydians also. He caused the land to be stripped of its arms, even to the extent of taking away the cavalry horses,⁴⁸ and so abandoned all thought of forcing the Lydians to serve in his army. The disuse of arms and the lapse of time did their work, aided as they were by a vigorous trade, which in Lydia was due not only to the natural wealth and the gold of the soil, but to a long-established and skilful industry. In these pursuits and a luxurious life the Lydians forgot their old days and ancient deeds. Persia had never again to contend with a rebellion of the Lydians.

The tradition of the Greeks has not omitted to illustrate the important events of the extension and establishment of the Persian dominion in Asia Minor by a series of pointed anecdotes and stories. Among these is the reply which Cyrus is said to have given to the Greek cities, when they offered their submission after the fall of Sardis (p. 50). At that time Cyrus, as Herodotus tells us, narrated the following story with reference to their refusal of his first request: – A flute-player once played to some fishes in the sea in order to entice them out. As they did not come, he took them out with a net, and when they leapt about, he said, Cease dancing now; ye did not dance out of the water when I played. Diodorus puts the transaction later, and with him it is not Cyrus, but Harpagus, who, as we saw, received the command against the cities after Mazares, who told the following apologue to the ambassadors: – He had once asked a maid of her father in marriage, but the father betrothed her to a man of greater importance. When he afterwards found out that the man whom he had despised as a son-in-law was in favour with the king he brought him his daughter, and Harpagus took her not for his wife, but for his concubine. By this Harpagus meant that as the Greeks had not become friends of the Persians when Cyrus wished it, they could not any longer be allies but only servants.⁴⁹ When Lacrines brought to Cyrus from the Spartans the command that he must not attack any Greek city, Herodotus represents Cyrus as answering, in the pride of his absolute power, that he had never been afraid of men who met in the market-places and deceived each other by speeches and promises. If he remained in health, they would not have to lament over the sorrows of the Ionians, but over their own.⁵⁰ Here also Diodorus gives another version: – To the command of the Spartans that he must not attack the Hellenes in Asia who were their kinsmen, Cyrus answered, that he would acquaint himself with the bravery of the Spartans when he sent one of his servants to subjugate Hellas.⁵¹

The account which Herodotus gives of the negotiations of Harpagus with the Phocaeans is not historical. If the resistance of the Phocaeans was so difficult to overcome that Harpagus descended to the concession that only one tower need be pulled down and a single habitation given up to him, the Phocaeans had no reason to abandon their city. But if they were in such a condition that they must abandon the defence, the lapse of one day would certainly not suffice for them to get the ships in order, and put on board the whole population with their goods, the images of their gods, and the votive offerings. Still more inconceivable would be the folly of Harpagus in drawing off his army from the city and thus allowing the Phocaeans to destroy his siege works, so that he had to begin them all anew.

The striking change which took place in the Lydian character after the suppression of the rebellion under Pactyas, the contrast between the horse-breeding Lydians of the Homeric poems, between the mounted squadrons which once pressed so heavily on the Greek cities, reduced Asia Minor, and offered such a brave resistance to the Medes and Persians, and the peace-loving, effeminate, submissive Lydians of the fifth century B.C., was explained by the Greek tradition after its own manner. When in his return from Sardis to Ecbatana, Cyrus received the intelligence of the rebellion of the Lydians, he confided to Crœsus, as Herodotus tells us, that it seemed to him the best plan to make all the Lydians slaves. "I have dealt with them," so Herodotus represents Cyrus as saying, "as one who spares the children when he has slain the father. I have captured you who have been more to them than a father, and left them their city, and now I wonder that they rebel." Crœsus replied: "What you say is just, but let your anger pass by; do not destroy an ancient and guiltless city. What took place before was my doing, and the guilt lies on my shoulders; what has happened now is due to Pactyas to whom you yourself entrusted Sardis. Punish him, but spare the Lydians. Forbid them to carry weapons for the future, order them to wear coats under their mantles, shoes with high heels, and to train their boys in playing and singing and in trade. You will soon make them women instead of men, and they will never revolt or be a source of alarm." Crœsus gave this advice with the double object of turning aside the vengeance of Cyrus from the Lydians – for even such a life was better than slavery – and of preserving the Lydians for the future from bringing about their own destruction by new rebellions. Cyrus followed the advice of Crœsus. This story is repeated by Polyaenus. When the Lydians had revolted, Cyrus bade Mazares take away their weapons and horses, and allow them no longer any practice in throwing the spear and riding; on the contrary, he was to compel them to wear women's clothes, to weave, and play the lute. In this way the Lydians became the most unwarlike people, though previously they had been the most warlike.⁵² The new dress which Cyrus, on the advice of Crœsus, commanded the Lydians to wear, was the hereditary dress of the Lydians (who are called soft-footed in the response of the Delphic priestess (p. 9), because they wore shoes), and practice in playing and singing were old customs of the Lydians which previously had done no harm to their martial valour. The narrative is invented, though not by Herodotus, to glorify the wisdom of Crœsus and give a reason for the clemency which Cyrus showed after the rebellion – and at the same time to explain the contrast between the Lydians of antiquity and their descendants.

CHAPTER VIII
THE FALL OF BABYLON

When the kingdom of the Lydians had succumbed to the arms of Cyrus, Babylonia alone was left of the three states which had joined in the overthrow of Assyria. It was a region of very considerable extent, reaching from the Tigris to the coasts of Syria, and from the foot of the Armenian and Cilician mountains to the deserts of Arabia; the population was united, and a strong centre was not wanting. As we saw, Nebuchadnezzar had not only greatly increased the agriculture and trade of his kingdom, but had also erected the strongest barriers for the protection of his native land and the metropolis. In this he had only the Median power in view, but owing to the victory of Cyrus over Astyages a stronger power had taken the place of Media, and neither his wisdom nor his energy had descended to his successors. After a reign of two years his son Evilmerodach fell by the hand of his own brother-in-law, Neriglissar, who sat but four years on the throne which he had thus acquired. The boy whom Neriglissar left behind was murdered by the conspirators who in the year 555 B.C. elevated Nabonetus to the throne. Of this king we only know that he did not belong to the race of Nabopolassar. Neriglissar had continued the fortification of the metropolis, and Nabonetus completed the walls which were intended to enclose the two parts of the city of Babylon on the east and west of the Euphrates towards the river. He continued the buildings of Nebuchadnezzar at the temples at Ur (Mugheir), and restored the ancient temple of Bilit (Mylitta) at that place. His inscriptions entreat the god Sin that his works may continue as the heavens, and commend his first-born son Belshazzar (Bil-sarussur) to the favour of the moon-god. To the city of Tyre he gave a new king, Hiram of the race of Ethbaal, in the year 551 B.C.⁵³

We cannot ascertain what position Nabonetus took up towards the growing power of Cyrus. According to the statement of Trogus Pompeius, Babylon was at war with Cyrus, when Crœsus went to her aid. Cyrus repelled this attack, came to terms with Babylonia, and carried on war against Asia Minor. Xenophon represents Crœsus as beginning the war against Cyrus at the request of the king of Babylon (p. 17). Herodotus, as has been mentioned above, repeatedly assures us that Crœsus was in league with the king of Babylon, whom he calls Labynetus (p. 20). As we saw, Cyrus left Sardis and Asia Minor in the spring of 548 B.C., before the nations of the western coast, the Carians and Lycians, had been subjugated; and Herodotus remarks that he intended to march against Babylon. For Babylonia there could certainly be no more favourable moment for carrying on the war with the Persians than the time at which Cyrus lay opposite the army of Crœsus at Pteria in Cappadocia, before he advanced upon Sardis. A march of the Babylonian army up the river Euphrates would have cut off the communications of the Persian army with their own home, and compelled Cyrus to abandon the Lydians and to turn upon Babylon. We do not know whether Nabonetus looked idly on at the fall of Crœsus in spite of the league, or whether a second Persian army compelled him to leave events to take their course in Asia Minor, or whether Cyrus, on his return to Ecbatana, after the overthrow of Crœsus, as Herodotus tells us, marched against Nabonetus. All that we know from Herodotus is that Harpagus subdued lower Asia, i. e. Asia Minor, and Cyrus himself upper Asia, passing from one nation to another without any exception.

"The greater part of their achievements," Herodotus continues, "I will omit; I will only narrate that feat which cost the most trouble and is the most worthy of notice. When Cyrus had reduced the whole of the continent he attacked the Assyrians. Now Assyria had many other large cities, but the most famous and strongest of them was Babylon, where their kings dwelt after the destruction of Nineveh. Labynetus was ruler of the Assyrians, and against him Cyrus marched." According to this more exact statement, Cyrus did not march against Babylon directly after the Lydian war, but only "when the whole of upper Asia had been reduced to subjection." That Elam and the land between the lower Tigris and the mountains of Persia was subject to Cyrus before he attacked Babylonia, follows from the statements of a prophet of the Jews.⁵⁴ Berosus says quite distinctly: "When Cyrus had subjugated the whole of Asia, he set out with a great power from Persia against Babylon in the seventeenth year of the reign of Nabonetus."⁵⁵ We can establish the correctness of this date from other sources, and prove that the war between Babylon and Persia, which Herodotus sets himself to describe in the words quoted, took place ten years after the Lydian war. Yet it remains doubtful whether Babylonia and Persia had already met in arms, before, during, or immediately after the Lydian war. So much only is certain, that if a collision of this kind had previously taken place, it was indecisive. Nor can we make it clear what motives caused Nabonetus to allow Cyrus to attack Babylonia at a time most convenient to himself; whether this attitude was due to the experience of previous failures, or to a feeling of confidence that the natural and artificial barriers of the Babylonian land offered a better prospect of success under any circumstances, than an attack on Persia.

We have already seen how faithfully the Jews, whom Nebuchadnezzar had transported to Mesopotamia and Babylonia in the year 597 B.C., and again in 586 B.C. when he conquered and destroyed Jerusalem, clung to their God and their religion (III. 395). They cherished the firm hope that the judgment which had fallen on Judah and Jerusalem would come to an end, and Jehovah's anger would turn, when the purification was completed; that the kingdom of David would be restored, and Babylon punished for all that it had done to Jerusalem. Since the times of Hosea and Isaiah, the prophets of the Israelites had always pointed beyond the punishments which Jehovah would send upon the sins of his people to their restoration in a happy future. Thus in the first year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah had announced that Jehovah would allow the King of Babel to come upon Judah and Jerusalem, but that the servitude of Judah would only continue for a definite period – for seventy years (III. 326); and Ezekiel had definitely and solemnly announced the restoration of the national sanctuary to his people in Mesopotamia (III. 395). Zealously devoted to the worship of the God whose strong hand alone could break their yoke asunder and lead back their weak numbers to their home, the exiles impatiently awaited the fall of Babylon. It was their firm hope that as Assyria had fallen, which had annihilated Israel and brought the severest blows upon Judah, so would the line of destruction reach Babylon also, and vengeance would not be delayed. "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered thee, O Zion. We hung up our harps on the willows that are in the land; our conquerors asked us for a melody, and those that troubled us for songs of joy. How can we sing Jehovah's song in a strange land? O daughter of Babylon, thou that makest desolate, blessings be upon him who taketh thy children and throweth them against the rocks."⁵⁶ "Why go I sorrowing under the oppression of the enemy? It was not by their sword that they took the land, nor did their arms win the victory, but thou, O Jehovah, wert gracious to them. All this came upon us, and yet we were not faithless, our steps strayed not from thy path. Tears are my food day and night, while they say to me, Where is thy God? I thought how I went with the multitude into the house of God with songs and thanksgiving. Thou art my King, Jehovah (III. 396); send help to Jacob; with thy name we shall tread down our enemies. I put not my trust in my bow, but thou givest us victory over the oppressor. Send thy light and thy truth, that they may bring me to thy holy hill, to the God of my joy, that I may praise thee on the lute. Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake. Cast us not away for ever. Our soul is bowed down to the dust, our body pressed to the ground. Save us for thy mercy's sake. I will yet praise him, who is my Saviour and my God."⁵⁷

Even in the last years of Nebuchadnezzar, as they looked on the mighty works with which the destroyer of Jerusalem surrounded his city, the hopes of the Jews rose. From these enormous structures they might conclude how insecure Babylon felt herself against the Medes. Immediately after the death of the great and dreaded prince the Jews began to dream of an attack of the Medes on Babylonia. "Israel was a stray sheep," such are the words of a prophet of this period, "which was in terror of lions. The king of Assyria ate it, and Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, gnawed the bones." "But the God of Israel says, 'I will have vengeance on the king of Babel, as I had vengeance on the king of Assyria, and I will lead Israel back, that he may pasture on Carmel and Bashan, and satisfy himself on Mount Ephraim and Gilead.'"⁵⁸ "Bel shall be put to shame, and I will take out of his mouth that which he has swallowed, and Merodach shall be overthrown, their images and idols."⁵⁹ "Thou who dwellest on the great waters, thine end is approaching. Though Babylon exalted herself to heaven, and made the height of her fortification so that no one could pass over, the broad walls shall be cast down and the high gates shall be consumed with fire."⁶⁰ "Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni (Armenia), and Ashenas; arm against her all the governors of the kings of the Medes, and all the lands of their dominion. Summon against her all who draw the bow; stand round Babylon, ye archers, and spare not the arrows."⁶¹ Similar views gave rise to another prophecy which deduces the imminent fall of Babylon from her pride. "Babylon said in her heart, I will climb up to heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and dwell on the hill of assembly in the uttermost north. I will climb to the heights of the clouds, and make myself equal to the Highest. But against them Jehovah arouses the Medes, who regard not silver and have no pleasure in gold.⁶² Call aloud to them, wave the hand, that they may enter into the gates of the tyrants. Their bows will destroy her young men, and she laments not for her children. And thus Babylon, the delight of the kingdoms, shall be as Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall be no more inhabited for ever; the Arab shall not pitch his tent there, nor the shepherd feed his flock. Beasts of the field shall dwell there; owls shall inhabit the houses, ostriches shall make their home there, and the satyrs shall dance. Jackals shall howl in her palaces, and foxes in her pleasure-houses. I will make Babylon a dwelling for the hedge-hog, saith Jehovah, and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction. The time is at hand, it will come quickly. Thy glory is gone down into hell, and the noise of thy harps. Thy bed is with the worm, and thy covering is corruption. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou beaten to the ground that didst lay low the nations!"⁶³

The eager and impatient expectation of the Jews could not but perceive the change which had been made in the relation of the states of Asia by the victory of Cyrus over Astyages and the Medes three years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar. When Cyrus afterwards subjugated the nations to the east and west of Media, and the mighty kingdom of Lydia was shattered by him, so that the fame of his victories filled the East – when it might be expected that his arms would turn against Babylon, the Jews considered their rescue certain. With redoubled zeal they called down the punishment of Jehovah on Babylon, and delighted themselves in advance with the coming vengeance. Cyrus was the instrument which Jehovah had chosen to punish Babylon. As the old prophets had seen in the kings of Assyria, and Jeremiah in Nebuchadnezzar, the servants of Jehovah, who were to carry out his will on the nations, and hold the judgment day of the Lord, so did the Jews now see in Cyrus a man called to a similar mission, their saviour and liberator; he seemed to them the anointed of Jehovah. If the absence of images in the rites of the Persians, the worship of Auramazda, the creator of heaven and earth, were nearer the religion of the Jews than the sacrifices which the Babylonians offered before the images of Bel and Bilit-Istar, Adar, Samas and Sin, Merodach and Nebo, and the worship which they devoted to the ruling powers of the stars, they did not overlook the gulf which divided them; but they were convinced that Jehovah chose Cyrus as the rod of his anger, and the goad of his wrath, to punish the pride and wickedness of Babylon. In this spirit we find a prophet saying, with a definite reference to the announcements of Jeremiah: "Who called him from the East, whom victory meets at every step? Who gives him the nations and subjugates kings to him, and makes their swords as dust, and their bows as chaff? He pursues them and follows safely in the path which his feet have never trodden. I, Jehovah, aroused him from the North (midnight), and he came from the rising sun, who calls upon my name. He passes over the mighty ones as over clay, as a potter breaks a vessel. I summoned him for salvation, and his ways will I make smooth; he shall build my city and release my captives, without ransom and without price. I will speak to Koresh (Cyrus), my shepherd; all my business he shall perform, so that he will say of Jerusalem, It shall be built, and of the temple, It shall be established. And I will speak to Koresh, mine anointed, whom I hold by his right hand to throw down the nations before him, and strip the loins of the kings, and open the gates and doors: I called thee, though thou knewest me not;⁶⁴ I will go before thee and make plain the ramparts; I will break in pieces the brazen gates, and the cross bars will I loosen" (the gates of Babylon were of brass);⁶⁵ "I will say to the deep, Dry up, and thy streams I will cause to be parched. Hear this, O wanton one, O daughter of the Chaldæans, thou that didst lay thy yoke heavily on my people, on the aged one, saying, I will be a lady for ever; but suddenly on one day thou shalt be childless and widowed. Keep to thy incantations, to the multitude of the charms wherewith thou hast comforted thyself from thy youth up. May the quarters of the sky arise and help thee, which look to the stars, which on the new moons announce what will come upon thee. Bel boweth down, Nebo falleth. No more shalt thou be called mistress of the kingdoms, daughter of the Chaldæans. I will place thee on the earth without a throne, I will plant thee in the dust, and make thee crawl in the darkness, O virgin, daughter of Babylon. Take the mill and grind meal, remove thy veil, lift up thy garment, lay bare the thigh, and pass through the rivers; no more shalt thou be called delicate and tender⁶⁶. Zion said, Jehovah has left me, and my Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, and have no pity on the fruit of her womb? Yet though she may forget, yet will not I, Jehovah, forget thee. I have graven thee upon my hands, and thy walls were ever before my eyes⁶⁷. Loose the fetters from thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. Shake off the dust, Jerusalem; rise up, thou that hast drunk the cup of wrath from the hand of Jehovah⁶⁸. Behold, I take from thy hand the cup of my wrath, that thou mayest drink it no more. I put it into the hand of those who have prepared sorrow for thee. Break forth into singing, ye ruins of Jerusalem; cry aloud, O heaven; rejoice, O earth, for Jehovah has mercy on his people⁶⁹. He called the eagle from the east" (the eagle was the standard of the Achæmenids), "the man of his counsel from the distant land. Jehovah spake and called him; he leads him forth, and he shall accomplish it; he brings to pass the will of Jehovah on Babylon, and his might on the Chaldæans."⁷⁰

Herodotus describes the approach of Cyrus and his war against Babylon in the following manner: "When on his march against Babylon he came to the Gyndes (now the Diala), which falls into the Tigris, and crossed it, one of the sacred white horses was carried away by the stream. Cyrus was angry, and threatened that he would make the river so insignificant that a woman should cross it without wetting her knee. With this view he drew 180 lines on each side of the river, and bade his army dig a channel on every line; and as a great multitude was employed, the work was finished, but it occupied the whole summer, so that Cyrus did not lead his army against Babylon till the second spring. The Babylonians marched out of the city and awaited his attack. When Cyrus came up the Babylonians joined battle; they were defeated, and driven into the walls. They had known for a long time that Cyrus would not remain at rest, for they had seen how he had reduced all nations alike, and therefore they had collected provisions for many years in the city. The siege, therefore, caused them no alarm; but Cyrus was in difficulties, for time passed away, and he made no advance. Afterwards he did as follows, whether it was that some one suggested the plan to him, or whether he discovered it for himself. He placed part of his army where the river flows into the city, and part where it flows out, and bade them enter the city by the river as soon as it could be forded. After he had given them orders, he went with the bulk of his army to the basin, which the queen of the Babylonians had caused to be excavated, and did what she had done with the basin and the river. By leading the river through the opening into this basin, which was a marsh, he made the old bed so that it could be forded. When this had been done, and the water of the river had fallen to such an extent that it reached the middle of a man's thigh, the Persians who had been placed near the city forced their way into Babylon along the bed of the river. Had the Babylonians previously known or suspected what Cyrus intended, the Persians would not have passed unnoticed into the walls; had they closed the gates leading from the city to the river, and mounted the walls which line the banks, they would have caught the Persians in a trap as it were, and they would have perished miserably. But the Persians came quite unexpectedly. The outer parts of the city had been already taken while those in the centre, who, as the Babylonians say, knew nothing of the matter, owing to the extent of the city, were dancing and making merry – for it so happened that a festival was being celebrated – until they at length discovered their misfortune."

Xenophon relates that the inhabitants of Babylon laughed at the siege, because the strong and lofty walls could not be taken by storm, and the siege would not hurt them, for they had provisions for more than twenty years. Cyrus also soon convinced himself that the city could not be taken by the means which he was employing, and resolved to draw off the Euphrates, which traverses the city in a stream two stadia (1200 feet) in breadth, and twice the height of a man in depth. For this object he threw a rampart round the whole city, with a very broad and deep trench before it on the side towards the city. This great work was apportioned to the different parts of the army, and the time occupied in it was calculated at a year. Where the trenches approached the river the earth was not excavated, so that the water would not flow into the trenches. When Cyrus perceived that the Babylonians celebrated a festival at a fixed time, at which they feasted for the whole night, he caused the earth which separated the river from the trenches above the city to be cut through by a multitude of men as soon as it was dark; the water at once ran into the trenches, and the river sank so low that it could be forded. The river now opened a way into the city, and Cyrus bade his troops enter by its bed. They would find the inhabitants drunk and asleep, without any organization for resistance, and when they found the enemy in the city they would lose all their courage. If the Babylonians, nevertheless, attempted to hurl down missiles from the roofs, the houses could be burned, and they would take fire readily, as the doors were of palm-wood covered with bitumen. A separate troop of the Persian army, which Gobryas led, had orders to make their way to the palace of the king as quickly as possible. The Persians entered, and cut down the inhabitants whom they found; others saved themselves by flight. The watch of the palace were drinking by a bright fire before the gates, which were closed. They were surprised and cut down. When the noise of the fight was heard inside the palace, the king sent to inquire what was the meaning of the tumult. But as soon as the gate was opened the Persians forced their way into the palace; the king and those around him drew their swords, but succumbed to numbers, and were killed. Meanwhile Cyrus had despatched his cavalry along the streets, sending with them men skilled in the Syrian language, who proclaimed that every one who remained in his house would be uninjured; all who showed themselves in the streets would be put to death. Thus the city quickly passed into the hands of the Persians. The gates of the citadel were opened the next morning, when the dawn of light showed them the Persians in possession of the city.⁷¹

Polyaenus gives two versions of the taking of Babylon. The Babylonians laughed at the siege, as they had provisions for many years. But Cyrus drew off the Euphrates, which flows through the middle of the city, and turned it into a neighbouring swamp. As the Babylonians were thus cut off from drinking-water, they soon opened their gates to Cyrus. The second version is different. When, in order to take Babylon, Cyrus had made a trench to receive the water of the Euphrates, which flows through the city, he led away the army from the walls. The Babylonians believed that Cyrus had abandoned the siege, and they became negligent in keeping watch on the walls. But after drawing off the water, Cyrus led the Persians through the old bed, and unexpectedly made himself master of the city.

Besides these accounts of the Greeks, proclamations of the Hebrews, which are joined on to the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, give indications on the fall of Babel. "Behold, saith Jehovah, I will dry up their sea and parch their fountains. When they are heated I will prepare a drink for them, and intoxicate them, so that they make merry, that they may sleep an everlasting sleep, and awake no more. And behold! there came mounted men. The night of my pleasure was turned to horror. The watchman wakes, the table is prepared, there is eating and drinking. Rise up, ye princes, anoint the shield. Their dwellings are set on fire, the bars are broken. One runs to meet another, and messenger to meet messenger, bringing news to the king of Babylon that his city is captured on every side; the channels are taken, the lakes they have burned with fire. Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all her idols are trampled underfoot. The whole earth rests, and is at peace, the lands break forth into joy. The cypresses are glad over thee, the cedars of Lebanon; now that thou art fallen, no one will come to cut us down."⁷² The kings of Babylon, like those of Asshur, used the cedars of Lebanon for their palaces; Nebuchadnezzar himself tells us that he caused cedars to be felled in Lebanon for his palace (III. 386). A later book of the Hebrews, the Book of Daniel, which was written in the first century B.C., under Antiochus Epiphanes (176-164 B.C.), about the year 167 B.C., represents Babylon as taken by the Persians during the night of a festival, but Darius, not Cyrus, is the Persian king. Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, is king of Babylon. He gives a great banquet to his thousand mighty men, and, heated by wine, causes the gold and silver vessels to be brought which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from the temple at Jerusalem; and his mighty men, their wives and concubines, drink out of them, and sing songs of praise to their gods of gold and silver, brass, iron, stone, and wood. Then suddenly a hand writes letters on the wall of the palace. The king changes colour; the wise men of Babylon, the Chaldæans, the magicians, and prophets were brought, but they cannot read the writing. Then Daniel was summoned, one of the Jews whom Nebuchadnezzar brought from Babylon, who had already interpreted dreams for Nebuchadnezzar which the wise men of Babylon could not expound, and had remained true to the religion of Jehovah under all temptations. He read the words, which were Hebrew, – Mene, Tekel, Peres, – and explained them: Thy kingdom is "numbered"; thou hast been "weighed" in the balance and found wanting, because thy heart is not humbled, and thou honourest not the God in whose hand is thy breath and all thy fortunes; thy kingdom has been "divided" among the Medes and Persians. Then the king commanded to put the purple robe on Daniel, and the golden chain upon his neck, and proclaim him third in the kingdom. "But in that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldæans slain, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom."⁷³

Only a short excerpt has come down to us of the account which Berosus gave of the capture of Babylon. "Cyrus set out from Persia with a strong force against Babylon. When Nabonetus heard of his approach, he went to meet him with his army, and they joined battle. He was defeated, and fled with a few companions into the city of the Borsippeans, where he was besieged. Cyrus took Babylon, and as he had found the city difficult to reduce, and stubborn, he gave orders to throw down the walls outside the city, and then set out against Borsippa in order to get Nabonetus into his power, by bringing the siege to an end. But Nabonetus did not wait for the city to be taken by storm; he surrendered. Cyrus treated him with kindness, and sent him from Babylon to Carmania, which he appointed to be his dwelling-place. There Nabonetus lived for the remainder of his life, and there he died." According to Eusebius, Cyrus gave the vice-royalty of Carmania to Nabonetus, and Darius took it away again.⁷⁴

After all that has been observed above, the attack of Cyrus could not be unexpected by Nabonetus, and we also see from Herodotus that it had been long foreseen, and provisions for many years had been collected in Babylon – according to Xenophon there was sufficient for twenty years. We find, moreover, that the fortifications of the city had been completed; the great extent which Nebuchadnezzar had allowed for the wall of the city must have enclosed a wide breadth of country, or at any rate pastures large enough to maintain numerous herds of cattle. And Nebuchadnezzar had not merely made the metropolis the fortress and strong camp of the kingdom, which could both receive and protect the military forces, he had covered the northern edge of the Babylonian land by a fortification of a hundred feet in height and twenty in thickness, which extended from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Behind this wall were the four great canals which connected the Euphrates and Tigris; and, protected by the great wall, there lay on the Euphrates at Sepharvaim, the reservoirs by which the level of the Euphrates could be raised or lowered, and the canals fed – the basin of which Nebuchadnezzar had availed himself in building his bridge over the Euphrates, – works which Herodotus, we do not know on what authority, but very erroneously ascribes to Nitocris, a queen of Babylon. By this wall, and the canals, which it would be necessary to dam up, any attack on the heart of Babylonia from the direction of Mesopotamia would be rendered almost impossible. The Tigris after leaving the mountains of Armenia, above the ruins of Nineveh, is not difficult to cross in the summer, yet an attack from this side would encounter almost insuperable difficulties, and even if they were overcome the attacking army would be involved in a labyrinth of canals, in which the cavalry of the Persians could be of little use. Hence Babylonia could only be reached by crossing the Tigris and Euphrates below that fortification and the canals, – a difficult task. If Cyrus attempted to cross both rivers above this point, and then march down the western shore till he was below the "Median wall," he would sacrifice altogether his communication with Persia, he would have to march southwards through the Syrian desert, and then force the passage of the Euphrates, in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, i. e. in the face of the enemy's power, while he at the same time would find himself in the midst of an extensive system of canals, and of the swamps which lie along the Euphrates between Babylon and the sea (I. 300, III. 359).

Under these circumstances Cyrus could only cross the Tigris from the east, and attempt an attack below the wall which united the two rivers. This was the line which, in fact, he followed. Berosus told us that Cyrus "marched from Persia against Nabonetus," and Herodotus exhibits him as occupied for a whole summer on the Diala. His occupation there, as Herodotus describes it, is very unintelligible; the Diala was punished by being divided into 360 canals, and so made fordable. That Cyrus should punish a river is both unlikely in itself and opposed to the religious conceptions of Iran, which as we know required the greatest respect to be paid to rivers; more improbable still and indeed impossible is it in the midst of the war against Babylon. If we do not assume that the source from which Herodotus drew has wrongly brought a great work of irrigation which Cyrus undertook for the land of the Diala at some other time into connection with this war against Babylon, it must be the passage of the Tigris which is in question. What we know of the military achievements of Cyrus does not allow us to suppose that when once in the field he would give his opponents the respite of a whole summer. If we could assume that the army of Nabonetus had contested the crossing with Cyrus at this point, above the mouth of the Diala, where at a later time the Babylonians attempted to check Darius – and that they had ships of war in the Tigris then, as at the time of Darius – we might then suppose that Cyrus reached the Tigris above the mouth of the Diala, and not being able to force the crossing, attempted to carry off the water of the river into the Diala, above and behind his camp, and at length succeeded in his attempt. Even then the number of the canals is very remarkable. But whether the supposition is right or wrong, in any case we may assume on the basis of the narrative of Herodotus that Cyrus began the war against Babylon in the spring of the year 539 B.C., that he crossed the Tigris in the neighbourhood of the Diala, and that the only result of his first campaign was to effect the passage of the Tigris and retain command of the river. From this point, in the next spring, he led his army, as Herodotus states, in a diagonal across Babylonia towards the city. Nabonetus lost the battle, which, as Herodotus says, was fought in the neighbourhood of Babylon. Of Nabonetus and his fate the historian says not a word; we have therefore no reason to doubt the statement of Berosus, that Nabonetus did not again return to Babylon, but took refuge in Borsippa with a few companions, and was there besieged. It was obviously of great advantage to Cyrus to prevent the Babylonians from entering into their city, to drive away the army or part of it from the city in order to diminish the number of those who could defend the walls. He might accomplish this object by strengthening his right wing and advancing with it. If Nabonetus and a part of the fugitives were thus cut off from Babylon, he could only retire southwards beyond the Euphrates into the city nearest Babylon, i. e. into Borsippa, to seek protection at the great temple of Nebo (I. 291), the god whose name he bore.⁷⁵ The command in Babylon then devolved on his eldest son Bil-sar-ussur (p. 67). It follows from the narrative of Berosus that Cyrus quickly followed up the defeated army of the Babylonians, that a part of the Persians, treading on the heels of the fugitives, crossed the Euphrates below the city, to invest Borsippa and the metropolis on the western side. Berosus has told us that Cyrus marched against Babylon with a great force. His army must indeed have been strong enough to enclose the second circuit of the city, 35 or 40 miles (III. 372), to meet the attack of the whole force of the besieged on both sides of the river, and blockade Borsippa.

But the inhabitants "ridiculed the siege," and Cyrus could make no progress – such is the account in Herodotus and Xenophon. Owing to the amount of provisions at the command of the city, an investment could not promise any result, and there was little prospect of storming the city. The broad and deep trenches in front of the walls made it impossible to undermine them; even if these could be filled up under the missiles of the enemy in a few places for the battering-rams to be brought forward, the strength of the walls was so great that they could not be broken. Still less possible was it to mount them. They were so high that the arrows of the besiegers could not reach them with force, and even if the attack was carried successfully over the trenches, no towers or ladders would be at once strong and high enough to bring the storming party to the turrets. According to Herodotus, a long time had elapsed before Cyrus formed his plan. He bethought himself of the basin which Nebuchadnezzar had excavated at Sepharvaim, for the regulation of the inundations of the Euphrates, for feeding and damming up the canals; this work constructed for the benefit and protection of the land he used for the destruction of the capital. The Euphrates was to be led off into this basin till its bed could be forded at Babylon. Then the storming of the city was to be attempted from the river, the walls on the banks being less high and strong. For this object it was necessary to obtain possession of the fortress of Sepharvaim, which guarded the sluices of the basin, to deepen or enlarge the basin itself, so that for a certain period it could receive the whole mass of water; it was also requisite that the canal which led into it should be widened and deepened; and lastly the course of the river beneath the basin, or rather beneath the great canals which led into the Tigris, must be barred by a dam, if the Euphrates was to flow into it. The army of Cyrus must have been so strong, that after leaving behind a sufficient number of men on both sides of the Euphrates to continue the blockade of the city and of Borsippa, it could detach an adequate force of troops and workmen to Sepharvaim. Before these works could be begun, the inundation which in June and July the Euphrates pours over the plain of Babylon must have been over; and before the return of the inundation in the autumn, which would imperil the whole undertaking, Sepharvaim must be captured, the Euphrates drawn off, and Babylon conquered. When Sepharvaim was in the hand of Cyrus, the stream, which had previously been dammed up with the exception of a small passage, must have been rapidly closed, that the Babylonians might not have their suspicions roused by the fall of the water, and guard the walls on the river with redoubled vigilance. The time was short. Pliny has preserved for us the statement that the large city of Agranis, which lay on the Euphrates, where the canal Nahr Malka (III. 359) flowed out of the river, was destroyed by the Persians; the walls of the city of Sepharvaim which had been rendered famous by the wisdom of the Chaldæans (Sippara, I. 245), were also destroyed by the Persians, and Gobares (Gobryas), as some say, had drawn off the Euphrates.⁷⁶ To Gobryas Xenophon also allots an important share in the capture of Babylon (p. 78). Even without these statements of Pliny, which support the account of Herodotus, and inform us of the battles which the Persians had to fight on the Euphrates above Babylon in order to establish themselves at the entrance of the Nahr Malka, and get the mouth of the basin into their power – even without the hints of the prophets of the Hebrews about the "drying up of the springs," and "parching of the channels," and the remark of Polyaenus about the drawing off of the Euphrates at a marsh (the basin of Sepharvaim was, when not filled, a marsh), we must reject Xenophon's account of the drawing off of the Euphrates. Conceding the extent of the walls of Babylon, even if limited to one bank of the river, the work could not have been done in a year; and every day the execution of the work under the eyes of the besieged would have made its object more plain.

The plan of Cyrus succeeded. The removal of Agranis and Sepharvaim made the execution possible; the number of hands at his disposal caused all the works to be carried out at the right time, i. e. before the inundation of the autumn. The storming of the city could be attempted by the river-bed both above and below the city.⁷⁷ That it took place and was accomplished on the night of a festival, is stated in the narratives of Herodotus and Xenophon, and indicated by the Hebrew prophet in the words "the night of my pleasure was turned to horror," and other phrases (p. 80); and the book of Daniel makes the same assertion. Aristotle is of opinion that even three days after, a third part of the population did not know that the city had been taken.⁷⁸ Xenophon represents the division of Gobryas as the first to reach the palace; the king falls when defending himself against their attack. By the palace is here meant one of the two royal citadels, either the older on the western bank, or the more recent on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, the palace of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar (III. 375), and the king whom he represents as slain there, must have been Bil-sarussur, the son and heir of Nabonetus. As we have observed, the book of Daniel calls the king who lost his throne and life on the night of the festival, Belshazzar. In addition to him, Nabonetus had a second son, named Nebuchadnezzar (see below, chap, xiv.). Besides the palace of the king, Xenophon speaks of citadels of Babylon which surrendered to the conqueror on the following morning.

After the capture of the metropolis, which was followed by the surrender of Borsippa, and the capture of Nabonetus (538 B.C.), Cyrus, so far as we can tell, showed clemency both towards the king, whom he caused to be taken to Carmania, and to the city of Babylon. The kings of Asshur treated besieged princes and conquered cities in a manner very different from that in which Cyrus treated Astyages, Crœsus and Sardis, Nabonetus and Babylon. Babylonia was not oppressed; the city was not destroyed. Cyrus stepped into the place of the native king. The Babylonian tablets after the capture of the city and the fall of the kingdom, date from the years of the reign of Cyrus over Babylonia, the years "of Kurus, king of Babylon, king of the lands."⁷⁹ The city of Babylon retained her temples and palaces and her mighty walls. Herodotus tells us expressly that Cyrus did no injury to the walls or the gates of Babylon,⁸⁰ and twenty years afterwards we find the city in possession of her impregnable works. Xenophon remarks that Cyrus placed troops in the citadels, set captains over them, left behind a sufficient garrison in the city and charged the inhabitants with the maintenance of it; the arrangements then made for keeping guard were in existence still.⁸¹ If, therefore, the excerpt of Josephus from Berosus tells us that Cyrus destroyed the walls "outside the city," this can only refer to the great wall which Nebuchadnezzar had built from the Euphrates to the Tigris above Sepharvaim, as a protection against an attack from the north. It would have been a heavy task to level with the ground this fortification throughout its entire length of from 60 to 75 miles, the Persians therefore contented themselves with making large breaches in it. The wall was in this condition when Xenophon came with the ten thousand to Babylon.⁸²

The fall of the metropolis had decided the fortune of the Babylonian kingdom, and the provinces. The most important of these was Syria, with the great trading places of the Phenicians on the Mediterranean; we remember how many and what severe struggles the subjection of Syria had cost Nebuchadnezzar. At the present moment the approach of the Persians was enough to cause Syria to recognise the supremacy of Cyrus almost without a blow. Herodotus tells us that the Phenicians voluntarily submitted to the Persians; Xenophon mentions that Cyrus had subjugated the Phenicians; Polybius observes that Gaza alone among all the cities of Syria offered resistance; the rest, terrified at the approach of the Persians and the greatness of their power, had surrendered themselves and their lands to them. With the capture of Gaza Cyrus stood on the borders of Egypt. As we have seen, Nebuchadnezzar allowed the states and cities of Syria to retain their native princes, so long as these preserved their fidelity to him; even over the Phenician cities he and his successors placed men of their own royal or priestly families to be at once judges or princes of the cities and viceroys of Babylon. That Tyre surrendered without a struggle, as Herodotus and Polybius tell us of Syria, that Cyrus, like Nebuchadnezzar before him, left the princes who submitted in command, follows from the fact that Hiram, whom Nabonetus had made king of Tyre, continued to reign over the city under Cyrus.⁸³ If Cyrus felt himself compelled to establish princes in the Greek cities of the coast for the first time, who owed their position to him, and could not maintain it without his aid, the cities of Phœnicia had long been accustomed to receive these princes from distant sovereigns. Cyrus and his successors confined themselves in their choice to the old royal families of the Phenician cities; at any rate we find, even under the Achæmenids, men with the hereditary names at the head of Tyre and Sidon. Yet the relations of the Phenician cities did not remain without change. Cyrus, as it seems, availed himself of the old rivalry between Tyre and Sidon to win a further support for his power. Ever since the foundation of Gades, and the times of the first Hiram of Tyre, the contemporary of Solomon, Sidon had been gradually forced by Tyre into the second place; under the Persian kingdom Sidon again appears as the first city of Phœnicia, and her kings have the precedence of those of Tyre and the other cities.⁸⁴ To the population on the whole the change to the Persian dominion would be regarded with indifference if not with pleasure; a connection with the Persian empire opened a far more extensive market for trade, and secured and protected intercourse over a far greater extent of country than the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar.

The ancient kingdom of Babylon, in which the civilisation of the Semitic stock had taken root some fifteen centuries previously, and had attained to such peculiar development, which had struggled so long and stubbornly against the younger kingdom of Assyria, and when it finally succumbed, had been raised to yet greater power than it had ever attained to in old times, under the brilliant reigns of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar – which had united the branches of the Semitic stem from the Tigris to the Mediterranean, from the foot of the Armenian mountains to the deserts of Arabia – had succumbed to the attack of Cyrus after a brief existence, sixty-nine years after the fall of Nineveh. The predominance exercised for so many centuries by Semitic culture and Semitic arms through the old Babylonian, the Assyrian, and the second Babylonian kingdom, passed to a tribe of different character, language, and culture – to the Arians of Iran.

It was this violent change, which brought to a Semitic tribe liberation for its fellow Semites. The hopes of the Jews were at last fulfilled. The fall of Babylon had avenged the fall of Jerusalem, and the subjugation of Syria to the armies of Babylon opened the way for their return. Cyrus did not belie the confidence which the Jews had so eagerly offered him; without hesitation he gave the exiles permission to return and erect again their shrine at Jerusalem. The return of the captives and the foundation of a new state of the Jews was very much to his interest; it might contribute to support his empire in Syria. He did not merely count on the gratitude of the returning exiles, but as any revival of the Babylonian kingdom, or rebellion of the Syrians against the Persian empire, imperilled the existence of this community, which had not only to be established anew, but would never be very strong, it must necessarily oppose any such attempts. Forty-nine years – seven Sabbatical years, instead of the ten announced by Jeremiah – had passed since the destruction of Jerusalem, and more than sixty since Jeremiah had first announced the seventy years of servitude to Babylon. Cyrus commissioned Zerubbabel, the son of Salathiel, a grandson of Jechoniah, the king who had been carried away captive, and therefore a scion of the ancient royal race, and a descendant of David, to be the leader of the returning exiles, to establish them in their abode, and be the head of the community;⁸⁵ he bade his treasurer Mithridates give out to him the sacred vessels, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away as trophies to Babylon, and placed in the temple of Bel; there are said to have been more than 5000 utensils of gold and silver, baskets, goblets, cups, knives, etc. But all the Jews in Babylon did not avail themselves of the permission. Like the Israelites deported by Sargon into Media and Assyria some 180 years previously, many of the Jews brought to Mesopotamia and Babylonia at the time of Jechoniah and Zedekiah, had found there a new home, which they preferred to the land of their fathers. But the priests (to the number of more than 3000⁸⁶), many of the families of the heads of the tribes, all who cared for the sanctuary and the old country, all in whom Jehovah "awoke the spirit," as the Book of Ezra says, began the march over the Euphrates. With Zerubbabel was Joshua, the high priest, the most distinguished among all the Jews, a grandson of the high priest Zeraiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had executed after the capture of Jerusalem. The importance of the priests had increased in the captivity; they had become the natural heads and judges of the Jews, and the people following the guidance of the prophets, had learned to regard Jehovah as their peculiar lord and king. It was a considerable multitude which left the land "beyond the stream," the waters of Babylon, to sit once more under the fig-tree in their ancient home, and build up the city of David and the temple of Jehovah from their ruins; 42,360 freemen, with 7337 Hebrew men-servants and maid-servants; their goods were carried by 435 camels, 736 horses, 250 mules, and 6720 asses (537 B.C.)⁸⁷ The exodus of the Jews from Babylon is accompanied by a prophet with cries of joy, and announcements filled with the wildest hopes. Was not the fall of Babylon and the return home a sure pledge that the anger of Jehovah was appeased? Must not the dawn of that brilliant time be come, which the prophets had always pointed out behind the execution of the punishment? Could not the most joyful expectation prevail that Jehovah's grace would be greater henceforth than his anger in the past? Thus, in the spirit, the prophet saw all the scattered members of the people of Israel, who since the time of Tiglath-Pilesar II. had been carried away, or fled for refuge, return from the distant lands, from Egypt and the isles; Jerusalem has put on a new splendour which far exceeds that of old days; and therefore he gives expression to the confident expectation that the people of Jehovah will be the first nation of the earth, and the resurgent Zion will be the centre and the protector of all nations. "Go forth from Babylon," he cries; "fly from the land of the Chaldæans! Proclaim it with shouts of joy, tell it to the end of the earth and say: 'Jehovah hath redeemed his servant Jacob.'"⁸⁸ "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth glad tidings, that publisheth peace, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth.⁸⁹ Up, up, go forth, touch no unclean person; go forth from among them. Cleanse yourselves, ye that bear Jehovah's vessels.⁹⁰ Ye shall go forth in joy and be led in peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees shall clap their hands.⁹¹ Jehovah goes before you, and the God of Israel brings up the rear. Was it not Jehovah who made the depths of the sea to be your pathway, so that His redeemed passed through? In the desert through which they passed they thirsted not; He clave the rock and the waters flowed.⁹² So shall the ransomed of Jehovah return, and come with singing to Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.⁹³ O, poor ones, surrounded with misery and comfortless; for a little time Jehovah left thee, but He takes thee up again with greater love, and I will have mercy on thee for ever, saith Jehovah. As I swore that the waters of Noah should not come again upon the earth, so do I swear to be angry with thee no more. The mountains may melt and tremble, but my mercy will leave thee no more. Jehovah calls thee as an outcast sorrowful woman, and thy God speaks to thee as to a bride who has been put away;⁹⁴ thy ruins, and deserts, and wasted land, which was destroyed from generation to generation – thy people build up the ruins, and renew the ancient cities.⁹⁵ Behold, I will make thy desert like Eden, and thy wilderness like the garden of the Lord; I will lay thy stones with bright lead, and thy foundations with sapphires, and make thy towers of rubies and thy gates of carbuncles.⁹⁶ Joy and delight is in them, thanksgiving and the sound of strings. The wealth of the sea shall come to thee, and the treasures of the nations shall be thine;⁹⁷ like a stream will I bring salvation upon Israel, and the treasures of the nations like an overflowing river.⁹⁸ Thy sons hasten onward; those that laid thee waste go forth from thee.⁹⁹ Lift up thine eyes and see; thy sons come from far, and I will gather them to those that are gathered together. The islands and the ships of Tarshish wait to bring thy children from afar, their gold and their silver with them.¹⁰⁰ The land will be too narrow for the inhabitants; widen the place for thy tent, let the carpets of thy habitation be spread – delay not. Draw out the rope; to the right and to the left must thou be widened.¹⁰¹ I will set up my banner for the nations, that they bring thy sons in their arm, and thy daughters shall be carried on the shoulders. Kings shall be thy guardians, and queens thy nursing-mothers; I will bow them to the earth before thee, and they shall lick the dust of thy feet, and thou shalt know that I am Jehovah, and they who wait patiently for me shall not be put to shame."¹⁰²

Such expectations and hopes were far from being realised. The Edomites had, in the mean-time, extended their borders, and obtained possession of the South of Judah, but the land immediately round Jerusalem was free and no doubt almost depopulated. As the returning exiles contented themselves with the settlement at Jerusalem, the towns to the North, Anathoth, Gebah, Michmash, Kirjath-Jearim, and some others – only Bethlehem is mentioned to the South,¹⁰³ they found nothing to impede them. Their first care was the restoration of the worship, according to the law and custom of their fathers, for which object an altar of burnt-offerings was erected on the site of the temple, in order to offer the appointed sacrifice at morning and evening. The priests, minstrels, and Levites were separated according to their families, and those who could not prove their priestly descent were rejected for the sacred service;¹⁰⁴ the attempt was then made to arrange the rest of the exiles according to their families, in order to decide their claims and rights to certain possessions and lands. Then voluntary gifts were collected from all for the rebuilding of the temple; contributions even came in from those who had remained in Babylonia, so that 70,000 pieces of gold and 5000 minæ of silver are said to have been amassed. Tyrian masons were hired, and agreements made with Tyrian carpenters, to fell cedars in Lebanon, and bring them to Joppa, for which Cyrus had given his permission. The foundation of the temple was laid in the second year of the return (536 B.C.). The priests appeared in their robes with trumpets, and the Levites with cymbals, to praise Jehovah; "that He might be gracious, and His mercy be upon Israel for ever." Those of the priests and elders who had seen the old temple are said to have wept aloud; "but many raised their voices in joy so that the echo was heard far off."¹⁰⁵ We have evidence of the grateful and elevated tone which filled the exiles in those days, in songs, where we read: "They pressed upon me in my youth, but they overpowered me not. The ploughers ploughed upon my back and made long furrows. Jehovah is just; he broke the bonds of the wicked. Praised be Jehovah, who did not give us over as prey to their teeth; our soul escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler. When Jehovah turned again the captivity of Zion, our way was filled with joy; and they said among the nations: Jehovah hath done great things for them! Jehovah hath chosen Zion, and taken it to be His abode and resting-place for ever and ever. There He will clothe His priests with salvation, and exalt the power of David, and clothe his enemies with shame."¹⁰⁶

The fortunate beginning of the restoration of the city and temple soon met with difficulties. The people of Samaria, who were a mixture of the remnant of the Israelites and the strangers whom Sargon had brought there after the capture of Samaria (III. 86), and Esarhaddon at a later date (III. 154), came to meet the exiles in a friendly spirit, and offered them assistance, from which we must conclude that in spite of the foreign admixture the Israelitish blood and the worship of Jehovah were preponderant in Samaria. The new temple would thus have been the common sanctuary of the united people of Israel. But the "sons of captivity" were too proud of the sorrows which they had undergone, and the fidelity which they had preserved to Jehovah, and their pure descent, to accept this offer. Hence the old quarrel between Israel and Judah broke out anew, and the exiles soon felt the result. After their repulse the Samaritans set themselves to hinder the building by force; "they terrified the exiles that they built no more, and hired counsellors to make the attempt vain during the whole of the remainder of the reign of Cyrus."¹⁰⁷ The reasons which these counsellors brought forward before Cyrus against the continuation of the buildings at Jerusalem, would be the same which were afterwards brought before Artaxerxes Longimanus; namely, that when Jerusalem and its walls were finished the city would become rebellious and disobedient, as it was previously under the kings of Babylon.

CHAPTER IX
THE KINGDOM OF CYRUS

We were able to prove that Cyrus, soon after his victory over Astyages and the Medes, reduced the Parthians and Hyrcanians beneath his dominion, that the Caducians, the Armenians, and the Cappadocians were his subjects before the Lydian war, that his empire at this period extended to the Halys. How far he had already advanced towards the Bactrians and Sacae must remain uncertain, owing to the contradiction which exists on this point between the summary narrative of Herodotus and the excerpt from Ctesias. Afterwards the Lydian war and its sequel made Cyrus master of the whole of Asia Minor. Between the Lydian and Babylonian wars Herodotus represents him as conquering the whole of upper Asia, one nation after the other, and Berosus as conquering the whole of Asia. When our knowledge is so scanty, it is impossible to fix the campaigns of Cyrus in the East and the West with greater exactness, or even to ascertain clearly what successes he achieved in these regions before and after the Babylonian war. We merely perceive that Elam was subject to Cyrus before the attack on Babylon (p. 83), and if a habitation could be allotted to Nabonetus in Carmania, that country must have been subject before the war which destroyed the Babylonian kingdom; we may also conclude with great probability that Cyrus would not have marched against Babylon before he felt himself secure in the East. Hence we may assume that Iran was subject before the Babylonian war, and the campaigns which resulted in the conquest of the Gandarians and their northern neighbours, the Sogdiani and Chorasmians, must be ascribed to the period after this war. Whether the nations in the north of Armenia, on the isthmus between the Black and the Caspian Sea, the Saspeires and Alarodians in the East, and the Colchians and Phasians in the valley of the Phasis, were reduced by Cyrus or his immediate successors remains doubtful. In the East he had conquered the Drangians, Areians, Arachoti, Gedrosians, and Gandarians, to the south of the Cabul on the Indus,¹⁰⁸ and imposed tribute on the Açvakas to the north of the Cabul.¹⁰⁹ In the land of the Arachoti he destroyed, as we are told, the city of Capisa; Darius mentions a city, Kapisakani in Arachosia, and Capisa is also mentioned elsewhere in later writers.¹¹⁰ Nearchus tells us that Cyrus undertook a campaign against the land of the Indians; on the march thither he lost the greater part of his army in Gedrosia, owing to the desert and the difficulties of the way; according to the account of the natives Cyrus and seven men alone remained out of the whole army.¹¹¹ In his account of Alexander of Macedon, Diodorus remarks that after he had encamped at Drangiana (V. 7), he came to the Ariaspi, who were neighbours to the Gedrosians. These Ariaspi (whose abodes we have already discovered in the neighbourhood of the Etymandros) were called "Benefactors" for the following reason. On one of his campaigns, Cyrus was in the desert, and reduced to extreme distress for want of necessaries; famine compelled his men to eat each other; till the Ariaspians brought up 30,000 waggons, filled with provisions. Thus rescued, Cyrus allowed them immunity from contributions, honoured them with other presents, and gave them the name of "Benefactors."¹¹² Strabo also tells us that the Ariaspians received this name from Cyrus, and so does Arrian, though he gives a different and less appropriate reason for it, saying that they had assisted Cyrus in his campaign against the Scyths.¹¹³ Curtius tells us, as a reason for the name, that the Ariaspi had aided the army of Cyrus when suffering from want of provisions and the cold, with supplies and shelter.¹¹⁴ Herodotus observes that those who had done a service to the king were called "Orosangians." In Old Bactrian, Huvarezyanha means the doer of a kind action. Other instances are not wanting to prove that the Persian kings followed the example of Cyrus in conferring this title as a distinction.

We may regard it as certain that Cyrus had gone beyond Gedrosia and reduced the Gandarians and the Açvakas to the north of the Cabul; that he afterwards advanced to the Indus, and his army was brought into great distress in the deserts of Gedrosia, as was afterwards the case with Alexander's army on his return from the Indus. The Ariaspians, from the position of their country, could only be in a position to bring aid if Cyrus were returning from the Indus, or if the distress was so great on the outward march that he felt himself compelled to return when in Gedrosia. Megasthenes distinctly states that Cyrus did not cross the Indus or set foot in India.¹¹⁵ In the north-east he had reduced the Margiani and Bactrians to lasting obedience. As he had gained a good frontier in the east on the Indus, he set himself to obtain a similar frontier in the north-east. The northern neighbours of the Hyrcanians, Parthians and Margiani, the Sacae and the Chorasmians on the lower Oxus, were subject to him. With the conquest of the Sogdiani on the western slope of the Belurdagh Cyrus touched the course of the Jaxartes. There, on a stream running into that river, he built six citadels and a large fortress to secure the border against the nomads of the steppes beyond. These, like the fortress in the land of the Cadusians (V. 388), bore the name of Cyrus. The Greeks call the north-eastern Cyrus, Cyreshata, i. e. the farthest Cyrus (V. 22).

From the mountains of his native land Cyrus had subjugated in thirty years three great kingdoms – Media, Lydia, and Babylonia; he had conquered Asia from the shore of the Ægean Sea to the Indus, and from the brook of Egypt to the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas and the banks of the Jaxartes. None of the conquerors before him – no Pharaoh of Egypt – none of the ancient kings of Elam or Babylon, or of the restless sovereigns of Assyria, nor even the Mede Cyaxares – had achieved results which could be distantly compared with the successes of Cyrus. And he had done more than merely subdue this region; he had understood how to maintain his conquests; he was not compelled like the rulers of Assyria to begin each year a new struggle against his defeated opponents; in his unbounded empire he knew how to institute arrangements which ensured an existence of two whole centuries. Hence it would be of great service to know more precisely what his regulations were for the management of his empire. But we are almost entirely without information about them. We can only attempt to draw conclusions from certain hints supplied by tradition as to the form which Cyrus gave to his dominions. We have already remarked that the Greeks ascribed to Cyrus the foundation of excellent institutions, and placed him by the side of Lycurgus; they maintained that at the time of Cyrus the Persians were in a condition midway between slavery and freedom. Arrian observes that the Persians, with whom Cyrus deprived the Medes of the empire and subjugated the remaining nations of Asia partly by arms and partly by voluntary submission, were poor and the inhabitants of a rugged country, and obeyed regulations which made their training like that of the Spartans.¹¹⁶ We can plainly see that the kingdom rested on the power and devotion of the Persians; they were the ruling tribe beside the sovereign, and in addition to the proud consciousness that they were the lords of the empire Cyrus allowed them to enjoy the fruits and advantages of dominion. The Persians were free from contributions and taxes for the empire, they had only to render military service. Xenophon tells us that in the time of Cyrus the owners of land furnished excellent horsemen, who took the field; the rest served for pay. The garrisons in the fortresses were composed of Persians who were handsomely treated.¹¹⁷ The Greeks have already told us that Cyrus permitted the Persians to express their opinions freely and openly, and paid honour to those who gave good counsel, and if they assert that no one rewarded services more liberally (V. 390), these rewards would mainly fall into the hands of the Persians. From the Persians were first and chiefly elected the captains of the armies, the commanders of the contingents which the subject nations had to furnish, and the viceroys who governed the conquered provinces. Yet nearer to the king stood the six princes of the Persian tribes (the prince of the Pasargadae was the king), the descendants of those who in union with Achaemenes had once governed the Persian nation. Like the king himself they wore the upright tiara; from their families the king had to choose his legitimate wife, while his daughters were married to the sons of the tribal princes.¹¹⁸ The wife of Cyrus was the daughter of the tribal prince Pharnaspes. The chiefs of the Persians were the nearest to the throne; they entered into the king's presence unannounced, and no doubt formed with the king the chief council of the kingdom. Besides this chief council there was a supreme court of seven judges. These, as Herodotus tells us, were chosen men, who had to pronounce sentence for the Persians, and explain the customs of the fathers; and "everything was brought before them." They held their office for life, unless convicted of injustice.¹¹⁹ We also find that the son succeeded the father. But even these judges were subject to the supervision and authority of the king, and if it was proved that any of them had received bribes he inflicted the severest penalties.¹²⁰

"At the time of the Medes," Herodotus tells us, "the nations ruled over each other; the Medes ruled over all, and directly over those nearest to them; these again over their neighbours, who in their turn ruled over those who lay on their borders. In the same way the Persians estimate the value of nations. They consider themselves by far the best of all nations; next in order come those who live nearest to them, and those who are most remote are held in least estimation."¹²¹ If Herodotus has here correctly represented the self-consciousness of the Persians his statement also obviously implies the pride of race, the community of language and religion, which united the Persians with the kindred nations of the Iranian table-land, and most closely with the Medes, and the nations of Western Iran. This feeling presented itself to Cyrus as a valuable political consideration, and he felt himself called upon to win for his kingdom the Medes as the nation nearest akin to the Persians and more numerous. With this view he spared and respected Astyages, took his daughter into his house, and made her his wife, and even in the first decade of his reign had no hesitation in appointing Medes as generals and viceroys; the custom of his successors, to reside for some time in Ecbatana, in order by this means to attach the Medes to the kingdom, must, no doubt, go back to Cyrus.

But even towards the conquered nations of alien race, language, and religion Cyrus conducted himself in a manner very different from the manner of the kings of Asshur before him. Their kings were not executed, their cities were not burnt, and their religion and worship were left uninjured. On the other hand Cyrus did not content himself with the homage of the conquered princes, nor did he, like the Assyrians, allow men of the same nation to take their place. Execution, cruel treatment, imprisonment of the conquered prince, alone or with his family, could only embitter the conquered nation against the conqueror. The continuance of the conquered prince in power only supplied them with the impulse and means to recover their former independence, and princes chosen in their place from the midst of the subjects would soon follow the lead of the national tendencies, and their own ambition. Astyages, Crœsus, and Nabonetus received residences and possessions in distant regions, which allowed them to live in dignity and opulence; and where the throne remained in the families of the native rulers in districts of moderate extent which had submitted voluntarily, as in Cilicia and the cities of the Phenicians, this was not done without certain limitations and safe regulations. Cyrus set viceroys over the parts of his empire, who were supplied with troops in moderate numbers. The chief cities, such as Sardis and Babylon, like the border fortresses, were secured by garrisons of Persian troops. Cyrus did not impose heavy burdens on the conquered nations; he left it to themselves to fix the amount of the yearly contributions which they should pay into his treasury, though it is true that the amount of the favour they had to expect from the king depended on the tribute. The viceroys were subordinate to the king, but with this restriction they exercised supreme authority in the regions over which they presided. Their main duty was to preserve the province in obedience and peace. Whether the command that they were to look after the development of agriculture, and the growth of the population, is traceable to Cyrus (V. 206), we cannot decide, but we see clearly that the various communities and regions managed their own affairs independently, and governed themselves. The local political institutions were not attacked and removed any more than the religious. It was of no importance whether the local organisation was dynastic or republican, though in more important communities such as the Greek cities – the Anatolian, and the Phenician cities on the Syrian coast, Cyrus gave the preference to the dynastic form, inasmuch as the dynasties there were compelled to seek from the king the support necessary for maintaining their power. If princes of the old royal families were set up over the cities of the Phenicians, the rise of party leaders to a princely position was favoured among the Greeks. The local interests of one town were also advanced against those of another, e. g. the interests of Sidon against those of Tyre, and the interests of Miletus against the other cities. The persons thus favoured were by this means closely connected with the kingdom; in the event of a change of dominion they had to fear the loss of the privileges which they had attained. Moreover Cyrus had at hand rewards and distinctions of merit, not for the Persians only, but also for his subjects in other nations. Xenophon lays stress on the liberality of Cyrus towards those who had done him good service as the chief means by which he established and strengthened his empire, and if he tells us that the kings of Persia had continued what Cyrus had begun, we may certainly assume that the magnificent list of distinctions and honours, which we find in use at a later time in the Persian empire, goes back to Cyrus. The merits which whole regions and tribes had done to the king were also rewarded. We have already seen that the title "Benefactors," with which largesses in land were joined,¹²² was given not only to distinguished men but also to tribes. "What conqueror except Cyrus," asks Xenophon, "has been called Father by his subjects, a name which is obviously given not to the plunderer but to the Benefactor?" By gentleness and liberality he induced men to prefer him to son, or brother, or father. As he cared for his subjects and treated them as a father, so did they honour him as a father. In this way he was able to reign alone, and rule according to his own will his kingdom which was the greatest and most splendid of all.¹²³

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1

Herod. 1, 74, 79, 155; Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 7, 2, 11.

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2

Herod. 1, 71; and equally from the Persian point of view, Xenophon, "Cyri inst." 6, 2, 22.

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3

Ctes. "Pers." 4; Fragm. 31, ed. Müller.

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4

Polyaen. "Strateg." 7, 6, 3, 19; 7, 8, [Woelfflin].

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5

"Cyri inst." 1, 5, 3.

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6

"Cyri inst." 2, 1, 5, 6.

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7

Xenoph. "Anab." 5, 5, 17. Vol. I. 257.

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8

"Cyri inst." 2, 1, 5; 6, 2, 8, 9; 7, 2, 15 ff.

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9

I draw this conclusion from the story of Eurybatus, which was told by Ephorus; Fragm. 100, ed. Müller.

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10

Excerpt. Vatic, p. 26; "De virtute et vitiis," p. 553. [=9, 31 ff.]

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11

Justin, 1, 7. Lucian ("Contemplat." 9) represents Cyrus as conquering Babylonia and then marching against Lydia.

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12

[Nic. Damasc. Frag. 68, ed. Müller.]

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13

"Cyri inst." 7, 2, 20.

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14

Strabo, p. 575, 587.

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15

Pausan. 7, 17, 9. 10.

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16

Herod. 1, 131; 3, 16.

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17

Marmor Parnium, ep. 41.

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18

Boeckh, "Staatshaushaltung" 1. 10, 11; H. Stein on Herod. 1, 50.

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19

Aristot. "Rhetor." 3, 5; Diod. Exc. Vatic. p. 25, 26[=9, 31].

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20

Herod. 1, 69.

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21

"Cyri inst." 6, 2, 10, 11.

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22

The Parian marble mentions a mission of Crœsus to Delphi in the year 556. The date of the year for the capture of Sardis is destroyed, and cannot be even approximately restored, as the nearest dates are either mutilated or destroyed. The dates in Eusebius are derived from Apollodorus, who in turn draws from Eratosthenes. Eusebius puts the testing of the oracles in Olymp. 57,3 = 550 B.C., the march of Cyrus against Crœsus in Ol. 57,4 = 549 B.C., the capture of Crœsus in Ol. 58,3 = 546 B.C. Jerome represents Crœsus as beginning the war in Ol. 57,3 = 550 B.C. and puts his capture in Ol. 58,1 = 548 B.C. According to the statement of Syncellus (1,455, ed. Bonn.), Crœsus was defeated in the 14th year of Cyrus, which would give 547 B.C., if with Eusebius, who allows Cyrus to reign 31 years, we put his accession in 560 B.C. (V. p. 381 n.). The interval of three years which Eusebius (549-546) and two years which Jerome (550-548) places between the beginning of the war and the capture of Crœsus, appears to be due to the three years for which, according to Herodotus, Apollo delayed the overthrow of Crœsus; the presents came to Delphi three years before the fall (Herod. 1, 91). According to Herodotus the campaign occupies only one summer and autumn. The temple of Delphi was burned down in 548 B.C. (Ol. 58,1; Pausan. 10, 5, 13), and as Herodotus represents the temple as intact at the time when Crœsus sent to Delphi after his fall, this must have taken place before 548 B.C., and therefore Crœsus must have been conquered by Cyrus in 549 B.C. If the justification of the oracle in Herodotus is merely an invention of the priests, yet in things so well known the existing circumstances could not be left out of sight. It is certain that if the presents of Crœsus had been injured by the burning of the temple before his fall, this evil omen would not have been left out of sight by the legend, or by Herodotus, who himself saw and mentions the lion of Crœsus at Delphi which had been injured by the fire (1, 50). I have therefore no scruple in putting the fall of the Lydian kingdom in the year 549 B.C. Though the reign given by Herodotus for Crœsus, fourteen years and fourteen days, may have arisen out of the fourteen Lydian boys who wished to be sacrificed with their king (p. 12), yet Eusebius, Jerome, and Syncellus put the reign of Crœsus at 15 years. It may therefore be regarded as an established fact that his reign ended in the fifteenth year. According to Herodotus (1, 64, 65), it might seem as though he were of opinion that Crœsus sought allies in Hellas at the time when Pisistratus was tyrant for the third time over Athens. But this would be an error due to Herodotus' habit of anticipation. We can only be concerned with the second tyranny of Pisistratus, which belongs to the years 550 and 549 B.C. Against the argument here used – that the priests could not leave out of sight the actual circumstances in things so widely known, even in their inventions, Büdinger objects: "The chronological relations in Lydian-Persian history were neither various nor generally known, when Herodotus visited Delphi." The objection would be pertinent if the legend of the priests had only been manufactured during Herodotus' stay at Delphi, and for his use. This is not tenable. The fall of Crœsus was an event which deeply moved the Hellenic world, and created the most lively astonishment; the responses of Delphi had allured him to war; the oracle must at once justify itself if it were not to lose considerably in its authority. The justification must, therefore, have been invented at once; in the cities of Anatolia it would be best known at that time how and when the Mede came into the land with the fall of Crœsus (πηλίκος ἦσθ’ ὅθ’ ὁ Μῆδος ἀφίκετο; Xenophanes in Athenaeus, p. 54), and it was also known everywhere how long before the great presents of Crœsus had come to Miletus and Delphi. This must be noticed by the Delphian priests. But, as I have expressly said, I have not laid any great stress on this fact, but on the burning of the temple in 548 B.C., for that is the only certain point which can be gained. It does not seem possible to me to make Xenophon's account of the Lydian and Babylonian wars of Cyrus in the Cyropaedia a reason for placing the overthrow of Crœsus in 541 B.C. and putting back the beginning of the third tyranny of Pisistratus to that date in order to suit this account. There are also reasons of fact against such a date, which are given elsewhere.

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23

Herod. 1, 153.

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24

Plat. "Protagoras," p. 327. Demosth. "De Corona," 24; Aesch. "in Ctesiph." 137, and the Scholia.

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25

Polyb. 7, 15; 8, 22.

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26

Raoul Rochette, "Mémoires de l'institut," 17, 2, p. 278 ff.

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27

Herod. 1, 87.

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28

Büdinger objects to this view that the Lydian tradition, which would be favourable to Crœsus, could not possibly convert the merit of such a sacrifice into an execution. Whether the tradition of the Lydians was favourable or not to Crœsus is not handed down; that the Greeks were favourable to him we know for certain. It is the tradition of the Greek cities – favourable to Crœsus and unfavourable to Cyrus – which we have in the account of Herodotus. The rescue of Crœsus and the wisdom of Solon were the points of view given in the Greek tradition and guiding it. If Nicolaus of Damascus has used Xanthus, and his account rests on a combination of the Greek and Lydian tradition – it is precisely in his account that the sacrifice, and the prevention of it by rain, comes out more clearly than in Herodotus.

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29

Steph. Byzant. Βαρήνη. The Barce of Justin (1, 7) must be the same city. [Barene in Jeep's ed.] Ptolem. 6, 2, 8; "Vend." 1, 68.

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30

Aesch. "Pers." 770; Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 7, 4, 2; 8, 6, 8.

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31

Herodotus, 9, 107, remarks that Xerxes gave the satrapy of Cilicia to Xenagoras of Halicarnassus; yet even after this date we find a Syennesis at the head of that country, which in the list of Herodotus formed the fourth satrapy.

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32

Herod. 1, 141, 142, 151, 169.

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33

Herod. 1, 152; Diod. Exc. Vatic. p. 27 = 9, 36, 1.

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34

Herod. 1, 153. In 1, 157, on the other hand, we find "to the Persians;" cf. 1, 177.

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35

H. Stein on Herod. 1, 153.

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36

Herod. 1, 161. What is brought forward in the treatise "on the unfairness of Herodotus" from Charon of Lampsacus against the historian's statement about the surrender of Pactyas is limited to the naked fact that he came from Chios into the power of Cyrus.

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37

Thucyd. 1, 12, 14.

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38

Herod. 1, 164, 165; Plutarch, "Aristid." c. 25; Pausan. 7, 5, 4.

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39

A party of the emigrant Teians is said to have founded Phanagoria; Scymn. Ch. 886; "Corp. inscrip. Graec." 2, 98.

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40

Herod. 1, 174.

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41

Herod. loc. cit.

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42

The subsequent inhabitants of Xanthus are explained by Herodotus to be foreigners, except eighty families, who were absent at the time. He also mentions Caunians about the year 500 B.C. The name of the city occurs at a later date. On the continuance of the league of the Lycians, vol. I. p. 575.

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43

Herod. 1, 143, 160.

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44

The year 548 B.C. no doubt passed before the revolt of Pactyas. The Greek cities had time to build or strengthen their walls before they were attacked. Phocaea entered into negotiations for this object with the prince of Tartessus after the fall of Crœsus (Herod. 1, 163), and the great wall of the city was finished, with the assistance of money furnished by him owing to the approach of the Medes, when Harpagus attacked it. This attack cannot therefore have taken place before 547 B.C. The sieges of the Ionian and Aeolian cities occupied at least a year; the campaign against the Dorian cities, the Carians and Lycians, must therefore have taken place in 546 B.C., if not a year later. Hieronymus puts the battle of Harpagus against Ionia in Olymp. 58, 3 = 546 B.C.

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45

Oroetes resided at Sardis in the reign of Cambyses and Mithrobates at Dascyleum; Herod. 3, 120.

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46

Herod. 1, 168; Miletus and Samos contended in 440 B.C. for the possession of Priene.

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47

Herod. 5, 37, 38; Heracl. Pont. fragm. 11, 5, ed. Müller.

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48

Justin. 1, 7.

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49

Excerpt. Vatic. p. 27 = 9, 35, 1.

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50

Herod. 1, 153.

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51

Diod. Excerpt. Vatic. p. 27 = 9, 36, 1.

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52

Herod. 1, 155, 156; Polyaen. "Strateg." 7, 6, 4.

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53

The reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, Evilmerodach, Neriglissar, and the accession of Nabonetus in 555 B.C., are now fixed not only by the canon of Ptolemy but also by the Babylonian tablets, which give forty-three years for Nebuchadnezzar (604-561), two years for Evilmerodach (561-559), four years for Neriglissar (559-555), seventeen years for Nabonetus, (555-538); "Transactions Bibl. Society," 6, p. 47-53. Oppert (l. c. p. 262) also mentions a tablet of Labasi-marduk (Labasoarchad), who sat on the throne for nine months. Boscawen reads Lakhabasi-Kudur, l. c. p. 78. On the elevation of Hiram in Tyre, vol. III. 394.

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54

Ps. and Isa. xxi. 2.

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55

Fragm. 14, ed. Müller.

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56

Ps. cxxxvii.

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57

Ps. liii., liv.

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58

Jer. 1. 17-19.

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59

Jer. 1. 2; li. 44.

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60

Jer. li. 13, 53, 58.

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61

Jer. 1. 14, 29; li. 27.

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62

V. 314 n.

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63

Deut. Isa. xiii. 17-22; xiv. 4, 11-14. [Cf. Cheyne, "Isaiah," Vol. II., Essay xi.]

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64

Deut. Isa. xli. 2, 3; xli. 25; xliv. 28. Kohut, "Antiparsismus in Deut. Yesaias, Z. D. M. G." 1876, 3, 711 ff.

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65

Deut. Isa. xlv. 1, 2, 3. Vol. III. 369.

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66

Deut. Isa. xlvii. 1-13.

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67

Deut. Isa. xlix. 14-16.

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68

Deut. Isa. li. 17. Vol. III. 326.

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69

Deut. Isa. xlix. 13.

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70

Deut. Isa. xlvi. 11; xlviii. 14, 15.

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71

Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 7, 5.

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72

Jer. li. 31, 32, 39; Deut. Isa. xiv. 7-9; xxi. 4-9.

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73

Dan. v. 1-31.

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74

Beros. fragm. 14; Euseb. "Chron." 1. 42, ed. Schöne.

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75

On the site of Borsippa, Vol. I. 291, and on Nebuchadnezzar's buildings at the temple of Nebo, at Borsippa, III. 385.

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76

Pliny, "H. N." 6, 30.

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77

Sir Henry Rawlinson spoke in the Asiatic Society on Nov. 17, 1879, of a Babylonian cylinder brought home by Rassam, which, though broken, is said to give an account in thirty-seven legible lines of the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, and to contain a genealogical tree of Cyrus. As yet I have not been able to learn anything further. [Cf. Cheyne, "Isaiah," Vol. II., Essay xi.]

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78

"Pol." 3, 1, 12.

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79

Oppert et Ménant, "Docum. Juridiq." p. 266.

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80

Herod. 3, 159.

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81

"Cyri inst." 7, 5, 34, 69, 70.

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82

Xenoph. "Anab." 2, 4. Vol. III. 366.

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83

Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 1, 1, 4; 7, 4, 1. On Hiram, above, p. 67; Joseph. "c. Apion," 1, 21; Polybius, 16, 40. The statement of Polybius might be referred to the campaign of Cambyses against Egypt, if the supremacy of Cyrus in Syria were not proved by other evidence, as Ezra iii. 7, and the return of the Jews. Herodotus also would not have omitted the siege of Gaza in his detailed description of the march of Cambyses against Egypt, if it had not taken place until then. The general expression in Herodotus (3, 34) cannot outweigh all these proofs; it only says with the exaggerated tone of flattery that Cambyses first placed a fleet on the sea, and claims the subjugation of Cyprus for him. As a fact Cyrus left the islands of Anatolia, except Chios and Lesbos, which voluntarily submitted, uninjured, and did not call on them for a fleet, for which there were many good reasons from the point of view of a Persian king.

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84

Herod. 3, 19; 5, 104, 110; 7, 96, 98, 128; Xenoph. "Ages." 2, 30; Diod. 16, 41. The rebellion of Sidon in 351 B.C. again reversed the relations.

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85

1 Chron. iii. 17-19.

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86

Ezra ii. 36-39.

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87

Ezra ch. ii. As Babylon was conquered in the summer of 538, the first year of Cyrus in Babylon reaches to the summer of 537; Ezra i. 1, 3; Beros. fragm. 15, ed. Müller.

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88

Deut. Isa. xlviii. 20.

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89

Deut. Isa. lii. 7.

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90

Deut. Isa. lii. 11.

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91

Deut. Isa. lv. 12.

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92

Deut. Isa. xlviii. 21.

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93

Deut. Isa. li. 11.

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94

Deut. Isa. liv. 6-10.

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95

Deut. Isa. xlix. 19; lviii. 12.

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96

Deut. Isa. liv. 11.

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97

Deut. Isa. lx. 5.

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98

Deut. Isa. lxvi. 12.

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99

Deut. Isa. xlix. 17.

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100

Deut. Isa. lx. 4-9.

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101

Deut. Isa. liv. 2.

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102

Deut. Isa. xlix. 22, 23.

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103

Ewald, "Volk. Israel." 3, 91.

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104

Ezra ii. 59-63.

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105

Ezra iii. 8-13.

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106

Ps. cxxix. – cxxxii.

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107

Ezra iv. 1-5, 24. It is obvious that verse 24 must follow on verse 5 in chap. iv. The verses 6-23 treat of things which happened under Xerxes and Artaxerxes, and they have got into the wrong place.

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108

Behist. 1, 6.

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109

Arrian. "Ind." 1, 1.

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110

Plin. "H. N." 6, 25; Ptolem. 6, 18.

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111

Script. Alex. Magni; fragm. 23, ed. Müller.

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112

Diod. 17, 81.

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113

Strabo, p. 724; Arrian, "Anab." 3, 27, 4; 4, 4, 6.

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114

Curtius, 7, 3, 1.

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115

In Strabo, p. 686.

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116

Arrian, "Anab." 4, 5.

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117

Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 6, 6, 9; 8, 8, 20.

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118

E. g. Ctes. "Pers." 43.

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119

Herod. 3, 31; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 6, 4; Esther i. 14.

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120

Herod. 5, 25; 7, 194.

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121

Herod. 1, 134.

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122

Herod. 3, 154; 8, 85.

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123

"Cyri inst." 8, 8, 1; 8, 2, 7.

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