The Historians' History of the World 04

In the latter years of the Peloponnesian War the affairs of Greece became more than formerly implicated with those of Persia; and, during the short calm which succeeded the long troubles of the former country, some events in the latter will require attention. The detail will lead far from Greece; but, beside involving information of Grecian affairs not found elsewhere, it has a very important connection with Grecian history through the insight it affords into circumstances which prepared a revolution effected by Grecian arms, one of the greatest occurring in the annals of the world.

THE AFFAIRS OF PERSIA

By the event of the Peloponnesian War the Asian Greeks changed the dominion of Athens, not for that of Lacedæmon, the conquering Grecian power, but of a foreign, a barbarian master, the king of Persia, then the ally of Lacedæmon. Towards the end of the same year in which a conclusion was put to the war, by the taking of Athens, Darius, king of Persia, the second of the name, died. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Artaxerxes, also the second of his name, and, for his extraordinary memory, distinguished among the Greeks by the addition of Mnemon, “the Mindful.” The old king, in his last illness, desirous to see once more his favourite son Cyrus, sent for him from his government in Lydia. The prince, in obeying his father’s requisition, travelled in the usual manner of the Eastern great, with a train amounting almost to an army; and, to exhibit in his guard the new magnificence of troops so much heard of in the upper provinces, but never yet seen, he engaged by large pay the attendance of three hundred heavy-armed Greeks, under the command of Xenias of Parrhasia in Arcadia. As a friend and counsellor, he took with him Tissaphernes, satrap of Caria.

[404-401 B.C.]

On the decease of Darius, which followed shortly, a jealousy, scarcely separable from a despotic throne, but said to have been fomented by the unprincipled Tissaphernes, induced the new monarch to imprison his brother; whose death, it was supposed, in course would have followed, but for the powerful intercession of the queen-mother, Parysatis. Restored, through her influence, not only to liberty but to the great command entrusted to him by his indulgent father, Cyrus nevertheless resented highly the indignity he had suffered.

He seems indeed to have owed little to his brother’s kindness. Jealous of the abilities and popular character of Cyrus, apprehensive of his revenge, and perhaps not unreasonably also of his ambition, Artaxerxes practised that wretched oriental policy of exciting civil war between the commanders of his provinces, to disable them for making war against the throne. Orontes, a person related to the royal family, governor of the citadel of Sardis, was encouraged by the monarch’s councils to rebel against that superior officer, under whose immediate authority, by those very councils, he was placed, and ostensibly still required to act. Cyrus subdued and forgave him. A second opportunity occurring, Orontes again rebelled; again found himself, notwithstanding the secret patronage of the court, unable to support his rebellion; and, soliciting pardon, obtained from the generosity of Cyrus, not pardon only, but favour. But according to report, to which Xenophon gave credit, the queen-mother herself, Parysatis, whether urged by the known enmity of Artaxerxes to Cyrus, or by whatever other cause, incited her younger son to seek the throne and life of the elder. Thus much, however, appears certain, that, very soon after his return into Asia Minor, Cyrus began preparations with that criminal view. For a pretence, it must be allowed, he seems not to have been totally without what the right of self-defence might afford; yet his principal motives evidently were ambition and revenge.

The disjointed, tottering, and crumbling state of that empire, which, under the first Darius, appeared so well compacted, and really was so powerful and flourishing, favoured his views. Egypt, whose lasting revolt had been suppressed by the first Artaxerxes, was again in rebellion, and the fidelity of other distant provinces was more than suspected. Within his own extensive vice-royalty, the large province of Paphlagonia, governed by its own tributary prince, paid but a precarious obedience to the Persian throne; the Mysian and Pisidian mountaineers made open war upon the more peaceful subjects of the plains; and the Lycaonians, possessing themselves of the fortified places, held even the level country in independency, and refused the accustomed tribute. A large part of Lesser Asia was thus in rebellion, more or less avowed. Hence, on one hand, the attention of the king’s councils and the exertion of his troops were engaged; on the other, an undeniable pretence was ready for Cyrus to increase the military force under his immediate authority.