READING HALL. HISTORY OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

WHEN Cyrus entered Babylon in 539 b.c, the world was old. More significant, the world knew its antiquity. Its scholars had compiled long dynastic lists, and simple addition appeared to prove that kings whose monuments were still visible had ruled more than four millenniums before Yet earlier were other monarchs, sons of gods and so themselves demigods, whose reigns covered several generations of present-day short-lived men. Even these were preceded, the Egyptians believed, by the gods themselves, who had held sway through long aeons, before the universal flood the Babylonians placed ten kings, the least of whom ruled 18,600 years, the greatest 43,200.

Other peoples knew this flood and told of monarchs—Nannacus of Iconium, for example—who reigned in prediluvian times. The sacred history of the Jews extended through four thousand years; modest as were their figures when compared with those of Babylon and Egypt, they recorded that one prediluvian patriarch almost reached the millennium mark before his death. Greek poets chanted a legendary history which was counted backward to the time when the genealogies of the heroes “ascended to the god.” Each people and nation, each former city-state, boasted its own creation story with its own local god as creator.

Worship of the remote national past was a special characteristic of these closing days of the earlier Orient. Nabunaid, last independent king of the Chaldaeans, rejoiced when he unearthed the foundation record of Naram Sin, unseen for thirty-two hundred years—or so his scholars informed him. His inscriptions are filled with references to rulers long since dead, from Ur Nammu and his son Shulgi, founders of the Third Dynasty of Ur, through the great lawgiver Hammurabi and the Kashshite Burnaburiash, to the Assyrian conquerors of almost his own day—a stretch of at least fifteen centuries. Ancient temples were restored, ancient cults revived with their ancient ritual, and his daughter consecrated to an ancient temple office.

Nabunaid was not the only “antiquarian.” More than one of his temple restorations had been commenced, and more than one of his cult reforms initiated, by Nebuchadnezzar, who sought in vain early building records his more fortunate successor uncovered, and whose own inscriptions were purposely archaistic, imitating in style and in writing those of the famed Hammurabi.

The cult of antiquity became a passion when the Twenty-sixth (Saite) Dynasty seemed about to restore the Asiatic empire of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Ancient texts were copied and new texts composed on their model—even to style and form of hieroglyph. Contemporary Saite art was a softened copy of Eighteenth Dynasty sculpture. The god Amon, upstart of less than fifteen centuries, lost his place of honor to Neit, the aged mistress of Sais, and almost forgotten deities were again worshiped. Officials borrowed pompous titles from the Old or Middle Kingdom and were buried with ancient ceremony in tombs which repeated the plans, reliefs, and pyramid texts of the Fifth and Sixth dynasties some two thousand years before.

Like forces were at work among the lesser peoples. Josiah’s reform was a national declaration of independence, but its basis was a legal code attributed to the ancient lawgiver Moses. Hope for an immediate deliverance was found in the story of how the national God had saved his people from Egyptian bondage. Revival of the past was the theme of Exilic prophecy and the dream of the Second Isaiah High as was the degree of literacy, the majority could neither read nor write—but they could listen. By word of mouth, Jewish fathers taught their sons about the Exodus from Egypt, the conquest of the Promised Land, and that Davidic rule which some bright day would return; by word of mouth, legends of Sargon, Moses, or Khufu filtered down to the common people. Vague as might be the details, all the peoples of western Asia were conscious of a past whose glories shone the brighter as they faded into the remote distance. Conquest by rulers increasingly alien only intensified this worship of the past.

What these peoples thought of their past is a vital element of our history; what that past actually was must form the background of the picture. In essentials their account was true. We may prove that scholars placed in succession dynasties which were actually contemporary and that the beginnings of written history came a thousand years later than they supposed. We no longer believe that gods and demigods ruled through aeons far greater than the span of life today. But we need only substitute for the demigods the unnamed heroes of proto-history to recognize how much of truth is dimly remembered in the legends; for the reign of the gods we substitute prehistory and realize how these men twenty-five centuries ago experienced the same awe we feel in recalling the long ages since man Erst strode the earth.

True man is first discovered in the Near East. Before the first period of intense rainfall and glaciation, he had begun to chip flints. By these flint implements, we may trace his progress through the second, third, and last of these wide swings of climate, each of enormous duration counted in our years; at the close he was still at the paleolithic, or Old Stone, level of culture. During these long ages he had done more than improve bis stone or bone technique: he had evolved the family, which he supported by hunting; he had made a cave home; he propitiated or averted the dangerous “powers” by magic; and he hoped for life beyond the grave.

Near the end of the paleolithic period, men of our own species were inhabitants of the Near East. Cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs were domesticated; barley, wheat, and flax were cultivated. Thereafter the inhabitants of the Near East were divided, some as wandering nomads, some as settled villagers. While the nomads remained essentially the same, civilization grew in the villages. Walls were built to protect the prosperous from the less fortunate or from the nomads, and a “king” was chosen to lead the village levies in war. Specialization of function increased as life became more complex. That the soil might give freely its products, there was worship of the powers of fertility, which became defined as true gods and goddesses, of whom the greatest was Mother Earth in her varied manifestations.

To the early and inferior Eurafrican, other races were added. Around the great inland sea the dominant race was Mediterranean—longheaded, slim, of moderate height, with clear olive complexion. Subraces developed: the Egyptian in the Nile Valley, the Semitic in the North Arabian Desert. South of Egypt were Negroids, to the west were Libyans (in whom some would find the earliest Nordics), and in the northern highlands were Armenoids, tall and stout, with sallow complexions and extraordinarily round heads.

Caucasian, spoken today only in the nooks of the Caucasus, was perhaps the basal language of the Near East. Until the first pre-Christian millennium, Elamite was spoken in western Persia; Haldian appeared in Armenia, Hurrian or Mitannian in northern and western Mesopotamia, and Hittite, Carian, Pamphylian, Lycian, and Lydian in Asia Minor. The original Semitic was confined to North Arabia. Some six thousand years ago the first great outpouring of nomads brought a near-Semitic language to Egypt, introduced the Canaanites and Phoenicians to their historic abode, and led the speakers of Akkadian to Babylonia. Into Babylonia also descended the Sumerians, whose use of the horse and chariot, physical characteristics, and agglutinative “Turanian” speech suggest a Central Asian origin.

Man had learned to hammer pure copper. Later, he discovered that copper might be smelted from ore; soon gold, silver, and lead were secured by the same process. Metal implements made agriculture more fruitful and industry more productive and assured the basis for a more advanced technology. Clay for the hitherto crude pottery was cleansed, while a primitive wheel permitted more regular forms, and slips and paint gave further ornament. Medicine men added to their charms and incantations a knowledge of wild herbs.

A more complicated civilization expanded villages into cities and these into city-states which constant fighting gradually welded into larger units. Royal power increased as more complex living conditions demanded more efficient government.

Toward the close of the fourth millennium, writing was invented in Babylonia and in Egypt. Each started with simple picture-writing, in which the sign meant the word. Each quickly took the next step, employed the sign for any word of like sound, and evolved a purely phonetic writing by syllables. The Babylonians indicated the vowels; the Egyptians did not, but in compensation they worked out a consonantal alphabet to supplement the ideographic and syllabic characters. Egypt retained its picture-writing for monumental inscriptions, while a conventionalized script—the hieratic—grew from the pen and papyrus. Babylonia passed rapidly through a linear form to the cuneiform, best impressed by the stylus on clay tablets.

Writing made possible a narrative history, written when kings of Egypt or Babylonia engaged in war with other peoples. Through their records we may glimpse these cultures, which are still more evident in the material objects they left behind. In essential elements, the picture is identical. Everywhere we find the city-state, an urban center with its surrounding villages and fields. At the head is the king, vicegerent on earth of the local god, and as such partaking of the divine essence. He has direct access to the gods, but there are also priests who perform a ritual prescribed from dim prehistoric times. The land is owned by the divine king who presents the usufruct to his earthly deputy, the actual ruler, tillers of the soil therefore pay the deputy rent and not taxes. A king’s first duty is to protect the god’s worshipers. Success in war is the victory of the local god over his divine rivals; the subjugated gods become his vassals just as the subjugated kings become the vassals of his deputy. In this fashion, city-states gradually merge into kingdoms.

Despite the long narrow Nile Valley in its desert trough, where the only political boundaries must of necessity be upstream and down, at the date writing appeared there were but two kingdoms in Egypt, and Menes quickly united both in the Egypt of history. In Babylonia the whole process of unification, which the elaborate canal system demanded, can be followed in written documents. North Babylonia was occupied by illiterate Semites. The south was the home of Sumerians, advanced in material culture but with lives overshadowed by fear of innumerable malignant spirits whose attacks could be warded off only by a vast magical literature. To the east was the Iranian plateau, where painted pottery showed to perfection the abstract art which was always to dominate these lands. Near the close of the period Elam borrowed Sumerian signs for its language and with them many another element of culture. Mesopotamia proper was in the Babylonian sphere of cultural influence, as was North Syria, which, however, also exhibited peculiar characteristics stemming from Asia Minor. Canaanites and Phoenicians were in closer contact with Egypt; so also were the future Greek lands, already an essential part of the Near East.

With the beginning of the third millennium, the picture becomes clearer. Egyptian and Sumerian tombs alike show an amazing outburst of a fresh vigorous art and an equally amazing use of the precious metals, but everything is devoted to the dead king and his court, whose members, ritually slain, accompany their lord to the afterworld. The cult of the dead king reached its climax in the Egyptian pyramid, which exhausted the land in order that one man might remain ever living. To accomplish this end, the kingdom was overadministered, but, even with this handicap, documents prove that business flourished.

Parallel with the development of administration and business went the beginnings of science Business and administration demanded reckoning, and this was carried out by the decimal system in Egypt, by a combination of decimal and sexagesimal in Babylonia Arithmetical problems were solved, and the survey of fields resulted in elementary geometry.

Men so close to the soil, whose outdoor life compelled minute observation of the heavens, could not fail to realize the influence of the celestial bodies. Day and night were distinguished by the sun- and moon-gods; waxing and waning of the moon-god gave the next calendar unit, the month; the sun-god, by his northern journey and return, afforded a still larger unit, the year. Soon it was recognized that sun- and moon-gods did not agree in their calendar, for the sun did not return to his starting-point in twelve of the moon-god’s cycles. Adjustment of the lunar to the solar year was made quite differently by the two peoples. The Egyptians had early learned that the sun’s year is approximately 365 days; they therefore added to the twelve months of thirty days five extra days to form a year whose deviation from the true solar year would not be discovered for several generations. The Babylonians were content to retain the year of twelve months, intercalating a new month when it was observed that the seasons were out of order.

There were other needs to be met, equally practical to the Oriental. Every action might be ominous; data were collected from the activities of the most minute insect, the movements of the stars, the misbirths of women or animals, or from the livers of the sacrificial sheep. Men organized these into elaborate “sciences,” rigidly logical in classification and interpretation once their postulates were assumed, and so prepared the way for true science. Cosmological speculation was to answer practical questions such as why man, evil, and death came into the world, or why man cannot remain immortal; it resulted in stories of the creation which were deeply to influence later thinkers. Evil spirits or the gods themselves inflicted sickness; hence the medicine man must be invoked. Naturally, he employed spells from hoar antiquity in whose efficacy he half-believed; as a practical psychologist he knew their effect on the minds of his patients, but accumulated observation had given him certain knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants, animal substances, and minerals.

Toward the close of the third millennium, Sargon of Agade united the Babylonian alluvium and extended Semitic control far beyond its natural limits. Sumerian cuneiform was adapted to the phonetically different Semitic Akkadian, and Semitic literature began. Sumerian continued as the sacred language, alone intelligible to the older gods, alone of avail to drive off the evil spirits. Business formula likewise retained the ancient tongue, and so Akkadian was filled with Sumerian loan-words. To meet new needs, scribes prepared interlinear translations, sign lists, and phrase books, and practical grammar was born. Through the impact of the two cultures, thought was stimulated, new ideas came into the world, and there was a fresh outburst of artistic genius.

Then the ancient cultures began to disintegrate, as enemies threatened the borders, and new problems compelled men to think more seriously. Egyptian monarchs realized that mere weight of pyramid could neither assure personal immortality nor protect their poor corpses, and written magic superseded physical bulk in the pyramid texts of the Fifth and Sixth dynasties. Hope of a true immortality cheered the common man. The wise vizier Ptahhotep collected aphorisms from earlier sages and gave instruction in a practical morality. As disintegration increased, Ipuwer meditated on social and economic changes which horrified his conservative soul, dreaming of days to come when the god Re himself would reign in justice. Babylonia, likewise, reconsidered the problem of evil, why the gods are angered, why man does not live forever, and why the just reformer Urukagina met an unjust fate.

Complete disintegration split Egypt into warring local kingdoms which suffered Asiatic invasion; the Guti conquered Babylonia in the first northern folk wandering. Questionings of earlier sages culminated in a tremendous wave of pessimism, represented by the Egyptian’s dialogue with his soul or by the Babylonian Job, where the complaint of the just man unjustly punished is treated with sympathy, yet the conclusion is submission to an all-powerful deity whose will may not be questioned.

Babylonia recovered first under the Third Dynasty of Ur. Ur-Nammu and Shulgi reunited the alluvium and added foreign territory to north and east. The kings were Semites, but the royal inscriptions, the administrative and business documents, and the formal literature almost without exception were in Sumerian. Although this was the last great period of Sumerian literature, it was far from classic; the language showed marked signs of degeneration. Trade flourished, great buildings were erected, and a somewhat conventionalized art was in vogue. The dynasty fell and Elam entered upon its own career of conquest and cultural development, while Babylonia was divided into petty states always at war under newly arrived Amorites.

From the welter emerged Babylon as the capital of the able administrator and lawgiver Hammurabi. Henceforth this upstart city represented to foreigners the Babylonia to which it gave its name. Marduk, its local divinity, was saluted king of the gods; the ancient religious literature was translated from the dying Sumerian and re-written to honor Babylon’s divine lord as creator and king.

Hailed in almost messianic terms by “predictions” of alleged ancient prophets, Amenemhet reunited Egypt and founded the Twelfth Dynasty. Like Babylon, his capital Thebes was an upstart whose ramgod Amon secured lordship of the land through identification with the sun-god Re Popular worship turned rather to the old fertility deities, Osiris and his consort Isis, while coffin texts show the first dawning of a belief that men must deal justly on earth if they would be happy in the world to come. Justice in politics was considered of great importance. A king just prior to Amenemhet had improved the older “admonitions” into an “Art of Ruling” for his son Merikere. Amenemhet prepared a Machiavellian tractate on kingship for his son Sesostris and another tractate for his vizier; he stressed the isolation of those in positions of responsibility with an equally emphatic—if thoroughly unsentimental—insistence on official regard for the welfare of the ruled. Canaan was made a dependency, and the Phoenicians became willing subject allies Egyptian art, technically excellent but hardening through convention, found new life among Phoenician merchant-princes.

Minoan Crete was at its prime, its navy swept the sea, and its trade brought enormous wealth; this wealth was devoted to objects of art whose motifs are often borrowed from Egypt but whose perfection makes strong appeal to our modern taste. Writing was in general use; the idea of representing words by pictographs was suggested by Egypt, but the clay tablet was derived from Assyrian merchant colonies in eastern Asia Minor.

This was the great period of scientific advance. Egypt and Babylonia contended for supremacy in mathematics, The Egyptians employed a decimal system and expressed fractions by continuous subdivision. To the decimal system the Babylonians added the sexagesimal for the higher units and broke up the complex fractions into subdivisions of sixty which made easier computation. Egyptians knew squares and square roots and solved in textbooks complicated problems of proportion and arithmetical progression. Babylonians prepared handy reference tables for multiplication and division, squares and cubes, square and cube roots.

It was in algebra and geometry, however, that the most spectacular advances were made. Babylonians discovered the theorem for the right-angled triangle we name from Pythagoras, as well as two simpler methods which result in only a slight error. They had learned that similar right triangles have the sides about the right angles proportional; they had divided the triangle into equal parts; they could compute the areas of rectangles, right-angled triangles, and one form of trapezium. More irregular surfaces were broken up into forms they were able to calculate. They had found the area of a circle chord and approximated pi as three. Without the aid of algebraic formulas, they solved problems by methods essentially algebraic, and each step can be represented by a modern formula. They employed the equivalent of the quadratic equation and stopped just short of the binomial theorem.

Like the Babylonians, the Egyptians divided the triangle and calculated its area as they did the trapezium with parallel sides. Their approximation of pi as eight-ninths of the diameter (or, as we should say, 3.1605), was more accurate than the Babylonian, and with it they secured the areas of circles and the volumes of cylinders or hemispheres. They calculated the frustrum of a square pyramid, and what we call simultaneous quadratic equations they solved by false position.

Babylonian astronomers, not yet sufficiently freed from astrology to utilize the new mathematics, were nevertheless making observations and preparing a terminology. Often the constellations bore names familiar today: the Twins, the Snake, the Scorpion, the Lion, the Wolf, the Eagle, the Fish, Capricorn. Orion, the "True Shepherd of Heaven," kept to their paths the "wandering sheep" (the planets), each identified with a god or goddess. The path of the sun-god was charted through the twelve constellations which were to give their names to our zodiac. His eclipses were ominous, but those of the moon-god were more numerous and more often observed; the four segments of the moon’s face were assigned to Babylon and to three neighbor-states, and eclipse of the appropriate segment portended evil to that land.

Other omen collections also contributed to coming science. More than by the stars, the fate of kings and nations was determined by the liver of the sacrificed sheep; models and drawings of the liver can be described only by the Latin terminology of modern anatomy. Long lists, roughly classified, were prepared of animals, plants, and stones. Plant lists begin with the grasses, then the rushes, then other groups closely corresponding to our families; we may distinguish species and varieties through the careful listing of the various parts. Sex in the date palm had long been recognized, and the terms "male" and "female" were applied to other plants. Classification systems employed such headings as “men,” “domesticated animals,” “wild animals” (including serpents, worms, frogs, and the like), “fish,” and “birds.”

Lists of plants were prepared generally for medical use. In the medical texts proper, there remain plentiful traces of magic, but there is also empirical knowledge. Symptoms of disease are carefully described in regular order from head to feet; we can identify the majority of the diseases. Poulticing, hot applications, massage, suppositories, and the catheter are employed. Drugs are usually taken internally; mercury, antimony, arsenic, sulphur, and animal fats are often prescribed, but in general the same plants are drawn upon that we find in the modern pharmacopoeia. Egyptian medical texts were much the same, but in a surgical textbook the attitude is quite scientific. Each case is given careful diagnosis, even if no cure is possible; if the case can or may be cured, suggestions for treatment follow. Wounds are probed by the fingers; cauterization is by the fire drill. In his treatment, the Egyptian surgeon uses absorbent lint, linen swabs and plugs, bandages and splints; wounds are brought together by tape or stitching. He describes the various parts of the body in such a fashion that we can see he is still working out his terminology, but he has made astonishing discoveries. He has recognized the brain and its convolutions, he knows that brain and spinal cord control the nervous system, and he suspects localization of function in the brain. He knows the heart is a pump; he takes the pulse; he has almost discovered the circulation of the blood.

Meanwhile, all unnoticed by the cultured peoples, a rude halfnomad Semite at the Egyptian mines in Sinai had introduced an invention of infinite promise for the future. Too ignorant to learn the complicated hieroglyphic of the Egyptians, but knowing that they employed a consonantal alphabet to supplement the syllabic and ideographic signs, he wondered why no one had realized the beautiful simplicity of a purely alphabetic writing. To a few common Egyptian signs he gave a name in his native Canaanite and took the first consonantal sound as its phonetic value. He scratched a few short sentences in his Canaanite dialect on the rocks of Sinai, and the consonantal alphabet was in use.

During the third millennium there lived on the broad plains of southern Russia a group of Nordics who spoke a primitive Indo-European language. At the head of each tribe was a king, chosen from the god-born family and assisted by the council of elders, although important decisions—war, peace, and the choice of a new ruler—were acclaimed by the fighting men, the people in arms. While to a degree they cultivated the soil, they were essentially hal£-nomads whose chief delight was in war. Their horses allowed free movement on their raids; their families were carried in the ancestor of the “covered wagon.’’ They settled, not in open villages, but in camps surrounded by quadrangular earthen ramparts. A highly developed technology and no mean art was devoted especially to weapons.

Before the end of the millennium, they began to move out—west, south, and east. While Achaeans entered Greece, other Aryans were on their way to Italy, and a brilliant metal culture appeared in Hungary and Bohemia. Asia Minor was overrun, and the former individual states gradually coalesced into a mighty Hittite empire. No Hittite king bore an Indo-European name, which is mute witness to incorporation of the immigrants with older elements whose native language persisted in the sacred ritual. In an adaptation of the cuneiform, we may read the first Indo-European language to be written. Mitanni was conquered by an aristocracy with Indo-Iranian names, though they took over the local language of their subjects; they worshiped such Indo-Iranian gods as Mithra, Varuna, Indra, and the Nasatya twins. Egyptian tomb paintings show them to be pure Nordics, whose descendants remain as Iranian-speaking Nordic Kurds. Other Indo-Iranians penetrated Syria and Canaan and ruled as petty kings over cities to be made famous by our Bible. Hammurabi’s descendants were supplanted by Kashshites, who perhaps spoke a Caucasian language, though names of men and gods suggest an Aryan element. Soon they adopted the native Akkadian, and with it Babylonian culture, their only innovation being a feudal regime with charters of immunity, imposed on the older manorial system.

Aryan elements were discovered among the Hyksos, who founded a great empire in Syria and for many years held Egypt. The effort to expel them led the Eighteenth Dynasty into Asia and to the establishment of an empire. To original Mediterranean and Semitic elements, Syria had already added many from the Nile and the Euphrates; Egyptian cultural influence now grew much stronger. Anatolian elements entered with the Hittite conquest of North Syria, but the Akkadian of Babylonia was employed as the international language of diplomacy and commerce throughout the Near East. Civilization had become international in character.

The way was prepared for Ikhnaton, with his gospel of a loving god whose fatherly care extended to all peoples, and also with his intolerant monotheism. All thought was in flux. Talented artists hailed release from century-old shackles of convention and produced works of outstanding power and beauty; the mediocre artist turned out freakish “modern” caricatures.

Immersed in glorious dreams of universal religion, Ikhnaton permitted the empire to disintegrate. Under the influence of selfish Amon priests, the boy Tutankhamon restored the older cults and condemned the gracious teaching of the “heretic,” but the Egyptian Empire in Syria was not restored. Seti and Ramses II of the next dynasty recovered part of the loss, but the wars against the Hittites ended with Syria being divided between the rivals. Even the small portion thus far retained was soon lost, and Egypt ceased to be reckoned a first-class power. More and more the land fell into the hands of the priests, who ultimately secured the kingship and made Egypt a true theocracy.

New peoples once again appeared on the scene. From the North Arabian Desert came Aramaeans, who settled the whole border from Canaan to Babylonia. As a rule they continued to speak Aramaic, but a part of them—the Hebrews—learned the “lip of Canaan.” At first, the Hebrews were divided into numerous small warring tribes, but, as they gradually conquered the Canaanite cities, they absorbed something of the attenuated Canaanite culture which had survived their inroads. Acquisition of material culture was good; not so pleasant was the adaptation of their narrow, barbarous, but relatively pure desert religion to the degenerate cult of the fertility powers.

Pressure from new peoples in central and southeastern Europe was driving on fresh hordes of Aryans. Dorians were pushing south the older Indo-European-speaking Greeks and breaking up the far-flung Mycenaean empire which had renewed Minoan relations with Egypt. The last Minoan remnants were destroyed. Achaeans were pressed to the west coast of Asia Minor, where they met the Hittites and also the Phrygians, Aryans who had crossed the Hellespont and chosen the well-watered, well-forested uplands in the west-central interior. Other Achaeans reached Cyprus, to find half the island already colonized by Phoenicians. A last desperate effort of Mycenae captured Phrygian Troy, whose epic was to inspire later generations to fresh conquests in Asia; but the effort destroyed the empire. Ionians followed and married Anatolian wives. The once mighty Hittite empire disappeared in a chaos of tiny states.

Bands of homeless men, whether of Minoan or of Aryan tradition, united, and the wave rolled on over the sea or through Syria to Egypt, where Merneptah and Ramses III broke its force. Achaeans returned home or sailed away to Cyprus, while Silicians and Sardinians transferred their names to western islands; Etruscans brought to primitive Italians a rich oriental culture which was strongly to influence Rome; and Philistines settled that Palestine to which they gave their name.

Crushed between invaders from sea and desert, the Canaanites lost their freedom. For the moment, the Philistines were all-powerful; then foreign pressure and prophetic urging brought union to the Hebrew tribes. Saul’s kingdom was a failure, but David made good the union, and Solomon expanded it into a small empire whose administration copied the greater empires and whose royal shrine was equally foreign. His death marked the division into Israel and Judah; Israel was the greater and often held Judah as vassal, while Jerusalem and its temple were in ruins.

Sidonian traders invaded the Aegean and exchanged goods and words with the backward Greeks. They brought also a more precious gift: the alphabet, which the Greeks improved. Since the alphabet as borrowed had no characters to represent the vowels, the Greeks used some of the consonantal signs which stood for sounds not present in their tongue to write the important Indo-European vowels. In turn, the alphabet was transmitted to Asia Minor; the Greek alphabet had no problems for the Indo-European Phrygians, but Lydians, Lycians, and Carians found it necessary to invent new characters for native sounds. As the Greeks regained sea power, the Phoenicians abandoned the Aegean, and a race for the Mediterranean began, ending with Phoenician control of northern Africa and Spain.

Through long centuries Assyria had remained a second-rate power, often subject to Babylonia or Mitanni. In the general decline toward the end of the second millennium, Assyria extended its boundaries. After two periods of weakness—the second of which permitted the Jews to establish the Davidic kingdom—it was now the great world empire. Babylonia was definitely a vassal, Syria was invaded, and Jehu of Israel was forced to submit. In the wars with more important states, a few punitive expeditions against Parsua and the Medes passed with little notice.

For a few years Assyria was checked by Haldia, which enjoyed brief pre-eminence as the great world power. The moment of respite gave opportunity for a remarkable development in Hebrew religion. In essence, it was a reaction of the desert elements against civilization. The preaching of Elijah and Elisha culminated in the bloody reforms of Jehu, and thereafter Israel acknowledged no national god but Yahweh. The methods of the reform and its unsavory results could not satisfy finer spirits, and a noble company of prophets protested against Canaanite elements in the cult; with equal fervor, they protested against social injustice. Amos preached unmitigated doom, Hosea proclaimed the loving-kindness of Yahweh, but Isaiah again predicted destruction—which was, indeed, fulfilled for Israel. Sennacherib’s invasion opened the eyes of Isaiah, who henceforth proclaimed the inviolability of Jerusalem, Yahweh’s temple. However, Judah remained an Assyrian dependency.

The rise of Assyria marked a new era in the government of dependencies. Predecessors had been content with vassal states, controlled at best by a “resident” and a few soldiers; Assyria reduced the conquered areas to provinces whose administrators were kept in close touch with the central government by means of frequent letters. Rebels were transported to far-off lands where their future welfare depended on loyalty to their new masters; the provincials were united in worship of the national god Ashur and of the divine king.

Though based largely on the Babylonian, Assyrian culture was thoroughly eclectic in character. In the great cities, whether royal capitals or cities free by charter, a varied life of great complexity might be seen. Phoenicians and Aramaeans utilized to the full the trade opportunities of a wide empire, and “Ishtar heads” were employed as coins. Royal libraries were crammed with copies of ancient Babylonian tablets, but the royal annals were original productions of Assyrian historians. Alongside the cuneiform, Aramaic with its more convenient alphabet was coming into use. Scientific advance is indicated by a textbook on glazes, by letters from astronomers who await lunar eclipses at the full moon and solar eclipses at the new, and by a nineteen-year cycle of intercalated months, probably from the era of Nabunasir. Assyrian reliefs present battles, palace life, and the hunt most vividly, and their representations of animals have seldom been surpassed.

Babylon revolted under the Chaldaeans, and Assyria fell to an alliance of Chaldaeans and Medes. There were now four great world powers. Egypt had found new life under the Saites, who ruled by the aid of Greek and Carian mercenaries and allowed Greeks to live their own lives in their own city of Naucratis. Phrygia’s successor, Lydia, rich in Pactolus gold, reduced the Greek coastal cities. The merging of seaboard and inland trade was mutually profitable, and, with the wealth thus secured from Egypt and the Black Sea, the Ionians laid the basis for the first brilliant flowering of Greek civilization. Nabopolassar reconstructed Babylonian administration and business practice to such effect that his reforms dominated the country as long as cuneiform remained in use. Babylon was rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar and became the world’s metropolis. Jerusalem was destroyed and the rebels led into exile as Jeremiah and Ezekiel had foretold; Judaism came into being.

Hitherto there had been many changes in dynasty and many shifts in dominant peoples, but throughout there had been definite interrelation of cultures, and cultural evolution had followed much the same pattern in each segment of the Near East. If the Orient had repeatedly been invaded from without, it had always stamped its own characteristics upon the newcomers. To contemporaries, Iranian Media might appear only the fourth great oriental empire, and the inquisitive Greeks might seem, like their Minoan and Mycenaean predecessors, mere students of the ancient oriental cultures. But events were soon to prove that, with the appearance of Iranians and Greeks on the stage, the Near East had entered its modern history.

Chapter II

PREHISTORIC IRAN

LONG before the great plateau was called Iran, it was well populated. Obsidian flakes have been found under the alluvial deposits from the last glacial period, while men of the late Stone Age left their crude flint implements in the open. By the fifth pre-Christian millennium, numerous tiny hamlets sheltered a peaceful agricultural population, which satisfied its aesthetic instincts through fine wheel-made pots decorated with superb painting; an elaborate though lively conventionalization of native flora, and fauna, betrayed more interest in beauty of design than in exact representation and set the pattern for all subsequent art on the plateau. Burned settlements and changes in pottery styles indicate population shifts. Only Elam on the west affords us writing and, therefore, history, though tablets from the middle of the plateau inscribed in Elamite pictographs suggest that the same language was spoken there as at Susa, Elam’s most important city.

For further information on these early peoples, we turn to the Videvdat, the “Antidemonic Law.” Although its form as it appears in the Avesta was written down shortly before our own era, it still retains the essential features of this prehistoric culture. At first view, it is a pleasant world in which we meet the house master richly endowed with cattle, fodder, hound, wife, child, fire, milk, and all good things, with grain, grass, and trees bearing every variety of fruit. Waste lands were irrigated by the underground qanat., and there was increase of flocks and herds and plenty of natural fertilizer. But to obtain these blessings hard work was demanded: sowing and planting and laborious construction of the underground water channels. It was a world in which there was no place for the slothful.

We hear of skins in use for clothing or of woven cloth, of tents made of felt such as those yet found in Central Asia, and of houses of wood like those which have left the ash mounds in the Urumia plain. We might rhapsodize over the high position of the dog, elsewhere in the Orient degraded and unclean, but on the plateau treated as an honored member of the family with definite responsibilities and corresponding rewards. We might prepare to rejoice with the peasants when the long snowbound winter was over and the birds began to fly, the plants to spring up, the torrents to flow down the hills, and the winds to dry the earth, but we should completely misunderstand their mood.

History of Early Iran

Physically, the inhabitants belonged to their own subdivision of the Mediterranean race. Culturally, they were more akin to the peoples of Central Asia, especially in their religious thinking. Greek writers tell us something of the culture of primitive peoples who still survived to their day along the southern shore of the Black Sea; in the disposal of their dead in particular, they present strange analogies to the practices of the Antidemonic Law.

For example, among the Derbices, men over seventy were killed and eaten by their kinsfolk, and old women were strangled and buried; men so unfortunate as to die before seventy were merely inhumed. Among the Caspians, who gave their name to the sea formerly called Hyrcanian, those over seventy were starved. Corpses were exposed in a desert place and observed. If carried from the bier by vultures, the dead were considered most fortunate, less so if taken by wild beasts or dogs; but it was the height of misfortune if the bodies remained untouched. In Bactria, farther east, equally disgusting practices continued until Alexander’s invasion. The sick and aged were thrown while still alive to waiting dogs called in their language “burial details.” Piles of bones within the walls testified to burial customs quite as grim. To understand the reason for these practices, set out in all their grisly minutiae by the Antidemonic Law, we must turn to read the still vaster magical literature of the Sumerians, immigrants into Babylonia from Central Asia, or the modern accounts of the Shamanism found to this day in the same regions.

To Magian thinking in its earliest form, there were no true gods, only a numberless horde of evil demons who constantly threatened the lives of the unhappy peasants and whose malign attacks could be prevented only by rites of aversion. Their home was in the north, from which more human enemies also threatened; after the Iranian conquest of Iran we are not surprised to find the Aryan storm-god Indra included among these demons. As in Babylonia, the majority of the fiends were without name: “Perish, demon fiend! Perish, demon tribe! Perish, demon-created! Perish, demon-begotten! In the north shall you perish!’’ Others personify the various forms of illness: “Thee, Sickness, I ban; thee, Death, I ban; thee, Fever, I ban; thee, Evil Eye, I ban,” and so on through a long series. Many more can be driven away if the worshiper knows the demon’s names; of these, the most dangerous is Aeshma, “Drunkenness.” One demon prohibits rain;there are fiends who seize the man’s incautiously trimmed hair and pared nails and from them raise lice to eat the grain and clothing.

Chief of all the demons was Angra Mainyu, the “Evil Spirit” without qualification, the creator of all things evil and of noxious animals; for this reason the Magi accumulated high merit by killing the earthly representatives of these evil spirits—ants, snakes, creeping things, frogs, and birds—by stopping up their burrows and destroying their homes. It is also through the incantations of the Magi, fortified by perfumes and the magic furrow, that man was freed from his ailments and his uncleanness.

But powerful as was the Evil Spirit and his hordes of demons, in daily life the most feared was the Nasu Druj, the “Corpse Fiend,” to whom the greater part of the Antidemonic Law refers. Burial or cremation of the dead might be practiced by neighbors or enemies, but such easy disposal was not for the followers of the Magi. Despite all precautions, it was inevitable that the Corpse Fiend should envelop the living with her corruption, infection, and pollution. From the very instant when breath left the body, the corpse was unclean, for the Corpse Fiend hovered over to injure the survivors. Only by the most rigid observance of the prescribed ritual was there safety: the dead must not pollute holy earth or water; corpses must be exposed, carefully tied down by feet and hair, on the highest points of land where they could be devoured by dogs and vultures. Only when the bones had been thus freed from all dead and therefore dangerous matter might they be collected in an ossuary (astodan) with holes to permit the dead man still to look upon the sun.This taint of the charnel-house permeates the whole later Zoroastrian literature and, with the host of malignant spirits, makes it depressing reading.

THE INFLUENCE OF GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES

The majority of the Aryans left their homes in southern Russia for the plains of Central Asia; only the near-Iranian Scyths and a few genuine Aryans remained there. The Hyrcanians settled along the northern slope of Alborz and the coastal plain below, south of the sea to which they gave their name. This plain, slightly below sea-level and swept by torrential rains up to sixty inches per year, was semi-tropical, but dense forests on the slopes sheltered the lion and tiger for hunting. Other Iranians ascended the plateau, rimmed in by mountains on every side. To the west towered Zagros; on the north Alborz. Eastward the plateau rose steadily to the roof of the world in the Himalayas, while a lower range shut off the southern ocean. Within this rim, lesser ranges separated the subdivisions, which varied only to the degree in which the common elements in them—mountain, desert, and fertile strip—were combined.

In the center were great deserts, difficult to traverse and covered in part by salt lakes, in part by brownish-red, salt-impregnated soil. Equally barren were the mountains, generally devoid of trees or even shrubs. Between mountain and desert was good soil, needing only water—but water was a rare and precious treasure. If the mountains shut off potential enemies, they also shut off the rains; only through such passes as that between Resht and Qazvin could a few clouds penetrate. Here the rainfall might reach eight inches; elsewhere, as at Isfahan, four inches or less. Nowhere was this rainfall sufficient to bring crops to maturity, but melting snows fortunately ran down from the barrier mountains.

During the greater portion of the year, the sun blazed with intense heat from a cloudless sky. By September the air cooled a trifle; by November the nights were uncomfortably cool. Autumn rains were followed by mists and snows and finally fierce blizzards, creeping down lower and lower from the mountains until they reached the plain. The midday sun, when seen, remained hot, and thawed out sufferers frozen by night. By January the passes were filled, and villages hidden in the snows were isolated for the winter. In spring the snows melted almost without warning. Their waters poured down the bare slopes, destroying the trails and once more isolating the villagers. The stream beds were filled with roaring waters, each precious drop utilized by the irrigation ditches, until again the beds were dry. Thereafter water was sought in the seemingly dry hills; lest the precious fluid be lost by evaporation, it had to be carried underground in qanats. Thus, at tremendous expenditure of time and labor, a few more square feet of former desert were won for cultivation.

This eternal search for water left a permanent impress on the Persian mind. In the sacred Avesta, hymning Anahita, goddess of a thousand rills, and in later poetry, singing the joy of flowing stream and garden, the theme is constantly repeated. To strangers from happier lands, the rivers may appear insignificant, the rows of poplars, cypresses, and plane trees scant, the garden “paradise” sickly; the contrast with desert, bare plain, and snow-capped peaks is needed to render them beautiful.

CONQUEST BY NORTHERN HORDES

Archeology shows the first trace of the northerner when the fine, painted pottery of the earliest inhabitants is supplanted by a better-made pottery of a funereal black. Judging from their skulls, Nordic tribes make their appearance. Fresh hordes continue to drift down. A great fortified structure is built at Damghan, it is assaulted and taken. The bodies of the men who defended this fortress, with those of their wives and children, have been found by the excavator on the spot where they perished.

Episodes from the conquest of Iran, well mixed with good Aryan mythology, are found in the earliest sections of the Yashts; there we read the first version of the Persian traditional history, best known to the West through the magnificent epic, the Shah Nameh or “Book of Kings,” produced by the great Moslem poet Firdausi.

The story begins with Gaya Maretan (Gayomarth), “Mortal Man,” who was ancestor of the Aryan people. Next comes Hao-shyaha (Hosheng), the first king of the Paradata (Peshdadyan) dynasty, who from a mount to the east named Hara conquered the demons of Mazana and the fiends of Varena. This is generally considered a reminiscence of the subjugation of the spirit worshipers of Varkana or Hyrcania (later Mazandaran). However this may be, we do know that Zadrakarta, the capital of Hyrcania in Iranian days, was probably located on a mound whose partial excavation has shown repeated settlements of Iranians over native sites of a. still earlier period.

Next to Haoshyaha followed Yima, the good shepherd, son of Vivahvant, who first pressed out the sacred haoma juice. In Yima’s reign there was neither cold nor heat, neither old age nor death, for he brought to man immortality. He also freed man from hunger and thirst, teaching the food animals what they should eat and preventing the plants from drying up. But although he lived on the sacred mount Hukairya near the sea Vouru-kasha, the Iranian Paradise, he sinned—Zoroaster later was to declare that his sin consisted in giving to men flesh of the cattle to eat—and Yima himself was sawed asunder by his wicked brother Spityura. Another brother, however, Takhma Urupa, succeeded in riding over the earth for thirty years the evil spirit, Angra Mainyu, who took the form of a horse.

At this time Azi Dahaka, the three-headed, three-mouthed, six-eyed dragon, with the thousand senses, carried off Yima’s two beautiful daughters and made them his wives; the dragon was killed and the ladies were rescued by Thraetaona (Feridun), son o£ Athwya, from Varena, now safely Aryan. A second exploit of the hero Thraetaona was related, telling how he hurled into the air the wise seaman Paurva in the guise of a vulture.

Keresaspa, son of Sama, was a hero who avenged the death of his brother Urvakhshaya, the judge and lawgiver, by killing the assassin Hitaspa and carrying home the corpse in his own chariot. To him also was attributed the slaughter of various enemies both human and monster, like the golden-heeled Gandareva, who lived in the sea Vouru-kasha, and the poisonous yellow sea serpent on whose broad back Keresaspa unwittingly cooked his meal. Hitaspa bears a good Iranian name; perhaps he was an enemy nomad, a Turanian.

The next enemy mentioned is also a Turanian: Frangrasyan (Afrasiab), who from his cleft in the earth swam across Vouru-kasha in a vain attempt to steal the Awful Royal Glory which conferred sovereignty. Captured and bound by a loyal vassal, he was brought to be slain by the Kavi Haosravah (Kai Khosrau),

Thus the Kavis, the local kinglets, enter the traditional history. Of the eight members of the dynasty listed, we learn more only of the founder Kavi Kavata (Kai Kobad), of his son Kavi Usan (Kai Kaus), possesser of stallions and camels and controller of the ship-bearing sea, and of Kavi Haosravah (Kai Khosrau), who came from the salt sea Chaechasta (Lake Urumia), subdued the Aryan lands, and became a great hero.

THE EARLIEST MEDES AND PERSIANS

Medes and Persians are first discovered in written annals when in 836 the Assyrian, Shalmaneser III, received tribute from kings of “Parsua,” west of Lake Urumia, and reached the lands of the “Mada” southeast of its waters. Henceforth the two peoples are frequently mentioned. By 820, Shamshi-Adad V found them in what is now called Parsuash, well to the south beyond modern Kirmanshah. In 737 Tiglathpileser III invaded the original Parsua and received tribute from Median chiefs as far east as Mount Bikni, the “mountain of lapis lazuli,” as he named majestic Demavend from the deep blue of its snow-covered peak.

These two groups of Iranians were still on the move. Each mountain valley held its tribe, ruled from a high battlemented tower by a “king” who now and then paid tribute to Assyria—when compelled by an inroad. Parts of the Median country were formed into a province, though its boundaries were fluctuating and it was never effectively organized. Subject to raids, the other Medes and all the Persians retained their full independence.

Through the whole of their earlier history the Iranians were primarily pastoral, though agriculture was not neglected. Almost contemporary Zoroastrian writings divide the people into fourfold local units, the home (demana), the clan (vis), the district (shoithra), and the land (dahyu). Socially, there is a threefold division: khvaetu, verezena, and airyaman. Only the last represented the ruling class, which was subdivided into priest (athravan), chariot-driving noble (rathaeshtar), herdsman (vastrya jshuyant), and artisan (huiti). Apparently the lower classes were recognized as distinct in race, for the name of the caste was “color” (pishtra).

One of the local Median kinglets, Daiaukku by name, was captured and deported to Syria in 715; he is the same Deioces whom tradition made founder of the Median empire! The next traditional ruler is Cyaxares I; he is the Uaksatar who paid Sargon tribute in 714; in the time of Sennacherib, in 702, he himself attacked the Assyrian province of Harhar. Contingents from Parsuash and Anzan opposed Sennacherib at Halulina in 681; presumably their leader was that Achaemenes (Hakhamanish) whom later monarchs claimed as eponymous ancestor and who gave his name to the whole Achaemenid dynasty. His son Teispes (Chishpish) was “great king, king of the city Anshan”—as the more ancient Anzan was now called, still located northwest of Susa on thennKerkha River, but at present lost to the Elamites. Obviously, the Persians were still on their way south.

Born to Teispes were two sons—Ariaramnes (Ariyaramna) and Cyrus (Kurash) I. A gold tablet of the former shows that Persian was already written in cuneiform; if the suggestion came from Assyria or Elam, there was no direct imitation in the script. For the first time in cuneiform writing, each word was set off by a diagonal wedge. Ideograms for king, earth, land, god, and for the chief god Ahuramazda followed the method (though not the form) of the neighbor-scripts. The remaining signs afforded a crude alphabet. Three signs for a, i, and u poorly represented the wealth of Iranian vowels. Twenty-two were syllables in which a was preceded by a consonant; in four signs an z-vowel followed a consonant, in seven, a u-vowel. When sometimes these vowels were not pronounced, the sign possessed a purely consonantal value.

THE RELIGION OF THE IRANIANS

Iranian religion had thus far remained simple Aryan nature worship of daevas, or true gods. At the head of the pantheon stood the sky, whose name of Dyaosh was cognate of the Greek Zeus; more often he was the “Lord,” Ahura, or the “Wise,” Mazdah. In time these manifestations of the supreme power were united as Ahura-Mazdah, the “Wise Lord.” “Says Ariyaramnes the king: This land Parsa which I hold, which possesses good horses and men, the great god Ahuramazda granted me. By the favor of Ahuramazda I am king of this land. May Ahuramazda bring me help.” Thus was set the formulary for kings to come.

Second only to the all-embracing sky was Mithra, worshiped long since by fellow-Iranians in Mitanni and by other Aryans in India. Like all the Iranian Yazatas, he was a god of the open air. In one of his numerous manifestations he was the Sun himself, in modern proverb the “poor man’s friend,” so welcome after the cold nights of winter, so terrible in summer when all vegetation parched. Other passages connect him with the night sky. Again, he was first of the gods, the Dawn, who appeared over Hara, Mount Alborz, before the undying swift-horsed Sun; he was therefore the first to climb the beautiful gold-adorned heights from which he looked down upon all the mighty Aryan countries that owed to him their peace and well-being.

Over these Aryan lands ruled Mithra as lord of broad pastures. It was he who protected the columns of the high-built house and made firm the doorposts. To the house with which he was pleased he granted herds of cattle and male children, beautiful women and chariots, and well-spread cushions. For his people he was the god of justice, and when his name was used as a common noun it was synonymous with “agreement,” of whose execution he was protector. He could not be deceived, for his thousand ears and ten thousand eyes were spies which were ever watching the breaker of the agreement. The poor man, robbed of his rights, prayed to him with uplifted hands; whether his cry was loud or a whisper, it went over the whole earth and ascended to heaven, where it was heard by Mithra, who brought quick retribution, such as leprosy, on the offender. No priest was needed for his worship; the master of the house invoked Mithra with libations and the haoma drink, the “Averter of Death.” Part of the devotions to him consisted of nocturnal sacrifice of a bull, for Mithra could be as evil for his creatures as he could be good. Similar animal sacrifices continued to be offered into Achaemenid times. At the New Year’s Day, Nesaean horses were offered in his honor; they represented the sacred white horses of his solar chariot. Once a year, on the Mithra festival, the Achaemenid ruler was obliged to become drunk on the intoxicating haoma and dance the “Persian,” a survival of the war dance of more primitive days.

But it was as the war-god that Mithra was most vigorously and most picturesquely invoked by the still untamed Aryans. By force they had won the plateau and by force they had to defend it against the aborigines. The hymn devoted to Mithra pictures the peaceful herdsmen attacked by flights of eagle-feathered arrows shot from well-bent bows, of sharp spears affixed to long shafts, and of slingstones, and by daggers and clubs of the Mediterranean type. Even more dangerous were the spells sent against them by the followers of the Magi. We see the bodies pierced, the bones crushed, and the villages laid waste, while the cattle are dragged beside the victor’s chariot into captivity in the gorges occupied by the opponents of Mithra. The hymn continues, as the lords of the land invoke Mithra when ready to march out against the bloodthirsty foe, drawn up for battle on the border between the two contending lands. The men on horseback pray to Mithra and the drivers ask strength for their teams, for, like all early Aryan nobles, they still fight from their chariots. In his residence on high, shining Haraiti, the mountain with many gorges, Mithra hears their cry for aid. As the evildoer approaches, with rapid step he quickly yokes the four shining horses to the pole o£ his golden solar chariot; these horses are all of the same white color, shod with gold and silver, and immortal because fed with ambrosia. Against the weapons of the demon worshipers, Mithra has affixed to the chariot sides a thousand well-made bows, a thousand gold-tipped, horn-shafted arrows, whose vulture feathers pollute as well as pierce the enemy, a thousand sharp spears, a thousand two-edged battle-axes of steel, a thousand two-edged swords, a thousand iron maces for hurling, and a huge club, cast from the yellow metal, with a hundred bosses and a hundred cutting faces. Of their own volition all these fly down through the air onto the skulls of the demons and their followers. Standing up in his chariot, swinging the whip, and brandishing his club, Mithra, protected by a silver helmet and a gold cuirass, plunges down against the enemy, and by his superior power wards off the weapons and the curses of the liars against his majesty. He does not go alone. To his right marches forth Sraosha, “Obedience” (to the feudal levy), beautiful, powerful, and armed with another mighty club. On his left goes tall, strong Rashnu, the “Truest True,” god of the ordeal. Around him are the waters, the plants, and the Fravashis, the souls of the dead ancestors. Before him runs the god Victory, Verethraghna, in the form of a sharp-toothed, sharp-jawed boar with limbs of iron; accompanied by the goddess of bravery, he clings to the fleeing foe with dripping face until he has snapped the backbone, the column of life and the source of life’s strength, until he has cut to pieces the limbs and mingled with earth the bones, the hair, the brains, and the blood of those who have lied to Mithra.

But Verethraghna had other manifestations: he was the Wind (Vata or Vayu), the gold-horned Bull, the gold-eared Horse, the Camel, the Raven, the wild Ram, the Buck; or he might appear as youth or mature man. Not only did he give victory to the Aryans and protect the sacred Ox Soul; in addition, he granted to men virility and health.Though sometimes usurped by Mithra, to Verethraghna belonged of right the bestowal and withdrawal of the Awful Royal Glory (Khvarenah) when he appeared in the form of the Wind or of the Bull. It was a concept which was to dominate political thought in later political theory.

There were other gods among the nature-worshiping Aryans, of whom we catch occasional glimpses. Among the most honored was Tishtrya, the brilliant white Sirius, lord and overseer of all the stars, who in the clear air of the plateau shone so brightly. As the year came to an end, all awaited his rising, from the aged counselor among men to the wild beasts of rhe hills and the tame ones of the plain, and they wondered: “Will he bring a good year for the Aryans?” He delayed, and in their disappointment they asked: “When will the bright glorious Tishtrya arise for us? When will the springs of water, larger than a horse, flow down anew?” Tishtrya himself appeared. He too asked: “Will the Aryan lands have a good year?” for there were difficulties to be faced. The “Seven Stars” had to remain on guard against the magicians from the north, who attempted to prevent Tishtrya’s advance by hurling down the hostile shooting stars. Vanant, the leader of the starry hosts of the south, had to protect him from want and hostility. For ten nights Tishtrya appeared as a beautiful fifteen-year-old youth and gave to men their male children. Ten nights more he was like a golden-horned bull, and the cattle increased. For the third ten nights he assumed the form of a goldeneared white horse. He went down to the sea Vouru-kasha, where there descended against him the black horse Apaosha, the incarnation of Drought. Three days and three nights they fought, and Tishtrya was worsted. Then, renewed by his worshipers’ sacrifices, Tishtrya re-entered the fray, and by noon of the first day Drought had to flee. Then the sea began to boil and mists covered the island in its midst. They came together to form clouds which Wind pushed south. Apam Napat, the “son of waters” and lord of the females, the cloud-born Lightning, assigned to the various earth-regions the health-giving waters. If the Aryan peoples duly poured libations to Tishtrya and sacrificed cattle to him, all of one color, never would pestilence or disease, never would the army of the foe with his chariots and his high-raised standard, invade the lands of the Aryan people.

In Achaemenid times some of these functions were usurped by an ancient nature-goddess, Anahita, who from her mountain heights brought down the waters which transformed desert into field and orchard. As she was pure, so must be her rivers, which might not be polluted even by the washing of hands. Other water divinities survived to become wives of Ahura.

Still other nature-gods were recognized. The bright Moon (Mah) by her waxing caused the green plants to spring upon the Earth, who was herself a potent divinity. Within her the Moon held the seeds of the Bull, while the Cow was also honored. Vayu, the Wind, sweeping down from the hills to refresh the plains in summer, but icy cold in the winter blasts, was likewise revered. Atar, the Fire which carried the sacrifices to the gods, was himself a major deity,and everywhere one might see fire altars for his worship; he was worthy of all honor, for he was sorely needed in winter when fuel was scarce and expensive Haoma, the sacred intoxicating drink that “drives death afar,” always played a large part in Aryan ritual. Libations and hymns pacified the underworld gods.

Except for the sacred fire, the Iranians felt no need of temples and altars. Moreover, their minds could conceive the divine beings independent of any symbols such as statues. Sacrifices were offered Ahura on the bare mountain peaks, beautiful only when covered with snow, and thus close to the generally cloudless sky Crowned with myrtle, the sacrificer led the victim to an open place ritually pure, where he invoked by name the god, cut up the victim, and boiled the flesh. The pieces were piled upon a carpet of tenderest herbs, preferably alfalfa; a Magian then chanted a hymn which related the traditional origin of the gods. Afterward the sacrificer took away the flesh to do with it what he pleased. Such is the account of the contemporary Herodotus.

Karapan and Usij priests are named, as also the Manthra speakers,but more and more the ritual practices were falling into the hands of the Magi—the usual victory of the older priestly class over the invaders. As yet, the Magi remained a separate Median tribe, entirely distinct from the Aryan nobility. Their pernicious effect on the nobler Aryan paganism was far in the future.

THE MEDIAN EMPIRE

New hordes from Central Asia, Gimirrai or Cimmerians and Ishguzai or Scythians, followed their Iranian cousins up the plateau and left their horse trappings, knives, and maceheads in Luristan. Assyrian cavalry in search of fresh mounts reached the land of Patusharri on the edge of the central salt desert and carried off city lords named Shidirparna and Eparna, in the former we recognize the first Chithrafarna or Tissaphernes.

More important was Khshathnta, also called Fravartish or Phraortes, who, according to Herodotus, ruled Media fifty-three years—actually from about 675 to 653. He began as a village chief of Kar Kashi, but after attacking various Assyrian settlements he ultimately formed an anti-Assyrian coalition of Medes and Cimmerians.

Ariyaramnes, son of Teispes, tells us that Ahuramazda gave him Parsa, good of horses and good of men; he is describing the conquest of the future Persian homeland, known to the Greeks as Persis and to us as modern Fars. To his brother Cyrus he permits only their father’s title, “great king of the city Anshan”; he himself, as superior, is “great king, king of kings, king of Parsa.” But his superiority was brief, for the Medes entered the country and the Persians became Median vassals. The gold tablet of Ariyaramnes was probably deposited as loot in the capital which was already Hangmatana (Ecbatana).

This city lay on the last slopes to the east of Mount Aurvant (Orontes), a granite peak which towers more than twelve thousand feet above sea-level and which is part of an almost impassable range extending north and south and broken only by the high pass leading to the Babylonian alluvium. In summer the climate is delightful, for Ecbatana lies 6,280 feet above the sea; Aurvant hides the afternoon sun and sends down his melting snows in many little rushing streams to irrigate the lovely gardens and orchards below the city and the fertile grain fields of the wide plains beyond. Still farther out on rougher ground great herds of sheep and goats and the famous Nesaean horses could be pastured. In winter the blizzards howl as the temperature sinks to twenty below zero. The snow reaches two or three feet on the level ground and fills the passes twenty feet high. Communication with the outside world is shut off on every side. But Hangmatana commanded the one tolerably easy road from the west up to the plateau and its continued importance is witnessed by the flourishing state of its successors, Ecbatana and Hamadan.

From Hangmatana, the great road continued northeast to Qazvin and then east to Raga, from which a second Media took its name. Teheran, the capital of present-day Iran, is the true successor of Raga, though the ancient site is somewhat to the south, where it was followed by the Rages of the Greeks and the Rai of medieval times.Raga in turn was the successor of a prehistoric settlement under the shelter of an isolated east-west comb of rock; further protection from the chill north winds of winter was afforded by the high east-west chain of Alborz, which often reached the height of ten thousand feet and, to the east of Raga, culminated in Demavend, twenty thousand feet at the summit. Alborz shut off also the rain-bringing winds from the north but, in compensation, sent down the snows in gullies which reached the salt deserts over gravel stretches. Mounds along the edges of the plain testify to prehistoric and later occupation.

Raga, like Ecbatana, was always an important road center. From it ran the second road to the west. Through Qazvin, with side branch to the Hyrcanian Sea, the main line continued west through Tabriz to the plains about Lake Urumia or down the Rowanduz gorge into Assyria. The country traversed formed a third Media, not yet entitled Media Atropatena or Adharbaigan; here we meet toward the end of the eighth century the Medes and Persians first known to the Assyrians. Soon this territory was to be revered as the birthplace of Zoroaster. Not far east of Raga, the road turned north through the Caspian Gates and passed under Demavend; again turning eastward, it traversed other Iranian tribes and then from Bactria ran northeast into Central Asia or southeast to India.

The three Medias were inhabited by Median tribes—Busae, Paretaceni, Struchates, Arizanti, and Budii—to which was added the nonIranian priestly tribe of the Magi. These Medes were still halfnomads. On the Assyrian reliefs they are depicted with short hair confined by a red fillet and with short curled beard; over a tunic is worn the sheepskin coat, still the traveler’s best friend in the bitter winter of the plateau, which also required high-laced boots to plow through the deep snows. They were armed with only the long spear and were defended by the rectangular wicker shield. With these seminomads, aided by the Persians, Phraortes dared to attack Assyria, only to meet defeat and death in battle (653).

Parsa again became independent. Two years later (651), Cyrus I joined with Elam in sending aid to Shamash-shum-ukin of Babylon, who was in revolt against his brother Ashurbaniapal of Assyria; for Parsa the Assyrian scribe uses the ancient name of Guti. Then an Assyrian official at Uruk reports the return of the Elamite king Humbanigash to the land of Hidalu, together with peoples from the land of Parsuash. Another mentions the Elamite Tammaritu and quotes an enemy letter: “The men of Parsuash do not advance, quickly send them. Elam and Assyria are yours!” News of Elam forwarded to Ashurbaniapal by his viceroy in Babylonia, Bel-ibni, includes the capture of Parsuash.

Shortly after his conquest of Elam and the destruction of its capital Susa—so Ashurbaniapal assures us—Cyrus, king of Parsuash, heard of the might the Assyrian king had established over Elam and sent his eldest son Arukku with his tribute to Nineveh to make submission and to beseech his lordship. There were more weighty reasons for the embassy.

Cyaxares (Uvakhshatra) had succeeded his father Phraortes; appropriately he bore the surname of the war-god Verethragna. The army was remodeled along modern lines and was divided into spearmen, bowmen, and cavalry. It would seem that it was Cyaxares who also changed the clothing and weapons. Two quite different forms are regularly illustrated on the sculptures at Persepolis. The Mede is at once distinguished by the wearing of the more original Iranian costume. On his head is the round, nodding felt cap with neck flap. A tight, long-sleeved leather tunic ends above the knee and is held in by a double belt with round buckle; over the tunic might be thrown on ceremonial occasions a cloak of honor. Full leather trousers and laced shoes with projecting tips indicated that their wearers spent much of their time on horseback. A short, pointed beard, a mustache, and hair bunched out on the neck were all elaborately curled, while earrings and necklace gave added ornament. The chief offensive weapon remained the spear of cornel wood with a flanged bronze point and the base held by a metal ferrule. To this spear many warriors added the bow, held in an extraordinarily elaborate bow case and serviced by arrows from a quiver. The Median costume is sharply contrasted with the form labeled Persian, distinguished by the fluted felt hat, the ankle-length flowing robe, and the low-laced shoes.

With the Median army reorganized, the threat to Assyria became extreme. Ashurbanipal died, and even weaker successors did not dare to dissipate their strength by aiding their nominal allies such as Parsa. The successors of Ariaramnes and Cyrus were again forced to become vassals of Cyaxares. Once more the Assyrians were driven back, and Nineveh was actually under siege by the Medes when news arrived that Scythians had poured through the gate between the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea. Defeated by their chief, Madys, son of Protothyes, Cyaxares had to pay tribute for twenty-eight years until he killed their drunken leaders at a banquet.

Nineveh was destroyed in 612. Amid the ruins, Cyaxares, now known in Babylonia as king of the Umman Manda (from his conquest of the Scythian hordes), made peace with Nabopolassar. Two years later, by the defeat of Ashur-uballit at Harran, Cyaxares destroyed the last pretense of Assyrian rule and won all northern Mesopotamia.

Since the road to the south was closed by the alliance with the Chaldean, who also held Susa, Cyaxares followed the Zagros as it bends westward into the cold uplands of Armenia, where other Iranian bands had destroyed the kingdom of Haldia and introduced their own Indo-European speech.The fertile valleys of Armenia led down through the Anti-Taurus into the broad plains of Cappadocia and to the river Halys, frontier of Lydia. Five years of warfare ended in a drawn battle at the time of a solar eclipse (May 28, 585) and a peace by which the Halys remained the boundary. The Cadusians along the Hyrcanian Sea refused submission, but the ruler of Parthia admitted himself a vassal.

Four great powers—Media, Chaldaea, Lydia, and Egypt—divided among themselves the whole of the Near East, but, of these, only Media could be called an empire. Far more significant, Media represented the first empire founded by northern warriors who spoke an Iranian language and thought in northern terms. All the more unfortunate is the sad fact that no site of Median times has been excavated. When their capital Ecbatana has received proper attention, we may venture to hope that the mound at Hamadan will grant us full details of Median culture and even permit the Medes to speak for themselves in their own Iranian tongue.

Chapter III

FOUNDER CYRUS

ASTYAGES now ruled Media in place of his father Cyaxares. His name in Iranian, Arshtivaiga, meant “lance-hurler,” but it was quite inappropriate for the son, who in his long reign (585-550) showed only weakness. In Persian lands Ariaramnes had been succeeded by his son Arsames (Arshama); in the other line, Cyrus gave place, not to Arukku, but to a younger son, Cambyses (Kanbujiya) I, “Great King, king of Anshan.” To him Astyages married his daughter Mandane, who bore to Cambyses a second Cyrus. In 559 this Cyrus II became vassal king in Anshan and ruled from his open capital Parsagarda.

Shut off from the hot, unhealthy coastal plain by mountains through which wound tortuous trails, the high plateau of Parsa was well fitted to retain the old Iranian fighting spirit. Scorning a master so weakened by luxury, Cyrus plotted revolt. His own tribe of the Pasargadae could be depended upon, for his family, the Achaemenidae, provided its rulers. With it were associated two other Persian tribes, the Maraphii and the Maspii. To these were added still other Persian tribes: the agricultural Panthialaei, Derusiaei, and Germanii (the last in the oasis of Kerman), and the nomad herders—the Dai, Mardi, Dropici, and Sagartii. Of these, the Mardians occupied the desert near the site of Persepolis and long retained the reputation of brigands, but the Sagartians inhabited the oasis of Yazd and, while speaking the common language, were distinguished from their fellows by their lack of defensive metal armor, their only weapons being the dagger and the lasso.

Now that the Persians were all united under his rule, Cyrus looked about for an ally against Media among the other great powers. The nearest as well as the most logical was Babylonia. A generation before, Babylon had been an ally of Media, but only for the moment; as soon as their common enemy, Assyria, had been destroyed and the spoils of empire had been divided, the alliance became nominal. When Nebuchadnezzar’s engineers constructed the great chain of fortifications which seemed to make Babylon impregnable, the enemy he feared was his neighbor—Media.

After a long and successful reign, the great Babylonian conqueror passed away on October 7, 562. After less than two years of rule, his son Amel-Marduk had by August 13, 560, been followed by Nebuchadnezzar’s son-in-law, Nergal-shar-usur; he in turn lasted only until May 22, 556, when a tablet is dated by his youthful son, Labashi- Marduk.

Two such brief reigns gave hope to the nationalists, who had always resented the alien rule of the Chaldaean dynasty. Three days after the tablet dated by Labashi-Marduk, there is another dated by a rival, Nabunaid. According to him, Labashi-Marduk was a youth without understanding who, contrary to the will of the gods, had seated himself upon the throne of the kingdom. There are hints of the palace revolution to which he owed his new position, of the support by nobles and army, but in very truth it was by the command of Marduk, his lord, that Nabunaid was raised to the lordship of the land. He also claims that he is the representative of Nebuchadnezzar and Nergal-shar-usur, his predecessors. At any rate, after less than two months’ rule, the young king was put to death with horrible torture, and Nabunaid was sole ruler of the remnants of the Chaldaean Empire.

Nabunaid’s claims to be the true representative of the great conqueror’s policies were bolstered by the report of a convenient dream; by Marduk’s order, Nebuchadnezzar himself appeared to interpret a celestial phenomenon as favorable, portending a long reign. Other Babylonian divinities sent equally favoring visions and were adequately rewarded. Marduk’s great temple at Babylon, Esagila, was gloriously restored; the New Year’s feast, beginning March 31, 555, was celebrated with all due pomp, and Nabunaid took the part reserved for the king. He grasped the hands of Marduk and was again recognized as the lawful monarch. Rich gifts were assigned to his temple. Then Nabunaid journeyed through all Babylonia, the cities of the south in particular, and Sin of Ur, Shamash of Larsa, and Ishtar of Uruk were recipients of the royal bounty.

Although the nominee of the anti-Chaldaean party, Nabunaid was not himself a native Babylonian. His father was a certain Nabu-balatsu-iqbi, who is called the “wise prince,’’ though actually he seems to have been the chief priest of the once famous temple of the moon-god Sin in Mesopotamian Harran. Since the last flicker of Assyrian rule from that city had been stamped out in 610, Harran had remained in the hands of the Medes, who had permitted the temple to lie in ruins. Quite literally, it was the life-dream of Nabunaid to restore that temple, amid whose ruins his father was still living. But this required that Harran first should be taken from the Medes.

As Nabunaid tells it, in his accession year the gods Marduk and Sin appeared to him in a dream. Marduk bade him restore the Harran temple; we wonder whether the priests of Esagila approved. When Nabunaid fearfully protested that the Mede surrounded it and that he was exceeding strong, Marduk answered: “The Mede of whom you are speaking, he himself, his land, and the kings who march at his side are not! When the third year comes, the Gods will cause Cyrus, king of Anshan, his little slave, to advance against him with his small army. He will overthrow the wide extending Medes; he will capture Astyages, king of the Medes, and take him captive to his land.’’

TRIUMPH OVER THE MEDES

In this hope, Nabunaid made alliance with Cyrus, who thereupon openly rebelled against Media. To fulfil his part of the agreement, Nabunaid promptly levied an army against the “rebels” who lived in the countries once held by Nebuchadnezzar. Before he left, Nabunaid handed over the “kingship” of Babylonia to his eldest son, Bel-shar-usur (Belshazzar as he is called in the Book of Daniel), and started off for Harran. No aid for the city was possible, since the revolt of Cyrus kept Astyages busy at home, and Harran was quickly recovered. The city was rebuilt, and the army had laid the temple foundations by 555.

The next year the reconquest of Syria continued. By January of 553, Nabunaid was in Hamath. By August he had raided the Amanus Mountains. By December he had killed the king of Edom, while his troops were in Gaza on the Egyptian frontier. Disaffected Jewish captives were predicting the fall of Babylon at the hands of the warlike Medes, but, as so often, they were disappointed. Astyages did send out against his rebellious vassal an army under Harpagus, but he had forgotten how he had cruelly slain that general’s son; Harpagus did not forget and promptly deserted to Cyrus, bringing over with him most of his soldiers. A second army, commanded by Astyages in person, reached the capital of Parsa; here it mutinied, seized its king, and handed him over to Cyrus. Ecbatana was captured, and its wealth of gold, silver, and precious objects was carried off to Anshan (550).

Media ceased to be an independent nation and became the first satrapy, Mada. Nevertheless, the close relationship between Persians and Medes was never forgotten. Plundered Ecbatana remained a favorite royal residence. Medes were honored equally with Persians; they were employed in high office and were chosen to lead Persian armies. Foreigners spoke regularly of the Medes and Persians; when they used a single term, it was “the Mede.”

By his conquest of the Median Empire, Cyrus had taken over the Median claims to rule over Assyria, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, and Cappadocia. In large degree, these claims were in conflict with those of Babylonia. All reason for the alliance had disappeared when each party to the agreement had attained his immediate objective. Destruction of the Median Empire upset the delicate balance of power, and war between Cyrus and the three surviving powers—Lydia, Babylonia, and Egypt—might be expected to follow.

BEGINNINGS OF BABYLONIAN DECLINE

No vision from the abandoned Babylonian divinities warned Nabunaid that the international situation had so dangerously shifted. With his mind set on further conquests in the west, he left Edom on its desert border and struck deep into the heart of the Arabian Peninsula. Tenia was attacked in its central oasis and its king was slain. For some strange reason, Nabunaid built there a palace like that in Babylon and took up his residence in it. Business documents from the years immediately following tell of camel caravans which carried food to the king at Tema.

Meanwhile, Belshazzar exercised in Babylonia the “kingship” with which his father had intrusted him. Numerous letters and business documents refer to the king’s son as the chief authority.From the king’s seventh year to at least the eleventh (549-545), our chronicle regularly begins each year: “The king was in Tema. The king’s son, the nobles, and his soldiers were in Akkad. In the first month, the king did not come to Babylon. Nabu did not come to Babylon. Bel did not go out (from Esagila). The New Year’s festival was omitted.’’ Thus deprived of the great annual show, with its opportunities for moneymaking, the inhabitants of Babylon were naturally angered. The influential priests of Marduk were completely alienated. That the great lord of their city was snubbed while the alien moongod of Harran was extravagantly honored did not lessen the resentment.

PERSIAN CONQUEST OF LYDIA

On news that his Median ally had been dethroned, Croesus of Lydia hastily collected his levies and crossed the former Halys boundary to pick up remnants of the empire. Cyrus, who had just revived the title “king of Parsa,” felt this a challenge to his own pretensions, and in April, 547, he set out from looted Ecbatana to meet the invader. After he had traversed the pass, high above the city, his road wound steadily downward until he reached the main line of the Zagros at the Gate of Asia. “Beyond the “Gate,” the descent was even more rapid. The cold air suddenly became warmer, the poplars, cypresses, and plane trees of the plateau gave way to a few palms, and Cyrus was on the edge of the great Mesopotamian plains.

Cyrus might easily have turned south against Babylon, had not the skill of Nebuchadnezzar’s engineers formed that city and its surroundings into the world’s mightiest fortress. Wisely he postponed the assault and marched north into Assyria, already a Median dependency and therefore prepared to accept him without question. Arbela, for so many centuries overshadowed by Ashur and Nineveh, regained its prestige as the new capital of Athura. Cyrus crossed the Tigris below Arbela, and Ashur fell; the gods of Ashur and Nineveh were saved only through refuge behind the walls of Babylon. Farther west on the main road lay Harran; it could be claimed as part of Athura. Nabunaid’s father had passed away at the ripe age of one hundred and four just three years earlier (550), and his successor as priest of Sin could not resist the conqueror. There is no mention of its fall in our extant sources; only the line of march and the situation which followed betrays the fact that Harran was lost and with it the temple for whose restoration Nabunaid had sacrificed the good will of Marduk. For these losses, the only revenge possible was a Babylonian alliance with Lydia.

By May, Cyrus was ready to proceed against Croesus. The Great Road was again followed through North Syria, which also was detached from Nabunaid’s recent empire, and into Cilicia; on their own initiative, the hitherto independent Cilicians accepted Persian vassalage and as reward were permitted to retain their native kings, who regularly bore the name Syennesis. Through the Cilician Gates the army entered Cappadocia, which was organized as another satrapy, Katpatuka. At the same time, presumably, Armenia received Cyrus as successor to Astyages and henceforth was the satrapy of Armina.

After an indecisive battle in the land of Pteria, the country about the recently excavated Alaca Huyuk, Croesus retired to Sardis. His provincial levies were disbanded, while he summoned his allies, Amasis of Egypt, Nabunaid of Babylon, and the Spartans on the Greek mainland, to meet him in the spring. Cyrus had no intention of allowing the enemy time for reinforcements. Although winter, severe on the Anatolian Plateau, was nearing, he pushed rapidly west. In the small plain east of the capital, at the junction of the Hyllus with the Hermus, which hereafter was known as “Cyrus’ Field,” the mounted Lydian spearmen barred his road. By the advice of Harpagus, Cyrus stationed the baggage camels in front of his line; their horrid and unaccustomed odor frightened the horses and drove them off in wild flight. The dismounted Lydians reformed and fought bravely, but at last they were forced back into the citadel. More urgent appeals were sent to the allies; there was no time to answer, for after but fourteen days of siege, the supposedly impregnable acropolis of Sardis was scaled and Croesus made prisoner (547).

“In May he marched to the land of Lydia. He killed its king. He took its booty. He placed in it his own garrison. Afterward his garrison and the king were in it.’’ Such was the official report given by Cyrus. In actual fact, Croesus followed oriental custom and immolated himself to escape the usual indignities heaped upon a captured monarch before he was put to death. Within the next half-century, the Attic vase painter Myson depicted Croesus enthroned upon a pyre which a servant was about to light.

Apollo of Delphi had been highly honored by Lydian kings. To Croesus he had uttered an ambiguous oracle which clearly had lured him to his death. Such a blot on Apollo’s prestige could not be allowed, and soon there were published “true” accounts of Croesus’ fate. First the priests declared that the god himself had carried the deposed monarch to immortality in the land of the fabled Hyperboraeans, conveniently far in the north. Then came the familiar story that at the last moment, when Croesus was already on the pyre, Cyrus was seized with remorse; he attempted to save him, although the fire was already blazing fiercely. Then Apollo sent an unexpected rain which miraculously extinguished the flames, and Croesus was saved to become the king’s chief adviser. Finally, the Hyperboraeans were rationalized and Croesus was settled in Barene near Ecbatana!

Lydia was formed into the satrapy Saparda or Sardis, The satrap was the Persian Tabalus. Provincial administration was still in the experimental stage. Cyrus accordingly tried out the appointment of a native, a certain Pactyas, to have charge of the captured treasure of Croesus.

SUBJUGATION OF THE GREEKS AND LYCIANS

This year 547 marks also the Erst contact between Persians and Greeks. Neither people recognized its fateful character. To the Greeks, Persia was simply one more barbarian monarchy, whose trade their merchants might exploit and to which, if necessary, the nearer city-states might give a nominal allegiance. They never dreamed that in a single generation the wealthiest, the most populous, and the most advanced half of the Greek world would be permanently under Persian domination and that the next generation would be compelled to resist the whole might of the Persian Empire in an attempt to subjugate the more backward Greek states which still retained their independence. They could not foresee that throughout the whole period, while these states remained free, their international relations would be dominated by the Achaemenid great king and that, even in internal affairs, political parties would succeed or fail as they were pro- or anti-Persian. To the Persians, however, during the next half-century, Greeks on the western boundary would remain only a minor frontier problem.

Before the final battle with the Lydians, Cyrus had offered terms to the Greek coastal cities. For long years they had been subjects of the Lydians, but their yoke had been made easy, while the commercial classes who now controlled their governments had grown rich through the opportunities afforded by trade as part of the wealthy Lydian Empire. Quite naturally, the city states refused the generous offer, with the exception of Miletus, which was shrewd enough to divine who would be the coming power. The Persians had learned their first lesson in handling the Greeks: Divide and conquer. At the same time they probably learned their second lesson.

Apollo, venal god of oracles, from his chief shrine at Delphi had delivered an ambiguous saying to Croesus which contributed to his overconfidence and downfall. At Branchidae was Apollo’s shrine for Miletus; he, too, might be bribed through his priests. The question inevitably arises: Did they have a part in the easy surrender of Miletus? However we answer the question, the fact remains that both Apollo of Miletus and Apollo of Delphi for the next half-century remained consistent friends of the Persians.

By right of conquest, title to the former Lydian subjects passed to Cyrus. Refusal of most Greeks to submit automatically made them rebels. Their position was not improved by what Cyrus must have considered an insolent demand that they should enjoy the same favored status as under Croesus. When this demand was refused as coming too late, the fortifying of their cities meant war. The rebellious Greeks appealed to Sparta, which Cyrus knew only as a summoned ally which had failed to make an appearance. To his astonishment, the victorious great king received an embassy which forbade him to injure any Greek city on pain of punishment by the Spartans!

On the king’s departure for Ecbatana, Pactyas revolted and, with the treasure intrusted to him, hired Greek mercenaries. Tabalus was besieged on the Sardis acropolis until reinforcements under the Mede Mazares drove off the rebels and completely disarmed the Lydians. Pactyas fled to Cyme, which inquired of Apollo’s oracle at Milesian Branchidae. The answer might have been expected; as consistent friend of the Persians, Apollo ordered the surrender of the suppliant.

A prominent citizen of Cyme, Aristodicus, son of Heracleides, won unique reputation among the Greeks by refusing to accept so obviously prejudiced an oracle. Again an embassy visited Apollo at Branchidae. Aristodicus as spokesman repeated the inquiry and received the same answer. As he had already planned, Aristodicus then stole all the birds nesting in the temple. From the holy of holies a voice was heard: “Most wicked of men, how dare you do this? Will you steal my suppliants from the temple?’’ Aristodicus did not hesitate: “O Lord, how can you thus aid your own suppliants while you order the Cymaeans to hand over their suppliant?” The rebuke must have stung, for the priest furiously answered: “Yes, I do so order you, that you may the more quickly perish for your impiety and may never again come to ask my oracle about the handing-over of suppliants!”

Apollo’s bluff had for once been called, and, as far as we know, Aristodicus suffered no harm for his temerity. Cyme was not superstitious; but Pactyas was a dangerous suppliant, and so he was sent for refuge to safer Mitylene. Lesbos was an island; as yet the Persians had no fleet, and Pactyas might have remained safe had not Mazares added bribes to threats. The Mitylenians were about to sell the refugee when the Cymaeans learned of their plans and brought Pactyas by ship to Chios and to the presumed safety of the temple of Athena, guardian of the city. Chios, another island, was equally safe from threats but not from bribery, and the sorry tale was ended by the surrender of Pactyas in exchange for mainland Atarneus. The Persians had learned another lesson: Greeks could easily be bought.

Obviously, the next step should be the subjugation of those mainland Greeks who refused to submit. They resisted bravely, but each for himself, and were taken one by one. Priene was enslaved. The Maeander Plain and Magnesia were ravaged. Harpagus the Mede, rewarded for his treachery, was the new satrap. He offered peace to Phocaea if only the citizens would demolish a section of the city wall and hand over one house for royal occupancy; the Phocaeans sailed off by night from a deserted city, but soon a good half lost heart and returned. Teos followed their example. The other Ionian cities on the mainland were quickly taken. The islands inhabited by Ionians, having treacherously handed over Pactyas, submitted abjectly to his executioners and were formed into a satrapy. As for the Dorian cities, they showed no fight; only Cnidus attempted to insure safety by cutting through the isthmus. Apollo of Delphi followed the example of Apollo of Branchidae and forbade the project; on the approach of Harpagus, Cnidus also surrendered. Carians had fought bravely as mercenaries for Egyptian kings of the Saite dynasty; now only the Pedasians made a brief resistance to the Persians at Lide, for Ionian and Aeolian contingents were already fighting in the army led by Harpagus.

But while Greeks and Carians surrendered so cravenly to the invader, their neighbors, the Trmmela (Termilae) or Lycians, taught them how they should have resisted. These had not forgotten how, as Lukku, they had harried the Egypt of the Nineteenth Dynasty, how under Glaucus and Sarpedon they had aided Trojans against the armada collected by Agamemnon from the Mycenaean Empire. They had retained better than other Anatolians their Caucasian language and their unwritten ancestral customs, counting descent through the mother. Constant warfare with the Solymi hillmen had kept them hardy, and the colonizing Greeks had been able to effect only one settlement—at Phaselis on their border. Even Croesus had not been able to subdue them.

Shutting themselves up in their chief city, Arnna or Xanthus, the Lycians fought until all hope was gone, then burned their wives and treasure in the citadel and sallied out to die. In the same manner, the Caunians perished. Now the whole seacoast could be formed into the satrapy of Yauna or Ionia; it was not a true satrapy, for it possessed no satrap of its own but was under the satrap of Sardis. The Greeks along the Hellespont, on the contrary, were ruled by a satrap Mitrobates, who from Dascyleium on the south shore of the Propontus administered Hellespontine Phrygia or Tyaiy Drayaha, “Those of the Sea.’’

This brief episode taught the Persians much about the Greeks. They learned that as individuals they were excellent fighters, clever and well-armed, and worthy of incorporation into their own armies. They discovered also that Greek city-states, bitterly jealous of one another, were incapable of united action, and that it was not difficult to find purchasable friends among them. Of such friends, Apollo, god of oracles, was the most valuable. But the greatest discovery of all was that there were class divisions within the city-states themselves.

Most of these city-states had long ago abandoned kingship for a government by a hereditary nobility of landholders. Then new economic forces had brought into prominence an aristocracy of trade- bought wealth, which often, through the tyrant, supplanted this older aristocracy of birth. While the patriotism of the older nobility was inevitably narrow, men of commerce could appreciate trade opportunities offered by inclusion in a wide-flung empire. Obviously, it was to Persian advantage that Greek cities be intrusted to tyrants.

BABYLONIA IN FERMENT

Under the rule o£ friendly tyrants, the conquered Greeks remained quiet while Cyrus rapidly expanded his empire. Now that Nabunaid had made his alliance with Croesus, Cyrus might continue openly his whittling-away of the Babylonian territory. On his return from Sardis, we should expect, he would take over the remaining portions of Syria yet held by Nabunaid’s soldiers and perhaps demand some expression of loyalty from the Arabs along the border. If Tema was threatened by these operations, this would be one reason why sometime after 545 Nabunaid reappeared in Babylon.

There were other good reasons. Highly centralized in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Babylonia had progressively disintegrated under the weakling rule of Belshazzar. Misrule and graft were rampant, the peasants were oppressed, and their fields went out of cultivation. By 546 once fertile Babylonia faced the threat of actual starvation.

In this same fateful year Nabunaid suffered another terrible loss. From its earliest days the Chaldaean dynasty had safely held the acropolis of Susa, the most important city of Elam. One of the outstanding generals of Nebuchadnezzar, Gobryas (Gubaru) by name,had been appointed governor of Gutium (as the Babylonians continued to describe Elam). Now he revolted to Cyrus, and Nabunaid was able to save only Susa’s gods by transporting them to Babylon. By June 9, 546, the troops of the Elamite had entered Akkad and were attacking the loyal governor of Uruk.

CYRUS CONQUESTS TO THE EAST

Meanwhile, Cyrus himself had turned his attention to the as yet unsubdued Iranians of the eastern half of the plateau, north and east of the great central salt desert. Varkana or Hyrcania lay south of the Hyrcanian Sea. Fertility was assured by the range to the south which blocked the path of the northerly winds and compelled them to disgorge the contents of their rain clouds in deluges which soaked the narrow coastal plain at the mountain’s base. To the southeast of Hyrcania was upland Parthava or Parthia; the two were united under Hystaspes (Vishtaspa), Arsames’ son, who was glad to exchange the lesser title of kavi, or local kinglet, for that of satrap under his now mighty relative.

East of Parthia extended Haraiva or Aria, which took its name from the river Areius; on it lay the capital Artocoana, which as modern Herat has resumed its ancient name. South of Aria was Zaranka or Drangiana along the Etymandrus River. The Ariaspi on the Etymandrus aided Cyrus by furnishing food and henceforth were freed from tribute and were listed among the king’s “Benefactors.”The Arachotas branch of the Etymandrus River gave its name to Hauravatish or Arachosia, whose capital of the same name is modern Kandahar.

From Aria, high up on the Iranian Plateau, Cyrus might follow with his eye the course of the Oxus, in its upper reaches still known as the Wakhsh Ab, as it dashed down through impassable gorges to spread out in loops over the yellow plains of central Asia. For the most part, these plains were arid, but here and there were cultivable oases along the rivers which permitted a rude irrigation to bring the fertile soil to a rich luxuriance. In the oases nearest to the plateau, Iranians had already settled, and Cyrus determined to add these to his expanding empire.

Following the trail of the Oxus, he descended into Sogdia (Sugudu), the territory between the Oxus and the Jaxartes rivers. Its capital was Maracanda, predecessor of fabulous golden Samarcand, where, amid gardens and orchards, the great mound under which slumbered the remains of the original settlement was remembered until Moslem times. By it ran the Sogdian stream, large but quickly lost in the sands. The Oxus itself was at this point turbulent and impossible to bridge; no doubt Cyrus crossed it in the antiquated manner—on inflated skins. Beyond the companion stream, the Orexartes or Jaxartes, were half-nomad Massagetae, the Chorasmians, in the Khiva Oasis along the Lower Oxus. They were subdued, and Cyrus (or one of his immediate successors) introduced scientific irrigation as it was known to the Persians. All the soil was declared to be royal domain; at the point where the Aces (the Lower Oxus) debouched from the hills through five separate channels, sluice gates were constructed; they were opened for distribution of the precious water over the fields only on personal appeal to the king and after a stiff additional tax.

Perhaps Cyrus did not expect the Chorasmians to pay long the onerous tax (we shall see that by the time of Artaxerxes I the Chorasmians appear to have slipped away from all effective royal controland that before the end of the empire they possessed their own king), for he determined to make the Jaxartes his northernmost permanent frontier. To protect the rich lands to the south from future raids across the river by the Turanian hordes of deeper central Asia, he constructed a line of seven guard posts along the southern bank. Gaza, the “Treasure,” would be central supply depot, but the key to the defense was Cyra, the “City of Cyrus”; and all would be based on Maracanda to the rear. Recrossing the Upper Oxus on his return journey, Cyrus probably occupied at this time the fertile oasis of Margush, so named from its chief river, at the modern Merv; it was made a subsatrapy, not of Sogdia low to the northeast, but of Bactria higher up on the north.

Bactria (Bakhtrish) received its name from the Bactrus River, an affluent of the Oxus. Its chief city was likewise named Bactra,though the older Iranian name of Zariaspa long clung to the citadel,and the Magian treatment of the dead and dying was kept up until the horrified Alexander put an end to the worst of the practices. Another important city was Drapsaca.

From Bactria, the most eastern of the truly Iranian lands, Cyrus looked across the boundary river, the Cophen, into the territory of their cousins, the Indians. At this time the Iranians still called it in their own language Paruparaesanna, the land “beyond the mountains,” although it was known to the natives as Gandara. At this date, then, this far corner of India first came under the control of the Iranians. Along the lower slopes of the Hindu Kush, the “mountains” referred to by the Iranian name, stretched Thattagush or Sattagydia; north of them, in the Pamirs, were the Saka Haumavarga or Amyrgaean Sacae, “preparers of the (sacred) haoma drink.”

CONQUEST OF BABYLONIA

By these conquests Cyrus doubled the extent, though not the population or the wealth, of his empire. He was strengthened by so enormous an access of fighting men that at last he might venture to attack even Babylon. The natives were ready to welcome any deliverer, foreigner though he might be. By his archaizing reforms, Nabunaid had alienated the priesthood of Marduk, at whose expense these reforms had been made. Other priests were dissatisfied. Jewish prophets were predicting Babylon’s fall and hailing Cyrus as the Lord’s Anointed who would grant return to Zion. The whole land was in chaos.

The way thus paved by the disaffected elements of the population, Cyrus made ready to invade the alluvium as soon as he had returned from his eastern campaigns. Before the snows of the winter of 540-539 could fill the passes, he was on the border. Nabunaid brought the gods of Eshnunak, Zamban, Me Turnu, and Der to the capital before their capture. He suffered a defeat on the Tigris, but the only defense he could think of was to bring to his aid Ishtar of Uruk in March.Nabunaid might try to explain the deportation as protection of the capital against the foreigner; the citizens complained loudly of temples abandoned by their divinities and lying in ruins.

Marduk and his priests had to be reconciled. On New Year’s Day, April 4, 539, once more “the Festival was celebrated as was right.” “There was great plenty of wine among the soldiers.” Still relying more on the physical presence of the gods, Nabunaid next brought in the divinities of Maradda, Zamama, the gods of Kish, Ninlil, and the gods of Hursagkalama; “until the end of August the gods of Akkad, all who are above and below the earth, were entering into Babylon.” The limit of citizen patience had been reached; the gods of Kutu, Sippar, and even Borsippa did not enter. Ebarra, the temple of the sun-god Shamash in Sippar, had been restored, but the priests were disgusted when Nabunaid through one of his frequent dreams changed the form of the god’s headdress. Nabu had come from Borsippa to meet his father Marduk at the New Year’s, but his priests also had seen the handwriting on the wall.

Near the beginning of October, Cyrus fought another battle at Opis on the Tigris and burned the people of Akkad with fire. After this example of frightfulness, his opponents lost courage and on October 11 Sippar was taken without a battle Nabunaid fled, and on October 13, 539, Gobryas, governor of Gutium, and the troops of Cyrus entered Babylon without battle. Afterward, when Nabunaid returned to Babylon, he was made prisoner.

The last tablet dated by Nabunaid is from October 14, the day after Gobryas had captured Babylon, but it was written at Uruk, to which the welcome news had not yet penetrated. In the capital itself business went on as usual, for contemporaries had no realization that with the fall of Babylon an era had come to an end and another had begun. By October 26 at the latest, the scribes were dating by the new ruler as “king of lands.’’ This remained the official titulary during the remainder of the “accession year” and for a part of the first full year of reign.

Babylon was well treated by Gobryas. Until the end of October, the “shields” of Gutium surrounded the gates of Esagila. No man’s weapon was set up in Esagila or in the other temples and no appointed ceremony was omitted. On October 29 Cyrus himself entered Babylon. Branches were spread in his path, and he proclaimed peace to everyone in the city. Gobryas was made satrap of the new province of Babirush, and he appointed subordinate officials; the administrative documents show us that, as a rule, the former officials were retained at their posts.

PERSIAN PROPAGANDA

In the eyes of his Babylonian subjects, Cyrus was never an alien king of Parsa. In his proclamation to them in their own language, he heaped up the ancient titles: ‘‘I am Cyrus, king of the universe, great king, mighty king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the world quarters,.... seed of royalty from of old, whose rule Bel and Nabu love, over whose sovereignty they rejoice in their heart.” During his first full year of reign, “king of Babylon” came regularly to be prefixed in the dating formula to “king of lands.”

The priests were rewarded for their disloyalty to Nabunaid. From December to February of the next year, the captive gods were being conducted with all due honor back to their temples. By chance we have found the actual letter which reports the departure from Borsippa of the ship to bring back the council of Ezida, which was to escort Nana and the Lady of Uruk on their homeward journey. With the gods went instructions to restore their temples. Building bricks employed at Uruk bore the inscription: “Cyrus, builder of Esagila and Ezida, son of Cambyses, great king, am I” ; thus he praised Marduk and Nabu by use of the former title of Nebuchadnezzar. Ur had been dishonored by an unfitting ritual; new constructions repaired the damage and allowed Cyrus as “king of the universe, king of Anshan,” to remind the citizens how “the great gods have delivered all the lands into my hand; the land I have made to dwell in a peaceful habitation.”

Large numbers of foreign captive divinities gave further opportunity for royal benevolence. The gods of Susa were returned to Elam, those of Ashur to the ancient capital; others from the old debatable land between Assyria and Babylonia equally profited. The inhabitants of these cities were also collected and restored to their homes.Jewish prophets had welcomed Cyrus as the monarch who would return them to Zion; since they no longer possessed divine images, it was logical that they should bring back to Jerusalem the temple utensils looted by Nebuchadnezzar.

The proclamation of Cyrus to the Babylonians, issued in their own language, was a model of persuasive propaganda. After making it clear that he was the legitimate successor of their former monarchs, Cyrus made sure that the memory of Nabunaid should be forever damned. As he tells the story, a no-account was appointed to the priesthood of the land. One like him (Belshazzar) he established over them. To Ur and the rest of the cities he gave a ritual unbefitting them. Daily he planned and made the offering to cease. The worship of Marduk, king of the gods, he overturned; he daily manifested enmity to Marduk’s city; all Marduk’s people he brought to ruin through servitude without rest.

Because of their complaints, the lord of the gods became furiously angry with them and abandoned their country. The gods who dwelt among them left their homes in wrath because strange gods had been brought into Babylon. But soon Marduk repented and granted mercy to all the dwelling places which had become ruinous and to the people of Sumer and Akkad who were like corpses.

Throughout all the lands—everywhere—he searched. He was seeking a righteous prince, whom he took by the hand. Cyrus, king of Anshan, he called by name; to lordship over the whole world he appointed him. The land of Gutu(Elam) and all the Medes he cast down at his feet. The black-headed people—the usual term for Babylonians—he cared for in justice and in righteousness. Marduk, the great lord, guardian of his people, looked joyously on his pious works and his upright heart.

To his city Babylon, Marduk caused him to go, he commanded him to take the road to Babylon, going as friend and companion at his side. His numerous soldiers, the number of which, like the waters of a river, cannot be known, marched armed at his side. Without skirmish or battle, he permitted him to enter Babylon. He spared his city Babylon from calamity. Nabunaid, the king who did not fear him, he delivered into Cyrus’ hand. All the people of Babylon, all Sumer and Akkad, princes and officials, fell down before him and kissed his feet. They rejoiced in his kingdom, their faces shone. The lord, who by his power brings to life the dead, who from destruction and distress had protected them, joyously they did him homage and heeded his command.

When I made my gracious entry into Babylon, with rejoicing and pleasure I took up my lordly residence in the royal palace. Marduk, the great lord, turned the noble race of the Babylonians toward me, and I gave daily care to his worship. My numerous troops marched peacefully into Babylon. In all Sumer and Akkad I permitted no unfriendly treatment. The dishonoring yoke was removed from them. Their fallen dwellings I restored; I cleared out the ruins.

Marduk, the great lord, rejoiced in my pious deeds, and graciously blessed me, Cyrus, the king who worships him, and Cambyses, my own son, and all my soldiers, while we, in sincerity and with joy praised his exalted godhead. All the kings dwelling in palaces of all the quarters of the earth, from the Upper to the Lower Sea, and all the kings of the Amorite country who dwelt in tents (the Arabs) brought me their heavy gifts and in Babylon kissed my feet.

Then Cyrus tells how he restored all the captive gods and ends with the pious hope:

May all the gods, whom I have brought into their cities, pray daily before Bel and Nabu for long life for me, and may they speak a gracious word for me and say to Marduk my lord: “May Cyrus, the king who worships you, and Cambyses, his son, be blessed.’’

This proclamation was for the educated; for the illiterate, scribes prepared an account of Nabunaid’s reign in good Babylonian verse which should ring in the ears of the auditors long after the proclamation was forgotten. Nabunaid was an exceedingly wicked monarch; righteousness did not accompany him. The weak he smote by the sword. He blocked the road to the merchant. The peasant was deprived of his plow land; never did he raise the harvest shout of rejoicing. The irrigation system was allowed to fall into neglect; he did not shut off properly the field runnels. When he dug them, he left them open, and the precious waters flowed over the fields unchecked, thus destroying their property. Prominent men were imprisoned. The citizen assembly was disturbed, their countenances were changed; they did not walk in the open places, the city did not see pleasure.

A demon seized Nabunaid, the demon who seizes the side. No one saw him in his own land. In foreign Harran he made an abomination, a no-sanctuary, and for it he made an image which he called Sin; it was not the familiar moon-god of Babylonia, but was like the moon at its eclipse. To himself he said: ‘‘While I am carrying on this task and am completing the period of lamentation over its destruction, I shall omit the festival and shall allow the New Year’s feast to lapse.”

After he had completed the work in the third year in another city, not Babylon, he intrusted the camp to his firstborn son. He took his eldest son’s hands and intrusted to him the kingship, while he himself took the road to a far country. The army he took about with him throughout all the lands. The troops of Akkad advanced with him, and he set his face toward Tema of Amurru. The prince of Tema they slew with the sword; all the inhabitants of his city and land he massacred. He made that city his abode, the army of Akkad being with him. That city he adorned; they made a palace like that of Babylon.

When war broke out with Cyrus, Nabunaid boasted of victories without justification. On his memorial stelae he wrote: ‘‘At my feet he shall bow down; his lands shall my hands seize, his possessions I shall take as spoil.” His own subjects stood up in the city assembly and defied him. Their king had declared that Cyrus did not know the imprint of the stylus, cuneiform writing on a clay tablet. Perhaps, they agreed, Cyrus was in truth illiterate, but the gods themselves would send a vision, the seed of the land would spring up. In sign that he was king, the crescent of the gods Anu and Enlil would be passed over him.

Though Nabunaid did finally re-establish the New Year’s feast in the last year of his reign, he continued to confound the rituals and change the ordinances. He spoke a word against the divine commands and uttered impiety. By his own hands, the divine symbols were torn down from the sacred place and were set up again on his own palace. Thus he implied that to some degree he considered himself a god. Two foreigners whom he had appointed to high office, Zeria the temple administrator and Rimut the surveyor, bowed down before him; they obeyed the king’s command and executed his orders. They struck together their foreheads, they uttered an oath: ‘‘According as the king has spoken, this only we know.”

Cyrus entered Babylon and proclaimed peace to them. The royal officer barred the approach to the temple. Cyrus slaughtered a lamb for the offering. The incense for the god’s offering he increased Before the gods he prostrated himself, face to the ground. To do good for the gods was put into his heart; he brought his heart to build, carrying on his head the basket of bricks demanded by the ritual. He completed the city wall of Babylon, which Nebuchadnezzar had made in the grace of his heart; the moat he dug for the wall Imgur-Bel.

The gods, male and female, of Akkad, who had left their shrines, he restored to their dwelling places. Their hearts he pacified, their liver he gladdened. Their lives, already poured out, he made again to live. On the tables their food was placed. Their ruined walls he tore down, and every sanctuary was restored. The royal inscriptions and dedications of Nabunaid were removed and burned; the winds carried off their ashes. They tore down his statue and erased his name from the sanctuaries. Everything he had left was fired; Cyrus fed it to the flames, for on Babylon his heart was set. As for the sinner himself, may they throw Nabunaid into prison in the underworld, may mighty bonds inclose his assistants, while in joy Marduk regards kindly Cyrus’ own kingdom.

The results of this deliberate propaganda were curiously mixed. Cyrus’ attempted “damnation of memory’’ did not succeed; Nabunaid was not forgotten. When in the next generation Babylon again revolted, two pretenders in succession claimed to be Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabunaid. Herodotus knew him as Labynetus, son of the builder queen, the famous Nitocris. The Greeks forgot Belshazzar, but the Hebrews did not, though they thought him the son of Nebuchadnezzar.

But the propaganda had more subtle influences. Prophecies by a Jewish exile in Babylon so closely parallel the language of the proclamation that we wonder if he might actually have read it. The picture which the Greeks present of the last king of Babylon shows the same ungodly incompetent. Even the great New Year’s feast, with the quantities of wine consumed by the drunken soldiers, reappears in the account of the capture by Cyrus in Herodotus and Xenophon and in the drunken revels attributed by the author of Daniel to the last night of Belshazzar.

In the Jewish story of Daniel the character of the Nabunaid of the verse account has been transferred to the better-known Nebuchadnezzar. He, too, is a heretic. His high officials are foreigners, who are naturally turned into Jews. Their names remind us of Zeria and Rimut. Nebuchadnezzar set up a huge statue which all the world must worship. For his impiety the king was driven mad and ate grass like the beast of the field. As dreams filled the life of Nabunaid, so Nebuchadnezzar had his dream; as Nabunaid was obliged to implore assistance in their interpretation, so was his mightier predecessor. Daniel the Jew interpreted the dream which pronounced the hoped-for doom against Babylon and foretold the future; Belshazzar, the sensual despot, was warned by the writing on the palace wall only when it was too late for repentance.

CYRUS IN BABYLON

In the eyes of men accustomed to mountain scenery, the flat monotonous alluvium must have been terribly depressing. When they suffered the blistering heat of summer, they no doubt longed for their own breezy uplands and must have dreaded the deadly fevers which sapped their strength. But the soil of Babylonia was of a fertility unimagined on the bare plateau, and the wealth of the capital was proverbial. Its peasantry was industrious and submissive. In winter the climate was pleasantly cool, though it rarely touched the freezing-point. When, therefore, the plateau suddenly turned cold and snow crept down the mountain slopes, the Persian monarchs escaped to winter in Babylon, that the luxury there enjoyed might prove insidious they never suspected.

While still residing in Babylon, Cyrus received the kings of Syria who had arrived to pay their devoirs in person and to make the adoration by kissing the royal feet. Control of Phoenicia meant that Cyrus had now at his disposal a second war fleet, quite the equal in numbers and in skill to that of the combined Greek states. It was, however, far more dependable and therefore more highly favored. Henceforth, Greek traders within the empire faced the keenest of competition from merchant princes who ruled city-states much like their own and who were shrewd enough to bear constantly in mind the true source of their prosperity.

While there was a short-lived attempt to organize the Nabataean Arabs in a satrapy under the name “Arabaya,” Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine were joined to Babylonia in one huge satrapy. To the satrap Gobryas the province was officially “Babirush”; to the natives it was “Babylon and Ebir-nari,” the Assyrian name for the territory “Across the River” (by which they meant the Euphrates). Over this whole vast stretch of fertile country, Gobryas ruled almost as an independent monarch.

RESTORATION OF THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM; CYRUS IN ECBATANA

Next to Palestine lay Egypt, whose king, Amasis, had made alliance with Croesus and might therefore soon expect to be attacked. Invasion of the Nile Valley would be greatly facilitated by a bridgehead across the desert in Palestine. The road into Egypt was dominated by the ruined fortress of Jerusalem; its pro-Egyptian upper classes had been deported to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, where they had remained as exiles and had prospered. Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Amel-Marduk, had attempted to win them over; he had toyed with the idea of restoring their former king, Jehoiachin. Before the plan could be put into execution, however, Amel-Marduk was dead, almost certainly assassinated by the nationalists. Henceforth these Jewish exiles remained bitterly hostile to the government. In their disappointment their prophets had predicted the destruction of Babylon at the hands of the Medes; when these hopes in their turn failed, they invoked Cyrus as the Lord’s Anointed.

Whatever the practical result of these prophetic effusions in the conquest of Babylon, the Jews had shown their sympathy to the new regime. Babylon, so far from being destroyed, was actually rewarded for submission to the conqueror. The Second Isaiah had also predicted a glorious return to Zion; it was scarcely to be expected that Jews already rich would abandon fertile Babylonia for the barren hills of Judah, but at least something might be done for their amour propre. Besides, the majority of the former inhabitants were still in Palestine; deprived of their leaders, they might be expected to have lost their pro-Egyptian attitude. Cyrus had already returned the gods carried off by Nabunaid, not only to their native Babylonian cities, but also to Assyria and to Elam, and had rebuilt their ruined temples; it would only be following the same policy if he ordered the temple in Jerusalem to be restored, and, since the Jews now employed no images, to substitute the temple utensils for the exiled divinity.

Leaving the more prosaic details of satrapal organization to Gobryas, toward the end of his accession year Cyrus retired from Babylon and returned to Ecbatana. Aramaic had already been adopted as the official language of the Persian chancellery in its dealings with the western satrapies; in it, Cyrus issued from his palace at Ecbatana during his first regnal year (538) the following decree: “As for the house of God which is at Jerusalem, let the house be built, the place where they offer fire sacrifice continually; its height shall be ninety feet and its breadth ninety feet, with three courses of great stones and one of timber. And let its cost be given from the king’s house. Also, let the gold and silver utensils of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the house of God and brought to Babylon, be restored and brought again to the temple which is in Jerusalem, each to its place. And you shall put them in the house of God.”

The utensils were taken from the temple of Babylon, by which we naturally understand Esagila, and were handed over to the new governor of Judah, his name, Sheshbazzar, is clearly Babylonian, perhaps Shamash-apal-usur; but, in spite of his pagan name, he might have been, as was later claimed, a Jewish prince. With the utensils, Sheshbazzar went on to Jerusalem and began the foundations of the temple. The predictions of the Second Isaiah of a mass migration to a gloriously restored Zion remained as unfulfilled as similar predictions of a destroyed Babylon. Whether even any of the zealots accompanied Sheshbazzar is doubtful; a generation later the inhabitants of Jerusalem were still called ‘‘the remnant of the people’’ or the people of the land.

A Babylonian tablet suggests that Cyrus was still in Ecbatana a year later. In September, 537, a certain Tadannu lends a pound and a half of silver in half-shekel pieces to Itti-Marduk-balatu, son of Nabu-ahe-iddina, to be repaid in November at the ratio then prevailing at Babylon with thirty-nine talents of dried palm branches, plus one shekel of silver and twelve qa of dates. The same witnesses and the same scribe appear frequently on similar documents from Babylon, but this document is written in the city of the land of Agamatanu, that is, Ecbatana. Itti-Marduk-balatu is the head of Babylon’s greatest banking-house, the firm of Egibi and Sons. Obviously, he and his friends have come to court, either on royal summons or to present a petition. They have spent so much on expenses, such as bribes demanded by court officials, that a loan is needed before they can undertake the homeward journey.Here we must leave Cyrus, for suddenly and without warning our information comes to an end.

Chapter IV

CAMP OF THE PERSIANS

CYRUS was now monarch of the greatest empire yet known to history. For the government of this wide-extending territory, he adopted in principle the organization first devised by the Assyrians, who replaced the states they had conquered by formal provinces. Each was ruled by a governor with a full staff of subordinates, and all kept in close touch with the central power through frequent exchange of orders and reports. The chief difference between these Assyrian provinces and the twenty satrapies established by Cyrus lay in the fact that the satrapies took the place of far larger independent monarchies.

Each was ruled by a satrap whose title meant literally “protector of the Kingdom.’’ As successor to a former king, ruling a truly enormous territory, he was in point of fact himself a monarch and was surrounded by a miniature court. Not only did he carry on the civil administration but he was also commander of the satrapal levies When his office became hereditary, the threat to the central authority could not be ignored. To meet this threat, certain checks were instituted; his secretary, his chief financial official, and the general in charge of the garrison stationed in the citadel of each of the satrapal capitals were under the direct orders of, and reported directly to, the great king in person. Still more effective control was exercised by the “king’s eye’’ (or “king’s ear’’ or “king’s messenger’’), who every year made a careful inspection of each province.

SITE OF PARSAGARDA

When the Persians entered their future homeland to which they gave their name of Parsa, they were still nomads on the march. Their royal tribe, we are told, was that of the Pasargadae. When we find that the same name is assigned to their earliest capital by the majority of Greek writers, we might assume that the capital was so named from the tribe. One historian, however, calls the city Parsagada, while another interprets its name as meaning “Camp of the Persians.’’ Such an interpretation would imply that the true name was something like Parsagard. In actual fact the ruins of the settlement suggest a typical Aryan camp, for no trace of a wall can be detected.

The first capital of the Persians lay on the great north-south road of the plateau on its way from Ecbatana to the Persian Gulf. Traces of this road may still be observed in rock cuttings at the northeast and southwest corners of a small plain, nine by fifteen miles in size. To the west, southwest, and northwest it is bounded by fairly high mountains; the eastern hills are lower, and beneath them the “Median River” winds through the plain and enters at the southwest corner a still more winding gorge, through which the rock-cut road meanders. The elevation is high, over 6,300 feet above sea-level; in winter the stiff winds chill to the bone, and for as much as half the year the chill may be felt in the early morning. The winter snows fall on the plain and on the mountains, adding to the water available in the spring and summer, so necessary for the irrigation of good soil throughout the midyear droughts and until the harvest.

In the northwest corner, under the higher hills, was the primitive settlement. Today the site is marked only by masses of reddish potsherds, whose color dates them to Achaemenid times, and by small column bases of stone which archeologists assign approximately to the period of Cyrus. The latter show that the houses followed typical Iranian architectural design. We may therefore visualize them as of wood construction with wooden columns resting on stone bases and holding up the flat roofs of the porches and perhaps the beams which supported a gable roof of the main structure.

SHRINES

A mile and a half to the southeast lay a rectangular sacred inclosure, the long side oriented southeast and northwest. It reached a short distance across a smaller stream, the Cyrus, which entered the plain from the hills to the north and formed an affluent of the Median River. Its waters, pure and cold from its source in the near-by rocky heights, would delight the heart of Anahita, who herself leaped down from similar heights. Close to its left bank, the inclosure shut in two open-air altars, built of white limestone on black limestone foundations, and with hollowed-out interiors. That to the right consisted of a single block on which was set another block cut with seven steps leading to the summit, which in turn was triply stepped and covered with cup holes. That to the left was also a single block capped by a flatter monolith. Here, then, were the original altars to the tribal divinities, Anahita and Ahuramazda.

Later, a more elaborate shrine was erected at the southwest corner of the inclosure. For the most part, the structure was built outside the inclosure itself, as were three subsidiary buildings, for the core of rock which dictated its position enforced a line slightly askew across this southwestern tip and permitted an almost exact orientation toward the east. Around this core of rock was built a sort of mound, 240 by 133 feet in size, which rose in six terraces to imitate roughly a Babylonian temple tower, but the entire height of the six was only 20 feet. The lower three terraces were protected by retaining walls of limestone set dry; behind them was the fill of debris. The upper three were constructed of mud bricks and covered by limestone. At either end of the eastern front, flights of stairs led to the next higher terrace. No remains of a superstructure have been detected. In all probability, therefore, the summit was crowned only by more altars. The “temple” of Anahita, in which the successors of Cyrus were purified by ancient ceremonies before accession and in whose recesses the younger Cyrus hid to assassinate his brother Artaxerxes, must be sought in one of the buildings north of the terraced mound and well outside the inclosure walls.

CYRUS’ PARK AND PALACES

Beyond low hills, and a half-mile distant by air line, lay another inclosure. It, too, was a quadrangular area, in this case oriented duly to the points of the compass; it was surrounded by a thirteen-foot wall of mud brick on stone foundations. Within it, the palaces and their subsidiary structures were oriented southwest and northeast. That they were placed in the midst of a regular paradise or park is shown by their isolated positions and by the water channels, a basin, and the remains of pavilions scattered over the otherwise free spaces which once must have been filled with trees.

The main entrance to the park was at the south corner, where a monumental quadrangular gateway projected from the inclosure wall. Its roof was supported by two rows of four great unfluted columns of white limestone which rested on plain black limestone disks and white foundation blocks. In the shorter sides were the passageways, guarded at entrance and exit by huge winged bulls of a lighter grayish- black limestone and resting on massive black socles. The pair at the exit into the paradise were human-headed. Very small doors led off from small rooms on either side of the exit.

Two projecting white limestone pilasters formed the north room; facing the entrance were carved two protecting genii two feet high, raising their hands in blessing; like their Assyrian predecessors, they were four-winged. From neck to ankle, a sort of toga wrapped the body. The edge down the side opening was decorated with rosettes and fringes. Bands of rosettes also showed above the elbows, while the feet were shod in the late Elamite fashion. The curled beard was slight, and the hair hung down the neck in short plaits, held in place by a circular lip with bangles hanging below the ear. From broad, flat goats’ horns rose an Egyptian symbol widely employed during the centuries preceding by the peoples of western Asia: between uraeus serpents and ordinary disks were three solar disks, ostrich feathers, and balls, which surrounded tied bundles of reeds. Above, in Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian, could be read: “I am Cyrus, the king, the Achaemenid.” Since he bears only this simple title, Cyrus must have erected this gateway while he was vassal king of Anshan and before his revolt against Astyages.

Exactly the same inscriptional formula dates to the same period the audience hall some two hundred yards to the northwest and across a little creek. Its mud-brick walls were ten feet thick and rested on massive white limestone foundations, heavily reinforced where the pressure from above was greater. When stone doors and niches were inserted in the mud brick, black limestone was substituted for the wood of earlier structures and afforded a pleasing contrast. Black also were the pavement slabs, large and irregularly fitted together.

The front of the audience hall, facing southwest, extended for a hundred and eighty-seven feet. A trifle more than a hundred were devoted to the central porch; the remainder, to two small corner rooms. Similar porches decorated the side walls; the back porch was longer, since here the corner rooms were missing. To either side of the black stone doorway which led from the front to the inside, two rows of four smooth white columns rose from black plinths to a height of twenty feet. The upper half of the windowed central hall towered high above the columns.

The door jambs at the front and in the rear (a survival of the carved orthostate blocks well known from Hittite and Assyrian architecture) were both flanked by the same scene: three priests, barefoot but clothed in tight, ankle-length robes, driving a bull to the sacrifice. Similar reliefs decorated the jambs of the side gateways, but now the subject was the guardian divinities, represented in Assyrian fashion either in entirely human form or with eagle’s head and claws affixed to a human torso. Like their Assyrian progenitors, they bore two pairs of wings and were clad in the same abbreviated dress.

Just within the doorway at the front was the long side of the audience chamber, whose roof was supported by two rows of four columns each. The aisle thus formed led to a black stone niche at either end. The columns were slender to an extreme, for, although forty feet in height, they were but three and a half feet in circumference. The base was a flat black disk, an integral part of the foundation block. Upon the plain white shafts were set capitals, or rather, more correctly, impost blocks, which represented the forefronts of two animals crouching back to back. Among the animals might be recognized horses, bulls, lions, or composite-horned lions wearing the feathered crown of the Assyrian human-headed bull. The disproportion between the height of these excessively slim columns and the more squat pilasters, which formed the inscribed antae at the ends of the columned porches, clearly proves that the great audience chamber was lighted by high-set windows. Plates of gold covered the wooden paneling and gleamed in the sunlight.

Four hundred yards deeper into the park lay the palace, 250 by 140 feet in size. Its front was a porch of twenty wooden columns in two rows 20 feet high. The polished pilasters at either end bore the now familiar Cyrus inscription. At the rear the porch was shorter, since the palace in this respect was the reverse of the audience hall and placed the two corner rooms to the back. Deep cuttings into the side of the pilaster bonded in the mud-brick walls, while further cuttings at the top, by their irregular forms, justify the restoration of entablature beams, rafters, roof guards of mud, and battlements.

A single door to the right center, a necessary precaution against unauthorized glimpses of the interior, led into the great hall, 73 by 80 feet. The roof was upheld by six rows of columns, five to the row. The lower supporting block of the column was veined in black and white; the upper was black. Then came a high torus with horizontal channeling which was continued in the same block by the smooth white shaft. Its upper half was covered by stucco painted in vivid colors such as lapis lazuli blue, turquoise green, copper-red green, madder red, a more vivid red, and yellow. In contrast to this riot of garish color, the pavement was black set in white.

The back and front doorways presented the same scene four times: The king, in the long sweeping robe of royalty hanging in folds between the legs, shod with the royal footgear, and bearing the royal scepter, could be seen leaving the palace for an outdoor promenade in the park. Eyebrows and eyelashes, not to mention the folds and rosettes of his robe, were once filled in with gold. Behind the king, in his own proper dress, walked a smaller servant who no doubt carried over the royal head the parasol, confined in use to the king since the days of Assyrian Sargon. Over the scene of departure a trilingual inscription gave the royal titles and invoked a blessing on his house, his portrait, and his inscription. On the fold of his robe, in Elamite and Akkadian, he added: “Cyrus, great king, Achaemenian.”

The change from mere “king” to the Assyrian title of “great king” shows that, by the time the reliefs were engraved, Cyrus had revolted and had begun his career of conquest. By this date he had probably also erected still farther north the fire temple; though today so badly ruined, it may be described in terms of the almost completely preserved duplicate in front of the tomb of Darius, as an exact copy even to the dimensions. In its general aspect, the fire temple was simply a reproduction in more durable limestone of a typical high fort such as Assyrian reliefs show guarding a Median hill town. It was inclosed in a rectangular sacred precinct whose mud bricks represented the wall of the settlement, as the interior buildings with square stone column bases did the houses of the inhabitants. The mountain height on which the tower stood appeared as a series of three wide low platforms outside which began the narrow steep staircase climbing to the small lone door high up in the face. The lowest story, half the total height, showed neither entrance nor window, only the tall narrow rectangular depressions which originally were arrow slots. In the second story was the door, the wood represented by the black limestone, under a simple molding, which in turn was below a tiny false window, once the peephole. Behind the false entrance may be seen the holes made to receive the posts on which the door valves were swung. Three rows of two false windows, each row of differing size, with double frames of dark limestone, indicated the three upper stories. The roof was held up by posts at the corners, now ordinary pilasters. A dentilated molding corresponded to the projecting heads of the ceiling beams. Huge slabs, with slight pyramidical slope, laid across the width to form the roof. Windows and arrow slots had become mere decoration, for the sacred fire burning within had to be protected from sudden drafts and would itself give sufficient light.

On a low spur of a hill at the northeast corner of the plain and overlooking the rock-cut road along which he had watched the defeated Medes streaming back to Ecbatana, Cyrus began a platform for a new building to dominate this strategic passage. Above the road the frontage was 775 feet, and the platform itself rose to a height of 40 feet; where it ran back to be lost in the hill, the ground outside rose to meet it. The masonry was laid in horizontal courses, of differing heights to avoid the appearance of monotony; headers and stretchers were carefully alternated at the corners, and the blocks were held together without mortar by iron swallow-tail cramps. Behind this was another wall of carefully dressed smaller stones, and behind that was the fill. Before even the platform had been completed, Cyrus left to fight the Massagetae. He never returned, and the work was stopped. Some of the outer blocks had been dressed down in place, leaving only a narrow, chiseled border; the upper tiers retain to this day the mason’s marks and the rough bosses, just as when they left the quarry.

Southwest of the palace group, Cyrus had prepared his last restingplace. Like the fire temple, it rested on a platform, 48 by 44 feet at the base, and ascending in six great steps of irregular height to a total of 17 feet. On the seventh step was placed the tomb proper, constructed of huge white limestone blocks carefully tied together by iron cramps. Its form was that of a plain house whose sharply gabled roof betrayed its northern origin. Cyme moldings on cornice and around the base were its only ornament. Presumably it bore the usual brief royal inscription, for, according to Onesicritus, who with Alexander saw the monument, the Greek and Persian inscription read: “Here I lie, Cyrus, king of kings/’ Aristobulus, Alexander’s general, expanded the brief but dignified epitaph to fit Greek ideas as to what would have been appropriate: “O man, I am Cyrus, who acquired the empire for the Persians and was king of Persia; grudge me not therefore my monument.”

DEATH AND BURIAL OF CYRUS

Cyrus’ death had come suddenly. The half-nomad Massagetae, a Saka tribe across the Araxes River, were threatening the northeast frontier. A war of reprisal became inevitable, and Cyrus determined to lead it in person. Leaving the crown prince Cambyses as king of Babylon, the aging monarch started off. A bridge was built to cross the Araxes, the boundary of the empire, and Cyrus invaded the enemy country. At first, he enjoyed a certain success; then, lured into the interior by the queen Tomyris, he was defeated in a great battle and was himself wounded. Three days after, the once mighty conqueror was dead, the victim of an obscure Saka queen. Cambyses recovered his father’s corpse and gave it proper burial in the tomb already prepared at the Camp of the Persians.

Stooping to enter the low, imitation timber portal, only 31 by 54 inches, and pushing back the swinging stone door, the funeral attendants found themselves in total darkness, since the first door must be closed for space to draw back the second. Crowded together in the windowless tomb chamber, 10,1/2 by 7,1/2 feet, and 8 feet to the flat ceiling, they prepared the last obsequies by the light of a flickering torch. The corpse was placed in a tublike sarcophagus of gold which rested on a funeral couch whose feet also were of wrought gold. A table was set for offerings, which included short Persian swords, necklaces, and earrings of precious stones inset in gold. The candys and chiton of Babylonian manufacture, Median trousers, robes dyed blue, purple, and other colors, Babylonian tapestries and kaunakes clothing, all were heaped up so that the deceased monarch might enter the afterworld of his Aryan fathers with due pomp and correct circumstance. A tiny house was built near by for the Magian guardians, who were to hold their post by hereditary succession. They were granted rations, each day a sheep, with flour and wine; once a month a horse was given for the Aryan sacrifice to the hero. The tomb was surrounded by the garden paradise, whose canals watered the grass in the meadow and the trees of every species which were left to wave over Cyrus’ last resting-place.

ELEMENTS OF PERSIAN ART

Even in its terribly ruined state, the site of Cyrus’ metropolis exhibits a fully developed national culture. Inspiration may have come, perhaps through Susa, from Assyrian winged bulls and genii, from Hittite reliefs on black orthostates, from Babylonian or Assyrian palace platforms, from Egyptian religious symbols. The Persians were not the first to employ the column.

Nevertheless, the whole is blended into a new art whose origins must be sought in as yet unexcavated sites. This art is fully mature, though in so many respects utterly different from its immediate successor at the better-preserved Persepolis. As its special characteristic, we may cite its recollection of a direct ancestry in the wooden architecture of the north, remembered in the gabled roof, the columned porch, and the ground plan. Unique is its substitution of white limestone for the original walls of mud brick, in pleasing contrast to the black limestone which reproduced the wood of door and window frames. The few bits of sculpture which have survived prove that the artists who carved the reliefs already recognized that these reliefs must be subordinated to architectural design; they also show the Iranian feeling of rhythm, made clear by the repetition of each scene four times. Peculiar to this art is the use of the orthostate block relief, no longer necessitated by the architectural design, whose sculptures are not in relief but are sunk into the surface of the door jamb, which serves as a frame to the panel. The figures are therefore not rounded but flat, never extending beyond the line of the orthostate surface. Their drapery is undercut, a practice unknown to Greeks for at least another century.

The varied elements of this art, whether derived from native or from foreign sources, have all been infused by the Iranian spirit. We must admire the technical adequacy of this new art; once we have reconstructed its buildings in the light of a trained imagination, its sense of restrained beauty cannot but delight us. In not a few respects, Parsagarda, although terribly ruined, is superior to the more grandiose Persepolis.

Chapter V

LIFE AMONG THE SUBJECT PEOPLES

IN THE Median and Persian homelands, life was relatively simple. Cyaxares, Astyages, and Cyrus might erect palaces and collect around them a royal court, because the taxes for construction of the one and upkeep of the other were paid by freemen of their own people. The chief industry of the plateau, pasturing great flocks of sheep and goats in the mountain valleys or herding the sacred kine, was practiced by seminomads. On the plains a few had settled down to a primitive agriculture with the aid of qanat irrigation. Where title was held to houses or to individual plots of soil, it would be in fee simple.

ELAMITE AND BABYLONIAN RECORDS

By the conquest of Elam and Babylonia, Cyrus made contact with a far older and more complicated civilization. These countries showed their antiquity especially by their long-continued employment of written documents. For some twenty-five centuries Babylonia had known bookkeeping and had developed a wide variety of forms according to which all business transactions of the slightest importance were recorded on clay tablets. A few centuries later the Elamites modified the cuneiform signs for their own language and imitated the administrative and business formulas of their neighbors, the Babylonians. Although the Persians in turn invented an alphabet of cuneiform signs for their royal inscriptions, this alphabet seems never to have been utilized for other purposes. For the life of the subject peoples during the Achaemenid period, we must therefore find our sources in the clay tablets written in Elamite, Akkadian, or Aramaic.

Fortunately, such tablets have been recovered by the thousands. When we have copied the whole collection, something like a half million in all, and have interpreted and analyzed the enormous amount of data thereby presented, we shall possess a complete social and economic history of an important segment of the ancient Near East reaching back almost three thousand years—more than a half of man’s recorded history.

ARCHIVES AT SUSA

By his conquest of Elam, Cyrus fell heir to its ancient capital Susa, whose location on the edge of the Babylonian alluvium had long since resulted in the wide use of inscribed tablets. Although the great mass of Elamite tablets dates from the generation following Cyrus, we are fortunate in having over three hundred which can with little question be assigned to his reign. One refers to Cyrus himself. Another mentions a Lydian and must have been written after the conquest of Sardis in 547. A third, which speaks of the king of Egypt, obviously comes before 525.

These tablets are from the archives of the revenue officials Kudda- kaka and Huban-haltash, Elamite subjects of Persia. They permit more than a glimpse of contemporary Susa. As might be expected, the late period of the Elamite language is indicated by the wide use of purely Babylonian ideograms and by not a few Babylonian and Persian loan-words. The tablets are properly authenticated by seals. Now and then the seal inscription is a dedication to a Babylonian divinity such as Marduk or Nabu. One gives our earliest example of a common Persian motif, the monarch wearing the battlemented war crown and poniarding the hostile monster. Among the names of individuals mentioned, Elamites are naturally in the majority. There is, however, a plentiful sprinkling of Babylonian and Persian names, for Susa lies between the two countries.

Business documents follow Babylonian formulas. As a typical example we may cite: “Ten shekels of silver, belonging to Ummanunu, which Rishi-kidin received in March; the tablet Huban-nugash, son of Hutrara, wrote.” This is a standard formula for an individual loan by a private banker, a member of the new class which was just emerging into prominence in contemporary Babylonia. There are Babylonian parallels for such loans without mention of interest. An even closer parallel is found in another loan by this same Ummanunu: Huban-api receives six shekels of gold; if the loan is not repaid next month, interest shall increase. The tablet also proves that Elamite bankers were acquainted with the same tricks employed by their fellows in Babylonia; on the inner tablet the six gold shekels are lent at the unusually favorable rate of one pound of silver, that is, at a ratio of ten to one; but on the envelope (the only part available for inspection unless it were broken in the presence of the judge), the loan is discounted one gold shekel, the more usual twelve-to-one ratio. Other tablets deal with the sale of sheep or the assignment of sheep to shepherds.

The great majority of the archive tablets, however, are mere lists of objects received by the revenue officials. Dull as they may appear, they, too, have much to add to our picture. Easily first in quantity among the revenues collected are textiles in a bewildering variety of colors and local styles. Median tunics are manufactured in the palace gates as a royal monopoly or are turned in by North Syrian ‘‘Hittites.’’ We hear of one hundred and twenty garments made for the trade and of two shekels’ weight of the precious purple used in the dyeing.

Other tablets offer lists of army supplies. There is here mention of bows, a few of Assyrian form; there are strings for the bows, arrows and the reeds from which they are to be manufactured, spears, shields and the skins by which they are to be covered. Some of these supplies are to be furnished by the gods, Hutran and Inshushinak, the great gods of Susa; from other sources, the gods themselves are supplied. For instance, the temple tower of one god’s temple receives one hundred and twenty dyed garments, an iron object weighing seven and a half pounds, together with five pounds of incense. All in all, we have a surprisingly large amount of information on the daily life of Susa during this one brief period.

ADMINISTRATION OF BABYLONIA

For no portion of the three thousand years of Babylonian social and economic history are we so well supplied with documentary evidence as for the two and a quarter centuries after 625. More than ten thousand administrative and commercial documents, almost equally divided between the Chaldaean and early Achaemenid periods, have aleady been published and analyzed. When we add six hundred letters, to and from the highest officials, which were being sent during the very years when political control was shifting from Semites to Iranians, we find ourselves in possession of the material for an account of administrative, social, and economic changes quite unparalleled for so ancient an epoch.

Among the documents we may consult are loans of seed, food, and silver, ordinary contracts of the merchant, sales of landed property whether of houses or of fields, leases for the same and receipts for the payment of rent, slave sales in great numbers, lists of serfs on the great estates and transactions with them, other lists of officials or of free peasants at work, apprentice agreements, reports of officials high and low, and records of trials and judicial decisions. A new chapter in the history of prices may be written and may even be illustrated by elaborate graphs. The whole life of the Babylonians, nobility and commons alike, passes before our eyes in all its varied interest.

In his dealings with his Babylonian subjects, Cyrus was “king of Babylon, king of lands.” By thus insisting that the ancient line of monarchs remained unbroken, he flattered their vanity, won their loyalty, and masked the fact of their servitude. He secured their gratitude by returning the captive gods. But it was Gobryas the satrap who represented the royal authority after the king’s departure. Ordinarily he is mentioned in our documents only as the king’s substitute, by whom the contracting parties take oath and against whom a violation of the agreement is sin. In the letters he appears now and then as intervening directly in local administration. Appeals from the decision of the local judges might be carried directly to the satrapal court. In general, however, immediate control of local affairs was vested in the ‘‘king’s messenger,” whose approaching visit of inspection caused many an official anxious hours. Overseeing of temple finances was also placed in the hands of royal officers. Otherwise, Cyrus quieted the Babylonians by adopting the familiar administration and even at first retaining the former officials at their posts.

The letters, however, do show a definite tightening-up under the new regime. This was necessary, for the last days of Nabunaid pictured a growing disorganization. Graft was rampant. A typical letter is the complaint of Nabumukin-zer to Nadinnu: ‘‘Is your act one of brotherly kindness? You have said: ‘Whether you order something great or small, I shall obey.’ Though you know that I need four sheep for my ‘gift,’ and wish to impose a tax on the Rasibtu people, nevertheless you prevent it. Is not that the way a taskmaster would act? Do not delay a single night, but send it now!” Another typical letter is that from Bel-zer-ibni to this same Nabumukin-zer: ‘‘Every month the king’s messenger comes and inspects the posts. No one is ever at his post. The temple officials have come to see about it. Since the messenger has not yet reported it to the king, let the man in charge of the cattle who has left his post be thrown into chains and sent here.”

How the new regime worked in practice may be illustrated by the case of the archthief Gimillu. Taking advantage of the administrative breakdown, he had appropriated numerous animals belonging to the Lady of Uruk, though her star brand proved them Ishtar’s property. Without consent of the deputies and scribes of the temple Eanna, he took sheep from the pasture lands of the temple. He induced his own shepherd to steal from Ishtar’s shepherd five mother ewes already branded. Another temple steward sold him three sheep at a shekel each. His brother seized a branded goat on its way from Larsa in the very gate of the city. The governors and scribes of the temple ordered Gimillu to seize the temple shepherd who had not brought his sheep to Eanna for ten years; after extorting ten kur of barley, two silver shekels, and a sheep for “protection,” Gimillu threw the son of the shepherd into iron fetters and left him.

Threatened reforms affected official nerves, and Ardi-Gula advises Shamash-uballit no longer to be negligent about Gimillu’s misdeeds, his failure to perform the appointed task work and to pay his contributions for the New Year’s gift and the impost on the fruits. The shepherd is coming to make an accounting; great is the debit, so debit the amount owed and give only the balance to Gimillu. Shamash-zer iqisha warns Gimillu that the messenger of the administrator has come and urges the accused to go quietly with him.

In September of 538, Gimillu was brought to trial before the assembly, council, and officials of Uruk; the list of those present is a Who's Who of that city. No less than four temple scribes were needed to take down the testimony. Man after man witnessed to thefts. When Nidintum confessed that he had received three shekels for the sheep he had stolen, they published in the assembly the document, which read: “The silver to Gimillu was given.” A second witness testified to the theft of his sheep and a goat by Gimillu’s brother, while a third swore that “that goat in my presence Nadina took.” Gimillu himself admitted: “I sent my brother Nadina.” One theft Gimillu did not deny: “That young lamb I took,” but urged as a mitigating circumstance that he “left two other sheep for the holy day!” On another occasion, while admitting a theft, he protested that he passed up the opportunity to steal two shekels and a kid. Nevertheless, the verdict imposed restitution—sixty animals for each one stolen; the total fine amounted to 92 cows, 302 sheep, and one pound and ten shekels of silver.

Not at all downcast by the adverse verdict, Gimillu appealed to the satrapal court at Babylon and meanwhile financed the appeal by continuing his thefts. The priests of Eanna and the high officials of Uruk were ordered to make their appearance at court with a witness who under severe penalties was to testify about these fresh thefts. Gimillu’s appeal was disallowed. Up to April, 534, as he writes the “priest” of Uruk, he was not permitted to leave Babylon; “You, my lord, see how I limp very much.” However, Nabutaris, the butcher of the Lord Bel Marduk, and of his temple Esagila, raised five pounds of silver and gave them to three men of influence. Gimillu insists that there is no barley tax debited against him except the 1,100 kur of barley raised for the temple tax of Eanna. For over ten years he has requested seed barley, but the officials reply that they can do nothing for him because they are detained in Ur. “What are the temples of Eanna and Egishunugi,” he demands, “that this is so? You are the administrator of both? What is right before my lord, that let my lord do! May the Lord God free your slave and send him home. The Lord and Nabu know that formerly I was fixed in the presence of my Lord God for five hundred kur of barley; see, I have sent Nabu-taris about the matter to my lord.”

Whether it was due to Gimillu’s outrageous flattery of his superior, comparing him to the god Marduk himself, or whether the five pounds of silver proved more effective, by December the convicted thief was back home and the balance of the oxen of the fifth year’s impost was yoked and given to him! Considering his difficulty in keeping his hands from what was intrusted to him, we are surprised to find Nabumukin-apal ordering the staff of gold bars placed in Gimillu’s boat, even though Gimillu’s son was to be kept as hostage in the storehouse; let no one so much as lift his feet until Gimillu’s return.

Then Gimillu and Adad-shum-usur, the chief administrator of the satrap, bring temple serfs to the goddess of Uruk and place them in charge of Nabu-mukin-apal and Nabu-ah-iddina. They request Gimillu to tell them what the satrap commanded, for, if only they know, they will perform it. Gimillu replies: “Gobryas gave no command about them. As for the people I brought and showed you, let them perform the assigned work in Eanna until you have received the command of Gobryas about them. As for the men among them whom I have freed from chains, by the tablet of Ishtar of Uruk I bear the responsibility for their not escaping.”

SOCIAL LIFE IN BABYLONIA

During preceding centuries the population of Babylonia had become definitely stratified, though perhaps it would be going too far to speak of castes. At the head was the king and the members of his court, whose social rank was due only to the fact that they were the “king’s friends.” Like the satraps and the members of their courts, they were outsiders imposed by foreign conquest upon the native Babylonian society. If Babylonian nobles might be included in this Persian official class, they owed their standing to their own position at the head of Babylonian society.

Members of this aristocracy of birth and wealth held the most important offices of the state. Their names appear frequently in every type of document. They may always be detected by their genealogical formula; while ordinary folk are given only a paternity, nobles have also an ancestor. This ancestor, of whom the individual is a “descendant,” may be a definite individual or he may be indicated by a title, such as weaver, fuller, builder, fisher, smith, herdsman, or physician. One such family may be traced for seven centuries at Uruk through the late Assyrian, Chaldaean, Achaemenid, and Seleucid ages, and into the Parthian period, where cuneiform sources fail us. Further study of these genealogies will give us valuable information on the great families.

Another of the families was that of Egibi, the leading banking firm of Babylon. We shall later trace its sudden breakup after the death of its head, Itti-Marduk-balatu. A few families may be called scholars, like that of Nabu-rimanni, the famous astronomer, known to the Greeks as Naburianus, who is a witness during the reign of Darius, and who is “descendant of the priest of the moon-god.” Others may be officials, as the group named the “descendant of the man of salt,” otherwise the collector of the salt tax. The truly great families did not specialize; every department of business and of administration witnessed the activities of their members.

All nobles were full citizens (mar banu) of the Babylonian free cities, which jealously guarded their rights as guaranteed by Assyrian charters. In numbers they formed the merest fraction of the population. They held their urban properties in fee simple and bought and sold by ordinary contracts. In theory their landed possessions were subject to family claims, but in practice such claims were barred through stringent penalties. Agricultural lands beyond the city walls were held by the “bow” tenure. Originally the obligation was to furnish a bowman to the armed forces, but it was now commuted for a money payment.

These citizens met in formal assembly (puhru) to make important judicial decisions. Over the assembly presided the “headman of the council,” assisted by a “second” and with the “king’s headman” as prosecuting attorney. Ordinary routine administration was in the hands of the council (kinishtu or kiniltu), a body of some twenty-five of the leading men (rabe bania) who held high office in the local temple, from which the council often took its name. One might be the temple “butcher,” another the “baker,” etc. Undoubtedly by this time the titles had become purely honorific. After the headman of the council came in rank his “deputy” (qipu). Royal control was exercised by the “king’s headman” and the “official who was over the king’s basket,” the chief fiscal agent of the temple. The temple was under an “administrator” (shatammu), who also had his “deputy.” Nominally the latter was subordinate to the “administrator,” but the letters prove that he held the dominant authority. The “priest” (shangu) had likewise become an administrative official. Also important were the “officials who are over the payment,” the income from fields belonging to temple or king. Royal messengers made frequent trips of inspection and kept the court informed of what was going on.

The most primitive form of taxation—forced labor—remained in use, especially for the upkeep of the canals, without which the country could not live. Names of those employed on the forced labor, and those who died or escaped, were carefully registered, as were the barley and dates provided as food. Modern methods, however, permitted commutation in cash for those rich enough to afford it. Much of the taskwork was done by the temple itself through its serfs and dependents.

A large part of the taxes was collected in kind. That a considerable proportion of these revenues came from the temples is shown by the full title of one such finance officer, the “official who is over the king’s basket in the temple Eanna.” The temple received “sacrifices” (niqu) which still remained in theory at least “free-will offerings” of animals (ginu) and produce (satukku), though in actual practice they had become definitely imposed contributions which might or might not be used for sacrifices. The yearly “tithe” (eshru) was now paid to the state. The “total” tax imposed on produce was from 20 to 30 per cent of the whole. Another tax paid to the irrigation inspector (gugallu) and to the tax-collector (makkesu) was levied primarily on dates. A direct tax for the state (telittu) was collected from landholders in silver. Transport by canal paid “toll” (miksu), while octroi dues were charged at the city gate.

“Citizens,” whether bankers, merchants, priests, temple or government officials, formed an upper middle class. Of a lower middle class—bakers, brewers, butchers, carpenters, laundrymen, coppersmiths, artisans—we hear much less. Those who are mentioned are generally on temple staffs, and we have seen that often the office must have been purely honorary. While a few members of this lower middle class received fairly good wages for specialized tasks, in the majority of cases it is impossible to distinguish their payment from that of the unskilled laborers.

An enormous increase in the slave population during this period brought hardships on the lower middle class. Slaves were taking the place of women in industry and were thus causing decreases in family incomes. More and more slaves were being apprenticed to trades which formerly had been carried on by freemen. Slave barbers and bakers made their appearance. Slaves were permitted to engage in business for themselves and tended to supplant the small merchant.

Threat of slave competition extended to the free laborer, though not to the same degree. Although forced labor might be used for excavation and repair of canals, strangely enough in this very period the majority of canal workers seem to have been free. Numerous tablets list their pay in silver or in produce. Hired men were especially in demand at harvest, and now and then we hear the complaint that the supply was insufficient. No wonder that there were occasions when the pay for such seasonal laborers was surprisingly high.

Theoretically, the status of the serf (shirku) was lower than that of the free laborer, but actually his lot must often have been happier. Although he did not receive pay, this did not much differentiate him from the hired man, whose monthly wage of a shekel of silver was, as a rule, a mere matter of bookkeeping. Like the present-day sharecropper of our own South, the Babylonian free laborer received his monthly wage as a charge account which always would be overdrawn. The serf might “rent” a farm on shares or promise a certain fixed amount of the produce to the owner. He might often rise to a position of considerable influence on the great temple estates and might execute agreements in his own name to such an extent that often we fail to realize his servile condition. The serf class was recruited from children of freemen whose parents had dedicated them to the easier life of service for the deity; men of wealth might dedicate their slaves for similar serfdom after their own deaths.

At the bottom of the social scale was the slave. Free men might be enslaved for debt or as punishment for a crime. Parents might sell their children in time of stress. Foreign names betray the captive taken in war or the slave brought from abroad. Most slaves, however, were born in the home, since marriage of slaves for breeding purposes was profitable. Unless he ran away from his master or falsely claimed free birth, the slave was, as a rule, well treated. Often he was intrusted with responsible duties, and on rare occasions he was freed. As we have seen, he competed more and more with the freeman. Slave sales form the largest single group of our documents and testify to an enormous increase in the slave population. While the serf is most often associated with the great temple estates, slaves more generally are found in possession of the upper classes.

ECONOMIC LIFE IN BABYLONIA

Persian conquest did not seriously disturb the commercial Babylonians. Not more than twelve days, at the most, elapsed after the death of Nabunaid before commercial documents were being dated by the accession year of Cyrus. The same families dominated business and administration. Interest continued at the rate of 20 per cent per annum. The upward trend of prices noted during Chaldaean rule continued at an accelerated rate. Documents employ the same formulas and deal with the same types of loans, sales of slaves or of lands, and marriage and apprentice agreements.

1. Monetary system —By the Chaldaean period, Babylonia had gone fully onto a silver basis. We do have references to gold objects and to the goldsmiths who prepared them for the temples, but there is no hint of a gold coinage. Lead, employed in early Assyria as a baser substitute for silver, had long since ceased to be accepted as a medium of exchange. For a time, copper had taken its place, but it, too, had disappeared. Where gold is mentioned in the Chaldaean period, its ratio to silver varies from ten to nearly fourteen to one.

Coinage in silver was common. Many of the documents are expressed in monetary terms, though for the most part it would seem that the terminology is for bookkeeping only and that actual money rarely passed from hand to hand. Monetary terminology was primarily according to weight. Sixty shekels (shiqlu) made one pound (mana), and sixty pounds made one talent (biltu). Since the talent weighed about sixty-six of our pounds, the Babylonian pound was a little heavier than our own. For actual use the shekel was the normal unit of value, though the half-shekel was the most commonly minted, and the use of the she, barely a grain of silver, was occasionally revived from some fifteen centuries before. In coin value the silver shekel may be estimated as worth something like a quarter of our dollar, but we must not forget that the purchasing value of the precious metals in antiquity was almost infinitely greater than today. The real value of a study of prices is that it permits us to indicate price trends; when we remember that the wage of an ordinary day laborer was one shekel per month, we may estimate what he might purchase of various commodities when we learn how much they cost.

2. Produce.—While some agricultural products were sold by weight, the grains which afforded the livelihood of the country were sold by measure. Thirty-six qa’s, about a pint and a half, made one pi; five pi's made a gur, almost four and a quarter of our bushels. Since the qa was too small and the gur too large for ordinary use, they tended to be supplanted by the measure (mashibu). Though the most usual measure was the pi of thirty-six qa’s, others of thirty-seven or even forty-five qa’s were known. Thus the average measure was a trifle less than our bushel. Use of their own measure by temples or private individuals inevitably led to abuses. As early as the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the “king’s measure’’ of one pi was recognized; during the Achaemenid period it gradually superseded the private measure, which returned only in times of administrative breakdown.

Only its enormously productive soil made Babylonia habitable. Its major product was barley, raised on great estates belonging for the most part to the temples. We are especially well informed about Eanna, the temple of the goddess Ishtar of Uruk. When we hear of some fifty thousand bushels from a single farm measured at one time into Eanna, we are reminded of the great wheat fields in our own American Middle West.

At harvest the temples employed a large number of floating laborers, whose pay was a bare subsistence, and thus cost no more than their own serfs. In comparison with the nominal wage, the cost of barley was high. The price was set by its quoted price at Babylon. Naturally, barley was cheapest at harvest and increased in cost during the months succeeding, while there were also variations according as it was new or old. Wheat was little grown, and its use as food was confined to the rich.

Fortunately, throughout all these centuries, dates were always cheaper than barley. If the peasant did not too often satisfy his appetite with barley loaves, at least he could buy a handful of dates to furnish concentrated energy. The rivers and canals presented a continuous line of palm orchards and added a touch of green to an otherwise barren and monotonous landscape. Forty thousand bushels might be secured from a single plantation.

At the beginning of the Achaemenid period one shekel bought at least one gur; thus five or six bushels might be secured for a month’s average wage. Dividing his purchases between dates and the more costly barley, a man could provide for himself and family a month’s ration of something like two bushels of grain and three of dates. Soon prices began to rise, and in another century costs had doubled with no compensating increase in the peasant’s wages.

Even the poorest at this time might occasionally add a relish of garlic, sold over the counter in bunches by the local grocer. Near the beginning of Cyrus’ reign, we hear of a wholesale purchase of 395,000 such bunches. Oil from sesame seed was the only substitute for animal fats in a region too hot for the olive. At that, the peasant was unable to utilize the substitute to any appreciable degree, for a single bushel of the seed demanded two or three months of his pay, though a bushel measure of the oil cost but a shekel. With prices so high in terms of wages, we may be sure that only the relatively well-to-do used the oil for food and that only the rich could employ it in ointment or as a medicament for man, much less for beast To waste the precious oil for lamps was possible only for the temples.

Next to food came drink. Wine was only for the wealthy, and the best brands were imported, as is shown by the famous “wine card’’ published by Nebuchadnezzar. For lesser men there was wine from the hills northwest of Assyria and from the province “Across the River,’’ North Syria. The vine grew in Babylonia itself, whose inferior wines are frequently mentioned.

Common men must satisfy themselves with various kinds of “strong drink.” The most popular was date wine, though on a lesser scale beer was also appreciated. Prices naturally varied as the “strong drink” was clear or white, new or a year old. Less than a shekel was needed for a good-sized jug of raw wine. A foreign visitor reports a wine made from the topmost shoots o£ a date palm, which he found sweet but headachy. Those who could afford a clear grape wine paid as much as eight shekels per jar.

During the long, intensely hot summer of the Babylonian plain, the stranger from the colder north had to take refuge in an underground apartment and creep out only in the cool of the evening. But the hardened native labored all day with little or no clothing to protect him against the deadly sun, and in the brief winter, when an occasional frost might be expected, he shivered unless the sun came out to coax from his bones the chill produced by the rain and the dampness. Firewood was almost nonexistent. At best, he could hope that after a long search the women would appear with huge bundles of thorns on their heads; even these thorns burned fiercely for only a moment and then almost immediately flickered out. Heavier clothing became a necessity.

From before the dawn of written history, great flocks of sheep and goats had roamed the high desert under the protection of half-wild shepherds. From their clip of wool and goat’s hair, the peasants secured clothing for the winter. During Cyrus’ reign, to a greater degree than previously, the great flocks were monopolized by the temples, which kept careful statistics of births, losses by wild animals and by theft, and of animals turned in by their guardians. A single tablet listing one temple’s income mentions five tons of sheep’s wool and several hundred pounds of goat’s hair; another temple received nearly seven thousand sheep in one lot. Temple monopoly also raised prices. Even in wholesale lots, a shekel bought only two pounds of wool. The rich paid fifteen shekels, more than a peasant’s income for a whole year, for a single pound dyed by the expensive purple-blue. Under these circumstances the peasant was fortunate indeed if he bought one new garment a year.

The cultivation of flax, already an ancient practice among the Egyptians, was only now beginning. It was still confined to gardens and had not yet been transplanted to the open field. Babylonia had no protective tariff for new industries. Flax was taxed 25 per cent, and a hundred stalks cost a shekel. We may imagine the price of the finished garment produced by the linen-weaver. Obviously, the great linen industry of later Babylonia was still in the future.

In earlier centuries the health of the lower classes was kept up by the large quantity of milk drunk and by the cheese which they ate in its various forms The small number of references to dairy products in our documents suggests that the health of the population had suffered. The large number of sheep and goats possessed by the temples may explain the change, although a single goat might afford enough of the rich milk for the children or a sheep enough for the clabbered milk familiar to every traveler as lebben or yaurt. Such an animal on the average cost two shekels in the reign of Cyrus, though continuing Achaemenid rule gradually increased the price. Mutton or lamb, goat or kid, was eaten rarely by the lower classes.

Nearly all the draft animals demanded for the tillage of the fields belonged to the great temple estates and were loaned to contractors with the necessary serfs and the iron from which the plows were to be manufactured. Ordinarily this consisted of one serf and plow to each ox. Private agriculturalists had to buy their own oxen. In the Chaldaean period the price per ox was even lower than that fixed fifteen centuries earlier by Hammurabi’s “ceiling,” which ranged from ten to twenty shekels for a “perfect” animal. Following the usual parallel, under the Achaemenids prices rose. To harass further the independent farmer, the temple competed, paying three or four times the normal cost for animals ritually perfect. Once we hear of the sale of a horse which cost almost four pounds of silver, equivalent to wages for almost a score of years to the ordinary workman. Even a donkey or a she-ass could rarely be bought for five or ten shekels and might reach twelve times the latter price. Like the sheep and goats, donkeys were marked, generally on the ear. The star mark of the Ishtar of Uruk is often mentioned to prove the ownership of animals and of slaves.

3. Building and real estate —Temples and palaces might be constructed of baked bricks. Fuel was scarce and expensive, and we need not be surprised to find that the shekel would buy no more than fifty or a hundred baked bricks. As in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace at Babylon, baked bricks would be laid in asphalt, which, though brought down by boat from Id (Hit) up the Euphrates, was cheap, costing only a shekel for six hundred pounds. Cypress or cedar wood for paneling was imported from Syria, and the price was accordingly high. A beam of cypress cost a shekel, which secured a mere ten pounds of the more precious cedar, while a large door of wood, presumably for a temple, was worth two and a half silver pounds. Ordinary houses were of mud brick, generally formed in the brick mold by the owner or lessor. In one purchase by wholesale, 25,000 unbaked bricks are contracted to be made, counted, and delivered into the shed.

Although all the metals had to be imported, they sold for surprisingly low prices. From one importer, Iddin-ahu, who was doing business in 550, we have definite statistics. Copper in large quantities was imported from Cyprus and sold at the rate of a shekel for three and two-thirds pounds. Iron from Cyprus or the Lebanon was even cheaper, a shekel buying as much as eleven pounds. These prices are so much below those of earlier times that we may be sure improvements in mining and in smelting, as in transportation, were responsible for the remarkable drop. Other imports mentioned by Iddin-ahu include wine, honey, wood, lead, dyestuffs, dyed wool, lapis lazuli, and alum from Egypt.

Significant changes are indicated by the sales and rentals of landed property. To estimate these changes, we must first reduce Babylonian land measurements to a common factor. In this system twenty-four fingers (ubanu) made one cubit (ammatu) about eighteen inches. Seven cubits made one reed (qanu) ten and a half feet. Two reeds made one gar. Area could be computed for small lots by the square cubit or square reed; larger fields are measured by the amount of seed grain required for sowing. A gar is the area needing four and a quarter bushels, a pi requires a measure or approximately a bushel, and a qa is equivalent to ten gar of field or 675 square feet.

From eleven to twenty-four qa of uncultivated land could be bought for one shekel. At the beginning of the Chaldaean era, two to four qa of cultivated land might be secured for the shekel, but by Nabu-naid’s reign only one to two, and by the time of Darius I the price had risen to two or three shekels per qa. Orchards and gardens cost more: one and a half shekels per qa in the Chaldaean period, two shekels under Cyrus, two to three under Darius, with still higher rates for especially favored lands.

In the Chaldaean period a house and lot averaged fifteen shekels per reed. By the reign of Darius, the average was forty, nearly a threefold increase. Even more significant of the drift to the cities, the number of sale contracts seriously decreased and rental contracts took their place. Under the Chaldaeans a house could be rented for ten shekels; under Cyrus the rent was fifteen. It was twenty and upward under Darius and had reached forty under Artaxerxes I. Normally the rent was paid in advance and in two instalments, at the beginning of the first and seventh months. The lessee contracted to keep the roof in repair, to renew the woodwork, and to fill up the cracks in the walls, and, if he wished a door, he was obliged to provide it himself.

4. Banking.—Without any doubt, the most important economic phenomenon was the emergence of the private banker and the consequent wide extension of credit. Preceding times had witnessed no such large-scale use of credit. The loan business was in the hands of the one great economic unit—the temple—and loans were made principally to temple dependents. Assyrian landlords, however, had made regular advances of grain to their peasants These loans were made without interest, and it was regularly provided that if the loan was not repaid at harvest, increase should then accrue, generally at the rate of 25 per cent as a penalty and not as true interest. This was enlightened self-interest, for not only did it prevent the peasant from falling into the clutches of the loan shark but it also kept him in constant debt to the landlord.

Similarly in the Achaemenid period, the temple or its officials lent barley, dates, and more rarely other products co its own peasants The loan was to be repaid at harvest in the gate of some temple storehouse and according to the measure of some local god At times it was specifically stated that it was to be without interest, but more often the lack of interest is merely taken for granted. Even thus, the loan was not without profit, for not only did the landlord substitute old barley or dates for an equal quantity from the new crop but there might be additional perquisites such as the barley straw, good fodder for cattle, or the by-products of the palm tree, the dry branches, leaves, sprouts, or fallen unripe dates, whose value was high in a land where nothing was wasted. From the Assyrians, the Babylonian landlords had borrowed the practice of charging a penalty interest at a higher rate if the loan was not repaid at harvest. Not a few of these loans, however, did draw interest; it was regularly the standard 20 per cent, although, since the interest of a fifth was for less than a year, the interest collected was actually higher.

Private banking as a commercial proposition first made its appearance in Babylonia in the reign of Kandalanu (648-626) At the very beginning we find members of the two great banking families of Babylon, that of Egibi and of the less important Iranu. Soon after their discovery, it was suggested that the former was Jewish and that the name of the founder was Jacob. We shall see that there are additional reasons for believing that this is true.

Where credit was granted as a regular business transaction and the standing of the borrower was good, the document was simple in form, and almost without exception the interest was 20 per cent: “monthly on one mana one shekel of silver shall increase.” Tendencies toward a lower interest rate at the beginning of the Chaldaean period were quickly checked, and throughout the first half of the Achaemenid period the rate was standardized.

Where the credit of the borrower was more dubious, a severe penalty was added if the debt were not paid at maturity. The note might be indorsed by a second individual who was responsible if payment was defaulted. In most such dubious loans, however, no interest was charged; instead, the creditor took a pledge—a house, a plot of land, or a slave. The formula ran: “When the money is repaid, the pledge will be returned; rent there shall not be for the pledge and there shall not be interest on the money.”

On the face of it, remittal of the interest might appear to favor the debtor, and so we have taken the Hebrew condemnation of interest. Actually, the substitution of the pledge was all to the advantage of the creditor. If the debtor could somehow raise the money and recover the pledge, still the creditor had enjoyed the service of the slave, the use of the house, or the produce of the field—all worth considerably more than the fixed interest. At the same time, he had more than ample security for the amount lent, and if the debtor defaulted, as no doubt often he did, the creditor had bought the property at a bargain. How little the substitution of the pledge for interest protected the rights of the poor may be seen in the provision of the more “humane” Hebrew lawgiver who, as an extraordinary concession, ordered that if a man’s garment was taken as pledge it should be returned to him at night in order that he might have something in which to sleep!

There were other loans which demanded both pledge and interest. Some, even for a small amount, add: “Whatever there is belonging to him in city and country is a pledge.” On the other hand, we find an occasional loan without interest or pledge, but never from the professional bankers; these must be accommodation for brief periods to relatives or friends.

Interest often had to be paid every month, and this amounted to compound interest. Occasionally, interest might run until the principal was repaid. Payment of the debt on the instalment plan was common, and a separate receipt was given each time. When the whole debt was repaid—and now and then there were debtors so fortunate-—the original tablet of indebtedness was destroyed in order that no future claim might be made. Thus we may be sure that the tablets which have survived represent those debts which were foreclosed.

The more closely we examine these documents, the more impressed we are with the wide use of credit during the period. Landed properties, houses, animals, even slaves were bought on credit. We begin to suspect that the abnormal rise in prices may be due in part to.what we call credit inflation. When we discover that the final payment on a farm is made by the grandson of the original purchaser, we realize that instalment buying might have brought about the same difficulties as in our last period of depression.

One more feature of contemporary economic life is strangely modern. In earlier times the high temple officials obtained as perquisites of their offices the right to certain of the sacrifices on certain days. These prebends were now bought and sold on the open market, not only for a given day, but for a small fraction of a day. The temple had become a huge corporation, shares of which could be transferred on what almost corresponded to our modern stock exchange.

From the standpoint of the businessman, Babylonia possessed a remarkably modern system of doing business. Her credit facilities are to be especially noted. From the viewpoint of the historian interested in the social process, there is much which serves as warning. Later chapters of this book will show how, underneath the prosperity of the higher classes, there were forces at work to bring the whole impressive business structure tumbling to the ground in ruins.

Chapter VI

CAMBYSES AND THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT

CAMBYSES, eldest son of Cyrus by Cassandane, daughter of Pharnaspes, a fellow-Achaemenid, was a mature man at the conquest of Babylon. Harem intrigues were not yet tormenting the Persian court, though they might be expected in the near future. To obviate any danger, Cambyses was promptly recognized as “King’s Son”. In the proclamation issued to the Babylonians, Cyrus informed them that their chief god, the lord Marduk, had blessed not only him but his “own son” Cambyses, “while we, before him and with sincerity, joyously praised his exalted godhead.” When the gods of all Babylonia were invoked to pray daily before Bel and Nabu for long life to himself, and to speak a word of grace to the lord Marduk, Cambyses was joined with him in the prayer.

Before his accession year was ended, Cyrus returned to Ecbatana, leaving Cambyses as his personal representative to carry on the ritual prescribed for the king at the approaching New Year’s festival. On the fourth of Nisan, March 27, 538, Cambyses, as son of Cyrus, proceeded to the temple of Nabu within Babylon on the sacred street of Ishtar between the festival house and Esagila. There Cambyses was received by the chief priest of Nabu with his accompanying priests, and he filled them with good things, the usual New Year’s presents. When he had taken the hands of Nabu, the god presented him with the scepter of righteousness. Surrounded by the spearmen and bowmen from Gutium, the King’s Son marched up the sacred way to Esagila and prepared to carry out the whole ritual. Also with him marched Nabu. The barrier between the lord Marduk and his son was taken down, and the King’s Son presented the scepter to Marduk, only to receive it back after he had himself seized the hands of Marduk and made his obeisance. Only after Cyrus had thus received by proxy the approval of Babylon’s great lord did he venture to prefix “King of Babylon” to the general title “King of Lands.”

As a rule, we know nothing about the life of an oriental crown prince before his accession to the throne; he remains hidden in the harem. Thanks to his unique position in Babylonia, Cambyses is the exception. His headquarters was not, as we should have expected, in Babylon, but farther north in Sippar. Here we find in a document of February 20, 535, reference to the house of Nabu-mar-sharri-usur, steward of the King’s Son. The name is significant, for the father who called his son “May Nabu Protect the King’s Son’’ could have had in mind only Belshazzar. In other words, Cambyses did not merely retain in office the administrators already functioning under Nabu-naid; he retained also the former palace dignitaries. Bazazu, the messenger of the house of the King’s Son, made his appearance at Sippar on August 10, 534. Another messenger, Pan-Ashur-lumur, was a witness in March or April, 532. Later in the same year Itti-Marduk-balatu, the great banker, lent three pounds, sixteen shekels of silver to the headman of Cambyses, the King’s Son. On March 3, 530, the same Itti-Marduk-balatu apprenticed for four years his own slave to a stonecutter, a slave of the King’s Son Cambyses, in order that he might learn the whole art. These glimpses show us a crown prince hard at work on his routine duties.

Eight years of residence in Babylonia, during which he had acted as representative of his father at the New Year’s festival, had accustomed the natives to the sight of Cambyses as their own ruler. A Persian custom decreed that the king should not leave his kingdom unprotected when he left for a foreign war but should appoint his successor. Before Cyrus took his departure for the campaign against the Massagetae, he therefore recognized Cambyses as regent by permitting him to use the formal title “King of Babylon’’ while retaining for himself the broader claim as “King of Lands.” Immediately after Cambyses had again “seized the hands of the lord” on New Year’s Day, March 26, 530, business documents were dated by the double titulary. By September, 530, the news of Cyrus’ death had arrived, and Cambyses assumed the full titulary of his father, “King of Babylon, King of Lands.” By Elamite custom, he married his sisters Atossa and Roxana. Then he prepared to invade Egypt, the last of the four great empires yet to be conquered.

EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN

Amasis had relied on Greek mercenaries to put through his antinationalist, anti-priestly program, and there was much dissatisfaction. Nekht-har-hebi, governor of the entrance gates by land and by sea, had already set up an inscription of very dubious loyalty. The Phoenicians repeated the promise of loyalty made to his father, and their daughter-cities in Cyprus sent their formal submission. Possession of their fleets meant control of the Mediterranean, and the invaders therefore concentrated at Ace.

Wary old Amasis had allied himself with the master of the Aegean, Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. Machinations of the nobles forced an about-face and Polycrates shipped off these dissatisfied citizens to serve under Cambyses. The Greek mercenary chief, Phanes of Halicarnassus, quarreled with his Egyptian paymaster and escaped to Cambyses with valuable military information. Camels to water the troops while passing through the desert were hired from the king of the Arabs, our first literary reference to the Nabataeans, who held the coast from Gaza to Ienysus.

By the Serbonian bog, the hiding-place of wicked Typhon, and the Casian Mount, Cambyses reached the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, where he learned that Amasis had been succeeded by his son Psametik (Psammenitus) III. A well-contested battle at Pelusium—there were Greeks in both armies—ended in Persian victory; two generations later Herodotus remarked the bones of the unburied dead. The naval commander Udjahorresne treacherously brought about the surrender of the strategic city of Sais. Heliopolis was taken by siege, and Psametik fled across the river to refuge in Memphis. Early in 525 Memphis was taken; at first, Psametik was well treated, but he was soon accused of plotting and put to death.

With the “factory” at Naucratis under Persian control, the lucrative Greek trade with Egypt was at the mercy of Cambyses; fortunately, he was generous, and Greek traders flooded the country.When Libyans and Greeks of Cyrene and Barca reported through Arcesilaus their submission, a good half of the Greek world—certainly the wealthier and more advanced half—was ruled by Persia. A projected campaign against Carthage was frustrated by the refusal of the Phoenicians to attack a daughter-city.

Cambyses marched up the Nile. The Kharga Oasis was occupied from Thebes, but when the detachment attempted the Oasis of Ammon, hoping to burn the oracle, it was overwhelmed by a sandstorm. Men from Elephantine were sent to spy on the Ethiopians, who had built up around Napata a kingdom with a half-Egyptian culture. Their report was full of marvels. They related that the Ethiopians generally lived to a hundred and twenty years, some even beyond. Their food was roast meat, and they were great drinkers of milk. In a meadow outside the capital the city leaders placed in the night roast meats which next day could be eaten by anyone; this was the famous Table of the Sun. The king was said to be the tallest and straightest of all men. Even the prisoners wore fetters of gold, but bronze was rare and valuable. Coffins for the dead were made of glass, through which the corpse could be seen; for a year they were kept in the house while sacrifice was offered, then they were set up around the town. Among other curiosities to be seen in Ethiopia were elephants and ebony. Cambyses annexed the Ethiopians on the border, but, despite “Cambyses’ Storehouse’’ at the second cataract, supplies failed.Egypt was formed into the satrapy of Mudraya, with Memphis as the capital. Garrisons continued to guard the frontier, at Daphne in the east Delta, at the White Wall of Memphis (said to have been founded by Menes at the junction of the two Egypts and across the river from the capital on the site of Old Cairo, Egyptian Babylon), and at Elephantine below the first cataract, where large numbers of Jewish mercenaries were colonized.

EGYPT UNDER CAMBYSES RULE

Tales of the mad doings of Cambyses in Egypt must be discounted.The oft-repeated slander that he killed an Apis bull is false. In his sixth year (524), while Cambyses was absent on his Ethiopian expedition, the sacred bull died. The next Apis bull, born in the fifth year of Cambyses, survived to the fourth year of Darius.

Le livre des rois d'Egypte Des origines à la fin de la XIIe dynastie

As in other respects, Cambyses followed the precedent of Amasis, the first to place his name on the sarcophagus of an Apis and the first to fashion it from a magnificent block of gray granite. The cover was inscribed with the full royal formula to which the Egyptians were accustomed: “Horus, Samtowi, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Mestiu-re, son of Re, Cambyses, may he live forever. He made as his monument to his father, Apis-Osiris, a great sarcophagus of granite, which the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Mestiu-re, son of Re, Cambyses, dedicated, who is given all life, all stability and good fortune, all health, all gladness, appearing as king of Upper and Lower Egypt, forever.’’

On the accompanying limestone stele Cambyses was represented in the native royal costume; wearing the uraeus serpent, he knelt before the sacred beast in reverence. The inscriptions tell us how under the majesty of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, descendant of Re, granted eternal life, the god, his father Apis-Osiris, was brought in peace to the beautiful west and was made to rest in the necropolis, in the place which his majesty had made for him, after men had carried out all the ceremonies in the hall of embalming. Others made for him the textiles, the amulets, all the ornaments, and every kind of precious object; all was done according to what his majesty had ordered. In the sixth year of Cambyses the Persian Atiyawahy, son of Artames and Qanju, a “eunuch” (saris) of Persia and governor ofCoptos, led a party to the desert quarries of the wadi Hammamat to secure new building material for the restoration of the temples.

That the tales of savagery do not reflect contemporary opinion is proved by the account of Udjahorresne, admiral of the royal fleet under Amasis and Psametik and priest of the goddess Neith at Sais. Writing under Darius, he was under no compulsion to speak kindly of his former master. There came into Egypt the great king of all the foreign countries, Kambujet, while the foreigners of all the foreign lands were with him. He took possession of all this land, the foreigners established their abode, and he was great ruler of Egypt, great lord of all the foreign countries. His majesty gave the former admiral, who had come over to the invaders, the office of head physician; he was made to live with the king as a companion and was placed in charge of the palace. Udjahorresne prepared for Cambyses the official titulary, as king of Upper and Lower Egypt, descendant of Re.

Udjahorresne made Cambyses to understand the greatness of Sais, the abode of the great Neith, the mother who gave birth to Re, as well as the greatness of the abodes of Osiris, Re, and Atum. He complained to his majesty about the foreigners who were settled in the temple of Neith, and his majesty gave order that they should be driven out. The destruction of the houses of the Greek mercenaries, together with their goods, the purification of the temple and the return of all its serfs, the restoration of the revenues from the properties dedicated to Neith and the other divinities, and the renewal of their feasts and processions as before were also commanded. Cambyses himself visited Sais,entered the temple, made his adoration before Neith, and offered sacrifices as had been done by every benefactor king.

Not all temples were so fortunate as that at Sais. This we discover from a list of the matters they shall consider about the temples in the house of judgment Incomes of those at Memphis, Hermopolis Parva, and Egyptian Babylon were to be alloted as formerly; in place of the former grants, the priests of the others were to be given sites in the marshlands and southlands from which they themselves had to bring firewood and timber for boatbuilding. The number of cattle presented under Pharaoh Amasis was reduced by a half. As to fowl, Cambyses ordered. “Give them not to them! Let the priests raise geese and give them to their gods.’’ The value of the withdrawn revenues was estimated at 60,530 deben 8 kite of silver, 170,210 measures of grain, and 6,000 loaves of bread, besides cattle, fowl, incense, papyrus, and flax

In agreement with this decree, we find no more gifts of natural products to the temples by the Persian rulers; this alone was sufficient to start the rumor that Cambyses was a harsh master to the Egyptians. A century later the Jews of Elephantine boasted how their own temple was untouched while all the temples of Egyptian gods were overthrown when Cambyses made his invasion. Ultimately, the destruction of Heliopolis and Thebes was blamed on his anger!

Toward the end of the eighth century, written contracts—the predecessors of the still more numerous papyri of the Hellenistic and Roman periods—had come into general use. Parallels to the cuneiform documents are close and suggest that the new system of bookkeeping had been introduced under Assyrian influence. A new and more quickly written character soon evolved; it was called by the Greeks demotic or “popular,” in contrast to the more elaborate hieratic or “priestly,” henceforth confined largely to copies of the sacred books. Such demotic papyri show life going on as usual after the conquest. For instance, from Siut, later Lycopolis, we learn of two cousins who in the eighth year of Cambyses agree once more as to the disposition of property already divided between their fathers in the reign of Amasis. In addition to real estate and water rights, we hear of a division of the income derived from the right to be chief priest of the Wolf nome, to be scribe, and to enjoy the prebends of the temple so many days of the year or at so many feasts. Other papyri from Siut list monthly grants of wine and oil to the head of the necropolis, to the pastophorus, to the chief priest, and to the governor of the nome.

USURPATION BY BARDIYA

Leaving his relative Aryandes as satrap, Cambyses started home. At Agbatana near Mount Carmel, he received news of Bardiya’s usurpation, and there he died, it was said, by his own hand. Bardiya, variously known to the Greeks as Mardos, Smerdis, Maruphius, Merphis, Tanaoxares, or Tanyoxarces, was a full brother of Cambyses. At his father’s death he had been given charge of Media, Armenia, and Cadusia. On March 11, 522, he proclaimed himself king at a place named Pishiyauvada on Mount Arakadrish. By April 14 he was accepted in Babylonia. He had become king so late in his “accession year” that soon it was “year one.” The Babylonian historians were so puzzled as to which year they should employ for dating that they have continued to perplex their modern successors. By July 1 Bardiya was recognized by the whole empire.

The subject population welcomed Bardiya gladly, since he had suspended for three years the taxes and war levies; but the feudal nobles disliked his centralization of the cult through destruction of their local sanctuaries. He was afforded little time to consolidate his reforms, for on September 29, 522, after but eight months of rule, he was slain by Darius at Sikayauvatish in Median Nisaya.

Chapter VII

PROPHET ZOROASTER

ZARATHUSHTRA began his prophetic mission about the middle of the sixth century in the northwest corner of the plateau where, three hundred years before, Assyrians had received tribute in Parsua.

His name meant “With Golden Camels’’; his father was Pourushaspa, “With Gray Horses,’’ and his mother Dughdhova, “Who Has Milked White Cows.’’ All were taken from the simple, half-pastoral life. His race was Spitama, the “White.”

His god was Ahura-Mazdah, the “Wise Lord,” the official head of the Persian national pantheon since the days of Ariyaramnes. In vision Ahura-Mazdah appeared to Zoroaster:

By what sign shall I make known the days For inquiry of what is thine and of thyself?”

form. Vouchsafe me this, What none compels you to admit, to know the long duration

ATTRIBUTES OF AHURA-MAZDAH

Whether or not this represents exactly the visions which first called Zoroaster to his ministry, it does present the chief features of his preaching. The prophet’s alternate use of Ahura, Mazdah, Ahura-Mazdah, and Mazdah-Ahura recall to us days when Ahura and Mazdah were separate deities; a century before, Ariyaramnes had presented Ahuramazda as one god among many, but to Zoroaster he was sole God. Other divinities from dim Indo-European times—the sun-god Mithra, for example—might be cherished by kings and people, but to Zoroaster these daevas were no gods but demons worshiped by the followers of the Lie. Ahura-Mazdah was in no need of minor divinities over whom to rule as divine king.

Beside him are only his vaguely personified attributes. Spenta Mainyu is his own Holy Spirit. Asha is Righteousness, the universe as it should be. Vohu Manah (Good Thought) or Vahishta Manah (Best Thought) is that which reveals to the prophet the vision. Khshathra is Ahura-Mazdah’s divine Kingdom, at the end of days to be supreme. Armaiti (Piety), the divine Wisdom, Haurvatat (Salvation), and Ameretat (Immortality), complete a vague group of seven attributes, to which are added Ashir (Destiny), Sraosha (Obedience), and Atar (Fire).

THE CALL

Who as lord at his desire can ward off Frenzy with the companions of the Lie?’’

“Let there not be destruction for those living aright or for cattle- breeders by the companions of the Lie.

“This rule concerning the fat hath Ahura-Mazdah, of like mind with Righteousness,

Made for the cattle, and milk for those who crave food, by his command, the Holy.”

Zarathushtra Spitama; he, Mazdah, longs to make known our thoughts and those of Righteousness,

This doubt was scarcely flattering to the newly summoned prophet, yet Zoroaster did not hesitate:

Satisfied at last, the Ox and the Cow exclaim: “Now, Ahura, is help ours, we are prepared to serve those like you.’’

Suffering of poor dumb cattle at the hand of raiding nomads gave occasion for the prophet’s call. Throughout his preaching there echoes the eternal struggle between the roving men of the steppe and the peaceful tiller of the soil. Agriculture is a holy occupation. The dumb animals on whom falls the burden of the labor are sacred.

CONCEPTION OF EVIL

Ahura-Mazdah, clothed with the firmly fixed heaven, is sole God, but in eternal struggle with him is the Evil Spirit. From the beginning, there were twin spirits, the Better and the Bad. They established Life and Not-Life, the Worst Existence for the companions of the Lie, Best Dwelling for the follower of Righteousness. The daevas also took counsel together; delusion came upon them; they chose Worst Thought and together rushed to Frenzy, by whom they sicken the life of mortals. But to man came the Kingdom, Good Thought, and Righteousness; Piety gave continued existence and indestructibility of body, that at the Last Judgment he may have precedence. Man has free will; each must decide for himself before the Great Consummation.

The daevas are all offspring of Bad Thought, the Lie, and Pride, long known for their deeds in the seventh region of earth, the abode of man. Men who do the worst are called pleasing to the daevas, who have defrauded man of Good Life and Immortality, taught by Evil Spirit, Bad Thought, and Bad Word to ruin mankind. It was Yima, Vivahvant’s son, who gave men flesh of the ox to eat and brought evil into the world.

One convert Zoroaster made, his cousin Maidyoi-maongha, but many were his opponents. The false teacher destroys the doctrines and the plan of life, he prevents the possession of Good Thought from being esteemed. He declares the Ox and the Sun are the worst to behold with the eyes—the prophet is denouncing the nocturnal sacrifice of the bull by the worshipers of Mithra. He turns the wise into Liars, he desolates the pastures, and he lifts his weapons against the Righteous. The Liars destroy life and attempt to hinder matron and master from attaining their heritage. With shouts of joy they slaughter the ox, they prefer Grehma, the Karapan priest of the daevas, and the lordship of those who seek the Lie, to Righteousness. Grehma shall attain the realms in the Dwelling of Worst Thought; so, too, the destroyers of this life shall weep in their desire for the message of Ahura-Mazdah’s prophet, but he shall prevent them from beholding Righteousness. Grehma and the Kavis, the local kinglets under Median vassalage, have long attempted to overthrow the prophet; they assist the Liar and say: “Let the ox be slain, that it may kindle the Averter o£Death to help us’’; Zoroaster is condemning the use of the intoxicating haoma drink. Thus the Karapans and the Kavis are brought to a common ruin.

Bendva, the very great, perhaps the local kinglet, has always opposed him; at the judgment may he be ruined through Good Thought! The prophet has been hindered by the teacher of this Bendva, a Liar long apostate from Righteousness. There are others who seek to kill the prophet, sons of the Lie’s creation, of ill will to all who live. Zoroaster recalls an insult, the more bitter as it inflicted pain on his dumb friends: The Kavi’s wanton displeased Zarathushtra at the Winter Gate, for he prevented him from stopping there, when his two horses came, shivering with the cold. The Karapan priests refuse to obey the decrees and laws of pasturage; “for the harm they do to the herds by their deeds and doctrines, let the doctrine bring them at last to the House of the Lie.’”

RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS

With this same introduction, he asks all the questions which puzzle his mind. Who was created Father of Righteousness? Who fixed the path of the sun and stars? By whom does the moon now wax, now wane? Who upheld the earth from beneath and the sky from falling? Who made the waters and plants? Who yoked swiftness to the wind and to the clouds? Who created Good Thought? What artificer made light and darkness, sleep and waking, dawn, noon, and night, reminders to the understanding man of duty?

Can he be sure of the Kingdom? Will they properly observe in word and deed his religion, the best for all men? Will Piety extend to those to whom Mazdah’s religion is proclaimed? For this was he set apart by Mazdah in the beginning; all others he hates. Who among those with whom he talks is Righteous and who a Liar? He doubts himself and his cause. On which side is the true enemy? Should not the Liar who opposes Mazdah’s Salvation be regarded as the enemy? How shall they drive from them the Lie to those who are disobedient? Shall the Lie be put in the hands of Righteousness to destroy it by the words of Mazdah’s doctrine, to work a mighty destruction among the Liars, to bring upon them torments? Has Mazdah the power to protect his prophet when the two hostile armies come together in battle? To whom will he grant the victory? Let there be signs to make known the healing judge. How shall he attain this goal, union with Mazdah himself?

And then after this incursion into mysticism comes a bit of very practical human nature:

Have the daevas ever been good rulers? This he asks of those who see how for the sake of the daevas the Karapan and Usij priests have given the cattle to Frenzy, how the Kavi has made them continually mourn, instead of increasing the pastures through Righteousness.⁹

THE AFTERLIFE

Persecution only fixed his eyes the more eagerly on the future, the awaited coming of the divine Kingdom, the Great Consumation, the Renewing of the World. This Consummation will be brought about by the Saoshyanto, the Saviors, Zoroaster and his followers; and the prophet hopes it will not be long delayed. At the Last Judgment, Righteousness will overcome the Lie. He wishes to know whether even before that the Righteous might overcome the follower of the Lie. How can he know that Mazdah and Righteousness actually have power over the Liars who menace him? Let there be a confirmation of his vision from Good Thought. Let the Savior know what his reward shall be. When shall the warriors learn to understand the message? When shall Mazdah smite the filthiness of the intoxicating drink, the haoma, through which the Karapan priests deceive the wicked rulers of the lands? Who can make peace with the bloodthirsty Liars? To whom shall the knowledge of Good Thought come? They are Saviors of the lands who strive to fulfil Mazdah’s commandment.

One’s own Conscience, whether of Righteous or Liar, will determine his future award. With Zoroaster as associate judge, Ahura-Mazdah himself will, through his counselor Righteousness, separate the wise from the unwise. Afterward, Zoroaster will guide those he has taught to invoke Mazdah across Chinvato Peretav, the Bridge of the Separator. Those who wisely choose will proceed to the House of Song, the Abode of Good Thought, the Kingdom of Good Thought, the Glorious Heritage of Good Thought, to which one travels by the Road of Good Thought, built by Righteousness, on which the Consciences of the Saviors pass to their reward. There shall they behold the throne of mightiest Ahura and the Obedience of Mazdah, the felicity that is with the heavenly lights.

But the foolish shall go to the House of the Lie, the House of Worst Thought, the home of the daevas, the Worst Existence. Their evil conscience shall bring them torment at the Judgment of the Bridge and lead them to long future ages of misery, darkness, foul food, and cries of woe. He who follows his own inclination, making his thought now better, now worse, whose wrong and right deeds balance, at the last shall dwell apart in an intermediate abode.

PATRONAGE OF VISHTASPA

He know's the reason for his lack of success: he has few cattle and so few followers. He cries to Mazdah for support as friend to friend. When shall the sun risings come to win Righteousness for the world, when shall the Saviors appear in accordance with prophecy? The infamous Liar has prevented the Righteous from making the cattle prosper; he who deprives the Liar of power or life shall prepare the ways of sound doctrine. He who converts a Liar, if he is sure, let him announce it to the kinsmen; may Mazdah-Ahura protect him from bloodshed.

Whom can the prophet secure as protector when the Liar attempts to injure him? Let no harm come through the man who thinks to injure Zoroaster’s possessions; let his deeds recoil on himself. By their rule, the Karapans and Kavis have accustomed men to evil deeds to destroy life. Their own soul and conscience shall torment them when they come to the Bridge of the Separator; for all time they shall dwell in the House of the Lie.

From his mountain home in northwest Iran, Zoroaster set forth with his Spitamid kinsmen in search of a land where his doctrines might find readier acceptance. While the prophet was laboring for the conversion of his neighbors, the face of the world was changing. The once powerful Median Empire was disintegrating, and Cyrus, of his own Persian people, was in revolt against Astyages. While Vishtaspa (Hystaspes), son of Arshama, of the rival Achaemenid line of kings, was ruling Parthia and Hyrcania, he seized the opportunity to loosen the ties binding him to his Median overlord. Here the weary prophet found a welcome, and soon Vishtaspa’s wife Hutaosa (Atossa) was a convert to the faith. The conversion of the husband naturally followed, and Vishtaspa became a patron of the new religion.

“What reward Zarathushtra hath promised to those of his congregation, which in the House of Song Ahura-Mazdah hath first attained, with this have I promised myself through thy blessings, Good Thought, and those of Righteousness. Kavi Vishtaspa hath accepted, with the rule of the Congregation and the paths of Good Thought, the doctrine which the holy Ahura-Mazdah with Righteousness hath devised.’’ “Whoever of mortals rejoices Zarathushtra Spitama is worthy to be renowned, for him shall Mazdah-Ahura give life, for him shall he make possessions flourish through Good Thought, him we consider a friend through Righteousness.” ”O Zarathushtra,” asks Ahura-Mazdah, “what righteous man of thine is a friend of the great Congregation, or who desires to be renowned?” Zoroaster answers. “It is the Kavi Vishtaspa at the Judgment. Those whom thou, Mazdah-Ahura, wouldst unite in thy house will I summon with words of Good Thought.”

Soon after his conversion, in 550, Vishtaspa’s first son was born; in witness to his new religion, the son was named Daraya-Vohu-manah, “Who Sustains Good Thought,” Darayavaush in the western dialect and Darius to the Greeks. Some five years later Cyrus arrived in northeastern Iran, and Vishtaspa exchanged the status of a minor Kavi for that of satrap in the already mighty Persian Empire.

Under the protection of Vishtaspa, the prophet spent many happy years. He praises his cousin and first convert, Maidyoi-maongha, his clansmen, children of Haechat-aspa, descendants of Spitama—since they distinguished the wise from the unwise; by their deeds they have won Righteousness, by the first laws of Ahura. Frashaoshtra and his brother Jamaspa, of the Hvogva family, became his loyal supporters, and Frashaoshtra promised the prophet his daughter Hvovi, “Having Fine Oxen,” as wife. “The fair form of a dear one hath Frashaoshtra Hvogva given me; may sovereign Mazdah-Ahura grant that she attain possession of Righteousness for her good Self.”

Several sons—Isatvastra, Urvatatnara, and Khvarechithra are named—and several daughters were born and grew up. ‘‘The best possession known is that of Zarathushtra Spitama, for Ahura-Mazdah will give him through Righteousness forever the delights of the blessed life, and to those who practice and learn the words and deeds of the good doctrine. Then let them gladly seek by thought, words, and deeds, his pleasure, and the prayers for his worship, the Kavi Vishtaspa and Zarathushtra’s son, the Spitamid, and Frashaoshtra, making straight the paths for the Doctrine of the Savior which Ahura hath ordained.”

His daughter is to marry Jamaspa: “This man, Pouruchista, sprung from Haechat-aspa and Spitama, youngest of Zarathushtra’s daughters, hath he given thee as thy instructor for union with Good Thought, Righteousness, and Mazdah. So take counsel with thy understanding, wisely perform the holiest deeds of Piety.” Jamaspa promises: “Fervently will I love her, that she may piously serve father, husband, peasants and nobles, a righteous woman for righteous men. May Ahura-Mazdah grant her the glorious heritage of Good Thought for her good Self. ’

CRISIS

Gladly would we leave the prophet at this point, surrounded by his loving family and friends. But the delightful picture was darkening as old age drew on. The nomads were threatening, and the holy war must be preached:

So they whose deeds are evil, let them be the deceived and forsaken, let them all cry aloud. Through good rulers let [Ahura] bring slaughter upon them and peace from them for the joyful villagers. Let him bring torment upon them, he that is Greatest, with the bonds of death, and soon let it be! To men of evil creed belongs the Place of Corruption. Despising the Law, losing their body, they think to cast down the worthy. Where is the Righteous Lord who shall rob them of life and freedom? Thine is the Kingdom, Mazdah, whereby thou canst give to the right-living poor the better portion.

This aid I beg in prayer with outstretched hands, Mazdah: First of all, Righteousness, the works of the Holy Spirit, whereby I may please the counsel of Good Thought and the Ox Soul. I would serve thee, Mazdah-Ahura, with Good Thought; grant me through Righteousness the blessings of life, both material and of thought, by which it shall bring its supporters bliss. I would praise thee as never before, Righteousness, Good Thought, and Mazdah-Ahura, and those for whom Piety increases the Kingdom, never to be destroyed, come ye to my support at my call.

I who with Good Thought have set my heart to watch the soul, who have known rewards from Mazdah-Ahura for my deeds, while I have power and strength will I teach men to seek after Righteousness. When shall I, as one who knows, see thee, Righteousness, and Good Thought, the throne of mightiest Ahura and the Obedience of Mazdah? Through this holy word on our tongue may we turn the robber horde to the Greatest. Come thou with Good Thought, through Righteousness grant by thy righteous words, Mazdah, an enduring gift: strong support to Zarathushtra, and to us the means by which to overcome the foe.

Grant, Righteousness, this reward, the blessings of Good Thought. Grant, Piety, to Vishtaspa and to me our desire. Grant, sovereign Mazdah, that your prophet may recite the holy word of instruction. Of thee, the Best of one will with Best Righteousness, I ask the best, Ahura, desiring for warrior Frashaoshtra and myself and those thou wilt give them, gifts of Good Thought for all time. By our use of these thy bounties, Ahura, may we not provoke thy wrath, Mazdah, Righteousness, and Best Thought, we strive to offer hymns of praise to you, since you are best able to advance desire for the Beneficent Kingdom. Then for those thou dost know to be worthy, through Righteousness and as understanding Good Thought, fulfil, Mazdah-Ahura, their longing with attainment. Then indeed I know that words of prayer, serving a good end, are effectual with you. Therefore would I preserve Righteousness and Good Thought forevermore; do thou teach me, Mazdah-Ahura, by thy mouth through thy Spirit to proclaim how the First Life shall be.

With this last prayer, the words of Zoroaster are ended. Yashts, which in their present form are somewhat later but contain much early material (some of it pre-Zoroastrian), quote prayers of Vishtaspa or of the horseman Zairivari against such enemies as Tathrya-vant, Peshana, Humayaka, Darshinika, Spinjaurushka, and Ashta-aurvant, son of Vispa-thaurvoashti. They also refer to wars with Arejat-aspa of Hyaona. Still later tradition informs us that Arejat-aspa took Balkh by assault and murdered Zoroaster and his disciples at the altar. The prophet must have died about the time of the great series of revolts against Darius; if there is truth in the tradition, the actual assassin may have been Frada of Margush (Margiana), who invaded Bactria, or perhaps one of his fellow-nomads.

LASTING EFFECTS OF ZOROASTER’S RELIGION

But we need no late legends of a birth heralded by divine signs, of a life filled with miracles, of a martyr death at the hands of nomads to prove Zoroaster’s greatness. From his own words we may trace his life and the development of his thought. We may realize the loftiness of his aspirations and the limitations which only make him more human and more lovable. His doctrines show no trace of influence from the more ancient Orient. They are native to his soil and his race. They have grown from the older Aryan faiths, but they have risen above the simple Aryan daeva-worship to heights never again reached by unaided Aryan religious thoughts.

Zoroaster, the prophet of ancient Iran : Jackson

Early in his career the prophet had questioned whether his followers would properly observe the doctrines of his religion. Darius the Great was the son of his patron Vishtaspa and must often have talked with the prophet at his father’s satrapal court. His own inscriptions are filled with reminiscences of the great teacher’s language, and the records on his tomb may actually quote one of the Gathas.Despite his fine language, Darius did not live up to the prophet’s teaching, and his constant use of the terms “Lie” and “Liar” only bring out the more strongly his own frequent lapses from the truth.

Scarcely was Zoroaster dead than the inevitable reaction began. While the historical Zoroaster was more and more lost in the mists of the past, while as the founder of the religion he became increasingly divine, the Gathas he composed (even those complaining of his doubts and fears, his hopes for a gift of ten mares, a stallion, and a camel, his sympathy for his shivering horses), were chanted in ritual and took on a mystic and efficacious character. To him was ascribed approval of gods and of practices revived from the ancient Aryan paganism—the very gods and practices he had so emphatically condemned. Later on, Aryan paganism was in turn submerged in part by Magism, a survival from an older and still more barbarous antiquity.

If his own people now held sacred the haoma to Zoroaster the “filthy intoxicating drink,” if they restored the nocturnal cults of Mithra and the sacrifices of the cattle he had so strongly protested, if they again worshiped the mother-goddess Anahita, there were others who found his own preaching more congenial. In the decay of the older national religions, the best minds found in his doctrines something so new, so fresh, so bracing that his influence may be detected in the majority of the later religious movements. It is no accident that the Gathas of Zoroaster sound so much like the first New Testament.

Chapter VIII

ACCESSION OF DARIUS

ZARATHUSHTRA, an honored guest at Vishtaspa’s court, must often have conversed with the young Darayavaush—Darius, son of Hystaspes, as with the Greeks we name him. In his autobiography he boasts his descent through Vishtaspa, Arshama, Ariyaramna, and Chishpish from the founder Hakhamanish: “Therefore we are called Achaemenids. From long ago we are princely, from long ago our family was royal. Eight of my family were formerly kings, I am the ninth; nine are we in two lines.’’

This is literally true—though not quite in the sense Darius would have us believe His line was indeed the elder and under Ariyaramnes had enjoyed the precedence, but Median conquest had leveled both to a common vassalage. Successful revolt against Astyages the Mede had brought to power the younger line as represented by Cyrus, Cambyses, and Bardiya. While Darius’ grandfather, Arsames, remained at best a petty kinglet, Hystaspes was fortunate enough to be made satrap of Parthia and Hyrcania. As such, he accompanied Cyrus on his last and fatal expedition. Cambyses took the young son into his personal service. In 522, at the age of twenty-eight, Darius was king’s spearbearer in Egypt. Before the year was ended, Darius was king.

How so young a man reached so exalted a position while both father and grandfather were still living is explained in the autobiography in the following manner There was a man of his family, Cambyses by name, son of Cyrus, who was king. Cambyses had a brother, Bardiya by name, of the same father and mother. Afterward Cambyses slew that brother, but it was not known to the people that Bardiya was slain. After Cambyses went to Egypt, the people became rebellious; the Lie was great in the lands. Afterward a Magian (Magush), Gaumata by name, arose and falsely claimed to be that Bardiya. He arose from Pishiyauvada of Mount Arakadrish on March 11, 522. All the people abandoned Cambyses and went over to the pretender. On July 1 he took for himself the kingdom. Afterward Cambyses died by his own hand.

Now that kingdom had belonged from ancient times to the family of Darius. No man, even one of his own family, was able to take the kingdom from that Gaumata. People feared exceedingly lest he slay the many who had known the true Bardiya and so could prove the falsity of Gaumata’s claim. No one in fact dared say anything against him until Darius arrived. Since we last hear of him as spearbearer to Cambyses in Egypt, obviously Darius must have left the army in Palestine as soon as the death of the former monarch was known and must have hastened at once to Media to press his claim to the vacant throne.

By the favor of Ahuramazda and with the aid of six other conspirators, Darius slew that Gaumata and his allies at the fort Sikayauvatish in the Median district of Nisaya on September 29, 522. By the favor of Ahuramazda, Darius became king. Later on in the autobiography Darius names the others of the “Seven,” the conspirators who took part in the killing: Vindafarna (Intaphrenes), son of Vayaspara; Utana (Otanes), son of Thukhra; Gaubaruva (Gobryas), son of Marduniya (Mardonius); Vidama (Hydarnes), son of Bagabigna; Bagabukhsha (Megabyzus), son of Datuhya; and Ardumanish, son of Vahauka. “You who shall be king hereafter, preserve well the family of these men.”

STRUGGLE FOR LEGITIMIZATION

Darius restored the power taken from his family. He established it on its former foundations. He rebuilt the temples Gaumata had destroyed. To the freemen he restored the pasturelands and to the nobles the cattle herds and peasants which the Magian had seized. He labored until it was as if Gaumata had never taken away the family house. Such was the official version, presented in the autobiography and advertised to the world on the Behistun rock. It was accepted by the Father of History, by Ctesias, and by their Greek successors.

Yet there are not lacking indications that it is far from true to the facts. Darius, we have seen, belonged to the imperial family only by a collateral branch. There is no reason to believe that he was considered next in line for the throne. Had the next of kin belonged to his line, his grandfather and his father would have had precedence over him.

Darius claims that Bardiya, younger brother of Cambyses, was put to death by that brother. Yet there is complete disagreement between our sources as to the time, place, and manner of his murder. Darius puts the episode before the Egyptian expedition of Cambyses, Herodotus during it, and Ctesias after. The official version followed by Herodotus blames a certain Prexaspes for the actual murder, but there was doubt as to whether “Smerdis” was killed while hunting near Susa or was drowned in the Erythraean Sea. After the death of Cambyses, we are expected to believe, Prexaspes publicly recanted his story, informed the people of the secret murder of the “true” Bardiya, and then in repentance committed suicide. Deathbed repentances we all know as frequent devices of the propagandist; after a suicide, the dead man can tell no tales. Furthermore, the “false” Smerdis was false only in claiming to be the son of Cyrus; his actual name was Smerdis! The height of absurdity is reached when we are informed that so alike were the “true” and the “false” Smerdis that even the mother and sisters of the “true” Smerdis were deceived!

Contemporary Aeschylus had no doubt that Mardos, as he calls him, was a legitimate monarch and that he was slain by the wiles, not of Darius, but of Artaphrenes, one of the “Seven,” whom Hellanicus names Daphemes. Xenophon declares that immediately after the death of Cyrus, his sons began civil dissensions. Needful legitimization of usurped rule may be sensed in his marriages: to Atossa and Artystone, daughters of Cyrus; to Phaedyme (daughter of one of the Seven, Otanes), who like Atossa had been wife to Cambyses and then to Bardiya; and to Bardiya’s own daughter Parmys. Last but far from least, Darius so continuously insists that all his opponents—the “false” Bardiya in particular—were liars that we are convinced “he doth protest too much.”

In his autobiography Darius, immediately after the protocol, states that Ahuramazda handed over to him the lordship: “These are the lands which obeyed me; by the favor of Ahuramazda, I was their king.” He then lists the twenty-three satrapies. Darius would have us believe that at his accession all these countries were loyal and only later rebelled. Further on in the narrative he admits that, when he had killed the Magian, Elam and Babylonia revolted; but he still insists that it was not until after the capture of Babylon that the other revolts occurred: of his own homeland Parsa, of Elam for a second time, of Media, Assyria, Egypt, Parthia, Margiana, Sattagydia, and the Saka. Let us test the claim.

REVOLTS OF THE SUBJECT PEOPLES

Of his own immediate family, his grandfather Arsames and his father Hystaspes were alive; the one apparently possessed no authority, and the other was satrap of Parthia and Hyrcania but gave no assistance either at the accession or later. Two satraps, Dadarshish of Bactria and Vivana of Arachosia, declared for Darius; the remaining lands were either in revolt or at least indifferent. While, as Darius himself admits, the whole empire accepted Bardiya without question, his assassination brought renewed hopes of national independence which bred a perfect orgy of revolts among the subject peoples. Ambitious Persian satraps also prepared to make a bid for the vacant throne. Even in his father’s satrapy of Parthia and Hyrcania there was a faction which refused to accept the son as monarch. When Dadarshish and Vivana declared for the usurper, Bactria was invaded by Margian Frada. There was also armed opposition in Arachosia. Sogdiana was cut off by rebel Margiana and was attacked by raiding Sacae.

Darius claims as loyal “Those of the Sea,’’ Sardis, and Ionia. These three satrapies are never called rebel in the autobiography, but a Greek story gives a different picture. Oroetes had been installed satrap of Sardis in the later years of Cyrus. Toward the end of Cambyses’ reign, pretending that he had incurred the royal displeasure, Oroetes invited Polycrates to come on a visit to him at Magnesia; the great tyrant of Samos, thus deceived, was taken, killed, and his body crucified. In the period of confusion which followed Bardiya, Oroetes slew Mitrobates, satrap of Dascyleium. Darius sent Oroetes a royal messenger; on the return the messenger was ambushed and killed.

Then Darius, still too weak and newly enthroned for open warfare, determined on subtlety: he sent Bagaeus, son of Artontes, to Sardis with sealed letters, by which he tested the loyalty of the scribe and then of the spearmen guards. When these obeyed, the order was given for the death of Oroetes and thus Sardis, Dascyleium, and Ionia were recovered.

Although Darius had killed Bardiya in Media, he could not hold even that country. With an army which he confessed was small, he started off to recover Babylonia, only to learn that Media itself had risen under a native named Fravartish or Phraortes. The rebel assumed the name, however, of Media’s great hero Khshathrita and announced that he was of the seed of Uvakhshatra or Cyaxares, despite the fact that his appearance was anything but Aryan. His round head, snub nose, deep-set eyes, and prominent cheekbones were in sharp contrast to the long beard, the hair cut straight across the forehead, the bun at the back of the neck, and the high boots, the short, straight skirt, and the narrow belt which we have come to know as the original Median costume. The palace troops in Ecbatana were won over; the second Media of Raga submitted, and Assyria and apparently Armenia and Cappadocia followed its example. An army was dispatched into Parthia and Hyrcania, and Hystaspes was unable to stem its advance; Fravartish seemed about to re-establish the former empire of Cyaxares.

Parsa, the very homeland of Darius, was lost to a claimant for the name of the murdered Bardiya, a certain Vahyazdata who rose up from Tarava in Yautiya (Utii) of Carmania. Naturally, he assumed the long sweeping robe, carefully draped, the laced boots, and the curled hair shown in the portrait of his pretended double. The Persians in the palace of Cyrus at Parsagarda acknowledged his legitimacy, even though his low, flat, projecting nose, his round head, and his beardless pointed chin proclaimed loudly the fact that he, too, was no Aryan. Vahyazdata sent an army against Arachosia; before he reached that country, he must have secured Aria and Drangiana.

Elam declared its independence under the leadership of Hashshina, son of Ukbatarranma. This leader is pictured as having a low, pointed nose, pronounced cheekbones, heavy moustache, and firm chin, whose contours are not concealed by a close-trimmed beard; he is clad in a long garment with vertical folds, quite unlike those of the other “rebels”. As Darius reached the Babylonian alluvium, at the exit from the Zagros Pass, he sent to Elam a royal messenger whose appearance was enough to frighten the natives into fettering their new ruler and bringing him to Darius, who promptly put him to death.

No sooner had the news of Bardiya’s assassination reached Babylon, by October 3, 522, only four days after its occurrence, than that country rose against the foreigners. To his willing subjects, the new king by whom the documents were dated was Nebuchadnezzar III, son of Nabunaid, Babylon’s last independent monarch. (According to Darius, however, his true name was Nidintu-Bel, son of Aniri.) He is pictured as an old man whose deeply seamed cheeks, short upper lip, and bristly, jutting beard serve as foil to a short, bulging nose. Over his forehead his wavy hair is drawn back to a row of scallops, and under his ear falls a single lock; the back of his neck is shaven. He wears a single shirt, the lower half pulled up to expose the bare knees and twisted tight to form a girdle. His age gave credence to his claim that he was a son of Nabu-naid, dead only seventeen years before. At any rate, it is Darius who is caught lying when he inserts Babylon among the satrapies which were loyal at the beginning of his reign.

Nebuchadnezzar had stationed troops in the reed thickets along the Tigris to seize all boats and to guard the crossings. Darius outflanked them by transporting his soldiers on inflated skins, quite as we see them depicted on Assyrian reliefs and as we ourselves have seen them used in recent days. This detachment was defeated on December 13. A second battle, fought five days later at Zazana on the Euphrates with Nebuchadnezzar himself, was decisive; the Babylonian forces were driven into the water, and the “rebel’’ fled to Babylon. He was quickly taken and slain. By December 22, 522, Babylon was dating its tablets in the year of the beginning of the reign of Darius, king of Babylon, king of lands.’ While there, Darius seems to have occupied the north palace of Nebuchadnezzar

Also while he was in Babylon, so declares Darius, Parsa, Elam, Media, Assyria, Egypt, Parthia, Sattagydia, and Saka revolted.Aryandes, left as satrap by Cambyses, had alienated the Egyptians by his harshness and was therefore expelled. With him was driven out the pro-Persian Udjahorresne, who made the following defense: “I was a good man in my city. I delivered its inhabitants in the very great disturbance which came to pass in all the land, of which the like had not occurred in this land. I protected the weak against the strong”—another belated echo of Hammurabi’s lawbook—“I preserved the fearful, if ill befell him, I did for them every useful thing, at the time when it ought to be done for them. I gave proper burial for him who had no burial; I supported all their children; I established firmly all their houses. I did for them every useful thing, as a father would do for his son, when the disturbance came in this nome, when the great disturbance came in the whole land.”

RECOVERY OF SUBJECT LANDS

But the tide had begun to turn. Already on December 9, Dadarshish of Bactria had repelled the “leader” of Margush (Margiana), the broad plains about the present Merv. (The flat-nosed Frada with long, sharply pointed beard had perhaps just murdered the prophet Zoroaster.) Sometime later, Margiana itself was recovered. On December 29, at the fort Kapishakanish, Vivana defeated the invaders dispatched by Vahyazdata from Parsa against Arachosia. On the last day of the year, Vaumisa won a victory at Izala in Assyria, the modern Tur Abdin complex of hills. Though the army of Persians and Medes with Darius remained small, he still had to deplete further his forces by dispatching an army, led by Vidarna, one of the “Seven,” against Media. A skirmish took place at Marush on January 12, 521. Darius asserts that the opposing general was unable to hold his position; nevertheless, Vidarna was compelled to halt his advance until his master was able to assist him. He therefore encamped at Kanpada (Cambadene) in the great plain of Kermanshah, once occupied by the Elamite tribe of Hamban.

Surrender of Hashshina only gave opportunity for a genuine Persian, Martiya, son of Chichikhrish, from Kuganaka, to descend by the direct route from Parsa to Susa and to proclaim himself Ummannish, the name of the Elamite king feared by Assyrians as Humbanigash. (On the relief his face is destroyed, but he wears a robe which hides the arms and is pulled up to give a blouse effect and to expose the skirt.) Darius left Babylon early in February. Before striking toward the Zagros Gates, he made the easy detour by Susa, and the Elamites in fear killed Martiya. Now Darius could send a force under Artavardiya back along this same route to attack Vahyazdata, whose troops in Arachosia were annihilated in the district Gandutava on February 20. The general fled to the fort Arshada, where he was taken and slain by Vivana. On March 6 Hystaspes defeated at Vishpauzatish the Parthian rebels who had allied themselves to Fravartish of Media.

With the main army of Persians, Darius himself repassed the Zagros and joined Vidarna in Kanpada. On May 8 he defeated Fravartish at Kundurush. This was the decisive battle. In recognition of this fact, he soon after chose the spot to carve the inscription which commemorated his victories. Accompanied by a few horsemen, Fravartish escaped to Raga (Rhages) in the second Media but was pursued and brought back. His nose, ears, and tongue were cut off, his eyes were put out, and he was exposed to the sight of all the people until Darius was ready to impale him and to hang his allies in the fortress Ecba- tana. The severity of the punishment and the detail with which it is described indicate how serious was the danger from this Mede.

On May 20 a second Dadarshish, this time an Armenian, defeated his fellow-countrymen at Zuzu. Four days after, Artavardiya defeated, at Rakha of Parsa, the pretender Vahyazdata, who, however, escaped and collected another army at Pishiyauvada. Six days later the Armenian Dadarshish won his second victory at the fort Tigra. On June 11 Vaumisa won his own second victory in the district Autiyara in the Tiyari Mountains, where until our own day the “Assyrian” Christians maintained a precarious independence. On June 30 Dadarshish claimed his third victory at the fort Uyama. How slight were these alleged victories may be realized from the fact that both Vaumisa and Dadarshish had afterward to await the arrival of Darius in person.

Immediately after the execution of Fravartish and with Parsa yet in revolt, Darius left a part of his army in garrison at Ecbatana and late in April hurried north to Raga.Here he still further depleted his reduced forces by sending aid to his father, even now unsuccessful in reducing to obedience his own Parthian subjects. News arrived of the indecisive battles in Assyria and Armenia; Darius turned west by Lake Urumia and the Rowanduz Gorge, reaching Arbela late in July.

Sagartia, the eastern portion of the Median Empire restored by Fravartish, seized the opportunity to rise under the native Sagartian Chithratakhma, who, like Fravartish, claimed to be of the family of Cyaxares. The Persian and Median troops left behind to garrison Ecbatana were led against him by the Mede Takhmaspada, and the rebel was taken in battle. Brought to Darius at Arbela, he suffered the fate of Fravartish.

Hystaspes, with the aid of the Persian army detached by his son from Raga, on July 11 succeeded in finally defeating the opponents of the new regime at Patigrabana, and Parthia at long last was safe. Four days thereafter, Artavardiya crushed Vahyazdata and his newly raised army at Mount Parga. The news of the capture was relayed to Darius, and by royal command the claimant to Bardiya’s name was impaled with his leading officials at Uvadaichaya.

The last known Babylonian tablet to recognize Darius was written at Sippar on September 8. The very next day a tablet dated by Nebuchadnezzar was prepared at Uruk. The revolt had begun at the otherwise unknown village of Dubala, presumably in South Babylonia, though some time elapsed before he could rightfully claim the title “king of Babylon” by the occupation of the capital, which had been accomplished by September 21. Although called by Darius an Armenian, he was not of the recent Aryan hordes who had given that land the name of Armenia. His father’s name, Haldita, reverences Haldish, chief god of the older Haldian population, while Arakha’s flat nose, narrow, half-closed eyes, straight hair, and spiked, out- thrust beard give further indication that in fact he represented this older stratum. On November 27,521, the false Nebuchadnezzar IV—like the third reputed to be a son of Nabunaid—was made captive by Vin- dafarna (Intaphrenes), another of the “Seven.” By royal order, he and the chief citizens who had supported him were impaled at Babylon. The natives long remembered the plunder of the royal tombs, that of Queen Nitocris in particular. In the revolts the satrap Gobryas had disappeared. By March 21, 520, we find a new satrap in Babylonia: Hystanes, as the Greeks called him, but to the natives he was known as Ushtani, governor of Babylon and of Across the River.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND MONUMENT OF DARIUS

By the end of September, 520, a ghost writer had prepared the royal autobiography. Each paragraph was to commence: “Says Darius the king” The story was to tell of Darius* ancestry, of how the Lie made the lands rebellious, and of how he fought nineteen battles and seized nine kings in his successful recovery: “This is what I did during one and the same year after I became king.” Actually the recovery took a little longer, from September 29, 522, to November 27, 521. Statistics of enemy killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, location of places where battles were fought, and dates exact to the day should prove its accuracy.

Let not a future reader consider the account to be a lie; Ahuramazda is the king’s witness that it is true. In fact, much else was done which is not here recorded, lest in future it should seem too much. “Ahuramazda brought me help and the other gods who are’’; unlike Zoroaster, Darius is not quite a strict monotheist. “According to righteousness have I walked; neither to weak nor to strong have I done wrong.’’

Not only did he write in cuneiform—Persian, Elamite, Akkadian: “I made inscriptions in other ways, in Aryan, which was not done before.” Aramaic had already established itself as the normal language of the Achaemenid chancellery in its dealings with the western satrapies, as is amply proved by the royal decrees to the Jews, from the time of Cyrus onward, cited in Ezra; the Aramaic alphabet was now employed to write Persian. The cuneiform of Babylonia was largely written with ideograms in which a single sign might represent a whole word. A few ideograms had survived in Persian cuneiform. Now many Aramaic words were taken over, written with Aramaic signs but to be read as Persian. Thus the Pahlavi system of half-ideographic writing came into use. “It was written and read to me,” is tacit recognition of the ghost writer. The autobiography was then forwarded to all the lands. A stele from Babylon has preserved one section of the Akkadian version. A papyrus from Elephantine indicates that a copy of the Aramaic was prepared for the use of the Jewish mercenary colony; and, when it was worn out by frequent consultation, still another copy was later made.

The full text of the autobiography, in the three official languages which employed cuneiform, Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian, was carved above the spot where the decisive Battle of Kundurush was fought. Below ran the main road from Babylon, through the Zagros Gates, and then along the plateau toward Ecbatana, sixty-five miles to the eastward and hidden behind the second high barrier range. Up a side valley from the Kirmanshah Plain, the line of mountains which shuts in the plain on the east ends abruptly in a towering spur; five hundred feet above a spring-fed pool a cleft in the rock offered a precipitous cliff for the huge inscription and the accompanying panel relief, ten by eighteen feet in size.

Before his royal protege floats Ahuramazda. On his head the bearded god wears the cylindrical hat, flaring at the top and distinguished from the king’s by the horns of divinity and an eight- rayed solar disk, both of immediate Assyrian origin. His garment is the draped robe, whose full sleeve curves down to the braceleted wrists. His left hand grasps the ring which bestows sovereignty on monarchs; his right hand, palm open, is raised in blessing. He is lifted aloft on a huge ring, on either side of which are attached long, almost rectangular, wings, filled with wavy lines and divided into three sections by curls. A sort of tail, treated in the same fashion, is divided into two sections and depends from the ring; from the ring stretch down objects which have been described as two forked lightning bolts but which more probably are to be identified with the clawed legs of the Egyptian vulture-goddess of truth.

Darius, a fine Aryan type with high brow and straight nose, stands his natural height, five feet ten inches. On his head is the war crown, a battlemen ted gold band studded with oval jewels and rosettes. His front hair is carefully frizzed, and his drooping moustache is neatly twirled at the tip; the back hair forms on the neck a large bun which reaches almost to the prominent ear. The square beard is arranged in four rows of curls alternating with straight strands, quite in the manner of those of his Assyrian predecessors. A long robe covers the whole of his stocky body; its skimpy, sharp-pointed sleeves permit only the thick wrists and hands to emerge, and, below, it is draped at the side to allow a glimpse of the trousers and beneath them the low-laced shoes. The king’s left hand grasps the strung bow tipped with a duck’s head; his right is uplifted in worship of Ahuramazda. Behind him stand the bearers of the royal bow and quiver and of the royal spear, presumably Gobryas and Aspathines. They are dressed in much the same costume as their master but are differentiated by rounded beards and by fillets adorned with eight-pointed rosettes.

Down the road, at the Gate of Asia, earlier conquerors had ordered themselves represented in the act of proudly trampling their prostrate enemies. The same attitude was adopted for Darius. Under the king’s left foot, flat on his back and one foot lifted in agony, lies the robed Gaumata, stretching out his hands in vain supplication. Before their conqueror stand the other rebels, their necks roped together, their hands tied behind their backs.

So high is the relief above the road that it is completely dwarfed by its majestic surroundings. We wonder how Darius expected his autobiography, even though inscribed around the relief in the three languages of the cuneiform, to be read by the traveler from below. One’s first view of this famous monument is sure to be a disappointment.

Barely a century had elapsed when it was visited by a Greek physician to one of Darius’ royal descendants. This Ctesias knew that the mountain was named Bagistanus and that it was sacred to the supreme Persian god whom he called Zeus. He saw the park, watered by the great spring, the cliffs whose height he estimated to be over two miles, the inscription in “Syrian letters,’’ and the relief. But the curse of Darius was forgotten; his descendants had not preserved the memory of his deeds or even of his name. Ctesias ignorantly ascribed the monument to the half-fabulous Assyrian Queen Semiramis!

Chapter IX

NEW LAWGIVER

AFTER two years of hard fighting, Darius was finally recognized as king over most of western Asia. A short breathing-spell was at last afforded him to consider the state of the huge empire which had so unexpectedly fallen to his victorious arms. These years of revolt had brought virtual chaos to whole regions and had revealed hitherto unsuspected weaknesses in the imperial structure. Darius was, above all, an administrator by instinct, and throughout the remainder of his long and prosperous reign he was to devote the greater part of his energies to this imperative work of reorganization.

The first question to be decided was the location of the empire’s capital. Even while Parsa was still in revolt, it would seem, he had decided to found a new imperial center in his native land. Meanwhile, as soon as Elam was reconquered, Darius settled down temporarily in Susa, where he began to erect a palace. It was already occupied by the end of the crucial year 521.

Once settled, he turned his attention to his first projected reform—a new law to be enforced upon the whole empire. In his autobiography, composed sometime in 520, he announced: “By the favor of Ahuramazda, these lands walked according to my law; as was to them by me commanded, so they did.” This was no idle boast. Early in 519, still in this same official second year, we find the lawbook already in use among the Babylonians: “According to the king’s law they shall make good” is substituted for the usual guaranty by the seller in a document recording a slave sale.

The term for “law” is new. Instead of the long-familiar “judgments,” we have the good Iranian dat, which we have long known as the Hebrew dath of the Book of Esther, while the data sha sharri of the Babylonian document is exactly identical in meaning with the datha di malka, equally well known from the decree of Artaxerxes I quoted in the Book of Ezra.

That the laws, which together made up the Ordinance of Good Regulations, were collected, revised, and incorporated in the new law- book under the watchful eyes of Darius himself cannot be doubted. It is equally evident that the new book could not have been so quickly formulated had it not been based on one already in use.

BABYLONIAN SOURCES

Commercial Babylonia had, from the beginning of written history, recognized the supremacy of law. The law administered by Babylonian judges was not code law as the term is understood by continental European jurists; rather, it was akin to the common law of Anglo-Saxon nations, which is based on precedents so ancient that the “memory of man runneth not to the contrary”. From these precedents, illustrated by definite cases for each of the various categories of the law, the judge formed his decisions in the specific case before him by the doctrine of logical analogy. For his assistance there was what we would call a casebook, such as is still employed in our own law schools. Though the casebook was promulgated by royal authority and was authenticated by the approval of the gods, in no proper sense should it be entitled a code.

At various times in the later third millennium before our era, casebooks in the current Sumerian were made available. The regular formula for each case was: If a man does thus and so, then certain consequences follow. The same formula was employed by the more famous Hammurabi, whose casebook we possess virtually complete. He claims only that he “established justice and righteousness in the language of the land,” that is, he translated the precedent cases from Sumerian into the now current Akkadian. Actually there is good evidence that there had been a progressive evolution to adapt the ancient case law to more developed legal procedures and to new social and economic conditions.

The original collection of decisions was written down in the ordinary cursive cuneiform on clay tablets to be preserved in the archives of Esagila, the great temple of Marduk, lord of Babylon. How they looked may be realized from contemporary copies made on large rectangular tablets of five or six columns which have been recovered from the ruins of Ekur, temple of a far older god of Nippur—Enlil. For more immediate use this book-hand cuneiform was “transliterated” into the older script still employed for monumental writing and was inscribed on a magnificent diorite stele set up in Esagila, where it could be read to judge and litigant alike. The laws were placed under the protection of the sun-god Shamash, the divine lawgiver, who on the stele is pictured in the act of granting the necessary authority to Hammurabi.

In time an Elamite conqueror carried off the stele to his capital at Susa, where he set it up again in the temple of his own god. This did not mean the loss of the famous casebook to Babylonia. There were duplicate stelae in other cities and copies in other temple libraries. From one of these the casebook became known to the Assyrians, who used it to supplement or perhaps to supplant their own casebook of earlier centuries. Sargon paraphrased one of the most famous statements of Hammurabi’s prologue, and the same statement, “that the strong should not injure the weak,” was quoted literally by his greatgrandson, the scholar-king Ashurbaniapal. Copies of the casebook, one slavishly following the Akkadian original, the other “translated” into Assyrian, bear the library mark of the great collection of ancient literature brought together by order of the same Ashur-bani-apal. They also prove that in Assyria its title was “Judgments of Hammurabi,” though in Babylonia the first line of the work, “When the god Anu the exalted,” remained unchanged as the title, in accordance with general usage.

Continued use of Hammurabi’s collection was possible for well beyond a millennium, since it was not a detailed code demanding constant amendment but was merely a list of key decisions whose precedents might be considered eternally valid. As such, it was adopted for use by the Persian conquerors. Cyrus, in an Akkadian proclamation intended for Babylonian reading, does sincere homage to the great lawbook by imitating its very phraseology. That this was not mere lip service is proved by a document of his third regnal year which bases the decision on the “king’s judgments.”

COMPARISON WITH HAMMURABI’S LAWS

Darius, however, was determined that he should be ranked with Hammurabi as a great lawgiver. Fortune was not kind. While tablet after tablet has been unearthed with extracts from Hammurabi’s casebook, the Ordinance of Good Regulations has been so completely lost that it is actually necessary to prove that it ever existed. The few contemporary references in the business documents do confirm its reality and witness certain legal categories it included, but there is not enough for comparison with the treatment accorded in the earlier lawbook. When, however, we compare the Akkadian texts of certain portions of Darius’ inscriptions with the prologue and epilogue of Hammurabi’s lawbook, we discover so many parallels in vocabulary and phraseology (as in thought and order) that we are convinced the younger statesman copied the elder, and it becomes possible to reconstitute in large degree those sections of Darius’ own composition.

Hammurabi starts off his introduction with the time “when Anu, the exalted, and Enlil, lord of heaven and earth, committed to Marduk, firstborn son of Enki, lordship of all men, when they pronounced the lofty name of Babylon, made it great among the quarters of the earth, and in its midst established for him an everlasting kingdom whose foundations were firm as heaven and earth.’’

In sharpest contrast to the Babylonian polytheist, Darius was almost—though not quite—a monotheist: “A great god is Ahuramazda, who created this earth, who created yonder sky, who created man, who created favor for man, who made Darius king, one king of many, one lord of many.’’ “A great god is Ahuramazda, who gave this beautiful work, who gave favor to man, who gave wisdom and friendliness to Darius the king.’’

Hammurabi claims that he rules according to the will of the gods: “At that time Anu and Enlil named me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, the worshiper of the gods, to cause righteousness to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from injuring the weak, to go forth like the sun over the blackheaded people, to enlighten the land, and to further the welfare of the people.’’

“I am Darius, the great king, king of kings, king of lands of every tongue, king of this great distant territory, son of Hystaspes, Achaemenid, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, of Aryan seed,” boasts his successor. “Darius the king thus says: When Ahuramazda saw that these lands were hostile, and against one another they fought, afterward he gave it to me. And I, over it for kingship he appointed me. I am king. In the protection of Ahuramazda, I established them in their place And what I said to them they did according to my will.”

“Much which had been made ill I made for good. There were lands which to one another were hostile, their men killed one another. This I did, in the protection of Ahuramazda, so that these should not kill one another. Each man in his place I established, and before my own judgments they were fearful, so that the strong man should not kill and should not injure the mushkinu." Here Darius is not only paraphrasing a well-known passage in the preceding lawbook, repeated by Hammurabi in both introduction and conclusion; he is using the archaic term for “serf” quite unknown from late Babylonian sources though only too common in a lawbook where the social classes were not equal before the law.

Hammurabi had placed his stele under the protection of Shamash; Darius likewise made it known that his own god was the actual lawgiver: “O man, what is the command of Ahuramazda, let this not seem repugnant to you; do not depart from righteousness, do not revolt.”

Immediately after his introduction, Hammurabi had given a long list of the cities and temples, both within and without Babylonia, which he had restored or which had profited by his benefactions. Incidentally, the list testified to the wide extent of his rule. Darius insists: “In the protection of Ahuramazda, these are the lands which I seized beyond Parsa, and I am their ruler, and tribute they brought to me. And what by me was said to them, that they did. And my own judgments restrained them.” Regularly at this point a list of the satrapies follows, always revised to be up to date. For the full list might be substituted: “Parsa, Media, and the other lands of other tongues, of the mountains and of the lands, of those this side of the sea and that side of the sea, this side of the desert and that side of the desert.”

From these close parallels to the prologue we turn to similar parallels with Hammurabi’s epilogue:

[These are] the righteous judgments which Hammurabi the wise king established and gave the land a firm support and a gracious rule. Hammurabi the perfect king am I. I was not careless nor was I neglectful of the black heads whom Bel presented to me and whose care Marduk gave to me. Regions of peace I spied out for them, grievous difficulties I overcame; I caused light to shine forth for them. With the powerful weapons which Zamama and Innanna intrusted to me, with the breadth of vision which Ea allotted to me, with the might which Marduk gave me, I expelled the enemy north and south; I made an end to their raids. I promoted the welfare of the land. I made the peoples rest in habitations of security. I permitted no one to molest them.

The great gods have named me, and I am the guardian shepherd whose scepter is righteous; my beneficent shadow is spread over the city. In my bosom I have carried the peoples of the land of Sumer and of Akkad, under my protection I have led their brethren into security. With my wisdom I covered them. That the strong should not injure the weak, and that they should give justice to the orphan and the widow in Babylon, the city whose head Anu and Enlil raised aloft, in Esagila, the temple whose foundations stand firm as heaven and earth, to pronounce judgments for the land, to render decisions for the land, to give justice to the oppressed, my weighty words I have written upon my stele, and in the presence of the image of me, king of righteousness, I have set it up.

The king who is pre-eminent among kings am I; my words are precious, my wisdom is unrivaled. By the command of Shamash, the great judge of heaven and earth, may I make righteousness to shine forth on the land. By the word of Marduk my lord may there be none to set aside my statutes. In Esagila, which I love, may my name be remembered with favor forever.

Let any oppressed man who has a case come before the image of me, the king of righteousness. Let him have read to him the writing on my stele. Let him give heed to my weighty words. May my stele enlighten him as to his case and may he understand his case. May it set his heart at ease. Let him proclaim aloud: “Hammurabi is indeed a ruler who is like a true father to his people. He has given reverence to the word of Marduk his lord. He has obtained Marduk’s victory to north and to south. He has made glad the heart of Marduk his lord. He has established prosperity for the people for all time and has led the land aright.” Let him pray with his whole heart before Marduk my lord and Zarpanit my lady. May the protecting deities, the gods who enter Esagila, the walls of Esagila, make his thoughts acceptable daily before Marduk my lord and Zarpanit my lady.

Darius the king thus says: In the protection of Ahuramazda, I am of such a character: What is right I love and what is not right I hate. Never has it happened that any serf should make difficulty for a citizen and never has it happened that a citizen has made difficulty for a serf. What is right I love. The man who decides for the Lie I hate. I am not one who is angry and whoever is angry by my heart I restrain. And whoever injures, according to what he has injured I punish. And it has never happened that when he has injured he has not been punished. Of the man who speaks against the truth, never do I trust a word.

As the first of the cases brought together in his lawbook, Hammurabi had cited those which deal with evidence; so Darius is here directing attention to the rules of evidence he himself has laid down. This group of precedents is ended by the case of the judge who reverses his own decision; Darius proclaims that he, too, is impartial, punishing the wicked but rewarding the good. In the Persian edition this passage appears as: “What a man says against a man does not convince me until he satisfies the Ordinance of Good Regulations. What a man does or performs for others according to his ability, I am satisfied and my pleasure is great and I am well satisfied.”

Like Hammurabi, Darius has no hesitation in praising himself:

Of such a character is my understanding and my command. When what has been done by me you shall see or hear, in the palace or in the camp, behold this my activity; over and above my thinking power and understanding; this is indeed my activity.

In so far as my body has strength, as a warrior I am a good warrior. Once let there be seen with understanding in the place of battle, what I see hostile, what I see not, with understanding and with command then I am first to think of friendly acts, when I see an enemy as when I see one who is not.

Trained am I both with hands and with feet. As a horseman I am a good horseman. As a bowman I am a good bowman both afoot and on horseback. As a spearman I am a good spearman both afoot and on horseback. And the skills which Ahuramazda has bestowed upon me, and I have had strength to use them, by the favor of Ahuramazda what has been done by me I have done with those skills which Ahuramazda has bestowed upon me.

This paragraph of the inscription on Darius’ tomb was translated to Alexander the Great in abbreviated form: “I was a friend to my friends. As horseman and bowman I proved myself superior to all others. As huntsman I prevailed. I could do everything.”

Darius ends his admonitions with fresh instructions for his subjects:

“Underling, vigorously make known how great I am and how great my skills, and how great my superiority. Let that not seem trifling which has been heard by your ear. Then hear what is communicated to you. Underling, let not that be made trifling to you which has been done by me. Let not the king inflict punishment.”

From the Babylonians, Hammurabi turned to his successors:

In days to come, for all time, let the king who arises in the land observe the words of righteousness which I have written upon my stele. Let him not alter the judgments of the land which I have pronounced, the decisions of the country which I have rendered. Let him not blot out my images. If that man have wisdom and be able to guide his land aright, let him give attention to the words which I have written upon my stele. May this stele enlighten him as to procedure and administration, the judgments of the land which I have pronounced, and the decisions of the land which I have rendered. And let him guide aright his black heads. Let him pronounce his judgments and render his decisions. Let him root out the wicked and the evil-doer from his land. Let him promote the welfare of his people.

Hammurabi, king of righteousness, to whom Shamash has given laws, am I. My words are weighty, my deeds unrivaled, too lofty for the fool, without difficulty for the intelligent, sent forth for honor. If that man gives heed to my words which I have written upon my stele, does not blot out my judgments, does not suppress my words, and does not alter my statutes, may Shamash prolong that man’s reign as he has mine, who is king of righteousness. If that man does not heed my words, which I have written upon my stele, if he ignores my curses and does not fear the curses of the god, if he blots out the judgments which I have formulated, suppresses my words, alters my statutes, and blots out the writing of my name and writes his own, then may Anu [and a long list of other gods] curse him.

Darius had no fear of these alien gods and did not hesitate to substitute his own name. But, with a sublime faith that a curse by the almighty Ahuramazda would be more effective than one by the numerous Babylonian divinities, he actually lifted Hammurabi’s cursing formulas for his own use, while in other respects closely imitating his predecessor’s eloquent appeal:

Darius the king thus says: You who may be king hereafter, of lies beware. The man who lies destroy utterly, if you would speak, saying: “My land shall remain whole."

Darius the king thus says: This which I have done in the protection of Ahuramazda I have done in the same year. You who shall hereafter read what I have done—the writing which on a stele is written—believe me; for a lie do not take it.

Darius the king thus says: I call Ahuramazda to witness that it is true and not lies, all that I have done in one year.

Darius the king thus says: In the protection of Ahuramazda there is also much which I have done which is not written on this stele; for this reason it has not been written lest he who should read this writing hereafter should not believe all that I have done, but should speak, saying: “They are lies."

Darius the king thus says: Among the kings who were before me it was never done as by me in the protection of Ahuramazda in one year.

Darius the king thus says: Do you believe what I have done, and the true word speak to the people. If you do not conceal this word but tell it to the people, then may Ahuramazda be your friend, may your seed be numerous, and may your days be long. But if you should blot out these words, may Ahuramazda slay you and may your house be destroyed.

Darius the king thus says: This is what I have done in one year. In the protection of Ahuramazda have I done it. Ahuramazda was my strong help and the other gods who are.

Darius the king thus says: For this reason Ahuramazda brought me help, and the other gods who are, because I was not wicked nor was I a liar nor did I do any wrong whatever, neither I nor my seed. According to the judgments I continued, to the powerful and the serf alike no violence have I done.

When this stele you see and these images you do not destroy, but so long as is your strength you preserve them, may Ahuramazda be your friend and may your seed be made numerous, may your days be lengthened, may Ahuramazda extend them, and may whatever you do be successful.

Darius the king thus says: If you see this stele and these images and destroy them, and before this image do not offer sacrifice, and to its place do not restore it: may Ahuramazda curse you, and your seed may there not be, and what you make may Ahuramazda pull down!

In view of all these detailed parallels, there can no longer be any reasonable doubt that Darius and his legal advisers had before them an actual copy of Hammurabi’s lawbook. Quite possibly he used the original stele, preserved in the temple of Inshushinak at Susa; or perhaps the tablets in late Babylonian writing of which fragments have been unearthed were copied for translation and adaptation. At any rate, reference to a stele is incongruous when applied to a rock-cut relief and inscription. “This image,” then, refers, not to the figure of Darius overcoming his enemies on the Behistun rock, but to the royal portrait which, like that of Hammurabi, topped the stele. We may obtain some conception of the stele on which the original Ordinance of Good Regulations was presented to the Babylonians from the fragment of the Akkadian version of the autobiography on a diorite slab discovered in the northern palace at Babylon.

An explanatory passage, not required in the Akkadian, ends the inscription as prepared for the Behistun rock: “Thus says Darius the king: By the will of Ahuramazda I made stelae of other sorts, which was not done before, on baked tablets and on prepared leather. My name and my seal I ordered affixed upon them. Writing and order were read before me. Then I had these stelae carried into all distant lands to my subjects.” The lawbook was therefore intended for all the peoples of western Asia and not for the Babylonians alone. The parchments were, of course, in Aramaic, and thus the lawbook was made available for all who knew the language of current business and diplomacy.

ADMINISTRATION OF DARIUS’ LAWS

While it is possible from the numerous inscriptions of Darius to reconstruct almost the whole of the introduction and conclusion of the lawbook, we know little of the various sections in detail. Something we may glean from incidental references in Babylonian or Aramaic documents or from stories told by Greeks or Jews. According to Herodotus, “the royal assessors are men who have been chosen from the Persians to be so until they die or until they are detected in some unjust action; they decide lawsuits for the Persians and interpret the ancestral precepts. Everything is referred to them.” As a Jewish writer puts it, these royal judges were “the wise men who knew the times, who knew law (dat) and judgment, the seven princes of Persia and Media, who saw the king’s face and sat first in the kingdom.”

Darius, like Hammurabi, laid special weight on the rules for evidence. Like his predecessors, he insisted on the incorruptibility of the royal judges. Herodotus has a tale in point. One judge, Sisamnes, had given an unjust judgment in return for a bribe; Cambyses slaughtered him like a sheep and flayed him. Then from the skin he caused leather strips to be tanned and with them covered the judgment seat of the son Otanes, who was appointed to the father’s office with the grim admonition to remember on what he sat. No wonder the Jews spoke of the “law of the Medes and Persians which alters not” and announced that “no edict or statute which the king establishes may be changed.’’

Sandoces, son of Thamasius, was another royal judge who took a bribe. He was promptly ordered to be punished by crucifixion and was already on the cross when his life was saved by a curious whim of his royal master. In his lawbook Darius had made it clear that he was impartial, punishing the wicked but balancing up the good deeds against the evil. The actual provision is given by Herodotus, who considers it most worthy of praise: “On account of one crime not even the king himself may slay anyone, nor may any of the other Persians inflict upon his own slaves a fatal punishment for a single crime. Rather, not until he has reckoned them up and has found that the unjust deeds are more numerous and greater than his services may he give rein to his wrath.’’ So Darius, after Sandoces had been actually hung on the cross, made his reckoning and discovered that the good he had done for the royal house was more than his sins against it. He was therefore released and made governor of Aeolian Cyme.

Babylonian documents tell us something about the administration of the laws. One of 512 speaks of the official who is over the dat; his title, iahudanu., is not Babylonian and may be the original Iranian. Another of 486 reports that two officials had imposed a new toll upon the barley, wheat, and mustard which were being cleared through the storehouse on a Babylonian canal. To the request for explanation, they answered: “It was decided, before the judges it was recorded; according to the king’s law the toll for the king’s house he shall give. In our language, the question as to the legality of the new tax was brought before the court; the decision was given according to the precedents in the new casebook and was, naturally, in favor of the government.

Punishments for crimes were severe. As a matter of course, offenses against the state, against the person of the king or of his family, or even against his property were liable to the death penalty. Of this character is the majority of punishments described by the Greek authors; they were often horrible. There is little information on the punishment for ordinary crimes, but mutilation of hands or feet or blinding appear to have been common.

The earliest reference to the new law shows that it contained regulations for slave sales. A later reference indicates that one provision dealt with bailments: “according to the king’s dat which in regard to deposits is written”. For the rest, there is no suggestion in the numerous business documents from the reign or from its immediate successors that the provisions of Hammurabi’s lawbook did not remain valid.

SURVIVAL OF DARIUS ’ LAWS

To the end of his life Darius continued to express his pride in his Ordinance of Good Regulations. His reputation as a lawgiver survived him. To Plato, Darius was the lawgiver whose laws had preserved the Persian Empire to the philosopher’s own day. As late as 218, well into the Seleucid period, the king’s dat was still quoted as authoritative.

If this is all we learn of the contents of Darius’ lawbook from cuneiform tablets, perhaps we may discover other references or even a few fragments of the actual work incorporated in an Iranian lawbook of the second century, which continues the use of dat for “law,” for its title is the Videvdat, the Antidemonic Law. Again comparison with Hammurabi’s lawbook is most instructive.

Hammurabi begins his citation of precedents with those relating to evidence . As test of the trustworthiness of a witness an ordeal is employed: throwing the accused witness into the river; the Antidemonic Law orders rather the ordeal of boiling water, and the appeal is to another sun-god, not Shamash but Mithra, the guarantor of agreements. In a capital case the false witness is punished by Hammurabi with death. The later lawbook punishes the false witness in this world with what seems its equivalent—seven hundred stripes—and in the world to come by pains so severe that they would be worse than mutilation of limbs by knives, than nailing of bodies in crucifixion, than being hurled down cliffs, or than impalement. Harsh penalties against perjury once inflicted by an Achaemenid royal judge have now been transferred to the afterlife.

Another subsection of the civil law deals with assault and battery. The antiquity of its provisions is shown by the fact that, like the precedents cited by Hammurabi, each begins “If a man," suggesting that the whole subsection is derived from Darius’ lawbook. First is a definition of terms: If a man rises up with a weapon in his hand, he is a “seizer;” if he swings it, he is a “brandisher”, if he strikes the man with malice prepense, he is a “smiter”; on the fifth smiting offense, he becomes a “sinner,” a habitual criminal.

The penalty for “seizing” is five stripes with the whip for the first offense, ten for the second, and so on up to ninety. If he smites up to eight times without paying the appropriate penalty, he becomes a habitual criminal and receives the appropriate punishment—two hundred lashes. For “brandishing,” the first penalty is ten stripes and after that the number rises in the same proportion. For smiting until the blood comes, until a bone is broken, or until the man dies, the accused is given two hundred lashes.

Equally clear through its relationship to Hammurabi’s lawbook is the section dealing with physicians. Hammurabi announces that if a physician operates with a bronze knife on a man and the man dies or loses his eye, they shall cut off his hand; thus the physician is effectually prevented from further surgical activity. According to our Iranian lawbook, no doubt adapted from that of Darius, death of three worshipers of the demons while the physician is learning his trade debars him from further practice, and if he then even dares cut one of the faithful, the punishment is that for wilful murder.

Hammurabi also decreed a tariff of prices for the various operations, based as with modern surgeons on the ability of the men benefited to pay. Exactly the same attitude is taken by the author of the lawbook quoted in this section of the Antidemonic Law. The house master is assessed merely the price of a cheap ox, the village chief one of medium worth, the city head one of high value, but the lord of a subprovince the value of a chariot and four. If he heals their wives, his pay is somewhat less: the price of a she-ass, a cow, a mare, or a she-camel. Cure of the heir of a great house demands the price of an expensive ox.

According to Hammurabi, the cattle doctor who saves the life of an ox or ass must be paid by the owner a sixth of a shekel, but if the operation causes its death, he must pay the owner a quarter of its value. So, too, our lawbook: He shall heal an ox of high value for one of low value as pay, one of low value for the cost of a sheep, and a sheep for the price of a piece of meat.

The final compilation of the canonical Antidemonic Law took place during the reign of Mithradates the Great, king of kings, ruler of Parthia. Naturally, he was particularly interested in Mithra, the guardian of the plighted word, and so began his exposition of the civil law with contracts. Yet it is significant of an earlier source that he actually ascribes the listing of the six forms of contract to Ahura- mazda, whom Darius had long since announced as the true divine author of his own law. These six forms, then, are the word contract, the hand contract, and the contract to the amount of a sheep, an ox, a man, and a field; evidently our editor does not understand the exact technical meaning which we can guess from contemporary documents from Achaemenid Babylonia. Before he has mentioned contracts for the delivery of goods and for the purchase of a wife, in a passage without any context he recalls the pledge of ox or garment wrongfully detained.As to the six forms of contract, our editor knows only that they rank in importance in the order of the list, that the lower is canceled by the execution of the next higher type of contract in the list, and that for nonexecution the damages are also those for the higher. One question especially intrigues him: How long are the next of kin—to the ninth degree—held responsible for breach of contract? For from three hundred to a thousand years, while the sinner himself suffers three hundred to a thousand stripes according to the enormity of his offense. He who does not restore the loan to the lender steals it; every day and every night that he retains his neighbor’s property in his house as if it were his own he repeats his sin. In the lawbook of Darius the crime of theft was presumably punished according to the prescriptions of Hammurabi with multiple restitution or by deathHammurabi cites the precedent for seduction of a betrothed maid still living in her father’s house; the man shall be killed and the woman be free. The Iranian legist looks at the matter somewhat differently: If a man seduces a girl, whether a dependent of the family head or not, whether already contracted to a husband or not, and she conceives by him, she must not produce an abortion for shame of the people; both her father and herself shall suffer the penalty for wilful murder. If she reports the fact to her seducer and he advises resort to the old woman, and by means of her drugs an abortion is produced, all three are guilty. The seducer must support her but only until the child is born; as yet there is no hint of public acknowledgment of the child or of consequent marriage. If he will not support her and the child dies, it is wilful murder.

From contemporary Babylonian documents, from the statements in the official Achaemenid records, from Greek writers, and from the later Iranian lawbooks, we have collected various indications of the contents of Darius’ law. For the most part, the test has been agreement or deliberate recasting of the precedents cited by Hammurabi. Such a test has already made clear the elements in the so-called “Covenant Code’’ of the Hebrews which are thus dependent on Hammurabi, and a similar test has here been employed for Darius. Other material may later be detected, but here is presented virtually all that can be recovered of the once famous King’s Law prepared for Darius.

ENFORCEMENT OF REFORM

How the new reforms worked may be seen from Babylonian documents. Cyrus had left the internal administration unchanged, and native officials had been retained in their former posts. But his attempt to infuse new life into ancient forms had proved a failure. Darius initiated sweeping reforms. By March 21, 520, as we have seen, Gobryas had been supplanted as satrap of Babylon and Across the River by Hystanes. Soon Persians appeared in the subordinate offices and sat with natives on the bank of judges. New taxes, enforced by new officials, made their appearance.

These reforms may be illustrated by the case of our rascally old acquaintance Gimillu, son of Innina-shum-ibni, who, as we now discover, was nothing but a serf dedicated to the goddess of Uruk. During the nominal “first year” of Darius, from September 9 to November 27 of 521, Babylonia had been in revolt under the last Nebuchadnezzar. Gimillu took advantage of the consequent breakdown of governmental control. He had been given a thousand kur of seed barley, two hundred oxen to work the irrigating machines, and iron for making them; in return he was to furnish the Uruk temple ten thousand kur of barley and twelve thousand of dates. At the respective harvests he defaulted, saying that he would pay nothing unless he were given in addition four hundred peasants, six hundred oxen, and another thousand kur of seed barley. In that case, he would promise to give in the future the ten thousand kur of barley and the twelve thousand kur of dates. “Otherwise I will not give them. The privilege of that rental, if you wish, give me’’. But times had changed. A fellow-serf who was in charge of the “basket” of Eanna made a better bid and on July 12, 520, secured the contract, which was assigned in the assembly of the citizens of Babylon and Uruk by the three high officials, Bel-iddina, administrator of Eanna, Nergal-shar- usur, the deputy, and Bariki-ili, the head man of the king.

In fear of arrest, Gimillu fled, but not until he had turned over the documents concerning the dates and the payment on the fields belonging to the divinities of Uruk to his brother Iddina. Andia, Iddina’s wife, deposited the documents in the house of a slave who carried them off. The same high officials demanded the documents. Brought into the citizen assembly, Iddina swore by Bel, Nabu, and King Darius that no one had taken them, at least so far as he was aware. When they inquired why he had not handed over the documents, Iddina justified his action by declaring that Gimillu himself had warned him: “Do not give my documents to anyone else!” With this last defiance to constituted authority, Gimillu disappears from the scene.

But the documents were recovered. On the same September 3, 520, on which the last document was written, we have another recording the dates which Gimillu had received for the last year.Constituted authority had won.

Chapter X

FROM INDIA TO EUROPE

EVEN before Egypt was recovered, Darius was thinking of new conquests to round off his frontiers. Among the captives brought to Susa from the retainers of Oroetes was his private physician, the famous Democedes of Italian Croton. Lost at first amid the crowd of slaves, he was remembered when the Egyptians, hitherto enjoying a monopoly of court practice, failed to cure a sprain of the royal foot. Although richly rewarded and given a seat at the king’s own table, Democedes thought only of home; through the intercession of his patient, Queen Atossa, he persuaded the king to dispatch him from Sidon on a preliminary survey of the western coastlands. Although he himself escaped to Croton, his Persian companions ultimately returned to Darius with the first reports on the European Greeks.

Fortunately for Darius, just as this time there was present at Susa another Greek, Syloson, brother of Polycrates, who as an exile from Samos in Egypt had given his red cloak to the spearbearer of Cambyses. Now that Darius was king, Syloson had identified himself as the royal benefactor; he wished no other reward than restoration to Samos. Otanes was placed in charge of the expedition, and the opponents of Syloson agreed to leave the island without fighting; a treacherous attack on the leading Persians induced Otanes to depopulate Samos, though later he aided Syloson in its resettlement. The first step had been taken toward the conquest of the European Greeks.

STIRRINGS OF NATIONALISM IN JUDAH

Egypt was in revolt and must be reconquered. As preliminary to its successful invasion, the territory which controlled the desert route to the Nile had to be firmly held. Syria was part of the province Across the River, which since the conquest of Cyrus had been joined administratively to Babylonia, united, the two formed the satrapy Babylon and Across the River. Its loyalty must have been seriously compromised through the twice-repeated uprisings of Babylon under the two Nebuchadnezzars. Could Palestine, the one available bridgehead across the desert, be held quiet by a Jewish prince who owed his position to court favor, the invasion of Egypt should proceed as smoothly as did that of Cambyses.

At the court of Darius was the youthful Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, eldest son of Jehoiachin, a former king of Judah whom Amel-Marduk, in reaction against his father Nebuchadnezzar’s policy, had planned to restore to the throne. This Zerubbabel was chosen to be governor of Judah, shortly after the New Year’s celebration, April 3, 520, he set out from the royal presence and after a journey of something less than four months reached Jerusalem about the beginning of August. Arrival of a Davidic prince encouraged nationalistic hopes. Soon after his appearance, on August 29, Zerubbabel and the high priest, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, were met by a prophet named Haggai, who brought them a “word of the Lord.’’ Eighteen years after the foundations were laid, the people were still excusing themselves: “The time has not yet come for God’s house to be built.” Fiercely Haggai reproached them: “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in paneled houses while this house is in ruins?” For this reason, he announced, God had refused to bestow upon them the blessing of prosperity; let them ascend the mountain and cut wood to build the house, then God would be pleased and manifest his Glory.

Of itself, such action portended revolt, which was hinted by the last phrase. Nevertheless, the work of rebuilding was begun on September 21, and six days later the altar of burned offerings was set up and in use. But the new structure now arising was so obviously inferior to the old that the aged men who in their youthful days had seen Solomon’s temple wept. To counteract this feeling of discouragement, Haggai on October 17 announced a new “word of the Lord”: “Who is there among you who saw this house in its former glory, and how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes as nothing? Nevertheless, be strong and work, for I am with you and my spirit abides among you. Fear not! For thus says the Lord of Hosts: Yet a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations. Likewise the treasures of all nations shall come, and this house I shall fill with wealth. Mine is the silver and mine the gold; the future wealth of this place shall be greater than in the past, and in this place will I give peace.”

Those who opposed this wild project for declaring Jewish independence might cite the news of one victory of Darius after another over the various rebels who declared themselves native kings. Among these opponents was presumably the high priest, more in touch with current events and—after being so long recognized as the one official head of the Jewish community—scarcely prepared to welcome renewed subordination to an earthly monarch.

A few days after Haggai’s prediction, sometime after October 27, he was supported by Zechariah, Iddo’s son, himself a priest. By this date the writings of the prophets who lived in the days of the kingdom had become virtually canonical, and to them Zechariah appealed in the Lord’s name: “Be not as your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached: ‘Thus says the Lord of Hosts: Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds,’ but they did not hearken to me. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? They repented and said: ‘As the Lord of Hosts proposed to do to us, according to our ways and our doings, so he has done to us.’ ”Their descendants should listen to Haggai, like the former prophets a speaker of the “word of God.”

Meanwhile, representatives of the mixed population colonized by the Assyrians in Shechem had offered to take part in rebuilding the temple. The offer was made in good faith, for since the deportation the colonists had worshiped the Hebrew local god, though retaining their former divinities. Joshua apparently was inclined to accept their assistance, for throughout the Achaemenid period the high priests were regularly on good terms with their Samaritan neighbors. Haggai, on the contrary, was no cautious administrator but a fiery prophet, a strict monotheist, and an ardent nationalist. On December 18 he issued a solemn warning against the pollution which would be incurred by the people if they accepted the proffered aid. That same day came a second prophecy. Once before he had declared that heaven and hearth would be shaken. To it was now added the overthrow of the thrones of the gentile kingdoms, destruction of the might of these nations, the overturn of the chariots and their riders; the horses and their riders should fall, each by the sword of his brother. To symbolize divine abandonment of Jehoiachin, Jeremiah had used the plucked-off ring; for his grandson the symbol was reversed: “In that day, says the Lord of Hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, and will make you a signet.’’

Destruction of Babylonian hopes of independence by the capture and death of the second Nebuchadnezzar only fanned higher the expectations of the Jewish nationalists. Toward the end of the year four men set out from Babylon for Jerusalem. They bore gifts of silver and gold from which, in the sequel, a crown was made for the awaited king of the Jews. Their arrival was announced by Zechariah on February 15, 519, in a long prophecy filled with apocalyptic imagery. Concealment was thrown aside; by a punning interpretation of Zerubbabel’s name, “Seed of Babylon,’’ the intended monarch was plainly indicated: “Thus says the Lord of Hosts: Behold the man whose name is the Shoot, for he shall shoot up and shall build the temple of the Lord. He shall assume majesty and rule upon his throne.” Other prophets whose names remain unknown issued even more poetic appeals for recognition of the “Shoot.”

Through his life at the royal court, Zerubbabel must have become well acquainted with the strength of the Persian army. His long journey to Jerusalem had taught him more about the empire. For him, therefore, there could be no lure in the proffered crown. But the zealots, if impractical, were insistent; by their well-circulated prophecies they had placed him in so ambiguous a position that he might justifiably be accused of high treason against his royal benefactor. That the high priest was for obviously selfish reasons cold toward the effort to elevate his natural rival indicated added necessity for caution.

Although the zealots were grooming Zerubbabel for independent rule, in point of fact he was only a governor of the third rank. His immediate superior was Tattenai, governor of Across the River, who in turn was under the authority of Hystanes, satrap of Babylon and Across the River. Hints of the projected revolt came to royal attention; we may even suspect that the high priest himself was not without blame in the matter. While all the Jews were busily engaged in the work of restoration, suddenly Tattenai appeared and demanded: “Who gave you permission to build this house and to complete this foundation?” To his astonishment, the elders boldly replied: “We are servants of the God of heaven and earth. We are rebuilding the house which was built many years before this, which a great king of Israel built and completed. But after our fathers had provoked to wrath the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the Chaldaean, who destroyed this house and deported the people to Babylon. But in the first year of Cyrus, king of Babylon, Cyrus the king issued a decree to rebuild this house of God. Also the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple which was in Jerusalem and had brought into the temple of Babylon, these Cyrus took out from the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered to a man, Sheshbazzar by name, whom he had made governor. And he said to him: ‘Take these vessels and place them in the temple which is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt in its place.’ Then came this Sheshbazzar and laid the foundations of the house of God which is in Jerusalem. And since that time until now it has been building and is not yet completed.”

Evidently, Tattenai did not believe them, despite the clever reference to an early Nebuchadnezzar which was sure to recall the two rebels of the same name who had just been put down. He could not, however, reject offhand a claim that the temple rebuilding had been authorized by the empire’s founder himself. He therefore prepared a report: “Tattenai, governor of Across the River, Shathraburzana (probably the Aramaic secretary with an Iranian name), and the associated officials of Across the River, to Darius the king, All peace! Be it known to the king that we went into the province of Judah, to the house of the great God, which is being built with hewn stones, and timbers are being set in the wall, and the work is being completed with diligence.” This was an unusually strong construction; the temple mount could serve as a fortress in time of revolt, and the governor definitely implied that in his opinion the work should be halted. Already he had taken down in writing the names of the elders who were conducting the work, ready to punish them if their extraordinary claim proved to be false. In conclusion he wrote: “And now, if it seems good to the king, let a search be made in the royal archives which are there in Babylon to find out whether a decree was made by King Cyrus to build this house of God in Jerusalem, and let the king send us his pleasure regarding this matter.’’

In the natural course of administration, Tattenai’s report passed through the hands of his superior, the satrap in Babylon. Search was made in the '‘house of books”—in Babylon as at Persepolis an adjunct of the treasury. When no such decree was found, it was remembered —fortunately for the Jewish elders—that before his first official year Cyrus had returned to Ecbatana. Search was then extended to the fortress in that city, and their claim was proved justified. The actual decree was indeed not found, but the register roll was there. Under date of Cyrus’ first year appeared the abstract of a decree restoring various temples, one paragraph of which read: “As for the house of God which is at Jerusalem, let the house be built, the place where they offer sacrifice continually; its height shall be ninety feet and its breadth ninety feet, with three courses of great stones and one of timber. And let its expenses be given out of the king’s house. Furthermore, let the gold and silver utensils of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple which is in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be restored and brought again to the temple which is in Jerusalem, each to its place. And you shall put them in the house of God.”

The elders were fully vindicated. Cyrus had authorized the rebuilding of the temple, and a decree by the empire’s founder could not be lightly disregarded, especially by a usurper whose throne was yet somewhat shaky. Furthermore, the Jewish community was small and was ruled by the king’s own personal representative who should have had better judgment than to permit himself to be pushed into a hopeless rebellion by a band of wild-eyed prophets. At any rate, Darius intended to visit Judah in person before another year had passed. Once he had shown himself in all his regal glory, even the prophets must realize that revolt was no longer possible.

FURTHER VICTORIES FOR DARIUS

This same year 519 had seen fresh victories of Darius to chronicle. When Atamaita (Atta-hamitu) of Elam had started a revolt, Gobryas nipped it in the bud; the rebel was brought to Darius, by whose orders he was put to death. Later in the year Darius himself had invaded the land of the eastern Scyths, had crossed by raft the Caspian Sea, and had inflicted a severe defeat on the Pointed-Cap Saka. The fugitives were captured, bound, and led to their death at the royal hands, as was Skunkha, their chief. Revenge had been taken on the Massagetae for their slaying of Cyrus, but the time was not ripe for the organization of a second Scythian satrapy: “There I made another chief as was my pleasure; afterward the land became mine”. The satrapy was now divided into the Saka of the marshlands and the Saka of the plains.

The space on the Behistun rock had been utilized to the full. Literature now gave way to portraiture, and a part of the side inscription was cut avray to add Skunkha as the ninth rebel. On his head is the fool’s cap, half Skunkha’s own height, which gave his people their title of Khauda-tigra-baraty, “Pointed-Hat-Bearing.’’ His back hair is set in a stiff upward curl ending in a knot, his beard is extraordinarily long and flowing, and he wears a short skirt and boots. An appendix was added in a fifth column. After this last improvement, the whole rock surface below was carefully smoothed to prevent direct access. This precaution has saved inscription and relief from vandalism, but it has delayed exact copy to our own day.

PEACE IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE

In the winter of 519-518, Darius was on the march to the west.Palestine lay on his road, and no doubt he paused long enough to settle its affairs. Perhaps we have a cryptic allusion to what happened in the prophecy which Zechariah delivered about a year later: “Before these days, there was no hire for man or beast [they were impressed for army service], and there was no safety for him who went in or came out on account of the enemy.” Zerubbabel presumably was summoned to account and was executed as a rebel, for his name disappears from our sources.

After the settlement of the Jewish problem, Darius took the road across the Arabian Desert and reached Memphis without incident. He found the inhabitants mourning the Apis bull who, discovered in the reign of Cambyses, had just passed away on August 31, 518. Determined to win back his recalcitrant subjects, the king ordered that a hundred gold talents be granted to the native responsible for the discovery of the new Apis; amazed by such generosity to their god, the people no longer stirred up revolt but submitted to Darius. With the ceremonies of his predecessors, the dead Apis was entombed on November 8, though as usual no “Horus name” was added to that of Darius on the stele. Almost immediately Darius left Egypt, for Aryandes had been reinstated as satrap.

Already Darius had prepared his lawbook for western Asia. In Egypt he found that he had also been anticipated. Not only did the natives attribute laws to Menes, the founder of a united Nile kingdom—quite as the Hebrews did to their own founder Moses—but they credited later revisions to certain later monarchs such as Sesostris, Shishak, and Bocchoris. Amasis had planned a recodification of Egyptian law but died before the project had gotten well under way. Cambyses had then taken up the plan but lost his life on the homeward journey.

Before December 30, 518, Darius wrote his satrap, the reinstated Aryandes : “Let them bring to me the wise men among the warriors, priests, and scribes of Egypt, who have assembled from the temples, and let them write down the former laws of Egypt until year XLIV of Pharaoh Amasis. The law of Pharaoh, temple, and people let them bring here.” Unlike previous lawbooks, that of Darius was not to be confined to royal decrees; religious practices—what we might call “canon law”—and the hitherto unwritten customary procedure were also to be standardized.

After but a few months by the Nile, Darius was returning home.

On his way he could observe that Jerusalem was quiet. Hope of a national king had been rudely destroyed, and it would be henceforth necessary only to keep in check the high priest, the one recognized head of the Jewish people. Jewish aspirations now centered about the temple at Jerusalem, which Darius wisely permitted to reach completion. Zechariah, in his last recorded prophecy, December 6, 518, abandoned all thought of revolt and announced that the national God had returned to his former place of abode; by his presence alone he would bring to his worshipers prosperity undreamed. On March 12, 515, the temple was actually completed—and the people remained quiet.

In all probability the reason Darius made so short a visit to Egypt was that he had received word from home. Vindafarna, son of Vayaspara, had been chief of the conspirators who aided Darius to usurp the throne. He had put down the rebellion of the second Nebuchadnezzar, and on the Behistun rock his name had headed the roll of honor. But he had learned with what ease thrones might be won, and he determined to try for himself. He lost his life, just when we do not know; the Greek poet Aeschylus inserted Maraphis and Artaphrenes in his summary of legitimate monarchs between Mardos (Bardiya) and Darius.

“While his majesty Darius was in Elam’’—Udjahorresne again takes up his tale—“he was great king of all the foreign countries and great monarch of Egypt—he commanded me to return to Egypt in order to restore the department of the ruined House of Life dealing with medicine.’’ The narrator acceded to this order, for “the foreigners brought me from land to land and made me come into Egypt, as the lord of the two lands had commanded. I did what his majesty had commanded. I furnished all their staffs, sons of prominent men, not a poor man’s son among them,’’ Udjahorresne snobbishly boasts. “I placed them in the charge of every learned man, that they might be instructed in all their crafts His majesty commanded them to be given all good things, that they might exercise all their crafts. I gave them every useful thing and all their instruments indicated by the writings, as they had been before. His majesty did this because he knew the virtue of this art to make every sick man recover and to make lasting the name of all the gods, their temples, their offerings, and the celebration of their feasts forever.

CONQUEST OF WESTERN INDIA

Since the days of Cyrus, Gandara had formed the easternmost conquest of the Achaemenids, the only Indian territory yet under their sway. Administratively, it was joined to Bactria, and it was not until shortly before 508 that it was organized as an independent satrapy, not under its ancient Iranian name of Paruparaesanna but with the native form of Gandara. An important city named Gazaca, the ‘Treasure,” hinted of the wealth that was to make Ghazni famous in the Arab Middle Ages; but the capital was Pukhala, the “Lotus City.”After the conquest and organization of Hindush, Gandara lost much of its importance. But few of the famous gold darics have ever been found in the whole of the Indian territory. Its capital Pukhala sank before the Indian capital Taxila.

To the southeast of Gandara lay the fabulous plains of India, famous for the gold dust washed from its rivers. Spies were commissioned to travel from Caspapyrus of Gandarian Pactyica, the head of navigation on the Kabul affluent of the Indus, down to the mouth where it entered the Indian Ocean. Thirty months later the spies had coasted along the whole southern shore of Iran, across the exit from the Persian Gulf, then completely around the Arabian Peninsula, and had reached the port of Suez. Their shipmaster was the Carian Scylax of Caryanda, who after his return published in the Greek of the Ionic dialect his Pertplus or “Circumnavigation.” The Periplus provided the West with its first authentic information about the more easterly peoples and, in addition, served as model for the works of later geographers and historians.

The information furnished by the spies induced the king to attempt more eastern conquests. Western India was subdued and sometime before 513 had been formed into the satrapy of Hindush, which before long furnished an annual tribute of three hundred and sixty talents of gold dust. Trade by sea was opened up; soon after, we find a Hindu woman named Busasa keeping an inn at Kish under police supervision.

But Hindush was not all India. It took its name from its greatest river, the mighty Indus (Sindhu), and included only the territories along its banks and those of its affluents. The satrapy did not extend to the east as far as the Ganges; even the Hydaspes, later the border of the Taxila kingdom, is never mentioned. In the days of Herodotus, the eastern border remained the sandy belt which today separates the northern half of the peninsula into an eastern and a western India. Persian Achaemenid rule never extended into the south of the great peninsula; thus the India described by contemporaries was confined to the Indus Valley.

BUILDING OF CANAL IN EGYPT

As early as the Middle Kingdom, a canal had been dug from Phacussa on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile to irrigate the fertile wadi Tumilat to the east, where later the Hebrews were to settle in Goshen. Necho vainly attempted to extend it through the Bitter Lakes to the Gulf of Suez as one phase of that policy of exploration which resulted in the Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa. After his passage across the Arabian Desert in 518, Darius would have continued through the wadi Tumilat and thus would have noticed this uncompleted canal. His interest quickened by hopes of a cheaper and more direct route by sea to India, he resolved to complete the task.

Necho’s line of excavation had been sanded up and must first be cleared. Wells had to be dug for the workmen. When finally opened, the canal was a hundred and fifty feet wide and deep enough for merchantmen. This predecessor of the present-day Suez Canal could be traversed in four days.

Five huge red-granite stelae to commemorate the vast project greeted the eyes of the traveler at intervals along the banks. On one side the twice-repeated Darius holds within an Egyptian cartouche his cuneiform name under the protection of the Ahuramazda symbol. In the three cuneiform languages he decares: “I am a Persian. From Parsa I seized Egypt. I commanded this canal to be dug from the river, Nile by name, which flows in Egypt, to the sea which goes from Parsa. Afterward this canal was dug as I commanded, and ships passed from Egypt through this canal to Parsa as was my will.”

On the reverse is the fuller Egyptian version. Under the Egyptian sun disk, ultimately the original of the Ahuramazda symbol depicted on the front, stand the two Niles in the traditional ritual of “binding the two lands.” One tells Darius: “I have given you all the lands, all the Fenkhu (Phoenicians), all the foreign lands, all the bows”; the other: “I have given you all mankind, all the men, all the peoples of the isles of the seas.” The terms employed are those made famous by the conquests of the Eighteenth Dynasty, but now they are employed to fit contemporary geography. The king has been granted “all life, fortune, and health, all joy, all offerings like Ra, all food, every good thing, even to appear as king of Upper and Lower Egypt like Ra forever, all the lands and foreign countries in adoration before him.”

Then comes the list of satrapies, the names from an Aramaic original. In good Egyptian fashion, imitating the lists from the mighty kings of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties, each name appears within a cartouche whose crenellations indicate a conquered city; captives with differing headdress kneel in adoration. Darius is indeed king of kings, son of Hystaspes, great king, but he also bears all the ancient titles of Egypt. He is born of Neith, mistress of Sais (a delicate compliment to Udjahorresne), he is also image of Ra, who placed him on his throne to complete what he had begun. While he was in the womb and had not yet come into the world, he was granted all that the sun passes in his circuit, since Neith recognized him as her son. She granted him that, bow in hand, he should overcome his enemies each day, as she had done for her son Ra. He is mighty, destroying his enemies in all the lands. As son of Neith, he extends his borders; the people with their ready tribute come before him.

After a reference to the city Parsa and to Cyrus, the stele tells how the building of the canal was discussed and how the task was accomplished. Tribute was forwarded by twenty-four boats to Parsa. Darius was complimented and order was given for the erection of the stelae, never had a like thing occurred

CAMPAIGN AGAINST EUROPEAN SCYTHIA

While Egyptian peasants were digging the canal, Darius was preparing for his first expedition into Europe. Shortly before, Ariaramnes, satrap of Cappadocia, had crossed the Black Sea and had made a reconnaissance of the northern shore in preparation for an attack on the European Scyths.Darius accordingly decided to attempt to invade their lands and to lead the army in person Setting out from Susa in 513, he crossed the Bosphorus not far south of the Black Sea entrance by a bridge of boats constructed by the Samian Mandrocles, whose fellow-townsman, Choerilus, wrote “On the Crossing of the Darius Bridge” (for by this time Samos fully recognized Persian control). Two stelae were set up on the shore, one in Greek and the other in “Assyrian” cuneiform characters, each bearing another list of the subject peoples. Six hundred ships, manned for the greater part by vassal Greeks from the mainland as well as the island city-states, were sent direct through the Black Sea to the Ister, where a second bridge was built. Within these limits the Getae were subdued and the remaining Thracians submitted.

Crossing the river, the army entered Scythia, occupied by Iranian nomads who lived always on horseback and moved their families on tented, ox-drawn wagons. A century since, their coast had been colonized from Miletus, which traded objects of luxury for grain; but appreciation of Greek art had done little to change their savage customs. They delighted in fermented mare’s milk, which they drank from bowls made of human skulls. The blood of the first enemy slain was also drunk; the skin was used for quivers, and the scalps for napkins and clothing. Agreements were ratified by the blood pledge. When a chief died, slain horsemen were staked upon dead horses set around the corpse on chariot wheels; his concubines, cupbearer, cook, and riding horses were killed to accompany their master to the afterworld. Spears were set up about him and roofed by planks and hides, gold cups imported from the Greeks were laid by his side, and the whole was covered by a barrow; many such kurgans have been excavated.

Divination was by eunuchs who employed willow wands. Many gods were reverenced, but only the war-god possessed shrines and altars; he was represented by an antique Iranian sword which was set up in a mound of faggots, and to him were sacrificed horses as well as human beings.

On the approach of Darius, the Scythians ravaged their land and retired. Their mounted bowmen harassed his troops until the Great King was compelled to retreat. Fortunately for him, the Ionian Greeks had guarded the bridge beyond the appointed time and Darius was able to return across Thrace to Sestos, whence he crossed the Hellespont into Asia, leaving behind eighty thousand soldiers under Megabazus, satrap of Dascyleium, to continue the war (513).

FORMATION OF LIBYAN SATRAPY

At that very time, Arcesilaus, who had surrendered Cyrene to Cambyses, was assassinated in Barca. His mother, Pheretime, appealed to Aryandes, satrap of neighboring Egypt. This was too good an opportunity to be lost. Aided by her partisans, it required only local contingents, an army under the Maraphian Amasis and a fleet under Badres of the Pasargadae tribe, to bring the whole region to allegiance. Barca surrendered on oath after a nine-month siege, but through a quibble Amasis foreswore himself; the leading citizens were handed over to the enraged Pheretime, who mutilated horribly their women and impaled them with their husbands around the wall. The remaining inhabitants were enslaved by Amasis and forwarded to Darius at Susa; they were later deported to a city of Bactria which they renamed Barca.

The real object of the expedition had been the conquest of the Libyans, few of whom had yet acknowledged subjection. During the nine-month siege of Barca, Persian troops had penetrated as far west as the Euesperides, the modern Benghazi. Although the Persians suffered greatly on their retirement, some of the natives had submitted, and Greeks and Libyans were formed into a new satrapy to which was given the name of Put ay a (512).

On their return, it would appear, the canal stelae were being prepared. Space had been left for only twenty-four satrapies, but one more (India) than in the list of the autobiography. “Those of the Sea” and Gandara (although the latter was the country from which Scylax began the long sea voyage to the planned exit from the Egyptian canal) were omitted in favor of the new satrapies, Kushiya or Ethiopia and Putaya or Libya. Parsa was yet counted as one of the satrapies and Saka remained single, though the division into marshlands and plains was recognized.

CONQUEST OF THE APPROACHES TO GREECE

Meanwhile, a systematic clearance of the path to European Greece had promptly been commenced by Megabazus. Perinthus was taken by storm after a brave resistance. One by one the peoples and towns of Thrace were forced to terms. The Paeonian settlements were captured while their warriors were absent guarding another approach; by order of Darius, all were deported to Phrygia. Envoys were dispatched to Amyntas of Macedonia demanding the usual sign of submission, presentation of earth and water. This was given, and, although Amyntas’ son Alexander did kill the envoys for insulting the Macedonian women, the murder was concealed from the king by a good-sized bribe and by the marriage of Alexander’s sister to the Persian general Bubares, Megabazus’ son.

Darius meanwhile had spent the year 512 at Sardis. Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, was rewarded for his guard of the Ister bridge by the gift of Myrcinus on the Strymon, while Coes was made tyrant of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Megabazus arrived with the Paeonian deportees and warned the king of danger from the new building by Histiaeus at Myrcinus. Darius therefore recalled the Milesian tyrant and carried him up to Susa with him on pretense that he would become royal counselor and table companion.

Before leaving for Susa, Darius appointed his brother Artaphrenes satrap of Sardis with general oversight of the Ionian Greek cities. In place of Megabazus, Otanes, son of Sisamnes, became “general of the men along the sea,” or satrap of Dascyleium. Byzantium, Chalcedon, Antandros, and Lamponium were taken; thereby Otanes secured a strangle hold on the grain trade through the straits. As a result, the Scythians lost their treasured objects of Greek art, the Milesian traders were finding a profitable business cut off, and Persian control of the straits was a threat to the food supply of European Greece. With ships from Lesbos furnished by Coes, Megabazus further blocked the straits by the capture of Lemnos and Imbros, islands lying off the coast (511)

By 513, the circuit wall of Persepolis was ready to be dedicated. On one of the monoliths in the southern face, Darius gave a revised list of his satrapies. There is no hint that news of the formal incorporation of Ethiopia and Libya had yet arrived. Hindush is there, and Sagartia makes a temporary appearance. In addition to Ionia, here qualified as “those of the dry land,” and to “those on the sea,” Dascyleium, we now have also “the lands which are beyond the sea.” The conquest of Europe had begun.

READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREECE

HISTORY OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

A. T. OLMSTEAD

Chapter I

ANCIENT HISTORY