READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

GEORGE GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE

CHAPTER XLVIII.( 48 )

CYRENE AND BARKA.— HESPERIDES

It has been already mentioned, in a former chapter, that Psammetichus king of Egypt, about the middle of the seventh century BC, first removed those prohibitions which had excluded Grecian commerce from his country. In his reign, Grecian mercenaries were first established in Egypt, and Grecian traders admitted, under certain regulations, into the Nile. The opening of this new market emboldened them to traverse the direct sea which separates Crete from Egypt,—a dangerous voyage with vessels which rarely ventured to lose sight of land,—and seems to have first made them acquainted with the neighboring coast of Libya, between the Nile and the gulf called the Great Syrtis. Hence arose the foundation of the important colony called Cyrene.

As in the case of most other Grecian colonies, so in that of Cyrene, both the foundation and the early history are very imperfectly known. The date of the event, as far as can be made out amidst much contradiction of statement, was about 630 BC: Thera was the mother-city, herself a colony from Lacedaemon; and the settlements formed in Libya became no inconsiderable ornaments to the Dorian name in Hellas.

According to the account of a lost historian, Menekles,—political dissension among the inhabitants of Thera led to that emigration which founded Cyrene; and the more ample legendary details which Herodotus collected, partly from Theraean, partly from Cyreneans informants, are not positively inconsistent with this statement, though they indicate more particularly bad seasons, distress, and over-population. Both of them dwell emphatically on the Delphian oracle as the instigator as well as the director of the first emigrants, whose apprehensions of a dangerous voyage and an unknown country were very difficult to overcome. Both of them affirmed that the original oekist Battus was selected and consecrated to the work by the divine command: both called Battus the son of Polymnestus, of the mythical breed called Minyae. But on other points there was complete divergence between the two stories, and the Cyreneans themselves, whose town was partly peopled by emigrants from Crete, described the mother of Battus as daughter of Etearchus, prince of the Cretan town of Axus. Battus had an impediment in his speech, and it was on his intreating from the Delphian oracle a cure for this in­firmity that he received directions to go as “a cattle-breeding oekist to Libya.” The suffering Theraeans were directed to assist him, but neither he nor they knew where Libya was, nor could they find any resident in Crete who had ever visited it. Such was the limited reach of Grecian navigation to the south of the Aegean sea, even a century after the foundation of Syra­cuse. Al length, by prolonged inquiry, they discovered a man employed in catching the purple shellfish, named Korobius,—who said that he had been once forced by stress of weather to the island of Platea, close to the shores of Libya, and on the side not far removed from the western limit of Egypt. Some Theraeans being sent along with Korobius to inspect this island, left him there with a stock of provisions, and returned to Thera to conduct the emigrants. From the seven districts into which Thera was divided, emigrants were drafted for the colony, one brother being singled out by lot from the different numerous families. But so long was their return to Platea deferred, that the provisions of Korobius were exhausted, and he was only saved from starvation by the accidental arrival of a Samian ship, driven by contrary winds out of her course on the voyage to Egypt. Kolaeus, the master of this ship (whose immense profits made by the first voyage to Tartessus have been noticed in a former chapter), supplied him with provisions for a year,—an act of kindness, which is said to have laid the first foundation of the alliance and good feeling afterwards prevalent between Thera, Cyrene, and Samos. At length the expected emigrants reached the island, having found the voyage so perilous and difficult, that they once returned in despair to Thera, where they were only prevented by force from relanding. The band which accompanied Battus was all conveyed in two pentekonters,—armed ships, with fifty rowers each. Thus humble was the start of the mighty Cyrene, which, in the days of Herodotus, covered a city-area equal to the entire island of Platea.

That island, however, though near to Libya, and supposed by the colonists to be Libya, was not so in reality: the commands of the oracle had not been literally fulfilled. Accordingly, the settlement carried with it nothing but hardship for the space of two years, and Battus returned with his companions to Delphi, to complain that the promised land had proved a bitter disappoin­ment. The god, through his priestess, returned for answer, “If you, who have never visited the cattle-breeding Libya, know it better than I, who have, I greatly admire your cleverness.” Again the inexorable mandate forced them to return; and this time they planted themselves on the actual continent of Libya, nearly over against the island of Platea, in a district called Aziris, surrounded on both sides by fine woods, and with a running stream adjoining. After six years of residence in this spot, they were persuaded by some of the indigenous Libyans to abandon it, under the promise that they should be conducted to a better situation: and their guides now brought them to the actual site of Kyrene, saying, “Here, men of Hellas, is the place for you to dwell, for here the sky is perforated. The road through which they passed had led through the tempting region of Irasa with its fountain Theste, and their guides took the precaution to carry them through it by night, in order that they might remain ignorant of its beauties.

Such were the preliminary steps, divine and human, which brought Battus and his colonists to Cyrene. In the time of Herodotus, Irasa was an outlying portion of the eastern territory of this powerful city. But we trace in the story just related an opinion prevalent among his Cyreneans informants, that Irasa with its fountain Theste was a more inviting position than Cyrene with its fountain of Apollo, and ought in prudence to have been originally chosen; out of which opinion, according to the general habit of the Greek mind, an anecdote is engendered and accredited, explaining how the supposed mistake was committed. What may have been the recommendations of Irasa, we are not permitted to know : but descriptions of modern travellers, no less than the subsequent history of Cyrene, go far to justify the choice actually made. The city was placed at the distance of about ten miles from the sea, having a sheltered port called Apollonia, itself afterwards a considerable town,—it was about twenty miles from the promontory Phykus, which forms the northernmost projection of the African coast, nearly in the longitude of the Peloponnesian Cape Tamarus (Matapan). Cyrene was situated about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the Mediterranean, of which it commanded a fine view, and from which it was conspicuously visible, on the edge of a range of hills which slope by successive terraces down to the port. The soil immediately around, partly calcareous, partly sandy, is described by Captain Beechey to present a vigorous vegetation and remarkable fertility, though the ancients considered it inferior in this respect both to Barka and Hesperides, and still more inferior to the more westerly region near Kinyps. But the abundant periodical rains, attracted by the lofty heights around, and justifying the expression of the “perforated sky,” were even of greater importance, under an African sun, than extraordinary richness of soil. The maritime regions near Kyrene and Barka, and Hesperides, produced oil and wine as well as corn, while the extensive district between these towns, composed of alternate mountain, wood, and plain, was eminently suited for pasture and cattle-breeding; and the ports were secure, presenting conveniences for the intercourse of the Greek trader with Northern Africa, such as were not to be found along all the coasts of the Great Syrtis westward of Hesperides. Abundance of applicable land,—great diversity both of climate and of productive season, between the sea-side, the low hill, and the upper moun­tain, within a small space, so that harvest was continually going on, and fresh produce coming in from the earth, during eight months of the year,— together with the monopoly of the valuable plant called the Silphium, which grew nowhere except in the Cyrenaic region, and the juice of which was extensively de­manded throughout Greece and Italy,—led to the rapid growth of Cyrene, in spite of serious and renewed political troubles. And even now, the immense remains which still mark its desolate site, the evidences of past labor and solicitude at the Fountain of Apollo, and elsewhere, together with the profusion of excavated and ornamented tombs,—attest sufficiently what the grandeur of the place must hate been in the days of Herodotus and Pindar. So much did the Cyreneans pride themselves on the Silphium, found wild in their back country, from the island of Platea on the east to the inner recess of the Great Syrtis westward,—the leaves of which were highly salubrious for cattle, and the stalk fur man, while the root furnished the peculiar juice for export,—that they maintained it to have first appeared seven years prior to the arrival of the first Grecian colonists in their city.

But it was not only the properties of the soil which promoted the prosperity of Kyrene. Isokrates praises the well-chosen site of that colony because it was planted in the midst of indigenous natives apt for subjection, and far distant from any formidable enemies. That the native Libyan tribes were made conducive in an eminent degree to the growth of the Greco-Libyan cities, admits of no doubt; and in review mg the history of these cities, we must bear in mind that their population was not pure Greek, but more or less mixed, like that of the colonies in Italy, Sicily, or Ionia. Though our information is very imperfect, we see enough to prove that the small force brought over by Battus the Stammerer was enabled first to fraternize with the indigenous Libyans,—next, reinforced by additional colonists and availing themselves of the power of native chiefs, to overawe and subju­gate them. Kyrene—combined with Barka and Hesperidia, both of them sprung from her root—exercised over the Libyan tribes between the borders of Egypt and the inner recess of the Great Syrtis, for a space of three degrees of longitude, an ascen­dency similar to that which Carthage possessed over the more westerly Libyans near the Lesser Syrtis. Within these Cyreneans limits, and further westward along the shores of the Great Syrtis, the Libyan tribes were of pastoral habits; westward, beyond the Lake Tritonis and the Lesser Syrtis, they began to be agricultural. Immediately westward of Egypt were the Adyrmachidae, bordering upon Apis and Marea, the Egyptian frontier towns; they were subject to the Egyptians, and had adopted some of the minute ritual and religious observances which characterized the region of the Nile. Proceeding westward from the Adyrmachidae were found the Giligammae, the Asbystae, the Auschisae, the Kabales, and the Nasamones,—the latter of whom occupied the south-eastern corner of the Great Syrtis;—next, the Makae, Gindanes, Lotophagi, Machlyes, as far as a certain river and lake called Triton and Tritonis, which seems to have been near the Lesser Syrtis. These last-mentioned tribes were not dependent either on Cyrene or on Car­thage, at the time of Herodotus, nor probably during the proper period of free Grecian history, (600-300 bc). In the third century BC, the Ptolemaic governors of Cyrene extended their dominion westward, while Carthage pushed her colonies and castles eastward, so that the two powers embraced between them the whole line of coast between the Greater and Lesser Syrtis, meeting at the spot called the Altars of the Brothers Philaeni,—so celebrated for its commemorative legend. But even in the sixth century bc, Carthage was jealous of the extension of Grecian colonies along this coast, and aided the Libyan Makae (about 510 bc) to expel the Spartan prince Dorieus from His settlement near the river Kinyps. Near that spot was afterwards planted, by Phenician or Carthaginian exiles, the town of Leptis Magna (now Lebida), which does not seem to have existed in the time of Herodotus. Nor does the latter historian notice the Marmaridae, who appear as the principal Libyan tribe near the west of Egypt, between the age of Skylax and the third century of the Christian era. Some migration or revolution subsequent to the time of Herodotus must have brought, this name into predominance.

The interior country, stretching westward from Egypt along the thirtieth and thirty-first parallel of latitude, to the Great Syrtis, and then along the southern shore of that gulf, is to a great degree low and sandy, and quite destitute of trees; yet affording in many parts water, herbage, and a fertile soil. But the maritime region north of this, constituting the projecting bosom of the African coast from the island of Platea (Gulf of Bomba) on the east to Hesperides (Bengazi) on the west, is of a totally different character; covered with mountains of considerable elevation, which reach their highest point near Cyrene, interspersed with productive plain and valley, broken by frequent ravines which carry off the winter torrents into the sea, and never at any time of the. year destitute of water. It is this latter advantage that causes them to be now visited every sum­mer by the Bedouin Arabs, who flock to the inexhaustible Fountain of Apollo and to other parts of the mountainous region from Cyrene to Hesperides, when their supply of water and herbage fails in the interior: and the same circumstance must have operated in ancient times to hold the nomadic Libyans in a sort of dependence on Kyrene and Barka. Cyrene appropriated the maritime portion of the territory of the Libyan Asbystae; the Auschisae occupied the region south of Barka, touching the sea near Hesperides,—the Kabales near Teucheira in the territory of Barka. Over the interior spaces these Libyan Nomads, with their cattle and twisted tents, wandered unrestrained, amply fed upon meat and milk, clothed in goatskins, and enjoying better health than any people known to Herodotus. Their breed of horses was excellent, and their chariots or wagons with four horses could perform feats admired even by Greeks: it was to these horses that the princes and magnates of Kyrene and Barka often owed the success of their chariots in the. games of Greece. The Libyan Nasamones, leaving their cattle near the sea, were in the habit of making an annual journey up the country to the Oasis of Augila, for the purpose of gathering the date-harvest, or of purchasing dates,—a journey which the Bedouin Arabs from Bengazi still make annually, carrying up their wheat and barley, for the same purpose. Each of the Libyan tribes was distinguished by a distinct mode of cutting the hair, and by some peculiarities of religious worship, though generally all worshipped the Sun and the Moon. But in the neighborhood of the Lake Tritonis (seemingly the western ex­tremity of Grecian coasting trade in the time of Herodotus, who knows little beyond, and begins to appeal to Carthaginian au­thorities), the Grecian deities Poseidon and Athene, together with the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, had been localized. There were, moreover, current prophecies announcing that one hundred Hellenic cities were destined one day to be founded round the lake,—and that one city in the island Phla, surrounded by the lake, was to be planted by the Lacedaemo­nians. These, indeed, were among the many unfulfilled prophecies which from every side cheated the Grecian ear,—proceeding in this case probably from Cyreneans or Theraeantraders, who thought the spot advantageous for settlement, and circulated their own hopes under the form of divine assurances. It was about the year 510 bc that some of these Theraeans conducted the Spartan prince Dorieus to found a colony in the fertile region of Kinyps, belonging to the Libyan Makae. But Carthage, interested in preventing the extension of Greek settlements westward, aided the Libyans in driving him out.

The Libyans in the immediate neighborhood of Cyrene were materially changed by the establishment of that town, and constituted a large part—at first, probably, far the largest part—of its constituent population. Not possessing that fierce tenacity of habits which the Mohammedan religion has impressed upon the Arabs of the present day, they were open to the mingled influence of constraint and seduction applied by Grecian settlers; so that in the time of Herodotus, the Kabales and the Asbystae of the interior had come to copy Cyreneans tastes and customs. The Theraean colonists, having obtained not merely the consent but even the guidance of the natives to their occupation of Cyrene, constituted themselves like privileged Spartan citizens in the midst of Libyan Perioeki. They seem Io have married Libyan wives, whence Herodotus describes the women of Kyrene and Barka as following, even in his time, religious observances indigenous and not Hellenic. Even the descendants of the primitive oekist Battus were semi-Libyan. For Herodotus gives us the curious information that Battus was the Libyan word for a king, deducing from it the just inference, that the name Battus was not originally personal to the oekist, but acquired in Libya first as a title,—and that it afterwards passed to his descendants as a proper name. For eight generations the reigning princes were called Battus and Arkesilaus, the Libyan denomination alternat­ing with the Greek, until the family was finally deprived of its power. Moreover, we find the chief of Barka, kinsman of Arkesilaus of Cyrene bearing the name of Alazir; a name certainly not Hellenic, and probably Libyan. We are, therefore, to con­ceive the first Theraean colonists as established in their lofty fortified post Kyrene, in the centre of Libyan Perioeki, till then strangers to walls, to arts, and perhaps even to cultivated land. Probably these Perioeki were always subject and tributary, in a greater or less degree, though they continued for half a century to retain I heir own king.

To these rude men the Theraeans communicated the elements of Hellenism and civilization, not without receiving themselves much that was non-Hellenic in return; and perhaps the reactionary influence of the Libyan element against the Hellenic might have proved the stronger of the two, had they not been rein forced by new-comers from Greece. After forty years of Battus the oekist (about 630-590 bc), and sixteen years of his son Arkesilaus (about 590-574 bc), a second Battus succeeded, called Battus the Prosperous, to mark the extraordinary increase of Cyrene during his presidency. The Cyreneans under him took pains to invite new settlers from all parts of Greece with out distinction,—a circumstance deserving notice in Grecian colonization, which usually manifested a preference for certain races, if it did not positively exclude the rest. To every new­comer was promised a lot of land, and the Delphian priestess strenuously seconded the wishes of the Cyreneans, proclaiming that “whosoever should reach the place too late for the land­division, would have reason to repent it.” Such promise of new land, as well as the sanction of the oracle, were doubtless made public at all the games and meetings of Greeks, and a large number of new colonists embarked for Cyrene. The exact number is not mentioned, but we must conceive it to have been very great, when we are told that during the succeeding generation, not less than seven thousand Grecian hoplites of Cyrene perished by the hands of the revolted Libyans,—yet leaving both the city itself and its neighbor Barka still powerful. The loss of so great a number as seven thousand Grecian hoplites has very few parallels throughout the whole history of Greece. In fact, this second migration, during the government of Battus the Prosperous, which must have taken place between 574-554 bc, ought to be looked upon as the moment of real and effective coloni­ation for Cyrene. It was on this occasion, probably, that the port of Apollonia, which afterwards came to equal the city itself in importance, was first occupied and fortified,—for this second swarm of emigrants came by sea direct, while the original colonists had reached Cyrene by land from the island of Platea through Irasa. The fresh emigrants came from Peloponnesus, Crete, and some other islands of the Aegean.

To furnish so many new lots of land, it was either necessary, or it was deemed expedient, to dispossess many of the Libyan Perioeki, who found their situation in other respects also greatly changed for the worse. The Libyan king Adikran, himself among the sufferers, implored aid from Apries king of Egypt, then in the height of his power; sending to declare himself and his people Egyptian subjects, like their neighbors the Adyrmachidae. The Egyptian prince, accepting the offer, despatched a large military force of the native soldier-caste, who were constantly in station at the western frontier-town Maroa, by the route along shore to attack Cyrene. They were met at Irasa by the Greeks of Cyrene, and, being totally ignorant of Grecian arms and tactics, experienced a defeat so complete that few of them reached home. The consequences of this disaster in Egypt, where it caused the transfer of the throne from Apries to Amasis, have been noticed in a former chapter.

Of course the Libyan Perioeki were put down, and the redivision of lands near Kyrene among the Greek settlers accomplished, to the great increase, of the power of the city. And the reign of Battus the Prosperous marks a flourishing era in the town, and a large acquisition of land-dominion, antecedent to years of dissension and distress. The Cyreneans came into intimate alliance with Amasis king of Egypt, who encouraged Grecian connection in every way, and who even took to wife Ladike, a woman of the Battiad family at Cyrene, so that the Libyan Perioeki lost all chance of Egyptian aid against the Greeks.

New prospects, however, were opened to them during the reign of Arkesilaus the Second, son of Battus the Prosperous, (about 551-544 bc). The behavior of this prince incensed and alienated his own brothers, who raised a revolt against him, se­ceded with a portion of the citizens, and induced a number of the Libyan Perioeki to take part with them. They founded the Greco-Libyan city of Barka, in the territory of the Libyan Auschisae, about twelve miles from the coast, distant from Cyrene by sea about seventy miles to the westward. The space between the two, and even beyond Barka, as far as the more westerly Grecian colony called Hesperides, was in the days of Sky lax provided with commodious ports for refuge or landing : at what time Hesperides was founded we do not know, but it existed about 510 BC. Whether Arkesilaus obstructed the foundation of Barka is not certain; but he marched the Cyreneans forces against those revolted Libyans who had joined it. Unable to resist, the latter fled for refuge to their more easterly brethren near the borders of Egypt, and Arkesilaus pursued them. At length, in a district called Leukon, the fugitives found an oppor­tunity of attacking him at such prodigious advantage, that they almost destroyed the Cyrenean army, seven thousand hoplites (as has been before intimated) being left dead on the field. Arkesilaus did not long survive this disaster. He was strangled during sickness by his brother Learchus, who aspired to the throne; but Eryxo, widow of the deceased prince,² avenged the crime, by causing Learchus to be assassinated.

That the credit of the Battiad princes was impaired by such a series of disasters and enormities, we can readily believe. But it received a still greater shock from the circumstance, that Battus the Third, son and successor of Arkesilaus, was lame and deformed in his feet. To be governed by a man thus personally disabled, was in the minds of the Cyreneans an indignity not to be borne, as well as an excuse for preexisting discontents; and the resolution was taken to send to the Delphian oracle for advice. They were directed by the priestess to invite from Mantineia, a moderator, empowered to close discussions and provide a scheme of government,—the Mantineans selecting Demonax, one of the wisest of their citizens, to solve the same problem which had been committed to Solon at Athens. By his arrangement, the regal prerogative of the Battiad line was terminated, and a republican government established seemingly about 543 BC; the dispossessed prince retaining both the landed domains and the various sacerdotal functions which Lad belonged to his predecessors.

Respecting the government, as newly framed, however, Herodotus unfortunately gives us hardly any particulars. Demonax classified the inhabitants of Cyrene into three tribes; composed of:

1. Theraeans with their Libyan Perioeki;

2. Greeks who had come from Peloponnesus and Crete;

3. Such Greeks as Lad come from all other islands in the Aegean.

It appears, too, that a senate was constituted, taken doubtless from these three tribes, and we may presume, in equal proportion.

It seems probable that there had been before no constitutional classification, nor political privilege, except what was vested in the Theraeans, that these latter, the descendants of the original colo­nists were the only persons hitherto known to the constitution,—and that the remaining Greeks, though free landed proprietors and hoplites, were not permitted to act as an integral part of the body politic, nor distributed in tribes at all. The whole powers of government,—up to this time vested in the Battiad princes subject only to such check, how effective we know not, which the citizens of Theraean origin might be able to interpose,—were now transferred from the prince to the people; that is, to certain individuals or assemblies chosen somehow from among all the citizens. There existed at Kyrene, as at Thera and Sparta, a board of Ephors, and a band of three hundred armed police, analogous to those who were called the Hippeis, or Horsemen, at Sparta: whether these were instituted by Demonax, we do not know, nor does the identity of titular office, in different states, afford safe ground for inferring identity of power. This is particularly to be remarked with regard to the Perioeki at Cyrene, who were perhaps more analogous to the Helots than to the Perioeki of Sparta. The fact that the Perioeki were considered in the new constitution as belonging specially to the Theraean branch of citizens, shows that these latter still continued a privi­leged order, like the Patricians with their Clients at Rome in relation to the Plebs.

That the rearrangement introduced by Demonax was wise, consonant to the general current of Greek feeling, and calculated to work well, there is good reason to believe: and no discontent within would have subverted it without the aid of extraneous force. Battus the Lame acquiesced in it peaceably during his life; but his widow and his son, Pheretime and Arkesilaus, raised a revolt after his death, and tried to regain by force the kingly privileges of the family. They were worsted and obliged to flee,—the mother to Cyprus, the son to Samos,—where both employed themselves in procuring foreign arms to invade and conquer Cyrene. Though Pheretime could obtain no effec­tive aid from Euelthon prince of Salamis in Cyprus, her son was more successful in Samos, by inviting new Greek settlers to Kyrene, under promise of a redistribution of the land. A large body of emigrants joined him on this promise; the period seemingly being favorable to it since the Ionian cities had not long before become subject to Persia, and were discontented with the yoke. But before he conducted this numerous band against his native city, lie thought proper to ask the advice of the Delphian oracle. Success in the undertaking was promised to him, but moderation and mercy after success was emphatically enjoined, on pain of losing his life; and the Battiad race was declared by the god to be destined to rule at Cyrene fur eight generations, but no longer,—as far as four princes named Battus and four named Arkesilaus. ‘‘More than such eight generations (said the Pythia), Apollo forbids the Battiads even to aim at.” This oracle was doubtless told to Herodotus by Cyrenean informants when be visited their city after the final deposition of the Battiad princes, which took place in the person of the fourth Arke­silaus, between 460-450 bc; the invasion of Cyrene by Arkesilaus the Third, sixth prince of the Battiad race, to which the oracle professed to refer, having occurred about 530 bc. The words placed in the mouth of the priestess doubtless date from the later of these two periods, and afford a specimen of the way in which pretended prophecies are not only made up by antedating after-knowledge, but are also so contrived as to serve a present purpose. For the distinct prohibition of the god, “not even to aim at a longer lineage than eight Battiad princes,” seems plainly intended to deter the partisans of the dethroned family from endeavoring to reinstate them.

Arkesilaus the Third, to whom this prophecy purports to have been addressed, returned with his mother Pheretime and his army of new colonists to Kyrene. He was strong enough to carry all before him,—to expel some of his chief opponents and seize upon others, whom he sent to Cypress to be destroyed; though the vessels were driven out of their course by storm to the peninsula of Cnidus, where the inhabitants rescued the prisoners and sent them to Thera. Other Cyreneans, opposed to the Battiads, took refuge in a lofty private tower, the property of Aglomachus, wherein Arkesilaus caused them all to be burned, heaping wood around and setting it on fire. But after this career of triumph and revenge, he became conscious that he had departed from the mildness enjoined to him by the oracle, and sought to avoid the punishment which it had threatened by retiring from Cyrene. At any rate, he departed from Cyrene to Barka, to the residence of the Barkman prince, his kinsman Alazir, whose daughter he had married. But he found in Barka some of the unfortunate men who had fled from Cyrene to escape him: these exiles, aided by a few Barkaeans, watched for a suitable moment to assail him in the market-place, and slew him, together with his kinsman the prince Alazir.

The victory of Arkesilaus at Cyrene, and his assassination at Barka, are doubtless real facts; but they seem to have been compressed together and incorrectly colored, in order to give to the death of the Cyrenean prince the appearance of a divine judgment. For the reign of Arkesilaus cannot have been very short, since events of the utmost importance occurred within it. The Persians under Cambyses conquered Egypt, and both the Cyrenean and the Barkaean prince sent to Memphis to make their submission to the conqueror,—offering presents and imposing upon themselves an annual tribute. The presents of the Cyreneans, five hundred minae of silver, were considered by Cambyses so contemptibly small, that he took hold of them at once and threw them among his soldiers. And at the moment when Arkesilaus died, Aryandes, the Persian satrap after the death of Cambyses, is found established in Egypt.

During the absence of Arkesilaus at Barka, his mother Pheretime had acted as regent, taking her place at the discussions in the senate; but when his death took place, and the feeling against the Battiads manifested itself strongly at Barka, she did not feel powerful enough to put it down, and went to Egypt to solicit aid from Aryandes. The satrap, being made to believe that Arkesilaus had met his death in consequence of steady devotion to the Persians, sent a herald to Barka to demand the mm who had slain him. The Barkaeans assumed the collectiveresponsibility of the act, saying that he had done them injuries both numerous and severe,—a farther proof that his reign cannot have been very short. On receiving this reply, the satrap immediately despatched a powerful Persian armament, land-force as well as sea-force, in fulfilment of the designs of Pheretime against Barka. They besieged the town for nine mouths, trying to storm, to batter, and to undermine the walls; but their efforts were vain, and it was taken at last only by an act of the grossest perfidy. Pretending to relinquish the attempt in despair, the Persian general concluded a treaty with the Barkaeans, wherein it was stipulated that the latter should continue Io pay tribute to the Great King, but that the army should retire without farther hostilities: “I swear it (said the Persian general), and my oath shall hold good, as long as this earth shall keep its place.” But the spot on which the oaths were ex changed had been fraudulently prepared: a ditch had been excavated and covered with hurdles, upon which again a surface of earth had been laid. The Barkaeans, confiding in the oath, and overjoyed at their liberation, immediately opened their gates and relaxed their guard; while the Persians, breaking down the hurdles and letting fall the superimposed earth, so that they might comply with the letter of their oath, assaulted the city and took it without difficulty.

Miserable was the fate which Pheretime had in reserve for these entrapped prisoners. She crucified the chief opponents of herself and her late son around the walls, on which were also affixed the breasts of their wives: then, with the exception of such of the inhabitants as were Battiads, and noway concerned in the death of Arkesilaus, she consigned the rest to slavery in Persia. They were carried away captive into the Persian empire, where Darius assigned to them a village in Bactria as their place of abode, which still bore the name of Barka, even in the days of Herodotus.

During the course of this expedition, it appears, the Persian army advanced as far as Hesperides, and reduced many of the Libyan tribes to subjection: these, together with Kyrene and Barka, figure among the tributaries and auxiliaries of Xerxes in his expedition against Greece. And when the army returned to Egypt, by order of Aryandes, they were half inclined to seize Kyrene itself in their way, though the opportunity was missed and the purpose left unaccomplished.

Pheretime accompanied the retreating army to Egypt, where she died shortly of a loathsome disease, consumed by worms; thus showing, says Herodotus, that “excessive cruelty in revenge brings down upon men the displeasure of the gods.” It will be recollected that in the veins of this savage woman the Libyan blood was intermixed with the Grecian. Political enmity in Greece proper kills, but seldom if ever mutilates or shed the blood, of women.

We thus leave Cyrene and Barka again subject to Battiadprinces, at the same time that they are tributaries of Persia. Another Battus and another Arkesilaus have to intervene before the glass of this worthless dynasty is run out, between 460-450 BC. I shall not at present carry the reader’s attention to this last Arkesilaus, who stands honored by two chariot victories in Greece, and two fine odes of Pindar.

The victory of the third Arkesilaus, and the restoration of the Battiads, broke up the equitable constitution established by Demonax. His triple classification into tribes must have been completely remodelled, though we do not know how. For the number of new colonists whom Arkesilaus introduced must have necessitated a fresh distribution of land, and it is extremely doubtful whether the relation of the Therman class of citizens with their Perioeki. as established by Demonax, still continued to subsist. It is necessary to notice this fact, because the arrangements of Demonax are spoken of by some authors as if hey formed the permanent constitution of Kyrene; whereas they cannot have outlived the restoration of the Battiads, nor can they even have been revived after that dynasty was finally expelled, since the number of new citizens and the large change of property, introduced by Arkesilaus the Third, would render hem inapplicable to the subsequent city.