# Herodotus The Persian Wars (Godley)/Book III

Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA
1. It was against this Amasis that Cambyses led an army of his subjects, Ionian and Aeolian Greeks among them. This was his reason: Cambyses sent a herald to Egypt asking Amasis for his daughter; and this he did by the counsel of a certain Egyptian, who devised it by reason of a grudge that he bore against Amasis, because when Cyrus sent to Amasis asking for the best eye-doctor in Egypt the king had chosen this man out of all the Egyptian physicians and sent him perforce to Persia away from his wife and children. With this grudge in mind he moved Cambyses by his counsel to ask Amasis for his daughter, that Amasis might be grieved if he gave her, or Cambyses’ enemy if he refused her. So Amasis was sorely afraid of the power of Persia, and could neither give his daughter nor deny her; for he knew well that Cambyses would make her not his queen but his mistress. Reasoning thus he bethought him of a very tall and fair damsel called Nitetis, daughter of the former king Apries, and all that was left of that family; Amasis decked her out with raiment and golden ornaments and sent her to the Persians as if she were his own daughter. But after a while, the king greeting her as the daughter of Amasis, the damsel said, “King, you know not how Amasis has deceived you: he decked me out with ornaments and sent me to you to pass for his own daughter; but I am in truth the daughter of his master Apries, whom he and other Egyptians rebelled against and slew.” It was these words and this reason that prevailed with Cambyses to lead him in great anger against Egypt.
2. This is the Persian story. But the Egyptians claim Cambyses for their own; they say that he was the son of this daughter of Apries, and that it was Cyrus, not Cambyses, who sent to Amasis for his daughter. But this tale is false. Nay, they are well aware (for the Egyptians have a truer knowledge than any man of the Persian laws) firstly, that no bastard may be king of Persia if there be a son born in lawful wedlock; and secondly, that Cambyses was born not of the Egyptian woman but of Cassandane, daughter of Pharnaspes, an Achaemenid. But they so twist the story because they would claim kinship with the house of Cyrus.
3. So much for this matter. There is another tale too, which I do not believe:—that a certain Persian lady came to visit Cyrus’ wives, and greatly praised and admired the fair and tall children who stood by Cassandane. Then Cassandane, Cyrus’ wife, said, “Ay, yet though I be the mother of such children Cyrus dishonours me and honours this newcomer from Egypt.” So she spoke in her bitterness against Nitetis; and Cambyses, the eldest of her sons, said, “Then, mother, when I am grown a man, I will turn all Egypt upside down.” When he said this he was about ten years old, and the women marvelled at him; but he kept it in mind, and it was thus that when he grew up and became king, he made the expedition against Egypt.
4. It chanced also that another thing befell tending to this expedition. There was among Amasis’ foreign soldiers one Phanes, a Halicarnassian by birth, a man of sufficient judgment and valiant in war. This Phanes had some grudge against Amasis, and fled from Egypt on shipboard that he might have an audience of Cambyses. Seeing that he was a man much esteemed among the foreign soldiery and had an exact knowledge of all Egyptian matters, Amasis was zealous to take him, and sent a trireme with the trustiest of his eunuchs to pursue him. This eunuch caught him in Lycia but never brought him back to Egypt; for Phanes was too clever for him, and made his guards drunk and so escaped to Persia. There he found Cambyses prepared to set forth against Egypt, but in doubt as to his march, how he should cross the waterless desert; so Phanes showed him what was Amasis’ condition and how he should march; as to this, he counselled Cambyses to send and ask the king of the Arabians for a safe passage.
5. Now the only manifest way of entry into Egypt is this. The road runs from Phoenice as far as the borders of the city of Cadytis, which belongs to the Syrians of Palestine, as it is called. From Cadytis (which, as I judge, is a city not much smaller than Sardis) to the city of Ienysus the seaports belong to the Arabians; then they are Syrian again from Ienysus as far as the Serbonian marsh, beside which the Casian promontory stretches seawards; from this Serbonian marsh, where Typho, it is said, was hidden, the country is Egypt. Now between Ienysus and the Casian mountain and the Serbonian marsh there lies a wide territory for as much as three days’ journey, wondrous waterless.
6. I will now tell of a thing that but few of those who sail to Egypt have perceived. Earthen jars full of wine are brought into Egypt twice a year from all Greece and Phoenice besides: yet one might safely say there is not a single empty wine jar anywhere in the country. What then (one may ask) becomes of them? This too I will tell. Each governor of a district must gather in all the earthen pots from his own township and take them to Memphis, and the people of Memphis must fill them with water and carry them to those waterless lands of Syria; so the earthen pottery that is brought to Egypt and unloaded or emptied there is carried to Syria to join the stock that has already been taken there.
7. Now as soon as the Persians took possession of Egypt, it was they who thus provided for the entry into that country, filling pots with water as I have said. But at this time there was as yet no ready supply of water; wherefore Cambyses, hearing what was said by the stranger from Halicarnassus, sent messengers to the Arabian and asked and obtained safe conduct, giving and receiving from him pledges.
8. There are no men who respect pledges more than the Arabians. This is the manner of their giving them:—a man stands between the two parties that would give security, and cuts with a sharp stone the palms of the hands of the parties, by the thumb; then he takes a piece of wood from the cloak of each and smears with the blood seven stones that lie between them, calling the while on Dionysus and the Heavenly Aphrodite; and when he has fully done this, he that gives the security commends to his friends the stranger (or his countryman if the party be such), and his friends hold themselves bound to honour the pledge. They deem none other to be gods save Dionysus and the Heavenly Aphrodite; and they say that the cropping of their hair is like the cropping of the hair of Dionysus, cutting it round the head and shaving the temples. They call Dionysus, Orotalt; and Aphrodite, Alilat.
9. Having then pledged himself to the messengers who had come from Cambyses, the Arabian planned and did as I shall show: he filled camel-skins with water and loaded all his live camels with these; which done, he drove them into the waterless land and there awaited Cambyses’ army. This is the most credible of the stories told; but I must relate the less credible tale also, since they tell it. There is a great river in Arabia called Corys, issuing into the sea called Red. From this river (it is said) the king of the Arabians carried water by a duct of sewn ox-hides and other hides of a length sufficient to reach to the dry country; and he had great tanks dug in that country to receive and keep the water. It is a twelve days’ journey from the river to that desert. By three ducts (they say) he led the water to three several places.
10. Psammenitus, son of Amasis, was encamped by the mouth of the Nile called Pelusian, awaiting Cambyses. For when Cambyses marched against Egypt he found Amasis no longer alive; he had died after reigning forty-four years, in which no great misfortune had befallen him; and being dead he was embalmed and laid in the burial-place built for himself in the temple. While his son Psammenitus was king of Egypt, the people saw a most wonderful sight, namely, rain at Thebes of Egypt, where, as the Thebans themselves say, there had never been rain before, nor since to my lifetime; for indeed there is no rain at all in the upper parts of Egypt; but at that time a drizzle of rain fell at Thebes.
11. Now the Persians having crossed the waterless country and encamped near the Egyptians with intent to give battle, the foreign soldiery of the Egyptian, Greeks and Carians, devised a plan to punish Phanes, being wroth with him for leading a stranger army into Egypt. Phanes had left sons in Egypt; these they brought to the camp, into their father’s sight, and set a great bowl between the two armies; then they brought the sons one by one and cut their throats over the bowl. When all the sons were killed, they poured into the bowl wine and water, and the foreign soldiery drank of this and thereafter gave battle. The fight waxed hard, and many of both armies fell; but at length the Egyptians were routed.
12. I saw there a strange thing, of which the people of the country had told me. The bones of those slain on either side in this fight lying scattered separately (for the Persian bones lay in one place and the Egyptian in another, where the armies had first separately stood), the skulls of the Persians are so brittle that if you throw no more than a pebble it will pierce them, but the Egyptian skulls are so strong that a blow of a stone will hardly break them. And this, the people said (which for my own part I readily believed), is the reason of it: the Egyptians shave their heads from childhood, and the bone thickens by exposure to the sun. This also is the reason why they do not grow bald; for nowhere can one see so few bald heads as in Egypt. Their skulls then are strong for this reason; and the cause of the Persian skulls being weak is that they shelter their heads through their lives with the felt hats (called tiaras) which they wear. Such is the truth of this matter. I saw too the skulls of those Persians at Papremis who were slain with Darius’ son Achaemenes by Inaros the Libyan, and they were like the others.
13. After their rout in the battle the Egyptians fled in disorder; and they being driven into Memphis, Cambyses sent a Persian herald up the river in a ship of Mytilene to invite them to an agreement. But when they saw the ship coming to Memphis, they sallied out all together from their walls, destroyed the ship, tore the crew asunder (like butchers) and carried them within the walls. So the Egyptians were besieged, and after a good while yielded; but the neighbouring Libyans, affrighted by what had happened in Egypt, surrendered unresisting, laying tribute on themselves and sending gifts; and so too, affrighted like the Libyans, did the people of Cyrene and Barca. Cambyses received in all kindness the gifts of the Libyans; but he seized what came from Cyrene and scattered it with his own hands among his army. This he did, as I think, to mark his displeasure at the littleness of the gift; for the Cyrenaeans had sent five hundred silver minae.
14. On the tenth day after the surrender of the walled city of Memphis, Cambyses took Psammenitus king of Egypt, who had reigned for six months, and set him down in the outer part of the city with other Egyptians, to do him despite; having so done he made trial of Psammenitus’ spirit, as I shall show. He dressed the king’s daughter in slave’s attire and sent her with a vessel to fetch water, in company with other maidens dressed as she was, chosen from the families of the chief men. So when the damsels passed before their fathers crying and lamenting, all the rest answered with like cries and weeping, seeing their children’s evil case; but Psammenitus, having seen with his own eyes and learnt all, bowed himself to the ground. When the water-carriers had passed by, Cambyses next made Psammenitus’ son to pass him with two thousand Egyptians of like age besides, all with ropes bound round their necks and bits in their mouths; who were led forth to make atonement for those Mytilenaeans who had perished with their ship at Memphis; for such was the judgment of the royal judges, that every man’s death be paid for by the slaying of ten noble Egyptians. When Psammenitus saw them pass by and perceived that his son was led out to die, and all the Egyptians who sat with him wept and showed their affliction, he did as he had done at the sight of his daughter. When these too had gone by, it chanced that there was one of his boon companions, a man past his prime, that had lost all his possessions, and had but what a poor man might have, and begged of the army; this man now passed before Psammenitus son of Amasis and the Egyptians who sat in the outer part of the city. When Psammenitus saw him, he broke into loud weeping, smiting his head and calling on his companion by name. Now there were men set to watch Psammenitus, who told Cambyses all that he did as each went forth. Marvelling at what the king did, Cambyses made this inquiry of him by a messenger: “Psammenitus, Cambyses my master asks of you why, seeing your daughter mishandled and your son going to his death, you neither cried aloud nor wept, yet did this honour to the poor man, who (as Cambyses learns from others) is none of your kin?” So the messenger inquired. Psammenitus answered: “Son of Cyrus, my private grief was too great for weeping; but the misfortune of my companion called for tears—one that has lost wealth and good fortune and now on the threshold of old age is come to beggary.” When the messenger so reported, and Cambyses and his court, it is said, found the answer good, then, as the Egyptians tell, Croesus wept (for it chanced that he too had come with Cambyses to Egypt) and so did the Persians that were there; Cambyses himself felt somewhat of pity, and forthwith he bade that Psammenitus’ son be saved alive out of those that were to be slain, and that Psammenitus himself be taken from the outer part of the city and brought before him.
15. As for the son, those that went for him found that he was no longer living, but had been the first to be hewn down; but they brought Psammenitus away and led him to Cambyses; and there he lived, and no violence was done him for the rest of his life. And had he but been wise enough to mind his own business, he would have so far won back Egypt as to be governor of it; for the Persians are wont to honour king’s sons; even though kings revolt from them, yet they give back to their sons the sovereign power. There are many instances showing that it is their custom so to do, and notably the giving back of his father’s sovereign power to Thannyras son of Inaros, and also to Pausiris son of Amyrtaeus; yet none ever did the Persians more harm than Inaros and Amyrtaeus. But as it was, Psammenitus plotted evil and got his reward; for he was caught raising a revolt among the Egyptians; and when this came to Cambyses’ ears, Psammenitus drank bulls’ blood and forthwith died. Such was his end.
16. From Memphis Cambyses went to the city Sais, desiring to do that which indeed he did. Entering the house of Amasis, straightway he bade carry Amasis’ body out from its place of burial; and when this was accomplished, he gave command to scourge it and pull out the hair and pierce it with goads, and do it despite in all other ways. When they were weary of doing this (for the body, being embalmed, remained whole and did not fall to pieces), Cambyses commanded to burn it, a sacrilegious command; for the Persians hold fire to be a god; therefore neither nation deems it right to burn the dead, the Persians for the reason assigned, as they say it is wrong to give the dead body of a man to a god; while the Egyptians believe fire to be a living beast that devours all that it catches, and when sated with its meal dies together with that whereon it feeds. Now it is by no means their custom to give the dead to beasts; and this is why they embalm the corpse, that it may not lie and be eaten of worms. Thus Cambyses commanded the doing of a thing contrary to the custom of both peoples. Howbeit, as the Egyptians say, it was not Amasis to whom this was done, but another Egyptian of a like stature, whom the Persians despitefully used thinking that they so treated Amasis. For their story is that Amasis learnt from an oracle what was to be done to him after his death, and so to avert this doom buried this man, him that was scourged, at his death by the door within his own vault, and commanded his son that he himself should be laid in the farthest corner of the vault. I think that these commands of Amasis, respecting the burial-place and the man, were never given at all, and that the Egyptians but please themselves with a lying tale.
17. After this Cambyses planned three expeditions, against the Carchedonians, and against the Ammonians, and against the “long-lived” Ethiopians, who dwelt on the Libyan coast of the southern sea. Taking counsel, he resolved to send his fleet against the Carchedonians and a part of his land army against the Ammonians; to Ethiopia he would send first spies, to see what truth there were in the story of a Table of the Sun in that country, and to spy out all else besides, under the pretext of bearing gifts for the Ethiopian king.
18. Now this is said to be the fashion of the Table of the Sun. There is a meadow outside the city, filled with the boiled flesh of all four-footed things; here during the night the men of authority among the townsmen are careful to set out the meat, and all day he that wishes comes and feasts thereon. These meats, say the people of the country, are ever produced by the earth of itself.
19. Such is the story of the Sun’s Table. When Cambyses was resolved to send the spies, he sent straightway to fetch from the city Elephantine those of the Fish-eaters who understood the Ethiopian language. While they were seeking these men, he bade his fleet sail against Carchedon. But the Phoenicians would not consent; for they were bound, they said, by a strict treaty, and could not righteously attack their own sons; and the Phoenicians being unwilling, the rest were of no account as fighters. Thus the Carchedonians escaped being enslaved by the Persians; for Cambyses would not use force with the Phoenicians, seeing that they had willingly surrendered to the Persians, and the whole fleet drew its strength from them. The Cyprians too had come of their own accord to aid the Persians against Egypt.
20. When the Fish-eaters came from Elephantine at Cambyses’ message, he sent them to Ethiopia, charged with what they should say, and bearing gifts, to wit, a purple cloak and a twisted gold necklace and armlets and an alabaster box of incense and an earthenware jar of palm wine. These Ethiopians, to whom Cambyses sent them, are said to be the tallest and fairest of all men. Their way of choosing kings is different from that of all others, as (it is said) are all their laws; they deem worthy to be their king that townsman whom they judge to be tallest and to have strength proportioned to his stature.
21. These were the men to whom the Fish-eaters came, offering gifts and delivering this message to their king: “Cambyses king of Persia, desiring to be your friend and guest, sends us with command to address ourselves to you; and he offers you such gifts as he himself chiefly delights to use.” But the Ethiopian, perceiving that they had come as spies, spoke thus to them: “It is not because he sets great store by my friendship that the Persian King sends you with gifts, nor do you speak the truth (for you have come to spy out my dominions), nor is your king a righteous man; for were he such, he would not have coveted any country other than his own, nor would he now try to enslave men who have done him no wrong. Now, give him this bow, and this message: ‘The King of the Ethiopians counsels the King of the Persians, when the Persians can draw a bow of this greatness as easily as I do, then to bring overwhelming odds to attack the long-lived Ethiopians; but till then, to thank the gods who put it not in the minds of the sons of the Ethiopians to win more territory than they have.’”
22. So speaking he unstrung the bow and gave it to the men who had come. Then, taking the purple cloak, he asked what it was and how it was made; and when the Fish-eaters told him the truth about the purple and the way of dyeing, he said that both the men and their garments were full of guile. Next he inquired about the twisted gold necklace and the bracelets; and when the Fish-eaters told him how they were made, the king smiled, and, thinking them to be fetters, said: “We have stronger chains than these.” Thirdly he inquired about the incense; and when they told him of the making and the applying of it, he made the same reply as about the cloak. But when he came to the wine and asked about the making of it, he was vastly pleased with the draught, and asked further what food their king ate, and what was the greatest age to which a Persian lived. They told him their king ate bread, showing him how wheat grew; and said that the full age to which a man might hope to live was eighty years. Then said the Ethiopian, it was no wonder that their lives were so short, if they ate dung; they would never attain even to that age were it not for the strengthening power of the draught,—whereby he signified to the Fish-eaters the wine,—for in this, he said, the Persians excelled the Ethiopians.
23. The Fish-eaters then in turn asking of the Ethiopian length of life and diet, he said that most of them attained to an hundred and twenty years, and some even to more; their food was boiled meat and their drink milk. The spies showed wonder at the tale of years; whereon he led them, it is said, to a spring, by washing wherein they grew sleeker, as though it were of oil; and it smelt as it were of violets. So light, the spies said, was this water, that nothing would float on it, neither wood nor anything lighter than wood, but all sank to the bottom. If this water be truly such as they say, it is likely that their constant use of it makes the people long-lived. When they left the spring, the king led them to a prison where all the men were bound with fetters of gold. Among these Ethiopians there is nothing so scarce and so precious as bronze. Then, having seen the prison, they saw what is called the Table of the Sun.
24. Last after this they viewed the Ethiopian coffins; these are said to be made of alabaster, as I shall describe: they make the dead body to shrink, either as the Egyptians do or in some other way, then cover it with gypsum and paint it all as far as they may in the likeness of the living man; then they set it within a hollow pillar of alabaster, which they dig in abundance from the ground, and it is easily wrought; the body can be seen in the pillar through the alabaster, no evil stench nor aught unseemly proceeding from it, and showing clearly all its parts, as if it were the dead man himself. The nearest of kin keep the pillar in their house for a year, giving it of the firstfruits and offering it sacrifices; after which they bring the pillars out and set them round about the city.
25. Having viewed all, the spies departed back again. When they reported all this, Cambyses was angry, and marched forthwith against the Ethiopians, neither giving command for any provision of food nor considering that he was about to lead his army to the ends of the earth; and being not in his right mind but mad, he marched at once on hearing from the Fish-eaters, setting the Greeks who were with him to await him where they were, and taking with him all his land army. When he came in his march to Thebes, he parted about fifty thousand men from his army, and charged them to enslave the Ammonians and burn the oracle of Zeus; and he himself went on towards Ethiopia with the rest of his host. But before his army had accomplished the fifth part of their journey they had come to an end of all there was in the way of provision, and after the food was gone they ate the beasts of burden till there was none of these left also. Now had Cambyses, when he perceived this, changed his mind and led his army back again, he had been a wise man at last after his first fault; but as it was, he went ever forward, nothing recking. While his soldiers could get anything from the earth, they kept themselves alive by eating grass; but when they came to the sandy desert, certain of them did a terrible deed, taking by lot one man out of ten and eating him. Hearing this, Cambyses feared their becoming cannibals, and so gave up his expedition against the Ethiopians and marched back to Thebes, with the loss of many of his army; from Thebes he came down to Memphis, and sent the Greeks to sail away.
26. So fared the expedition against Ethiopia. As for those of the host who were sent to march against the Ammonians, they set forth and journeyed from Thebes with guides; and it is known that they came to the city Oasis, where dwell Samians said to be of the Aeschrionian tribe, seven days’ march from Thebes across sandy desert; this place is called, in the Greek language, the Island of the Blest. Thus far, it is said, the army came; after that, save the Ammonians themselves and those who heard from them, no man can say aught of them; for they neither reached the Ammonians nor returned back. But this is what the Ammonians themselves say: When the Persians were crossing the sand from the Oasis to attack them, and were about midway between their country and the Oasis, while they were breakfasting a great and violent south wind arose, which buried them in the masses of sand which it bore; and so they disappeared from sight. Such is the Ammonian tale about this army.
27. After Cambyses was come to Memphis there appeared in Egypt that Apis whom the Greeks call Epaphus; at which revelation straightway the Egyptians donned their fairest garments and kept high festival. Seeing the Egyptians so doing, Cambyses was fully persuaded that these signs of joy were for his misfortunes, and summoned the rulers of Memphis; when they came before him he asked them why the Egyptians acted so at the moment of his coming with so many of his army lost, though they had done nothing like it when he was before at Memphis. The rulers told him that a god, who had been wont to reveal himself at long intervals of time, had now appeared to them; and that all Egypt rejoiced and made holiday whenever he so appeared. At this Cambyses said that they lied, and he punished them with death for their lie.
28. Having put them to death, he next summoned the priests before him. When they gave him the same account, he said that “if a tame god had come to the Egyptians he would know it”; and with no more words he bade the priests bring Apis. So they went to seek and bring him. This Apis, or Epaphus, is a calf born of a cow that can never conceive again. By what the Egyptians say, the cow is made pregnant by a light from heaven, and thereafter gives birth to Apis. The marks of this calf called Apis are these: he is black, and has on his forehead a three-cornered white spot, and the likeness of an eagle on his back; the hairs of the tail are double, and there is a knot under the tongue.
29. When the priests led Apis in, Cambyses—for he was well-nigh mad—drew his dagger and made to stab the calf in the belly, but smote the thigh; then laughing he said to the priests: “Wretched wights, are these your gods, creatures of flesh and blood that can feel weapons of iron? that is a god worthy of the Egyptians. But for you, you shall suffer for making me your laughing-stock.” So saying he bade those, whose business it was, to scourge the priests well, and to kill any other Egyptian whom they found holiday-making. So the Egyptian festival was ended, and the priests were punished, and Apis lay in the temple and died of the blow on the thigh. When he was dead of the wound, the priests buried him without Cambyses’ knowledge.
30. By reason of this wrongful deed, as the Egyptians say, Cambyses’ former want of sense turned straightway to madness. His first evil act was to make away with his full brother Smerdis, whom he had sent away from Egypt to Persia out of jealousy, because Smerdis alone could draw the bow brought from the Ethiopian by the Fish-eaters as far as two fingerbreadths; but no other Persian could draw it. Smerdis having gone to Persia, Cambyses saw in a dream a vision, whereby it seemed to him that a messenger came from Persia and told him that Smerdis had sat on the royal throne with his head reaching to heaven. Fearing therefore for himself, lest his brother might slay him and so be king, he sent to Persia Prexaspes, the trustiest of his Persians, to kill Smerdis. Prexaspes went up to Susa and so did; some say that he took Smerdis out a-hunting, others that he brought him to the Red Sea and there drowned him.
31. This, they say, was the first of Cambyses’ evil acts; next, he made away with his full sister, who had come with him to Egypt, and whom he had taken to wife. He married her on this wise (for before this, it had by no means been customary for Persians to marry their sisters): Cambyses was enamoured of one of his sisters and presently desired to take her to wife; but his intention being contrary to usage, he summoned the royal judges and inquired whether there were any law suffering one, that so desired, to marry his sister. These royal judges are men chosen out from the Persians to be so till they die or are detected in some injustice; it is they who decide suits in Persia and interpret the laws of the land; all matters are referred to them. These then replied to Cambyses with an answer which was both just and safe, namely, that they could find no law giving a brother power to marry his sister; but that they had also found a law whereby the King of Persia might do whatsoever he wished. Thus they broke not the law for fear of Cambyses, and, to save themselves from death for maintaining it, they found another law to justify one that desired wedlock with sisters. So for the nonce Cambyses married her of whom he was enamoured; yet presently he took another sister to wife. It was the younger of these who had come with him to Egypt, and whom he now killed.
32. There are two tales of her death, as of the death of Smerdis. The Greeks say that Cambyses had set a puppy to fight a lion’s cub, with this woman too looking on; and the puppy being worsted, another puppy, its brother, broke its leash and came to help, whereby the two dogs together got the better of the cub. Cambyses, they say, was pleased with the sight, but the woman wept as she sat by. Cambyses perceived it and asking why she wept, she said she had wept when she saw the puppy help its brother, for thinking of Smerdis and how there was none to avenge him. For saying this, according to the Greek story, Cambyses put her to death. But the Egyptian tale is that as the two sat at table the woman took a lettuce and plucked off the leaves, then asked her husband whether he liked the look of it, with or without leaves; “With the leaves,” said he; whereupon she answered: “Yet you have stripped Cyrus’ house as bare as this lettuce.” Angered at this, they say, he leaped upon her, she being great with child; and she miscarried and died of the hurt he gave her.
33. Such were Cambyses’ mad acts to his own household, whether they were done because of Apis or grew from some of the many troubles that are wont to beset men; for indeed he is said to have been afflicted from his birth with that grievous disease which some call “sacred.” It is no unlikely thing then that when his body was grievously afflicted his mind too should be diseased.
34. I will now tell of his mad dealings with the rest of Persia. He said, as they report, to Prexaspes—whom he held in especial honour, who brought him all his messages, whose son held the very honourable office of Cambyses’ cup-bearer—thus, I say, he spoke to Prexaspes: “What manner of man, Prexaspes, do the Persians think me to be, and how speak they of me?” “Sire,” said Prexaspes, “for all else they greatly praise you; but they say that you love wine too well.” So he reported of the Persians; the king angrily replied: “If the Persians now say that ’tis my fondness for wine that drives me to frenzy and madness, then it would seem that their former saying also was a lie.” For it is said that ere this, certain Persians and Croesus sitting with him, Cambyses asked what manner of man they thought him to be in comparison with Cyrus his father; and they answered, “that Cambyses was the better man; for he had all of Cyrus’ possessions and had won besides Egypt and the sea.” So said the Persians; but Croesus, who was present, and was ill-satisfied with their judgment, thus spoke to Cambyses: “To my thinking, son of Cyrus, you are not like your father; for you have as yet no son such as he left after him in you.” This pleased Cambyses, and he praised Croesus’ judgment.
35. Remembering this, then, he said to Prexaspes in his anger: “Judge you then if the Persians speak truth, or rather are themselves out of their minds when they so speak of me. Yonder stands your son in the porch; now if I shoot and pierce his heart, that will prove the Persians to be wrong; if I miss, then say that they are right and I out of my senses.” So saying, he strung his bow and hit the boy, and bade open the fallen body and examine the wound: and the arrow being found in the heart, Cambyses laughed in great glee and said to the boy’s father: “It is plain, Prexaspes, that I am in my right mind and the Persians mad; now tell me: what man in the world saw you ever that shot so true to the mark?” Prexaspes, it is said, replied (for he saw that Cambyses was mad, and he feared for his own life), “Master, I think that not even the god himself could shoot so true.” Thus did Cambyses then; at another time he took twelve Persians, equal to the noblest in the land, proved them guilty of some petty offence, and buried them alive up to the neck.
36. For these acts Croesus the Lydian thought fit to take him to task, and thus addressed him: “Sire, do not ever let youth and passion have their way; put some curb and check on yourself; prudence is a good thing, forethought is wisdom. But what of you? you put to death men of your own country proved guilty of but a petty offence; ay, and you kill boys. If you do often so, look to it lest the Persians revolt from you. As for me, your father Cyrus earnestly bade me counsel you and give you such advice as I think to be good.” Croesus gave him this counsel out of goodwill; but Cambyses answered: “It is very well that you should dare to counsel me too; you, who governed your own country right usefully, and gave fine advice to my father—bidding him, when the Massagetae were willing to cross over into our lands, to pass the Araxes and attack them; thus you wrought your own ruin by misgoverning your country, and Cyrus’s by overpersuading him. Nay, but you shall rue it; long have I waited for an occasion to deal with you.” With that Cambyses took his bow to shoot him dead; but Croesus leapt up and ran out; and Cambyses, being unable to shoot him, charged his attendants to take and kill him. They, knowing Cambyses’ mood, hid Croesus; being minded, if Cambyses should repent and seek for Croesus, to reveal him and receive gifts for saving his life; but if he should not repent nor wish Croesus back, then to kill the Lydian. Not long after this Cambyses did wish Croesus back, perceiving which the attendants told him that Croesus was alive still. Cambyses said that he too was glad of it; but that they, who had saved Croesus alive, should not go scot free, but be killed; and this was done.
37. Many such mad deeds did Cambyses to the Persians and his allies; he abode at Memphis, and there opened ancient coffins and examined the dead bodies. Thus too he entered the temple of Hephaestus and made much mockery of the image there. This image of Hephaestus is most like to the Phoenician Pataïci, which the Phoenicians carry on the prows of their triremes. I will describe it for him who has not seen these figures: it is in the likeness of a dwarf. Also he entered the temple of the Cabeiri, into which none may enter save the priest; the images here he even burnt, with bitter mockery. These also are like the images of Hephaestus, and are said to be his sons.
38. I hold it then in every way proved that Cambyses was very mad; else he would never have set himself to deride religion and custom. For if it were proposed to all nations to choose which seemed best of all customs, each, after examination made, would place its own first; so well is each persuaded that its own are by far the best. It is not therefore to be supposed that any, save a madman, would turn such things to ridicule. I will give this one proof among many from which it may be inferred that all men hold this belief about their customs:—When Darius was king, he summoned the Greeks who were with him and asked them what price would persuade them to eat their fathers’ dead bodies. They answered that there was no price for which they would do it. Then he summoned those Indians who are called Callatiae, who eat their parents, and asked them (the Greeks being present and understanding by interpretation what was said) what would make them willing to burn their fathers at death. The Indians cried aloud, that he should not speak of so horrid an act. So firmly rooted are these beliefs; and it is, I think, rightly said in Pindar’s poem that use and wont is lord of all.
39. While Cambyses was attacking Egypt, the Lacedaemonians too made war upon Samos and Aeaces’ son Polycrates. He had revolted and won Samos, and first, dividing the city into three parts, gave a share in the government to his brothers Pantagnotus and Syloson; but presently he put one of them to death, banished the younger, Syloson, and so made himself lord of all Samos; which done, he made a treaty with Amasis king of Egypt, sending and receiving from him gifts. Very soon after this Polycrates grew to such power that he was famous in Ionia and all other Greek lands; for all his warlike enterprises prospered. An hundred fifty-oared ships he had, and a thousand archers, and he harried all men alike, making no difference; for, he said, he would get more thanks if he gave a friend back what he had taken than if he never took it at all. He had taken many of the islands, and many of the mainland cities. Among others, he conquered the Lesbians; they had brought all their force to aid the Milesians, and Polycrates worsted them in a sea-fight; it was they who, being his captives, dug all the fosse round the citadel of Samos.
40. Now Amasis was in some wise aware and took good heed of Polycrates’ great good fortune; and this continuing to increase greatly, he wrote this letter and sent it to Samos: “From Amasis to Polycrates, these. It is pleasant to learn of the well-being of a friend and ally. But I like not these great successes of yours; for I know how jealous are the gods; and I do in some sort desire for myself and my friends a mingling of prosperity and mishap, and a life of weal and woe thus chequered, rather than unbroken good fortune. For from all I have heard I know of no man whom continual good fortune did not bring in the end to evil, and utter destruction. Therefore if you will be ruled by me do this in the face of your successes: consider what you deem most precious and what you will most grieve to lose, and cast it away so that it shall never again be seen among men; then, if after this the successes that come to you be not chequered by mishaps, strive to mend the matter as I have counselled you.”
41. Reading this, and perceiving that Amasis’ advice was good, Polycrates considered which of his treasures it would most afflict his soul to lose, and to this conclusion he came: he wore a seal set in gold, an emerald, wrought by Theodorus son of Telecles of Samos; being resolved to cast this away, he embarked in a fifty-oared ship with its crew, and bade them put out to sea; and when he was far from the island, he took off the seal-ring in sight of all that were in the ship and cast it into the sea. This done, he sailed back and went to his house, where he grieved for the loss.
42. But on the fifth or sixth day from this it so befell that a fisherman, who had taken a fine and great fish, and desired to make it a gift to Polycrates, brought it to the door and said that he wished to be seen by Polycrates. This being granted to him, he gave the fish, saying: “O King, I am a man that lives by his calling; but when I caught this fish I thought best not to take it to market; it seemed to me worthy of you and your greatness; wherefore I bring and offer it to you.” Polycrates was pleased with what the fisherman said; “You have done right well,” he answered, “and I give you double thanks, for your words and for the gift; and I bid you to dinner with me.” Proud of this honour, the fisherman went home; but the servants, cutting up the fish, found Polycrates’ seal-ring in its belly; which having seen and taken they brought with joy to Polycrates, gave him the ring, and told him how it was found. Polycrates saw the hand of heaven in this matter; he wrote a letter and sent it to Egypt, telling all that he had done, and what had befallen him.
43. When Amasis had read Polycrates’ letter, he perceived that no man could save another from his destiny, and that Polycrates, being so continually fortunate that he even found what he cast away, must come to an evil end. So he sent a herald to Samos to renounce his friendship, with this intent, that when some great and terrible mishap overtook Polycrates, he himself might not have to grieve his heart for a friend.
44. It was against this ever-victorious Polycrates that the Lacedaemonians now made war, being invited thereto by the Samians who afterwards founded Cydonia in Crete. Polycrates had without the knowledge of his subjects sent a herald to Cambyses son of Cyrus, then raising an army against Egypt, to ask that Cambyses should send to Samos too and require men from him. On this message Cambyses very readily sent to Samos, asking Polycrates to send a fleet to aid him against Egypt. Polycrates chose out those townsmen whom he most suspected of planning a rebellion against him, and sent them in forty triremes, charging Cambyses not to send the men back.
45. Some say that these Samians who were sent by Polycrates never came to Egypt, but having got as far over the sea as Carpathus there took counsel together and resolved to sail no further; others say that they did come to Egypt and escaped thence from the guard that was set over them. But as they sailed back to Samos, Polycrates’ ships met them and joined battle; and the returning Samians gained the day and landed on the island, but were there worsted in a land battle, and so sailed to Lacedaemon. There is another story, that the Samians from Egypt defeated Polycrates; but to my thinking this is untrue; for if they were able to master Polycrates by themselves, they had no need of inviting the Lacedaemonians. Nay, moreover, it is not even reasonable to suppose that he, who had a great army of hired soldiers and bowmen of his own, was worsted by a few men like the returning Samians. Polycrates took the children and wives of the townsmen who were subject to him and shut them up in the arsenal, with intent to burn them and the arsenal too if their men should desert to the returned Samians.
46. When the Samians who were expelled by Polycrates came to Sparta, they came before the ruling men and made a long speech to show the greatness of their need. But the Spartans at their first sitting answered that they had forgotten the beginning of the speech and could not understand its end. After this the Samians came a second time with a sack, and said nothing but this: “The sack wants meal.” To this the Spartans replied: “Your ‘sack’ was needless”; but they did resolve to help them.
47. The Lacedaemonians then equipped and sent an army to Samos; the Samians say that this was the requital of services done, they having first sent a fleet to help the Lacedaemonians against Messenia; but the Lacedaemonians say that they sent this army less to aid the Samians in their need than to avenge the robbery of the bowl which they had been carrying to Croesus and the breastplate which Amasis King of Egypt had sent them as a gift. This breastplate had been stolen away by the Samians in the year before they took the bowl; it was of linen, decked with gold and cotton embroidery, and inwoven with many figures; but what makes the wonder of it is each several thread, for fine as each thread is, it is made up of three hundred and sixty strands, each plainly seen. It is the exact counterpart of that one which Amasis dedicated to Athene in Lindus.
48. The Corinthians also helped zealously to further the expedition against Samos. They too had been treated in a high-handed fashion by the Samians a generation before this expedition, about the time of the robbery of the bowl. Periander son of Cypselus sent to Alyattes at Sardis three hundred boys, sons of notable men in Corcyra, to be made eunuchs. The Corinthians who brought the boys put in at Samos; and when the Samians heard why the boys were brought, first they bade them take sanctuary in the temple of Artemis, then they would not suffer the suppliants to be dragged from the temple; and when the Corinthians tried to starve the boys out, the Samians made a festival which they still celebrate in the same fashion; as long as the boys took refuge, nightly dances of youths and maidens were ordained to which it was made a custom to bring cakes of sesame and honey, that the Corcyraean boys might snatch these and so be fed. This continued to be done till the Corinthian guards left their charge and departed, and the Samians took the boys back to Corcyra.
49. Now had the Corinthians after Periander’s death been well disposed towards the Corcyraeans, they would not have aided in the expedition against Samos merely for the reason given. But as it was, ever since the island was colonised they have been at feud with each other, for all their kinship. For these reasons the Corinthians bore a grudge against the Samians.
50. It was in vengeance that Periander chose the sons of the notable Corcyraeans and sent them to Sardis to be made eunuchs; for the Corcyraeans had first begun the quarrel by committing a terrible crime against him. For after killing his own wife Melissa, Periander suffered yet another calamity besides what had already befallen him. He had two sons by Melissa, one seventeen and one eighteen years old. Their mother’s father, Procles, the despot of Epidaurus, sent for the boys and kindly entreated them, as was natural, seeing that they were his own daughter’s sons. When they left him, he said as he bade them farewell: “Know you, boys, him who slew your mother?” The elder of them paid no heed to these words; but the younger, whose name was Lycophron, was struck with such horror when he heard them that when he came to Corinth he would speak no word to his father, as being his mother’s murderer, nor would he answer him when addressed nor make any reply to his questions. At last Periander was so angry that he drove the boy from his house.
51. Having so done he questioned the elder son, what their grandfather had said in converse to them. The boy told him that Procles had treated them kindly; but he made no mention of what he had said at parting; for he had taken no heed to it. Periander said it could not be but that Procles had given them some admonition; and he questioned his son earnestly; till the boy remembered, and told of that also. Being thus informed, Periander was resolved to show no weakness; he sent a message to those with whom his banished son was living and bade them not entertain him in their house. So the boy being driven forth and going to another house was ever rejected there too, Periander threatening all who received him and bidding them keep him out; so he would go, when driven forth, to some other house of his friends, who, though they were afraid, did yet receive him as being Periander’s son.
52. At the last Periander made a proclamation, that whosoever should receive him into their houses or address him should be held liable to a fine consecrated to Apollo, and he named the sum. In face of this proclamation none would address or receive the boy into his house; nor did the boy himself think well to try to defy the warning, but hardened his heart and lay untended in porches. After three days Periander saw him all starved and unwashed, and took pity on him: his anger being somewhat abated, he came near and said: “My son, which is the better way to choose—to follow your present way of life, or to obey your father and inherit my sovereignty and the good things which I now possess? You are my son, and a prince of wealthy Corinth; yet you have chosen the life of a vagrant, by withstanding and angrily entreating him who should least be so used by you. For if there has been any evil chance in the matter, which makes you to suspect me, ’tis on me that it has come and ’tis I that bear the greater share of it, inasmuch as the act was mine. Nay, bethink you how much better a thing it is to be envied than to be pitied, and likewise what comes of anger against parents and those that are stronger than you, and come away to my house.” Thus Periander tried to win his son. But the boy only answered: “You have made yourself liable to the fine consecrated to the god by speaking to me.” Then Periander saw that his son’s trouble was past cure or constraint, and sent him away in a ship to Corcyra out of his sight; for Corcyra too was subject to him; which done, he sent an army against Procles his father-in-law (deeming him to be the chief cause of his present troubles), and took Procles himself alive, besides taking Epidaurus.
53. As time went on, Periander, now grown past his prime and aware that he could no longer oversee and direct all his business, sent to Corcyra inviting Lycophron to be despot; for he saw no hope in his eldest son, who seemed to him to be slow-witted. Lycophron did not deign even to answer the messenger. Then Periander, greatly desiring that the young man should come, sent to him (as the next best way) his own daughter, the youth’s sister, thinking that he would be likeliest to obey her. She came and said, “Brother, would you see the sovereignty pass to others, and our father’s house despoiled, rather than come hence and have it for your own? Nay, come away home and cease from punishing yourself. Pride is the possession of fools. Seek not to cure one ill by another. There be many that set reason before righteousness; and many that by zeal for their mother’s cause have lost their father’s possessions. Despotism is a thing hard to hold; many covet it, and our father is now old and past his prime; give not what is your estate to others.” So, by her father’s teaching, she used such arguments as were most likely to win Lycophron; but he answered, that he would never come to Corinth as long as he knew his father to be alive. When she brought this answer back, Periander sent a third messenger, offering to go to Corcyra himself, and to make Lycophron, when he came, despot in his place. The son consented to this; Periander made ready to go to Corcyra and Lycophron to go to Corinth; but when the Corcyraeans learnt of all these matters they put the young man to death, lest Periander should come to their country. It was for this that Periander desired vengeance upon them.
54. The Lacedaemonians then came with a great host, and laid siege to Samos. They assailed the fortress and made their way into the tower by the seaside in the outer part of the city; but presently Polycrates himself attacked them with a great force and drove them out. The foreign soldiery and many of the Samians themselves sallied out near the upper tower on the ridge of the hill, and withstood the Lacedaemonian onset for a little while; then they fled back, the Lacedaemonians pursuing and slaying them.
55. Now had all the Lacedaemonians there fought as valiantly that day as Archias and Lycopas, Samos had been taken. These two alone entered the fortress along with the fleeing crowd of Samians, and their way back being barred were then slain in the city of Samos. I myself have met in his native township of Pitana another Archias (son of Samius, and grandson of the Archias afore-named), who honoured the Samians more than any other of his guest-friends, and told me that his father had borne the name Samius because he was the son of that Archias who was slain fighting gallantly at Samos. The reason of his honouring the Samians, he said, was that they had given his grandfather a public funeral.
56. So when the Lacedaemonians had besieged Samos for forty days with no success, they went away to Peloponnesus. There is a foolish tale abroad that Poly crates bribed them to depart by making and giving them a great number of gilt leaden coins, as a native currency. This was the first expedition to Asia made by Dorians of Lacedaemon.
57. When the Lacedaemonians were about to abandon them, the Samians who had brought an army against Polycrates sailed away too, and went to Siphnus; for they were in want of money; and the Siphnians were at this time very prosperous and the richest of the islanders, by reason of the gold and silver mines of the island. So wealthy were they that the treasury dedicated by them at Delphi, which is as rich as any there, was made from the tenth part of their revenues; and they made a distribution for themselves of each year’s revenue. Now when they were making the treasury they enquired of the oracle if their present well-being was like to abide long; whereto the priestess gave them this answer:
At this time the market-place and town-hall of Siphnus were adorned with Parian marble.
58. They could not understand this oracle either when it was spoken or at the time of the Samians’ coming. As soon as the Samians put in at Siphnus, they sent ambassadors to the town in one of their ships; now in ancient times all ships were painted with vermilion; and this was what was meant by the warning given by the priestess to the Siphnians, to beware of a wooden ambush and a red herald. The messengers, then, demanded from the Siphnians a loan of ten talents; which being refused, the Samians set about ravaging their lands. Hearing this the Siphnians came out forthwith to drive them off, but they were worsted in battle, and many of them were cut off from their town by the Samians; who presently exacted from them a hundred talents.
59. Then the Samians took from the men of Hermione, instead of money, the island Hydrea which is near to Peloponnesus, and gave it in charge to men of Troezen; they themselves settled at Cydonia in Crete, though their voyage had been made with no such intent, but rather to drive Zacynthians out of the island. Here they stayed and prospered for five years; indeed, the temples now at Cydonia and the shrine of Dictyna are the Samians’ work; but in the sixth year came Aeginetans and Cretans and overcame them in a sea-fight and made slaves of them; moreover they cut off the ships’ prows, that were shaped like boars’ heads, and dedicated them in the temple of Athene in Aegina. This the Aeginetans did out of a grudge against the Samians, who had begun the quarrel; for when Amphicrates was king of Samos they had sent an army against Aegina, whereby now the Samians and now the Aeginetans had suffered great harm. Such was the cause of the feud.
60. I have written thus at length of the Samians, because they are the makers of the three greatest works to be seen in any Greek land. First of these is the double-mouthed channel pierced for an hundred and fifty fathoms through the base of a high hill; the whole channel is seven furlongs long, eight feet high and eight feet wide; and throughout the whole of its length there runs another channel twenty cubits deep and three feet wide, wherethrough the water coming from an abundant spring is carried by its pipes to the city of Samos. The designer of this work was Eupalinus son of Naustrophus, a Megarian. This is one of the three works; the second is a mole in the sea enclosing the harbour, sunk full twenty fathoms, and more than two furlongs in length. The third Samian work is the temple, which is the greatest that I have seen; its first builder was Rhoecus son of Philes, a Samian. It is for this cause that I have written at length more than ordinary of Samos.
61. Now after Cambyses son of Cyrus had lost his wits, while he still lingered in Egypt, two Magians, who were brothers, rebelled against him. One of them had been left by Cambyses to be steward of his house; this man now revolted from him, perceiving that the death of Smerdis was kept secret, and that few persons knew of it, most of them believing him to be still alive. Therefore he thus plotted to gain the royal power: he had a brother, his partner, as I said, in rebellion; this brother was very like in appearance to Cyrus’ son, Smerdis, brother of Cambyses and by him put to death; nor was he like him in appearance only, but he bore the same name also, Smerdis. Patizeithes the Magian persuaded this man that he, Patizeithes, would manage the whole business for him; he brought his brother and set him on the royal throne; which done, he sent heralds to all parts, one of whom was to go to Egypt and proclaim to the army that henceforth they must obey not Cambyses but Smerdis the son of Cyrus.
62. So this proclamation was everywhere made; the herald appointed to go to Egypt, finding Cambyses and his army at Agbatana in Syria, came out before them all and proclaimed the message given him by the Magian. When Cambyses heard what the herald said, he supposed that it was truth, and that Prexaspes, when sent to kill Smerdis, had not so done but played Cambyses false; and he said, fixing his eyes on Prexaspes, “Is it thus, Prexaspes, that you did my behest?” “Nay,” said Prexaspes, “this is no truth, sire, that your brother Smerdis has rebelled against you; nor can it be that he will have any quarrel with you, small or great; I myself did your bidding, and mine own hands buried him. If then the dead can rise, you may look to see Astyages the Mede rise up against you; but if nature’s order be not changed, assuredly no harm to you will arise from Smerdis. Now therefore this is my counsel, that we pursue after this herald and examine him, to know from whom he comes with his proclamation that we must obey Smerdis as our king.”
63. Cambyses thought well of Prexaspes’ counsel; the herald was pursued and brought; and when he came, Prexaspes put this question to him: “Sirrah, you say that your message is from Cyrus’ son Smerdis; tell me this now, and you may go hence unpunished: was it Smerdis who himself appeared to you and gave you this charge, or was it one of his servants?” “Since King Cambyses marched to Egypt,” answered the herald, “I have never myself seen Smerdis the son of Cyrus; the Magian whom Cambyses made overseer of his house gave me the charge, saying that it was the will of Smerdis, son of Cyrus, that I should make it known to you.” So spoke the herald, telling the whole truth; and Cambyses said, “Prexaspes, I hold you innocent; you have done my bidding right loyally; but who can this Persian be who rebels against me and usurps the name of Smerdis?” Prexaspes replied, “I think, sire, that I understand what has been done here; the rebels are the Magians, Patizeithes whom you left steward of your house, and his brother Smerdis.”
64. At the name of Smerdis, Cambyses was smitten to the heart by the truth of the word and the fulfilment of his dream; for he had dreamt that a message had come to him that Smerdis had sat on the royal throne with his head reaching to heaven; and perceiving that he had killed his brother to no purpose, he wept bitterly for Smerdis. Having wept his fill, in great grief for all his mishap, he leapt upon his horse, with intent to march forthwith to Susa against the Magian. As he mounted, the cap slipped off the scabbard of his sword, and the naked blade struck his thigh, wounding him in the same part where he himself had once smitten the Egyptian god Apis; and believing the blow to be mortal, Cambyses asked what was the name of the town where he was. They told him it was Agbatana. Now a prophecy had ere this come to him from Buto, that he would end his life at Agbatana; Cambyses supposed this to signify that he would die in old age at the Median Agbatana, his capital city; but as the event proved, the oracle prophesied his death at Agbatana of Syria. So when he now enquired and learnt the name of the town, the shock of his wound, and of the misfortune that came to him from the Magian, brought him to his senses; he understood the prophecy and said: “Here Cambyses son of Cyrus is doomed to die.”
65. At this time he said no more. But about twenty days after, he sent for the most honourable of the Persians that were about him, and thus addressed them: “Needs must, Persians! that I declare to you a matter which I kept most strictly concealed. When I was in Egypt, I saw in my sleep a vision that I would I had never seen; methought a messenger came from home to tell me that Smerdis had sat on the royal throne, his head reaching to heaven. Then I feared that my brother would take away from me my sovereignty, and I acted with more haste than wisdom; for (as I now see) no human power can turn fate aside; fool that I was! I sent Prexaspes to Susa to slay Smerdis. When that great wrong was done I lived without fear, for never did I think that when Smerdis was taken out of my way another man might rise against me. So did I wholly mistake what was to be; I have slain my brother when there was no need, and lost my kingship none the less; for the rebel foretold by heaven in the vision was Smerdis the Magian. Now I have done the deed, and I would have you believe that Smerdis Cyrus’ son no longer lives; you see the Magians masters of my royal estate, even him that I left steward of my house, and his brother Smerdis. So then, he that especially should have avenged the dishonour done me by the Magians lies foully slain by his nearest kinsman; and he being no longer in life, necessity constrains me, in his default, to charge you, men of Persia, with the last desire of my life. In the name of the gods of my royal house I charge all of you, but chiefly those Achaemenids that are here, not to suffer the sovereignty to fall again into Median hands; if they have won it by trickery, trick them of it again; if they have wrested it away by force, then do you by force and strength of hand recover it. And if you so do, may your land bring forth her fruits, and your women and your flocks and herds be blessed with offspring; but if you win not back the kingdom nor essay so to do, then I pray that all may go contrariwise for you, yea, that every Persian may meet an end such as mine.” With that Cambyses wept bitterly for all that had befallen him.
66. When the Persians saw their king weep, they all rent the garments which they wore and lamented loud and long. But after this the bone became gangrened and mortification of the thigh set in rapidly; which took off Cambyses son of Cyrus, who had reigned in all seven years and five months, and left no issue at all, male or female. The Persians present fully disbelieved in their hearts that the Magians were masters of the kingdom; they supposed that Cambyses’ intent was to deceive them with his tale of Smerdis’ death, so that all Persia might be plunged into a war against him. So they believed that it was Cyrus’ son Smerdis who had been made king. For Prexaspes stoutly denied that he had killed Smerdis, since now that Cambyses was dead, it was not safe for him to say that he had slain the son of Cyrus with his own hands.
67. Cambyses being dead, the Magian, pretending to be the Smerdis of like name, Cyrus’ son, reigned without fear for the seven months lacking to Cambyses’ full eight years of kingship. In this time he greatly benefited all his subjects, in so much that after his death all the Asiatics except the Persians wished him back; for he sent hither and thither to every nation of his dominions and proclaimed them for three years freed from service in arms and from tribute.
68. Such was his proclamation at the beginning of his reign; but in the eighth month it was revealed who he was, and this is how it was done:—There was one Otanes, son of Pharnaspes, as well-born and rich a man as any Persian. This Otanes was the first to suspect that the Magian was not Cyrus’ son Smerdis but his true self; the reason was, that he never left the citadel nor summoned any notable Persian into his presence; and in his suspicion—Cambyses having married Otanes’ daughter Phaedyme, whom the Magian had now wedded, with all the rest of Cambyses’ wives—Otanes sent to this daughter, asking with whom she lay, Smerdis, Cyrus’ son, or another. She sent back a message that she did not know; for (said she) she had never seen Cyrus’ son Smerdis, nor knew who was her bedfellow. Then Otanes sent a second message, to this effect: “If you do not yourself know Cyrus’ son Smerdis, then ask Atossa who is this that is her lord and yours; for surely she knows her own brother.”
69. To this his daughter replied: “I cannot get speech with Atossa, nor can I see any other of the women of the household; for no sooner had this man, whoever he is, made himself king, than he sent us to live apart, each in her appointed place.” When Otanes heard that, he saw more clearly how the matter stood; and he sent her this third message: “Daughter, it is due to your noble birth that you should run any risk that your father bids you face. If this man be not Smerdis son of Cyrus, but another whom I suspect him to be, then he must not go unscathed, but be punished for sharing your bed and sitting on the throne of Persia. Now, therefore, when he lies with you and you see that he is asleep, do as I bid you and feel for his ears; if you see that he has ears, then you may think that it is Smerdis son of Cyrus who is your lord; but if he has none, it is Smerdis the Magian.” Phaedyme answered by messenger that she would run very great risk by so doing; for if it should turn out that he had no ears, and she were caught feeling for them, he would surely make an end of her; nevertheless she would do it. So she promised to achieve her father’s bidding. It is known that Cyrus son of Cambyses had in his reign cut off the ears of this Magian, Smerdis, for some grave reason—I know not what. So Phaedyme, daughter of Otanes, performed her promise to her father. When it was her turn to visit the Magian (as a Persian’s wives come in regular order to their lord), she came to his bed and felt for the Magian’s ears while he slumbered deeply; and having with no great difficulty assured herself that he had no ears, she sent and told this to her father as soon as it was morning.
70. Otanes then took to himself two Persians of the highest rank whom he thought worthiest of trust, Aspathines and Gobryas, and told them the whole story. These, it would seem, had themselves suspected that it was so; and now they readily believed what Otanes revealed to them. They resolved that each should take into their fellowship that Persian whom he most trusted; Otanes brought in Intaphrenes, Gobryas brought Megabyzus and Aspathines Hydarnes; so they were six. Now came to Susa Darius son of Hystaspes, from Persia, of which his father was vice-gerent; and on his coming the six Persians resolved to make Darius too their comrade.
71. The seven then met and gave each other pledges and spoke together; and when it was Darius’ turn to declare his mind, he spoke as follows: “I supposed that I alone knew that it was the Magian who is king and that Smerdis son of Cyrus is dead; and it is for this cause that I have made haste to come, that I might compass the Magian’s death; but since it has so fallen out that you too and not I alone know the truth, my counsel is for action forthwith, no delay; for evil will come of delay.” “Son of Hystaspes,” Otanes answered, “your father is a valiant man, and methinks you declare yourself as valiant as he; yet hasten not this enterprise thus inconsiderately; take the matter more prudently; we must wait to set about it till there are more of us.” To this Darius answered: “Sirs, if you do as Otanes counsels, you must all know that you will perish miserably; for someone will carry all to the Magian, desiring private reward for himself. Now, it had been best for you to achieve your end yourselves unaided; but seeing that it was your pleasure to impart your plot to others and that so you have trusted me with it, let us, I say, do the deed this day; if you let to-day pass, be assured that none will accuse you ere I do, for I will myself lay the whole matter before the Magian.”
72. To this Otanes replied, seeing Darius’ vehemence, “Since you compel us to hasten and will brook no delay, tell us now yourself how we shall pass into the palace and assail the Magians. The place is beset all round by guards; this you know, for you have seen or heard of them; how shall we win past the guards?” “Otanes,” answered Darius, “very many things can be done whereof the doing cannot be described in words; and sometimes a plan easy to make clear is yet followed by no deed of note. Right well you know that the guards who are set are easy to pass. For we being such as we are, there is none who will not grant us admittance, partly from reverence and partly too from fear; and further, I have myself the fairest pretext for entering, for I will say that I am lately come from Persia and have a message for the king from my father. Let lies be told where they are needful. All of us aim at the like end, whether we lie or speak truth; he that lies does it to win credence and so advantage by his deceit, and he that speaks truth hopes that truth will get him profit and greater trust; so we do but take different ways to the same goal. Were the hope of advantage taken away, the truth-teller were as ready to lie as the liar to speak truth. Now if any warder of the gate willingly suffer us to pass, it will be the better for him thereafter. But if any strives to withstand us let us mark him for an enemy, and so thrust ourselves in and begin our work.”
73. Then said Gobryas, “Friends, when shall we have a better occasion to win back the kingship, or, if we cannot so do, to die? seeing that we who are Persians are ruled by a Mede, a Magian, and he a man that has no ears. Those of you that were with Cambyses in his sickness cannot but remember the curse which with his last breath he laid on the Persians if they should not essay to win back the kingship; albeit we did not then believe Cambyses, but thought that he spoke to deceive us. Now therefore my vote is that we follow Darius’ plan, and not quit this council to do aught else but attack the Magian forthwith.” So spoke Gobryas; and they all consented to what he said.
74. While they were thus planning, matters befell as I will show. The Magians had taken counsel and resolved to make a friend of Prexaspes, because he had been wronged by Cambyses (who had shot his son with an arrow) and because he alone knew of the death of Cyrus’ son Smerdis, having himself been the slayer; and further, because Prexaspes was very greatly esteemed by the Persians. Therefore they summoned him and, to gain his friendship, made him to pledge himself and swear that he would never reveal to any man their treacherous dealing with the Persians, but keep it to himself; and they promised to give him all things in great abundance. Prexaspes was persuaded and promised to do their will. Then the Magians made this second proposal to him, that they should summon a meeting of all Persians before the palace wall, and he should go up on to a tower and declare that it was Smerdis son of Cyrus and no other who was king of Persia. They gave him this charge, because they thought him to be the man most trusted by the Persians, and because he had oftentimes asserted that Cyrus’ son Smerdis was alive, and had denied the murder.
75. Prexaspes consented to do this also; the Magians summoned the Persians together, and brought him up on to a tower and bade him speak. Then, putting away from his mind all the Magians’ demands, he traced the lineage of Cyrus from Achaemenes downwards; when he came at last to the name of Cyrus, he recounted all the good which that king had done to Persia, after which recital he declared the truth; which, he said, he had till now concealed because he could not safely tell it, but was now constrained by necessity to reveal: “I,” said he, “was compelled by Cambyses to kill Smerdis son of Cyrus; it is the Magians who now rule you.” Then, invoking a terrible curse on the Persians if they failed to win back the throne and take vengeance on the Magians, he threw himself headlong down from the tower; thus honourably ended Prexaspes’ honourable life.
76. The seven Persians, after counsel purposing to attack the Magians forthwith and delay no longer, prayed to the gods and set forth, knowing nothing of Prexaspes’ part in the business. But when they had gone half way they heard the story of him; whereat they went aside from the way and consulted together, Otanes’ friends being wholly for waiting and not attacking in the present ferment, but Darius’ party bidding to go forthwith and do their agreed purpose without delay. While they disputed, they saw seven pairs of hawks that chased and rent and tore two pairs of vultures; seeing which all the seven consented to Darius’ opinion, and went on to the palace, heartened by the sight of the birds.
77. When they came to the gate, that happened which Darius had expected; the guards, out of regard for the chief men in Persia, and because they never suspected their design, suffered them without question to pass in under heaven’s guidance. Coming into the court, they met there the eunuchs who carry messages to the king; who asked the seven with what intent they had come, at the same time threatening the gate-wards for letting them pass, and barring the further passage of the seven. These gave each other the word, drew their daggers, and stabbing the eunuchs who barred their way, ran into the men’s apartment.
78. It chanced that both the Magians were within, consulting together on the outcome of Prexaspes’ act. Seeing the eunuchs in confusion and hearing their cries they both sprang back: and when they saw what was afoot they set about defending themselves; one made haste to take down his bow, the other seized his spear; so the seven and the two met in fight. He that had caught up the bow found it availed him nothing, his enemies being so close and pressing him hard; but the other defended himself with his spear, smiting Aspathines in the thigh and Intaphrenes in the eye; Intaphrenes was not slain by the wound, but lost his eye. So these were wounded by one of the Magians; the other, his bow availing him nothing, fled into a chamber adjoining the men’s apartment and would have shut its door. Two of the seven, Darius and Gobryas, hurled themselves into the chamber with him. Gobryas and the Magian grappling together, Darius stood perplexed by the darkness, fearing to strike Gobryas; whereat Gobryas, seeing Darius stand idle, cried to know why he did not strike; “For fear of stabbing you,” quoth Darius. “Nay,” said Gobryas, “thrust with your sword, though it be through both of us.” So Darius thrust with his dagger, and by good luck it was the Magian that he stabbed.
79. Having killed the Magians and cut off their heads, they left their wounded where they were, by reason of their infirmity and to guard the citadel; the other five took the Magians’ heads and ran with much shouting and noise, calling all Persians to aid, telling what they had done and showing the heads; at the same time they killed every Magian that came in their way. The Persians, when they heard from the seven what had been done and how the Magians had tricked them, resolved to follow the example set, and drew their daggers and slew all the Magians they could find; and if nightfall had not stayed them they would not have left one Magian alive. This day is the greatest holy day that all Persians alike keep; they celebrate a great festival on it, which they call the Massacre of the Magians; while the festival lasts no Magian may come abroad, but during this day they remain in their houses.
80. When the tumult was abated, and five days had passed, the rebels against the Magians held a council on the whole state of affairs, at which words were uttered which to some Greeks seem incredible; but there is no doubt that they were spoken. Otanes was for giving the government to the whole body of the Persian people. “I hold,” he said, “that we must make an end of monarchy; there is no pleasure or advantage in it. You have seen to what lengths went the insolence of Cambyses, and you have borne your share of the insolence of the Magian. What right order is there to be found in monarchy, when the ruler can do what he will, nor be held to account for it? Give this power to the best man on earth, and it would stir him to unwonted thoughts. The advantage which he holds breeds insolence, and nature makes all men jealous. This double cause is the root of all evil in him; sated with power he will do many reckless deeds, some from insolence, some from jealousy. For whereas an absolute ruler, as having all that heart can desire, should rightly be jealous of no man, yet it is contrariwise with him in his dealing with his countrymen; he is jealous of the safety of the good, and glad of the safety of the evil; and no man is so ready to believe calumny. Of all men he is the most inconsistent; accord him but just honour, and he is displeased that you make him not your first care; make him such, and he damns you for a flatterer. But I have yet worse to say of him than that; he turns the laws of the land upside down, he rapes women, he puts high and low to death. But the virtue of a multitude’s rule lies first in its excellent name, which signifies equality before the law; and secondly, in that it does none of the things that a monarch does. All offices are assigned by lot, and the holders are accountable for what they do therein; and the general assembly arbitrates on all counsels. Therefore I declare my opinion, that we make an end of monarchy and increase the power of the multitude, seeing that all good lies in the many.”
81. Such was the judgment of Otanes: but Megabyzus’ counsel was to make a ruling oligarchy. “I agree,” said he, “to all that Otanes says against the rule of one; but when he bids you give the power to the multitude, his judgment falls short of the best. Nothing is more foolish and violent than a useless mob; to save ourselves from the insolence of a despot by changing it for the insolence of the unbridled commonalty—that were unbearable indeed. Whatever the despot does, he does with knowledge; but the people have not even that; how can they have knowledge, who have neither learnt nor for themselves seen what is best, but ever rush headlong and drive blindly onward, like a river in spate? Let those stand for democracy who wish ill to Persia; but let us choose a company of the best men and invest these with the power. For we ourselves shall be of that company; and where we have the best men, there ’tis like that we shall have the best counsels.”
82. Such was the judgment of Megabyzus. Darius was the third to declare his opinion. “Methinks,” said he, “Megabyzus speaks rightly concerning democracy, but not so concerning oligarchy. For the choice lying between these three, and each of them, democracy, oligarchy and monarchy being supposed to be the best of its kind, I hold that monarchy is by far the most excellent. Nothing can be found better than the rule of the one best man; his judgment being like to himself, he will govern the multitude with perfect wisdom, and best conceal plans made for the defeat of enemies. But in an oligarchy, the desire of many to do the state good service ofttimes engenders bitter enmity among them; for each one wishing to be chief of all and to make his counsels prevail, violent enmity is the outcome, enmity brings faction and faction bloodshed; and the end of bloodshed is monarchy; whereby it is shown that this fashion of government is the best. Again, the rule of the commonalty must of necessity engender evil-mindedness; and when evil-mindedness in public matters is engendered, bad men are not divided by enmity but united by close friendship; for they that would do evil to the commonwealth conspire together to do it. This continues till someone rises to champion the people’s cause and makes an end of such evil-doing. He therefore becomes the people’s idol, and being their idol is made their monarch; so his case also proves that monarchy is the best government. But (to conclude the whole matter in one word) tell me, whence and by whose gift came our freedom—from the commonalty or an oligarchy or a single ruler? I hold therefore, that as the rule of one man gave us freedom, so that rule we should preserve; and, moreover, that we should not repeal the good laws of our fathers; that were ill done.”
83. Having to judge between these three opinions, four of the seven declared for the last. Then Otanes, his proposal to give the Persians equality being defeated, thus spoke among them all: “Friends and partisans! seeing that it is plain that one of us must be made king (whether by lot, or by our suffering the people of Persia to choose whom they will, or in some other way), know that I will not enter the lists with you; I desire neither to rule nor to be ruled; but if I waive my claim to be king, I make this condition, that neither I nor any of my posterity shall be subject to any one of you.” To these terms the six others agreed; Otanes took no part in the contest but stood aside; and to this day his house (and none other in Persia) remains free, nor is compelled to render any unwilling obedience, so long as it transgresses no Persian law.
84. The rest of the seven then consulted what was the justest way of making a king; and they resolved, if another of the seven than Otanes should gain the royal power, that Otanes and his posterity should receive for themselves specially a yearly gift of Median raiment and all such presents as the Persians hold most precious. The reason of this resolve was that it was he who had first contrived the matter and assembled the conspirators. To Otanes, then, they gave this peculiar honour; but with regard to all of them alike they decreed that any one of the seven should, if he so wished, enter the king’s palace unannounced, save if the king were sleeping with a woman; and that it should be forbidden to the king to take a wife saving from the households of the conspirators. As concerning the making of a king, they resolved that he should be elected whose horse, when they were all mounted in the suburb of the city, should first be heard to neigh at sunrise.
85. Now Darius had a clever groom, whose name was Oebares. When the council broke up, Darius said to him: “Oebares, in the matter of the kingship, we are resolved that he shall be king whose horse, when we are all mounted, shall first neigh at sunrise. Now do you devise by whatever cunning you can that we and none other may win this prize.” “Master,” Oebares answered, “if this is to determine whether you be king or not, you have no cause to fear; be of good courage; no man but you shall be king; trust my arts for that.” “Then,” said Darius, “if you have any trick such as you say, set about it without delay, for to-morrow is the day of decision.” When Oebares heard that he did as I will show. At nightfall he brought a mare that was especially favoured by Darius’ horse, and tethered her in the suburb of the city; then bringing in Darius’ horse, he led him round her near, so as ever and anon to touch her, and at last let the stallion have his way with the mare.
86. At dawn of day came the six on horseback as they had agreed. As they rode out through the suburb and came to the place where the mare had been picketed in the past night, Darius’ horse trotted up to it and whinnied; and as he so did there came lightning and thunder out of a clear sky. These signs given to Darius were thought to be foreordained and made his election perfect; his companions leapt from their horses and did obeisance to him.
87. Some say that this was Oebares’ plan; but there is another story in Persia besides this: that he touched the mare with his hand, and then kept it hidden in his breeches till the six were about to let go their horses at sunrise; when he took his hand out and held it to the nostrils of Darius’ horse, which forthwith snorted and whinnied.
88. So Darius son of Hystaspes was made king, and the whole of Asia, which Cyrus first and Cambyses after him had subdued, was made subject to him, except the Arabians; these did not yield the obedience of slaves to the Persians, but were united to them by friendship, as having given Cambyses passage into Egypt, which the Persians could not enter without the consent of the Arabians. Darius took wives from the noblest houses of Persia, marrying Cyrus’ daughters Atossa and Artystone; Atossa had been wife of her brother Cambyses and afterwards of the Magian, Artystone was a virgin. He married also Parmys, daughter of Cyrus’ son Smerdis, and that daughter of Otanes who had discovered the truth about the Magian; and the whole land was full of his power. First he made and set up a carved stone, whereon was graven the figure of a horseman, with this inscription: “Darius son of Hystaspes, aided by the excellence of his horse” (here followed the horse’s name) “and of Oebares his groom, won the kingdom of Persia.”
89. Having so done in Persia, he divided his dominions into twenty governments, called by the Persians satrapies; and doing so and appointing governors, he ordained that each several nation should pay him tribute; to this end he united each nation with its closest neighbours, and, beyond these nearest lands, assigned those that were farther off some to one and some to another nation. I will now show how he divided his governments and the tributes which were paid him yearly. Those that paid in silver were appointed to render the weight of a Babylonian talent; those that paid in gold, an Euboïc talent; the Babylonian talent being equal to seventy-eight Euboïc minae. In the reigns of Cyrus and Cambyses after him there was no fixed tribute, but payment was made in gifts. It is by reason of this fixing of tribute, and other like ordinances, that the Persians called Darius the huckster, Cambyses the master, and Cyrus the father; for Darius made petty profit out of everything, Cambyses was harsh and arrogant, Cyrus was merciful and ever wrought for their well-being.
90. The Ionians, Magnesians of Asia, Aeolians, Carians, Lycians, Milyans, and Pamphylians, on whom Darius laid one joint tribute, paid a revenue of four hundred talents of silver. This was established as his first province. The Mysians, Lydians, Lasonians, Cabalians, and Hytennians paid five hundred talents; this was the second province. The third comprised the Hellespontians on the right of the entrance of the straits, the Phrygians, Thracians of Asia, Paphlagonians, Mariandynians, and Syrians; these paid three hundred and sixty talents of tribute. The fourth province was Cilicia. This rendered three hundred and sixty white horses, one for each day in the year, and five hundred talents of silver. An hundred and forty of these were expended on the horsemen who were the guard of Cilicia; the three hundred and sixty that remained were paid to Darius.
91. The fifth province was the country (except the part belonging to the Arabians, which paid no tribute) between Posideion, a city founded on the Cilician and Syrian border by Amphilochus son of Amphiaraus, and Egypt; this paid three hundred and fifty talents; in this province was all Phoenice, and the part of Syria called Palestine, and Cyprus. The sixth province was Egypt and the neighbouring parts of Libya, and Cyrene and Barca, all which were included in the province of Egypt. Hence came seven hundred talents, besides the revenue of silver from the fish of the lake Moeris; besides that silver and the measure of grain that was given also, seven hundred talents were paid; for an hundred and twenty thousand bushels of grain were also assigned to the Persians quartered at the White Citadel of Memphis and their allies. The Sattagydae, Gandarii, Dadicae, and Aparytae paid together an hundred and seventy talents; this was the seventh province; the eighth was Susa and the rest of the Cissian country, paying three hundred talents.
92. Babylon and the rest of Assyria rendered to Darius a thousand talents of silver and five hundred boys to be eunuchs; this was the ninth province; Agbatana and the rest of Media, with the Paricanians and Orthocorybantians, paid four hundred and fifty talents, and was the tenth province. The eleventh comprised the Caspii, Pausicae, Pantimathi, and Daritae, paying jointly two hundred;
93. The twelfth, the Bactrians as far as the land of the Aegli; these paid three hundred and sixty. The thirteenth, the Pactyic country and Armenia and the lands adjoining thereto as far as the Euxine sea; these paid four hundred. The fourteenth province was made up of the Sagartii, Sarangeis, Thamanaei, Utii, Myci, and the dwellers on those islands of the southern sea wherein the king plants the people said to be “removed”; these together paid a tribute of six hundred talents. The Sacae and Caspii were the fifteenth, paying two hundred and fifty. The Parthians, Chorasmians, Sogdi, and Arii were the sixteenth, paying three hundred.
94. The Paricanii and Ethiopians of Asia, being the seventeenth, paid four hundred; the Matieni, Saspiri, and Alarodii were the eighteenth, and two hundred talents were the appointed tribute. The Moschi, Tibareni, Macrones, Mossynoeci, and Mares, the nineteenth province, were ordered to pay three hundred. The Indians made up the twentieth province. These are more in number than any nation known to me, and they paid a greater tribute than any other province, namely three hundred and sixty talents of gold dust.
95. Now if these Babylonian silver talents be reckoned in Euboïc money, the sum is seen to be nine thousand eight hundred and eighty Euboïc talents: and the gold coin being counted as thirteen times the value of the silver, the gold-dust is found to be of the worth of four thousand six hundred and eighty Euboïc talents. Therefore it is seen by adding all together that Darius collected a yearly tribute of fourteen thousand five hundred and sixty talents; I take no account of figures less than ten.
96. This was Darius’ revenue from Asia and a few parts of Libya. But as time went on he drew tribute also from the islands and the dwellers in Europe, as far as Thessaly. The tribute is stored by the king in this fashion: he melts it down and pours it into earthen vessels; when the vessel is full he breaks the earthenware away, and when he needs money coins as much as will serve his purpose.
97. These were the several governments and appointments of tribute. The Persian country is the only one which I have not recorded as tributary; for the Persians dwell free from all taxes. As for those on whom no tribute was laid, but who rendered gifts instead, they were, firstly, the Ethiopians nearest to Egypt, whom Cambyses subdued in his march towards the long-lived Ethiopians; and also those who dwell about the holy Nysa, where Dionysus is the god of their festivals. [The seed of these Ethiopians and their neighbours is like the seed of the Indian Callantiae; they live underground.] These together brought every other year and still bring a gift of two choenixes of unrefined gold, two hundred blocks of ebony, five Ethiopian boys, and twenty great elephants’ tusks. Gifts were also required of the Colchians and their neighbours as far as the Caucasian mountains (which is as far as the Persian rule reaches, the country north of the Caucasus paying no regard to the Persians); these were rendered every four years and are still so rendered, namely, an hundred boys and as many maidens. The Arabians rendered a thousand talents’ weight of frankincense yearly. Such were the gifts of these peoples to the king, besides the tribute.
98. All this abundance of gold, whence the Indians send the aforesaid gold-dust to the king, they win in such manner as I will show. All to the east of the Indian country is sand; among all men of whom hearsay gives us any clear knowledge the Indians dwell farthest to the east and the sunrise of all the nations of Asia; for on the eastern side of India all is desert by reason of the sand. There are many Indian nations, none speaking the same language; some of them are nomads, some not; some dwell in the river marshes and live on raw fish, which they catch from reed boats. Each boat is made of one single length between the joints of a reed. These Indians wear clothes of rushes; they mow and cut these from the river, then plait them crosswise like a mat, and put it on like a breastplate.
99. Other Indians, to the east of these, are nomads and eat raw flesh; they are called Padaei. It is said to be their custom that when any of their countryfolk male or female are sick, a man’s closest friends kill him, saying that they lose his flesh by the wasting of the disease; though he denies that he is sick, yet they will not believe him, but kill and eat him. When a woman is sick she is put to death like the men by the women who most consort with her. As for one that has come to old age, they sacrifice him and feast on his flesh; but there are not many who come thereto, for all who fall sick are killed ere that.
100. There are other Indians, again, who kill no living creature, nor sow, nor are wont to have houses; they eat grass, and they have a grain growing naturally from the earth in its husk, about the size of a millet-seed, which they gather with the husk and boil and eat. When any one of them falls sick he goes into the desert and lies there, none regarding whether he be sick or die.
101. These Indians of whom I speak have intercourse openly like cattle; they are all black-skinned, like the Ethiopians. Their genital seed too is not white like other men’s, but black like their skin, and resembles in this respect that of the Ethiopians. These Indians dwell far away from the Persians southwards, and were no subjects of King Darius.
102. Other Indians dwell near the town of Caspatyrus and the Pactyic country, northward of the rest of India; these live like the Bactrians; they are of all Indians the most warlike, and it is they who are charged with the getting of the gold; for in these parts all is desert by reason of the sand. There are found in this sandy desert ants not so big as dogs but bigger than foxes; the Persian king has some of these, which have been caught there. These ants make their dwellings underground, digging out the sand in the same manner as do the ants in Greece, to which they are very like in shape, and the sand which they carry forth from the holes is full of gold. It is for this sand that the Indians set forth into the desert. They harness three camels apiece, a male led camel on either side to help in draught, and a female in the middle: the man himself rides on the female, careful that when harnessed she has been taken away from as young an offspring as may be. Their camels are as swift as horses, and much better able to bear burdens besides.
103. I do not describe the camel’s appearance to Greeks, for they know it; but I will show them a thing which they do not know concerning it: the hindlegs of the camel have four thighbones and four knee-joints; its privy parts are turned towards the tail between the hindlegs.
104. Thus and with teams so harnessed the Indians ride after the gold, using all diligence that they shall be about the business of taking it when the heat is greatest; for the ants are then out of sight underground. Now in these parts the sun is hottest in the morning, not at midday as elsewhere, but from sunrise to the hour of market-closing. Through these hours it is hotter by much than in Hellas at noon, so that men are said to sprinkle themselves with water at this time. At midday the sun’s heat is well nigh the same in India and elsewhere. As it grows to afternoon, the sun of India has the power of the morning sun in other lands; with its sinking the day becomes ever cooler, till at sunset it is exceeding cold.
105. So when the Indians come to the place with their sacks, they fill these with the sand and ride away back with all speed; for, as the Persians say, the ants forthwith scent them out and give chase, being, it would seem, so much swifter than all other creatures that if the Indians made not haste on their way while the ants are mustering, not one of them would escape. So they loose the male trace-camels as they begin to lag, one at a time (these being slower than the females); the mares never tire, for they remember the young that they have left. Such is the tale. Most of the gold (say the Persians) is got in this way by the Indians; there is some besides that they dig from mines in their country, but it is less abundant.
106. It would seem that the fairest blessings have been granted to the most distant nations of the world, whereas in Hellas the seasons have by much the kindliest temperature. As I have lately said, India lies at the world’s most distant eastern limit; and in India all living creatures four-footed and flying are by much bigger than those of other lands, except the horses, which are smaller than the Median horses called Nesaean; moreover the gold there, whether dug from the earth or brought down by rivers or got as I have shown, is very abundant. There too there grows on wild trees wool more beautiful and excellent than the wool of sheep; these trees supply the Indians with clothing.
107. Again, Arabia is the most distant to the south of all inhabited countries: and this is the only country which yields frankincense and myrrh and casia and cinnamon and gum-mastich. All these but myrrh are difficult for the Arabians to get. They gather frankincense by burning that storax which Phoenicians carry to Hellas; this they burn and so get the frankincense; for the spice-bearing trees are guarded by small winged snakes of varied colour, many round each tree; these are the snakes that attack Egypt. Nothing save the smoke of storax will drive them away from the trees.
108. The Arabians also say that the whole country would be full of these snakes were it not with them as I have heard that it is with vipers. It would seem that the wisdom of divine Providence (as is but reasonable) has made all creatures prolific that are timid and fit to eat, that they be not minished from off the earth by being eaten up, whereas but few young are born to creatures cruel and baneful. The hare is so prolific, for that it is the prey of every beast and bird and man; alone of all creatures it conceives in pregnancy; some of the unborn young are hairy, some still naked, some are still forming in the womb while others are just conceived. But whereas this is so with the hare, the lioness, a very strong and bold beast, bears offspring but once in her life, and then but one cub; for the uterus comes out with the cub in the act of birth. This is the reason of it:—when the cub first begins to stir in the mother, its claws, much sharper than those of any other creature, tear the uterus, and as it grows, much more does it scratch and tear, so that when the hour of birth is near seldom is any of the uterus left whole.
109. It is so too with vipers and the winged serpents of Arabia: were they born in the natural manner of serpents no life were possible for men; but as it is, when they pair, and the male is in the very act of generation, the female seizes him by the neck, nor lets go her grip till she has bitten the neck through. Thus the male dies; but the female is punished for his death; the young avenge their father, and gnaw at their mother while they are yet within her; nor are they dropped from her till they have eaten their way through her womb. Other snakes, that do no harm to men, lay eggs and hatch out a vast number of young. The Arabian winged serpents do indeed seem to be many; but it is because (whereas there are vipers in every land) these are all in Arabia and are nowhere else found.
110. The Arabians get their frankincense as I have shown; for the winning of casia, when they seek it they bind oxhides and other skins over all their bodies and faces, leaving only the eyes. Casia grows in a shallow lake; round this and in it live certain winged creatures, very like bats, that squeak shrilly and make a stout resistance; these must be kept from the men’s eyes if the casia is to be plucked.
111. As for cinnamon, they gather it in a fashion even stranger. Where it grows and what kind of land nurtures it they cannot say, save that it is reported, reasonably enough, to grow in the places where Dionysus was reared. There are great birds, it is said, that take these dry sticks which the Phoenicians have taught us to call cinnamon, and carry them off to nests built of mud and attached to precipitous crags, to which no man can approach. The Arabian device for defeating the birds is to cut into very large pieces dead oxen and asses and other beasts of burden, then to set these near the eyries, withdrawing themselves far off. The birds then fly down (it is said) and carry the pieces of the beasts up to their nests; which not being able to bear the weight break and fall down the mountain side; and then the Arabians come up and gather what they seek. Thus is cinnamon said to be gathered, and so to come from Arabia to other lands.
112. But gum-mastich, which Greeks call ledanon and Arabians ladanon, is yet more strangely produced. Its scent is most sweet, yet nothing smells more evilly than that which produces it; for it is found in the beards of he-goats, forming in them like tree-gum. This is used in the making of many perfumes; there is nothing that the Arabians so often burn as incense.
113. I have said enough of the spices of Arabia; airs wondrous sweet blow from that land. They have moreover two marvellous kinds of sheep, nowhere else found. One of these has tails no less than three cubits long. Were the sheep to trail these after them, they would suffer hurt by the rubbing of the tails on the ground; but as it is every shepherd there knows enough of carpentry to make little carts which they fix under the tails, binding the tail of each several sheep on its own cart. The other kind of sheep has a tail a full cubit broad.
114. Where south inclines westwards, the part of the world stretching farthest towards the sunset is Ethiopia; here is great plenty of gold, and abundance of elephants, and all woodland trees, and ebony; and the people are the tallest and fairest and longest-lived of all men.
115. These then are the most distant parts of the world in Asia and Libya. But concerning the farthest western parts of Europe I cannot speak with exactness; for I do not believe that there is a river called by foreigners Eridanus issuing into the northern sea, whence our amber is said to come, nor have I any knowledge of Tin-islands, whence our tin is brought. The very name of the Eridanus bewrays itself as not a foreign but a Greek name, invented by some poet; nor for all my diligence have I been able to learn from one who has seen it that there is a sea beyond Europe. This only we know, that our tin and amber come from the most distant parts.
116. This is also plain, that to the north of Europe there is by far more gold than elsewhere. In this matter again I cannot with certainty say how the gold is got; some will have it that one-eyed men called Arimaspians steal it from griffins. But this too I hold incredible, that there can be men in all else like other men, yet having but one eye. Suffice it that it is but reasonable that the most distant parts of the world, as they enclose and wholly surround all other lands, should have those things which we deem best and rarest.
117. There is in Asia a plain surrounded by mountains, through which mountains there are five clefts. This plain belonged formerly to the Chorasmians; it adjoins the land of the Chorasmians themselves, the Hyrcanians, Parthians, Sarangians, and Thamanaei; but since the Persians have held sway it has been the king’s own land. Now from the encircling mountains flows a great river called Aces. Its stream divides into five channels, and watered formerly the lands of the peoples aforesaid by passing to them severally through the five clefts; but since the beginning of the Persian rule the king has blocked the mountain clefts, and closed each passage with a gate; the water thus barred from outlet, the plain within the mountains becomes a lake, seeing that the river pours into it and finds no way out. Those therefore who formerly used the water can use it no longer, and are in very evil case; for whereas in winter they have the rain from heaven like other men, in summer they are in need of the water for their sown millet and sesame. So whenever no water is given to them, they come into Persia with their women, and cry and howl before the door of the king’s palace, till the king commands that the river-gate which leads thither should be opened for those whose need is greatest; then, when this land has drunk its fill of water, that gate is shut, and the king bids open another for those of the rest who most require it. I have heard and know that he exacts great sums, over and above the tribute, for the opening of the gates.
118. So much for these matters. But Intaphrenes, one of the seven rebels against the Magian, was brought to his death by a deed of violence immediately after the rebellion. He desired to enter the palace and speak with the king; for this was the law, that the rebels should come into the king’s presence without announcement given, if the king were not with one of his wives. Intaphrenes then claimed his right to enter unannounced, as one of the seven; but the gate-warden and the messenger forbade him, the king being, they said, with one of his wives. Intaphrenes thought they spoke falsely; drawing his scimitar he cut off their noses and ears, then strung these on his horse’s bridle and bound it round the men’s necks, and so let them go.
119. They showed themselves to the king and told him the reason why they had been so treated. Darius, fearing that this might be a conspiracy of the six, sent for each severally and questioned him, to know if they approved the deed; and being assured that they had no part in it, he seized Intaphrenes with his sons and all his household—for he much suspected that the man was plotting a rebellion with his kinsfolk—and imprisoned them with intent to put them to death. Then Intaphrenes’ wife came ever and anon to the palace gates, weeping and lamenting; and at last her continual so doing moved Darius to compassion; and he sent a messenger to tell her that Darius would grant her the life of one of her imprisoned kinsfolk, whomsoever she chose. She, after counsel taken, answered that if this were the king’s boon she chose the life of her brother. Darius was astonished when he heard her answer, and sent one who said to her: “Woman, the king would know for what reason you pass over your husband and your children and choose rather to save the life of your brother, who is less close to you than your children and less dear than your husband.” “O King,” she answered, “another husband I may get, if heaven so will, and other children, if I lose these; but my father and mother are dead, and so I can by no means get another brother; that is why I have thus spoken.” Darius was pleased, and thought the reason good; he delivered to the woman him for whose life she had asked, and the eldest of her sons besides; all the rest he put to death. Thus immediately perished one of the seven.
120. What I will now relate happened about the time of Cambyses’ sickness. The viceroy of Sardis appointed by Cyrus was Oroetes, a Persian. This man purposed to do a great wrong; for though he had received no hurt by deed or word from Polycrates of Samos, nor had even seen him, he formed the desire of seizing and killing him. The reason alleged by most was this:—As Oroetes and another Persian, Mitrobates by name, governor of the province at Dascyleium, sat by the king’s door, they fell from talk to wrangling and comparing of their several achievements: and Mitrobates taunted Oroetes, saying, “You are not to be accounted a man; the island of Samos lies close to your province, yet you have not added it to the king’s dominion—an island so easy to conquer that some native of it rose against his rulers with fifteen men at arms, and is now lord of it.” Some say that Oroetes, angered by this taunt, was less desirous of punishing the utterer of it than of by all means destroying the reason of the reproach, namely Polycrates.
121. Others (but fewer) say that when Oroetes sent a herald to Samos with some request (it is not said what this was), the herald found Polycrates lying in the men’s apartments, in the company of Anacreon of Teos; and, whether by design to show contempt for Oroetes, or by mere chance, when Oroetes’ herald entered and addressed him, Polycrates, then lying with his face to the wall, never turned nor answered him.
122. These are the two reasons alleged for Polycrates’ death; believe which you will. But the upshot was that Oroetes, being then at Magnesia which stands above the river Maeander, sent Myrsus, son of Gyges, a Lydian, with a message to Samos, having learnt Polycrates’ purpose; for Polycrates was the first Greek, of whom I have knowledge, to aim at the mastery of the sea, leaving out of account Minos of Cnossus and any others who before him held maritime dominion; of such as may be called men Polycrates was the first so to do, and he had great hope of making himself master of Ionia and the Islands. Learning then that such was his intent, Oroetes sent him this message: “These from Oroetes to Polycrates:—I learn that you plan great enterprises, and that you have not money sufficient for your purpose. Do then as I counsel and you will make yourself to prosper and me to be safe. King Cambyses designs my death; of this I have clear intelligence. Now if you will bring me away with my money, you may take part of it for yourself and leave the rest with me; thus shall you have wealth enough to rule all Hellas. If you mistrust what I tell you of the money, send your trustiest minister and I will prove it to him.”
123. Hearing this, Polycrates liked the plan and consented; and, as it chanced that he had a great desire for money, he first sent one of his townsmen, Maeandrius, son of Maeandrius, to look into the matter; this man was his scribe; it was he who not long afterwards dedicated in the Heraeum all the splendid adornment of the men’s apartment in Polycrates’ house. When Oroetes heard that an inspection was to be looked for, he filled eight chests with stones, saving only a very shallow layer at the top; then he laid gold on the surface of the stones, made the chests fast and kept them ready. Maeandrius came and saw, and brought word back to his master.
124. Polycrates then prepared to visit Oroetes, despite the strong dissuasion of his diviners and friends, and a vision seen by his daughter in a dream; she dreamt that she saw her father aloft in the air, washed by Zeus and anointed by the sun; after this vision she used all means to persuade him not to go on this journey to Oroetes; even as he went to his fifty-oared ship she prophesied evil for him. When Polycrates threatened her that if he came back safe, she should long remain a virgin, she answered with a prayer that his threat might be fulfilled: for she would rather, she said, be long left a virgin than lose her father.
125. But Polycrates would listen to no counsel. He sailed to meet Oroetes, with a great retinue of followers, among whom was Democedes, son of Calliphon, a man of Crotona and the most skilful physician of his time. But no sooner had Polycrates come to Magnesia than he was foully murdered, making an end which ill beseemed himself and his pride; for, saving only the despots of Syracuse, there is no despot of Greek race to be compared with Polycrates for magnificence. Having killed him (in some way not fit to be told) Oroetes then crucified him; as for the Samians in his retinue he let them go, bidding them thank Oroetes for their freedom; those who were not Samians, or were servants of Polycrates’ followers, he kept for slaves. So Polycrates was hanged aloft, and thereby his daughter’s dream came true; for he was washed by Zeus when it rained, and the moisture from his body was his anointment by the sun.
126. This was the end of Polycrates’ many successes, as Amasis king of Egypt had forewarned him. But not long after, Oroetes was overtaken by the powers that avenged Polycrates. After Cambyses had died and the Magians won the kingship, Oroetes stayed in Sardis, where he in no way helped the Persians to regain the power taken from them by the Medes, but contrariwise; for in this confusion he slew two notable Persians, Mitrobates, the governor from Dascyleium, who had taunted him concerning Polycrates, and Mitrobates’ son, Cranaspes; and besides many other violent deeds, when a messenger from Darius came with a message which displeased him, he set an ambush by the way and killed that messenger on his journey homewards, and made away with the man’s body and horse.
127. So when Darius became king he was minded to punish Oroetes for all his wrongdoing, and chiefly for the killing of Mitrobates and his son. But he thought it best not to send an army openly against the satrap, seeing that all was still in ferment and he himself was still new to the royal power; moreover he heard that Oroetes was very strong, having a guard of a thousand Persian spearmen and being governor of the Phrygian and Lydian and Ionian province. Resorting therefore to a device to help him, he summoned an assembly of the most notable Persians, whom he thus addressed: “Who is there among you, men of Persia, that will undertake and achieve a thing for me not with force and numbers, but by cunning? Force has no place where cunning is needful. But to the matter in hand—which of you will bring me Oroetes alive, or kill him? for he has done the Persians no good, but much harm; two of us he has slain, Mitrobates and his son; nay, and he slays my messengers who are sent to recall him; so unbearable is the insolence of his acts. Therefore we must see that death stays him from doing the Persians some yet worse evil.”
128. At this question thirty men promised that they were ready each for himself to do the king’s will. Darius bade them not contend but draw lots; they all did so, and the lot fell on Bagaeus, son of Artontes. He, thus chosen, got written many letters concerning many matters; then sealing them with Darius’ seal he went with them to Sardis. Coming there into Oroetes’ presence he took out each letter severally and gave it to one of the royal scribes who attend all governors, for him to read; giving the letters with intent to try the spearmen and learn if they would consent to revolt against Oroetes, Seeing that they paid great regard to the rolls and yet more to what was written therein, he gave another, wherein were these words: “Persians! King Darius forbids you to be Oroetes’ guard,” which when the guard heard they lowered their spears before him. When Bagaeus saw that they obeyed the letter thus far, he took heart and gave the last roll to the scribe, wherein were these words: “King Darius charges the Persians in Sardis to kill Oroetes.” Hearing this the spearmen drew their scimitars and killed Oroetes forthwith. Thus was Oroetes the Persian overtaken by the powers that avenged Polycrates of Samos.
129. Oroetes’ slaves and other possessions were brought to Susa. Not long after this, it happened that Darius, while hunting, twisted his foot in dismounting from his horse, so violently that the ball of the ankle joint was dislocated from its socket. Darius called in the first physicians of Egypt, whom he had till now kept near his person; who, by their forcible wrenching of the foot, did but make the hurt worse; and for seven days and nights the king could get no sleep for the pain. On the eighth day he was in very evil case; then someone, who had heard in Sardis of the skill of Democedes of Croton, told the king of him. Darius bade Democedes be brought to him without delay. Finding the physician somewhere all unregarded and forgotten among Oroetes’ slaves, they brought him forth, dragging his chains and clad in rags.
130. When he came before the king, Darius asked him if he had knowledge of his art. Democedes denied it, for he feared that by revealing the truth about himself he would wholly be cut off from Hellas. Darius saw clearly that he was using craft to hide his knowledge, and bade those who led him to bring out scourges and goads for him. Then Democedes confessed, in so far as to say that his knowledge was not exact: but he had consorted (he said) with a physician and thereby gained some poor acquaintance with the art. Darius then entrusting the matter to him, Democedes applied Greek remedies and used gentleness instead of the Egyptians’ violence; whereby he made the king able to sleep and in a little while recovered him of his hurt, though Darius had had no hope of regaining the use of his foot. After this, Darius rewarded him with a gift of two pairs of golden fetters. “Is it then your purpose,” Democedes asked, “to double my pains for my making you whole?” Darius, pleased by his wit, sent him to the king’s wives. The eunuchs brought him to the women, saying, “This is he who saved the king’s life”; whereupon each of them took a vessel and, scooping with it from a chest full of gold, so richly rewarded the physician that the servant, whose name was Sciton, collected a very great sum of gold by following and gleaning the staters that fell from the vessels.
131. Now this is how Democedes had come from Croton to live with Polycrates: he was troubled with a harsh-tempered father at Croton, whom being unable to bear, he left him and went to Aegina. Settled there, before a year was out, he excelled all the other physicians, although he had no equipment nor any of the implements of his calling. In his second year the Aeginetans paid him a talent to be their public physician; in the next the Athenians hired him for an hundred minae, and Polycrates in the next again for two talents. Thus he came to Samos; and the fame of the Crotoniat physicians was chiefly owing to him; for at this time the best physicians in Greek countries were those of Croton, and next to them those of Cyrene. About the same time the Argives had the name of being the best musicians.
132. So now for having healed Darius at Susa Democedes had a very great house and ate at the king’s table; all was his, except only permission to return to his Greek home. When the Egyptian chirurgeons who had till now attended on the king were about to be impaled for being less skilful than a Greek, Democedes begged their lives of the king and saved them; and he saved besides an Elean diviner, who had been of Polycrates’ retinue and was left neglected among the slaves. Mightily in favour with the king was Democedes.
133. Not long after this, Atossa, Cyrus’ daughter and Darius’ wife, found a swelling growing on her breast, which broke and spread further. As long as it was but a small matter, she said nothing of it but hid it for shame; but presently growing worse, she sent for Democedes and showed it to him. He promised to cure her, but made her to swear that she would requite him by granting whatsoever he requested of her; saying, that he would ask nothing shameful.
134. His remedies having made her whole, Atossa at Democedes’ prompting thus addressed Darius in their chamber: “Sire, you are a mighty ruler; why sit you idle, winning neither new dominions nor new power for your Persians? If you would have them know that they have a man for their king, it is right and fitting for one of your youth and your wealth to let them see you achieving some great enterprise. Thereby will you gain a double advantage: the Persians will know that their king is truly a man; and in the stress of war they will have no leisure for conspiring against you. Now is your time for achieving great deeds, while you are still young: for as a man’s mind grows with his body’s growth, so as the body ages the mind too grows older and duller for all uses.” Thus she spoke, being so prompted. “Lady,” said Darius, “what you say I am already minded to do. I am resolved to make a bridge from this to the other continent and so lead an army against the Scythians; and in a little while we will set about accomplishing this.” “See now,” Atossa answered, “forbear for the nonce to attack the Scythians; you will find them whenever you so desire; nay, rather, I pray you, march against Hellas. I have heard of Laconian and Argive and Attic and Corinthian women, and would fain have them for handmaidens. There is a man by you who is fitter than any other to instruct and guide you in all matters concerning Hellas: I mean the physician who healed your foot.” “Lady,” answered Darius, “since it is your desire that we should first try conclusions with Hellas, methinks it is best that we send Persians with the man of whom you speak to spy out the land and bring us news of all that they have seen in it; thus shall I have full knowledge to help my adventure against Hellas.”
135. So said Darius, and it was no sooner said than done. For the next day at dawn he called to him fifteen notable Persians, and bade them go with Democedes and pass along the seaboard of Hellas; charging them, too, by all means to bring the physician back and not suffer him to escape. Having thus charged them he next sent for Democedes himself, and required of him that when he had shown and made clear all Hellas to the Persians, he should come back; “And take,” said he, “all your movable goods to give your father and your brethren; I will give you many times as much in return; and I will send to sail with you a ship of burden with a cargo of all things desirable.” Darius, I think, made this promise in all honesty. But Democedes feared lest the king should be but trying him; therefore he made no haste to accept all that was offered, but answered that he would leave his own possessions where they were, that he might have them at his return; as for the ship which Darius promised him to carry the gifts for his brethren, that he accepted. Having laid this same charge on Democedes also, Darius sent all the company to the coast.
136. They came down to the city of Sidon in Phoenice, and there chartered two triremes, as well as a great galleon laden with all things desirable; and when all was ready they set sail for Hellas, where they surveyed and made a record of the coasts to which they came; until having viewed the greater and most famous parts they reached Taras in Italy. There Aristophilides, king of the Tarentines, willing to do Democedes a kindness, took off the steering gear from the Median ships, and put the Persians under a guard, calling them spies. While they were in this plight Democedes made his way to Croton; nor did Aristophilides set the Persians free and restore to them what he had taken from their ships, till the physician was by now in his own country.
137. The Persians sailed from Taras and pursued Democedes to Croton, where they found him in the market and were for seizing him. Some Crotoniats, who feared the Persian power, would have given him up; but others held him against the king’s men and beat them with their staves. “Nay,” said the Persians, “look well, men of Croton, what you do; you are taking from us an escaped slave of the great king; think you that King Darius will rest content under this insolence? Think you that the deed will profit you if you take him from us? Your city will then be the first that we will attack and essay to enslave.” But the men of Croton paid no heed to them; so the Persians lost Democedes and the galleon that had been their consort, and sailed back for Asia, making no endeavour to visit and learn of the further parts of Hellas now that their guide was taken from them. But Democedes gave them a message as they were setting sail; they should tell Darius, he said, that Democedes was betrothed to the daughter of Milon. For Darius held the name of Milon the wrestler in great honour; and, to my thinking, the reason of Democedes’ seeking this match and paying a great sum for it was to show Darius that he was a man of estimation in his own country as well as Persia.
138. The Persians then put out from Croton; but their ships were wrecked on the Iapygian coast, and they themselves made slaves in the country, until one Gillus, a banished man of Taras, released and restored them to Darius. In return for this the king offered Gillus any reward that he might desire; Gillus told the story of his misfortune, and asked above all to be restored to Taras; but, not willing that a great armament should for his cause sail to Italy and thereby he should help to trouble Hellas, it was enough, he said, that the Cnidians alone should be his escort; for he supposed that thus the Tarentines would be the readier to receive him back, the Cnidians being their friends. Darius kept his word, and sent a messenger to the men of Cnidos, bidding them bring Gillus back to Taras. They obeyed Darius; but they could not persuade the Tarentines to their will, and were not able to compel them. This is the whole story. These Persians were the first who came from Asia into Hellas; and they came to view the country for the reason aforesaid.
139. After this, Darius conquered Samos, the greatest of all city states, Greek or other, the reason of his conquest being this:—When Cambyses, son of Cyrus, invaded Egypt, many Greeks came with the army to that country, some to trade, as was natural, and some to see the country itself; among whom was Syloson, son of Aeaces, Polycrates’ brother, and now banished from Samos. This Syloson had a stroke of good luck. He was in the market at Memphis wearing a red cloak, when Darius, at that time one of Cambyses’ guard and as yet a man of no great account, saw him, and coveting the cloak came and offered to buy it. When Syloson saw Darius’ eagerness, by good luck he was moved to say, “I will not sell you my cloak; but if it must be so, and no help for it, you can have it for nothing.” To this Darius agreed and took the garment.
140. Syloson supposed that he had lost his cloak out of foolish good nature. But in time Cambyses died, the seven rebelled against the Magian, and of the seven Darius came to the throne; Syloson then learned that the successor to the royal power was the man to whom he had given at request the garment in Egypt; so he went up to Susa and sat at the king’s porch, saying that he was one of Darius’ benefactors. When the gate-ward brought word of this to the king, “But to what Greek benefactor,” Darius asked, “can I owe thanks? In the little time since I have been king hardly one of that nation has come to us, and I have, I may say, no need of any Greek. Nevertheless let him be brought in, that I may know his meaning.” The gate-ward brought Syloson in and set him before them; and the interpreters asked him who he was, and what he had done to call himself the king’s benefactor. Then Syloson told the story of the cloak, and said that it was he who had given it. “Most generous man,” said Darius, “you are he who made me a present when I had as yet no power; if it was but a little thing, yet it was as thankworthy as if someone now gave me a great gift. Take in requital abundance of gold and silver, that you may never repent of the service you did Darius son of Hystaspes.” “Nay,” Syloson answered, “I ask neither gold, O king, nor silver; only win me back my fatherland of Samos, where my brother Polycrates has been done to death by Oroetes, and our slave now rules; give me back Samos, but so that there be no bloodshed nor enslaving.”
141. Hearing this Darius sent an army, and Otanes, one of the seven, to command it, charging him to perform all Syloson’s will. So Otanes came down to the coast and made his army ready.
142. Now Samos was ruled by Maeandrius, son of Maeandrius, whom Polycrates had made his vicegerent. This Maeandrius desired to act with all justice, but could not. For when he had news of Polycrates’ death, first he set up an altar to Zeus the Liberator and marked out round it that sacred enclosure which is still to be seen in the suburb of the city; when this was done, he called an assembly of all the townsfolk, and thus addressed them: “It is known to you that I have sole charge of Polycrates’ sceptre and dominion; and it is in my power to be your ruler. But, so far as in me lies, I will not myself do that which I account blameworthy in my neighbour. I ever misliked that Polycrates or any other man should lord it over men like to himself. Polycrates has fulfilled his destiny; for myself, I call you to share all power, and I proclaim equality; only claiming as my own such privilege that six talents of Polycrates’ wealth be set apart for my use, and that I and my descendants have besides the priesthood of Zeus the Liberator, whose temple I have founded, and I now give you freedom.” Such was Maeandrius’ promise to the Samians. But one of them arose and answered: “Nay, but who are you? You are not worthy to reign over us, being a low-born knave and rascal. See to it rather that you give an account of the moneys that you have handled.”
143. These were the words of Telesarchus, a man of note among the townsfolk. But Maeandrius, perceiving that if he let the sovereignty slip someone else would make himself despot instead, resolved not to give it up. Withdrawing into the citadel, he sent for each man severally, as though to render an account of the money; then he seized and bound them. So they being in prison, Maeandrius presently fell sick. His brother Lycaretus thought him like to die, and, that so he might the more easily make himself master of Samos, put all the prisoners to death. They had, it would seem, no desire for freedom.
144. So when the Persians brought Syloson back to Samos, none resisted them, but Maeandrius and those of his faction offered to depart from the island under a flag of truce; Otanes agreed to this, and the treaty being made, the Persians of highest rank sat them down on seats that they had set over against the citadel.
145. Now Maeandrius the despot had a crazy brother named Charilaus, who lay bound in the dungeon for some offence; this man heard what was afoot, and by peering through the dungeon window saw the Persians sitting there peaceably; whereupon he cried with a loud voice that he desired to have speech with Maeandrius. His brother, hearing him, bade Charilaus be loosed and brought before him. No sooner had he been brought than he essayed with much reviling and abuse to persuade Maeandrius to attack the Persians. “Villain,” he cried, “you have bound and imprisoned me, your own brother, who had done nothing to deserve it; and when you see the Persians casting you out of house and home, have you no courage to avenge yourself, though you could so easily master them? If you are yourself afraid of them, give me your foreign guards, and I will punish them for their coming hither; as for you, I will give you safe conduct out of the island.”
146. So said Charilaus. Maeandrius took his advice. This he did, to my thinking, not that he was so foolish as to suppose that he would be strong enough to vanquish the king, but because he grudged that Syloson should recover Samos safe and whole with no trouble. He desired therefore to anger the Persians and thereby to weaken Samos as much as he might before surrendering it, for he was well aware that if the Persians were harmed they would be bitterly wroth with the Samians. Moreover he knew that he could get himself safe out of the island whenever he would, having made a secret passage leading from the citadel to the sea. Maeandrius then set sail himself from Samos; but Charilaus armed all the guards, opened the citadel gates, and threw the guard upon the Persians. These supposed that a full agreement had now been made, and were taken at unawares; the guard fell upon them and slew the Persians of highest rank, those who were carried in litters. At this the rest of the Persian force came up and pressed the guards hard, driving them into the citadel.
147. The Persian captain Otanes, seeing the great harm done to the Persians, of set purpose put away from his memory the command given him at his departure by Darius to kill or enslave no Samian but deliver the island unharmed to Syloson; and he commanded his army to kill all they took, men and boys alike. Then, while some of the Persians laid siege to the citadel, the rest slew all they met, whether in temples or without.
148. Maeandrius, escaping from Samos, sailed to Lacedaemon; and when he had come thither and brought up the possessions with which he had left his country, it was his custom to make a display of silver and gold drinking cups; while his servants were cleaning these, he would converse with the king of Sparta, Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides, and would bring him to his house. Cleomenes, whenever he saw the cups, marvelling greatly at them, Maeandrius would bid him take away as many of them as he wished. Maeandrius made this offer two or three times; Cleomenes herein showed his great honesty, that he would not accept it; but, perceiving that there were others in Lacedaemon from whom Maeandrius would get help by offering them the cups, he went to the ephors and told them it were best for Sparta that this Samian stranger should quit the country, lest he should persuade Cleomenes himself or some other Spartan to do evil. The ephors listened to his counsel and banished Maeandrius by proclamation.
149. As for Samos, the Persians swept it clear and delivered it over uninhabited to Syloson. But afterwards Otanes, the Persian general, gave his aid to settle the land, being moved thereto by a dream, and a sickness which attacked his secret parts.
150. When the fleet had gone to Samos, the Babylonians revolted; for which they had made very good preparation; for during the reign of the Magian, and the rebellion of the seven, they had taken advantage of the time and the disorders to prepare themselves against the siege; and (I cannot tell how) this was unknown. At the last they revolted openly and did this:—sending away all the mothers, they chose each one woman from his own household, whom he would, as a bread-maker; as for the rest, they gathered them together and strangled them, that they should not consume their bread.
151. When Darius heard of this he mustered all his power and led it against Babylon, and he marched to the town and laid siege to it; but the townsmen cared nothing for what he did. They came up on to the bastions of the wall, and mocked Darius and his army with gesture and word; and this saying came from one of them: “Why sit you there, Persians, instead of departing? You will take our city when mules bear offspring.” This said the Babylonian, supposing that no mule would ever bear offspring.
152. A year and seven months passed and Darius and all his army were vexed by ever failing to take Babylon. Yet Darius had used every trick and every device against it. He essayed the stratagem whereby Cyrus took the city, and every other stratagem and device, yet with no success; for the Babylonians kept a marvellous strict watch and he could not take them.
153. But in the twentieth month of the siege a miraculous thing befell Zopyrus, son of that Megabyzus who was one of the seven destroyers of the Magian: one of his food-carrying mules bore offspring. Zopyrus would not believe the news; but when he saw the foal for himself, he bade those who had seen it to tell no one; then taking counsel he bethought him of the Babylonian’s word at the beginning of the siege—that the city would be taken when mules bore offspring—and having this utterance in mind he conceived that Babylon might be taken; for the hand of heaven, he supposed, was in the man’s word and the birth from his own mule.
154. Being then persuaded that Babylon was fated to fall, he came and inquired of Darius if he set great store by the taking of the city; and when he was assured that this was so, he next looked about for a plan whereby the city’s fall should be wrought by himself alone; for good service among the Persians is much honoured, and rewarded by high preferment. He could think of no way of mastering the city but to do violence to himself and then desert to the Babylonians; so he accounted it but a little thing to mishandle himself past cure; cutting off his nose and ears, shaving his head for a disfigurement, and scourging himself, he came in this guise before Darius.
155. The king was greatly moved at the sight of so notable a man thus mishandled. Leaping up with a cry from where he sat he asked Zopyrus who had done him this outrage and why. “There is no man,” answered Zopyrus, “save yourself, who could bring me to this plight; this, O King! is the work of none other but myself; for I could not bear that Persians should be mocked by Assyrians.” Darius answered, “Hard-hearted man; if you say that it is to win the city that you have maltreated yourself past cure, you do but give a fair name to a foul deed. Foolish man! think you that our enemies will yield the sooner for this violence done to you? Nay, you were clean out of your wits to destroy yourself thus.” “Had I told you,” said Zopyrus, “what I was minded to do, you would have forbidden it; as it is, I have considered with myself alone and done it. Now, then, matters so stand that if you but play your part Babylon is ours. I will in my present plight desert into the city, pretending to them that you have done this violence upon me; and I think that I shall persuade them that this is so, and thus gain the command of an army. Now, for your part, on the tenth day from my entering the city do you take a thousand men from that part of your army whereof you will least rue the loss, and post them before the gate called the gate of Semiramis; on the seventh day after that, post me again two thousand before the gate called the gate of the Ninevites; and when twenty days are past after that seventh, lead out four thousand more and post them before the Chaldean gate, as they call it; suffering neither these, nor the others that have come before them, to carry any weapons of war save daggers; leave them these. But immediately after the twentieth day bid the rest of your army to assault the whole circuit of the walls, and, I pray you, post the Persians before the gate of Belus and the gate called Cissian. For I think that I shall have achieved such exploits that the Babylonians will give into my charge the keys of their gates, and all else besides; and it will thenceforward be my business and the Persians’ to do what is needful.”
156. With this charge, he went towards the city gate, turning and looking back as though he were in truth a deserter. When the watchers posted on the towers saw him, they ran down, and opening half the gate a little asked him who he was and for what purpose he was come; he told them that he was Zopyrus, come to them as a deserter. Hearing this the gate-wardens brought him before the general assembly of the Babylonians, where he bade them see his lamentable plight, saying of his own work that it was Darius’ doing, because that he had advised the king to lead his army away, seeing that they could find no way to take the city. “Now,” said he in his speech to them, “I am come greatly to aid you, men of Babylon, and greatly to harm Darius and his army and the Persians; not unpunished shall he go for the outrage he has wrought upon me; and I know all the plan and order of his counsels.” Thus he spoke.
157. When the Babylonians saw the most honoured man in Persia with his nose and ears cut off and all bedabbled with blood from the scourging, they were fully persuaded that he spoke truth and was come to be their ally, and were ready to grant him all that he asked, which was, that he might have an army; and having received this from them he did according to his agreement with Darius. On the tenth day he led out the Babylonian army, and surrounded and put to the sword the thousand whom he had charged Darius to set first in the field. Seeing that his deeds answered his words, the Babylonians were overjoyed and ready to serve him in every way. When the agreed number of days was past, he led out again a chosen body of Babylonians, and slew the two thousand men of Darius’ army. When the Babylonians saw this second feat of arms, the praise of Zopyrus was in every man’s mouth. The agreed number of days being again past, he led out his men to the place he had named, where he surrounded the four thousand and put them to the sword. After this his third exploit, Zopyrus was the one man for Babylon: he was made the captain of their armies and the warden of their walls.
158. So when Darius assaulted the whole circuit of the wall, according to the agreed plan, then Zopyrus’ treason was fully revealed. For while the townsmen were on the wall defending it against Darius’ assault, he opened the gates called Cissian and Belian, and let in the Persians within the walls. Those Babylonians who saw what he did fled to the temple of that Zeus whom they call Belus; those who had not seen it abode each in his place, till they too perceived how they had been betrayed.
159. Thus was Babylon the second time taken. Having mastered the Babylonians, Darius destroyed their walls and reft away all their gates, neither of which things Cyrus had done at the first taking of Babylon; moreover he impaled about three thousand men that were chief among them; as for the rest, he gave them back their city to dwell in. Further, as the Babylonians, fearing for their food, had strangled their own women, as I have shown above, Darius provided that they should have wives to bear them children, by appointing that each of the neighbouring nations should send a certain tale of women to Babylon; the whole sum of the women thus collected was fifty thousand: these were the mothers of those who now inhabit the city.
160. There never was in Darius’ judgment any Persian before or since who did better service than Zopyrus, save only Cyrus, with whom no Persian could compare himself. Many times Darius is said to have declared that he would rather have Zopyrus whole and not foully mishandled than twenty more Babylons. Very greatly the king honoured him; every year he sent Zopyrus such gifts as the Persians hold most precious, and suffered him to govern Babylon for all his life with no tribute to pay, giving him many other things besides. This Zopyrus was father of Megabyzus, who was general of an army in Egypt against the Athenians and their allies; and Megabyzus’ son was that Zopyrus who deserted from the Persians to Athens.