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THE IRANIAN RELIGIONS—CYRUS IN LYDIA AND AT BABYLON; CAMBYSES IN EGYPT—DARIUS AND THE ORGANISATION OF THE EMPIRE.
The constitution of the Median empire borrowed from the ancient peoples of the Euphrates: its religion only is peculiar to itself—Legends concerning Zoroaster, his laws; the Avesta and its history—Elements contained in it of primitive religion—The supreme god Ahura-mazâ and his Amęsha-spentas: the Yazatas, the Fravashis—Angrô-mainyus and his agents, the Daîvas, the Pairîkas, their struggle with Ahura-mazdâ—The duties of man here below, funerals, his fate after death—-Worship and temples: fire-altars, sacrifices, the Magi.
Cyrus and the legends concerning his origin: his revolt against Astyages and the fall of the Median empire—The early years of the reign of Nabonidus: revolutions in Tyre, the taking of Harrân—The end of the reign of Alyattes, Lydian art and its earliest coinage—Croesus, his relations with continental Greece, his conquests, his alliances with Babylon and Egypt—The war between Lydia and Persia: the defeat of the Lydians, the taking of Sardes, the death of Croesus and subsequent legends relating to it—The submission of the cities of the Asiatic littoral.
Cyrus in Bactriana and in the eastern regions of the Iranian table-land —The impression produced on the Chaldćan by his victories; the Jewish exiles, Ezekiel and his dreams of restoration, the new temple, the prophecies against Babylon; general discontent with Nabonidus—The attach of Cyrus and the battle of Zalzallat, the taking of Babylon and the fall of Nabonidus: the end of the Chaldćan empire and the deliverance of the Jews.
Egypt under Amasis: building works, support given to the Greeks; Naukratis, its temples, its constitution, and its prosperity—Preparations for defence and the unpopularity of Amasis with the native Egyptians—The death of Cyrus and legends relating to it: his palace at Pasargadć and his tomb—Cambyses and Smerdis—The legendary causes of the war with Egypt—Psammetichus III., the battle of Pelusium; Egypt reduced to a Persian province.
Cambyses' plans for conquest; the abortive expeditions to the oceans of Amnion and Carthage—The kingdom of Ethiopia, its kings, its customs: the Persians fail to reach Napata, the madness of Cambyses—The fraud of Gaumâta, the death of Cambyses and the reign of the pseudo-Smerdis, the accession of Darius—The revolution in Susiana, Chaldća, and Media: Nebuchadrezzar III. and the fall of Babylon, the death of Orćtes, the defeat of Khshatrita, restoration of peace throughout Asia, Egyptian affairs and the re-establishment of the royal power.
The organisation of the country and its division into satrapies: the satrap, the military commander, the royal secretary; couriers, main roads, the Eyes and Ears of the king—The financial system and the provincial taxes: the daric—Advantages and drawbacks of the system of division into satrapies; the royal guard and the military organisation of the empire—The conquest of the Hapta-Hindu and the prospect of war with Greece.
012.jpg the Ahura-mazd of The Bas-reliefs Of Persepolis
012b.jpg Hypostyle of Hall Of Xerxes: Detail Of Entablature
013.jpg an Iranian Genius in Form of a Winged Bull
014.jpg Ahura-mazd Bestowing the Tokens of Royalty on An Iranian King
022.jpg One of the Bad Genii, Subject to AngrÔ-mainyus
023.jpg the King Struggling Against an Evil Genius
031.jpg the Two Iranian Altakrat Nakhsh-Î-rustem
032.jpg the Two Iranian Altars of Murgab
032b.jpg the Occupations of Ani in The Elysian Fields
033.jpg the Sacred Fire Burning on The Altar
039.jpg a Royal Hunting-party in Hun
042.jpg Remains of the Palace Of Ecbatana
050.jpg the Tumulus of Alyattes and The Entrance to The Passage
051.jpg One of the Lydian Ornaments in The Louvre
052.jpg Mould for Jewellery of Lydian Origin
054a.jpg Lydian Coin Bearing a Running Fox
054b.jpg Lydian Coin With a Hare
055.jpg Lydian Coins With a Lion and Lion's Head
056a.jpg Coin Bearing Head of Mouflon Goat
059.jpg View of the Site and Ruins Of Ephesus
078.jpg a Persian King Fighting With Greeks
080.jpg the Present Site of Miletus
083.jpg a Lycian City Upon Its Inaccessible Rock
105.jpg Table of the Last Kings Of Ptolemy
111.jpg an Osiris Stretched Full Length on the Ground
113.jpg Amasis in Adoration Before the Bull Apis
114.jpg the Naos of Amasis at Thmuis
120.jpg the Present Site of Naucratis
145.jpg the Naophoros Statuette of The Vatican
148.jpg Encampment de Bacharis
159.jpg Darius, Son of Hystaspes
166.jpg Darius Piercing a Rebel With his Lance Before A Group of Four Prisoners
174.jpg Rebels Brought to Darius by Ahura-mazd This Is The Scene Depicted on the Rock of Behistun.
181.jpg Map of the Archaemenian Strapies
186.jpg Street Vender of Curios After the Painting By Gerome.
188.jpg Daric of Darius, Son Of Hystaspes
The Iranian religions—Cyrus in Lydia and at Babylon: Cambyses in Egypt —Darius and the organisation of the empire.
The Median empire is the least known of all those which held sway for a time over the destinies of a portion of Western Asia. The reason of this is not to be ascribed to the shortness of its duration: the Chaldćan empire of Nebuchadrezzar lasted for a period quite as brief, and yet the main outlines of its history can be established with some certainty in spite of large blanks and much obscurity. Whereas at Babylon, moreover, original documents abound, enabling us to put together, feature by feature, the picture of its ancient civilisation and of the chronology of its kings, we possess no contemporary monuments of Ecbatana to furnish direct information as to its history. To form any idea of the Median kings or their people, we are reduced to haphazard notices gleaned from the chroniclers of other lands, retailing a few isolated facts, anecdotes, legends, and conjectures, and, as these materials reach us through the medium of the Babylonians or the Greeks of the fifth or sixth century B.C., the picture which we endeavour to compose from them is always imperfect or out of perspective. We seemingly catch glimpses of ostentatious luxury, of a political and military organisation, and a method of government analogous to that which prevailed at later periods among the Persians, but more imperfect, ruder, and nearer to barbarism—a Persia, in fact, in the rudimentary stage, with its ruling spirit and essential characteristics as yet undeveloped. The machinery of state had doubtless been adopted almost in its entirety from the political organisations which obtained in the kingdoms of Assyria, Elam, and Chaldća, with which sovereignties the founders of the Median empire had held in turns relations as vassals, enemies, and allies; but once we penetrate this veneer of Mesopotamian civilisation and reach the inner life of the people, we find in the religion they profess—mingled with some borrowed traits—a world of unfamiliar myths and dogmas of native origin.
The main outlines of this religion were already fixed when the Medes rose in rebellion against Assur-bani-pal; and the very name of Confessor—Fravartîsh—applied to the chief of that day, proves that it was the faith of the royal family. It was a religion common to all the Iranians, the Persians as well as the Medes, and legend honoured as its first lawgiver and expounder an ancient prophet named Zarathustra, known to us as Zoroaster.* Most classical writers relegated Zoroaster to some remote age of antiquity—thus he is variously said to have lived six thousand years before the death of Plato,** five thousand before the Trojan war,*** one thousand before Moses, and six hundred before Xerxes' campaign against Athens; while some few only affirmed that he had lived at a comparatively recent period, and made him out a disciple of the philosopher Pythagoras, who flourished about the middle of the fifth century B.C.
* The name Zarathustra has been interpreted in a score of
different ways. The Greeks sometimes attributed to it the
meaning "worshipper of the stars," probably by reason of the
similarity in sound of the termination "-astres" of
Zoroaster with the word "astron." Among modern writers, H.
Rawlinson derived it from the Assyrian Zîru-Ishtar, "the
seed of Ishtar," but the etymology now most generally
accepted is that of Burnouf, according to which it would
signify "the man with gold-coloured camels," the "possessor
of tawny camels." The ordinary Greek form Zoroaster seems to
be derived from some name quite distinct from Zarathustra.
** This was, as Pliny records, the opinion of Eudoxus; not
Eudoxus of Cnidus, pupil of Plato, as is usually stated, but
a more obscure personage, Eudoxus of Rhodes.
*** This was the statement of Hermodorus.
According to the most ancient national traditions, he was born in the Aryanem-vaęjô, or, in other words, in the region between the Araxes and the Kur, to the west of the Caspian Sea. Later tradition asserted that his conception was attended by supernatural circumstances, and the miracles which accompanied his birth announced the advent of a saint destined to regenerate the world by the revelation of the True Law. In the belief of an Iranian, every man, every living creature now existing or henceforth to exist, not excluding the gods themselves, possesses a Frôhar, or guardian spirit, who is assigned to him at his entrance into the world, and who is thenceforth devoted entirely to watching over his material and moral well-being,* About the time appointed for the appearance of the prophet, his Frôhar was, by divine grace, imprisoned in the heart of a Haoma,** and was absorbed, along with the juice of the plant, by the priest Purushâspa,*** during a sacrifice, a ray of heavenly glory descending at the same time into the bosom of a maiden of noble race, named Dughdôva, whom Purushâspa shortly afterwards espoused.
* The Fravashi (for fravarti, from fra-var, "to support,
nourish"), or the frôhar (feruer), is, properly speaking,
the nurse, the genius who nurtures. Many of the practices
relating to the conception and cult of the Fravashis seem to
me to go back to the primitive period of the Iranian
religions.
** The haoma is an Asclepias Sarcostema Viminalis.
*** The name signifies "He who has many horses."
Zoroaster was engendered from the mingling of the Frôhar with the celestial ray. The evil spirit, whose supremacy he threatened, endeavoured to destroy him as soon as he saw the light, and despatched one of his agents, named Bôuiti, from the country of the far north to oppose him; but the infant prophet immediately pronounced the formula with which the psalm for the offering of the waters opens: "The will of the Lord is the rule of good!" and proceeded to pour libations in honour of the river Daręja, on the banks of which he had been born a moment before, reciting at the same time the "profession of faith which puts evil spirits to flight." Bôuiti fled aghast, but his master set to work upon some fresh device. Zoroaster allowed him, however, no time to complete his plans: he rose up, and undismayed by the malicious riddles propounded to him by his adversary, advanced against him with his hands full of stones—stones as large as a house—with which the good deity supplied him. The mere sight of him dispersed the demons, and they regained the gates of their hell in headlong flight, shrieking out, "How shall we succeed in destroying him? For he is the weapon which strikes down evil beings; he is the scourge of evil beings." His infancy and youth were spent in constant disputation with evil spirits: ever assailed, he ever came out victorious, and issued more perfect from each attack. When he was thirty years old, one of the good spirits, Vôhumanô, appeared to him, and conducted him into the presence of Ahura-mazdâ, the Supreme Being. When invited to question the deity, Zoroaster asked, "Which is the best of the creatures which are upon the earth?" The answer was, that the man whose heart is pure, he excels among his fellows. He next desired to know the names and functions of the angels, and the nature and attributes of evil. His instruction ended, he crossed a mountain of flames, and underwent a terrible ordeal of purification, during which his breast was pierced with a sword, and melted lead poured into his entrails without his suffering any pain: only after this ordeal did he receive from the hands of Ahura-mazdâ the Book of the Law, the Avesta, was then sent back to his native land bearing his precious burden. At that time, Vîshtâspa, son of Aurvatâspa, was reigning over Bactria. For ten years Zoroaster had only one disciple, his cousin Maidhyoi-Mâonha, but after that he succeeded in converting, one after the other, the two sons of Hvôgva, the grand vizir Jâmâspa, who afterwards married the prophet's daughter, and Frashaoshtra, whose daughter Hvôgvi he himself espoused; the queen, Hutaosa, was the next convert, and afterwards, through her persuasions, the king Vîshtâspa himself became a disciple. The triumph of the good cause was hastened by the result of a formal disputation between the prophet and the wise men of the court: for three days they essayed to bewilder him with their captious objections and their magic arts, thirty standing on his right hand and thirty on his left, but he baffled their wiles, aided by grace from above, and having forced them to avow themselves at the end of their resources, he completed his victory by reciting the Avesta before them. The legend adds, that after rallying the majority of the people round him, he lived to a good old age, honoured of all men for his saintly life. According to some accounts, he was stricken dead by lightning,* while others say he was killed by a Turanian soldier, Brâtrôk-ręsh, in a war against the Hyaonas.
* This is, under very diverse forms, the version preferred
by Western historians of the post-classical period.
The question has often been asked whether Zoroaster belongs to the domain of legend or of history. The only certain thing we know concerning him is his name; all the rest is mythical, poetic, or religious fiction. Classical writers attributed to him the composition or editing of all the writings comprised in Persian literature: the whole consisted, they said, of two hundred thousand verses which had been expounded and analysed by Hermippus in his commentaries on the secret doctrines of the Magi. The Iranians themselves averred that he had given the world twenty-one volumes—the twenty-one Nasks of the Avesta,* which the Supreme Deity had created from the twenty-one words of the Magian profession of faith, the Ahuna Vairya. King Vîshtâspa is said to have caused two authentic copies of the Avesta—which contained in all ten or twelve hundred chapters**—to be made, one of which was consigned to the archives of the empire, the other laid up in the treasury of a fortress, either Shapîgân, Shîzîgân, Samarcand, or Persepolis.***
* The word Avesta, in Pehlevi Apastâk, whence come the
Persian forms âvasta, ôstâ, is derived from the
Achćmenian word Abasta, which signifies law in the
inscriptions of Darius. The term Zend-Avesta, commonly used
to designate the sacred book of the Persians, is incorrectly
derived from the expression Apastâc u Zend, which in
Pehlevi designates first the law itself, and then the
translation and commentary in more modern language which
conduces to a knowledge (Zend) of the law. The customary
application, therefore, of the name Zend to the language of
the Avesta is incorrect.
** The Dinkart fixes the number of chapters at 1000, and the
Shâh-Nâmak at 1200, written on plates of gold. According to
Masudi, the book itself and the two commentaries formed
12,000 volumes, written in letters of gold, the twenty-one
Nasks each contained 200 pages, and the whole of these
writings had been inscribed on 12,000 cow-hides.
*** The site of Shapîgân or Shaspîgân is unknown. J.
Darmesteter suggests that it ought to be read as Shizîgân,
which would permit of the identification of the place with
Shîz, one of the ancient religious centres of Iran, whose
temple was visited by the Sassanids on their accession to
the throne. According to the Ardâ-Vîrâf the law was
preserved at Istakhr, or Persepolis, according to the Shâh-
Nâmak at Samarcand in the temple of the Fire-god.
Alexander is said to have burnt the former copy: the latter, stolen by the Greeks, is reported to have been translated into their language and to have furnished them with all their scientific knowledge. One of the Arsacids, Vologesus I., caused a search to be made for all the fragments which existed either in writing or in the memory of the faithful,* and this collection, added to in the reign of the Sassanid king, Ardashîr Bâbagan, by the high priest Tansar, and fixed in its present form under Sapor I., was recognised as the religious code of the empire in the time of Sapor II., about the fourth century of the Christian era.*** The text is composed, as may be seen, of three distinct strata, which are by no means equally ancient;*** one can, nevertheless, make out from it with sufficient certainty the principal features of the religion and cult of Iran, such as they were under the Achćmenids, and perhaps even under the hegemony of the Medes.
* Tradition speaks simply of a King Valkash, without
specifying which of the four kings named Vologesus is
intended. James Darmesteter has given good reasons for
believing that this Valkash is Vologesus I. (50-75 A.D.),
the contemporary of Nero.
** This is the tradition reproduced in two versions of the
Dinkart.
*** Darmesteter declares that ancient Zoroastrianism is, in
its main lines, the religion of the Median Magi, even though
he assigns the latest possible date to the composition of
the Avesta as now existing, and thinks he can discern in it
Greek, Jewish, and Christian elements.
It is a complicated system of religion, and presupposes a long period of development. The doctrines are subtle; the ceremonial order of worship, loaded with strict observances, is interrupted at every moment by laws prescribing minute details of ritual,* which were only put in practice by priests and strict devotees, and were unknown to the mass of the faithful.
* Renan defined the Avesta as "the Code of a very small
religious sect; it is a Talmud, a book of casuistry and
strict observance. I have difficulty in believing that the
great Persian empire, which, at least in religious matters,
professed a certain breadth of ideas, could have had a law
so strict. I think, that had the Persians possessed a sacred
book of this description, the Greeks must have mentioned
it."
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
The primitive, base of this religion is difficult to discern clearly: but we may recognise in it most of those beings or personifications of natural phenomena which were the chief objects of worship among all the ancient nations of Western Asia—the stars, Sirius, the moon, the sun, water and fire, plants, animals beneficial to mankind, such as the cow and the dog, good and evil spirits everywhere present, and beneficent or malevolent souls of mortal men, but all systematised, graduated, and reduced to sacerdotal principles, according to the prescriptions of a powerful priesthood. Families consecrated to the service of the altar had ended, as among the Hebrews, by separating themselves from the rest of the nation and forming a special tribe, that of the Magi, which was the last to enter into the composition of the nation in historic times. All the Magi were not necessarily devoted to the service of religion, but all who did so devote themselves sprang from the Magian tribe; the Avesta, in its oldest form, was the sacred book of the Magi, as well as that of the priests who handed down their religious tradition under the various dynasties, native or foreign, who bore rule over Iran.
The Creator was described as "the whole circle of the heavens," "the most steadfast among the gods," for "he clothes himself with the solid vault of the firmament as his raiment," "the most beautiful, the most intelligent, he whose members are most harmoniously proportioned; his body was the light and the sovereign glory, the sun and the moon were his eyes." The theologians had gradually spiritualised the conception of this deity without absolutely disconnecting him from the material universe.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Flandin and Coste.
He remained under ordinary circumstances invisible to mortal eyes, and he could conceal his identity even from the highest gods, but he occasionally manifested himself in human form. He borrowed in such case from Assyria the symbol of Assur, and the sculptors depict him with the upper part of his body rising above that winged disk which is carved in a hovering attitude on the pediments of Assyrian monuments or stelć.
In later days he was portrayed under the form of a king of imposing stature and majestic mien, who revealed himself from time to time to the princes of Iran.*
* In a passage of Philo of Byblos the god is described as
having the head of a falcon or an eagle, perhaps by
confusion with one of the genii represented on the walls of
the palaces.
He was named Ahurô-mazdâo or Ahura-mazdâ, the omniscient lord,* Spento-mainyus, the spirit of good, Mainyus-spenishtô** the most beneficent of spirits.
* Ahura is derived from Ahu = Lord: Mazdâo can be
analysed into the component parts, maz = great, and dâo
= he who knows. At first the two terms were
interchangeable, and even in the Gâthas the form Mazda Ahura
is employed much more often than the form Ahura Mazda. In
the Achsemenian inscriptions, Auramazdâ is only found as a
single word, except in an inscription of Xerxes, where the
two terms are in one passage separated and declined Aurahya
mazdâha. The form Ormuzd, Ormazd, usually employed by
Europeans, is that assumed by the name in modern Persian.
** These two names are given to him more especially in
connection with his antagonism to Angrômainyus.
Himself uncreated, he is the creator of all things, but he is assisted in the administration of the universe by legions of beings, who are all subject to him.*
* Darius styles Ahura-mazdâ, mathishta bagânâm, the
greatest of the gods, and Xerxes invokes the protection of
Ahura-mazdâ along with that of the gods. The classical
writers also mention gods alongside of Ahura-mazdâ as
recognised not only among the Achćmenian Persians, but also
among the Parthians. Darmesteter considers that the earliest
Achćmenids worshipped Ahura-mazdâ alone, "placing the other
gods together in a subordinate and anonymous group: May
Ahura-mazdâ and the other gods protect me."
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Dieulafoy.
The most powerful among his ministers were originally nature-gods, such as the sun, the moon, the earth, the winds, and the waters. The sunny plains of Persia and Media afforded abundant witnesses of their power, as did the snow-clad peaks, the deep gorges through which rushed roaring torrents, and the mountain ranges of Ararat or Taurus, where the force of the subterranean fires was manifested by so many startling exhibitions of spontaneous conflagration.* The same spiritualising tendency which had already considerably modified the essential concept of Ahura-mazdâ, affected also that of the inferior deities, and tended to tone down in them the grosser traits of their character. It had already placed at their head six genii of a superior order, six ever-active energies, who, after assisting their master at the creation of the universe, now presided under his guidance over the kingdoms and forces of nature.**
* All these inferior deities, heroes, and genii who presided
over Persia, the royal family, and the different parts of
the empire, are often mentioned in the most ancient
classical authors that have come down to us.
** The six Amesha-spentas, with their several
characteristics, are enumerated in a passage of the De
Iside. This exposition of Persian doctrine is usually
attributed to Theopompus, from which we may deduce the
existence of a belief in the Amesha-spentas in the
Achsemenian period. J. Darmesteter affirms, on the contrary,
that "the author describes the Zoro-astrianism of his own
times (the second century A.D.), and quotes Theopompus for a
special doctrine, that of the periods of the world's life."
Although this last point is correct, the first part of
Darmesteter's theory does not seem to me justified by
investigation. The whole passage of Plutarch is a well-
arranged composition of uniform style, which may be regarded
as an exposition of the system described by Theopompus,
probably in the eighth of his Philippics.
These benevolent and immortal beings—Amesha-spentas—were, in the order of precedence, Vohu-manô (good thought), Asha-vahista (perfect holiness), Khshathra-vairya (good government), Spenta-armaiti (meek piety), Haurvatât (health), Ameretât (immortality). Each of them had a special domain assigned to him in which to display his energy untrammelled: Vohu-manô had charge of cattle, Asha-vahista of fire, Khshathra-vairya of metals, Spenta-armaiti of the earth, Haurvatât and Ameretât of vegetation and of water. They were represented in human form, either masculine as Vohu-manô and Asha-vahista,* or feminine as Spenta-armaiti, the daughter and spouse of Ahura-mazdâ, who became the mother of the first man, Gayomaretan, and, through Gayomaretan, ancestress of the whole human race.
* The image of Asha-vahista is known to us from coins of the
Indo-Scythian kings of Bactriana. Vohu-manô is described as
a young man.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin; coin of King Kanishka,
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin
Sometimes Ahura-mazdâ is himself included among the Amesha-spentas, thus bringing their number up to seven; sometimes his place is taken by a certain Sraôsha (obedience to the law), the first who offered sacrifice and recited the prayers of the ritual. Subordinate to these great spirits were the Yazatas, scattered by thousands over creation, presiding over the machinery of nature and maintaining it in working order. Most of them received no special names, but many exercised wide authority, and several were accredited by the people with an influence not less than that of the greater deities themselves. Such Were the regent of the stars—Tishtrya, the bull with golden horns, Sirius, the sparkling one; Mâo, the moon-god; the wind, Vâto; the atmosphere, Vayu, the strongest of the strong, the warrior with golden armour, who gathers the storm and hurls it against the demon; Atar, fire under its principal forms, divine fire, sacred fire, and earthly fire; Vere-thraghna, the author of war and giver of victory; Aurva-taspa, the son of the waters, the lightning born among the clouds; and lastly, the spirit of the dawn, the watchful Mithra, "who, first of the celestial Yazatas, soars above Mount Hara,* before the immortal sun with his swift steeds, who, first in golden splendour, passes over the beautiful mountains and casts his glance benign on the dwellings of the Aryans."**
* Hara is Haroberezaiti, or Elburz, the mountain over which
the sun rises, "around which many a star revolves, where
there is neither night nor darkness, no wind of cold or
heat, no sickness leading to a thousand kinds of death, nor
infection caused by the Daôvas, and whose summit is never
reached by the clouds."
** This is the Mithra whose religion became so powerful in
Alexandrian and Roman times. His sphere of action is defined
in the Bundehesh.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin; coin of King Huvishka,
Mithra was a charming youth of beautiful countenance, his head surrounded with a radiant halo. The nymph Anâhita was adored under the form of one of the incarnations of the Babylonian goddess Mylitta, a youthful and slender female, with well-developed breasts and broad hips, sometimes represented clothed in furs and sometimes nude.* Like the foreign goddess to whom she was assimilated, she was the dispenser of fertility and of love; the heroes of antiquity, and even Ahura-mazdâ himself, had vied with one another in their worship of her, and she had lavished her favours freely on all.**
* The popularity of these two deities was already well
established at the period we are dealing with, for Herodotus
mentions Mithra and confuses him with Anâhita.
** Her name Ardvî-Sűra Anâhita seems to signify the lofty
and immaculate power.
The less important Yazatas were hardly to be distinguished from the innumerable multitude of Fravashis. The Fravasliis are the divine types of all intelligent beings. They were originally brought into being by Ahura-mazdâ as a distinct species from the human, but they had allowed themselves to be entangled in matter, and to be fettered in the bodies of men, in order to hasten the final destruction of the demons and the advent of the reign of good.*
* The legend of the descent of the Fravashis to dwell among
men is narrated in the Bundehesh.
Drawn by Faucher- Gudin, from Loftus
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, coin of King Huvishka,
Once incarnate, a Fravasliis devotes himself to the well-being of the mortal with whom he is associated; and when once more released from the flesh, he continues the struggle against evil with an energy whose efficacy is proportionate to the virtue and purity displayed in life by the mortal to whom he has been temporarily joined. The last six days of the year are dedicated to the Fravashis. They leave their heavenly abodes at this time to visit the spots which were their earthly dwelling-places, and they wander through the villages inquiring, "Who wishes to hire us? Who will offer us a sacrifice? Who will make us their own, welcome us, and receive us with plenteous offerings of food and raiment, with a prayer which bestows sanctity on him who offers it?" And if they find a man to hearken to their request, they bless him: "May his house be blessed with herds of oxen and troops of men, a swift horse and a strongly built chariot, a man who knoweth how to pray to God, a chieftain in the council who may ever offer us sacrifices with a hand filled with food and raiment, with a prayer which bestows sanctity on him who offers it!" Ahura-mazdâ created the universe, not by the work of his hands, but by the magic of his word, and he desired to create it entirely free from defects. His creation, however, can only exist by the free play and equilibrium of opposing forces, to which he gives activity: the incompatibility of tendency displayed by these forces, and their alternations of growth and decay, inspired the Iranians with the idea that they were the result of two contradictory principles, the one beneficent and good, the other adverse to everything emanating from the former.*
* Spiegel, who at first considered that the Iranian dualism
was derived from polytheism, and was a preliminary stage in
the development of monotheism, held afterwards that a rigid
monotheism had preceded this dualism. The classical writers,
who knew Zoroastrianism at the height of its glory, never
suggested that the two principles might be derived from a
superior principle, nor that they were subject to such a
principle. The Iranian books themselves nowhere definitely
affirm that there existed a single principle distinct from
the two opposing principles.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken from the original bas-relief in glazed tiles in the Louvre.
In opposition to the god of light, they necessarily formed the idea of a god of darkness, the god of the underworld, who presides over death, Angrô-mainyus. The two opposing principles reigned at first, each in his own domain, as rivals, but not as irreconcilable adversaries: they were considered as in fixed opposition to each other, and as having coexisted for ages without coming into actual conflict, separated as they were by the intervening void. As long as the principle of good was content to remain shut up inactive in his barren glory, the principle of evil slumbered unconscious in a darkness that knew no beginning; but when at last "the spirit who giveth increase"—Spentô-mainyus—determined to manifest himself, the first throes of his vivifying activity roused from inertia the spirit of destruction and of pain, Angrô-mainyus. The heaven was not yet in existence, nor the waters, nor the earth, nor ox, nor fire, nor man, nor demons, nor brute beasts, nor any living thing, when the evil spirit hurled himself upon the light to quench it for ever, but Ahura-mazdâ had already called forth the ministers of his will—Amęsha-spentas, Yazatas, Fravashis—and he recited the prayer of twenty-one words in which all the elements of morality are summed up, the Ahuna-vairya: "The will of the Lord is the rule of good. Let the gifts of Vohu-manô be bestowed on the works accomplished, at this moment, for Mazda. He makes Ahura to reign, he who protects the poor." The effect of this prayer was irresistible: "When Ahura had pronounced the first part of the formula, Zânak Mînoî, the spirit of destruction, bowed himself with terror; at the second part he fell upon his knees; and at the third and last he felt himself powerless to hurt the creatures of Ahura-mazdâ."*
* Theopompus was already aware of this alternation of good
and bad periods. According to the tradition enshrined in the
first chapter of the Bundehesh, it was the result of a sort
of compact agreed upon at the beginning by Ahura-mazdâ and
Angrô-mainyus. Ahura-mazdâ, rearing to be overcome if he
entered upon the struggle immediately, but sure of final
victory if he could gain time, proposed to his adversary a
truce of nine thousand years, at the expiration of which the
battle should begin. As soon as the compact was made, Angrô-
mainyus realised that he had been tricked into taking a
false step, but it was not till after three thousand years
that he decided to break the truce and open the conflict.
The strife, kindled at the beginning of time between the two gods, has gone on ever since with alternations of success and defeat; each in turn has the victory for a regular period of three thousand years; but when these periods are ended, at the expiration of twelve thousand years, evil will be finally and for ever defeated. While awaiting this blessed fulness of time, as Spentô-mainyus shows himself in all that is good and beautiful, in light, virtue, and justice, so Angrô-mainyus is to be perceived in all that is hateful and ugly, in darkness, sin, and crime. Against the six Amesha-spentas he sets in array six spirits of equal power—Akem-manô, evil thought; Andra, the devouring fire, who introduces discontent and sin wherever he penetrates; Sauru, the flaming arrow of death, who inspires bloodthirsty tyrants, who incites men to theft and murder; Nâongaithya, arrogance and pride; Tauru, thirst; and Zairi, hunger.*
* The last five of these spirits are enumerated in the
Vendidad, and the first, Akem-manô, is there replaced by
Nasu, the chief spirit of evil.
To the Yazatas he opposed the Daęvas, who never cease to torment mankind, and so through all the ranks of nature he set over against each good and useful creation a counter-creation of rival tendency. "'Like a fly he crept into' and infected 'the whole universe.' He rendered the world as dark at full noonday as in the darkest night. He covered the soil with vermin, with his creatures of venomous bite and poisonous sting, with serpents, scorpions, and frogs, so that there was not a space as small as a needle's point but swarmed with his vermin. He smote vegetation, and of a sudden the plants withered.... He attacked the flames, and mingled them with smoke and dimness. The planets, with their thousands of demons, dashed against the vault of heaven and waged war on the stars, and the universe became darkened like a space which the fire blackens with its smoke." And the conflict grew ever keener over the world and over man, of whom the evil one was jealous, and whom he sought to humiliate.
The children of Angrô-mainyus disguised themselves under those monstrous forms in which the imagination of the Chaldćans had clothed the allies of Mummu-Tiamât, such as lions with bulls' heads, and the wings and claws of eagles, which the Achćmenian king combats on behalf of his subjects, boldly thrusting them through with his short sword. Aęshma of the blood-stained lance, terrible in wrath, is the most trusted leader of these dread bands,* the chief of twenty other Daęvas of repulsive aspect—Astô-vîdhôtu, the demon of death, who would devote to destruction the estimable Fravashis;** Apaosha, the enemy of Tishtrya the wicked black horse, the bringer of drought, who interferes with the distribution of the fertilising waters; and Bűiti, who essayed to kill Zoroaster at his birth.***
* The name Aęshma means anger. He is the Asmodeus, Aęshmo-
daevô, of Rabbinic legends.
** The name of this demon signifies He who separates the
bones.
*** The Greater Bundehesh connects the demon Bűiti with the
Indian Buddha, and J. Darmestefer seems inclined to accept
this interpretation. In this case we must either admit that
the demon Bűiti is of relatively late origin, or that he
has, in the legend of Zoroaster, taken the place of a demon
whose name resembled his own closely enough to admit of the
assimilation.
The female demons, the Bruges, the Incubi (Yâtus), the Succubi (Pairîka), the Peris of our fairy tales, mingled familiarly with mankind before the time of the prophet, and contracted with them fruitful alliances, but Zoroaster broke up their ranks, and prohibited them from becoming incarnate in any form but that of beasts; their hatred, however, is still unquenched, and their power will only be effectually overthrown at the consummation of time. It is a matter of uncertainty whether the Medes already admitted the possibility of a fresh revelation, preparing the latest generations of mankind for the advent of the reign of good. The traditions enshrined in the sacred books of Iran announce the coming of three prophets, sons of Zoroaster —Ukhshyatereta, Ukhshyatnemô, and Saoshyant* —who shall bring about universal salvation.
* The legend ran that they had been conceived in the waters
of the lake Kansu. The name Saoshyant signifies the useful
one, the saviour; Ukshyate-reta, he who malces the good
increase; Ukshyatnemô, he who makes prayer increase.
Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph in Marcel Dieulafoy.
Saoshyant, assisted by fifteen men and fifteen pure women, who have already lived on earth, and are awaiting their final destiny in a magic slumber, shall offer the final sacrifice, the virtue of which shall bring about the resurrection of the dead. "The sovereign light shall accompany him and his friends, when he shall revivify the world and ransom it from old age and death, from corruption and decay, and shall render it eternally living, eternally growing, and master of itself." The fatal conflict shall be protracted, but the champions of Saoshyant shall at length obtain the victory. "Before them shall bow Aęshma of the blood-stained lance and of ominous renown, and Saoshyant shall strike down the she-demon of the unholy light, the daughter of darkness. Akem-manô strikes, but Vohu-manô shall strike him in his turn; the lying word shall strike, but the word of truth shall strike him in his turn; Haurvatât and Ameretâfc shall strike down hunger and thirst; Haurvatât and Ameretât shall strike down terrible hunger and terrible thirst." Angrô-mainyus himself shall be paralysed with terror, and shall be forced to confess the supremacy of good: he shall withdraw into the depths of hell, whence he shall never again issue forth, and all the reanimated beings devoted to the Mazdean law shall live an eternity of peace and contentment.
Man, therefore, incessantly distracted between the two principles, laid wait for by the Baęvas, defended by the Yazatas, must endeavour to act according to law and justice in the condition in which fate has placed him. He has been raised up here on earth to contribute as far as in him lies to the increase of life and of good, and in proportion as he works for this end or against it, is he the ashavan, the pure, the faithful one on earth and the blessed one in heaven, or the anashavan, the lawless miscreant who counteracts purity. The highest grade in the hierarchy of men belongs of right to the Mage or the âthravan, to the priest whose voice inspires the demons with fear, or the soldier whose club despatches the impious, but a place of honour at their side is assigned to the peasant, who reclaims from the power of Angrô-mainyus the dry and sterile fields. Among the places where the earth thrives most joyously is reckoned that "where a worshipper of Ahura-mazdâ builds a house, with a chaplain, with cattle, with a wife, with sons, with a fair flock; where man grows the most corn, herbage, and fruit trees; where he spreads water on a soil without water, and drains off water where there is too much of it." He who sows corn, sows good, and promotes the Mazdean faith; "he nourishes the Mazdean religion as fifty men would do rocking a child in the cradle, five hundred women giving it suck from their breasts.* When the corn was created the Daęvas leaped, when it sprouted the Daęvas lost courage, when the stem set the Daęvas wept, when the ear swelled the Daęvas fled. In the house where corn is mouldering the Daęvas lodge, but when the corn sprouts, one might say that a hot iron is being turned round in their mouths." And the reason of their horror is easily divined: "Whoso eats not, has no power either to accomplish a valiant work of religion, or to labour with valour, or yet to beget children valiantly; it is by eating that the universe lives, and it dies from not eating." The faithful follower of Zoroaster owes no obligation towards the impious man or towards a stranger,** but is ever bound to render help to his coreligionist.
* The original text says in a more enigmatical fashion, "he
nourishes the religion of Mazdâ as a hundred feet of men and
a thousand breasts of women might do."
** Charity is called in Parsee language, ashô-dâd the
gift to a pious man, or the gift of piety, and the pious
man, the ashavan, is by definition the worshipper of
Ahura-mazdâ alone.
He will give a garment to the naked, and by so doing will wound Zemaka, the demon of winter. He will never refuse food to the hungry labourer, under pain of eternal torments, and his charity will extend even to the brute beasts, provided that they belong to the species created by Ahura-mazdâ: he has duties towards them, and their complaints, heard in heaven, shall be fatal to him later on if he has provoked them. Asha-vahista will condemn to hell the cruel man who has ill-treated the ox, or allowed his flocks to suffer; and the killing of a hedgehog is no less severely punished—for does not a hedgehog devour the ants who steal the grain? The dog is in every case an especially sacred animal—the shepherd's dog, the watchdog, the hunting-dog, even the prowling dog. It is not lawful to give any dog a blow which renders him impotent, or to slit his ears, or to cut his foot, without incurring grave responsibilities in this world and in the next; it is necessary to feed the dog well, and not to throw bones to him which are too hard, nor have his food served hot enough to burn his tongue or his throat. For the rest, the faithful Zoroastrian was bound to believe in his god, to offer to him the orthodox prayers and sacrifices, to be simple in heart, truthful, the slave of his pledged word, loyal in his very smallest acts. If he had once departed from the right way, he could only return to it by repentance and by purification, accompanied by pious deeds: to exterminate noxious animals, the creatures of Angrô-mainyus and the abode of his demons, such as the frog, the scorpion, the serpent or the ant, to clear the sterile tracts, to restore impoverished land, to construct bridges over running water, to distribute implements of husbandry to pions men, or to build them a house, to give a pure and healthy maiden in marriage to a just man,—these were so many means of expiation appointed by the prophet.* Marriage was strictly obligatory,** and seemed more praiseworthy in proportion as the kinship existing between the married pair was the closer: not only was the sister united in marriage to her brother, as in Egypt, but the father to his daughter, and the mother to her son, at least among the Magi.
* A passage in the Vendidad even enumerates how many
noisome beasts must be slain to accomplish one full work of
expiation—"to kill 1000 serpents of those who drag
themselves upon the belly, and 2000 of the other species,
1000 land frogs or 2000 water frogs, 1000 ants who steal the
grain," and so on.
** The Vendidad says, "And I tell thee, O Spitama
Zarathustra, the man who has a wife is above him who lives
in continency;" and, as we have seen in the text, one of
these forms of expiation consisted in "marrying to a worthy
man a young girl who has never known a man" (Vendidad, 14,
§ 15). Herodotus of old remarked that one of the chief
merits in an Iranian was to have many children: the King of
Persia encouraged fecundity in his realm, and awarded a
prize each year to that one of his subjects who could boast
the most numerous progeny.
Drawn by Boudier, from Plandin and Coste.
Polygamy was also encouraged and widely practised: the code imposed no limit on the number of wives and concubines, and custom was in favour of a man's having as many wives as his fortune permitted him to maintain. On the occasion of a death, it was forbidden to burn the corpse, to bury it, or to cast it into a river, as it would have polluted the fire, the earth, or the water—an unpardonable offence. The corpse could be disposed of in different ways. The Persians were accustomed to cover it with a thick layer of wax, and then to bury it in the ground: the wax coating obviated the pollution which direct contact would have brought upon the soil. The Magi, and probably also strict devotees, following their example, exposed the corpse in the open air, abandoning it to the birds or beasts of prey. It was considered a great misfortune if these respected the body, for it was an almost certain indication of the wrath of Ahura-mazdâ, and it was thought that the defunct had led an evil life. When the bones had been sufficiently stripped of flesh, they were collected together, and deposited either in an earthenware urn or in a stone ossuary with a cover, or in a monumental tomb either hollowed out in the heart of the mountain or in the living rock, or raised up above the level of the ground. Meanwhile the soul remained in the neighbourhood for three days, hovering near the head of the corpse, and by the recitation of prayers it experienced, according to its condition of purity or impurity, as much of joy or sadness as the whole world experiences. When the third night was past, the just soul set forth across luminous plains, refreshed by a perfumed breeze, and its good thoughts and words and deeds took shape before it "under the guise of a young maiden, radiant and strong, with well-developed bust, noble mien, and glorious face, about fifteen years of age, and as beautiful as the most beautiful;" the unrighteous soul, on the contrary, directed its course towards the north, through a tainted land, amid the squalls of a pestilential hurricane, and there encountered its past ill deeds, under the form of an ugly and wicked young woman, the ugliest and most wicked it had ever seen. The genius Rashnu Razishta, the essentially truthful, weighed its virtues or vices in an unerring balance, and acquitted or Condemned it on the impartial testimony of its past life. On issuing from the judgment-hall, the soul arrived at the approach to the bridge Cinvaut, which, thrown across the abyss of hell, led to paradise. The soul, if impious, was unable to cross this bridge, but was hurled down into the abyss, where it became the slave of Angrô-mainyus. If pure, it crossed the bridge without difficulty by the help of the angel Sraôsha, and was welcomed by Vohu-manô, who conducted it before the throne of Ahura-mazdâ, in the same way as he had led Zoroaster, and assigned to it the post which it should occupy until the day of the resurrection of the body.*
* All this picture of the fate of the soul is taken from the
Vendidad, where the fate of the just is described, and in
the Yasht, where the condition of faithful and impious
souls respectively is set forth on parallel lines. The
classical authors teach us nothing on this subject, and the
little they actually say only proves that the Persians
believed in the immortality of the soul. The main outlines
of the picture here set forth go back to the times of the
Achćmenids and the Medes, except the abstract conception of
the goddess who leads the soul of the dead as an incarnation
of his good or evil deeds.
The religious observances enjoined on the members of the priestly caste were innumerable and minute. Ahura-mazdâ and his colleagues had not, as was the fashion among the Assyrians and Egyptians, either temples or tabernacles, and though they were represented sometimes under human or animal forms, and even in some cases on bas-reliefs, yet no one ever ventured to set up in their sanctuaries those so-called animated or prophetic statues to which the majority of the nations had rendered or were rendering their solicitous homage. Altars, however, were erected on the tops of hills, in palaces, or in the centre of cities, on which fires were kindled in honour of the inferior deities or of the supreme god himself.
Drawn by Boudier, from a heliogravure in Marcel Dieulafoy.
Two altars were usually set up together, and they are thus found here and there among the ruins, as at Nakhsh-î-Kustem, the necropolis of Persepolis, where a pair of such altars exist; these are cut, each out of a single block, in a rocky mass which rises some thirteen feet above the level of the surrounding plain. They are of cubic form and squat appearance, looking like towers flanked at the four corners by supporting columns which are connected by circular arches; above a narrow moulding rises a crest of somewhat triangular projections; the hearth is hollowed out on the summit of each altar.*
* According to Perrot and Chipiez, "it is not impossible
that these altars were older than the great buildings of
Persepolis, and that they were erected for the old Persian
town which Darius raised to the position of capital."
At Meshed-î-Murgâb, on the site of the ancient Pasargadas, the altars have disappeared, but the basements on which they were erected are still visible, as also the flight of eight steps by which they were approached. Those altars on which burned, a perpetual fire were not left exposed to the open air: they would have run too great a risk of contracting impurities, such as dust borne by the wind, flights of birds, dew, rain, or snow. They were enclosed in slight structures, well protected by walls, and attaining in some cases considerable dimensions, or in pavilion-shaped edifices of stone adorned with columns.
The sacrificial rites were of long duration, and frequent, and were rendered very complex by interminable manual acts, ceremonial gestures, and incantations.
In cases where the altar was not devoted to maintaining a perpetual fire, it was kindled when necessary with small twigs previously barked and purified, and was subsequently fed with precious woods, preferably cypress or laurel;* care was taken not to quicken the flame by blowing, for the human breath would have desecrated the fire by merely passing over it; death was the punishment for any one who voluntarily committed such a heinous sacrilege. The recognised offering consisted of flowers, bread, fruit, and perfumes, but these were often accompanied, as in all ancient religions, by a bloody sacrifice; the sacrifice of a horse was considered the most efficacious, but an ox, a cow, a sheep, a camel, an ass, or a stag was frequently offered: in certain circumstances, especially when it was desired to conciliate the favour of the god of the underworld, a human victim, probably as a survival of very ancient rites was preferred.**
* Pausanias, who witnessed the cult as practised at
Hierocćsarsea, remarked the curious colour of the ashes
heaped upon the altar.
* Most modern writers deny the authenticity of Herodotus'
account, because a sacrifice of this kind is opposed to the
spirit of the Magian religion, which is undoubtedly the
case, as far as the latest form of the religion is
concerned; but the testimony of Herodotus is so plain that
the fact itself must be considered as indisputable. We may
note that the passage refers to the foundation of a city;
and if we remember how persistent was the custom of human
sacrifice among ancient races at the foundation of
buildings, we shall be led to the conclusion that the
ceremony described by the Greek historian was a survival of
a very ancient usage, which had not yet fallen entirely into
desuetude at the Achćmenian epoch.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the impression of a Persian intaglio.
The king, whose royal position made him the representative of Ahura-mazdâ on earth, was, in fact, a high priest, and was himself able to officiate at the altar, but no one else could dispense with the mediation of the Magi. The worshippers proceeded in solemn procession to the spot where the ceremony was to take place, and there the priest, wearing the tiara on his head, recited an invocation in a slow and mysterious voice, and implored the blessings of heaven on the king and nation. He then slaughtered the victim by a blow on the head, and divided it into portions, which he gave back to the offerer without reserving any of them, for Ahura-mazdâ required nothing but the soul; in certain cases, the victim was entirely consumed by fire, but more frequently nothing but a little of the fat and some of the entrails were taken to feed and maintain the flame, and sometimes even this was omitted.* Sacrifices were of frequent occurrence. Without mentioning the extraordinary occasions on which a king would have a thousand bulls slain at one time,** the Achćmenian kings killed each day a thousand bullocks, asses, and stags: sacrifice under such circumstances was another name for butchery, the object of which was to furnish the court with a sufficient supply of pure meat. The ceremonial bore resemblance in many ways to that still employed by the modern Zoroastrians of Persia and India.
* A relic of this custom may be discerned in the expiatory
sacrifice decreed in the Vendidad: "He shall sacrifice a
thousand head of small cattle, and he shall place their
entrails devoutly on the fire, with libations."
** The number 1000 seems to have had some ritualistic
significance, for it often recurs in the penances imposed on
the faithful as expiation for their sins: thus it was
enjoined to slay 1000 serpents, 1000 frogs, 1000 ants who
steal the grain, 1000 head of small cattle, 1000 swift
horses, 1000 camels, 1000 brown oxen.
The officiating priest covered his mouth with the bands which fell from his mitre, to prevent the god from being polluted by his breath; he held in his hand the baresman, or sacred bunch of tamarisk, and prepared the mysterious liquor from the haoma plant.* He was accustomed each morning to celebrate divine service before the sacred fire, not to speak of the periodic festivals in which he shared the offices with all the members of his tribe, such as the feast of Mithra, the feast of the Fravashis,** the feast commemorating the rout of Angrô-mainyus,*** the feast of the Saksea, during which the slaves were masters of the house.****
* The drink mentioned by the author of the De Iside, which
was extracted from the plant Omômi, and which the Magi
offered to the god of the underworld, is certainly the
haoma. The rite mentioned by the Greek author, which appears
to be an incantation against Ahriman, required, it seems, a
potion in which the blood of a wolf was a necessary
ingredient: this questionable draught was then carried to a
place where the sun's rays never shone, and was there
sprinkled on the ground as a libation.
** Menander speaks of this festival as conducted in his own
times, and tells us that it was called Eurdigan; modern
authorities usually admit that it goes back to the times of
the Achćmenids or even beyond.
*** Agathias says that every worshipper of Ahura-mazdâ is
enjoined to kill the greatest possible number of animals
created by Angrô-mainyus, and bring to the Magi the fruits
of his hunting. Herodotus had already spoken of this
destruction of life as one of the duties incumbent on every
Persian, and this gives probability to the view of modern
writers that the festival went back to the Achćmenian epoch.
**** The festival of the Sakoa is mentioned by Ctesias. It
was also a Babylonian festival, and most modern authorities
conclude from this double use of the name that the festival
was borrowed from the Babylonians by the Persians, but this
point is not so certain as it is made out to be, and at any
rate the borrowing must have taken place very early, for the
festival was already well established in the Achćmenian
period.
All the Magi were not necessarily devoted to the priesthood; but those only became apt in the execution of their functions who had been dedicated to them from infancy, and who, having received the necessary instruction, were duly consecrated. These adepts were divided into several classes, of which three at least were never confounded in their functions—the sorcerers, the interpreters of dreams, and the most venerated sages—and from these three classes were chosen the ruling body of the order and its supreme head. Their rule of life was strict and austere, and was encumbered with a thousand observances indispensable to the preservation of perfect purity in their persons, their altars, their victims, and their sacrificial vessels and implements. The Magi of highest rank abstained from every form of living thing as food, and the rest only partook of meat under certain restrictions. Their dress was unpretentious, they wore no jewels, and observed strict fidelity to the marriage vow;* and the virtues with which they were accredited obtained for them, from very early times, unbounded influence over the minds of the common people as well as over those of the nobles: the king himself boasted of being their pupil, and took no serious step in state affairs without consulting Ahura-mazdâ or the other gods by their mediation. The classical writers maintain that the Magi often cloaked monstrous vices under their apparent strictness, and it is possible that this was the case in later days, but even then moral depravity was probably rather the exception than the rule among them:*** the majority of the Magi faithfully observed the rules of honest living and ceremonial purity enjoined on them in the books handed down by their ancestors.
* Clement of Alexandria assures us that they were strictly
celibate, but besides the fact that married Magi are
mentioned several times, celibacy is still considered by
Zoroastrians an inferior state to that of marriage.
** In the Greek period, a spurious epitaph of Darius, son of
Hystaspes, was quoted, in which the king says of himself, "I
was the pupil of the Magi."
*** These accusations are nearly all directed against their
incestuous marriages: it seems that the classical writers
took for a refinement of debauchery what really was before
all things a religious practice.
There is reason to believe that the Magi were all-powerful among the Medes, and that the reign of Astyages was virtually the reign of the priestly caste; but all the Iranian states did not submit so patiently to their authority, and the Persians at last proved openly refractory. Their kings, lords of Susa as well as of Pasargadse, wielded all the resources of Elam, and their military power must have equalled, if it did not already surpass, that of their suzerain lords. Their tribes, less devoted to the manner of living of the Assyrians and Chaldćans, had preserved a vigour and power of endurance which the Medes no longer possessed; and they needed but an ambitious and capable leader, to rise rapidly from the rank of subjects to that of rulers of Iran, and to become in a short time masters of Asia. Such a chief they found in Cyrus,* son of Cambyses; but although no more illustrious name than his occurs in the list of the founders of mighty empires, the history of no other has suffered more disfigurement from the imagination of his own subjects or from the rancour of the nations he had conquered.**
* The original form of the name is Kűru, Kűrush, with a long
o, which forces us to reject the proposed connection with
the name of the Indian hero Kuru, in which the u is short.
Numerous etymologies of the name Cyrus have been proposed.
The Persians themselves attributed to it the sense of the
Sun.
** We possess two entirely different versions of the history
of the origin of Cyrus, but one, that of Herodotus, has
reached us intact, while that of Ctesias is only known to us
in fragments from extracts made by Nicolas of Damascus, and
by Photius. Spiegel and Duncker thought to recognise in the
tradition followed by Ctesias one of the Persian accounts of
the history of Cyrus, but Bauer refuses to admit this
hypothesis, and prefers to consider it as a romance put
together by the author, according to the taste of his own
times, from facts partly different from those utilised by
Herodotus, and partly borrowed from Herodotus himself: but
it should very probably be regarded as an account of Median
origin, in which the founder of the Persian empire is
portrayed in the most unfavourable light. Or perhaps it may
be regarded as the form of the legend current among the
Pharnaspids who established themselves as satraps of
Dascylium in the time of the Achćmenids, and to whom the
royal house of Cappadocia traced its origin. It is almost
certain that the account given by Herodotus represents a
Median version of the legend, and, considering the important
part played in it by Harpagus, probably that version which
was current among the descendants of that nobleman. The
historian Dinon, as far as we can judge from the extant
fragments of his work, and from the abridgment made by
Trogus Pompeius, adopted the narrative of Ctesias, mingling
with it, however, some details taken from Herodotus and the
romance of Xenophon, the Cyropodia.
The Medes, who could not forgive him for having made them subject to their ancient vassals, took delight in holding him up to scorn, and not being able to deny the fact of his triumph, explained it by the adoption of tortuous and despicable methods. They would not even allow that he was of royal birth, but asserted that he was of ignoble origin, the son of a female goatherd and a certain Atradates,* who, belonging to the savage clan of the Mardians, lived by brigandage. Cyrus himself, according to this account, spent his infancy and early youth in a condition not far short of slavery, employed at first in sweeping out the exterior portions of the palace, performing afterwards the same office in the private apartments, subsequently promoted to the charge of the lamps and torches, and finally admitted to the number of the royal cupbearers who filled the king's goblet at table.
* According to one of the historians consulted by Strabo,
Cyrus himself, and not his father, was called Atradates.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the silver vase in the Museum
of the Hermitage.
When he was at length enrolled in the bodyguard,* he won distinction by his skill in all military exercises, and having risen from rank to rank, received command of an expedition against the Cadusians.
* The tradition reproduced by Dinon narrated that Cyrus had
begun by serving among the Kavasses, the three hundred
staff-bearers who accompanied the sovereign when he appeared
in public, and that he passed next into the royal body-
guard, and that once having attained this rank, he passed
rapidly through all the superior grades of the military
profession.
On the march he fell in with a Persian groom named OEbaras,* who had been cruelly scourged for some misdeed, and was occupied in the transportation of manure in a boat: in obedience to an oracle the two united their fortunes, and together devised a vast scheme for liberating their compatriots from the Median yoke.
* This OEbaras whom Ctesias makes the accomplice of Cyrus,
seems to be an antedated forestallment of theoebaras whom
the tradition followed by Herodotus knows as master of the
horse under Darius, and to whom that king owed his elevation
to the throne.
How Atradates secretly prepared the revolt of the Mardians; how Cyrus left his camp to return to the court at Ecbatana, and obtained from Astyages permission to repair to his native country under pretext of offering sacrifices, but in reality to place himself at the head of the conspirators; how, finally, the indiscretion of a woman revealed the whole plot to a eunuch of the harem, and how he warned Astyages in the middle of his evening banquet by means of a musician or singing-girl, was frequently narrated by the Median bards in their epic poems, and hence the story spread until it reached in later times even as far as the Greeks.*
* According to Ctesias, it was a singing-girl who revealed
the existence of the plot to Astyages; according to Dinon,
it was the bard Angaręs. Windischmann has compared this name
with that of the Vedic guild of singers, the Angira.
Astyages, roused to action by the danger, abandons the pleasures of the chase in which his activity had hitherto found vent, sets out on the track of the rebel, wins a preliminary victory on the Hyrba, and kills the father of Cyrus: some days after, he again overtakes the rebels, at the entrance to the defiles leading to Pasargadse, and for the second time fortune is on the point of declaring in his favour, when the Persian women, bringing back their husbands and sons to the conflict, urge them on to victory. The fame of their triumph having spread abroad, the satraps and provinces successfully declared for the conqueror; Hyrcania, first, followed by the Parthians, the Sakae, and the Bactrians: Astyages was left almost alone, save for a few faithful followers, in the palace at Ecbatana. His daughter Amytis and his son-in-law Spitamas concealed him so successfully on the top of the palace, that he escaped discovery up to the moment when Cyrus was on the point of torturing his grandchildren to force them to reveal his hiding-place: thereupon he gave himself up to his enemies, but was at length, after being subjected to harsh treatment for a time, set at liberty and entrusted with the government of a mountain tribe dwelling to the south-east of the Caspian Sea, that of the Barcanians. Later on he perished through the treachery of OEbaras, and his corpse was left unburied in the desert, but by divine interposition relays of lions were sent to guard it from the attacks of beasts of prey: Cyrus, acquainted with this miraculous circumstance, went in search of the body and gave it a magnificent burial.* Another legend asserted, on the contrary, that Cyrus was closely connected with the royal line of Cyaxares; this tradition was originally circulated among the great Median families who attached themselves to the Achaemenian dynasty.**
* The passage in Herodotus leads Marquart to believe that
the murder of Astyages formed part of the primitive legend,
but was possibly attributed to Cambysos, son of Cyrus,
rather than to OEbaras, the companion of the conqueror's
early years.
** This is the legend as told to Herodotus in Asia Minor,
probably by the members of the family of Harpagus, which the
Greek historian tried to render credible by interpreting the
miraculous incidents in a rationalising manner.
Drawn by Boudier, from Coste and Flandin.
According to this legend Astyages had no male heirs, and the sceptre would have naturally descended from him to his daughter Mandanę and her sons. Astyages was much alarmed by a certain dream concerning his daughter: he dreamt that water gushed forth so copiously from her womb as to flood not only Ecbatana, but the whole of Asia, and the interpreters, as much terrified as himself, counselled him not to give Mandanę in marriage to a Persian noble of the race of the Achćmenids, named Cambyses; but a second dream soon troubled the security into which this union had lulled him: he saw issuing from his daughter's womb a vine whose branches overshadowed Asia, and the interpreters, being once more consulted, predicted that a grandson was about to be born to him whose ambition would cost him his crown. He therefore bade a certain nobleman of his court, named Harpagus—he whose descendants preserved this version of the story of Cyrus—to seize the infant and put it to death as soon as its mother should give it birth; but the man, touched with pity, caused the child to be exposed in the woods by one of the royal shepherds. A bitch gave suck to the tiny creature, who, however, would soon have succumbed to the inclemency of the weather, had not the shepherd's wife, being lately delivered of a still-born son, persuaded her husband to rescue the infant, whom she nursed with the same tenderness as if he had been her own child. The dog was, as we know, a sacred animal among the Iranians: the incident of the bitch seems, then, to have been regarded by them as an indication of divine intervention, but the Greeks were shocked by the idea, and invented an explanation consonant with their own customs. They supposed that the woman had borne the name of Spakô: Spakô signifying bitch in the language of Media.*
* Herodotus asserts that the child's foster-mother was
called in Greek Kynô, in Median Spalcô, which comes to
the same thing, for spaha means bitch in Median. Further
on he asserts that the parents of the child heard of the
name of his nurse with joy, as being of good augury; "and,
in order that the Persians might think that Cyrus had been
preserved alive by divine agency, they spread abroad the
report that Cyrus had been suckled by a bitch. And thus
arose the fable commonly accepted." Trogus Pompeius received
the original story probably through Dinon, and inserted it
in his book.
Cyrus grew to boyhood, and being accepted by Mandanę as her son, returned to the court; his grandfather consented to spare his life, but, to avenge himself on Harpagus, he caused the limbs of the nobleman's own son to be served up to him at a feast. Thenceforth Harpagus had but one idea, to overthrow the tyrant and transfer the crown to the young prince: his project succeeded, and Cyrus, having overcome Astyages, was proclaimed king by the Medes as well as by the Persians. The real history of Cyrus, as far as we can ascertain it, was less romantic. We gather that Kurush, known to us as Cyrus, succeeded his father Cambyses as ruler of Anshân about 559 or 558 B.C.,* and that he revolted against Astyages in 553 or 552 B.C.,** and defeated him. The Median army thereupon seizing its own leader, delivered him into the hands of the conqueror: Ecbatana was taken and sacked, and the empire fell at one blow, or, more properly speaking, underwent a transformation (550 B.C.). The transformation was, in fact, an internal revolution in which the two peoples of the same race changed places. The name of the Medes lost nothing of the prestige which it enjoyed in foreign lands, but that of the Persians was henceforth united with it, and shared its renown: like Astyages and his predecessors, Cyrus and his successors reigned equally over the two leading branches of the ancient Iranian stock, but whereas the former had been kings of the Medes and Persians, the latter became henceforth kings of the Persians and Medes.***
* The length of Cyrus' reign is fixed at thirty years by
Ctesias, followed by Dinon and Trogus Pompeius, but at
twenty-nine years by Herodotus, whose computation I here
follow. Hitherto the beginning of his reign has been made to
coincide with the fall of Astyages, which was consequently
placed in 569 or 568 B.C., but the discovery of the Annals
of Nabonidus obliges us to place the taking of Ecbatana in
the sixth year of the Babylonian king, which corresponds to
the year 550 B.C., and consequently to hold that Cyrus
reckoned his twenty-nine years from the moment when he
succeeded his father Cambyses.
** The inscription on the Rassam Cylinder of Abu-Habba,
seems to make the fall of the Median king, who was suzerain
of the Scythians of Harrân, coincide with the third year of
Nabonidus, or the year 553-2 B.C. But it is only the date of
the commencement of hostilities between Cyrus and Astyages
which is here furnished, and this manner of interpreting the
text agrees with the statement of the Median traditions
handed down by the classical authors, that three combats
took place between Astyages and Cyrus before the final
victory of the Persians.
*** This equality of the two peoples is indicated by the
very terms employed by Darius, whom he speaks of them, in
the Great Inscription of Behistun. He says, for example,
in connection with the revolt of the false Smerdis, that
"the deception prevailed greatly in the land, in Persia and
Media as well as in the other provinces," and further on,
that "the whole people rose, and passed over from Cambyses
to him, Persia and Media as well as the other countries." In
the same way he mentions "the army of Persians and Medes
which was with him," and one sees that he considered Medes
and Persians to be on exactly the same footing.
The change effected was so natural that their nearest neighbours, the Chaldćans, showed no signs of uneasiness at the outset. They confined themselves to the bare registration of the fact in their annals at the appointed date, without comment, and Nabonidus in no way deviated from the pious routine which it had hitherto pleased him to follow. Under a sovereign so good-natured there was little likelihood of war, at all events with external foes, but insurrections were always breaking out in different parts of his territory, and we read of difficulties in Khumę in the first year of his reign, in Hamath in his second year, and troubles in Plionicia in the third year, which afforded an opportunity for settling the Tyrian question. Tyre had led a far from peaceful existence ever since the day when, from sheer apathy, she had accepted the supremacy of Nebuchadrezzar.*
* All these events are known through the excerpt from
Menander preserved to us by Josephus in his treatise
Against Apion.
Baal II. had peacefully reigned there for ten years (574-564), but after his death the people had overthrown the monarchy, and various suffetes had followed one another rapidly—Eknibaal ruled two months, Khelbes ten months, the high priest Abbar three months, the two brothers Mutton and Gerastratus six years, all of them no doubt in the midst of endless disturbances; whereupon a certain Baalezor restored the royal dignity, but only to enjoy it for the space of one year. On his death, the inhabitants begged the Chaldćans to send them, as a successor to the crown, one of those princes whom, according to custom, Baal had not long previously given over as hostages for a guarantee of his loyalty, and Nergal-sharuzur for this purpose selected from their number Mahar-baal, who was probably a son of Ithobaal (558-557).* When, at the end of four years, the death of Mahar-baal left the throne vacant (554-553), the Tyrians petitioned for his brother Hirôm, and Nabonidus, who was then engaged in Syria, came south as far as Phoenicia and installed the prince.**
* The fragment of Menander does not give the Babylonian
king's name, but a simple chronological calculation proves
him to have been Nergal-sharuzur.
** Annals of Nabonidus, where mention is made of a certain
Nabu-makhdan-uzur—but the reading of the name is uncertain
—who seems to be in revolt against the Chaldćans. Floigl has
very ingeniously harmonised the dates of the Annals with
those obtained from the fragment of Menander, and has thence
concluded that the object of the expedition of the third
year was the enthroning of Hirôm which is mentioned in the
fragment, and during whose fourteenth year Cyrus became King
of Babylon.
This took place at the very moment when Cyrus was preparing his expedition against Astyages; and the Babylonian monarch took advantage of the agitation into which the Medes were thrown by this invasion, to carry into execution a project which he had been planning ever since his accession. Shortly after that event he had had a dream, in which Marduk, the great lord, and Sin, the light of heaven and earth, had appeared on either side of his couch, the former addressing him in the following words: "Nabonidus, King of Babylon, with the horses of thy chariot bring brick, rebuild E-khul-khul, the temple of Harrân, that Sin, the great lord, may take up his abode therein." Nabonidus had respectfully pointed out that the town was in the hands of the Scythians, who were subjects of the Medes, but the god had replied: "The Scythian of whom thou speakest, he, his country and the kings his protectors, are no more." Cyrus was the instrument of the fulfilment of the prophecy. Nabonidus took possession of Harrân without difficulty, and immediately put the necessary work in hand. This was, indeed, the sole benefit that he derived from the changes which were taking place, and it is probable that his inaction was the result of the enfeebled condition of the empire. The country over which he ruled, exhausted by the Assyrian conquest, and depopulated by the Scythian invasions, had not had time to recover its forces since it had passed into the hands of the Chaldćans; and the wars which Nebuchadrezzar had been obliged to undertake for the purpose of strengthening his own power, though few in number and not fraught with danger, had tended to prolong the state of weakness into which it had sunk. If the hero of the dynasty who had conquered Egypt had not ventured to measure his strength with the Median princes, and if he had courted the friendship not only of the warlike Cyaxares but of the effeminate Astyages, it would not be prudent for Nabonidus to come into collision with the victorious new-comers from the heart of Iran. Chaldsea doubtless was right in avoiding hostilities, at all events so long as she had to bear the brunt of them alone, but other nations had not the same motives for exercising prudence, and Lydia was fully assured that the moment had come for her to again take up the ambitious designs which the treaty of 585 had forced her to renounce. Alyattes, relieved from anxiety with regard to the Medes, had confined his energies to establishing firmly his kingdom in the regions of Asia Minor extending westwards from the Halys and the Anti-Taurus. The acquisition of Colophon, the destruction of Smyrna, the alliance with the towns of the littoral, had ensured him undisputed possession of the valleys of the Caicus and the Hermus, but the plains of the Maeander in the south, and the mountainous districts of Mysia in the north, were not yet fully brought under his sway. He completed the occupation of the Troad and Mysia about 584, and afterwards made of the entire province an appanage for Adramyttios, who was either his son or his brother.*
* The doings of Alyattes in Troas and in Mysia are vouched
for by the anecdote related by Plutarch concerning this
king's relations with Pittakos. The founding of Adramyttium
is attributed to him by Stephen of Byzantium, after
Aristotle, who made Adramyttios the brother of Croesus.
Radat gives good reasons for believing that Adramyttios was
brother to Alyattes and uncle to Crosus, and the same person
as Adramys, the son of Sadyattes, according to Xanthus of
Lydia. Radet gives the year 584 for the date of these
events.
Drawn by Boudier, from the sketch by Spiegolthal.
He even carried his arms into Bithynia, where, to enforce his rule, he built several strongholds, one of which, called Alyatta, commanded the main road leading from the basin of the Rhyndacus to that of the Sangarius, skirting the spurs of Olympus.* He experienced some difficulty in reducing Caria, and did not finally succeed in his efforts till nearly the close of his reign in 566. Adramyttios was then dead, and his fief had devolved on his eldest surviving brother or nephew, Crosus, whose mother was by birth a Carian. This prince had incurred his father's displeasure by his prodigality, and an influential party desired that he should be set aside in favour of his brother Pantaleon, the son of Alyattes by an Ionian. Croesus, having sown his wild oats, was anxious to regain his father's favour, and his only chance of so doing was by distinguishing himself in the coming war, if only money could be found for paying his mercenaries. Sadyattes, the richest banker in Lydia, who had already had dealings with all the members of the royal family, refused to make him a loan, but Theokharides of Prięnę advanced him a thousand gold staters, which enabled Crosus to enroll his contingent at Bphesus, and to be the first to present himself at the rallying-place for the troops.**
* Radet places the operations in Bithynia before the Median
war, towards 594 at the latest. I think that they are more
probably connected with those in Mysia, and that they form
part of the various measures taken after the Median war to
achieve the occupation of the regions west of the Halys.
** A mutilated extract from Xanthus of Lydia in Suidas seems
to carry these events back to the time of the war against
Prięnę, towards the beginning of the reign. The united
evidence of the accompanying circumstances proves that they
belong to the time of the old age of Alyattes, and makes it
very likely that they occurred in 566, the date proposed by
Radet for the Carian campaign.
Caria was annexed to the kingdom, but the conditions under which the annexation took place are not known to us;* and Croesus contributed so considerably to the success of the campaign, that he was reinstated in popular favour. Alyattes, however, was advancing in years, and was soon about to rejoin his adversaries Cyaxares and Nebuchadrezzar in Hades. Like the Pharaohs, the kings of Lydia were accustomed to construct during their lifetime the monuments in which they were to repose after death. Their necropolis was situated not far from Sardes, on the shores of the little lake Gygaea; it was here, close to the resting-place of his ancestors and their wives, that Alyattes chose the spot for his tomb,** and his subjects did not lose the opportunity of proving to what extent he had gained their affections.
* The fragment of Nicolas of Damascus does not speak of the
result of the war, but it was certainly favourable, for
Herodotus counts the Carians among Croesus' subjects.
** The only one of these monuments, besides that of
Alyattes, which is mentioned by the ancients, belonged to
one of the favourites of Gyges, and was called the Tomb of
the Courtesan. Strabo, by a manifest error, has applied
this name to the tomb of Alyattes.
His predecessors had been obliged to finish their work at their own expense and by forced labour;* but in the case of Alyattes the three wealthiest classes of the population, the merchants, the craftsmen, and the courtesans, all united to erect for him an enormous tumulus, the remains of which still rise 220 feet above the plains of the Hermus.
* This, at least, seems to be the import of the passage in Clearchus of Soli, where that historian gives an account of the erection of the Tomb of the Courtesan.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
The sub-structure consisted of a circular wall of great blocks of limestone resting on the solid rock, and it contained in the centre a vault of grey marble which was reached by a vaulted passage. A huge mound of red clay and yellowish earth was raised above the chamber, surmounted by a small column representing a phallus, and by four stelć covered with inscriptions, erected at the four cardinal points. It follows the traditional type of burial-places in use among the old Asianic races, but it is constructed with greater regularity than most of them; Alyattes was laid within it in 561, after a glorious reign of forty-nine years.*
* Herodotus gave fifty-seven years' length of reign to Alyattes, whilst the chronographers, who go back as far as Xanthus of Lydia, through Julius Africanus, attribute to him only forty-nine; historians now prefer the latter figures, at least as representing the maximum length of reign.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
It was wholly due to him that Lydia was for the moment raised to the level of the most powerful states which then existed on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. He was by nature of a violent and uncontrolled temper, and during his earlier years he gave way to fits of anger, in which he would rend the clothes of those who came in his way or would spit in their faces, but with advancing years his character became more softened, and he finally earned the reputation of being a just and moderate sovereign. The little that we know of his life reveals an energy and steadfastness of purpose quite unusual; he proceeded slowly but surely in his undertakings, and if he did not succeed in extending his domains as far as he had hoped at the beginning of his campaigns against the Medes, he at all events never lost any of the provinces he had acquired. Under his auspices agriculture flourished, and manufactures attained a degree of perfection hitherto unknown.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Choisy.
None of the vases in gold, silver, or wrought-iron, which he dedicated and placed among the treasures of the Greek temples, has come down to us, but at rare intervals ornaments of admirable workmanship are found in the Lydian tombs. Those now in the Louvre exhibit, in addition to human figures somewhat awkwardly treated, heads of rams, bulls, and griffins of a singular delicacy and faithfulness to nature. These examples reveal a blending of Grecian types and methods of production with those of Egypt or Chaldća, the Hellenic being predominant,* and the same combination of heterogeneous elements must have existed in the other domains of industrial art—-in the dyed and embroidered stuffs,** the vases,*** and the furniture.****
* The ornaments, of which we have now no specimens, but only
the original moulds cut in serpentine, betray imitation of
Assyria and Chaldća.
** The custom of clothing themselves in dyed and embroidered
stuffs was one of the effeminate habits with which the poet
Xenophanes reproached the Ionians as having been learned
from their Lydian neighbours.
*** M. Perrot points out that one of the vases discovered by
G. Dennis at Bintépé is an evident imitation of the Egyptian
and Phoenician chevroned glasses. The shape of the vase is
one of those found represented, with the same decoration, on
Egyptian monuments subsequent to the Middle Empire, where
the chevroned lines seem to be derived from the undulations
of ribbon-alabaster.
**** The stone funerary couches which have been discovered
in Lydian tombs are evidently copied from pieces of wooden
furniture similarly arranged and decorated.
Drawn by Faucher- Gudin.
Drawn by Faucher- Gudin.
[These illustrations are larger than the original pieces.—Tr.]
Lydia, inheriting the traditions of Phrygia, and like that state situated on the border of two worlds, allied moreover with Egypt as well as Babylon, and in regular communication with the Delta, borrowed from each that which fell in with her tastes or seemed likely to be most helpful to her in her commercial relations. As the country produced gold in considerable quantities, and received still more from extraneous sources, the precious metal came soon to be employed as a means of exchange under other conditions than those which had hitherto prevailed. Besides acting as commission agents and middle-men for the disposal of merchandise at Sardes, Ephesus, Miletus, Clazomenaa, and all the maritime cities, the Lydians performed at the same time the functions of pawnbrokers, money-changers, and bankers, and they were ready to make loans to private individuals as well as to kings. Obliged by the exigencies of their trade to cut up the large gold ingots into sections sufficiently small to represent the smallest values required in daily life, they did not at first impress upon these portions any stamp as a guarantee of the exact weight or the purity of the metal; they were estimated like the tabonu of the Egyptians, by actual weighing on the occasion of each business transaction.
The idea at length occurred to them to impress each of these pieces with a common stamp, serving, like the trade-marks employed by certain guilds of artisans, to testify at once to their genuineness and their exact weight: in a word, they were the inventors of money. The most ancient coinage of their mint was like a flattened sphere, more or less ovoid, in form: it consisted at first of electrum, and afterwards of smelted gold, upon which parallel striae or shallow creases were made by a hammer. There were two kinds of coinage, differing considerably from each other; one consisted of the heavy stater, weighing about 14.20 grammes, perhaps of Phoenician origin, the other of the light stater, of some 10.80 grammes in weight, which doubtless served as money for the local needs of Lydia: both forms were subdivided into pieces representing respectively the third, the sixth, the twelfth, and the twenty-fourth of the value of the original.
The stamp which came to be impressed upon the money was in relief, and varied with the banker; * when political communities began to follow the example of individuals, it also bore the name of the city where it was minted.
* [The best English numismatists do not agree with M.
Babelon's "banker" theory. Cf. Barclay V. Head, Historia
Nummorum, p. xxxiv.—-Tr.]
The type of impression once selected, was little modified for fear of exciting mistrust among the people, but it was more finely executed and enlarged so as to cover one of the faces, that which we now call the obverse. Several subjects entered into the composition of the design, each being impressed by a special punch: thus in the central concavity we find the figure of a running fox, emblem of Apollo Bassareus, and in two similar depressions, one above and the other below the central, appear a horse's or stag's head, and a flower with four petals. Later on the design was simplified, and contained only one, or at most two figures—a hare squatting under a tortuous climbing plant, a roaring lion crouching with its head turned to the left, the grinning muzzle of a lion, the horned profile of an antelope or mouflon sheep: rosettes and flowers, included within a square depression, were then used to replace the stria and irregular lines of the reverse. These first efforts were without inscriptions; it was not long, however, before there came to be used, in addition to the figures, legends, from which we sometimes learn the name of the banker; we read, for instance, "I am the mark of Phannes," on a stater of electrum struck at Ephesus, with a stag grazing on the right. We are ignorant as to which of the Lydian kings first made use of the new invention, and so threw into circulation the gold and electrum which filled his treasury to overflowing. The ancients say it was Gyges, but the Gygads of their time cannot be ascribed to him; they were, without any doubt, simply ingots marked with the stamp of the banker of the time, and were attributed to Gyges either out of pure imagination or by mistake.*
* The gold of Gyges is known to us through a passage in
Pollux. Fr. Lenormant attributed to Gyges the coins which
Babelon restores to the banks of Asia Minor. Babelon sees in
the Gygads only "ingots of gold, struck possibly in the
name of Gyges, capable of being used as coin, doubtless
representing a definitely fixed weight, but still lacking
that ultimate perfection which characterises the coinage of
civilised peoples: from the standpoint of circulation in the
market their shape was defective and inconvenient; their
subdivision did not extend to such small fractions as to
make all payments easy; they were too large and too dear for
easy circulation through many hands."
The same must be said of the pieces of money which have been assigned to his successors, and, even when we find on them traces of writing, we cannot be sure of their identification; one legend which was considered to contain the name of Sadyattes has been made out, without producing conviction, as involving, instead, that of Clazomenć. There is no certainty until after the time of Alyattes, that is, in the reign of Croesus. It is, as a fact, to this prince that we owe the fine gold and silver coins bearing on the obverse a demi-lion couchant confronting a bull treated similarly.* The two creatures appear to threaten one another, and the introduction of the lion recalls a tradition regarding the city of Sardes; it may represent the actual animal which was alleged to have been begotten by King Meles of one of his concubines, and which he caused to be carried solemnly round the city walls to render them impregnable.
Croesus did not succeed to the throne of his father without trouble. His enemies had not laid down their arms after the Carian campaign, and they endeavoured to rid themselves of him by all the means in use at Oriental courts. The Ionian mother of his rival furnished the slave who kneaded the bread with poison, telling her to mix it with the dough, but the woman revealed the intended crime to her master, who at once took the necessary measures to frustrate the plot; later on in life he dedicated in the temple of Delphi a statue of gold representing the faithful bread-maker.** The chief of the rival party seems to have been Sadyattes, the banker from whom Croesus had endeavoured to borrow money at the beginning of his career, but several of the Lydian nobles, whose exercise of feudal rights had been restricted by the growing authority of the Mermnado, either secretly or openly gave their adhesion to Pantaleon, among them being Glaucias of Sidęnę; the Greek cities, always ready to chafe at authority, were naturally inclined to support a claimant born of a Greek mother, and Pindarus the tyrant of Ephesus, and grandson of the Melas who had married the daughter of Gyges, joined the conspirators.
* Lenormant ascribed an issue of coins without inscriptions
to the kings Ardys, Sadyattes, and Alyattes, but this has
since been believed not to have been their work.
** Herodotus mentions the statue of the bread-maker, giving
no reason why Crosus dedicated it. The author quoted by
Plutarch would have it that in revenge he made his half-
brothers eat the poisoned bread.
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
As soon as Alyattes was dead, Crosus, who was kept informed by his spies of their plans, took action with a rapidity which disconcerted his adversaries. It is not known what became of Pantaleon, whether he was executed or fled the country, but his friends were tortured to death or had to purchase their pardon dearly. Sadyattes was stretched on a rack and torn with carding combs.* Glaucias, besieged in his fortress of Sidęnę, opened its gates after a desperate resistance; the king demolished the walls, and pronounced a solemn curse on those who should thereafter rebuild them. Pindarus, summoned to surrender, refused, but as he had not sufficient troops to defend the entire city, he evacuated the lower quarters, and concentrated all his forces on the defence of the citadel; he refused to open negotiations until after the fall of a tower at the moment when a practicable breach had been made, and succeeded in obtaining an honourable capitulation for himself and his people by a ruse.
* The history of Sadyattes and of his part in the conspiracy
results from points of agreement which have been established
between various passages in Herodotus and in Nicolas of
Damascus, where the person is sometimes named and sometimes
not.
He dedicated the town to Artemis, and by means of a rope connected the city walls with the temple, which stood nearly a mile away in the suburbs, and then entreated for peace in the name of the goddess. Croesus was amused at the artifice, and granted favourable conditions to the inhabitants, but insisted on the expulsion of the tyrant. The latter bowed before the decree, and confiding the care of his children and possessions to his friend Pasicles, left for the Peloponnesus with his retinue. Bphesus up to this time had been a kind of allied principality, whose chiefs, united to the royal family of Lydia by marriages from generation to generation, recognised the nominal suzerainty of the reigning king rather than his effective authority. It was in fact a species of protectorate, which, while furthering the commercial interests of Lydia, satisfied at the same time the passion of the Greek cities for autonomy. Croesus, encouraged by his first success, could not rest contented with such a compromise. He attacked, successively, Miletus and the various Ionian, Ćolian, and Dorian communities of the littoral, and brought them all under his sway, promising on their capitulation that their local constitutions should be respected if they became direct dependencies of his empire. He placed garrisons in such towns as were strategically important for him to occupy, but everywhere else he razed to the ground the fortresses and ramparts which might afford protection to his enemies in case of rebellion, compelling the inhabitants to take up their abode on the open plain where they could not readily defend themselves.* The administration of the affairs of each city was entrusted to either a wealthy citizen, or an hereditary tyrant, or an elected magistrate, who was held responsible for its loyalty; the administrator paid over the tribute to the sovereign's treasurers, levied the specified contingent and took command of it in time of war, settled any quarrels which might occur, and was empowered, when necessary, to exile turbulent and ambitious persons whose words or actions appeared to him to be suspicious. Croesus treated with generosity those republics which tendered him loyal obedience, and affected a special devotion to their gods. He gave a large number of ex-voto offerings to the much-revered sanctuary of Bran-chidse, in the territory of Miletus; he dedicated some golden heifers at the Artemision of Ephesus, and erected the greater number of the columns of that temple at his own expense.**
* He treated thus the Ephesians and the Ilians.
** The fragments of columns brought from this temple by Wood
and preserved in the British Museum have on one of the bases
the remains of an inscription confirming the testimony of
Herodotus.
At one time in his career he appears to have contemplated extending his dominion over the Greek islands, and planned, as was said, the equipment of a fleet, but he soon acknowledged the imprudence of such a project, and confined his efforts to strengthening his advantageous position on the littoral by contracting alliances with the island populations and with the nations of Greece proper.*
* He seems to have been deterred from his project by a
sarcastic remark made, as some say, by Pittakos the
Mitylenian, or according to others, by Bias of Prięnę.
Following the diplomacy of his ancestors, he began by devoting himself to the gods of the country, and took every pains to gain the good graces of Apollo of Delphi. He dispensed his gifts with such liberality that neither his contemporaries nor subsequent generations grew weary of admiring it. On one occasion he is said to have sacrificed three thousand animals, and burnt, moreover, on the pyre the costly contents of a palace—couches covered with silver and gold, coverlets and robes of purple, and golden vials. His subjects were commanded to contribute to the offering, and he caused one hundred and seventeen hollow half-bricks to be cast of the gold which they brought him for this purpose. These bricks were placed in regular layers within the treasury at Delphi where the gifts of Lydia from the time of Alyattes were deposited, and the top of the pile was surmounted by a lion of fine gold of such a size that the pedestal and statue together were worth Ł1,200,000 of our present money. These, however, formed only a tithe of his gifts; many of the objects dedicated by him were dispersed half a century (548 B.C.) later when the temple was burnt, and found their way into the treasuries of the Greek states which enjoyed the favour of Apollo—among them being an enormous gold cup sent to Clazomeme, and four barrels of silver and two bowls, one of silver and one of gold, sent to the Corinthians. The people at Delphi, as well as their god, participated in the royal largesse, and Croesus distributed to them the sum of two staters per head. No doubt their gratitude led them by degrees to exaggerate the total of the benefits showered upon them, especially as time went on and their recollection of the king became fainter; but even when we reduce the number of the many gifts which they attributed to him, we are still obliged to acknowledge that they surpassed anything hitherto recorded, and that they produced throughout the whole of Greece the effect that Croesus had desired. The oracle granted to him and to the Lydians the rights of citizenship in perpetuity, the privilege of priority in consulting it before all comers, precedence for his legates over other foreign embassies, and a place of honour at the games and at all religious ceremonies. It was, in fact, the admission of Lydia into the Hellenic concert, and the offerings which Croesus showered upon the sanctuaries of lesser fame—that of Zeus at Dodona, of Amphiaraos at Oropos, of Trophonios at Lebadsea, on the oracle of Abee in Phocis, and on the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes—secured a general approval of the act. Political alliances contracted with the great families of Athens, the Alcmonidć and Eupatridć,* with the Cypselidć of, Corinth,** and with the Heraclidć of Sparta,*** completed the policy of bribery which Croesus had inaugurated in the sacerdotal republics, with the result that, towards 548, being in the position of uncontested patron of the Greeks of Asia, he could count upon the sympathetic neutrality of the majority of their compatriots in Europe, and on the effective support of a smaller number of them in the event of his being forced into hostilities with one or other of his Asiatic rivals.
* Traditions as to Crcesus' relations with Alcrnseon are
preserved by Herodotus. The king compelled the inhabitants of
Lampsacus, his vassals, to release the elder Miltiades, whom
they had taken prisoner, and thus earned the gratitude of
the Eupatridć.
** Alyattes had been the ally of Periander, as is proved by
an anecdote in Herodotus. This friendship continued under
Crosus, for after the fall of the monarchy, when the special
treasuries of Lydia were suppressed, the ex-voto offerings
of the Lydian kings were deposited in the treasury of
Corinth.
*** According to Theopompus, the Lacedaemonians, wishing to
gild the face of the statue of the Amyclsean, Apollo, and
finding no gold in Greece, consulted the Delphian
prophetess: by her advice they sent to Lydia to buy the
precious metal from Croesus.
This, however, constituted merely one side of his policy, and the negotiations which he carried on with his western neighbours were conducted simultaneously with his wars against those of the east. Alyattes had asserted his supremacy over the whole of the country on the western side of the Halys, but it was of a very vague kind, having no definite form, and devoid of practical results as far as several of the districts in the interior were concerned. Croesus made it a reality, and in less than ten years all the peoples contained within it, the Lycians excepted—Mysians, Phrygians, Mariandynians, Paphlagonians, Thynians, Bithynians, and Pamphylians—had rendered him homage. In its constitution his empire in no way differed from those which at that time shared the rule of Western Asia; the number of districts administered directly by the sovereign were inconsiderable, and most of the states comprised in it preserved their autonomy. Phrygia had its own princes, who were descendants of Midas,* and in the same way Caria and Mysia also retained theirs; but these vassal lords paid tribute and furnished contingents to their liege of Sardes, and garrisons lodged in their citadels as well as military stations or towns founded in strategic positions, such as Prusa** in Bithynia, Cibyra, Hyda, Grimenothyrć, and Temenothyrć,*** kept strict watch over them, securing the while free circulation for caravans or individual merchants throughout the whole country. Croesus had achieved his conquest just as Media was tottering to its fall under the attacks of the Persians.
* This is proved by the history of the Prince Adrastus in
Herodotus. Herodotus probably alluded to this colonisation
by Crcesus, when he said that the Mysians of Olympus were
descendants of Lydian colonists.
** Strabo merely says that the Kibyrates were descended from
the Lydians who dwelt in Cabalia; since Croesus was, as far
as we know, the only Lydian king who ever possessed this
part of Asia, Radet, with good reason, concludes that Kibyra
was colonised by him.
*** Radet has given good reasons for believing that at least
some of these towns were enlarged and fortified by Croesus.
Their victory placed the Lydian king in a position of great perplexity, since it annulled the treaties concluded after the eclipse of 585, and by releasing him from the obligations then contracted, afforded him an opportunity of extending the limits within which his father had confined himself. Now or never was the time for crossing the Halys in order to seize those mineral districts with which his subjects had so long had commercial relations; on the other hand, the unexpected energy of which the Persians had just given proof, their bravery, their desire for conquest, and the valour of their leader, all tended to deter him from the project: should he be victorious, Cyrus would probably not rest contented with tke annexation of a few unimportant districts or the imposition of a tribute, but would treat his adversary as he had Astyages, and having dethroned him, would divide Lydia into departments to be ruled by one or other of his partisans. Warlike ideas, nevertheless, prevailed at the court of Sardes, and, taking all into consideration, we cannot deny that they had reason on their side. The fall of Ecbatana had sealed the fate of Media proper, and its immediate dependencies had naturally shared the fortunes of the capital; but the more distant provinces still wavered, and they would probably attempt to take advantage of the change of rule to regain their liberty. Cyrus, obliged to take up arms against them, would no longer have his entire forces at his disposal, and by attacking him at that juncture it might be possible to check his power before it became irresistible. Having sketched out his plan of campaign, Croesus prepared to execute it with all possible celerity. Egypt and Chaldća, like himself, doubtless felt themselves menaced; he experienced little difficulty in persuading them to act in concert with him in face of the common peril, and he obtained from both Amasis and Nabonidus promises of effective co-operation. At the same time he had recourse to the Greek oracles, and that of Delphi was instrumental in obtaining for him a treaty of alliance and friendship with Sparta. Negotiations had been carried on so rapidly, that by the end of 548 all was in readiness for a simultaneous movement; Sparta was equipping a fleet, and merely awaited the return of the favourable season to embark her contingent; Egypt had already despatched hers, and her Cypriot vassals were on the point of starting, while bands of Thracian infantry were marching to reinforce the Lydian army. These various elements represented so considerable a force of men, that, had they been ranged on a field of battle, Cyrus would have experienced considerable difficulty in overcoming them. An unforeseen act of treachery obliged the Lydians to hasten their preparations and commence hostilities before the moment agreed on. Eurybatos, an Ephesian, to whom the king had entrusted large sums of money for the purpose of raising mercenaries in the Peloponnesus, fled with his gold into Persia, and betrayed the secret of the coalition. The Achaemenian sovereign did not hesitate to forestall the attack, and promptly assumed the offensive. The transport of an army from Ecbatana to the middle course of the Halys would have been a long and laborious undertaking, even had it kept within the territory of the empire; it would have necessitated crossing the mountain groups of Armenia at their greatest width, and that at a time when the snow was still lying deep upon the ground and the torrents were swollen and unfordable. The most direct route, which passed through Assyria and the part of Mesopotamia south of the Masios, lay for the most part in the hands of the Chaldćans, but their enfeebled condition justified Cyrus's choice of it, and he resolved, in the event of their resistance, to cut his way through sword in hand. He therefore bore down upon Arbela by the gorges of Rowandîz in the month Nisan, making as though he were bound for Karduniash; but before the Babylonians had time to recover from their alarm at this movement, he crossed the river not far from Nineveh and struck into Mesopotamia. He probably skirted the slopes of the Masios, overcoming and killing in the month Iyyâr some petty king, probably the ruler of Armenia,* and debouched into Cappadocia. This province was almost entirely in the power of the enemy; Nabonidus had despatched couriers by the shortest route in order to warn his ally, and if necessary to claim his promised help.
* Ploigl, who was the first to refer a certain passage in
the Annals of Nabonidus to the expedition against Croesus,
restored Is[parda] as the name of the country mentioned, and
saw even the capture of Sardes in the events of the month
Iyyâr, in direct contradiction to the Greek tradition. The
connection between the campaign beyond the Tigris and the
Lydian war seems to me in