The History of Antiquity, Vol. 6 (of 6)

As has been shown, Gaumata had seized the dominion on Persian ground. He had first shown himself to the Persians as their master: "He caused Persia to revolt," is the recapitulation in the inscription of Behistun. The statement of Herodotus that he remitted for a certain period the tribute, which the provinces had to furnish yearly in the form of presents, and announced that for some years to come they need not expect anything from distant wars, cannot be called in question. He had every reason to make his rule acceptable, and the treasures of Cyrus at Pasargadae were no doubt still large enough to enable him to dispense with the tribute for some years.206 The inscription of Darius and the tablets at Babylon (p. 195), establish the fact that not the satraps only, whom Cyrus and Cambyses had set up, and the population of the subject lands, but even the army of Cambyses which had gone with him to Egypt and returned after his death, recognized the Magian as king. As Herodotus says, Gaumata succeeded so that all nations wished his reign back when he had fallen, except the Persians. Most remarkable is the passage in the inscription of Darius according to which Gaumata had destroyed the places of worship or the houses of the gods. How could a man, who claimed to be the son of Cyrus, begin by attacking the existing mode of worship, which Cyrus had practised and protected, without annihilating himself? Or was it the Magian tendency in him, which sought to bring the stricter forms observed by the priests into universal observance, and establish uniformity of worship? Or does Darius merely mean that Gaumata had allowed the temples of the subject nations to fall into ruin (Cyrus and Darius took them under their care). This is probably the meaning of the obscure passage in the Persian text; the Babylonian version shows that temples of the gods are spoken of, and these the Persians and Medes did not possess.

The murder of Smerdis cannot have remained an entire secret. The murderer or murderers knew it, and the relatives, the members of the house of Achæmenes, the servants and women, cannot have been deceived by the resemblance for any length of time. The narrative of Darius tells us plainly, "that Gaumata put to death many men in order that it might not be known that he was not the son of Cyrus." There is no doubt that Cambyses, when dying, acknowledged his deed, but only to the Achæmenids and the six tribal princes. Darius was with Cambyses in Egypt. From Herodotus we learn that he secretly sent messages to the satraps at the time of the rule of the Magians207. Hence he knew of the fact, and, as was fitting, he urged the overthrow of the Magian before all others. Why the younger line of the royal house and the tribal princes of the Persians did not come forward immediately after the death of Cambyses – why they did not call on the Persians to rise against the Magians – on these matters we can only make conjectures, which however are of a suggestive kind. One obvious reason was that the declaration that the throne had been usurped, and the rising of the Persians which would have followed such a declaration, would have thrown the kingdom into the most violent convulsions. This would have given the subject nations the choice of taking up arms for their favourite, the usurper, or for their own independence; it would have given them the right, and the Medes above all, of throwing off the existing rule. Could they venture to renew the dangerous war, which Cyrus had waged against the Medes, which had been so long undecided, and had brought the Persians into the greatest distress, in which they had conquered only after the most severe efforts? Who would guarantee a happy issue to the new conflict? And if the Medes were really conquered for the second time, would not the conflict with them be the signal for the other nations to revolt on their part also? In this way the kingdom of Cyrus would be completely disorganized. Thus Hystaspes and Darius and the princes of the Persians hesitated; and contented themselves with coming to a secret understanding with the satraps. So long as the royal house and the six princes remained silent, the pretended son of Cyrus was compelled to spare the Achæmenids and the tribal princes in order to play his own part, but their silence on the other hand declared the Magian to be the legitimate ruler, and the longer that they were silent the more securely did they establish his throne. This position of affairs was the more difficult for the Achæmenids, because Gaumata, as we are told in the inscription, removed his residence from Persia to Media. He was aware no doubt that his deception could not be long maintained against the Persians and the satraps. In Media, therefore, he was more secure than in Persia, for in Media the Magians formed a numerous and exclusive order. If the Persians rose against him his best support against them was the Medes; if the deception had to be dropped, the rising of the Persians would pass into a war between the Persians and Medes.

From the important position which the authority of Herodotus assigns to Otanes, and the peculiar honours subsequently paid to him and his family, we may perhaps assume that it was he more than any other, who, with the fixed resolution not to endure the dominion of Gaumata, pointed out at the same time the unavoidable consequences of an armed rising of Persia. Instead of shattering the central power with their own hands, he must have advised his confederates to get it into their own power, and with this object in view he proposed the removal of the Magian, the surprise, and assassination in the citadel. There would be time for an open conflict if the assassination failed. Darius, who was then about thirty-five,208 was younger and more hasty; he may have insisted on a sudden decision and have been more inclined to use open violence. Finally, the princes of the Persians united with Darius in the attempt to assassinate the king. It is obvious that the consultations and deliberations which led to this resolution took place among few, and in the greatest secrecy. It was necessary to avoid observation and suspicion; they must not go in a company. The son of Hystaspes might take a message from his father to the king, and the chiefs of the Persian tribes might accompany him. They were the chosen councillors of the king, and had the right of free entry to him. Ought they to despair of this because they had not been summoned to the council? If they had had confederates in the palace of Gaumata, as Ctesias suggests, it would have been the most foolish rashness to go to Media in such small numbers. That Darius accomplished the deed with six associates only, as he himself tells us, proves that they could reckon on obtaining an entrance for these seven only, and that the king dared not refuse it to them. His false assertion that he was an Achæmenid, and the king of the Persians, must have been his ruin; it compelled him to admit the seven; at any rate the guards of the palace had no orders to the contrary. The upright tiara, which the Persian kings, the descendants of Achæmenes, and the princes of the remaining six tribes wore, and which Plutarch suggests was the mark of recognition among the conspirators (Polyaenus states this for a fact209), pointed out Darius and his associates to the body-guard as having the right of free entrance. It was not, as the Greeks thought, a mark of distinction given to the six after the deed, but, as we have seen, a distinction which they possessed, along with others, from the time of Achæmenes, and the arrangement of the Persian constitution. The six princes of the Persians, and at their head the eldest son of the lawful successor to the throne, Hystaspes the prince of the seventh tribe, or Pasargadae, were resolved to attack the pretended king in his palace in Media, and risk their lives to maintain the throne in the hands of the Persians. We must look for the citadel of Çikathauvatis in Niçaya between Kermanshah and Elvend, at the southern foot of the mountain overlooking the pastures of the Nisæan horses. If the attempt failed Darius and his companions could hardly escape. But the father of Darius and two younger brothers (Artabanus and Artaphernes) were alive and in safety. They could avenge the fall of the conspirators, and by taking up the struggle openly, attempt to succeed where craft had failed. In the struggle, as in the previous consultation, the source from which Herodotus has drawn represents Gobryas as the leading person next to Darius. He is the first whom Otanes admits to the secret; he always votes with Darius for immediate action; he seizes one of the two Magians – obviously the king himself – whom Darius then slays. Gobryas was the chief of the Pateischoreans, who dwelt next to the Pasargadae on Lake Bakhtegan, and the father-in-law of Darius, to whom his daughter had already borne three sons.210

The bold resolution to attack the usurper in the midst of Media and cut him down with his adherents in his palace succeeded. If Herodotus tells us that when the princes after the assassination called the Persians together, and showed them the heads of the Magians, the Persians also drew their swords and slew all the Magians who came in their way, the truth is that the only Persians before the citadel of Çikathauvatis in the Median district of Nisaea would be the servants of the Persians who accompanied them there. The question was not the slaughter of the Magi; such a massacre would have been the most foolish thing that could have been done. The Persians who attended the princes had no other duty than to enable their masters to escape from the citadel in case of failure, and in case of success to prevent the servants of Gaumata, who may very likely have been for the most part Magians, from dispersing, and to cut them down, to avail themselves of the overthrow of the guard in order to disarm them. The supposed slaughter of the Magians has arisen from the festival, by which the Persians celebrated the day of the assassination of the Magian, the tenth of Bagayadis.211

Five days after the death of the Magian the seven took counsel together, as Herodotus relates, on the state of affairs. Otanes was of opinion that the government should be handed over to the whole body of the Persians, that it was not well that one should rule over them. Megabyzus represented oligarchy; the best men should form the best resolutions. Darius spoke in favour of monarchy. In an oligarchy enmities arise, and out of enmities rebellions and struggles, which lead to monarchy. In democracy baseness forces its way in, and the base gather together till a man arises who can reduce them to order; he is then admired by the people and raised to be their ruler. A man had given freedom to the Persians, and it was not well to set aside the laws of the fathers. Then Otanes said: "Fellow-conspirators, it is obvious that one of us will be king, as we are leaving the choice to the Persians either by lot or in some other manner. But I do not seek the throne with you: I wish neither to be a ruler, nor to be ruled over. I leave the dominion to you on the condition that neither I nor my descendants shall be subjects to you." The six agreed, and Otanes remained apart; to this day his family is the only free family in Persia, and is governed only so much as it pleases, provided that it does not transgress the laws of the Persians. The others resolved, that if the monarchy came to one of them, Otanes and his descendants should each year receive a Median robe and the gifts of highest honour usual among the Persians, because he had been the first to entertain the idea and had called them together. For the whole seven they resolved that each should have the right of entering the palace without announcement, whenever he would, and the king should not be allowed to take a wife from any but the families of the conspirators. The throne was to go to the man whose horse, when in the suburbs of the city, should be the first to neigh at the rising of the sun. In the night Oebares, the groom of Darius, led his horse along the road, on which the six would ride in the morning, to a mare which he had previously caused to be brought there. When the princes rode out next morning, as had been agreed upon, the horse of Darius neighed at the place where the mare had been brought to him in the night, and at the same moment there was thunder and lightning in a clear sky. Then the five sprang from their horses and did homage to Darius. And when Darius was established on his throne, he set up a picture in relief on stone representing a man with a horse, and underneath it he engraved the words: "Darius, the son of Hystaspes, by the help of his horse and his groom Oebares, came to be king over the Persians."212

In Pompeius Trogus we are told: "The conspirators were so equal in valour and noble birth, that it was difficult for the people to elect one of them to be king. But the conspirators themselves devised an expedient which left the decision to religion and good luck. They resolved to ride early in the morning to a particular place before the citadel; and he whose horse was the first to neigh at the rising of the sun, was to be king. For the Persians regarded the sun as the only deity, and horses as sacred to him. Among the conspirators was Darius the son of Hystaspes." After narrating the trick of the groom in the same manner as Herodotus, our excerpt continues: "The moderation of the others was so great that when they had received the sign from the gods (Justin speaks only of the neighing, not of the thunder and lightning), they at once sprang from their horses and greeted Darius as king. The whole people followed the decision of the princes and made him their king. By such a trivial circumstance did the monarchy of the Persians, which was won by the valour of the seven noblest men, come into the hands of one person. It is extraordinary that those who risked their lives to wrest the throne from the Magians, should have resigned it with such readiness, though it is true that in addition to the nobility of form, and the valour, which made Darius worthy of the throne, he was also related by blood to the ancient kings."213 The excerpt from the account of Ctesias tells us: "Sphendadates (p. 208 ff.) had reigned seven months (i. e. after the death of Cambyses). Of the seven Darius became king because his horse first neighed at the rising of the sun, which was the sign agreed upon among them; but it was induced to neigh by a certain trick and stratagem. Since then the Persians celebrate the slaughter of the Magians on the day on which Sphendadates the Magian was slain."214

An election to the throne was not a matter of necessity after the fall of the Magian. The older line of the royal house, the descendants of the elder son of Teispes, had become extinct with Smerdis and Cambyses; the younger line had the right to ascend the throne. The head of this line was Hystaspes. We not only learn from Herodotus, that he was still alive, the inscription of Behistun mentions his achievements after his son ascended the throne. The father gave place to the son, just as the father of Cyrus had given place to his son in the rise of the Persians against Astyages. Hystaspes abandoned the throne in favour of his eldest son. This renunciation, in case of success, must have taken place before Darius set out to Media, when the son went with the princes of the Persians to succeed in the work of liberation or to perish. These princes were in a position to salute Darius as king immediately after the fall of the Magian. A sign from the gods could only be required to show that the son would be accepted in the place of the father. It was more important to prove to the Medians, the inhabitants of Nisaea, that the new ruler who took the place of the murdered prince had done so with the will of the gods, that Darius had seized the crown with the will of Auramazda and Mithra. We know the sacred horses and chariot which the Persians kept for the god of the sun and of light. The lucky neighing with which the horse on which the new king was mounted greeted the rising of the sun on the seventh day after the death of the Magian, put it beyond doubt that the act was just, that the new ruler of Persia was under the protection of the far-seeing Mithra, the god of truth, the destroyer of lies. The narrative of the trick of Oebares is no doubt a Greek invention. In the mind of the Persians it would have deprived the divine signal of any importance. In the narrative of Herodotus it is quite superfluous, for not only does the horse neigh but thunder and lightning occur in a clear sky. The name of the groom, Oebares, does not improve the story or make it more credible; it is merely a repetition of the name of that most faithful and energetic counsellor and helper of Cyrus, who first, himself a fortunate omen, meets him in the foreign country, and carries horsedung towards him, and afterwards assists him to victory and the throne (V. 346). As regards the equestrian picture, which, according to Herodotus, Darius set up in honour of his horse and his groom, Darius had certainly no interest in announcing to the kingdom that he had won the throne by deception. No doubt Darius left splendid monuments behind him. He may also have caused the divine consecration and confirmation of his kingdom to be engraved upon a rock, but the inscription to the picture certainly did not mention the deception, or the inventor of it and his service.

Herodotus represents the conspirators as consulting about the best form of government on the sixth day after the assassination, no doubt because the opinion existed among the Greeks, that the Persians had a custom by which anarchy was allowed to prevail for five days after the death of the king, not as a sign of mourning, but in order to learn by experience what an evil anarchy was.215 The best form of government might be discussed in Hellas, but it could not be discussed in Persia, and least of all in the citadel of Çikathauvatis. Herodotus himself observes, that these speeches were incredible to some of the Greeks, but that nevertheless they were made;216 he even recurs to the subject, supporting the story on the fact that Mardonius, the son of Gobryas, had removed the tyrants from the cities of the Ionians and set up democracies there. Herodotus exaggerates what was done in the year 493 B.C. in order to support his story of this discussion; if Mardonius established democracies, Otanes may have represented this form of constitution in the council of the seven. At that time tyrannies were not preserved in the Greek cities to the extent that the princes of Miletus, Histiaeus and Aristagoras, raised the sign of rebellion for the Ionians on purely personal grounds. Hence after the rebellion had been crushed, tyrannies were not fully restored in these cities. But the tyrants who remained faithful to Persia, like Aeaces of Lesbos, and Strattis of Chios, were replaced on their thrones. Strattis was ruler of Lesbos in the time of Xerxes. Even after Mardonius had visited the coast of Anatolia, Hippoclus and Aeantides ruled over Lampsacus; the Pisistratidæ in Sigeum; Demaratus obtained Teuthrania, Halisarna, and Pergamum; Gongylus, Gambrion, Myrina, and Gryneum; Theomestor in the reign of Xerxes was tyrant of Samos; in Herodotus' own city the descendants of Lygdamis retained the throne. To renew the tyrannies in their old extent, when they were intended to keep in subjection Greek maritime cities of considerable power without Persian garrisons was not necessary after these cities had been so greatly weakened by the suppression of the rebellion.217

The legend of the discussion of the seven as to the best form of constitution has grown up out of the privileges of the six tribal princes, who as a fact formed an aristocratic element in the Persian constitution (V. 329), and out of the peculiar immunities enjoyed by the house of Otanes; the Greeks traced both one and the other back to the assassination of the Magians. From the immunities, and supposed self-government of this house, the Greeks concluded that Otanes must at that time have pronounced for the freedom and self-government of the Persians, and Herodotus represents him as consistently democratic, and taking no part in the election to the throne. In the discussion the defence of monarchy was naturally assigned to the future occupant of the throne.

CHAPTER XIV

THE REBELLIONS IN THE PROVINCES

One of the boldest deeds known to history had been accomplished, one of the most marvellous complications had been severed by a remarkable venture. At a distance from their home and people, six Persians, led by a prince of the royal house, had attacked and cut down the pretended son of Cyrus, in his fortified citadel, when surrounded by his adherents, after he had reigned for more than ten months (Spring 521 B.C.218). An Achæmenid again sat on the throne of Cyrus. Whether the removal of the usurper and the sudden proclamation of Darius on the soil of Media had really prevented the ruin of the kingdom, as it was intended to do, and whether it would produce the results which the Achæmenids and the princes of the Persians expected from it, was a question, which, in spite of the success, still remained to be settled. It was true that the resumption of the struggle with the Medes for the sovereignty was for the moment avoided, but that the accession of Darius brought the whole kingdom into obedience to his power had still to be shown. Undeniable facts prove that even in the last years of Cambyses the bonds of obedience were relaxed. The satraps of the provinces had been able to rule over their provinces independently. This had been rapidly followed by two violent changes in the succession, which seemed to promise success to further usurpation. The various nations were quite satisfied with the rule of Gaumata. Their favourite chief had been slain; they were now called upon to obey his assassin, whose reign betokened the return of the severer rule. Neither in Media nor in Babylon did men forget the state of affairs before Cyrus; scarcely eighteen years had elapsed since Babylon had been taken by Cyrus. The nations of the kingdom were in agitation.219

Elated by the success of his venture, in the full vigour of his life, – according to Herodotus Darius had scarcely reached the thirtieth year, and according to Ctesias the thirty-sixth year of his age,220– the new ruler seemed equal even to the heaviest tasks. The boldness of his resolution, the daring nature of the advice which he had given, were favourable indications that he possessed the power to keep the kingdom of Cyrus together. While he could not but direct his gaze in the most eager expectation to the nations of the empire, he found in his immediate proximity, among the associates in the deed of Çikathauvatis, an independent and rebellious spirit. A remarkable indication proved that the princes of the Persian tribes, to whose devotion he owed the throne, who had risked as much as himself, were for that very reason inclined to regard themselves as more on an equality with the new king, and to pay less respect to his authority. Soon after the assassination of the Magian, Intaphernes, one of the six Persian princes, who had lost an eye in the conflict with the Magians, came one day into the palace to speak with the king. But the doorkeepers and servants would not admit him because the king was with one of his wives. Intaphernes thought that this statement was false, and that the new king intended to refuse to the Persian princes the ancient right of free entry; he drew his sword, cut off the ears and noses of each of the two servants, strung them on the reins of his bridle and hung them round their necks. In this act of violence Darius could only see extreme contempt for the royal dignity, and the most severe outrage of it in the persons of his servants; he was convinced that it was the announcement of a rebellion. He did not venture to step in and punish at once; he could hardly assume that Intaphernes would have done such an action without an understanding with the other chieftains; they had intended, no doubt, to humble the king, and now that they had helped him to the throne, they wished to take up a different position towards the ruler whom they had raised from that which they had occupied towards Cyrus and Cambyses. It was not till Darius had questioned each of the princes separately, and ascertained that Intaphernes had acted independently, that he caused him to be thrown into prison with his sons and all his family. He desired, no doubt, on this first opportunity to show the chiefs of the Persians their master, and his intention was naturally carried out with oriental cruelty. Regardless of the services of Intaphernes and the wound which he had received, he was to be executed and all the males of his house with him; the entire stock of this princely family was to be annihilated. The entreaties of the wife of Intaphernes only prevailed so far as to save from death her brother and her eldest son, so that the race could at least be kept in existence.221