 Chapter 5, Part 6 of A History of Grease to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1. A History of Grease to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1 by John Bagnell Burry. Chapter 5, Part 6. A Reform of Cleisthenes Solon created the institutions and constructed the machinery of the Athenian democracy. We have seen why this machinery would not work. The fatal obstacle to its success was the political strength of the clans, and Solon, by retaining the old Ionic tribes, had therewith retained the clan organization as a base of its constitution. In order therefore to make a democracy a reality, it was indispensable to deprive the clans of political significance and substitute a new organization. Another grave evil during the past century had been the growth of local parties. Attica had been split up into political sections. The memorable achievement of Cleisthenes was the invention of a totally new organization, a truly brilliant and, as the event proves, practical scheme, which did away with the Ionic tribes, abolished the political influence of the Frateries and clans, and superseded the system of the Necraries, thus removing the danger of the undue preponderance of social influence or local parties, and securing to the whole body of citizens a decisive and permanent part in the conduct of public affairs. Taking the map of Attica as he found it, consisting of between one and two hundred Demes or small districts, Cleisthenes distinguished three regions, the region of the city, the region of the coast, and the inland. In each of these regions he divided the Demes into ten groups called Trities, so that there were thirty such Trities in all, and each Tridus was named after the chief Deme which was included in it. Out of the thirty Trities he then formed ten groups of three, in such a way that no group contained two Trities from the same region. Each of these groups constituted a tribe, and the citizens of all the Demes contained in its three Trities were fellow tribesmen. Thus Caedithaneon, a Tridus of the city region, was combined with Paenia, a Tridus of the inland, and Morinus, a Tridus of the coast, to form the tribe of Pandionis. The ten new tribes thus obtained were called after eponymous heroes chosen by the Delphic Precis. Footnote. Names of the ten tribes. Erectheus, Aegeus, Pandionis, Leontis, Acomantis, Aeneas, Cycropus, Hippothontus, Aeantus, Antiochus. End of footnote. The heroes had their priests and sanctuaries, and their statues stood in front of the Senate houses in the Agora. Both the tribes and the Demes were corporations with officers, assemblies, and corporate property. The Denmark, or president of the Demes, kept the Burgess list of the place, in which was solemnly entered the name of each citizen when he reached the age of seventeen. The organization of the army depended on the tribes, each of which contributed a regiment of hoplites and a squadron of horse. The Tridus had no independent constitution of this kind, no corporate existence, and consequently, it appears little in official documents. But it was the scarce visible pivot on which the Cleisthenic system revolved, the link between the Demes and the tribes. By its means, a number of groups of people in various parts of Attica, without community of local interest, were brought together at Athens, and had to act in common. The old parties of Plain, Hill, and Coast were thus done away with. There was no longer a means of local political action. Thus, an organization created for a purely political purpose was substituted for an organization which was originally social and had been adapted to political needs. The ten new tribes, based on artificial geography, took the place of the four old tribes, based on birth. The Incorporate Tridus, which had no independent existence but merely represented the relation between the tribe and the Demes, took the place of the independent and active fratry. And the Deme, a local unit, replaced the social unit of the Clan. This scheme of Cleisthenes, with the artificial Tridis and the artificially formed tribe, might seem almost too artificial to last. The secret of its permanence lay in the fact that the Demes, the units on which it was built up, were natural divisions which he did not attempt to reduce to a round number. It must have taken some time to bring this reform into full working order. The first list of Demes men on the new system decided the Deme of all their descendants. A man might change his home and reside in another Deme, but he still remained a member of the Deme to which he originally belonged. Henceforward, in official documents, men were distinguished by their Demes instead of, as heretofore, by their father's names. Footnote. At a later period it became customary to give the father's name as well as the Deme. End footnote. All Attica was included in this system except Eleutherae and Oropus on the frontier, which were treated as subject districts and belonged to no tribe. The political purpose and significance of this reorganization, which entitles its author to be called the second founder of the democracy, lay in its connection with a reformed council. As the existing council of 400 had been based on the four Ionic tribes, Cleisthenes devised a council of 500 based on his ten new tribes. Each tribe contributed 50 members of which each Deme returned a fixed number according to its size. They were probably appointed by a lot from a number of candidates chosen by each Deme, but the preliminary election was afterwards abolished, and 40 years later they were appointed entirely by lot. All those on whom the lot fell were proved as to the integrity of their private and public life by the outgoing council, which had the right of rejecting the unfit. They took an oath when they entered upon office that they would advise what is best for the city, and they were responsible for their acts when they laid it down. This council, in which every part of Attica was represented, was the supreme administrative authority in the state. In conjunction with the various magistrates, it managed most of the public affairs. An effective control was exerted on the archons and the other magistrates, who were obliged to present reports to the council and receive the council's orders. All the finances of the state were practically in its hands, and ten new finance officers called Apodecti, one from each tribe, acted under its direction. It seems moreover from the very first to have been invested with judicial powers in matters concerning the public finance and with the right of finding officials. Further, the council acted as a ministry of public works and even as a ministry of war. It may also be regarded as the ministry of foreign affairs, for it conducted negotiations with foreign states and received their invoice. It had no powers of declaring war or concluding a treaty. These powers resided solely in the sovereign assembly. But the council was not only an administrative body, it was a deliberative assembly, and had the initiative in all lawmaking. No proposal could come before the ecclesia unless it had already been proposed and considered in the council. Every law passed in the ecclesia was first sent down from the council in the form of a provuloma, and on receiving a majority of votes in the ecclesia became a psiphisma. Again, the council had some general as well as some special judicial functions. It formed a court before which impeachments could be brought, as well as before the assembly, and in these cases it could either pass sentence itself or hand them over to another court. It is obvious that the administrative duties could not conveniently be conducted by a body of 500 constantly sitting. Accordingly, the year of 360 days was divided into 10 parts. And the councillors of each tribe took it in turn to act as committee for carrying on public business during a tenth of the year. In this capacity, as members of the acting committee of 50, the councillors were called pretendes or presidents. The tribe to which they belonged was said to be the presiding, and the divisions of this artificial year were called pritonies. It was incumbent on the chairman, along with one trittus of the committee, to live permanently during his pritony in the Tholos, a round building where the presidents met and dined at the public expense. The Tholos or Skias was on the south side of the Agora, close to the council hall. The old Pritonion still remained in use as the office of the Archon and the hearth of the city. Glaesthenes invented an ingenious arrangement for bringing his official year into general harmony with the civil year, so that the beginning of the one should not diverge too far from the beginning of the other. The civil year was supposed to begin as nearly as possible to the first new moon after the summer solstice, and the difference between the lunar twelve month year and the solar revolution was provided for by a cycle of eight years, in the first, third, and sixth of which additional months were intercalated. The ordinary year consisted of 354, the intercalated of 384 days. Glaesthenes, taking 360 as the number of days in his official year, was also obliged to intercalate, but not so often. He adopted a cycle of five years, and once in each cycle an intercalary month of 30 days was introduced. But this month was not always inserted in the same year of the cycle. It was here that Glaesthenes brought his quinquinial into line with the octanial system. The extraordinary official month was intercalated in the first year of the official cycle that coincided with an intercalary year of the civil cycle. The new institution of Glaesthenes began to work in 503-2 BC, the first year of an octanial cycle. The first Glaesthenic year began on the first of Hecatombion, the first month of the civil calendar. It would not begin on that day again till 40 years hence. Footnote. It is convenient to observe that the first year of a Glaesthenic quinquinium begins always in a year BC ending in 3 or 8, 503, 498, 493 BC, etc. In opening the citizenship to a large number of people who had hitherto been excluded, Glaesthenes was only progressing along the path of Solon. He seems to have retained the Solonian restrictions on eligibility for the higher offices of state. It is just possible that he may have set the knights in this respect on a level with the Pentecozium Ednimini. But the two lower classes were still excluded from the archonship. The third class remained ineligible for another half century. Footnote. In the appointment of archons, the Solonian method had been discontinued above page 195, and Glaesthenes does not seem to have reintroduced it. End footnote. But this conservatism of Glaesthenes might be easily misjudged. We must remember that since the days of Solon, time itself had been doing the work of a democratic reformer. The money value of 500 medimini was a much lower rating at the end than it had been at the beginning of the 6th century. Trade had increased, and people had grown richer. The new tribes of Glaesthenes led to a change in the military organization. Each of the ten tribes was required to supply a regiment of hoplites and a squadron of horsemen, and the hoplites were commanded by ten generals, whom the people elected from each tribe. Footnote. The office of Strategos, as commander of a toxis, was much older. But the institution of the Ten Strategoi, 501 BC, was a consequence of the reforms of Glaesthenes. End footnote. The office of general was destined hereafter to become the most important in the state, but at first he was merely the commander of the tribal regiment. The Athenian Council, instituted by Glaesthenes, shows that the Greek statesmen understood the principle of representative government. That council is an excellent example of representation with a careful distribution of seats according to the size of the electorates, and it was practically the governing body of the state. But though Greek statesmen understood the principle, they always hesitated to entrust to a representative assembly sovereign powers of legislation. The reason mainly lay in the fact that, owing to the small size of the city-state, an assembly which every citizen who chose could attend was a practicable institution, and the fundamental principle that supreme legislative power is exercised by the people itself could be literally applied. But while we remember that the council could not legislate, although its cooperation was indispensable to the making of laws, we may say that its function will be misunderstood if it be either conceived as a sort of second chamber or compared to a body like the Roman Senate. It was a popular representative assembly, and from it were taken, though on a totally different principle, committees which performed in part the administrative functions of our government. It had a decisive influence on legislation, and here the influence of the council on the ecclesia must be rather compared to the influence of the government on our House of Commons. But the ratification given by the assembly to the proposal sent down by the council was often as purely formal as the ratification by the crown of bills passed in parliament. Section 7. First Victories of the Democracy The Athenian Republic had now become a democracy in the fullest sense, and the new government was hardly established before it was called upon to prove its capacity. King Cleomenes, who was the greatest man in Greece at the time, could not rest without attempting to avenge the humiliation which he had recently endured at the hands of the Athenian people. The man who had pulled down one tyrant now proposed to set up another. Izzagoras, who had hitherto aimed at establishing an oligarchy, now it would seem came forward as an aspirant to the tyrannous. Cleomenes arranged with the Bootians and the Chalcidians a joint attack upon Attica. While the Lachodemonians and their allies invaded from the south, the Bootians were to come down from the Mount Scytharon, and the men of Chalcis were to cross the Euripus, and the land was to be assailed on three sides at the same moment. The Peloponnesian hosts under the two kings, Cleomenes and Demeritus, passed the Isthmus and occupied Ellusas, and the Athenians marched to the Ellusinian Plain, but the peril on this side passed away without a blow. The Corinthians, on second thoughts, disapproved of the expedition as unjust and returned to Corinth. At this time, Agena was the most formidable commercial rival of Corinth, and it therefore suited Corinthian interests to encourage the rising power of Agena's enemy. This action of the Corinthians disconcerted the whole army, and the situation was aggravated by the discord between the Spartan leaders Cleomenes and Demeritus. In the end, the army broke up, and there was nothing left for Cleomenes but to return home. His attempt to thrust a tyranny had been as unsuccessful as his previous attempt to a thrust an oligarchy upon Athens. For the second time, the Athenian democracy had been saved from Spartan coercion. A hundred years hence, indeed, that coercion was to befall her. Cleomenes is the forerunner of Lysander, who will amply avenge him. The Theban leaders of Boosia had readily concurred in the Spartan plan, where they had a recent cause of offense against Athens. The town of Plataea on the Boosian slope of Mount Scythoron was determined to retain her independence and hold aloof from the Boosian League, which was under the supremacy of Thebes. The Plataeans applied in the first instance to Sparta, but as Sparta was unwilling to interfere, they sought and obtained the help of Athens. This was the beginning of a long friendship between Athens and Plataea based on mutual interest. Plataea depended on the support of Athens to maintain her independence in Boosia, while it suited Athens to have a small friendly power on the other side of Scythoron, a sort of watchtower against Thebes. The Athenians went to the protection of Plataea, but the threatened conflict was averted by the intervention of Corinth. The Corinthian arbitration ruled that Boosian cities which did not wish to join the League must not be coerced. But as they were departing, the Athenians were treacherously attacked by the Thebans, and, winning a victory, they fixed the river Asipus as the southern boundary of the territory of Thebes. The Athenians acquired by this expedition a post in Boosia herself, the town of Hiziaea, on the northern slope of Scythoron. On the approach of the Peloponnesian army, the Boosians had seized Hiziaea, and crossing the path of Scythoron above it had taken Ono on the upper Attic slopes. When Cleomenes and the Peloponnesians retreated, the Athenian army marched northward to check the Knights of Chelsus, who were ravaging the northern demes of Attica. The Boosian forces then withdrew into their own land and moved northwards too in order to join the Chelsidians. But the Athenians, who must have been generaled by an able pole march, succeeded in encountering their two foes singly. They intercepted the Boosians near the Straits and won a complete victory. Then they crossed the Straits, where the Chelsidians had retired to their island and fought another battle, no less decisive with the horsemen of Chelsus. The defeat of the Chelsidians was so crushing that they were forced to cede Athens a large part of that rich Lellentine plain, whose possession in old days they had disputed so hotly with Eritrea. But this was not all. A multitude of Chelsidians and Boosians had been made prisoners. They were kept fettered in bitter bondage until their countrymen ransomed them at two minas a man. We cannot withhold our sympathy from the Athenian people if they dealt out hard measure to those whom the Spartan king had so unjustly stirred up against them. The gloomy iron chains in which they quenched the insolence of their foes were proudly preserved on the Acropolis, and with a tithe of the ransom they dedicated to Athena a bronze chariot. A portico commemorative of this victory was set up within the sanctuary of Delphi. The Athenians dedicated the portico with the arms and figure heads which they took from their foes. So runs the dedicatory inscription found in recent years on a step of the ruined building. It would appear from this that the Athenians captured and destroyed the ships of Chelsus. If the victory had been some twenty years later, Athens would have added them to her own fleet, but she had not yet come to discern that her true element was the sea. The democracy had not only brilliantly defended itself, but had won a new territory. The richest part of the Chelsidian plain was divided into lots among two thousand Athenian citizens who transported their homes to the fertile region beyond the Straits, probably under the same conditions as the clerics of Salamis. These outsettlers retained all their rights as citizens. They remained members of their demes and tribes. The Salamanians were so near Athens that it was easier for them than for most of the inhabitants of Attica to attend a meeting of the Ecclesia, and the plain of Chelsus was not farther than Sunium from Athens. And not only beyond the sea was new territory acquired, but on the borders of Attica itself. This at least is the only occasion to which we can well assign the annexation of the March district of Oropus, the land of the people who gave to the Hellenic race its European name. It had come under the sway of Eritrea, had adopted the Eritrean dialect, which it was to retain throughout all future vicissitudes, and was the last part of Boosia to be annexed by the Boosian power of Thebes. This fertile little plain was destined to be a constant subject of discord between Boosia and Athens as it had before been a source of strife between Eritrea and Boosia, but it was now to remain subject to Athens for nearly a hundred years. Subject to Athens, not Athenian, the men of Oropus, like the men of Eleutherae, never became Athenian citizens. End of Chapter 5 Part 7, Recording by Colinda in Raymond, New Hampshire on November 14th, 2007 Chapter 6 Part 1 of A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1 by John Bagnell Berry. Chapter 6 Part 1 While the Greeks were sailing their own seas and working out in their city-states the institutions of law and freedom, untroubled by any catastrophe beyond the shores of the Mediterranean, great despotic kingdoms were waxing and waning in the east. In the 7th century, the mighty empire of Assyria was verging to its end. The power destined to overthrow it had arisen. But the story of Assyria lies outside the story of Greece, since the Greeks, upset in one outlying corner, came into no immediate contact with the lords of Nineveh. The Greeks, as well as the Phoenician, communities of Cyprus, were involved in the fortunes of the Syrian coastland, when, in the last quarter of the 8th century, Sargon, under whose scepter Assyria reached the summit of her power, had conquered the lands of the sea coast, the Phoenicians and the Philistines, seven kings who lived at a distance of seven days in the middle of the Western Sea, trembled before him and offered their submission. They were the kings of Yatnan, as the Assyrians called Cyprus, and their act of fealty is recorded for us by Sargon himself on a pillar which he set up in a valley of the land of Yatnan. Among the monarchs who submitted there were doubtless Greeks as well as Phoenicians, and a generation later, we had the names of ten Cypriot kings who were subject to Asahardon and to Ashubanipole. Ashahardon, the great conqueror who voluntarily abdicated his throne, and Asubanipole, the peace sovereign, whom the Greeks remembered as Sardinopolis. Among the names of the vassals whom inscriptions of these two kings enumerate are those of Etiandros, the Paphos, and Palagos of Chition. But if the story of Assyria touches only a remote fringe of the Hellenic world, it is otherwise with the story of those who destroyed the Assyrian Empire. The Medes and Persians, folks of Aryan speech like the Greeks, were marked out by destiny to be the adversaries of the Greeks throughout the two chief centuries of Cretian history. The land of Medea lies east of Assyria. Its ancient history is shrouded in mist, but there are some reasons for guessing that it in the second millennium it was part of the great Aryan kingdom, which stretched far north-eastwards over the plains of Bactria, peopled by the Aranian branch as it is called of the Aryan stock. The Aranians worshipped the same gods of heaven and light as the other folks of their kindred, but their sun worship developed into a very different shape from religion of Zeus. They regarded the element of fire with a deeper reverence than other sun worshippers. They dreaded to pollute it by the touch of a dead body or the overflow of boiling water. Their land was full of temples with altars of perpetual fire. But the religion of the fire worshippers had been moulded into an almost philosophical form by their prophet Zoaster, who, though his name is encompassed with legend and it is uncertain when he lived, was assuredly a real man and not a creation of myth. He diffused among the Aranians the doctrine that the world is the perpetual scene of a deadly strife between the powers of light and darkness, between almost the great Lord and Ariman, the principle of evil. It was towards the end of the eighth century that the Medes rebelled against the yoke of Assyria. They were led by Deosys and after a struggle between her independence and the deliverer was elected king by the free vote of his people. He had not only freed but had united his countrymen and he set the seal on the union of media by building the great city of Ekpatana. His treasury and palace were in the centre of a fortress girdled by seven walls and he is said to have lived in this stronghold with the drawn from the sight of his people who would approach him only by written petitions. The first successor of Deosys had enough to do in resisting the efforts of Assyria for her power over media, but presently a king arose who was strong enough to extend his sway beyond the borders of his own land. Freyotes conquered the hilly land of Persia in the south and thus a large Aryan realm was formed stretching from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf, east of Assyria and Babylonia. The next step was to conquer Assyria itself and Khexaris, the successor of Freyotes, prepared for the enterprise by a new organisation of the Median army. It was no hopeless task, for the Assyrian empire had been breaking up. Egypt had thrown off the yoke of the kings of Nineveh and Nabopoulasa had just risen to do for Babylonia what Deosys had done for media. Nabopoulasa and Khexaris joined hands and the united forces of Median and Babylonia defeated the Assyrian army. The conquerors divided the empire. The southwestern portion up to the borders of Egypt went to Babylonia. Assyria itself and the land stretching westward into Asia Minor were annexed to media. The restored kingdom of Babylonia under Nebuchadnezzar, the successor of its founder, rose into wonderful fame and brilliance. He drove the Egyptians out of Syria, smiting them in the great battle of Kharkimish. He stormed Jerusalem and carried the Jews into captivity. He made Tyre on its rock tremble, though he failed to take it. He invaded and overran Egypt. The more famous than in conquests abroad were his mighty works in his own land. He made Babylon the greatest city in the world and the stray Greeks who visited it came back with amazing stories of the palaces and temples and the hanging gardens, a terrace park which was constructed by Nebuchadnezzar. The report ascribed it to the mythical queen Semiramis but the gigantic walls which girded the city were the mightiest monument of Nebuchadnezzar. Greek travelers said the circuit was more than 50 miles. It seemed certain that few men have done more than this lord of Babylon to increase the sum of human misery. If we imagine the lives of countless thralls forced under the pitiless lash to spend their flesh and blood in unceasing and unsparing labour. Nebuchadnezzar went down to his grave full of honors after a long reign. He knew well on what side danger was to be feared for his kingdom. One of his works of fortification was a wall from the Tigris to the Euphrates north of Babylon to defend Babylonia against media, her northern neighbour. The exploits of the great Babylonian king affected Greece little. The Greeks of Cyprus must have caught the echoes of the clash of arms at Calchemish. They must have been stirred by the tidings of the storming of Jerusalem and excited by the siege of Tyre. But the changers which had fallen the east were brought nearer to the Ken of Greece by the advance of media. Sagsari's drew under his power the eastern parts of Asia Minor as far as the banks of Halis and this river became the boundary between media and Lydia. The conquest of Lydia was the next aim in the expansion of the Median power and a pretext was found for declaring war. In the sixth year of the war a battle was fought but in the midst of the combat the day was turned suddenly to night and the darkening of the sun made such deep impression on the minds of the combatants that they laid down their arms and the peace was concluded. But the solar obscuration of this May day has another association which has a deeper interest for Europe than the warfare of the Lydian and Medi. It was the first eclipse of which European science foretold when it should be tied. Therles and Miletus, the father of Greek and therefore of European philosophy and science had studied astronomy in Egypt and he was able to warn the Ionians that before such a year had passed his lore could not tell the day or the hour the sun would be darkened. Therles was not only the first man of science he was also the first philosopher. Science and philosophy were not yet separated. If he looks over the ages of Copernicus, Newton and Laplace he looks likewise to Descartes, Barclay and Kant. He sought for common substance, a single principle which should explain the variety of nature and reduce the world to unity and system. It is a small matter that he found this principle in water. It is his eternal merit to have sought it. The Lydian king Aliates wedded his daughter to Astyages who succeeded to the throne of Medea and the kingdom of Lydia was saved for a generation to enjoy the most brilliant period of its history. When Lydia recovered from the Cimmerian invasion King Ardis renewed the efforts of Gaijes to reduce the Greek cities of the coast. His chief success seems to have been the capture of Prani. His successors, Sadiates and Aliates carried on a wary war against Miletus. They harried the Milesian territory every year destroying the corn crops and defeated the Malaysians in two battles but the strong walls of the coast city defied them as they had no fleet. At length Aliates made peace with Miletus. Possibly it was the outbreak of the war with Medea that forced him to this step. At all events he seemed to have behaved liberally to his foes. He built two temples to Athena in the place of one which had been burnt down when he was devastating the Malaysian land. This act of reparation was quite in accordance with the reverence for the gods of Greece which the Lydian monarchs invariably displayed. The story is that when Aliates fell ill and consulted Apollo at Delphi the oracle enjoined him to restore the temple. Ionian Miletus was saved but the famous Achaean city of Smyrna was not only captured but destroyed and in this volume its name will occur no more. Aliates also conquered Bithynia and drove out the remnant of the Samarians out of Asia. He might think that Lydia would now take rank with one of the great monarchies of the south or the east and he built himself an enormous sepulchre an earth mound on stone foundations which in size at least might match the monuments of Egyptian or Babylonian kings. It was reserved for Cresus the son of Aliates to carry out fully the design of subjugating the cities of eastern Greece. He attacked and subdued the cities Ionian and Aeolian one after another all except Miletus whose treaty with his father he respected. While Miletus on her part saved her freedom by withholding all help from her sister cities the Dorian states of Caria also forced to submit and the Empire of Cresus extended from the Houses to the Aegean. We saw before that Lydia exercised a distinct influence on the Greeks of Asia but perhaps their influence upon her was even greater. The Greek language spread in Lydia and we may well suspect that it was heard in Sardis as much as the native Aegean. The Greek gods were revered the Greek oracles were repealed to. The kings were benefactors of Hellenic sanctuaries. In the new temple of Artemis which arose at Ephesus during his reign Cresus was the donor of the sculpted reliefs which encircled the Ionic pillars and fragments of the three words which recorded the gift dedicated by King Cresus can still be read on the basis of the columns. Hence the Greeks never regarded the Lydians as utter barbarians and they always cherished a curious indulgence and sympathy for Cresus though he had enslaved and ruled as despot the cities of Asiatic Hellas. The court of Sardis was in truth more oriental than Hellenic not only in wealth and luxury but also in its customs for instance polygamy and the infliction of cruel punishments. Cresus carded alive a man who had opposed his succession to the throne. The Ionians had marveled at the treasures of the Golden Gaijes but the untold wealth of Cresus was in fact a proverbial it was furnished largely by the tributes of the Greek cities as well as by the white gold of Pactulus and the products of the Mayans and Pergamon. Cresus was the first to introduce instead of the white gold money a coinage of two metals pure gold and silver bearing to each other the fixed proportions of three to forty. There is no more striking proof of the political importance of the Oracle of Delphi at this period than the golden offerings dedicated by Cresus offerings richer than even the priestly adorates of the Delphians could have hoped for. Wealthy though the Lord of Lydia was genuine as was his faith in the inspiration of the Oracle he might hardly have sent such gifts that he had not wished to secure the political support of Apollo and believed that Apollo's support was worth securing. His object was to naturalize himself as a member of the Greek world to appear not as an outsider but as an adopted son of Helas the Greeks whom he has subdued and those whom he still hoped to subdu. Nothing would be more helpful than the good word of the Delphic Oracle to compass such a reputation. Moreover, if one of the Asiatic cities contemplated a rebellion a discouraging reply from the Oracle which would assuredly be consulted might stand the best spot in good stead. Having extended his sway to the coast Cresus conceived the idea of making Lydia a sea power and conquering the islands. It was a feasible plan and it was not till unforeseen events had frustrated it that the islanders could have found much comfort in the epigram that a Lydian king sailing against them with a fleet would be like themselves advancing against Lydia with a host of cavalry. The tale afterwards shaped itself that one of the wise men of Greece it mattered let all whether he was alive at the time or not used this witticism to sway to Cresus from the enterprise that Cresus was diverted from his western designs to make something graver than an epigram. Events of great moment were happening in the east. His brother-in-law, Stioges was hurled from the throne of media by a hero who was to become one of the world's mightiest conquerors. The usurper was Cyrus the Great of the Persian family of the Achaemenid. The revolution signified indeed little more than a change of dynasty. The Persians and Medes were peoples of the same race and the same faith. The realm remained Iranian as before but the Persians seemed to have been the noblest part of the Iranian race. Their bravery, temperance and love of truth extorted the admiration of the Greeks. The fall of Astioges was an opportunity for the ambitious Lydian to turn his arms to the east. The restoration of his brother-in-law was indeed a sufficient plea and he might have good cause to fear that if he were not the first to strike the Persian usurper would soon advance to the conquest of Lesser Asia. But Cresus certainly cherished hopes of extending the Lydian power to the posterior parts of Asia if not of succeeding himself to the Median throne. In undertaking such an enterprise he had to fear his Greek subjects who might take advantage of his absence to throw off his yoke and might even intrigue with the Persian. That the Greeks of Ionia had long been accustomed to regard media as a resort against Lydia and to intrigue with the Median kings is shown by the word medism. For if such intriguing had first come into fashion after the rise of Persia and the fall of Lydia the names chosen to designate it would naturally have been Persism. The preparations of Cresus for an expedition to the east were welcome news to the lands of the Aegean. Desirous of probing the hidden events of the future he consulted some of the oracles of Greece. There can be no question that the Delphic god gave him an answer which was meant to encourage him in his enterprise. It is said that the answer was that if he crossed the hullis he would destroy a mighty empire with the answer which need not have been that which was actually given but may have been circulated afterwards to justify the oracle when the expedition failed. But it is the policy of the oracle not its methods of evasion which has historical significance. The spirit of Delphi was favourable to Hellenic freedom and it saw in the proposed expedition the probability of a long war with Persia and a chance for the eastern Greeks of retaining their independence. In the conquest of Lydia and the subjection of the Greeks to a power which was utterly barbarian the oracle took the occasion however to bring about a union between Cresus and the Lachodimonians by bidding him seek the aid of the most powerful state of Greece and alliance was concluded but led to nothing and Lachodimon sent no help. Cresus at the head of an army which included a force of Ionian Greeks crossed the fateful hullis and invaded Cavadocia. He took the ancient city of Teria and in its neighbourhood fought an indecisive battle with the host of Meads and Persians which Cyrus had led against him. But the host of Cyrus seems to have been far superior in numbers and Cresus retired before him into Lydia under the walls of the capital the invader won a decisive victory and after a short siege Cades was stormed and plundered the life of Cresus was spared. Cyrus had given strict injunctions and was on no account to be slain in the struggle of the capture and the story went that a soldier not recognising him was about to cut him down when the king's son who had been done from birth suddenly burst out into speech oh man slay not Cresus. This was not the only tale which adorned the fall of the Lydian king. The capture of Sardis was an eventuality of which no one had seriously thought so great had been the co-wealth and might of Cresus so dizzy that none deemed his overthrow possible and the sheer and sudden fall into nothingness made perhaps a deeper and more abiding impression on the imagination of Helas than any other historical event. It was the most illustrious example that the Greeks had ever witnessed of their favourite doctrine that the gods visit with jealousy men who enjoy too great prosperity and the personality of Cresus himself crept into their sympathies the admirer of Hellenic art and wisdom the adorer of Hellenic gods the generous giver out of his abundant wealth Never more than for the memory of Cresus did Greece put forth the power of that genius which she possessed in such full measure of weaving round an event of history tales which have a deep and touching import as lessons for the life of men. Cyrus built a great pyre so the story is told by Herodotus and placed there on Cresus bound in chains with fourteen Lydian boys and as Cresus was standing on the pile in this extreme pass there came into his mind a word which Solon had sent to him that no man could be caught happy so long as he was alive for the Athenian statesman had visited the court of Sardis in his travels the art of the tale weaver had no precise regard for the facts of time and when he had seen the royal treasures and the greatness of the kingdom Cresus asked him whom he deemed the happiest of men Solon named some obscure Greeks who were dead and when the king unable to hide his wonder and vexation exclaimed is our royal fortune so poor o Athenian stranger that you set private men before me the wise Greek had discoursed on the uncertainty of life and the jealousy of the gods then Cresus remembering this groaned aloud and called Thrice on the name of Solon but Cyrus heard him call and bade the interpreters ask him on whom he was calling for a while Cresus would not speak one whom I would that all tyrants might meet and converse with pressed further he named Solon the Athenian and repeated the wise man's words the pyre was already a light but when Cyrus heard the answer of his prisoner he reflected that he too was a man and he commanded that the fire should be quenched and the victims set free the thames were already blazing so strong and high that the men could not quench them then Cresus cried to Apollo to Apollo for help and the gods sent clouds into the clear sky and a tempestuous shower of rain extinguished the fire such as the tales we read it in the history of Heterositus who may have heard it at Athens but we can almost see the story in the making for before the episode of Solon was woven in the fate of Cresus had been wrought into a legend the legend is related in the poem of Bacallides when the day of doom surprised the king he would not abide to enjoy the bitterness of bondage but he raised a pyre before the palace court and sat him upon thereon with his wife and his weeping daughters he bade the slippered thrall kindle the timber buildings the maidens screamed and stretched their arms to their mother but as the might of the fire was springing through the wood Zeus set a sable cloud above it and quenched the yellow flame then Apollo bore the old man with his daughters to the land of the hyperborians to be his abiding place for his piety's sake because his gifts to Pytho were greater than all men's gifts the moral of the tale clearly was bring gifts to Delphi and we can hardly doubt that it was originated under Delphic influence but in the city of Solon it was transformed by a touch of genius into one of the great stories of the world as for Cresus it is certain that his life was spared and it is possible that he spent his remaining days in media unconscious that a mythical association with the famous Athenian law-giver would be his best assured claim on the memory of future ages End of Chapter 6 Part 1 Chapter 6 Parts 2, 3 and 4 of a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Graham Redman A history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 by John Bagnell Bury Chapter 6, Part 2 The Persian Conquest of Asiatic Greece The Kingdom of Lydia had performed a certain function in the development of Greece Besides the invention of coinage which was its one great contribution to the civilization of mankind besides the influence which its luxury and tyranny exercised on Ionia, the mere existence of the Lydian realm in its intermediate position between Greece and the East was of considerable importance as a bulwark against the great Oriental empires It kept Greece from coming into direct contact with the Empire of Assyria It kept Greece for sixty years from coming into direct contact with the Empire of Media When the barrier is swept away a new period is opened in Grecian history The Greeks now stand face to face with the power of a monarch whose dominion stretches far away beyond the Euphrates beyond the Tigris into lands which are totally unknown to them The Asiatic Greeks are now to exchange subjection to a Lord of Sardis for subjection to a potentate who holds his court in a city so distant that the length of the journey is told by months The distance of the centre from the extremities of the Empire was of the utmost significance The king was obliged to leave his conquests in Asia Minor to the government of his satraps and the Greeks were unable to exercise any influence upon him as they might have done if he had ruled from Sardis or some nearer capital This was all the more unfortunate on account of another difference which distinguished the Persian from the Lydian kingdom While the Lydians were outside the Arian family the Persians and Medes spoke a language of the same stock as that of the Greeks It may be thought that if the Persians had come under Greek influence Iranian history would have taken a different course For the Persians were a people marked out to fall under the influence of others and not to hue an independent path for themselves In their own highlands, like the Spartans in the Laconian Vale they might live unspotted from the world a valiant, simple and truthful race but when they once went forth to conquer and to rule it was their inevitable doom to be led captive by their captives and to adopt the manners and ideals of more intellectual and original peoples If Cyrus had transported the center of his empire to the west the Greeks might have been the teachers of their Persian speech-fellows but such an idea would have occurred to no Mede or Persian Consequently the new Iranian kingdom fell under the relaxing influences of the corrupt Semitic civilizations of Babylonia and Assyria and it had soon become a despotism so typically oriental that it is hard to remember that the ruling peoples spoke a tongue akin to the Greek Hence the struggle of two hundred years upon which we are now entering between Greece and Persia though strictly and literally it was a struggle between Aryan peoples peoples that is of Aryan speech assumes the larger character of strife between Europe and Asia between East and West, between Aryan and non-Aryan and takes its place as the first encounter in that still-unclosed debate which has arrayed Europe successively against Babylonian, Phoenician, Saracen and Turk At the beginning of the campaign against Lydia Cyrus had invited the Ionians who were in the army of Cresus to change sides They had refused to Mede eyes, not perhaps from loyalty to the rule of the Lydian under which they chafed, but because they did not anticipate his utter overthrow and therefore feared his vengeance This refusal annoyed Cyrus and when after the fall of Sardis the Greek cities made overtures to the conqueror, he declined to make any conditions Only with Miletus, which had not been subject to Lydia and had stood aloof from the contest did he conclude a sort of treaty like that in which Cresus had recognized her independence The others prepared to defend themselves Cyrus himself had greater projects which recalled him to the Far East and he committed the lesser task of reducing the Asiatic Greeks to the lieutenants whom he left in Lydia The want of unity among the Ionians was disastrous They might meet in their Pan-Ionic assembly but they seem to have been without the ability or the organization to carry out any plan of common action The most powerful of all the states, Miletus, had gone her own path and stood quite apart One of her citizens, Thales the astronomer and philosopher whom we have met before is said to have ventured himself into the speculations of political as well as of celestial science He saw the weakness of Ionia in its disunion and the futility of the loose league of the Pan-Ionian and he made the remarkable proposal that Ionia should form itself into an united nation with one hall of council as well as one place of assembly each city surrendering her sovereignty and becoming merely a town or deem of the state and he suggested Teos as the fitting place for the capital The idea of whether it was put forward by Thales or not was assuredly suggested by the political development of Attica the mother country of the Ionians It was an idea which the proposer can hardly have hoped to persuade the Ionians to adopt but it had its value as a comment on the disunion of the Greeks in the one part of Greece where, above all others there was needed a closer unity and a solid serid front to resist the aggression of the great barbarian powers Another proposal which was made in one of the ineffectual meetings of the Pan-Ionian receives the approval of the historian Herodotus Bias, a statesman of Prajini, advised all the Ionians to sail forth together to the west to the great island of Sardinia and there found an Ionian city-state and live happy and free This proposal illustrates the terror and despair of Ionia at the prospect of Persian rule Disunited the Asiatic Greeks were an easy prey Harpagus, the general of Cyrus, reduced them one after another Tribute was imposed upon them and the burden of serving in the Persian armies when such service was required but no restrictions were placed upon the freedom of their commerce To the inhabitants of two cities, exile seemed more endurable than this new slavery and they acted in the spirit of Bias The people of Fosir or the more part of them embarked in their Pentecontas and sailed to the island of Corsica where their own settlement of Alalia received them The Theons did likewise but found a nearer home on the coast of Thrace where they founded Abdera One common effort indeed the Iolians and Ionians made for their defense They made a common appeal to the most powerful state in the mother country They sent an embassy to Lassidimon but the Spartans whose horizon was bounded by the Peloponnesus did as little for them as they had done for Cresus Sparta had the curiosity, however, to send a ship to Ionia to spy out the condition of the country and the power of Cyrus The story is that one of her reconnoitras went up to Sardis and standing before the Persian king forbade him to work harm to any Greek community since the Lassidimonians will not permit it The anecdote was doubtless invented by those who liked a jest of the expense of Sparta but if Cyrus might well ask who are the Lassidimonians his successors learned the answer to their cost The conqueror of Lydia returned to the east to subdue the mightier power of Babylon The conquest occupied some years then the greatest city on earth was taken and Cyrus took to himself the title of king of Babel, Sumer and Akkad and of the four quarters of the world thus formally entering into the Babylonian inheritance The dominion of Cyrus the great extended in the east over Armenia and Harkania, Parthia and Bactria and into the midst of Afghanistan, from the coasts of the Aegean to the banks of the Jacksarties But his conquests lie outside our history His last enterprise was the subjugation of the Masajidai, a Scythian folk near the Aral Lake and one story says that he was slain in battle against them and that the savage queen placed his head in a basin of blood All we know with certainty is that his body was buried in Persia and two hundred years hence we shall visit his tomb at Pasar Gadi in the company of a conqueror who was mightier even than he End of Chapter 6 Part 2 Chapter 6 Part 3 Persian conquest of Egypt Policrates of Samos The subjugation of Lydia and the Greek seaboard carried the borders of the Iranian Empire under its new dynasty farther westward than the Assyrian conquest had ever reached Two lords of Sardis had indeed acknowledged the overlordship of the kings of Nineveh but that relation had been of brief duration and slight significance and Lydia can hardly be said to have ever formed a part of the Assyrian dominion In subduing the Greeks of the coast at all events, Cyrus broke entirely new ground They had never paid submission in any shape to Assyria But while he far out-passed the utmost limits of Assyria in some directions he left unconquered the great kingdom of the south which had once been part of the Assyrian Empire But his son Campaizis repaired the omission It was inevitable that the new lords of Syria should seek to bring Egypt under their subjection We saw how Egypt, like media itself and Babylonia threw off the Assyrian yoke and entered upon a new period of national prosperity under enlightened rulers King Amosis who climbed the throne by a revolution maintained his power by a bodyguard of Ionian and Carian mercenaries like a Greek tyrant An Egyptian writing tells us how he loved the strong wine of Celebi of Egypt He built great temples to the Egyptian gods like the pharaohs of old But in his patronage of Greece he may be compared to Cresus He sent gifts to the Greek sanctuaries He subscribed generously to the rebuilding of the temple at Delphi He married a Greek princess of Cyrene Under him Norcratus rose to the rank of a city though the only city where Greeks were allowed to trade He had extended his sway over the island of Cyprus when the power of Babylonia was declining But the Cypriots threw off his yoke when Cyrus entered into the Babylonian heritage and made their submission to the Persian Amosis trembled at the rise of the new power in the east and he lived to witness with dismay the preparations of Cambyses But he died a few months before the invasion and the blow fell upon his son Semeticus A fierce battle near Pelusian delivered Egypt into the hands of the Persians The conqueror led his army up the Nile and perhaps he extended the southern frontier of the Egyptian kingdom on the side of Nubia The Egyptians said that he planned the conquest of all Ethiopia and was compelled to return through want of provisions so that his enterprise came to nothing But the Egyptians hated Cambyses who openly scoffed at their religion and it is possible that they may have represented as an inglorious failure what was really a successful effort to secure the southern frontier The conquest of Egypt which became a Persian satrapy led to the submission of Greek Cyrene even as the conquest of Lydia had led to the subjection of the Greeks of the neighbouring coasts Amosis and his son might have hoped when the Persian danger threatened that they could depend on the support of a powerful Greek friend the Lord of Samos In that island, not long after the Persian conquest of Ionia a certain Pelicrates and his two brothers had established a joint tyranny over the state with the help of Ligdemis of Naxos But Pelicrates removed his brothers by death and banishment and became sole tyrant He organised a fleet of a hundred Pentecontas and made Samos a strong power As the Ionian mainland had fallen under Persian dominion he had perhaps the strongest Greek sea power in the Aegean His luxurious court was brightened by the presence of the Bacchic poet Anachryon He completed the building of the Great Temple of Hera but the most famous of his works was the aqueduct which supplied the city with water from a spring beyond a hill The engineering skill of the Megarian architect Eupalinus who perhaps also constructed the waterworks of Pisistratus at Athens carried the duct through the hill by a tunnel In all that he put his hand to, Pelicrates prospered He defied the power of Persia He extended his influence over some of the Ionian cities under Persian sway He hoped perhaps to become the lord of all Ionia It was natural that he and Amesis of Egypt should form a close alliance based on the common interest of antagonism to Persia But when the hour of Peril came when Cambyses moved upon Egypt the Samian tyrant altered his policy He felt that his navy was unequal to coping with the joint armaments of Finisher and Cyprus and instead of coming to the aid of his old friend's son he sent forty ships to increase the fleet of the invader These ships however never reached Egypt The tyrant had manned them with those Samians whom he most suspected of hating himself and his tyranny but his trick recoiled At the island of Carpathus the crew took the resolve of sailing back to Samos and overthrowing the despot Defeated in a battle they sought the aid of Sparta and their appeal was strongly backed by the Corinthians whose trade probably suffered from the pirate ships of Pelicrates The Lacedemonians sent an armament to besiege Samos It was their first expedition to the east and it was a failure despairing of taking the city and repulsed in a conflict they returned home We cannot charge Pelicrates with perfidy in espousing the cause of Persia against Egypt since we are ignorant of his relations not only with Someticus but with Amesis in the last years of that monarch's reign We might indeed gather from the story of the ring of Pelicrates that the alliance had ceased to exist and that it was Amesis who had broken it off Amesis' hearing of his friend's marvellous prosperity never varied by a reverse wrote him a letter expressing misgivings at a good fortune so great and enduring that it could not fail to draw down the envy of heaven and cancelling Pelicrates to cast away whatever possession it would give him the most pain to lose cast it away utterly out of the world Pelicrates taking the words to heart Manda Penteconta and having rode out to sea cast into the waves the most precious thing he had an emerald ring engraved by the gem-cutter Theodorus A few days later a fisherman came to his house and presented him with a huge fish the ring was found inside it Pelicrates wrote to Amesis an account of what had happened and Amesis when he read the letter discerned that it was impossible for any man to deliver another from that which was destined to befall him convinced therefore that Pelicrates would come to no good end and not wishing to have to grieve for a friend's misfortune Amesis broke off the tie of guest friendship which bound them the forecast of the Egyptian was fulfilled soon after his repulse of the Lacedemonian attack Pelicrates fell into a trap laid for him by the Persian satrap of Sardis and was seized and crucified End of Chapter 6 Part 3 Chapter 6 Part 4 Ionia Under Darius King Cambyses was recalled from Egypt by a rebellion he had put to death on suspicions of disloyalty his brother Smirdis to whom he had entrusted the regency of some of the eastern provinces and a usurper had arisen pretending to be the dead Smirdis to whom he bore a remarkable likeness Cambyses went in haste to crush the false Smirdis but as he passed through Syria he found death by his own hand as is related in a great writing on the rock of Mahistune The next heir to the Persian throne was a certain Heistaspis who was satrap of Parthia and had a son named Darius but Heistaspis made no attempt to secure his right and the false Smirdis established himself so firmly that as Darius wrote afterwards in that famous inscription of the rock no Persian nor Mede dared to oppose him but Darius had different thoughts from his father and conspiring with six nobles he killed the usurper and became king himself In the first years of his reign his force and ability were proved in the task of quelling rebellions which broke out in almost all parts of the wide realm which Cyrus had put together Elam, Babylonia, Medea, Armenia revolted a new false Smirdis arose Babylon had to be twice besieged Having established his power firmly and crushed all resistance Darius recorded for future ages the hardly one successes of his first years in an inscription on the lofty rock of Mahistune on the upper course of the River Coaspis The writing is in the Persian, the Susic and the Babylonian languages By wedding Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus and widow of her brother Cambyses Darius linked himself closely to the family of his predecessors He proceeded to reorganize the administration of his dominion He extended the system of satrepies or governments and the whole realm was divided into twenty such satrepies West of the Hallis the Old Kingdom of Lydia consisted of three provinces but subject to two satraps The Ionian and the Lydian under one governor who resided at Sardis The Phrygian which included the Greek cities of the Propontis under a governor whose seat was at Dessalion These satraps did not interfere in the local affairs of the Greek cities which were ruled by despots and the despots might do much as they pleased so long as they paid tribute duly and furnished military contingents when required The despots liked the Persian rule which secured their power and this explains the noteworthy fact that the Greeks of Asia Minor made no attempt to shake off the Persian yoke during the troubles which ushered in the reign of Darius It is possible too that their condition under the rule of Cambyses was better than under Darius for Darius is said to have instituted a fixed yearly tribute instead of irregular contributions Commerce however was furthered by this king's monetary reforms and by his improvement of the road system in Persia He adopted the bimetallic coinage which Creasers had introduced in Lydia The chief piece of Persian gold money was always known in Greece by the name Derrick The royal road by which the messengers between Sousa and Sardis came and went was divided into stages marked off by regular stations Its length was over 1,500 miles and the way was counted a three months journey for a man on foot The Greek who had to visit Sousa would land at Ephesus and in three days reach Sardis The road ran through the heart of Phrygia by the tomb of Midas the Golden King past Pesinas and Ancyra and across the Hallis to Pteria the ancient Cappadocian city which Creasers took then across the Hallis again southward to Mazarca and Comana to cross the Taurus and reach the Euphrates at Samosata Beyond the Euphrates it skirted the mountains which bound Mesopotamia on the north passing Nisibis and reaching the Tigris at Nineveh the ruined capital of Assyria Beyond Arbila it went south eastward to the river Coaspis and Sousa A good and safe road carefully maintained brought central Asia nearer to the Aegean and helped to open the east to western curiosity The construction of the royal road must have had an incalculable effect in widening Greek ideas of geography Its influence is shown by the importance which it assumed on the first Greek maps Conceived as a straight line running east and west it plays on one of the maps which were used by Herodotus practically the same part which is played in the modern Atlas by the equator The longitudes were determined by the conception that the Nile and the Danube the two greatest rivers known within the range of the Greek world were in the same meridian the Danube being supposed to flow from north to south This meridian line passed through Sinope It was a principle of the early Greek geographers who arose about the end of the sixth century in Ionia that the features of the earth were symmetrically arranged The attempt to apply mathematical principles to a small portion of the earth was very imperfectly observed necessarily produced maps which to our fuller knowledge appear grotesque But it would be hard to overestimate the intellectual activity of the Ionian investigators who made the new departure Anaximander and Hecateus both citizens of Miletus Anaximander constructed the first map and Hecateus wrote a geography which served as a text to Anaximander's map Hecateus was himself a traveller He composed the earliest guidebook to the wonders of Egypt and he could supplement his own observations by second hand material gathered in the great centre of trade where his home was from travellers and strangers This development of geography in Ionia was certainly forwarded by the Royal Road and so far the Persian conquest of Eastern Greece was an advantage to European civilisation Europe owes so much to the Ionian intellects which at this period were breaking new paths of progress that we may linger a moment longer over the movement of intellectual discovery before resuming the march of events It was a movement of the most interesting kind in which the instinct for speculation and the thirst for positive knowledge were closely united For Anaximander the first chartographer map-making is only part of his wider work as a physical philosopher Disatisfied with the theory of Thales who found the first principle of the universe in water he sought it in a more general conception which he designated negatively as the Unlimited Unlimited that is by qualities and so capable of differentiation into all the kinds of definite matter which our senses perceive Hecoteus is the founder of Greek history He partly breaks with the old traditions and criticises the esiotic school of theology The heroes who appeared in legend as sons of the gods he regards as the bastard sons of women who, to shield their shame, ascribed the fatherhood to Zeus or Apollo The stories of the Greeks, he says, are, in my opinion, manifold and absurd Thus reason was asserting itself against authority in the religious sphere and Hecoteus was one of the pioneers But more effective than he in pressing the claims of reason was another Ionian his contemporary xenophonies of collar-phone and we shall have to consider the importance of his work in another connection The remoteness of Souza from the Greek seas and the homesickness of Greeks whom any chance transported to the Far East find an illustration in the curious story of the physician Demosides of Croton This man's skill had earned high salaries as public physician at Aegina and Athens and higher still in the service of proliferates of Samos He was carried off as a prisoner to Souza in consequence of a series of troubles which followed the death of that tyrant and he was taken from his dungeon to try his craft for Darius who had sprained a foot in the chase His success gained him the king's favour and there was nothing which he might not ask except the one thing which he desired permission to return to Greece One day he was summoned by Queen Athosar who was suffering from a tumour on the breast and he made her swear that if he cured her she would do what he asked Acting by his directions she stirred up the king to cherish the project of conquering the Greeks and suggested that he should send spies under the conduct of Demosides to travel through Greece and bring back a report These councils of the daughter of Cyrus carried weight with Darius according to the story and the plan of Demosides succeeded He promised to return to Souza and Darius gave him rich presence for his kinsfolk The Persians who accompanied him were privately charged to see that he did not escape When they came to Theras, for the story assumes that Italian Greece was included in the programme of the journey The lord of that city arrested the Persians as spies and kept them in prison until Demosides had time to escape to his native town When the Persians were released they followed him to Croton but the Crotonians refused to give him up A Persian invasion of Italy was a contingency which they might reasonably risk Such is the strange story blended of fact and fiction which men told of the first Greek physician who practised at the court of Souza He was not the last. We shall meet hereafter a more famous leech who did not yearn back to Greece and wrote the history of his adopted country End of chapter 6 part 4 Recording by Graham Redman Chapter 6 parts 5 and 6 of a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Graham Redman A history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 by John Bagnell Bury Chapter 6 part 5 The European expedition of Darius Conquest of Thres Cyrus had conquered the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean Cambyses had completed and secured that conquest on the south side by the subjection of Egypt It remained for Darius to complete and secure his empire on the north side by the reduction of Thres The possession of the adjacent part of the European continent was of like importance to the Lord of Asia Minor as the possession of the adjacent part of the African continent to the Lord of Syria Having spent eight years in setting his house in order Darius prepared for his European expedition It seems probable that his original design was first to subdue the Thracian peoples as far as the Danube so as to make that river the northern boundary of his empire and secondly to extend his power westward over Macedonia The Thracian race was warlike and the country is mountainous so that the Persian enterprise was serious and demanded large forces and careful precautions The skill of a Slamian architect named Mandraklis was employed to throw a bridge of boats across the Bosphorus north of Byzantium and when the Persian host had passed over Darius ordered two pillars to be set up on the European side inscribed with the names of the various peoples composing his army in Greek and Cuneiform characters These pillars were seen by the historian Herodotus and in the temple of Hera at Samos there was to be seen another monument of the crossing into Europe Mandraklis spent a part of the reward which Darius gave him in setting up there a painting in which the bridge and the crossing over with Darius seated in a prominent place were portrayed He inscribed on it four verses to this effect Having bridged the fishy Bosphorus Mandraklis dedicated to Hera a memorial of his raft bridge a crown he set upon his own head and glory upon the men of Samos for the work he wrought pleased King Darius A large fleet was also furnished by the Greek subjects of Persia to sail along the Thracian coast of the Black Sea as far as the mouths of the Danube and to support and cooperate with the army The contingents of the various Greek cities were commanded by their despots prominent among whom were histy ears of Miletus Hippoclus of Lamsakus and Multiodes of the Thracian Cursonesis No details of the warfare in Thrace are preserved We are told that many tribes submitted and the Gitais signalized their love of freedom by refusing to surrender it without a struggle It seems probable, however, that the Thracians made some preparations to meet the invader North of the Danube in the lands which are now called Wallachia and Moldavia between the Danube, the Carpathians and the Prute, lived tribes which were allied in many respects to the tribes south of the river The Greeks included these tribes under the general name of Scythian which they applied to the whole series of peoples who dwelled between the Carpathians and the Caucasus While the most easterly of that series approximated in language to the Persian, the most westerly approximated to the Thracian Nothing was more natural than that the peoples south of the Danube threatened by an Asiatic invasion should have taken steps to gain help from their neighbours on the north to oppose the Persian advance Such help would have been readily given and Darius Douglas became aware before he reached the Danube that the hostility of the Scythian beyond the Danube, whose frozen waters invited them to cross in winter might be a frequent trouble to Persian rule in Thrace The Greek fleet sailed up the mouth of the river and a bridge of boats was thrown across Darius and his army marched over into Scythia but both the king's purpose and what he did in this remote corner of the world are hidden in a cloud of legend that he may have wished to make a hostile demonstration and strike terror into the restless neighbours of Thrace is probable but it is not the whole explanation We may rather suppose that the chief object of the diversion beyond the Danube was to lay hands upon the gold mines of Dacia which was then the land of the Agathursi and to secure a route of communication between that land and the mouth of the Danube For three facts seem to emerge from the mist The first is that the Agathursi were active in opposing the march of the Persians The second that he erected forts on the river named Theorus, a name otherwise unknown but evidently a tributary of the Danube The third that his communications with the fleet which awaited his return were for some time cut off and the Greek commanders were tempted to sail away and leave him in the lurch He afterwards showed his gratitude to them for the loyalty with which they supported him in this expedition The fact is that it would have been entirely contrary to their own interests to inflict a blow on the power which maintained despotism in the Greek cities of Asia Minor But their loyalty at this juncture was all the more precious to the Persian king when he found on returning through Thrace that Byzantium, Perintus and Chalcedon had revolted These revolts forced him to avoid the Bosphorus He marched to the Thracian Cursonies and crossed the Hellespont but left behind him an army under Megabadzus which was ultimately to complete the conquest of Thrace and immediately to reduce the Greek cities along the northern coast of the Propontis and the Aegean Megabadzus established Persian dominion actually as far as the Strymon and nominally even farther west For the Peonians between the Strymon and the Axios were conquered and Macedonia acknowledged allegiance to the great king The Persian dominion over the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula lasted for about 15 years and it was increased by the acquisition of the islands of Lemnos and Imbros The excursion of Darius beyond the Danube so far as it was intended to make an impression on the Scythians seems to have been effective It is only when the Persian power is shaken by a Greek revolt and Thrace herself is able to throw off the yoke that we find Scythians overrunning Thrace and even driving Miltiades out of the Cursonies The European expedition of Darius had thus been a distinct success which might fearlessly be set beside the Egyptian expedition of Cambyses But it has come down to us in a very different and totally fabulous shape It is represented as not primarily an expedition against Thrace but as an attempt to execute the mad project of incorporating the Scythians of the steps of southern Russia in the Persian Empire In this story which is told with all the art of Herodotus, Thrace appears merely as the way to Scythia And the actual conquest of Thrace sinks into insignificance beside the ignominious failure of the Persian army to achieve the ultimate end of their wild enterprise, the conquest of Scythia Darius, whose purpose is said to have been to take vengeance on the Scythians for their invasion of Medea a hundred years before, dispatches the Greek fleet to the Ister simply for the purpose of throwing a bridge of boats across the river His first idea was to break down the bridge when he had passed over and send the ships home But by the advice of a prudent Greek he changed his plan He took a cord in which he tied sixty knots and said to the Greek captains, untie one of these knots every day and remain here and guard the bridge till they are all untied If I have not returned at the end of that time sail home The Greek historian Herodotus then conducts Darius with his vast host through the steps of Scythia as it were through Fairyland Without any regard to the rivers which had to be crossed, the leagues which had to be traversed, the want of supplies He carries him to regions beyond the Don and transports the river Oaros, on which Darius built his forts, from the neighborhood of the Danube to the neighborhood of the Miotic Sea Placing this imaginary march of the Persians in the midst of a poetical picture of the Scythian folks and the Scythian land In returning to the Danube the Persians found themselves in sore straits, chased and harassed by the barbarians and meanwhile the sixty days had passed The Ionians waited at the river beyond the ordained time and presently a band of Scythians arrived urging them to destroy the bridge so that they might ensure the destruction of Darius and gain their own freedom Miltiades, the tyrant of the Cursonese, strongly advocated the proposal of the Scythians, but the counter-arguments of Histius of Miletus prevailed for he pointed out that the power of the despots in the cities depended on the Persian domination They pretended, however, to fall in with the Scythian proposal and destroyed a part of the bridge on the northern side so that the Scythians went their ways satisfied that the retreat of Darius would be cut off A little later Darius arrived in the dark hours of the night and was filled with terror when he could discover no bridge An Egyptian with a loud voice shouted the name Histius across the water and Histius, who was himself keeping guard, heard the cry, brought up his boats and renewed the missing portion of the bridge Thus Darius, after an ignominious retreat, was saved by the good offices of Histius, whereas if the advice of Miltiades had been adopted the subsequent Persian invasion of Greece might never have taken place Thus Greek imagination inspired by Greek prejudice has changed a reasonable and successful enterprise into an insane and disastrous expedition, and the transmutation was so skillfully wrought that the fiction was taken for history until the other day End of Chapter 6 Part 5 Chapter 6 Part 6 The Ionic Revolt Against Persia The Persian conquest of Thrace and Macedonia was a step, though there is no reason for supposing it an intentional step, towards a Persian attempt to conquer Greece The attempt on Greece was not made till more than twenty years later, and for the first twelve years after the return of Darius from Thrace nothing occurred which seemed likely to bring on a great struggle between Asiatic autocracy and European freedom Hippias, the banished tyrant of Athens, repaired to Sardis and tried to induce the sap-trap Artiphenes to aid him in recovering his power Artiphenes went so far as to threaten the Athenians, envoys from Sardis said at Athens, take back Hippias if you look for safety, but he did nothing to enforce his menace It was in consequence of events in which Hippias had no part that the expedition of the Persians against Athens was at last undertaken The condition of politics in the island of Naxos led indirectly to an insurrection of the subject Greeks against the Persian power And the part which Athens and other Greek cities played in connection with this revolt was the proximate cause of the Persian expeditions against Greece In return for services rendered during the Thrace and expedition, Histius of Miletus was rewarded by Darius with the boon of his own requesting He asked for Myosinus, a town with fertile land on the lower Strymon, near the place where the famous Amphipolis was to be built at a later date, where he desired to found a colony He seems to have accompanied Megabadsus in his western march and he set to work to fortify the place at once Myosinus was in the neighborhood of Silvermines and there was abundance of wood suitable for shipbuilding The Persian general thought it would be impolitic to allow a Greek colony to be planted in such a position and communicated his views to the king who was still at Sardis And Darius, sending for Histius on the plea that he was a friend whose company was indispensable, carried him off to Sousa with the full purpose of never allowing him to return to the Aegean Thus the schemes of Histius were cut short and he spent twelve years in regrets at the court of Sousa before he had an opportunity of resuming his connection with the politics of the Aegean Myeletus was governed by his son-in-law Aristagoras, a man whose ability fell short of his ambition, but famous in history as the originator of the revolt of the Ionian Greeks To this man came a number of Naxian oligarchs who had been expelled from their city by a democratic rising, begging for help to put down the people and gain possession of the populous and wealthy island Aristagoras discerned in the request a means for his own aggrandizement, but without Persian assistance the enterprise did not seem feasible He therefore went up to Sardis and unfolded to Artefernes a project of reducing all the Cyclades and then perhaps Ubiya itself, a project of which the occupation of Naxos was to be the first step Artefernes readily entered into the plan, the consent of Darius was obtained, and two hundred ships under the command of Megabetes were placed at the disposal of the Mylesian There is little doubt that the enterprise would have been entirely successful but for a quarrel between Aristagoras and Megabetes The Persian admiral spitefully warned the Naxians of the approaching danger, the islanders made such effectual preparations that they stood a siege of four months and as there was then no likelihood of reducing the city the fleet returned to Ionia This failure was fatal to the prospect's Araristagoras. He had wasted Persian money, forfeited the confidence of Artefernes and made a powerful enemy in Megabetes. He resolved to retrieve his fortunes by inciting a revolt of the Asiatic Greeks against the Persian power The story was that his father-in-law, Histius, weary of his long exile beyond the Tigris, instigated Aristagoras to this step by a secret message branded on the head of a faithful slave. This message is said to have reached Aristagoras just at the moment when he was meditating a rebellion and to have decided him The motive of Histius in desiring the revolt is supposed to have been the conviction that Darius would send him down to Ionia to restore order, but the story sounds improbable Histius, detained at Sousa because he was already deemed dangerous to Persian interests in the Aegean, would rather have had reason to fear that a revolt promoted by his son-in-law would prove fatal to his credit with Darius It was a surprising thing that Darius was afterwards induced to send down such a near relative of Aristagoras, and we may suspect that the story that Histius instigated the rebellion was suggested by his subsequent conduct, possibly even invented by himself There were the seeds of revolt in Ionia which only needed kindling to burst into flame. It would be a superficial view to suppose that the rebellion was due to the ambition of Greek despots. On the contrary, its indispensable condition was the widespread hatred of a despotic constitution which smoldered in the cities and the despotic constitutions were part of the Persian system. An ambitious despot was indeed the means of calling this feeling into action, but in order to do so he had first to cease to be a despot The initial step in promoting the rebellion was to set up democracies in the Greek states and drive out the tyrants. Aristagoras himself resigned his position in Miletus, and in most cases the change seems to have been accomplished without the shedding of blood Mittolini was an exception. There the tyrant had earned such deep hatred that he was stoned to death. The next step was to obtain help from free Greece against the Persian power. Aristagoras undertook the mission. He went first to Sparta, but the Spartans refused to send help to free Ionia from Persian oppression, even as they had before refused to aid her against Persian invasion. In later days a delightful story was told of his visit. He went to King Cleomenes and showed him a map of the earth graven on bronze, displaying the countries of the known world, the seas, and the rivers. Cleomenes had never seen a map before, and the plausible Ionian tried to convince him that Sparta ought to aspire to the conquest of the Persian empire. Cleomenes was impressed, but deferred his reply till the third day, and then asked Aristagoras the distance from Ionia to Sousa. Three months, said Aristagoras of his guard, and he would have described the road, but the king cut him short with the command, be gone from Sparta, Mylesian stranger, before the sun sets. Aristagoras made yet another attempt. Entering the house of Cleomenes as a suppliant, he sought to bribe him. Beginning with ten talents, he gradually raised his offers till he reached fifty. Then Gorgo, the king's daughter, a child of eight or nine years, cried out, Father, the stranger will corrupt you. And moved by her words, Cleomenes left the room. The Mylesian stranger fared better at Athens and Eretria. Both these cities sent succor. Athens twenty ships. Ships, says Herodotus, with the solemnity due to the historical significance of the moment, which were the beginning of ills between Greeks and barbarians. The prospects of success seemed unfavorable to those who were acquainted with the vast resources of the Persian Empire. When Aristagoras consulted with the men of Leading at Miletus, the geographer Hecateus had tried to dissuade him. Seeing that Aristagoras and the others had made up their minds and disparaged his arguments, Hecateus gave a second best counsel. If you do revolt, seize the treasure of the temple of Apollo at Didima and become masters of the sea, for if you do not, the enemy will. But the advice was not taken. With his Athenian and Eretrian allies, Aristagoras marched up to Sardis and occupied the city, but they did not take the citadel. While they were there a fire broke out and the town was burned to the ground. The Greeks left the smoking ruins and marched back to the coast, but near Ephesus they were met by a Persian force and defeated. The Athenians straightway returned home, and with this battle the part played by Athens in the Ionic revolt comes to an end. But the brief episode was to bring serious consequences upon her in the future. The burning of Sardis was important not so much for the course of the revolt itself, as for what the revolt was to lead to. It irrevocably compromised two states of European Greece in the eyes of Persia. The story is that Darius, being told that Athenians had helped to burn Sardis, asked, The Athenians, who are they? He then called for a bow, and shooting an arrow into the air invoked heaven, that it might be given to him to punish the Athenians. Moreover he bade one of his slaves to say to him three times at dinner, Sire, remember the Athenians. The story has no historical value, but it has artistic significance in the narrative of Herodotus. The historian, as has been well observed, marks by the significant word and act that he has entered on a new phase of his great subject, the strife between Greeks and barbarians. The revolt extended southwards to Caria and to Cyprus, northwards to the Propontis. In Cyprus all the cities, except Amethus, threw off the Persian yoke, but a Phoenician fleet was sent and the island was recovered. The Hellespontine towns were also subdued. In Caria the insurgents, after suffering two serious defeats, succeeded in destroying a Persian army. But Aristagoras was a man of slight spirit, not meant by nature to be the leader of such a movement. Seeing that Persia prospered in dealing with the rebellion, he despaired of his cause and fled to Marcenus in Thrace. It is said that he called a meeting of his adherents to decide what they should do and wither they should flee. In that assembly it was proposed to sail to the distant shores of Sardinia, and here again Hecateus is related to have offered advice which Aristagoras and his friends rejected, the establishment of a fortress in the neighbouring island of Lyros, from which, if fortune favoured, they might easily return to Miletus. Aristagoras soon met his fate at the siege of Athracian town. His death did not affect the course of the rebellion in which he had played a sorry part. He has hardly left the stage when his father-in-law appears, but the role of his deus is even less important than that of Aristagoras. This adventurer persuaded, or professed that he had persuaded, Darius to send him down to the coast by promising to suppress the insurrection before he changed his tunic and to annex Sardinia to the dominion of the great king. This promise of Histius, though it may not be true to fact, is thoroughly characteristic of the Greek adventurers of that time, deceiving themselves and others with speculations on the remote island of Sardinia. When he came down to Sardis, Histius found that he was deeply suspected by the satrap art of Furnese, and feeling himself unsafe, he fled to Chios. There he embraced the cause of the rebels, asserting that he had instigated the revolt, and perhaps spreading the famous story of the message written on the slave's head. Having obtained some ships from Lesbos, he adopted the congenial business of piracy, occupying Byzantium and seizing the ships that attempted to pass the straits as long as the revolt lasted. In the end he was taken prisoner and crucified by Artafernes. The main and decisive event of the war was the siege of Miletus on which the Persians at length concentrated all their efforts. The town was blockaded by the squadron of six hundred ships which had just reduced Cyprus. The Greek fleet was stationed off the island of Ladi. It is said to have numbered three hundred and fifty-three ships, but they were ill-disciplined and the contingents were not united under a single command, nor animated by a common spirit. In the battle which ensued, the Lesbians and Samians deserted, the men of Chios fought splendidly, but they were too few. Miletus was then taken by storm, the men were slain and the women and children sent up to Sousa. The temple of Apollo at Didima, one of the chief miraculous sanctuaries of the Greek world, was surrendered by the Brankidi, its hereditary priests, and was burnt down. Some of the statues which adorned the sacred way leading to the temple have partially survived. They are of great interest to the student of Sculptia, but one of them is of interest also to the historian. It is a statue of Carries of Tychiusa who was duckless a tyrant set up in that city by Darius, and thus it is a monument of the Persian domination in Ionia. We may suspect that the burning of Apollo's shrine was not approved of by Darius himself. The respect which the king of kings felt for the oracular god is attested in the letter of Admonition which he addressed to a sap-trab of Ionia. The text of a Greek version of this letter is partly preserved on a stone and records the remarkable testimony of the king that Apollo always told the truth to the Persians. The capture of Miletus was followed by the reduction of Carrier where the rebels had for a time prospered and by the conquest of the islands. Presently the Phoenician navy appeared in the waters of the Helispont and the attempt of Eastern Greece to regain her independence was completely crushed. Though the Athenians had withdrawn from the movement in Ionia at an early stage, the tidings of the fall of Miletus produced at Athens a deep feeling of disappointment and sympathy which found expression sometime afterwards in the punishment of Frenicus, a tragic poet, who made the catastrophe of Miletus the theme of a drama. The Athenians find him for having recalled to their minds their own misfortunes. But in the meantime there had been one for them, from the Persian, what was destined to become afterwards a lasting possession. Miltiades, the tyrant of the Cursonis, took no part in the revolt, but he availed himself of it to strike for his own hand and to seize the aisles of Lemnos and Imbros. When the revolt failed, feeling himself unsafe in the Cursonis, he fled to Athens. His son was captured by the Persians, but was kindly treated by Darius, and this proves that Miltiades in his earlier career had been on friendly terms with Persia. At Athens he professed that he had conquered Lemnos and Imbros for her, and though these islands seemed to have been reoccupied by the Persians for a time, they passed back under Athenian dominion. End of Chapter 6 Part 6 Recording by Graham Redman