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

successors remains doubtful. In the East he had conquered the Drangians, Areians, Arachoti, Gedrosians, and Gandarians, to the south of the Cabul on the Indus,108 and imposed tribute on the Açvakas to the north of the Cabul.109 In the land of the Arachoti he destroyed, as we are told, the city of Capisa; Darius mentions a city, Kapisakani in Arachosia, and Capisa is also mentioned elsewhere in later writers.110 Nearchus tells us that Cyrus undertook a campaign against the land of the Indians; on the march thither he lost the greater part of his army in Gedrosia, owing to the desert and the difficulties of the way; according to the account of the natives Cyrus and seven men alone remained out of the whole army.111 In his account of Alexander of Macedon, Diodorus remarks that after he had encamped at Drangiana (V. 7), he came to the Ariaspi, who were neighbours to the Gedrosians. These Ariaspi (whose abodes we have already discovered in the neighbourhood of the Etymandros) were called "Benefactors" for the following reason. On one of his campaigns, Cyrus was in the desert, and reduced to extreme distress for want of necessaries; famine compelled his men to eat each other; till the Ariaspians brought up 30,000 waggons, filled with provisions. Thus rescued, Cyrus allowed them immunity from contributions, honoured them with other presents, and gave them the name of "Benefactors."112 Strabo also tells us that the Ariaspians received this name from Cyrus, and so does Arrian, though he gives a different and less appropriate reason for it, saying that they had assisted Cyrus in his campaign against the Scyths.113 Curtius tells us, as a reason for the name, that the Ariaspi had aided the army of Cyrus when suffering from want of provisions and the cold, with supplies and shelter.114 Herodotus observes that those who had done a service to the king were called "Orosangians." In Old Bactrian, Huvarezyanha means the doer of a kind action. Other instances are not wanting to prove that the Persian kings followed the example of Cyrus in conferring this title as a distinction.

      We may regard it as certain that Cyrus had gone beyond Gedrosia and reduced the Gandarians and the Açvakas to the north of the Cabul; that he afterwards advanced to the Indus, and his army was brought into great distress in the deserts of Gedrosia, as was afterwards the case with Alexander's army on his return from the Indus. The Ariaspians, from the position of their country, could only be in a position to bring aid if Cyrus were returning from the Indus, or if the distress was so great on the outward march that he felt himself compelled to return when in Gedrosia. Megasthenes distinctly states that Cyrus did not cross the Indus or set foot in India.115 In the north-east he had reduced the Margiani and Bactrians to lasting obedience. As he had gained a good frontier in the east on the Indus, he set himself to obtain a similar frontier in the north-east. The northern neighbours of the Hyrcanians, Parthians and Margiani, the Sacae and the Chorasmians on the lower Oxus, were subject to him. With the conquest of the Sogdiani on the western slope of the Belurdagh Cyrus touched the course of the Jaxartes. There, on a stream running into that river, he built six citadels and a large fortress to secure the border against the nomads of the steppes beyond. These, like the fortress in the land of the Cadusians (V. 388), bore the name of Cyrus. The Greeks call the north-eastern Cyrus, Cyreshata, i. e. the farthest Cyrus (V. 22).

      From the mountains of his native land Cyrus had subjugated in thirty years three great kingdoms – Media, Lydia, and Babylonia; he had conquered Asia from the shore of the Ægean Sea to the Indus, and from the brook of Egypt to the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas and the banks of the Jaxartes. None of the conquerors before him – no Pharaoh of Egypt – none of the ancient kings of Elam or Babylon, or of the restless sovereigns of Assyria, nor even the Mede Cyaxares – had achieved results which could be distantly compared with the successes of Cyrus. And he had done more than merely subdue this region; he had understood how to maintain his conquests; he was not compelled like the rulers of Assyria to begin each year a new struggle against his defeated opponents; in his unbounded empire he knew how to institute arrangements which ensured an existence of two whole centuries. Hence it would be of great service to know more precisely what his regulations were for the management of his empire. But we are almost entirely without information about them. We can only attempt to draw conclusions from certain hints supplied by tradition as to the form which Cyrus gave to his dominions. We have already remarked that the Greeks ascribed to Cyrus the foundation of excellent institutions, and placed him by the side of Lycurgus; they maintained that at the time of Cyrus the Persians were in a condition midway between slavery and freedom. Arrian observes that the Persians, with whom Cyrus deprived the Medes of the empire and subjugated the remaining nations of Asia partly by arms and partly by voluntary submission, were poor and the inhabitants of a rugged country, and obeyed regulations which made their training like that of the Spartans.116 We can plainly see that the kingdom rested on the power and devotion of the Persians; they were the ruling tribe beside the sovereign, and in addition to the proud consciousness that they were the lords of the empire Cyrus allowed them to enjoy the fruits and advantages of dominion. The Persians were free from contributions and taxes for the empire, they had only to render military service. Xenophon tells us that in the time of Cyrus the owners of land furnished excellent horsemen, who took the field; the rest served for pay. The garrisons in the fortresses were composed of Persians who were handsomely treated.117 The Greeks have already told us that Cyrus permitted the Persians to express their opinions freely and openly, and paid honour to those who gave good counsel, and if they assert that no one rewarded services more liberally (V. 390), these rewards would mainly fall into the hands of the Persians. From the Persians were first and chiefly elected the captains of the armies, the commanders of the contingents which the subject nations had to furnish, and the viceroys who governed the conquered provinces. Yet nearer to the king stood the six princes of the Persian tribes (the prince of the Pasargadae was the king), the descendants of those who in union with Achaemenes had once governed the Persian nation. Like the king himself they wore the upright tiara; from their families the king had to choose his legitimate wife, while his daughters were married to the sons of the tribal princes.118 The wife of Cyrus was the daughter of the tribal prince Pharnaspes. The chiefs of the Persians were the nearest to the throne; they entered into the king's presence unannounced, and no doubt formed with the king the chief council of the kingdom. Besides this chief council there was a supreme court of seven judges. These, as Herodotus tells us, were chosen men, who had to pronounce sentence for the Persians, and explain the customs of the fathers; and "everything was brought before them." They held their office for life, unless convicted of injustice.119 We also find that the son succeeded the father. But even these judges were subject to the supervision and authority of the king, and if it was proved that any of them had received bribes he inflicted the severest penalties.120

      "At the time of the Medes," Herodotus tells us, "the nations ruled over each other; the Medes ruled over all, and directly over those nearest to them; these again over their neighbours, who in their turn ruled over those who lay on their borders. In the same way the Persians estimate the value of nations. They consider themselves by far the best of all nations; next in order come those who live nearest to them, and those who are most remote are held in least estimation."121 If Herodotus has here correctly represented the self-consciousness of the Persians his statement also obviously implies the pride of race, the community of language and religion, which united the Persians with the kindred nations of the Iranian table-land, and most closely with the Medes, and the nations of Western Iran. This feeling presented itself to Cyrus as a valuable political consideration, and he felt himself called upon to win for his kingdom the Medes as the nation nearest akin to the Persians and more numerous. With this view he spared and respected Astyages, took his daughter into his house, and made her his wife, and even in the first decade of his reign had no hesitation in appointing Medes as generals and viceroys; the custom of his successors, to reside for some time in Ecbatana, in order by this means to attach the Medes to the kingdom,

108

Behist. 1, 6.

109

Arrian. "Ind." 1, 1.

110

Plin. "H. N." 6, 25; Ptolem. 6, 18.

111

Script. Alex. Magni; fragm. 23, ed. Müller.

112

Diod. 17, 81.

113

Strabo, p. 724; Arrian, "Anab." 3, 27, 4; 4, 4, 6.

114

Curtius, 7, 3, 1.

115

In Strabo, p. 686.

116

Arrian, "Anab." 4, 5.

117

Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 6, 6, 9; 8, 8, 20.

118

E. g. Ctes. "Pers." 43.

119

Herod. 3, 31; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 6, 4; Esther i. 14.

120

Herod. 5, 25; 7, 194.

121

Herod. 1, 134.