332 CAPTURE AND DEATH OF SPARGAPISES. Book L the body which had been left behind by Cyrus, and on their resistance put them to the sword. Then, seeing the banquet prepared, they sat down and began to feast. When they had eaten and drunk their fill, and were now sunk in sleep, the Persians under Cyrus arrived, slaughtered a great multitude, and made even a larger number prisoners. Among these last was Spargapises himself. 212. When Tomyris heard what had befallen her son and her army, she sent a herald to Cyrus, who thus addressed the conqueror:-"Thou bloodthirsty Cyrus, pride not thyself on this poor success: it was the grape-juice—which, when ye drink it, makes you so mad, and as ye swallow it down brings up to your lips such bold and wicked words—it was this poison wherewith thou didst ensnare my child, and so overcamest him, not in fair open fight. Now hearken what I advise, and be sure I advise thee for thy good. Restore my son to me and get thee from the land unharmed, triumphant over a third part of the host of the Massagetæ. Refuse, and I swear by the sun, the sovereign lord of the Massagetæ, bloodthirsty as thou art, I will give thee thy fill of blood." 213. To the words of this message Cyrus paid no manner of regard. As for Spargapises, the son of the queen, when the wine went off, and he saw the extent of his calamity, he made request to Cyrus to release him from his bonds; then, when his prayer was granted, and the fetters were taken from his limbs, as soon as his hands were free, he destroyed himself. 214. Tomyris, when she found that Cyrus paid no heed to her advice, collected all the forces of her kingdom, and gave him battle. Of all the combats in which the barbarians have engaged among themselves, I reckon this to have been the fiercest. The following, as I understand, was the manner of it-First, the two armies stood apart and shot their arrows at -is an unsatisfactory compound. And, besides, the sv of the Sanscrit invariably changes to an aspirate or guttural in the Zend, Persian, and other cognate dialects-svarga in fact becoming kheng or gang, as in the famous gangdiz or Paradise of Persian romance.-H. C. R.] CHAP. 211-214. BATTLE, AND DEATH OF CYRUS. 333 each other; then, when their quivers were empty, they closed and fought hand-to-hand with lances and daggers; and thus they continued fighting for a length of time, neither choosing to give ground. At length the Massagetæ prevailed. The greater part of the army of the Persians was destroyed, and Cyrus himself fell, after reigning nine and twenty years. Search was made among the slain by order of the queen for the body of Cyrus, and when it was found she took a skin, and, filling it full of human blood, she dipped the head of Cyrus in the gore, saying, as she thus insulted the corse, "I live and have conquered thee in fight, and yet by thee am I ruined, for thou tookest my son with guile; but thus I make good my threat, and give thee thy fill of blood." Of the many different accounts which are given of the death of Cyrus, this which I have followed appears to me most worthy of credit.3 3 It may be questioned whether the account, which out of many seemed to our author most worthy of credit, was ever really the most credible. Unwittingly Herodotus was drawn towards the most romantic and poetic version of each story, and what he admired most seemed to him the likeliest to be true. There is no insincerity or pretence in this. In real good faith he adopts the most perfectly poetic tale or legend. He does not, like Livy, knowingly falsify history. With respect to the particular matter of the death of Cyrus, the fact of the existence of his tomb at Pasargadæ, vouched for by Aristobulus, one of the companions of Alexander (much better reported by Arrian, vi. 29, than by Strabo, xv. p. 1036), seems conclusive against the historic truth of the narrative of Herodotus. Larcher's supposition that the tomb at Pasargada was a cenotaph (Histoire d'Hérod., vol. i. p. 509) is contradicted by the whole relation in Arrian, where we hear not ' only of the gold sarcophagus, but of the body also, whereof, after the tomb had been violated, Aristobulus himself collected and interred the remains. The inscription too ("Iam Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, who founded the empire of the Persians, and ruled over Asia. Grudge me not then this monument") could scarcely have been placed on a cenotaph. There can be no reasonable doubt that the body of Cyrus was interred in the tomb described, after Aristobulus, in Arrian. According to Xenophon, Cyrus died peacefully in his bed (Cyrop. VIII. vii.); according to Ctesias, he was severely wounded in a battle which he fought with the Derbices, and died in camp of his wounds (Persic. Excerpt. § 6-8). Of these two authors, Ctesias, perhaps, is the less untrustworthy. On his authority, conjoined with that of Herodotus, it may be considered certain, 1. That Cyrus did a violent death; and 2. That he received his death-wound in fight; but against what enemy must continue a doubtful point. There is much reason to believe that the tomb of Cyrus still exists at MurgAub, the ancient Pasargadæ. On a square base, composed of immense blocks of beautiful white marble, rising in steps, stands a structure so closely resembling the description of Arrian, that it seems scarcely possible to doubt its being the tomb which in Alexander's 334 DRESS AND CUSTOMS OF THE MASSAGETE. Book I. 215. In their dress and mode of living the Massagetæ resemble the Scythians. They fight both on horseback and on foot, neither method is strange to them: they use bows and lances, but their favourite weapon is the battle-axe. Their arms are all either of gold or brass. For their spear time contained the body of Cyrus. It is a quadrangular house, or rather chamber, built of huge blocks of marble, 5 feet thick, which are shaped at the top into a sloping roof. Internally the chamber is 10 feet long, 7 wide, and 8 high. There are holes in the marble floor, which seem to have admitted the fastenings of a sarcophagus. The tomb stands in an area marked out by pillars, whereon occurs repeatedly the inscription (written both in Persian and in the so-called Median), "I am Cyrus the king, the Achæmenian." A full account, with a sketch of the structure (from which the accompanying view is taken), will be found in Ker Porter's Travels (vol. i. pp. 498-506). It is called by the natives the tomb of the 4 There is some doubt as to the The [The oáyapıs is in all probability the khanjar of modern Persia, a short, curved, double-edged dagger, almost universally worn. The original form CHAP. 215, 216. DRESS AND CUSTOMS OF THE MASSAGETÆ. 335 points, and arrow-heads, and for their battle-axes, they make use of brass; for head-gear, belts, and girdles, of gold. So too with the caparison of their horses, they give them breastplates of brass, but employ gold about the reins, the bit, and the cheek-plates. They use neither iron nor silver, having none in their country; but they have brass and gold in abundance.5 216. The following are some of their customs:-Each man has but one wife, yet all the wives are held in common; for this is a custom of the Massagetæ and not of the Scythians, as the Greeks wrongly say. Human life does not come to its natural close with this people; but when a man grows very old, all his kinsfolk collect together and offer him up in sacrifice; offering at the same time some cattle also. After the sacrifice they boil the flesh and feast on it; and those who thus end their days are reckoned the happiest. If a man dies of disease they do not eat him, but bury him in the ground, bewailing his ill-fortune that he did not come to be sacrificed. They sow no grain, but live on their herds, and on fish, of which there is great plenty in the Araxes. Milk is what they chiefly drink. The only god they worship is the sun, and to him they offer the horse in sacrifice; under the notion of giving to the swiftest of the gods the swiftest of all mortal creatures. of the word was probably svagar.H. C. R.] 5 Both the Ural and the Altai mountains abound in gold. The richness of these regions in this metal is indicated (book iv. ch. 27) by the stories of the gold-guarding Grypes, and the Arimaspi who plunder them (book iii. ch. 116). Altai is said to be derived from a Tatar word signifying gold (Rennell's Geogr. of Herod. p. 136). The present productiveness of the Ural mountains is well known. Gold utensils are frequently found in the tumuli which abound throughout the steppe region. 6 So Ovid says of the Persians-"Placat equo Persis radiis Hyperiona cinctum, Ne detur celeri victima tarda Deo." Xenophon ascribes the custom both to them (Cyrop. VIII. iii. § 24) and to the Armenians (Anab. IV. v. § 35). Horse sacrifices are said to prevail among the modern Parsees. APPENDIX TO BOOK I. ESSAY I. ON THE EARLY CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY OF LYDIA. 1. Date of the taking of Sardis by Cyrus—according to the common account, B.C. 546. 2. According to Volney and Heeren, B.C. 557. 3. Probable actual date, B.C. 554. 4. First or mythic period of Lydian history-dynasty of the Atyada. 5. Colonisation of Etruria. 6. Conquest of the Mæonians by the LydiansTorrhebia. 7. Second period-dynasty of the Heraclidæ, B.C. 1229 to B.C. 724 -descent of Agron. 8. Scantiness of the historical data for this period. 9. Lydiaca of Xanthus. 10. Insignificance of Lydia before Gyges. 11. Third period, B.C. 724-554-legend of Gyges-he obtains the throne by favour of the Delphic oracle. 12. Reign of Gyges, B.C. 724-686-his wars with the Greeks of the coast. 13. Reign of Ardys, B.c. 686-637. 14. Invasion of the Cimmerians. 15. Reign of Sadyattes, B.C. 637-625. 16. Reign of Alyattes, B.C. 625-568-war with Miletus. 17. Great war between Alyattes and Cyarares, king of Media-eclipse of Thales, B.C. 603 (?). 18. Peaceful close of his reign-employment of the population in the construction of his tomb. 19. Supposed association of Croesus in the government by Alyattes. 20. Reign of Croesus, B.C. 568-554-his enormous wealth. 21. Powerful effect on the Greek mind of his reverse of fortune-his history becomes a favourite theme with romance writers, who continually embellish it. 1. THE early chronology of Lydia depends entirely upon the true date of the taking of Sardis by Cyrus. Clinton, Grote, Bähr, and most recent chronologers, following the authority of Sosicrates 1 1 Although Sosicrates is referred to by Mr. Grote (vol. iv. p. 264, note 2) and by Mr. Clinton, under the year B.C. 546, as an authority for placing the capture of Sardis in that year, yet the passage in Diogenes Laertius, to which reference is made (i. 95), produces, according to Clinton's own showing (Appendix, xvii. vol. ii. p. 361), not the year B.C. 546, but the following year, B.C. 545. It is, perhaps, more important to observe that Sosicrates says nothing at all of the taking of Sardis, but only affirms that Periander died in the last year of the 48th Olympiad, forty-one years before Cræsus. He can scarcely have meant, Dionysius Halicarnas. (in one passage) Pliny and Clemens Alexandr. Dionysius Halicar. (in another passage) B.C. 718 717 715 708 699 698 |