The History of Antiquity Volume Iii Part 18

All these contradictions and marvels, combined with the detailed and lively delineation of the life of the king among his women, the full account of the relation of Arbaces and Belesys, their characteristic traits, and the dramatic description of the battle, where victory hangs by a hair, and the preparations for self-incremation, show us that Ctesias has followed a poetical authority in describing the end, no less than the beginning of the a.s.syrian kingdom,--an authority of the same kind as that which could give us such accurate information about the origin, character, and fortunes of Semiramis, and the war with the Indians. The question about the origin of this authority is easier to answer here than in regard to the former descriptions. It is a Mede who is brought to honour, whose force and vigour can overthrow a great kingdom, whose courage and bravery are marked in comparison with the ruler of a.s.syria, no less than his honesty and gentleness puts to shame the treachery and avarice of his Babylonian accomplice. On him, the skilful hunter, the brave warrior, when in his service at the gate he hears of the king's effeminate life, the thought forces itself, that there is need of a brave man. The dream of the horse, which lets chaff fall on Arbaces, belongs decidedly to the conceptions of the Iranian nations, the Medes and Persians. The interpreter skilled in the stars, the Babylonian, knows at once what is the significance of the dream, and hastens to secure his share of the spoil, the satrapy of Babylonia, by a solemn promise taken from Arbaces. The sight of the king in female adornment, painting himself, which Arbaces finally obtains by bribing Sparameizes, decides his resolve. He gains the captains of the troops stationed with him at Nineveh. The war commences. The rebels are defeated even in the third battle, in spite of the heroic deeds of Arbaces and the number of the a.s.syrians slain by him. He is wounded; the army is compelled to retire as far as the borders of Babylonia. The Babylonian, who, after the second battle, has kept up the courage of the confederates by his astrology, adjures them to remain but five days. In this s.p.a.ce of time Arbaces, who goes boldly to meet the Bactrians, succeeds in winning them, in surprising the a.s.syrian camp, in defeating Salarmenes, and destroying the a.s.syrian army in the third battle before the gates. The rebels have lost three battles, now they win three. The old oracle is fulfilled: the river becomes hostile to the city. Arbaces takes the place of Sardanapalus. The subtilty and cunning of the Babylonian, which is brought strongly forward beside his knowledge of the heavens, is contrasted with the uprightness of the Mede. Belesys has deceived him. When condemned to death Arbaces not only gives him his life; he despises the miserable gold, and leaves it to Belesys; he keeps strictly the promise he had once made to him on the Tigris, and the nations of Asia are in consequence compelled to acknowledge that Arbaces is worthy to rule them.

It is a poetical conception which contrasts the simple character and force of the Median servant with the effeminate splendour of the sovereign of a.s.syria, and which places beside the former, to aid and support him, the astrology and cunning of the Babylonians. But by this contrast the Medo-Persian Epos obtained another advantage; the completion of the whole poem. A masculine woman, Semiramis, had founded the kingdom; an effeminate man brings it to ruin. Herodotus does not know the name of Sardanapalus. But the name was known to the Greeks; before Ctesias wrote it had pa.s.sed into a by-word--"more luxurious than Sardanapalus."[525] The effeminate traits are marked with extraordinary depth in the narrative of Ctesias; he not only wears woman's clothes, and does woman's work, but he imitates the voice of a woman, and pursues the pleasures of the male and female. Hence we must conclude that as the Median minstrels have used the myth and the form of Istar, a G.o.ddess of the Semites, in their delineation of Semiramis; so in their delineation of Sardanapalus, the opposite of Semiramis, they have used the myth of the Semitic G.o.d, who exchanges his nature with the female G.o.ddess placed beside him, who wears the woman's robe, and spins purple wool, just as his wors.h.i.+ppers on certain festivals wore women's garments (I. 372).

But if the G.o.d placed by the side of Istar a.s.sumed the nature of the woman, as Istar a.s.sumed the nature of the man, the masculine nature was not wholly lost to him. Thus the minstrels could represent Sardanapalus as taking up arms at the approach of the danger, and fighting bravely.

It is no doubt due to this interchange of the masculine and feminine nature that h.e.l.lanicus and Callisthenes maintained that there were two princes of the name of Sardanapalus; the one was n.o.ble and active; the other sought his happiness in debauchery.[526] Even in the description of the death of Sardanapalus incidents in the wors.h.i.+p of the Syrian G.o.ddess seem to have given the type to the Median minstrels. At the great festivals vast pyres were built to the sun-G.o.d of the Syrians; a number of precious goods were heaped upon them, which were set on fire together with an image of the G.o.d placed upon the pyre, who was supposed to renew his youth in the conflagration.[527] Lucian's statement that a statue of Sardanapalus stood beside that of Semiramis in the temple at Hierapolis can only support the conclusion that traits of the G.o.d united with Istar, and of his wors.h.i.+p, were employed in the description of Sardanapalus.

To the Greeks Sardanapalus became a prophet of the philosophy which teaches us to exhaust life in enjoyment, because it is short, and nothing remains to a man beyond what the body has enjoyed. Aristobulus, the companion of Alexander, narrates: "Near Anchiale, where the camp was pitched, is a monument of Sardanapalus, on which stands a bronze figure, pressing together the fingers of the right hand, as though snapping them; the inscription says, in a.s.syrian letters: 'Sardanapalus, the son of Anakyndaraxes, built Anchiale and Tarsus in a single day. Eat, drink, be merry, the rest is not worth so much,' _i.e._ a snap of the fingers."[528] These words were worked out more fully among the Greeks, embodied in verse, and given out as an epitaph composed by Sardanapalus for his tomb, and to be found either at Anchiale or Nineveh.[529]

In the narrative of Herodotus also there is more than one difficulty. It is intended, as it states, to show how the nations of Asia, after this liberation from the a.s.syrians, again came under one master. The Medes, as brave warriors, liberate themselves from the a.s.syrians, but after this liberation they are found in a condition of utter lawlessness.

Without combination of their powers, without union under one strong leader, could the Medes have succeeded in withdrawing themselves from a power so great as the a.s.syrian power was, even in the description of Herodotus? This lawlessness is brought to an end, not by a mighty warrior, but by a clever, ambitious village-judge, who by his decisions so gains the affections of the Medes, that they elect him to be king.

When chosen he knows how to lead them by cunning, or rather to infatuate them into giving him a body-guard and building him a palace. Then he compels them to live together in one city, and, in the course of a long reign, establishes the despotic system of Asia to its full extent, with all its appliances, among the Medes. From this establishment of monarchy among the Medes, re-establishment of the despotic government spreads over all Asia. Phraortes, the son of Deioces, subjugates the Persians, and then all the nations which obeyed the a.s.syrians, in order finally to turn upon the latter. Could the a.s.syrians, who, according to the narrative of Herodotus, "were abandoned by their allies, but otherwise in a good state," at the time when Herodotus attacked them, have looked on at the successes of Phraortes, and quietly waited till they were reached in the series? Would they not rather have attempted in good time to meet the rise of the Medes, which occurred close upon their borders, and threatened them first of all? Phraortes, with the greater part of his army, is slain. To revenge his death, his son Cyaxares invests Nineveh. But the Scoloti have missed their way; they come upon the Medes instead of the Cimmerians, whom they are pursuing; none the less they begin battle with them, overcome them, and obtain the dominion over Asia--which they never desired--from Media to Egypt. After a part of them had suffered punishment from the G.o.ddess of Ascalon, they allow themselves to be made drunk by Cyaxares. They are ma.s.sacred in part, and when they have returned to their own land--of which we are not told whether they ever possessed it before--they have to undergo a severe contest with the sons whom their wives have in the mean time brought forth to their slaves. These sons do not meet them on the Don, _i.e._ on the border which Herodotus fixes for the land of the Scoloti, but on the Crimea. The returning host bring this struggle, in which they could not conquer by force of arms, to a happy end by raising their whips. After the departure of the Scythians, Cyaxares again obtains the dominion over the nations which his father previously subjugated, and conquers Nineveh. Whether the war of Cyaxares with the Lydians took place before or after the capture of Nineveh is not clear from the narrative of Herodotus. It is at the least remarkable that Cyaxares, after he has escaped from the yoke of the Scythians by treachery and violence, should not only receive a troop of the same nation into his country, but show them favour, make them his hunters and the educators of Median boys, and then because the Lydian king prevents him from avenging a crime of the fugitives, carry on war for five years with the Lydians, till a sign from heaven puts an end to it. Were Lydia and Media neighbouring countries after Nineveh fell, or before? Had Cyaxares, when at war with Lydia, already recovered the dominion which Phraortes had established for the Medes over all Asia? If this was the case, were there princes of Cilicia and Babylonia in existence, or in such an independent position that they could come forward to negotiate peace and affinity between the contending states, Lydia and Media?

From this examination of the two accounts as to their separate contents, let us now proceed to inquire whether the statements in them agree with what has come down to us from other sources, and can be deduced from the last monuments of a.s.syria. The narrative of Ctesias is based on the view that the a.s.syrian kingdom was arranged in satrapies, like the kingdom of the Achaemenids: the inscriptions of the kings of a.s.shur have made it sufficiently clear that this was not the case. We have already seen that neither the statement of Ctesias about the duration of the a.s.syrian kingdom, nor that of Herodotus about the strength of their dominion, is tenable (II. 27, 46); not more tenable is the date given by Ctesias for the fall of a.s.syria. According to Ctesias, Arbaces overthrew the a.s.syrian kingdom in the year 883 or 878 B.C. (p. 262), and set up the dominion of himself and his descendants, the kings of Media, in the place of the dominion of the a.s.syrians. But we found above that a.s.surnasirpal, the son of Tiglath Adar, ascended the throne of a.s.syria in 883 B.C.--that his campaigns reached the coasts of Syria, that at his time Media was not yet subject to the a.s.syrian kingdom, that with him the long series of royal princes begins who raised a.s.syria to the height of her power, and that it was the army of his immediate successors which first trod the land of Media.

Herodotus represents the kings of the Medes as reigning over Asia for 128 years, "deducting the time during which the Scythians ruled."[530]

His figures for the reigns of the Median kings, from Deioces to Phraortes, give 150 years from the beginning of Deioces down to the overthrow of Astyages.[531] The overthrow of Astyages took place in the year 558 B.C., and, therefore, Deioces began to reign in 708 B.C. How long before this the Medes liberated themselves from the dominion of a.s.syria, how long they lived in their free but lawless condition before electing Deioces king, Herodotus does not state. Enough that the Medes must, according to his statement, have liberated themselves in the second half of the eighth century B.C. But at this very time Tiglath Pilesar II. and Sargon ruled over a.s.syria; at this time the first advanced to Arachosia, repeatedly imposed tribute on the chiefs and cities of the land of Media (p. 3), while Sargon receives tribute from 22, then from 28, and finally from 45, chiefs of the Medes (p. 101). He boasts to be ruler over Media as far as the distant city of Simaspati, in the East; and the Hebrew Scriptures told us that the Israelites carried away after the capture of Samaria (722 B.C.) were settled in the cities of the Medes (p. 85). But not only did the kings of a.s.shur receive or compel acts of obedience from the tribes of the Medes at the time when, according to Herodotus' statement, Deioces ascended the throne of Media; Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) imposes tribute on the distant regions of Media; Esarhaddon removes distant tribes of Media, with their flocks, to a.s.syria, and subjugates cities which, as he maintains, lie far away in the land of Media (p. 150); and even the inscriptions of a.s.surbanipal, from the period before the year 650 B.C., speak of a captive chief of the Medes (p. 167). From all this it is clear that the liberation of the Medes took place later than Herodotus states. In his account, therefore, we can only retain the facts that Cyaxares, who, according to his statement, ascended the throne in the year 633 B.C., fought with success against the a.s.syrians--that the invasion of the Scythians, and their expulsion, the fall of a.s.syria, the great war with the Lydians, and, finally, the capture of Nineveh, took place in his reign, _i.e._ in the period from 633 to 593 B.C. (p. 262).

Most remarkable is the sudden incursion of the Scythians into Media, the ground for which is a pursuit wholly without any reason (p. 242), and the missing of the proper route. Let us examine the separate statements about this invasion, in order to come, if possible, nearer to the actual facts. The incursion of northern nations into Hither Asia at the time stated by Herodotus, _i.e._ in the second half of the seventh century, is a fact. In the reign of Josiah, king of Judah (640-609 B.C.), the prophet Zephaniah[532] announces a great judgment, which will come not only on Judah, Gaza and Ascalon, Ashdod and Ekron, Moab and Ammon, Egypt and Ethiopia, but also on Nineveh. Hence the prophet cannot have in his eye a punishment coming on Syria and Egypt from a.s.syria. From the earnest manner in which the prophet exhorts to repentance and improvement, to the purification of the sanctuary, and removal of "the remnant of Baal," the servants of Baal, it follows that this announcement of a coming judgment belongs to the period in the reign of Josiah, which lies before the reform of the wors.h.i.+p and the publication of the new law, _i.e._ to the period from 640 to 622 B.C. (p. 213).

Jeremiah speaks more definitely in the thirteenth year of Josiah[533] or soon after, _i.e._ in or immediately after the year 628 B.C. "I will bring evil from the north, and great destruction. The lion is come up from the thicket, and the destroyer of the nations is on his way." "Evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction."[534] "Lo! a people cometh from the north, and a great nation riseth from the uttermost end of the earth. It is a mighty nation, whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. They come on like clouds, like a whirlwind are their chariots; their horses are swifter than eagles. They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth as the sea, and they ride on horses set in array as men of war against thee. Their quiver is an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men. Jehovah called the families of the kingdoms of the north; a burning wind comes from the hills of the desert, besiegers come from a distant land. Lions shall roar against Israel, and shall make his land a desert, his cities shall be burned, empty of inhabitants. Declare ye in Judah and publish in Jerusalem; blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Bethhaccerem.[535] Suddenly will the destroyer come upon us, suddenly are the tents spoiled, and the carpets in a moment. Every place shall flee before the noise of the horseman and the archer; they shall creep into thickets and climb up the rocks. Let us go into the strong cities; go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way: for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side. Our hands are feeble, pain and anguish have taken hold upon us. O my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes. The besiegers come up from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah. As keepers of a field they are against Jerusalem round about. The shepherds and their flocks shall come to Jerusalem, they shall feed every one in his own place. They shall glean the remnant of Israel as a vine, saith Jehovah of Hosts; the land shall be a desert. Nevertheless I will not make a full end."

From this description, taken in combination with the proclamation of Zephaniah against the Philistines, against Ascalon and Egypt, it is clear that the whole of Syria, as Herodotus told us, as far as the borders of Egypt--on which, in his account, the Scythians were induced to turn back by the entreaties and presents of Psammetichus (p.

258)--was overrun and laid waste. It is also clear that Jerusalem and the fortified cities of Syria withstood the invaders, and the storm soon pa.s.sed by. It is not known whether the name Scythopolis, given by the Greeks to Bethshan, is in any way connected with this incursion of Scythians.[536] The only other author who knows of this incursion of Scythians into Asia is Pompeius Trogus. With him it is their third invasion. In the first, which they made before the time of Ninus of a.s.syria, the marshes prevented them from invading Egypt; on their return from these they spent fifteen years in subjugating Asia and imposing a moderate tribute upon the land, the payment of which was brought to an end by Ninus. The second invasion was made in aid of the Amazons, when hard pressed by Heracles and Theseus, at their entreaty. On the third campaign against Asia they were absent eight years, and on their return had to carry on war against their slaves; in this they finally got the victory by their rods and whips, and all the slaves whom they could capture were crucified.[537]

The chronology which can be deduced from the data found in the announcements of the two prophets gives us the period from 640 to 625 B.C. for the invasion of Hither Asia by the Scythians, and this completely agrees with the statements of Herodotus. In order to avenge the death of his father Phraortes, who fell, with the greater part of his army, before the a.s.syrians, Cyaxares, according to Herodotus, immediately after his accession, _i.e._ in the year 633 B.C., set out against Nineveh. During his siege of Nineveh, the incursion of the Scythians into Media took place. According to this, Herodotus placed the commencement of the invasion of Media by the Scythians in the year 633 B.C. or 632 B.C. The chronographers, Eusebius and Hieronymus, put the invasion at the same time; they observe, the first at the year 632 B.C., the second at the year 634 B.C., that "the Scythians forced their way as far as Palestine." Syncellus gives only the general statement, that in the days of king Josiah, Palestine was overrun by the Scythians, and the city of Bethshan taken by them, whence its name.[538]

The name Scythians, as has been already remarked, was applied by the Greeks and Romans in a wider sense to all the nomadic and equestrian tribes of the North; it was a comprehensive t.i.tle for almost all the whole complex of the northern nations. To which nation of the Scythians, we may ask, did these hordes belong, which in the period just fixed, _i.e._ between 632 and 625 B.C., invaded and laid waste Hither Asia, from the Caucasus to Egypt? According to Herodotus, they were the ancestors of the Scythians between the Danube and the Don, the Scoloti.

Herodotus represents them as invading Asia in their pursuit of the Cimmerians. But what reason was there for the pursuit, when the Cimmerians had voluntarily abandoned the land which the Scoloti desired?

Besides, for more than a century before the date at which Herodotus represents them as flying to Asia before the Scythians, the Cimmerians were settled on the Halys, and must have been well known to the nations of Asia Minor; and ever since the emigration of the Cimmerians, _i.e._ for an equal period, the Scoloti had possessed the old abodes of the Cimmerians on the Pontus. What could have induced the Scoloti to undertake such a pursuit a good hundred years later? What made them miss the way, and come into Media instead of Cappadocia? Herodotus tells us that the Scoloti had taken a far longer route than that which led past Colchis, to Asia, so that they came out in Media, with the Caucasus on the right hand. By this "upper way," the pa.s.s of Derbend, on the Caspian Sea, may be meant, which would have brought the hordes of the North into Media through the land of the Cadusians, who were hostile to the Medes; but if we measure from the banks of the Don, where, according to Herodotus' narrative, we have to conceive the Scoloti as situated in their advance upon the Cimmerians from the East, this route could hardly be described as much longer than that by Colchis. By the upper route Herodotus apparently means the route round the Caspian Sea. The supposed error in the proper route may lead us into the right path, if we a.s.sume that the hordes which then invaded Media and inundated Asia were not mounted nomads from the steppes above the Black Sea, on the upper course of the Don, but nomads dwelling beyond the Caspian, in the steppes on the Oxus and Jaxartes. The legendary poetry of East Iran is filled with long and mighty struggles of the ancient heroes with those nations; and Ctesias tells us, again, without doubt, following the minstrelsy of West Iran, of the severe and doubtful wars which the predecessor of Astyages of Media, whom he calls Artaeus, and Herodotus Cyaxares, carried on against the Sacae, the neighbours of the Parthians and Hyrcanians in the steppes on the Oxus. It was these Sacae who, four centuries after the invasion of Media by Herodotus' Scythians, burst through Parthia and Hyrcania, possessed themselves of the valleys of the Hilmend, the best region in the east of Iran, and gave to this region the name of Sikashtan, _i.e._ land of the Sacae, now Sedshestan. On the earlier occasion the Sacae may have made the same attempt to break into Iran. If nations on the steppes on the Oxus had overpowered Media, if they had also established themselves in Hither Asia, youthful bands of Sarmatians and Scoloti might have felt tempted to go out from the Pontus and take part in the campaign of plunder. In ascribing the invasion of Asia to the Scoloti, Herodotus no doubt followed the authority of his own people, the Greek settlers on the northern coast of the Pontus. The Cimmerians had once dwelt in these regions, and had retired from them before the Scoloti. It happened that at the time of king Ardys of Lydia (his reign, according to Herodotus, extended from 681 B.C. to 632 B.C.), these Cimmerians made an incursion into the west of Asia Minor from the abodes which they had obtained on the Halys, and forced their way at that time as far as Lydia and the Greek cities on the coast. They took Sardis, except the Acropolis. "It was not a subjugation of the cities,"

says Herodotus, "but only a pa.s.sing raid."[539] The narrative of Herodotus proves conclusively that he knew nothing of the earlier incursions of the Cimmerians into the west of Asia Minor, and therefore he a.s.sumed that this campaign against Sardis and the cities of the Greeks, in the time of Ardys, was identical in date, and, in fact, the same as the incursion of the Cimmerians into Asia Minor. And as Herodotus also learnt that Cyaxares of Media was overthrown by Scythian hordes who devastated all Asia, and that fugitives of these hordes had also come into the west of Asia Minor to the grandson of Ardys, Alyattes of Lydia, he represents the Cimmerians as being pursued towards Asia, along the Pontus, by their ancient enemies, the Scoloti, who, he thinks, missed their way. He was evidently confirmed in this opinion by the fact that certain families of the Scoloti suffered from a loss of s.e.xual power (p. 258), a disease which the Greeks on the Pontus attributed to the anger of Aphrodite Urania, the G.o.ddess of fertility, whose oldest and most famous temple was at Ascalon, in Syria. Hippocrates says that this disease showed itself among the wealthiest families of the Scoloti, and not among the poor, because the former were always on horseback;[540] according to Aristotle the disease was hereditary in the royal family of the Scythians.[541] Lastly, a story of the slaves of the Scythians, who, in the absence of their masters, had made themselves masters, helped to attribute the invasion of Asia to this nation of the Scythians. The basis of the story, which obviously belongs to the Crimea, lies in the fact that after the Scoloti had forced the Tauri, the ancient inhabitants of the Crimea, into the mountains of this peninsula, and had subjugated and made slaves of those who remained behind in the plains, both the one and the other must have seized a favourable opportunity to make themselves again masters of the peninsula, and close it against the Scoloti by means of a trench. The supposed effect of the whips is due, no doubt, to the h.e.l.lenes in Scythia, who thus marked the nature and the existence of slavery.

The liberation of the Medes from the dominion of the a.s.syrians must not only have taken place later, but in a different manner from that narrated by Herodotus. The inscriptions of the kings of a.s.shur showed us that the tribes of the Medes whom Herodotus calls Arizantes, Busae, Struchatae, Budaeans, and Paraetaceni, lived separately, under a number of princes. Not long after the settlement of the Israelites in the cities of the Medes, in the year 715 B.C., Sargon represents a prince Dayaukka as carried away captive with his people; and in 713 B.C. he takes the field against Bit Dayauku, and receives tribute from 45 princes of the Medes (p. 101). Hence among the regions of the chieftains of Media, there was a region which the a.s.syrians called the land or house of Dayauku, just as with them Israel was Bit Omri. Deioces, the prince from whom Bit Dayauku received its name, who, in Herodotus, is a son of Phraortes, must in consequence have founded a sovereignty in Media, or at any rate have been at the head of a sovereignty derived from his father, about the year 720 B.C. at the lowest. We may without hesitation look for this region in the land of Ecbatana, but at that time it cannot have taken up a large part of Media. Neither the inscriptions of Sargon, nor those of his successors, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and a.s.surbanipal, mention Deioces or his land either in the payment of tribute by the Medes, or in the conquest of the separate tribes. Nothing is said of any central monarchy among the Medes, or of a kingdom of the Medes. If Media had been united and free at the time of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Sennacherib would not have marched against Syria and Cilicia, nor Esarhaddon against Egypt; they would not and could not have left in the rear, in the most threatening proximity, the most dangerous enemy. If we nevertheless a.s.sume that during the sway of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon over a.s.syria the influence of Deioces steadily increased, we must concede to Herodotus that this higher position was gained not by martial deeds, but by craft and advice urging union. Then Phraortes, who, according to Herodotus, succeeded his father Deioces in the year 655 B.C., must have been able formally to a.s.semble the tribes of the Medes round Bit Dayauku, and to organise them: it was he who united Media under his dominion. But we cannot place this union earlier than the period at which a.s.surbanipal destroyed Elam, and directed his arms against Arabia (p. 177): _i.e._ it must come after the year 645 B.C.

a.s.surbanipal could not possibly employ his troops in repeated campaigns for the maintenance of Egypt, the reconquest of Babylon, the destruction of Elam, and the punishment of the Arabians, if a strong and compact force stood behind the pa.s.ses of the Zagrus; still less could he look idly on while Phraortes subjugated the Persians, and then one nation after another in Asia, as Herodotus supposes, with the view of throwing himself on a.s.syria--if he could prevent it. The more probable course of events is, that Phraortes, as soon as he accomplished the union of the Median tribes, had to await and repel the attack of a.s.syria--that the tribes of the Persians among whom, precisely about this time, Achaemenes obtained the first place,[542] being threatened by the extension of the dominion of a.s.syria over Elam on their borders, combined with Phraortes for common defence, and consented to be led by the stronger nation. The tradition of the Medes, and their poems, on which the statements of Herodotus rest, would naturally antedate the liberation of their nation, and would place it in the times before Deioces; they would even ascribe conquests to Phraortes, and represent him as falling in an attack on Nineveh. It agrees with the position of affairs and the relation of the powers, that Phraortes should have fallen with the greater part of his army, as Herodotus says, in repulsing a.s.syria and a.s.surbanipal in the year 633 B.C. The first duty of his son Cyaxares must have been to avert from Media the consequences of the heavy defeat which destroyed his father. That Cyaxares, and not Phraortes, a century after the death of the latter, pa.s.sed in the nation of the Medes as the founder of the Median supremacy, is clear from the fact that Phraortes, the head of the rebellion of the Medians against Darius, lays aside his proper name in order to call himself "Kshatrita, descendant of Cyaxares," and that at this time the leader of the Sagartians also gives himself out as a descendant of Cyaxares of Media.

Let us first cling to the fact that in the decade which followed the conquest of Elam by a.s.surbanipal (644-634 B.C.) Media united her tribes under a sovereign, and freed herself from the dominion of a.s.syria, and in combination with the Persians on the East obtained the position of a considerable power beside a.s.syria. In the West, before this date, a.s.surbanipal had already lost the dominion over Egypt, and the advance of Psammetichus towards Syria (p. 180) must have made the obedience of the Syrian cities and princes doubtful. The rise of the Medes under Phraortes, the successful resistance which they made to a.s.syria, must have had a far-reaching influence. After such a long series of successes the arms of a.s.syria could not prevail against this new power. In Judah, where the prophets of the Hebrews from the second half of the eighth century had looked on a.s.syria as the instrument of Jehovah for the visitation of the nations and the punishment of the sins of Israel and Judah, the position of that power, soon after the year 640 B.C., was seriously shattered or threatened, since the prophet Nahum, when looking back on the destruction of Thebes by the army of a.s.surbanipal, could already announce that the line of destruction would reach even to a.s.syria and Nineveh. The lively description of the defenders and the devastation of Thebes, shows that the capture (which had taken place in the year 663 B.C.)[543] was already fresh in the remembrance of the Syrians. "The lion," so we find it in Nahum, "did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin. I am against thee, saith Jehovah of Hosts, and I will burn thy chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions; and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messenger shall no more be heard. I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile. Woe to the well-favoured harlot, the mistress of witchcraft; woe to the b.l.o.o.d.y city; it is full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not. The noise of the whip, and of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots; the horseman cometh on, the bright sword and glittering spear." "Art thou better than No-Ammon (Thebes) that was situate by the Nile?"[544] "The destroyer is come up before thee, Nineveh; keep the munition, watch the way, gird thy loins, fortify thyself mightily. Draw thee water for the siege, fortify thy strongholds; go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln. Thy mighty men hasten to the walls, but they stumble in their walk. The covering shall be prepared for the besiegers. All thy strongholds shall be fig-trees with the first ripe figs; if they be shaken they shall fall even into the mouth of the eater. Fire shall devour thee, and the sword shall cut thee off."[545] "With an overrunning flood Jehovah will make an utter end of her habitations; the gates of the river shall be opened, and the palace dissolved. Behold, thy people are women for thy enemies; the gates of thy land shall be set wide open; the fire shall devour thy bars. Nineveh was full of men while she stood, but they flee. Halt! halt! Yet no one turneth; her maids sigh like doves, and beat the breast. Take the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold; there is no end of the store; abundance of all kinds of costly vessels. She is empty, and void, and waste, and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and a mult.i.tude of slain, and a great number of carcases; there is no end of their corpses. They stumble on the corpses. Thy captains fly, O king of a.s.syria, thy mighty men slumber, thy people is scattered on the mountains, and no man gathereth them. Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion, and the lioness, and the lion's whelp walked and none made them afraid? No more of thy name shall be sown; there is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous.

All that look on thee shall flee from thee and say, Nineveh is laid waste; all that hear of thee shall clap their hands over thee, for upon whom has not thy wickedness pa.s.sed continually?"[546]

How far the successes which Cyaxares obtained soon after his accession (633 B.C.) in repelling and attacking a.s.syria and a.s.surbanipal carried him--whether even then the army of the Medes advanced to the walls of Nineveh, as Herodotus states, cannot be ascertained, and cannot be denied. Whatever advantage Media may have obtained at that time it was not only lost, but the Median empire collapsed, when Cyaxares had vainly attempted to repulse the Sacae (632 B.C.). These Sacae, however, were not content with the possession of Media; they descended from the table-land of Iran into the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and spread over Hither Asia. We saw how clearly the prophet Zephaniah announced in those days (about 630 B.C.) the great judgments that would come upon Nineveh and Judah, on Gaza and Ascalon, on Ashdod, and Ekron, and Ethiopia. "Jehovah," he says, "will stretch out his hand against the North, and destroy a.s.syria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations; the pelican and the bittern shall lodge in the lintels of it; the birds shall sing in the windows of it; desolation shall be on the thresholds. The cedar work is torn down. All who go by shall hiss and wag the hand. This is the rejoicing city which dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am and there is none beside me!

How is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in!"[547]

a.s.surbanipal, as we saw, ascended the throne of a.s.syria in the year 668 B.C., and he retained it till the year 626 B.C. Though we have no evidence from a.s.syrian inscriptions to fix the end of his reign, the canon of Ptolemy puts the end of the dominion of Saosduchin (by whom is meant Samul-sum-ukin) in the year 648 B.C., _i.e._ in the year in which a.s.surbanipal crushed his rebellion and took Babylon. We also possess an a.s.syrian tablet which dates from the twentieth year of a.s.surbanipal in Babylon, and consequently extends his reign in the city from 648 B.C. to 628 B.C. Further, the canon of Ptolemy represents a new reign as commencing in Babylon in the year 625 B.C., and therefore we are certain that a.s.surbanipal remained on the throne for 42 years, down to 626 B.C.[548] The first half of his reign was filled with the most brilliant successes; his armies marched to Thebes, Babylon, and Susa; but the second half was the reverse of the first. Egypt was lost. Serious struggles without results were carried on against the Medes, though they were once varied by a great victory. The Median power advanced nearer and nearer to the native land and the chief cities. The Medes had indeed been compelled to turn against the Sacae; but these not only overthrew Media, they covered Asia, destroyed the cohesion of the a.s.syrian kingdom, and entirely disorganised it. Cleitarchus narrated: "Sardanapalus (a.s.surbanipal) died in old age, after the dominion of the Syrians had been broken down;"[549] and the Syrians, according to the usage of Cleitarchus, are the a.s.syrians.

Ctesias told us above, that the dominion of the a.s.syrians succ.u.mbed to the united efforts of the viceroys of Media and Babylon, the combined efforts of the Medes and Babylonians. Herodotus, as we saw, represents a prince of Babylon as negotiating peace between Lydia and Media. In an excerpt of Abydenus which has been preserved we read: "After Sardanapalus (a.s.surbanipal), Saracus reigned over a.s.syria: when he found that mult.i.tudes of a collected horde came up from the sea like locusts, he at once sent Busalossorus as commander of the army to Babylon. This officer resolved on rebellion, and betrothed his son Nabukodrossorus to the daughter of Astyages, king of Media, Amuhea by name."[550] According to the excerpt of Syncellus, Alexander Polyhistor gave the following account: Saracus sent Nabopola.s.sar as general, but he married Amyite the daughter of Astyages, the satrap of the Medes, to his son Nabuchodonossor, and rebelled against Saracus and Nineveh.[551] Hence in Abydenus and Polyhistor, the successor of a.s.surbanipal on the throne of a.s.syria was Saracus. Against hosts who came from the sea, _i.e._ against the hosts of the Sacae coming up from the Caspian Sea, or marching, on their return from Syria, _i.e._ from the Mediterranean, against Babylon, he sends the general whom Abydenus calls Busalossorus, and Polyhistor Nabopola.s.sar. According to the canon of Ptolemy, the reign of Nabopola.s.sar in Babylon begins in the year 625 B.C. This prince, the Nabopola.s.sar of the canon and Polyhistor, is not distinct from the Busalossorus of Abydenus. It is the same name: in the one writer he is the father of Nabukodrossorus, in the other the father of Nabuchodonossor. Nabukodrossorus is Nabukudurussur; Nabuchodonossor is Nebuchadnezzar, the corrupted Hebrew form of the name Nabukudurussur.

The Belesys of Ctesias, the confederate of the Mede, is Nabopola.s.sar. In both fragments Nabopola.s.sar, whom the king of the a.s.syrians sends as a viceroy or general to Babylonia, and whose rule over Babylonia begins with the year 625 B.C., resolves to rebel against the king of a.s.syria; with this object he enters into a league with the king or satrap, _i.e._ the a.s.syrian viceroy of Media, who in Abydenus and Polyhistor is called Astyages.[552] In both fragments Nabopola.s.sar marries his son Nebuchadnezzar to Amuhea or Amyite, the daughter of the Mede. Astyages was the son of Cyaxares of Media, who began to reign in the year 593 B.C. Hence in both fragments the father must be put in the place of the son, just as in Herodotus the Nabopola.s.sar of Polyhistor must be put in the place of Labynetus.

The invasion of the Sacae certainly gave the most severe blow to the a.s.syrian kingdom: it reached the native territory, and broke the cohesion of the kingdom. The lands previously subjugated could not be protected, and therefore could not be maintained. We found above, that about the year 625 B.C., the Sacae marched through Syria to the borders of Egypt. It is also certain, from the canon of Ptolemy, that it was the king of a.s.syria who succeeded a.s.surbanipal on the throne in 626 B.C., who named Nabopola.s.sar his viceroy in Babylon, in order to protect Babylonia against the Sacae. Nabopola.s.sar cannot have entered into a league with Cyaxares of Media; Babylonia cannot have broken with a.s.syria; the rebellion against Saracus cannot have taken place, till Cyaxares was again master in his own land and the Sacae were driven out of Media, whether this expulsion took place as recorded in Herodotus or in some other way. That Nabopola.s.sar felt himself called upon to draw the league with Media as close as possible is clear from the fact that he at the same time married his son to the daughter of the king of Media. And he not only brought about this marriage, he did away with the war between Media and Lydia, and established an alliance between the royal families of the two nations. This war must be placed before the destruction of a.s.syria; had it not been necessary to set the forces of Media free against a.s.syria, the prince of Babylon would have had no interest in reconciling the differences between Lydia and Babylonia.

After the destruction of a.s.syria it would have been much more advisable for Babylon that Media, whose power surpa.s.sed that of Babylonia, should be engaged elsewhere. This conclusion is confirmed by the eclipse which separated the armies of the Lydians and the Medes in the sixth year of the war, in the middle of a battle (p. 260). This took place in the year 610 B.C.[553] The war between Cyaxares of Media and Alyattes of Lydia must therefore have begun in the year 615 B.C.

But what caused Media to be at war with the distant land of Lydia? We must a.s.sume that Cyaxares first succeeded in setting his land free from the hordes of the Sacae. He availed himself of this to give aid to the lands bordering on the west of Media, the Armenians and Cappadocians, against the same plundering tribes; to exhibit himself there as a liberator from the Sacae; and, at the same time, as a liberator from the dominion of the a.s.syrians. In this way he quickly advanced the borders of Media to the Halys. Here he came upon the Lydians, who on their part had made use of the convulsion and confusion which had been caused by the advance of the Cimmerians as far as the western sh.o.r.e of Asia Minor, to extend their dominion over Phrygia as far as the Halys. As the war between him and the Lydians commences in the year 615 B.C., Cyaxares must have mastered the Sacae in Media as early as the year 620 B.C. The dominion of the Scythians in Asia, which Herodotus represents as lasting 28 years, is thus narrowed down to a short ten years--or indeed to eight years, the number given by Justin. From this point--the liberation of Media from the Sacae, _i.e._ about 620 B.C.,--we have to fix not only the advance of Cyaxares to the West, but his league with Nabopola.s.sar of Babylon, and the marriage of his daughter to Nabopola.s.sar's son must be put about the same time. When Nabopola.s.sar had arranged the peace between Media and Lydia, which fixed the Halys as the border of the two kingdoms, Aryanis, the daughter of Alyattes, is married to the son of Cyaxares (610 B.C.), Media and Babylonia, Cyaxares and Nabopola.s.sar, unite their forces against a.s.syria.

On the ruins of Chalah, in the south-east corner of the terrace, on which stand the palaces of the kings of a.s.shur, to the south of the ruins of the house of Samsi-Bin III. (II. 325), are the remains of a not very extensive building; some bricks bear the inscription: "I a.s.sur-idil-ili, king of the nations, king of the land of a.s.shur, son of a.s.surbanipal, king of the nations, king of the land of a.s.shur, son of Esarhaddon, king of a.s.shur. I caused bricks and beams to be prepared for the building of the house of salvation, situated at Chalah: for the life of my soul I did this."[554] Another inscription of a.s.sur-idil-ili mentions his restoration of the temple of Nebo at Chalah.[555] Hence we must a.s.sume that a.s.sur-idil-ili, the son of a.s.surbanipal, ascended the throne of a.s.syria after the death of his father, in the year 626 B.C.; that it is he who is called Saracus in Polyhistor, who appointed Nabopola.s.sar viceroy of Babylonia, in order to maintain Babylon against the Sacae; and that about the year 620 B.C. the latter broke away from a.s.sur-idil-ili. Yet from a broken tablet of a.s.sur-idil-ili, recently discovered, we shall gather that he did not ascend the throne immediately after his father's death, but later;[556] and the opinion is held that the immediate successor of a.s.surbanipal was Bel-zakir-iskun, whose name occurs in a cylinder found at Kuyunds.h.i.+k. The name of the father of this king is broken off; and he is only placed immediately after a.s.surbanipal because he styles himself, not only king of a.s.syria, but also king of Sumir and Accad.[557] But are there not numerous instances to prove that t.i.tles of dominion are retained after the lands which they denote as subject have long been lost? Lastly, in two fragmentary tablets the name of Cyaxares is supposed to be concealed in the form Castarit. The first fragment mentions Esarhaddon and Castarit, the lord of the city of Carca.s.si, beside Mamiti-arsu, the lord of the city of the Medes. At the very earliest, Cyaxares of Media cannot have been born when Esarhaddon died. The second fragment speaks of a hundred days of prayer and thanksgiving, because Castarit with his warriors, and the warriors of the Cimmerians, and the warriors of the Mannai, had taken the towns of Khartam and Kissa.s.su. But here also the inscription seems to be speaking of another period, and indeed of conflicts from the days of Esarhaddon, when the Cimmerians set foot on the southern sh.o.r.e of the Black Sea; and I would not, on this account, allow myself to be led astray, even if a third tablet, supposed to narrate the same circ.u.mstances, should mention Castarit as a prince of the Medes.[558]

Of the incidents of the war, which Cyaxares and Nabopola.s.sar commenced in the year 609 B.C. against a.s.syria, we have no account. According to the songs of the Medes, which lie at the base of the account of Ctesias, it continued three years; many severe battles were fought, with varying fortune, before Nineveh could be invested. The capture of the city was finally achieved, because the Tigris carried away a portion of the city walls. When Xenophon marched past Chalah, which he calls Larissa, 200 years after the fall of Nineveh, and found long strips of wall 120 feet high still standing, he was informed that the king of the Persians, when he took the dominion from the Medes, could not by any means capture the lofty and strong walls of this city of the Medes (II. 16). A cloud hid the sun, and made the city invisible till the inhabitants had left it; and thus it was taken. At that time the queen of the Medes fled to Mespila (the name given by Xenophon to Nineveh), where he saw the walls still standing of the height of 150 feet. This city the king of the Persians could not take, either by length of siege or by storm, till Zeus had dazed the inhabitants by lightning: then the city was taken.[559]

The memory of the a.s.syrian kingdom had at that time so entirely disappeared, that Xenophon's guides could put the Medes in the place of the Persians, the Persians in the place of the Medes, and the king of the Persians in the place of Cyaxares. In Abydenus we are told, after the excerpt of Eusebius: Nabopola.s.sar (Bussalossorus), after marrying his son to the daughter of the king of the Medes, marched against Nineveh. "When Saracus heard of this, he burnt himself and the royal citadel."[560] Polyhistor, following the excerpt of Syncellus, tells us: Nabopola.s.sar, sent out by Saracus as a leader of his army, turned against his master, and marched against Nineveh. In fear of his approach, Saracus burnt himself with his palace.[561] Strabo tells us: "Nineveh was destroyed soon after the break up of the dominion of the Medes."[562] At the year 607 B.C., Eusebius and Hieronymus observe: "Cyaxares the Mede destroys Nineveh."

"Because a.s.shur was high of growth," such are the words of Jehovah in the prophet Ezekiel, "and shot up his top, and his heart was lifted up in its height, I have delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations that he may deal with him at his pleasure; I have driven him out for his wickedness. And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off and cast him away. Upon the mountains and in all vallies his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers in the land. All the people from the earth are gone down from his shadow and have left him. Upon his fallen trunk the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to h.e.l.l with those that descend into the pit. In that day I caused a mourning, and restrained the floods round him; the great waters were stayed; I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field lamented him. a.s.shur's grave is made in the depth of the pit, round about are the graves of his host; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which caused terror in the land of the living."[563]

Media stood triumphant over the kingdom which had so long ruled over Hither Asia and the western edge of Iran; Babylon was victorious over the branch which had grown up out of her own root, had far surpa.s.sed the mother-stem, and had struck home the mother-country in many a tough struggle. Babylon had suffered far more heavily than Media. At last retribution had come. Chalah and Nineveh, which had received the tribute of the nations for so many years, which had seen so many vanquished princes, so many emba.s.sies of subjugated lands in their walls, were annihilated. And not the ancient cities only, but the condition of the a.s.syrian nation must have been severely smitten by this war of annihilation. Often as Babylon had been overthrown by the a.s.syrians--even though mastered by Cyrus--she still was able to rise repeatedly in stubborn rebellion against the Achaemenids: Elam repeatedly attempted to regain her old independence; but of the native land of a.s.syria, which after the fall of Nineveh became a part of Media, and pa.s.sed with Media under the dominion of the Persians, we hear only once that the a.s.syrians, with the Armenians, rebelled against king Darius.

But the picture of Behistun, which mentions the double rebellion of Babylon, the three rebellions of Elam against Darius, and exhibits the conquered leaders of these nations, is silent on the rebellion of the a.s.syrians and Armenians: it was not of enough importance to be mentioned.

The low ruin heaps of Nineveh (Kuyunds.h.i.+k, Nebbi Yunus, and Khorsabad), of Chalah (Nimrud), and a.s.shur (Kileh Shergat), washed down as they are by streams of rain, have yet preserved for us the remains of the buildings and palaces of the kings of a.s.shur, from the days of Samsi-Bin I., Tiglath Pilesar I., Shalmanesar I., down to a.s.sur-idil-ili. Set on fire at the time of destruction, the wooden roofs of the palaces were reduced to cinders, and fell in upon the floor of the chambers, where portions of them are still to be found. The upper parts of the brick-walls were then washed down by wind and rain, and covered the lower part of the rooms. Even where the fire did not spread, the beams of the roofs at length broke down, the upper layers of the bricks on the walls were gradually washed down, and raised the floors of the chambers, as well as the ground immediately surrounding them. By this process the palaces of Nineveh, Chalah, and Dur Sarrukin, were changed into heaps of earth. But while the upper part of the buildings buried the lower in their ruins, the lower part, with all the inscriptions and sculptures contained in it, was saved from further destruction; and these unsightly heaps have preserved to us the civilisation and the characteristics of the a.s.syrians, as truly as the lofty monuments and rock tombs on the Nile have preserved the picture of ancient Egypt, though they do not present the same breadth, and extend in the same way to every side of life.

FOOTNOTES:

[514] Nicol. Dam. Frag. 9, ed. Muller. Athenaeus, p. 529. Diod. 2, 24.

[515] Athenaeus, p. 528.

[516] Diod. 2, 24-27.

[517] Athenaeus, p. 529.

[518] Diod. 2, 28.

[519] Diod. 2, 32-34.

[520] Herod. 1, 95, 96.

[521] Herod. 4, 1-4.

[522] Herod. 1, 73, 74.

[523] Herod. 1, 130.

[524] Or, as in Ctesias the victory of Cyrus over Astyages is placed in 564 B.C.--even in the year 883 B.C. Cf. Vol. II., p. 26.

[525] Aristoph. Aves, 102.

[526] h.e.l.lan. Frag. 158. Callisth. Frag. 32, ed. Muller.

[527] Movers, "Relig. der Phoeniker," s. 154. 394, 465, 496, 612. The pyre which Alexander caused to be erected in Babylon to Hephaestion, after the Semitic pattern, was four stades in circuit and 200 feet in height. Diod. 17, 115.

[528] Aristob. Frag. 6, ed. Muller. Cf. above, p. 145, 146.

[529] _e.g._ Diod. 2, 24; Amyntas in Athenaeus, p. 529.

[530] If we a.s.sume that the 28 years of the Scythian dominion have already been deducted from the 128 years, and must therefore be added to them, 714 B.C. (= 558 + 156) is the beginning of the Median dominion. In the other case this must have commenced in the year 658 (558 + 100) B.C.

Since Herodotus represents Phraortes as first conquering Asia, and represents him as ascending the throne in 655 B.C., the duration of the Median empire is not even 100, but only 79 years. We shall soon see that it was even shorter.

[531] Deioces reigned 53 years, Phraortes 22, Cyaxares 40, Astyages 35.