A Manual of Ancient History. A. H. L. Heeren
Greek exiles, the Pisistratidæ, the soothsayer Onomacritus, the Thessalian princes or Aleuadæ, who contrived to exert their influence on the king's mind, and to raise a party in their favour among the grandees. But the progress of the campaign showed that no Hippias was at the head of the invading army, although the Persian king did certainly succeed in his avowed object, the capture and destruction of Athens.
Critique on the detailed account given by Herodotus of this expedition, as a national undertaking in which all the subjugated nations were obliged to take a share.—Preparations which last for three years in the Persian empire; league framed with Carthage for the subjection of the Sicilian Greeks, 483—481. The expedition itself in 480; over Asia Minor and the Hellespont, through Thrace and Macedonia.—Muster of the army and division of the troops according to nations at Doriscus; the detailed description of which found in Herodotus, was most probably borrowed from some Persian document.—The pass of Thermopylæ taken by treachery; on the same day a naval engagement off Artemisium.—Athens captured and burnt. Battle of Salamis, Sept. 23, 480. Retreat of Xerxes; an army of picked men left behind, under the command of Mardonius.—Fruitless negotiations with the Athenians.—Second campaign of Mardonius: he is routed at Platææ, Sept. 25, 479; and that event puts an end for ever to the Persian irruptions into Greece: on the same day the Persian army is defeated, and their fleet burnt at Mycale in Asia Minor.
Persia now obliged to concentrate her forces in Asia Minor.
28. The consequences of these repeated and unsuccessful expeditions, in which almost the whole population was engaged, must be self-evident. The empire was weakened and depopulated. The defensive war which the Persians for thirty years were obliged to maintain against the Greeks, who aimed at establishing the independence of their Asiatic countrymen, completely destroyed the balance of their power, by compelling them to transfer their forces to Asia Minor, the most distant western province of the empire.
Policy of the Persians in bribing the Greeks.
Cimon wrests from Persia the sovereignty of the sea:
battle of the Eurymedon, 469.
29. Little as the Greeks had to fear from the Persian arms, the danger with which they were now threatened was much more formidable, when the enemy began to adopt the system of bribing the chieftains of Greece; a system which succeeded beyond expectation in the first trial made of it with Pausanias, and perhaps was not wholly unsuccessful with Themistocles himself.—But the Persians soon found in Cimon an adversary who deprived them of the sovereignty of the sea; who in one day destroyed both their fleet and their army on the Eurymedon; and by the conquest of the Thracian Chersonese, wrested from them the key of Europe.
Bloody deeds in the Persian seraglio:
Xerxes murdered.
30. What little we know further concerning the reign of Xerxes, consists in the intrigues of the seraglio, which now, through the machinations of queen Amestris, became the theatre of all those horrors which are wont to be exhibited in such places, and to which Xerxes himself at last fell a victim, in consequence of the conspiracy of Artabanes and the eunuch Spamitres.
Was Xerxes the Ahasuerus of the Jews?—On the difference between the names of the Persian kings in Persian and Chaldee; not to be wondered at when we consider that they were mere titles or surnames, assumed by the sovereigns after their accession.
Artaxerxes, 465—424.
during his reign Persia is on the decline.
31. Artaxerxes I. surnamed Longimanus. In consequence of the murder of his father and his elder brother, in the conspiracy of Artabanes, this prince ascended the throne, but was unable to keep possession of the sceptre without assassinating, in his turn, Artabanes. His reign, which lasted forty years, exhibits the first symptoms of the decline of the empire, which this king, although possessed of many good qualities, had not the talent or spirit to arrest.
Rebellions in the provinces.
32. At the very commencement of his reign rebellions are excited in the provinces; in the mean while the war with Athens continues. Two battles are required to repress the insurrection of his brother Hystaspes in Bactria.
Second secession of Egypt, 463:
33. Second revolt of Egypt, excited by the Libyan king, Inarus of Marea, in conjunction with the Egyptian, Amyrtæus, and supported by an Athenian fleet. Although the confederates did not make themselves masters of Memphis, they defeated the Persian army, commanded by the king's brother, Achæmenes, who lost his life in the battle; they were at last overpowered by Megabyzus, satrap of Syria, and shut up together with Inarus in the town of Byblus. Inarus and partly quelled, 456. his party were admitted to capitulation; but Amyrtæus, having taken refuge in the morasses, continued to make head against the Persians.
Persian fleet and army defeated by Cimon, 449.
Disgraceful peace with Athens, 449.
34. The Grecian war takes, once more, an unfavourable turn for the Persians: Cimon defeats the enemy's fleet and army near Cyprus. The fear of losing the whole of the island accordingly compels Artaxerxes I. to sign a treaty of peace with Athens, in which he recognizes the independence of the Asiatic Greeks, and agrees that his fleet shall not navigate the Ægæan sea, nor his troops approach within three days' march of the coast.
Megabyzus, the first example of a rebellious satrap, 447.
35. But the haughty and powerful Megabyzus, enraged at the execution of Inarus, in violation of the promise made by him to that prince, excites a rebellion in Syria; repeatedly defeats the royal armies, and prescribes himself the conditions upon which he will be reconciled to his sovereign. This was the first great example of a successful insurrection excited by one of the Persian satraps; and chequered as were the subsequent fortunes of Megabyzus, his party continued to subsist after his death in the persons of his sons. He possessed in the centre of the court a support in the dowager queen Amestris, and the reigning Death of Artaxerxes, 424. queen Amytis; (both notorious for their excesses;) who kept Artaxerxes I. in a constant state of tutelage to the hour of his death.
Xerxes II. 424.
36. Revolutions in the government now succeed each other with rapidity and violence. Xerxes II. the only legitimate son and successor of Artaxerxes, is slain, after forty-five days' reign, by his bastard brother Sogdianus. Sogdianus; the latter, in his turn, after a reign of six months, is deposed by another bastard brother, Ochus, who ascends the throne, and assumes the name of Darius II.
Darius II. 423—404.
Rapid decline of the state.
37. Darius II. surnamed the Bastard, or Nothus. He reigns nineteen years under the tutelage of his wife, Parysatis, and of three eunuchs, one of whom, Artoxares, even attempts to open a way to the throne, but is put to death. In this period the decline of the state advances with hurried steps; partly by reason of the extinction of the legitimate royal line, partly by the increased practice of placing more than one province, together with the military command, in the hands of the same satrap. Although the repeated insurrections of the satraps are repressed, the court, by the breach of faith to which it is obliged to have recourse, in order to succeed in its measures, 422. exhibits to the world a convincing proof of its infirmity. The revolt of Arsites, one of the king's brothers, who was supported by a son of Megabyzus, and that of Pisuthnes, satrap of Lydia, are quelled only by obtaining treacherous possession of their 414. persons.
38. In consequence of the weak state of the empire, the fire, which had hitherto been smouldering under the ashes, burst forth in Egypt. Amyrtæus, who had remained till now in the morasses, issued forth, supported by the Egyptians; Third revolt of Egypt, 414. and the Persians were again expelled the land. Obscure as the subsequent history may be, we see that the Persians were obliged to acknowledge, not only Amyrtæus, but his successors. [See page 72].
Peloponnesian war favorable to the Persian interests.
39. The Persians must have regarded it as a happy event, that the Peloponnesian war, kindled in Greece during the reign of Artaxerxes, and protracted through the whole of that of Darius II. had prevented the Greeks from unitedly