NO. XXXII.—ECBATANA.
This city, which Heraclius says was as large as Athens, was founded by one of the most illustrious princes that ever adorned the earth—Dejoces, King of the Medes. Not that we mean to vindicate or approve all that he did; but, "taking him for all in all," history has but few characters that can be placed in competition with him.
It is not our intention to write the history of this celebrated prince anew, his story being almost unanimously allowed: we have only to copy. We shall, therefore, select the account, compiled by Rollin, from the testimony of Herodotus; ours being an abstract.
The Medes were a people divided into tribes. They dwelt almost entirely in villages; but Dejoces, finding with how great an inconvenience such a mode of life was attended, erected the state into a monarchy. The methods he took to accomplish this, exhibited the consummate wisdom with which his mind was endowed. When he formed the design, he laboured to make the good qualities that had been observed in him more conspicuous than ever; and he succeeded so well, that the inhabitants of the district in which he lived, made him their judge. His conduct fully answered the expectation of those who elected him. He brought the association into a regular mode of life; and this being observed by a multitude of other villages, they soon began to make him arbitrator for them, as he had been for the first. "When he found himself thus advanced," says the historian, "he judged it a proper time to set his last engines to work for compassing his point. He, therefore, retired from business, pretending to be over-fatigued with the multitude of people that resorted to him from all quarters; and would not exercise the office of judge any longer, notwithstanding all the importunity of such as wished well to the public tranquillity. When any person addressed themselves to him, he told them, that his own domestic affairs would not allow him to attend to those of other people."
The consequence of this withdrawal was, that the various communities relapsed into a worse state than they had been before; and the evil increased so rapidly, from day to day, that the Medes felt themselves constrained to meet, in order to endeavour to find some remedy for it. This was what Dejoces had foreseen. He sent emissaries, therefore, to the assembly, with instructions in what manner to act. When the turn came for those persons to speak, they declared their opinion, that unless the face of the republic was entirely changed, the whole country would be entirely uninhabitable. "The only means," said they, "left for us is, to elect a king. Having elected a sovereign, with authority to restrain violence, and make laws, every one can prosecute his own affairs in peace and security." This opinion was seconded by the consent of the whole assembly. All that remained then was to find out a proper person. This did not require much time. Dejoces was the man to whom all eyes were instantly turned. He was, therefore, immediately elected king with the consent of all present. "There is," says the author from whom we borrow, "nothing nobler or greater, than to see a private person, eminent for his merit and virtue, and fitted by his excellent talents for the highest employments, and yet, through inclination and modesty, preferring a life of obscurity and retirement; thus to see such a man sincerely refuse the offer made to him of reigning over a whole nation, and at last consent to undergo the toil of government upon no other motive than that of being useful to his fellow citizens. Such a governor was Numa at Rome, and such have been some other governors, whom the people have constrained to accept the supreme power. But," continues he in a strain of great wisdom, "to put on the mask of modesty and virtue, in order to satisfy one's ambition, as Dejoces did; to affect to appear outwardly what a man is not inwardly; to refuse for a time, and then accept with a seeming repugnancy what a man earnestly desires, and what he has been labouring by secret, underhand, practices to obtain; this double dealing has so much meanness in it, that it goes a great way to lessen our opinion of the person, be his talents never so great or extraordinary."
The method by which Dejoces gained his ambition to be king, greatly disenchants us of his merits. But having attained it, he acted in a manner few men have been found to adopt, even when they have arrived at the throne by the most legitimate of methods. He set himself to civilise and polish his subjects; men who, having lived perpetually in villages, almost without laws and without polity, had contracted rude manners and savage dispositions.
Thus animated, he selected a hill, the ascent of which was regular on every side, and having marked out, with his own hands, the circumference of the walls, he laid the foundation of a city, which became the capital of the dominions of which he had been elected sovereign. When he had done this, he constructed walls after the following manner. Their number was seven; all disposed in such a manner, that the outermost did not hinder the parapet of the second from being seen; nor the second that of the third, and so of all the rest. Within the last and smallest inclosure he erected his own palace; and there he kept all his treasures. The first and largest inclosure is supposed to have been of about the size of Athens, when at its greatest height. The palace was at the foot of the citadel, and about seven furlongs in circumference. The wood-work was of cedar or cypress; the beams, the ceilings, the columns of the porticoes, and the peristyles, were plated with either gold or silver; the roofs were covered with silver tiles.
This city the founder called Ecbatana[215]. The aspect of it was beautiful and magnificent; and, having completed it to his satisfaction, he employed himself in composing laws for the good of the community. In order to do this with greater effect, and with a view to keep up the respect which nearness of view is apt to impair with rude and ignorant persons, he secluded himself almost entirely from the people at large. All was done through the medium of agents and servants. He knew all that was passing. He made a multitude of wise laws. He became literally the true father of his people; for so entirely did he give himself up to the contemplation of their benefit, that though he reigned not less than fifty-three years, he had no reason to complain of any of the neighbouring kingdoms; and so satisfied was he of the good belonging to his own fortune, that he never once engaged in any enterprise against them.
Dejoces was succeeded by his son Phraortes, of whom it is not necessary to say more than that he enlarged the city his father had built. He was succeeded by Cyaxares I., who reigned forty years. He made himself master of all the cities of the kingdom of Assyria, except Babylon and Chaldæa. Astyages was the next king of the Medes, he who is called in scripture Ahasuerus.[216] He married his daughter, Mandana, to Cambyses king of Persia; and thereby became grandfather to the great Cyrus, one of the most remarkable princes in all history. He was succeeded by Cyaxares II., called in scripture Darius the Mede; who, under the generalship of Cyrus, having taken Babylon, Cyrus, on the death of his father Cambyses, and his uncle, whom he had made governor of Babylon, united the empires of the Medes and Persians under one and the same authority. Ecbatana, therefore, from that time ceased to be the chief seat of authority[217].
Diodorus Siculus relates, that when Semiramis came to Ecbatana, "which," says he, "is situated in a low and even plain," she built a stately palace there, and bestowed more care upon that city than she had done upon any other. For the city wanting water (there being no spring near it), she plentifully supplied it with such as was good, which she brought thither in this manner. There is a mountain called Orontes, twelve furlongs distant from the city, exceedingly high and steep for the space of twenty-five furlongs up to the top. On the other side of this mount there is a large mere, or lake, which empties itself into the river. At the foot of this mount she dug a canal fifteen feet in breadth and forty in depth, through which she conveyed water to the city in great abundance[218].