The great Persian War and its preliminaries

by G. B. Grundy

It is impossible to say on the one hand what was the level of the civilization attained by the Greeks at the time they first settled on these coasts, more than 1000 years before Christ; and it is still less possible to say what was the state of the peoples they found there at the time of their settlement. Whether Lydia at this early age of its development had as yet come into contact with, and been influenced by, the civilization of the lands east and south of Taurus must also be matter of doubt. It is, on the whole, probable that it had; for the number and rapid development of the Greek trading towns on the East Ægean coast point to a considerable and valuable overland trade, whose roots would, in all probability, be in the lands of Mesopotamia, if not still farther east. The caravans from that rich plain would be sure to carry the infection of its civilization to the lands they traversed.

But, in any case, neither the Greek nor this most westerly off-shoot of the Asiatic civilization can have passed beyond an early stage of development, nor, in so far as is known, did the representatives of either seek to inflict their own form of life upon the representatives of the other. Neither side seems to have been strong enough to conquer the other, even if either had been disposed to try. The Greek was content to trade; the various native races were without union, and cannot have been equal to the conquest of a people whose original settlements they had apparently been unable to prevent.

The great Phrygian kingdom which flourished in Asia Minor for several centuries had probably passed the zenith of its greatness when the Greeks first established themselves on the coast; and the Lydian monarchy, still in its infancy, had not developed into the greatness it attained in after-time. In the obscure and uncertain traditions of the Asian Greeks which Herodotus has preserved, this monarchy is represented as having had an existence extending far into the past, under various dynasties; but of its earliest history nothing is really known, and the little that can be conjectured rests on the uncertain foundation of mythical story. The Atyadæ or Herakleidæ of the earlier dynasties are mere shadow-kings in history. A recurrent theme in Phrygian and Lydian story alike is the fabulous wealth of certain of those rulers. They seem to have afforded the Greek his first glimpse of the splendour of the East.

Though, doubtless, the Greek trader traversed the Western Asian peninsula through and through in his trading journeys, the populations with whom he came in contact remained uninfluenced by a civilization they did not appreciate, and probably could not understand. The Lydians alone afforded an exception to this rule, because their position was exceptional. They were brought into close contact with the Greek, and seem to have implanted on a civilization of an Oriental type certain characteristics derived from Greek social life. RISE OF THE LYDIAN KINGDOM. It is doubtful whether such features of this civilization as are known to the modern world were characteristic of the Lydian race as a whole in early days; it is more probable that the mass of the people remained in a comparatively low state of social development, and that the quasi-feudal ruling families of the land evolved for themselves a civilization copied from foreign lands, and were influenced especially by the reports which reached them of the life and glories of the great cities of the Euphrates plain.

The rise of Lydia to greatness seems to date from the early years of the eighth century before Christ. A feudal family established a precarious supremacy over the other feudal families of the land. Nevertheless, the kingdom seems to have acquired a stable unity which it hitherto had lacked; and the westernmost region of the West Asian peninsula gradually developed into a dominion more splendid, if not more powerful, than any which had hitherto existed among the strangely diverse populations of that part of the world.

Geographical convention has assigned this peninsula to Asia; and, under the influence of name-association, it has come to be regarded as being in every sense an integral portion of that great continent. In point of fact, however, it was at this time a borderland between Orient and Occident, approximating ethnographically rather to West than to East; though, in so far as it was influenced by the outside world, affected rather by the preponderant power and splendour of the East than by the comparative weakness and insignificance of the West. The true historical western frontier of Asia has varied at different periods of history between the Hellespont and the Taurus, according as this debateable land has been in possession of an eastern or a western power. But in the earlier days of the Lydian kingdom the region was politically centred within itself, or, rather, was an aggregation of political circles, and not, as in later times, a mere segment of a great circle, whose centre lay far beyond its borders. Those who know by experience the character of the barrier which, in the shape of Mount Taurus, separates this region from the adjacent East, are most emphatic in insisting upon the formidable nature of that wall of separation. It is not difficult to demonstrate that Taurus has been in the past one of the most decisive physical features in the history of the world.

The great systems of civilization have had one of two origins. Either they have sprung up in those great plains of the world whose climate is favourable to ease of existence; or they have been developed by nations whose circumstances have been favourable to wide intercourse with, and experience of, the peoples around them. Egypt, the Euphrates plain, India, and China, are examples of the first; Greece and Great Britain are the most prominent examples of the latter class. As, however, the “civilizations of intercourse” must be largely dependent on navigation, which can itself be alone developed by long experience, it is plain that they must be of later development than the “civilizations of ease of existence.” Thus it is that, many centuries before any system of civilization of high development existed in Europe, the plains of the Euphrates basin had given birth to one which, had nature allowed it unimpeded expansion, must have spread to a great distance from its centre. The all but blank, impassable wall of Taurus prevented the West Asian peninsula from being thoroughly orientalized. Thus that civilization which was springing up beyond the Ægean was allowed to develop on its own lines, hardly affected by those pale rays of the glowing life of the East which the narrow passes of Taurus allowed to penetrate to the lands of the West. It was the Taurus, too, which protected the earlier stages of the growth of the Lydian kingdom.

East of the chain the Assyrian empire was living out a life of stormy magnificence. The records of its kings,—a wearisome tale of murder, conquest, tribute, and torture,—give, it may be, only one side of its history, and that not the best. Their exploits have as little perspective as their presentment of them. The immediate object is all that is sought; the past is dead; the present alone is living; the future is of no account. A land is conquered; its population is either decimated, wiped out, or removed elsewhere. Its wealth is plundered; and, if there is anything left on which tribute can be laid, tribute is laid upon it. Such is the record of one year. ASSYRIA. A few years later, even in the case of lands previously reported as left desolate, the same process is repeated. There is no rest for the ruling race. For some inscrutable reason, its kings seem not to have had foresight enough to establish a strong system of administration for the conquered provinces. These are merely treated as sources of revenue, doomed to tribute,—a heavy burden indeed, but, at least in the case of regions not bordering immediately on Assyria proper, the only burden laid upon them.

Of the great empires which arose at different periods in this part of the world, Assyria seems to have been the least enlightened. Its real field of operation was bounded by the great mountain-systems on the north and east, by the Great Sea on the west and the desert on the south. Any operations undertaken outside these well-defined limits seem to have been of the nature of punitive expeditions directed against mountain tribes who had raided within these boundaries. Their lands were too poor to excite the cupidity of this brigand empire. If they remained quiet, Assyria left them alone, and devoted its energies to the exaction of tribute from the richer lands of the plain or of the Syrian coast. There are few records of expeditions west of the Taurus; and, though some lands are asserted to have paid tribute, there is no evidence whatever of anything like permanent conquest. The great mountain chain acted as a groyne which diverted the flood of invasion from the Euphrates region southward along the Syrian coast Thus it was that the growing kingdom of Lydia never came into hostile contact with the great empire. Yet the commercial intercourse between them must have been carried on upon a large scale; and, indeed, the prosperity of Lydia and of the Greek colonies on the Asian coast was due to their acting as middlemen in the commerce between East and West which passed along that route which formed in later Persian times the line of the royal road to Susa. It was an interruption of this intercourse, and a threatened diversion of this route, which brought about the opening of diplomatic relations between the two realms.

In the latter half of the eighth century before Christ, the plains of Asia and East Europe were disturbed by one of those movements of thrust which are ever recurrent in their history; and a tide of migration was set up which was destined to have many more remarkable counterparts in later story. Under pressure of a race which may with a certain amount of probability be identified with the Massagetæ of after times, those mysterious peoples, the Cimmerians and Scythians, were driven from their homes in the northern plains and invaded in whole or in part the West Asian peninsula. Of the two, the Cimmerians settled in the region of the North bordering on the Euxine, and by continual raids made life a burden to the Phrygians and White Syrians of those parts. Some thirty unhappy years seem to have passed thus. The Phrygian kingdom was gradually broken up, and by 670 B.C. the Cimmerians found themselves on the north borders of Lydia, which had just taken a new lease of life under Gyges, one of the ablest and most energetic of its successive rulers. The possibility of invasion was only part of the danger which threatened Lydia. That Gyges could and did ward off in a fierce struggle with the northern hordes; but his resources were, unaided, not equal to the task of reopening the great trade route to the East which passed through the lands of which these hordes were in possession. He began negotiations with the mighty Empire of the East which, under the energetic rule of Assur-bani-pal, was at the height of its power. He sought to get aid in the heavy task which lay before him. There were difficulties about the interpretation of the message which his envoys carried to Nineveh; but these were overcome, and he received fair words in answer to his request. More than this he did not get. Assur-bani-pal had his hands full nearer home. He and his line seem to have been past-masters of the art of creating difficulties to be overcome; but the king seems to have had no desire to interfere in the affairs of a land whose geographical position was vaguely known to him as being near the “crossing of the sea.” He had enough self-created troubles at his very gates without going abroad to find them.