Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the silver vase of
Tchertomlitsk, now in the museum of the Hermitage. The
vignette is also drawn by Faucher-Gudin, and represents an
Egyptian torso in the Turin museum; the cartouche which is
seen upon the arm is that of Psammetichus I.
The East was ever a land of kaleidoscopic changes and startling dramatic incidents. An Oriental empire, even when built up by strong hands and watched over with constant vigilance, scarcely ever falls to pieces in the slow and gradual process of decay arising from the ties that bind it together becoming relaxed or its constituent elements growing antiquated. It perishes, as a rule, in a cataclysm; its ruin comes like a bolt from the blue, and is consummated before the commencement of it is realised. One day it stands proud and stately in the splendour of its glory; there is no report abroad but that which tells of its riches, its industry, its valour, the good government of its princes and the irresistible might of its gods, and the world, filled with envy or with fear, deeming its good fortune immutable, never once applies to it, even in thought, the usual commonplaces on the instability of human things. Suddenly an ill wind, blowing up from the distant horizon, bursts upon it in destructive squalls, and it is overthrown in the twinkling of an eye, amid the glare of lightning, the resounding crash of thunder, whirlwinds of dust and rain: when the storm has passed away as quickly as it came, its mutterings heralding the desolation which it bears to other climes, the brightening sky no longer reveals the old contours and familiar outlines, but the sun of history rises on a new empire, emerging, as if by the touch of a magic wand, from the ruins which the tempest has wrought. There is nothing apparently lacking of all that, in the eyes of the many, invested its predecessor with glory; it seems in no wise inferior in national vigour, in the number of its soldiers, in the military renown of its chiefs, in the proud prosperity of its people, or in the majesty of its gods; the present fabric is as spacious and magnificent, it would seem, as that which has but just vanished into the limbo of the past. No kingdom ever shone with brighter splendour, or gave a greater impression of prosperity, than the kingdom of Assyria in the days succeeding its triumphs over Blam and Arabia: precisely at this point the monuments and other witnesses of its activity fail us, just as if one of the acts of the piece in which it had played a chief part having come to an end, the drop-curtain must be lowered, amid a flourish of trumpets and the illuminations of an apotheosis, to allow the actors a little breathing-space. Half a century rolls by, during which we have a dim perception of the subdued crash of falling empires, and of the trampling of armies in fierce fight; then the curtain rises on an utterly different drama, of which the plot has been woven behind the scenes, and the exciting motif has just come into play. We no longer hear of Assyria and its kings; their palaces are in ruins; their last faithful warriors sleep in unhonoured graves beneath the ashes of their cities, their prowess is credited to the account of half a dozen fabulous heroes such as Ninus, Sardanapalus, and Semiramis—heroes whose names call up in the memory of succeeding generations only vague but terrible images, such as the phantasies of a dream, which, although but dimly remembered in the morning, makes the hair to stand on end with terror. The nations which erewhile disputed the supremacy with Assyria have either suffered a like eclipse—such as the Khâti, Urartu, the Cossæans, and Elam—or have fallen like Egypt and Southern Syria into the rank of second-rate powers. It is Chaldaea which is now in the van of the nations, in company with Lydia and with Media, whose advent to imperial power no one would have ventured to predict forty or fifty years before.
The principality founded by Deïokes about the beginning of the seventh century B.C., seemed at first destined to play but a modest part; it shared the fortune of the semi-barbarous states with which the Ninevite conquerors came in contact on the western boundary of the Iranian plateau, and from which the governors of Arrapkha or of Kharkhar had extorted tribute to the utmost as often as occasion offered. According to one tradition, it had only three kings in an entire century: Deïokes up till 655 B.C., Phraortes from 655 to 633, and after the latter year Cyaxares, the hero of his race.* Another tradition claimed an earlier foundation for the monarchy, and doubled both the number of the kings and the age of the kingdom.**
* This is the tradition gleaned by Herodotus, probably at
Sardes, from the mouths of Persians residing in that city.
** This is the tradition derived from the court of
Artaxerxes by Ctesias of Cnidus. Volney discovered the
principle upon which the chronology of his Median dynasty
was based by Ctesias. If we place his list side by side with
that of Herodotus—
We see that, while rejecting the names given by Herodotus,
Ctesias repeats twice over the number of years assigned by
the latter to the reigns of his kings, at least for the four
last generations—
At the beginning Herodotus gives before Deïokes an
interregnum of uncertain duration. Ctesias substituted the
round number of fifty years for the fifty-three assigned to
Deïokes, and replaced the interregnum by a reign which he
estimated at the mean duration of a human generation, thirty
years; he then applied to this new pair of numbers the
process of doubling he had employed for the couple mentioned
above—
The number twenty-eight has been attributed to the reign of
Arbakes, instead of the number thirty, to give an air of
truthfulness to the whole catalogue.
This tradition ignored the monarchs who had rendered the second Assyrian empire illustrious, and substituted for them a line of inactive sovereigns, reputed to be the descendants of Ninus and Semiramis. The last of them, Sardanapalus, had, according to this account, lived a life of self-indulgence in his harem, surrounded by women, dressing himself in their garb, and adopting feminine occupations and amusements. The satrap of Media, Arbakes, saw him at his toilet, and his heart turned against yielding obedience to such a painted doll: he rebelled in concert with Belesys the Babylonian. The imminence of the danger thus occasioned roused Sardanapalus from his torpor, and revived in him the warlike qualities of his ancestors; he placed himself at the head of his troops, overcame the rebels, and was about to exterminate them, when his hand was stayed by the defection of some Bactrian auxiliaries. He shut himself up in Nineveh, and for two whole years heroically repulsed all assaults; in the third year, the Tigris, swollen by the rains, overflowed its banks and broke down the city walls for a distance of twenty stadia. The king thereupon called to mind an oracle which had promised him victory until the day when the river should betray him. Judging that the prediction was about to be accomplished, he resolved not to yield himself alive to the besieger, and setting fire to his palace, perished therein, together with his children and his treasures, about 788 B.C. Arbakes, thus rendered an independent sovereign, handed down the monarchy to his son Mandaukas, and he in his turn was followed successively by Sosarmos, Artykas, Arbianes, Artaios, Artynes, and Astibaras.* These names are not the work of pure invention; they are met with in more than one Assyrian text: among the petty kings who paid tribute to Sargon are enumerated some which bear such names as Mashdaku,** Ashpanda,*** Arbaku, and Khartukka,*** and many others, of whom traces ought to be found some day among the archives of princely families of later times.
* Oppert thought that the names given by Herodotus
represented “Aryanised forms of Turanian names, of which
Otesias has given the Persian translation.”
** Mashdaku is identified by Post with the Mandaukas or
Maydaukas of Ctesias, which would then be a copyist’s error
for Masdaukas. The identification with Vashd[t]aku, Vashtak,
the name of a fabulous king of Armenia, is rejected by Rost;
Mashdaku would be the Iranian Mazdaka, preserved in the
Mazakes of Arrian.
*** Ashpanda is the Aspandas or Aspadas which Ctesias gives
instead of the Astyages of Herodotus.
**** The name of Artykas is also found in the secondary form
Kardikoas, which is nearer the Khartukka of the Assyrian
texts.