[418] Herodot. iii, 159, 160. “From the women thus introduced (says Herodotus) the present Babylonians are sprung.”
To crucify subdued revolters by thousands is, fortunately, so little in harmony with modern European manners, that it may not be amiss to strengthen the confidence of the reader in the accuracy of Herodotus, by producing an analogous narrative of incidents far more recent. Voltaire gives, from the MS. of General Lefort, one of the principal and confidential officers of Peter the Great, the following account of the suppression of the revolted Strelitzes at Moscow, in 1698: these Strelitzes were the old native militia, or Janissaries, of the Russian Czars, opposed to all the reforms of Peter.
“Pour étouffer ces troubles, le czar part secrètement de Vienne, arrive enfin à Moscou, et surprend tout le monde par sa présence: il récompense les troupes qui ont vaincu les Strélitz: les prisons étaient pleines de ces malheureux. Si leur crime était grand, le châtiment le fut aussi. Leurs chefs, plusieurs officiers, et quelques prêtres, furent condamnés à la mort: quelques-uns furent roués, deux femmes enterrées vives. On pendit autour des murailles de la ville et on fit périr dans d’autres supplices deux mille Strélitz; leurs corps restèrent deux jours exposés sur les grands chemins, et surtout autour du monastère où résidaient les princesses Sophie et Eudoxe. On érigea des colonnes de pierre où le crime et le châtiment furent gravés. Un très-grand nombre qui avaient leurs femmes et leurs enfans furent dispersés avec leurs familles dans la Sibérie, dans le royaume d’Astrakhan, dans le pays d’Azof: par là du moins leur punition fut utile à l’état: ils servirent à défricher des terres qui manquaient d’habitans et de culture.” (Voltaire, Histoire de Russie, part i, ch. x, tom. 31, of the Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire, p. 148, ed. Paris, 1825.)
[419] Herodot. iii, 92.
[420] Herodot. iii, 89. What the Persian denomination was, which Herodotus or his informants translated κάπηλος, we do not know; but this latter word was used often by Greeks to signify a cheat, or deceiver generally: see Etymologic. Magn. p. 490, 11, and Suidas, v. Κάπελος. Ὁ δ᾽ Αἴσχυλος τὰ δόλια πáντα καλεῖ κάπηλα—“Κάπηλα προσφέρων τεχνήματα.” (Æschylus, Fragment. 328, ed. Dindorf: compare Euripid. Hippolyt. 953.)
[421] Herodot. iii, 128. This division of power, and double appointment by the Great King, appears to have been retained until the close of the Persian empire: see Quintus Curtius, v, l, 17-20 (v, 3, 19-21, Zumpt). The present Turkish government nominates a Defterdar as finance administrator in each province, with authority derived directly from itself, and professedly independent of the Pacha.
[422] Herodot. iii, 15.
[423] Respecting the administration of the modern Persian empire, see Kinneir, Geograph. Memoir of Persia, pp. 29, 43, 47.
[424] Herodot. iii, 95. The text of Herodotus contains an erroneous summing up of items, which critics have no means of correcting with certainty. Nor is it possible to trust the huge sum which he alleges to have been levied from the Indians, though all the other items, included in the nineteen silver-paying divisions, seem within the probable truth; and indeed both Rennell and Robertson think the total too small: the charges on some of the satrapies are decidedly smaller than the reality.
The vast sum of fifty thousand talents is said to have been found by Alexander the Great, laid up by successive kings at Susa alone, besides the treasures at Persepolis, Pasargadæ, and elsewhere (Arrian, iii, 16, 12; Plutarch, Alexand. 37). Presuming these talents to be Babylonian or Æginæan talents (in the proportion 5 : 3 to Attic talents), fifty thousand talents would be equal to nineteen million pounds sterling; if they were Attic talents, it would be equal to eleven million six hundred thousand pounds sterling. The statements of Diodorus give even much larger sums (xvii, 66-71: compare Curtius, v, 2, 8; v, 6, 9; Strabo, xv, p. 730). It is plain that the numerical affirmations were different in different authors, and one cannot pretend to pronounce on the trustworthiness of such large figures without knowing more of the original returns on which they were founded. That there were prodigious sums of gold and silver, is quite unquestionable. Respecting the statement of the Persian revenue given by Herodotus, see Boeckh, Metrologie, ch. v, 1-2.