That the credit of the Battiad princes was impaired by such a series of disasters and enormities, we can readily believe. But it received a still greater shock from the circumstance, that Battus the Third, son and successor of Arkesilaus, was lame and deformed in his feet. To be governed by a man thus personally disabled, was in the minds of the Kyrenæans an indignity not to be borne, as well as an excuse for preëxisting discontents; and the resolution was taken to send to the Delphian oracle for advice. They were directed by the priestess to invite from Mantineia, a moderator, empowered to close discussions and provide a scheme of government,—the Mantineans selecting Demônax, one of the wisest of their citizens, to solve the same problem which had been committed to Solon at Athens. By his arrangement, the regal prerogative of the Battiad line was terminated, and a republican government established seemingly about 543 B. C.; the dispossessed prince retaining both the landed domains[92] and the various sacerdotal functions which had belonged to his predecessors.
Respecting the government, as newly framed, however, Herodotus unfortunately gives us hardly any particulars. Demônax classified the inhabitants of Kyrênê into three tribes; composed of: 1. Theræans with their Libyan Periœki; 2. Greeks who had come from Peloponnesus and Krete; 3. Such Greeks as had come from all other islands in the Ægean. It appears, too, that a senate was constituted, taken doubtless from these three tribes, and we may presume, in equal proportion. It seems probable that there had been before no constitutional classification, nor political privilege, except what was vested in the Theræans,—that these latter, the descendants of the original colonists were the only persons hitherto known to the constitution,—and that the remaining Greeks, though free landed proprietors and hoplites, were not permitted to act as an integral part of the body politic, nor distributed in tribes at all.[93] The whole powers of government,—up to this time vested in the Battiad princes, subject only to such check, how effective we know not, which the citizens of Theræan origin might be able to interpose,—were now transferred from the prince to the people; that is, to certain individuals or assemblies chosen somehow from among all the citizens. There existed at Kyrênê, as at Thêra and Sparta, a board of Ephors, and a band of three hundred armed police,[94] analogous to those who were called the Hippeis, or Horsemen, at Sparta: whether these were instituted by Demônax, we do not know, nor does the identity of titular office, in different states, afford safe ground for inferring identity of power. This is particularly to be remarked with regard to the Periœki at Kyrênê, who were perhaps more analogous to the Helots than to the Periœki of Sparta. The fact that the Periœki were considered in the new constitution as belonging specially to the Theræan branch of citizens, shows that these latter still continued a privileged order, like the Patricians with their Clients at Rome in relation to the Plebs.
That the rearrangement introduced by Demônax was wise, consonant to the general current of Greek feeling, and calculated to work well, there is good reason to believe: and no discontent within would have subverted it without the aid of extraneous force. Battus the Lame acquiesced in it peaceably during his life; but his widow and his son, Pheretimê and Arkesilaus, raised a revolt after his death, and tried to regain by force the kingly privileges of the family. They were worsted and obliged to flee,—the mother to Cyprus, the son to Samos,—where both employed themselves in procuring foreign arms to invade and conquer Kyrênê. Though Pheretimê could obtain no effective aid from Euelthôn prince of Salamis in Cyprus, her son was more successful in Samos, by inviting new Greek settlers to Kyrênê, under promise of a redistribution of the land. A large body of emigrants joined him on this promise; the period seemingly being favorable to it, since the Ionian cities had not long before become subject to Persia, and were discontented with the yoke. But before he conducted this numerous band against his native city, he thought proper to ask the advice of the Delphian oracle. Success in the undertaking was promised to him, but moderation and mercy after success was emphatically enjoined, on pain of losing his life; and the Battiad race was declared by the god to be destined to rule at Kyrênê for eight generations, but no longer,—as far as four princes named Battus and four named Arkesilaus.[95] “More than such eight generations (said the Pythia), Apollo forbids the Battiads even to aim at.” This oracle was doubtless told to Herodotus by Kyrenæan informants when he visited their city after the final deposition of the Battiad princes, which took place in the person of the fourth Arkesilaus, between 460-450 B. C.; the invasion of Kyrênê by Arkesilaus the Third, sixth prince of the Battiad race, to which the oracle professed to refer, having occurred about 530 B. C. The words placed in the mouth of the priestess doubtless date from the later of these two periods, and afford a specimen of the way in which pretended prophecies are not only made up by antedating after-knowledge, but are also so contrived as to serve a present purpose. For the distinct prohibition of the god, “not even to aim at a longer lineage than eight Battiad princes,” seems plainly intended to deter the partisans of the dethroned family from endeavoring to reinstate them.
Arkesilaus the Third, to whom this prophecy purports to have been addressed, returned with his mother Pheretimê and his army of new colonists to Kyrênê. He was strong enough to carry all before him,—to expel some of his chief opponents and seize upon others, whom he sent to Cyprus to be destroyed; though the vessels were driven out of their course by storms to the peninsula of Knidus, where the inhabitants rescued the prisoners and sent them to Thêra. Other Kyrenæans, opposed to the Battiads, took refuge in a lofty private tower, the property of Aglômachus, wherein Arkesilaus caused them all to be burned, heaping wood around and setting it on fire. But after this career of triumph and revenge, he became conscious that he had departed from the mildness enjoined to him by the oracle, and sought to avoid the punishment which it had threatened by retiring from Kyrênê. At any rate, he departed from Kyrênê to Barka, to the residence of the Barkæan prince, his kinsman Alazir, whose daughter he had married. But he found in Barka some of the unfortunate men who had fled from Kyrênê to escape him: these exiles, aided by a few Barkæans, watched for a suitable moment to assail him in the market-place, and slew him, together with his kinsman the prince Alazir.[96]
The victory of Arkesilaus at Kyrênê, and his assassination at Barka, are doubtless real facts; but they seem to have been compressed together and incorrectly colored, in order to give to the death of the Kyrenæan prince the appearance of a divine judgment. For the reign of Arkesilaus cannot have been very short, since events of the utmost importance occurred within it. The Persians under Kambysês conquered Egypt, and both the Kyrenæan and the Barkæan prince sent to Memphis to make their submission to the conqueror,—offering presents and imposing upon themselves an annual tribute. The presents of the Kyrenæans, five hundred minæ of silver, were considered by Kambysês so contemptibly small, that he took hold of them at once and threw them among his soldiers. And at the moment when Arkesilaus died, Aryandes, the Persian satrap after the death of Kambysês, is found established in Egypt.[97]
During the absence of Arkesilaus at Barka, his mother Pheretimê had acted as regent, taking her place at the discussions in the senate; but when his death took place, and the feeling against the Battiads manifested itself strongly at Barka, she did not feel powerful enough to put it down, and went to Egypt to solicit aid from Aryandes. The satrap, being made to believe that Arkesilaus had met his death in consequence of steady devotion to the Persians, sent a herald to Barka to demand the men who had slain him. The Barkæans assumed the collective responsibility of the act, saying that he had done them injuries both numerous and severe,—a farther proof that his reign cannot have been very short. On receiving this reply, the satrap immediately despatched a powerful Persian armament, land-force as well as sea-force, in fulfilment of the designs of Pheretimê against Barka. They besieged the town for nine months, trying to storm, to batter, and to undermine the walls;[98] but their efforts were vain, and it was taken at last only by an act of the grossest perfidy. Pretending to relinquish the attempt in despair, the Persian general concluded a treaty with the Barkæans, wherein it was stipulated that the latter should continue to pay tribute to the Great King, but that the army should retire without farther hostilities: “I swear it (said the Persian general), and my oath shall hold good, as long as this earth shall keep its place.” But the spot on which the oaths were exchanged had been fraudulently prepared: a ditch had been excavated and covered with hurdles, upon which again a surface of earth had been laid. The Barkæans, confiding in the oath, and overjoyed at their liberation, immediately opened their gates and relaxed their guard; while the Persians, breaking down the hurdles and letting fall the superimposed earth, so that they might comply with the letter of their oath, assaulted the city and took it without difficulty.
Miserable was the fate which Pheretimê had in reserve for these entrapped prisoners. She crucified the chief opponents of herself and her late son around the walls, on which were also affixed the breasts of their wives: then, with the exception of such of the inhabitants as were Battiads, and noway concerned in the death of Arkesilaus, she consigned the rest to slavery in Persia. They were carried away captive into the Persian empire, where Darius assigned to them a village in Baktria as their place of abode, which still bore the name of Barka, even in the days of Herodotus.
During the course of this expedition, it appears, the Persian army advanced as far as Hesperides, and reduced many of the Libyan tribes to subjection: these, together with Kyrênê and Barka, figure among the tributaries and auxiliaries of Xerxês in his expedition against Greece. And when the army returned to Egypt, by order of Aryandês, they were half inclined to seize Kyrênê itself in their way, though the opportunity was missed and the purpose left unaccomplished.[99]
Pheretimê accompanied the retreating army to Egypt, where she died shortly of a loathsome disease, consumed by worms; thus showing, says Herodotus,[100] that “excessive cruelty in revenge brings down upon men the displeasure of the gods.” It will be recollected that in the veins of this savage woman the Libyan blood was intermixed with the Grecian. Political enmity in Greece proper kills, but seldom if ever mutilates or sheds the blood, of women.
We thus leave Kyrênê and Barka again subject to Battiad princes, at the same time that they are tributaries of Persia. Another Battus and another Arkesilaus have to intervene before the glass of this worthless dynasty is run out, between 460-450 B. C. I shall not at present carry the reader’s attention to this last Arkesilaus, who stands honored by two chariot victories in Greece, and two fine odes of Pindar.