[544] Herodot. v, 109. Ἡμέας δὲ ἀπέπεμψε τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Ἰώνων φυλάξοντας τὴν θάλασσαν, etc.: compare vi, 7.
[545] Herodot. v, 112.
[546] Herodot. v, 112-115. It is not uninteresting to compare, with this reconquest of Cyprus by the Persians, the conquest of the same island by the Turks in 1570, when they expelled from it the Venetians. See the narrative of that conquest (effected in the reign of Selim the Second by the Seraskier Mustapha-Pasha), in Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osmannischen Reichs, book xxxvi, vol. iii, pp. 578-589. Of the two principal towns, Nikosia in the centre of the island, and Famagusta on the north-eastern coast, the first, after a long siege, was taken by storm, and the inhabitants of every sex and age either put to death or carried into slavery; while the second, after a most gallant defence, was allowed to capitulate. But the terms of the capitulation were violated in the most flagitious manner by the Seraskier, who treated the brave Venetian governor, Bragadino, with frightful cruelty, cutting off his nose and ears, exposing him to all sorts of insults, and ultimately causing him to be flayed alive. The skin of this unfortunate general was conveyed to Constantinople as a trophy, but in after-times found its way to Venice.
We read of nothing like this treatment of Bragadino in the Persian reconquest of Cyprus, though it was a subjugation after revolt; indeed, nothing like it in all Persian warfare.
Von Hammer gives a short sketch (not always very accurate as to ancient times) of the condition of Cyprus under its successive masters,—Persians, Græco-Egyptians, Romans, Arabians, the dynasty of Lusignan, Venetians, and Turks,—the last seems decidedly the worst of all.
In reference to the above-mentioned piece of cruelty, I may mention that the Persian king Kambysês caused one of the royal judges (according to Herodotus v, 25), who had taken a bribe to render an iniquitous judgment, to be flayed alive, and his skin to be stretched upon the seat on which his son was placed to succeed him; as a lesson of justice to the latter. A similar story is told respecting the Persian king Artaxerxês Mnêmon; and what is still more remarkable, the same story is also recounted in the Turkish history, as an act of Mohammed the Second (Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osmannisch. Reichs, book xvii, vol. ii, p. 209; Diodorus, xv, 10). Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii, 6) had good reason to treat the reality of the fact as problematical.
[547] Herodot. v, 117.
[548] Herodot. v, 122-124.
[549] Herodot. v, 118. On the topography of this spot, as described in Herodotus, see a good note in Weissenborn, Beyträge zur genaueren Erforschung der alt. Griechischen Geschichte, p. 116, Jena, 1844.
He thinks, with much reason, that the river Marsyas here mentioned cannot be that which flows through Kelænæ, but another of the same name which flows into the Mæander from the southwest.