Though confined within the walls of his capital, Crœsus had still good reason for hoping to hold out until the arrival of his allies, to whom he sent pressing envoys of acceleration: for Sardis was considered impregnable,—one assault had already been repulsed, and the Persians would have been reduced to the slow process of blockade. But on the fourteenth day of the siege, accident did for the besiegers that which they could not have accomplished either by skill or force. Sardis was situated on an outlying peak of the northern side of Tmôlus; it was well-fortified everywhere except towards the mountain; and on that side, the rock, was so precipitous and inaccessible, that fortifications were thought unnecessary, nor did the inhabitants believe assault to be possible. But Hyrœades, a Persian soldier, having accidentally seen one of the garrison descending this precipitous rock to pick up his helmet, which had rolled down, watched his opportunity, tried to climb up, and found it not impracticable. Others followed his example, the strong-hold was thus seized first, and the whole city was speedily taken by storm.[337]
Cyrus had given especial orders to spare the life of Crœsus, who was accordingly made prisoner. But preparations were made for a solemn and terrible spectacle. The captive king was destined to be burnt in chains, together with fourteen Lydian youths, on a vast pile of wood: and we are even told that the pile was already kindled and the victim beyond the reach of human aid, when Apollo sent a miraculous rain to preserve him. As to the general fact of supernatural interposition, in one way or another, Herodotus and Ktêsias both agree, though they describe differently the particular miracles wrought.[338] It is certain that Crœsus, after some time, was released and well treated by his conqueror, and lived to become the confidential adviser of the latter as well as of his son Kambysês:[339] Ktêsias also acquaints us that a considerable town and territory near Ekbatana, called Barênê, was assigned to him, according to a practice which we shall find not unfrequent with the Persian kings.
The prudent counsel and remarks as to the relations between Persians and Lydians, whereby Crœsus is said by Herodotus to have first earned this favorable treatment, are hardly worth repeating; but the indignant remonstrance sent by Crœsus to the Delphian god is too characteristic to be passed over. He obtained permission from Cyrus to lay upon the holy pavement of the Delphian temple the chains with which he had at first been bound. The Lydian envoys were instructed, after exhibiting to the god these humiliating memorials, to ask whether it was his custom to deceive his benefactors, and whether he was not ashamed to have encouraged the king of Lydia in an enterprise so disastrous? The god, condescending to justify himself by the lips of the priestess, replied: “Not even a god can escape his destiny. Crœsus has suffered for the sin of his fifth ancestor (Gygês), who, conspiring with a woman, slew his master and wrongfully seized the sceptre. Apollo employed all his influence with the Mœræ (Fates) to obtain that this sin might be expiated by the children of Crœsus, and not by Crœsus himself; but the Mœræ would grant nothing more than a postponement of the judgment for three years. Let Crœsus know that Apollo has thus procured for him a reign three years longer than his original destiny,[340] after having tried in vain to rescue him altogether. Moreover, he sent that rain which at the critical moment extinguished the burning pile. Nor has Crœsus any right to complain of the prophecy by which he was encouraged to enter on the war; for when the god told him, that he would subvert a great empire, it was his duty to have again inquired which empire the god meant; and if he neither understood the meaning, nor chose to ask for information, he has himself to blame for the result. Besides, Crœsus neglected the warning given to him, about the acquisition of the Median kingdom by a mule: Cyrus was that mule,—son of a Median mother of royal breed, by a Persian father, at once of different race and of lower position.”
This triumphant justification extorted even from Crœsus himself a full confession, that the sin lay with him, and not with the god.[341] It certainly illustrates, in a remarkable manner, the theological ideas of the time; and it shows us how much, in the mind of Herodotus, the facts of the centuries preceding his own, unrecorded as they were by any contemporary authority, tended to cast themselves into a sort of religious drama; the threads of the historical web being in part put together, in part originally spun, for the purpose of setting forth the religious sentiment and doctrine woven in as a pattern. The Pythian priestess predicts to Gygês that the crime which he had committed in assassinating his master would be expiated by his fifth descendant, though, as Herodotus tells us, no one took any notice of this prophecy until it was at last fulfilled:[342] we see thus that the history of the first Mermnad king is made up after the catastrophe of the last. There was something in the main facts of the history of Crœsus profoundly striking to the Greek mind: a king at the summit of wealth and power,—pious in the extreme, and munificent towards the gods,—the first destroyer of Hellenic liberty in Asia,—then precipitated, at once and on a sudden, into the abyss of ruin. The sin of the first parent helped much towards the solution of this perplexing problem, as well as to exalt the credit of the oracle, when made to assume the shape of an unnoticed prophecy. In the affecting story (discussed in a former chapter[343]) of Solon and Crœsus, the Lydian king is punished with an acute domestic affliction, because he thought himself the happiest of mankind,—the gods not suffering anyone to be arrogant except themselves;[344] and the warning of Solon is made to recur to Crœsus after he has become the prisoner of Cyrus, in the narrative of Herodotus. To the same vein of thought belongs the story, just recounted, of the relations of Crœsus with the Delphian oracle. An account is provided, satisfactory to the religious feelings of the Greeks, how and why he was ruined,—but nothing less than the overruling and omnipotent Mœræ could be invoked to explain so stupendous a result.
It is rarely that these supreme goddesses, or hyper-goddesses—since the gods themselves must submit to them—are brought into such distinct light and action. Usually, they are kept in the dark, or are left to be understood as the unseen stumbling-block in cases of extreme incomprehensibility; and it is difficult clearly to determine (as in the case of some complicated political constitutions) where the Greeks conceived sovereign power to reside, in respect to the government of the world. But here the sovereignty of the Mœræ, and the subordinate agency of the gods, are unequivocally set forth.[345] Yet the gods are still extremely powerful, because the Mœræ comply with their requests up to a certain point, not thinking it proper to be wholly inexorable; but their compliance is carried no farther than they themselves choose. Nor would they, even in deference to Apollo,[346] alter the original sentence of punishment for the sin of Gygês in the person of his fifth descendant,—a sentence, moreover, which Apollo himself had formally prophesied shortly after the sin was committed; so that, if the Mœræ had listened to his intercession on behalf of Crœsus, his own prophetic credit would have been endangered. Their unalterable resolution has predetermined the ruin of Crœsus, and the grandeur of the event is manifested by the circumstance, that even Apollo himself cannot prevail upon them to alter it, or to grant more than a three years’ respite. The religious element must here be viewed as giving the form—the historical element as giving the matter only, and not the whole matter—of the story; and these two elements will be found conjoined more or less throughout most of the history of Herodotus, though, as we descend to later times, we shall find the historical element in constantly increasing proportion. His conception of history is extremely different from that of Thucydidês, who lays down to himself the true scheme and purpose of the historian, common to him with the philosopher,—to recount and interpret the past, as a rational aid towards the prevision of the future.[347]
The destruction of the Lydian monarchy, and the establishment of the Persians at Sardis—an event pregnant with consequences to Hellas generally—took place in 546 B. C.[348] Sorely did the Ionic Greeks now repent that they had rejected the propositions made to them by Cyrus for revolting from Crœsus,—though at the time when these propositions were made, it would have been highly imprudent to listen to them, since the Lydian power might reasonably be looked upon as the stronger. As soon as Sardis had fallen, they sent envoys to the conqueror, entreating that they might be enrolled as his tributaries, on the footing which they had occupied under Crœsus. The reply was a stern and angry refusal, with the exception of the Milesians, to whom the terms which they asked were granted:[349] why this favorable exception was extended to them, we do not know. The other continental Ionians and Æolians (exclusive of Milêtus, and exclusive also of the insular cities which the Persians had no means of attacking), seized with alarm, began to put themselves in a condition of defence: it seems that the Lydian king had caused their fortifications to be wholly or partially dismantled, for we are told that they now began to erect walls; and the Phôkæans especially devoted to that purpose a present which they had received from the Iberian Arganthônius, king of Tartêssus. Besides thus strengthening their own cities, they thought it advisable to send a joint embassy entreating aid from Sparta; they doubtless were not unapprized that the Spartans had actually equipped an army for the support of Crœsus. Their deputies went to Sparta, where the Phôkæan Pythermus, appointed by the rest to be spokesman, clothing himself in a purple robe,[350] in order to attract the largest audience possible, set forth their pressing need of succor against the impending danger. The Lacedæmonians refused the prayer; nevertheless, they despatched to Phôkæa some commissioners to investigate the state of affairs,—who perhaps, persuaded by the Phôkæans, sent Lakrinês, one of their number, to the conqueror at Sardis, to warn him that he should not lay hands on any city of Hellas,—for the Lacedæmonians would not permit it. “Who are these Lacedæmonians? (inquired Cyrus from some Greeks who stood near him)—how many are there of them, that they venture to send me such a notice?” Having received the answer, wherein it was stated that the Lacedæmonians had a city and a regular market at Sparta, he exclaimed: “I have never yet been afraid of men like these, who have a set place in the middle of their city, where they meet to cheat one another and forswear themselves. If I live, they shall have troubles of their own to talk about, apart from the Ionians.” To buy or sell, appeared to the Persians a contemptible practice; for they carried out consistently, one step farther, the principle upon which even many able Greeks condemned the lending of money on interest; and the speech of Cyrus was intended as a covert reproach of Grecian habits generally.[351]
This blank menace of Lakrinês, an insulting provocation to the enemy rather than a real support to the distressed, was the only benefit which the Ionic Greeks derived from Sparta. They were left to defend themselves as best they could against the conqueror; who presently, however, quitted Sardis to prosecute in person his conquests in the East, leaving the Persian Tabalus with a garrison in the citadel, but consigning both the large treasure captured, and the authority over the Lydian population, to the Lydian Paktyas. As he carried away Crœsus along with him, he probably considered himself sure of the fidelity of those Lydians whom the deposed monarch recommended. But he had not yet arrived at his own capital, when he received the intelligence that Paktyas had revolted, arming the Lydian population, and employing the treasure in his charge to hire fresh troops. On hearing this news, Cyrus addressed himself to Crœsus, according to Herodotus, in terms of much wrath against the Lydians, and even intimated that he should be compelled to sell them all as slaves. Upon which Crœsus, full of alarm for his people, contended strenuously that Paktyas alone was in fault, and deserving of punishment; but he at the same time advised Cyrus to disarm the Lydian population, and to enforce upon them effeminate attire, together with habits of playing on the harp and shopkeeping. “By this process (he said) you will soon see them become women instead of men.”[352] This suggestion is said to have been accepted by Cyrus, and executed by his general Mazarês. The conversation here reported, and the deliberate plan for enervating the Lydian character supposed to be pursued by Cyrus, is evidently an hypothesis imagined by some of the contemporaries or predecessors of Herodotus,—to explain the contrast between the Lydians whom they saw before them, after two or three generations of slavery, and the old irresistible horsemen of whom they heard in fame, at the time when Crœsus was lord from the Halys to the Ægean sea.
To return to Paktyas,—he had commenced his revolt, come down to the sea-coast, and employed the treasures of Sardis in levying a Grecian mercenary force, with which he invested the place and blocked up the governor Tabalus. But he manifested no courage worthy of so dangerous an enterprise; for no sooner had he heard that the Median general Mazarês was approaching at the head of an army dispatched by Cyrus against him, than he disbanded his force and fled to Kymê for protection as a suppliant. Presently, arrived a menacing summons from Mazarês, demanding that he should be given up forthwith, which plunged the Kymæans into profound dismay; for the idea of giving up a suppliant to destruction was shocking to Grecian sentiment. They sent to solicit advice from the holy temple of Apollo, at Branchidæ near Milêtus; and the reply directed, that Paktyas should be surrendered. Nevertheless, so ignominious did such a surrender appear, that Aristodikus and some other Kymæan citizens denounced the messengers as liars, and required that a more trustworthy deputation should be sent to consult the god. Aristodikus himself, forming one of the second body, stated the perplexity to the oracle, and received a repetition of the same answer; whereupon he proceeded to rob the birds’-nests which existed in abundance in and about the temple. A voice from the inner oracular chamber speedily arrested him, exclaiming: “Most impious of men, how darest thou to do such things? Wilt thou snatch my suppliants from the temple itself?” Unabashed by the rebuke, Aristodikus replied: “Master, thus dost thou help suppliants thyself: and dost thou command the Kymæans to give up a suppliant?” “Yes, I do command it[353] (rejoined the god forthwith), in order that the crime may bring destruction upon you the sooner, and that you may not in future come to consult the oracle upon the surrender of suppliants.”
The ingenuity of Aristodikus completely nullified the oracular response, and left the Kymæans in their original perplexity. Not choosing to surrender Paktyas, nor daring to protect him against a besieging army, they sent him away to Mitylênê, whither the envoys of Mazarês followed and demanded him; offering a reward so considerable, that the Kymæans became fearful of trusting them, and again conveyed away the suppliant to Chios, where he took refuge in the temple of Athênê Poliuchus. But here again the pursuers followed, and the Chians were persuaded to drag him from the temple and surrender him, on consideration of receiving the territory of Atarneus (a district on the continent over against the island of Lesbos) as purchase-money. Paktyas was thus seized and sent prisoner to Cyrus, who had given the most express orders for this capture: hence the unusual intensity of the pursuit. But it appears that the territory of Atarneus was considered as having been ignominiously acquired by the Chians; none even of their own citizens would employ any article of its produce for holy or sacrificial purposes.[354]
Mazarês next proceeded to the attack and conquest of the Greeks on the coast; an enterprise which, since he soon died of illness, was completed by his successor Harpagus. The towns assailed successively made a gallant but ineffectual resistance: the Persian general by his numbers drove the defenders within their walls, against which he piled up mounds of earth, so as either to carry the place by storm or to compel surrender. All of them were reduced, one after the other: with all, the terms of subjection were doubtless harder than those which had been imposed upon them by Crœsus, because Cyrus had already refused to grant these terms to them, with the single exception of Milêtus, and because they had since given additional offence by aiding the revolt of Paktyas. The inhabitants of Priênê were sold into slavery: they were the first assailed by Mazarês, and had perhaps been especially forward in the attack made by Paktyas on Sardis.[355]