On his death Harpagus came down as his successor in the command; he also was by birth a Mede, the same whom Astyages king of the Medes entertained at the impious feast, and who assisted Cyrus in ascending the throne. This man being appointed general by Cyrus, on his arrival in Ionia, took several cities by means of earth-works; for he forced the people to retire within their fortifications, and then, having heaped up mounds against the walls, he carried the cities by storm. Phocæa was the first place in Ionia that he attacked.
These Phocæans were the first of all the Greeks who undertook long voyages, and they are the people who discovered the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas, Iberia, and Tartessus.[7] They made their voyages in fifty-oared galleys, and not in merchant-ships. When they arrived at Tartessus they were kindly received by the king of the Tartessians, whose name was Arganthonius; he reigned eighty years over Tartessus, and lived to the age of one hundred and twenty. The Phocæans became such great favorites with him, that he at first solicited them to abandon Ionia, and to settle in any part of his territory they should choose; but afterward, finding he could not prevail with them to accept his offer, and hearing from them the increasing power of the Mede, he gave them money for the purpose of building a wall around their city; he must have given it unsparingly, for the wall is not a few stades in circumference, and is entirely built of large and well-compacted stones. When Harpagus had marched his army against the Phocæans, he besieged them, but offered these terms: "that he would be content if the Phocæans would throw down only one of their battlements, and consecrate one house to the king's use." The Phocæans, detesting slavery, said, "that they wished for one day to deliberate, and would then give their answer"; but while they were deliberating they required him to draw off his forces from the wall. Harpagus said, that "though he well knew their design, yet he would permit them to consult together." In the interval, then, during which Harpagus withdrew his army from the wall, the Phocæans launched their fifty-oared galleys, and having put their wives, children, and goods on board, together with the images from the temples and other offerings, except works of bronze or stone, or pictures, they embarked themselves, and set sail for Chios: and the Persians took possession of Phocæa, abandoned by all its inhabitants. The Phocæans, when the Chians refused to sell them the Œnyssæ Islands, for fear they should become the seat of trade, and their own island be thereby excluded, directed their course to Cyrnus; where, by the admonition of an oracle, they had twenty years before built a city, named Alalia. But Arganthonius was at that time dead. On their passage to Cyrnus, having first sailed down to Phocæa, they put to death the Persian garrison which had been left by Harpagus to guard the city. Afterward, when this was accomplished, they pronounced terrible imprecations on any who should desert the fleet; besides this, they sunk a mass of red-hot iron, and swore "that they would never return to Phocæa, till this burning mass should appear again." Nevertheless, as they were on their way toward Cyrnus, more than one half of the citizens were seized with regret and yearning for their city and dwellings in the country, and violating their oaths, sailed back to Phocæa; but such of them as kept to their oath weighed anchor and sailed from the Œnyssæ Islands. On their arrival at Cyrnus they lived for five years in common with the former settlers: but as they ravaged the territories of all their neighbors, the Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians combined together to make war against them, each with sixty ships: and the Phocæans, on their part, having manned their ships, consisting of sixty in number, met them in the Sardinian Sea; and having engaged, the Phocæans obtained a kind of Cadmean victory;[8] for forty of their own ships were destroyed, and the twenty that survived were disabled, for their prows were blunted. They therefore sailed back to Alalia, took on board their wives and children, with what property their ships were able to carry, and leaving Cyrnus, sailed to Rhegium. As to the men belonging to the ships destroyed, most of them fell into the hands of the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, who took them on shore and stoned them to death. But afterward all animals belonging to the Argyllæans that passed by the spot where the Phocæans who had been stoned lay, became distorted, maimed, and crippled, as well sheep, as beasts of burden and men. The Argyllæans, therefore, being anxious to expiate the guilt, sent to Delphi; and the Pythian enjoined them to use those rites which they still observe; for they commemorate their death with great magnificence, and have established gymnastic and equestrian contests. This was the fate of these Phocæans; but the others, who fled to Rhegium, left that place, and got possession of the town in the territory of Œnotria, which is now called Hyela, which they colonized by the advice of a certain Posidonian, who told them the Pythia had directed them to establish sacred rites to Cyrnus as being a hero, but not to colonize the island of that name.
The Teians also acted nearly in the same manner as the Phocæans. For when Harpagus by means of his earth-works had made himself master of their walls, they all went on board their ships, and sailed away to Thrace, and there settled in the city of Abdera; which Timesius of Clazomenæ having formerly founded, did not enjoy, but was driven out by the Thracians, and is now honored as a hero by the Teians of Abdera.
These were the only Ionians who abandoned their country rather than submit to servitude. The rest, except the Milesians, gave battle to Harpagus, and as well as those who abandoned their country, proved themselves brave men, each fighting for his own; but defeated and subdued, they remained in their own countries, and submitted to the commands imposed on them. The Milesians, as I have before mentioned, having made a league with Cyrus, remained quiet. So was Ionia a second time enslaved, and the islanders, dreading the same fate, made their submission to Cyrus. When the Ionians were brought into this wretched condition, and nevertheless still held assemblies at Panionium, I am informed that Bias of Priene gave them most salutary advice, which, had they harkened to him, would have made them the most flourishing of all the Greeks. He advised, "that the Ionians, should sail in one common fleet to Sardinia, and there build one city for all the Ionians; thus being freed from servitude, they would flourish, inhabiting the most considerable of the islands, and governing the rest; whereas if they remained in Ionia, he saw no hope of recovering their liberty." But before Ionia was ruined, the suggestion of Thales, the Milesian, who was of Phœnician extraction, was also good, who advised that the Ionians should constitute one general council in Teos, which stands in the centre of Ionia; and that the rest of the inhabited cities should be governed as independent states.
Harpagus having subdued Ionia, marched against the Carians, Cannians, Lycians, Ionians, and Æolians; of whom the Carians were by far the most famous of all nations in those times. They introduced three inventions which the Greeks have adopted. For the Carians set the example of fastening crests upon helmets and of putting devices on shields; they are also the first who attached handles to shields; until their time all who used shields carried them without handles, guiding them with leathern thongs, having them slung round their necks and left shoulders.
The Lycians were originally sprung from Crete, for in ancient time Crete was entirely in the possession of barbarians. But a dispute having arisen between Sarpedon and Minos, sons of Europa, respecting the sovereign power, when Minos got the upper hand in the struggle, he drove out Sarpedon with his partisans; and they being expelled came to the land of Milyas in Asia, and were afterwards joined by Lycus son of Pandion of Athens, who was likewise driven out by his brother Ægeus, and came to be called Lycians after him. Their customs are partly Cretan and partly Carian; but they have one peculiar to themselves, in which they differ from all other nations: they take their name from their mothers and not from their fathers; so that if any one asks another who he is, he will describe himself by his mother's side, and reckon his ancestry in the female line. And if a free-born woman marry a slave, the children are accounted of pure birth; but if a man though a citizen, and of high rank, marry a foreigner, the children are considered low born.
All Cnidia, except a small space, is surrounded by water; for the Ceramic gulf bounds it on the north, and on the south the sea by Syme and Rhodes: now this small space, which is about five stades in breadth, the Cnidians, wishing to make their territory insular, designed to dig through, while Harpagus was subduing Ionia. For the whole of their dominions were within the isthmus; and where the Cnidian territory terminates toward the continent, there is the isthmus that they designed to dig through. But, as they were carrying on the work with great diligence, the workmen appeared to be wounded to a greater extent and in a more strange manner than usual, both in other parts of the body, and particularly in the eyes, by the chipping of the rock; they therefore sent deputies to Delphi to inquire what was the cause of the obstruction; and, as the Cnidians say, the Pythia answered as follows in trimeter verse: "Build not a tower on the isthmus, nor dig it through, for Jove would have made it an island had he so willed." So the Cnidians desisted from their work, and surrendered without resistance to Harpagus, as soon as he approached with his army. The Pedasians were situated inland above Halicarnassus. When any mischief is about to befall them or their neighbors, the priestess of Minerva has a long beard: this has three times occurred. These were the only people about Caria who opposed Harpagus for any time and gave him much trouble, by fortifying a mountain called Lyda. After some time, however, they were subdued. The Lycians, when Harpagus marched his army toward the Xanthian plain, went out to meet him, and engaging with very inferior numbers, displayed great feats of valor. But being defeated and shut up within their city, they collected their wives, children, property, and servants within the citadel, and then set fire to it and burnt it to the ground. When they had done this, and engaged themselves by the strongest oaths, all the Xanthians went out and died fighting. Of the modern Lycians, who are said to be Xanthians, all, except eighty families, are strangers; but these eighty families happened at the time to be away from home and so survived. Thus Harpagus got possession of Xanthus and Caunia almost in the same manner; for the Caunians generally followed the example of the Lycians.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CONQUEST OF ASSYRIA AND THE WAR WITH THE MASSAGETÆ.
While Harpagus was reducing the lower parts of Asia, Cyrus had conquered the upper parts, subduing every nation without exception. The greatest parts of these I shall pass by without notice; but I will make mention of those which gave him most trouble, and are most worthy of being recorded.