[556] Above, p. 369.
[557] Above, p. 357. Nicol. Dam. Fragm. 66; Plut "Alex." c. 69; Plut. "De Mul. virt." 5.
[558] According to the canon of Ptolemy, Cyrus dies 529 B.C. We arrive at the same year if we reckon back from the death of Darius. This took place five years after the battle of Marathon (Herod. 7, 1-4), i. e. 485 B.C. Darius reigned 36 years according to Herodotus and the canon of Ptolemy. An Egyptian pillar gives the year 34, a demotic contract the year 35 of his reign: he ascended the throne therefore in 521 B.C. Before him the Magian reigned for seven months, Cambyses for seven years and five months (Herod. 3, 66, 67). The canon of Ptolemy omits the Magian and gives Cambyses eight years, because it reckons by complete years; hence Cambyses ascended the throne in 529. As Cyrus, according to Herodotus, reigned 29 years after his accession (1, 214), the beginning of his reign over Media must be placed in 558. If Ctesias gives Cyrus a reign of 30 years ("Pers." 8), like Deinon (p. 369), and Justin (1, 8), and Eusebius a reign of 31 years, these statements may be reconciled by the fact that Cyrus may have taken up arms against Media 30 or 31 years before his death, and reigned 29 years after the overthrow of Astyages. Diodorus puts the beginning of Cyrus: Olymp. 55, 1 = 560 B.C. Africanus in Euseb. "Præp. Evang." 10, p. 488.
CHAPTER V.
THE RISE OF THE PERSIAN KINGDOM.
The Median empire was not of long duration. Little more than a century had passed since Phraortes succeeded Deioces in the government of the land of Ecbatana, little more than eighty since Phraortes had united the tribes of the Medes under his leadership, about sixty since Cyaxares had expelled the Scythians, and not quite fifty since Nineveh had succumbed to the arms of the Medes and Babylonians.
In the overthrow of so mighty a power, Cyrus had achieved a great, and, so far as we can tell, an unexpected, success. Scanty as our information is, we can still perceive that he used the victory with circumspection and moderation. Herodotus told us that he did no injury to the captive Astyages, and kept him with him till his death. Ctesias relates that at the command of Cyrus, the heavy chains, which Oebares had put on Astyages, were quickly taken off; that he honoured him as a father; and entrusted him with the government of the Barcanians. According to the statement of Pompeius Trogus, Cyrus allowed him to be viceroy of the Hyrcanians. The same nation may be meant by these two names; in the inscriptions of Darius Hyrcania is called Varkana, in the Avesta Vehrkana.[559] Ctesias further tells us that Cyrus put to death the Mede Spitamas, whom Astyages had married to his daughter Amytis, and then made his successor, and that after treating Amytis for some time as his mother he subsequently made her his wife. No harm was done to Megabernes and Spitaces, the sons of her marriage with Spitamas; on the contrary, the first was placed by the wish of Cyrus in the satrapy of the Barcanians, the second in the satrapy of the Derbiccians.
Cyrus must have made it his object to reconcile the Medes to their defeat and loss of empire. If he could make the house of Astyages his own, and take his daughter to wife, the edge of the change was softened, and the more apparent it was that this marriage had the consent of Astyages, the more legitimate would his rule be in the eyes of the Medes, the less could they regard it as the dominion of a stranger. It was of importance to gain the assent of the Medes to the new kingdom, and support this if possible on the united power of Medes and Persians. Moreover, the relations of alliance in which Astyages stood to the princely houses of Lydia and Babylonia made it advisable to deal carefully with Astyages and his kindred. Astyages was still alive in 549 B.C.,[560] according to Herodotus and Ctesias. Whatever may be the case as to the connection of Cyrus with Amytis, his legitimate wife was Cassandane, the daughter of the Persian Pharnaspes, who according to Herodotus was an Achæmenid, and was in fact one of the six tribal princes. Cassandane bore Cyrus two sons, Cambyses and Bardiya, whom Herodotus calls Smerdis; Ctesias, Tanyoxarkes; and Xenophon, Tanaoxares. The death of Cassandane was a great grief to Cyrus; he caused the whole kingdom to go into mourning for her.[561]
With respect to the position which Cyrus took up in regard to the royal family of Media, and Amytis more especially, Ctesias has preserved a somewhat incredible story. This narrative, which again is obviously taken from a poetical source, ascribes the death of Astyages to Oebares, to whom, according to Trogus, Cyrus had given the government of Persia and his sister in marriage, as a reward for his services, who in the beginning of his reign had been his associate in all his dangers, and whom, according to Ctesias, he had afterwards to thank for the capture of Sardis. The motive of this act, according to the drift of these poems, can only have been anxiety on the part of Oebares lest the influence of Astyages and his friends should endanger the succession of the house of Cyrus in the Persian kingdom and the dominion of the Persians. Oebares had previously murdered the Babylonian who possessed the secret which controlled the future of Persia, against the wishes and without the knowledge of Cyrus (p. 347), and he now acts in a similar manner towards Astyages. Cyrus, so we are told in our excerpt,[562] after the Lydian war sent the eunuch Petesaces to bring Astyages from the Barcanians, as both he and Amytis wished to see him. Oebares advised Petesaces to abandon Astyages on the way in some desert place, to perish by starvation. This was done. The crime was revealed by dreams, and Cyrus, on the repeated entreaty of Amytis, gave Petesaces up to her for punishment. She caused him to be blinded, flayed, and crucified. Oebares, fearing that a similar lot was in store for him, though Cyrus assured him that he should not permit anything of the kind, refused all nourishment for ten days, and so put an end to his life. The corpse of Astyages received a splendid burial. Lions had guarded it in the desert place in which it had been abandoned, until Petesaces returned and carried it away. In the poem in which the singing woman warns Astyages against Cyrus he is compared to a lion (p. 349). Whether the lions performed this service to the corpse of Astyages in the source from which Ctesias copied—it could scarcely by such an incident exhibit him as a man favoured by heaven—or whether the lions dealt with the corpse in a manner more in accordance with the views of Eastern Iran, we must leave out of the question. What is more certain is, that the most zealous Persian could have no real reason for putting Astyages to death, for after the Lydian war he would be in his eightieth year. The importance ascribed to Amytis points to a Median version; the death of Oebares is accounted for in a manner suitable to his life and his fidelity.