CHAPTER XV.
THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF DARIUS ON THE INDUS AND THE DANUBE.
Aeschylus represents the Persians as saying, "A great, prosperous, victorious life was granted to us by destiny, when King Darius, the lord of the bow, Susa's beloved captain, governed the land, without fault or failure, like a god. The Persians called him their divine counsellor: he was filled with a godlike wisdom, and wisely did he, the Susa-born god of Persia, lead our army. We were seen in splendid array; there was ready for him the unwearying might of armed men, and troops mingled from all nations, and the return from the wars was glorious. According to his will, he ruled the wealthy populous cities of the Greeks in the land of Ionia, and the wave-beaten islands of the seas, adjacent to that land, Chios, Lesbos and Samos rich in olives, and Lemnos between both shores, and the cities of Cyprus, Paphos, Soli, and Salamis. Many cities he took adjacent to the Thracian borders on the Strymonian Sea: even the walled cities, far from the shore, obeyed him, and the famous cities on the strait of Helle, on the bay of the Propontis, and the mouth of the Pontus. Beloved hero, thy like lies not in the land of Persia."[245]
The rebellions were crushed, the kingdom of Cyrus was once more established. Darius took precautions to prevent the recurrence of such serious dangers, and to bring the nations into a lasting state of dependence. He created fixed districts for government, strengthened the action of the central power, secured the necessary means for this, and sought to arrange the taxes and tributes of the provinces and settle them at fixed contributions. Along with this improvement in the organization of the kingdom he kept in sight the extension of it; he did not wish to be left behind Cyrus and Cambyses in this respect. We cannot decide whether the northern boundary of the kingdom reached the Caucasus in the time of Cyrus; it is certain that under Darius the nations between the Black and the Caspian Sea, the Colchians, the Tibarenes, Chalybes, Moschians, and Saspeires, were subject to the Persians. Herodotus observes that the Colchians and their neighbours paid the tribute which they had imposed upon themselves—which implies that these nations submitted voluntarily. "The empire of the Persians," Herodotus tells us, "extends to the Caucasus; the territory to the north pays no heed to them."[246] It was a considerable gain when the kingdom extended as far as the Caucasus, or included the whole range; for by this means it acquired a strong natural border, and at the same time controlled the trading road which ran from the east and the Caspian Sea through the valleys of the Cyrus (Kur) and the Phasis to the Black Sea.
In the East Cyrus, as we saw, had already advanced as far as the Indus; he had conquered the Açvakas on the north of the Cabul, and the Gandaras to the south of that river. Of their neighbours, Bactria and Arachosia had remained true during the great rebellion, though the Sattagydæ (the Gedrosians) had revolted. Darius had himself marched against the Sacæ, and reduced them again to subjection. Herodotus tells us, that he sent out a party to explore the Indus; in which was Scylax, an inhabitant of Caryanda in Caria. They set out from the land of the Pactyes (i. e. from Arachosia), and from the city of Caspatyrus (Cabul) they followed the course of the Indus to the sea. Then they sailed to the west, and in the thirtieth month they arrived at the point from which the Phenicians started, who sailed round Africa at the command of Necho (III. 313), i. e. they did not return to the Persian Gulf but sailed round Arabia, and landed in the north-west corner of the Arabian Gulf at Heroonpolis. After their return Darius made use of this sea, and subjugated the Indians.[247] The extension of the Persian kingdom in the land of the Indus, by Darius, is beyond a doubt. In the inscription which he caused to be engraved on Mount Behistun after the suppression of the rebellions, he enumerates the nations which obey him. We can find but one name of an Indian nation to the right of the Indus—the Gandaras. The inscription of the palace of Persepolis, which Darius built a few years later, mentions the Idhus, i. e. the Indians, besides the Gandarians. Herodotus further informs us that it was the Northern Indians whom Darius had subjugated. They formed the twentieth satrapy of his kingdom, while the Gandarians were united with the Arachoti in the seventh satrapy. The twentieth satrapy of Northern Indians comprised the lands to the north of Cabul, on the right bank of the stream, from the land of the Açvakas as far as the summits of the Himalayas. It paid 360 talents of gold, the highest tax among all the satrapies of the kingdom.[248]
In the west Darius pursued even more extensive plans. If Cambyses had trodden the soil of Africa, his armies were to cross the western sea, and carry the empire of Persia into Europe—a point which none of the great warrior princes of the east had as yet reached. Diodorus tells us, that Darius, filled with eager desire to extend his dominion, master of almost all Asia, and trusting to the magnitude of the Persian power, desired to conquer Europe as his ancestors had defeated the mightiest nations with less forces.[249] The first achievement of Darius in this direction was the conquest of Samos, the most powerful and prosperous of the islands on the coast of Asia Minor. Oroetes had already prepared the way for this by inviting Polycrates to Magnesia and there putting him to an ignominious death, for when Polycrates was master of Samos and at the head of the splendid naval power which he had created he could contest with Persia the possession of the Ægean (p. 143, 231). Polycrates had left the most trusted of his dependents, Maeandrius, as regent during his absence. On the news of the death of Polycrates, he declared his willingness to lay down his power. But when the nobles of Samos demanded an account of the treasures of Polycrates which were in the hands of Maeandrius, he treacherously seized those who made the demand, threw them into prison, and maintained himself as tyrant. At an earlier time, Polycrates, in close union with his two brothers, Pantagnotus and Syloson, had made himself master of Samos: he then removed the former out of his path, and sent the second into banishment. Syloson went to Egypt to amuse himself with the sights of the country. There, according to Herodotus, he was one day seen by Darius, who was then in Egypt with Cambyses, in the market-place of Memphis, clad in a red cloak. The cloak pleased Darius and he wished to purchase it, but Syloson hastened to offer it as a present to the Persian prince. When Darius became king, Syloson went to Susa, as Herodotus relates, placed himself at the gate of the palace, and told the door-keeper that he had done a service to the king. Darius in astonishment at such an assertion from a Greek, caused Syloson to be brought, remembered the cloak, and was prepared to reward the gift by a liberal present of gold and silver. But Syloson urged the king to restore him to the throne of Polycrates, which was now in the hands of a man who had been a slave in his family; the island was to be spared.[250]
Whether this narrative has any real foundation or not (in any case Susa must be struck out) Darius found it advantageous to get Samos into his power; and, as we have seen, it was a maxim from the time of Cyrus to set up princes in the maritime cities and the islands, who owed their power to the Persians, and who could only maintain it with their help. He commanded Otanes, whose service in the assassination of the Magi we know, to cross over into Samos. The Samians had no inclination to fight in the cause of Maeandrius, nor did they venture to resist the Persians. When Otanes landed with the Persian troops, Maeandrius with his dependants retired into the citadel, and sent a message to Otanes that he was prepared to quit the island. When this had been agreed upon, the captains of the Persians waited without suspicion before the citadel for the departure of Maeandrius and his associates, and for the opening of the gates. Then the half-witted brother of Maeandrius, Charilaus, who had been confined in prison in the citadel, burst forth from the open gates with the old mercenaries of Polycrates and fell upon the nearest Persians, who in reliance on the treaty were unprepared for an enemy, and cut the captains down, while Maeandrius passed by a subterranean passage to the sea, and embarked on board ship. The mass of the Persians hastened to the rescue; the mercenaries were driven back into the citadel. Enraged at the treachery, Otanes gave the command to cut down all the Samians who fell into the hands of the Persians both within and without the walls. The city was set on fire, and the flames injured the temple of Hera, which was the largest building in Greece after the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. When the citadel had fallen, Syloson received from the Persians (516 B.C.) the ruined city and the desolate island. He enjoyed the throne but a short time, which he had purchased by the ruin of the flourishing country, and vassalage to the great king.[251] The island recovered from the blow which it received from the Persians. Twenty years after the subjugation it could once more equip and man 60 triremes.
The possession of Samos completed the dominion of Darius over the coasts of Anatolia. It was of greater importance to get into his power the two straits which separate Europe from Asia—the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. If the Greek cities on the Asiatic side were subject, the cities and lands beyond were still to be conquered, and with the conquest of these the Persian empire would set foot in Europe. Perinthus, a colony of the recently-conquered Samos, Selymbria on the northern shore of the Propontis, and Byzantium on the Bosphorus, both colonies of Megara, recognised the dominion of Darius; in Byzantium, the most important of these cities, a tyrant, Ariston by name, soon took the lead.[252] The European shore of the Hellespont, the Thracian Chersonesus, had been for more than forty years under the rule of a princely family, which sprang from Attica. One of the oldest noble families in Attica, which had retired from the country before the usurpation of Pisistratus in 560 B.C.—the Philaidae, had established a principality there, by protecting and securing the Doloncian Thracians in the peninsula against their fellow-countrymen the Apsinthians, who dwelt at the mouth of the Hebrus. The position which the first of these princes, Miltiades II., thus obtained in the Hellespont, filled the city of Lampsacus, which lay opposite, on the Asiatic shore, with jealousy and anxiety for her trade; the question in dispute was the control of the busy strait. Lampsacus waged long and vigorous war against Miltiades and his nephew and successor Stesagoras. The latter was followed by his younger brother, Miltiades III. (about 518 B.C.), who had taken the reins of government tightly in hand. The forces of the little principality did not suffice to offer resistance to the Persians; and the walls of Sestos and Cardia were insufficient. We hear of no resistance, and Miltiades passed into the series of Persian vassal princes. In this way he was secured against Lampsacus and Sigeum also, where Pisistratus, in league with Polycrates of Samos, had placed his younger son Hegesistratus as prince about the year 533 B.C., who became a vassal of Persia when Cambyses demanded ships from the Greek cities, or after the fall of Polycrates, or certainly when Darius extended his sovereignty over Samos.
By the subjugation of Byzantium and the Thracian Chersonesus, Darius was not merely master of the whole of the important trade of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, and the cantons of Hellas, with the north shore of the Black Sea, but the path into Europe was in his hand. According to Ctesias, he bade Ariamnes, his satrap in Cappadocia, sail to Scythia and there make prisoners. Ariamnes carried out the command with thirty penteconters, and brought back captives.[253] If the statement is correct, it must refer to an investigation of the north coast of the Black Sea, similar to that made by Darius of the east on the Indus (p. 260), and at a later time of the coasts of Hellas and Magna Graecia.[254] Darius contemplated a great expedition; he wished to cross the straits with a large force, but not to pass to the west against Macedonia and the cantons of the Greeks, but to the north beyond the Danube. It must have seemed more important to him to secure himself in the north first; the conquest of the west he regarded as less urgent, and also as a less important undertaking. Herodotus tells us that Darius' object was to avenge the incursion which the Scythians made, at the time of Cyaxares, into Media.[255] It is his manner to connect events by a nexus of guilt and punishment; Darius cared very little for the disaster which had fallen on Media. We shall be more correct in ascribing to him the intention of getting the whole shore of the Black Sea into his power, in order that he might reduce the western and northern coasts, when, the south-west, as far as the Caucasus, being already subjugated, the whole sea would be a Persian lake. On the northern edge lay a district fertile in corn, and flourishing colonies of the Greeks. With this territory and these cities the Persian kingdom would have gained the mouth of the rivers of the north, and the outlet of the trading roads to the nations of the north, as it had already got command of the trading roads which met from the east and west in Colchis. But what really happened to the north of the Danube, so far as we can fix the incidents, does not agree with this plan. The object of the enterprise, unless we assume that Darius only wished to carry his arms to the most remote nations, cannot be made clear, nor can we follow with certainty all the phases in it.