Translated by G.C. Macaulay
c. 430 BC 2026
This is an AI modernization of Herodotus' Histories (from the G.C. Macaulay translation, 1890) into contemporary English. The original is available from Project Gutenberg (Vol. 1) and Project Gutenberg (Vol. 2).
Book I: Clio
Book II: Euterpe
Book III: Thalia
Book IV: Melpomene
Book V: Terpsichore
Book VI: Erato
Book VII: Polymnia
Book VIII: Urania
Book IX: Calliope
This is the account of the research of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, set down so that the deeds of men might not be erased by time, and so that the great and astonishing things brought about by both Greeks and non-Greeks might not go unremembered — and above all, so that the reasons they went to war with each other might be preserved.
According to the Persians — and they consider themselves the experts on this matter — it was the Phoenicians who started the whole quarrel. The Phoenicians had originally come from the shores of the Red Sea and settled along the Mediterranean coast, where they still live today. As soon as they arrived, they took up long-distance sea trade, shipping Egyptian and Assyrian goods to various ports, including Argos, which was at that time the leading city in what we now call Greece.
When the Phoenicians arrived in Argos, they set about selling their cargo. On the fifth or sixth day, when they had nearly sold everything, a large group of women came down to the shore, among them the king's daughter. Her name, as even the Greeks agree, was Io, daughter of Inachus. The women were browsing the goods near the stern of the ship when the Phoenicians suddenly gave each other the signal and rushed them. Most of the women escaped, but Io and a few others were seized. The Phoenicians threw them on board and immediately sailed for Egypt.
That's the Persian version of how Io came to Egypt — and it doesn't match the Greek account at all. But according to the Persians, this was the first in a series of offenses. After this, they say, some Greeks — they can't specify which ones, but they were probably Cretans — sailed to the Phoenician city of Tyre and abducted the king's daughter Europa. So now the score was even.
But then the Greeks committed a second offense, the Persians say. They sailed to Aea in Colchis on the river Phasis with a warship, and after finishing whatever other business had brought them there, they kidnapped the king's daughter Medea. The king of Colchis sent a messenger to Greece demanding compensation and the return of his daughter, but the Greeks replied that since the non-Greeks had never paid compensation for kidnapping Io from Argos, they certainly weren't going to pay any either.
Then in the next generation, they say, Alexander — the son of Priam, whom we know as Paris — heard about all this and decided to steal a wife from Greece for himself, fully confident that he wouldn't have to pay any penalty, since the Greeks had never paid one themselves. So he carried off Helen. The Greeks first sent messengers demanding her return along with compensation, but the Trojans threw the kidnapping of Medea right back at them: "You never paid compensation or returned her when we asked. Why should we?"
Up to this point, the Persians say, it was just a series of kidnappings going back and forth. But then the Greeks made things much worse — they were the first to actually launch a military invasion into Asia, before anyone from Asia had invaded Europe. And the Persian view is this: while kidnapping women is certainly wrong, it's foolish to get obsessed with revenge over it. The sensible approach is to let it go, since, as they point out, the women would never have been taken if they hadn't been willing to go along. The people of Asia, they say, didn't make a big deal out of it when their women were carried off, but the Greeks went and assembled a massive army over one woman from Sparta, sailed to Asia, and destroyed Priam's kingdom. From that point on, the Persians say, they have always considered the Greeks their enemies. The Persians claim Asia and all its peoples as their own; Europe and the Greeks they regard as separate and foreign.
That's how the Persians tell it. They trace the beginning of their quarrel with Greece to the fall of Troy. The Phoenicians, though, tell a different story about Io. They deny that they took her to Egypt by force. Instead, they say that while they were in Argos, she became involved with the ship's captain, got pregnant, and was too ashamed to tell her parents — so she sailed off with the Phoenicians voluntarily, to avoid being found out.
These are the stories told by the Persians and Phoenicians respectively. I'm not going to weigh in on whether they happened this way or that. Instead, I'll point to the man who, within my own knowledge, first committed real offenses against the Greeks, and then I'll continue forward with my account, covering cities great and small alike. For many that were great in former times have since become insignificant, and those that were powerful in my own day were once small. Since I understand that human prosperity never stays in one place, I'll give both their due.
Croesus was a Lydian, the son of Alyattes and ruler of the peoples living west of the Halys River, which flows south between the Syrians and the Paphlagonians before emptying northward into the Black Sea. This Croesus was, as far as we know, the first non-Greek ruler to bring some of the Greeks under his power — he forced some to pay tribute and won others over as allies. He conquered the Ionians, the Aeolians, and the Asian Dorians, while he made friends with the Spartans. Before Croesus, all of Greece had been free. The Cimmerian invasion that struck Ionia before his time was a raiding expedition, not a real conquest.
Now, the throne had belonged to the Heraclids — descendants of Heracles — but it passed to the family of Croesus, known as the Mermnad dynasty, in the following way. Candaules, whom the Greeks also call Myrsilos, was the ruler of Sardis, a descendant of Alcaeus, son of Heracles. The first of the Heraclids to rule Sardis was Agron, son of Ninus, son of Belus, son of Alcaeus, and Candaules, son of Myrsus, was the last. Before the Heraclids, the kings had been descendants of Lydus, son of Atys — which is how the whole nation came to be called Lydian, having previously been called Maeonian. The Heraclids had received the kingship from these earlier rulers on the authority of an oracle. They ruled for twenty-two generations, a total of five hundred and five years, passing power from father to son, all the way down to Candaules, son of Myrsus.
Now this Candaules was passionately in love with his own wife — and not just quietly in love, but so besotted that he considered her the most beautiful woman in the world. He had a favorite bodyguard named Gyges, son of Dascylus, to whom he would confide his most important affairs, and to this Gyges he kept praising his wife's beauty in the most extravagant terms. Since Candaules was fated for disaster, it wasn't long before he said to Gyges: "Gyges, I don't think you really believe me when I tell you how beautiful my wife is. People trust their eyes more than their ears — so arrange it so that you can see her naked."
Gyges cried out: "Master, what are you saying? You want me to look at the queen naked? When a woman takes off her clothes, she takes off her dignity too. There are old proverbs that teach us wisdom, and one of them is this: each man should look at what is his own. I believe you — she's the most beautiful woman alive. But please, don't ask me to do something like this."
Gyges resisted, fearing that something terrible would come of it. But the king pressed him: "Don't worry, Gyges. Don't be afraid of me — I'm not testing you. And don't be afraid of my wife — she won't even know. Here's my plan: I'll hide you behind the open door of our bedroom. After I go in, my wife will follow. Near the entrance there's a chair where she lays her clothes as she undresses, one piece at a time — so you'll get a good long look. When she walks from the chair to the bed with her back to you, slip out through the door. She'll never see you."
Since there was no way out of it, Gyges agreed. When it was time for bed, Candaules led him to the chamber. Soon the queen entered, and Gyges watched as she came in and laid down her clothes. When she turned her back to walk to the bed, he slipped out of his hiding place and headed for the door.
But the woman caught sight of him.
She understood immediately what her husband had done. She didn't cry out, even though she was humiliated. She pretended she'd seen nothing and gave no sign at all — but she was already planning her revenge. Among the Lydians, as among most other non-Greek peoples, it's considered a deep disgrace for even a man to be seen naked.
She held her silence that night. But at dawn she summoned the servants she trusted most and sent for Gyges. He came without suspecting anything, since he'd often been called to attend the queen before. When he arrived, she said: "Gyges, there are two paths before you, and I'm giving you the choice of which one to take. Either you kill Candaules and take both me and the kingdom of Lydia, or you die right here, right now — so that in the future you won't see what you shouldn't by obeying Candaules in everything. One of you must die: either the man who planned this, or you, who looked on me naked and did what no one should."
Gyges was stunned. He begged her not to force such a choice on him. But she wouldn't bend — and he saw that he truly must either kill his master or be killed himself. He chose to survive. "Since you're forcing me to kill my master against my will," he said, "at least tell me — how do we do this?"
She answered: "The attack will come from the very spot where he put me on display. We'll strike while he sleeps."
When night fell — there was no escape for Gyges; it was kill or be killed — he followed the woman to the bedroom. She gave him a dagger and hid him behind the same door. When Candaules was asleep, Gyges crept up and killed him, and took both his wife and his kingdom. The poet Archilochus of Paros, who lived around the same time, mentioned him in a poem.
Gyges secured the throne with the help of the Oracle at Delphi. When the Lydians rose up in anger over what had happened to Candaules, Gyges' supporters and the other Lydians struck a deal: if the Oracle declared that Gyges should be king, he would be king; if not, he would return power to the Heraclids. The Oracle confirmed him. But the priestess added this warning: vengeance for the Heraclids would come in the fifth generation from Gyges. Neither the Lydians nor their kings paid any attention to this prophecy — until it came true.
So the Mermnad dynasty took power from the Heraclids. When Gyges became king, he sent a staggering number of offerings to Delphi — more silver dedications than any other man has made there, along with an enormous amount of gold. His most notable gift was a set of six golden mixing bowls, which stand in the treasury of the Corinthians (though in truth it's not really the Corinthian state treasury — it was built by Cypselus, son of Aëtion). These bowls weigh thirty talents — an enormous sum. Gyges was, as far as we know, the first non-Greek ruler to make dedications at Delphi, aside from Midas, son of Gordias, king of Phrygia, who dedicated the royal throne he used to sit on when judging disputes. That throne, which is well worth seeing, stands in the same spot as Gyges' bowls. The people of Delphi call all this gold and silver "Gygian," after the man who gave it.
Gyges did lead armies against Miletus and Smyrna, and he captured the lower town of Colophon. But he did nothing else particularly noteworthy during his thirty-eight-year reign, so I'll move on.
His son Ardys succeeded him. Ardys captured Priene and invaded Milesian territory. During his reign, the Cimmerians — driven from their homeland by the nomadic Scythians — swept into Asia and captured Sardis, all except the citadel.
After Ardys had reigned forty-nine years, his son Sadyattes succeeded him and ruled for twelve years; then came Alyattes. Alyattes went to war against Cyaxares and the Medes, drove the Cimmerians out of Asia, took Smyrna (which had been founded as a colony of Colophon), and invaded Clazomenae — though that campaign didn't go as he hoped, and he suffered heavy losses. But he accomplished other noteworthy things during his reign, which I'll now describe.
He inherited a war against Miletus from his father. His method of attack was this: whenever the crops in Milesian territory were ripe, he would march his army in — to the sound of pipes, harps, and flutes of both high and low pitch. When he reached Milesian land, he wouldn't knock down the farmhouses or burn them or tear off their doors. He left them standing. But the trees and the crops he destroyed completely, and then he marched home. The reason was simple: the Milesians controlled the sea, so a siege was pointless. He left the houses intact so the Milesians would have somewhere to live while they planted and worked their fields — and then he would have something to destroy when he came back the next year.
He kept up this war for eleven years. During that time, the Milesians suffered two major defeats: once in battle at Limeneion in their own territory, and once on the plain of the Maeander. For the first six of those eleven years, it was actually Sadyattes who was still king and conducting the invasions — he was the one who started the war. But for the last five years, Alyattes carried it on after inheriting it from his father and prosecuting it aggressively. None of the other Ionians helped Miletus bear the burden of this war except the people of Chios, who came to their aid to repay a past favor — the Milesians had helped them in their war against Erythrae.
Then in the twelfth year, when the Lydian army was burning standing grain, something happened. The fire, whipped by the wind, spread to the temple of Athena at Assessus and burned it to the ground. Nobody paid much attention at the time. But after the army returned to Sardis, Alyattes fell ill. When his sickness dragged on, he sent messengers to consult the Oracle at Delphi — whether on someone's advice or his own idea, I'm not sure. But when his envoys arrived, the priestess refused to answer until they rebuilt the temple of Athena that they had burned at Assessus in Milesian territory.
I know this from the people of Delphi. The Milesians add a detail: Periander, son of Cypselus, who was a close friend of Thrasybulus, the ruler of Miletus, heard about the oracle's response to Alyattes and sent word to Thrasybulus so he could plan accordingly.
When Alyattes received the oracle's answer, he immediately sent a herald to Miletus to propose a truce for as long as it took to rebuild the temple. Meanwhile Thrasybulus, who had been tipped off about the whole situation and knew what Alyattes was up to, came up with a plan. He gathered every bit of food in the city — both his own stores and whatever belonged to private citizens — into the marketplace, and ordered all the Milesians to start feasting and drinking on his signal.
The point of this was so that the herald from Sardis would see heaps of food everywhere and people partying — and report all of it back to Alyattes. And that's exactly what happened. The herald returned to Sardis having seen the feast and delivered his official message. The resulting peace, I'm told, came about entirely because of Thrasybulus' trick. Alyattes had been expecting to find Miletus starving and ground down to nothing. When his herald reported the exact opposite, the king gave up and made peace. The two sides became official allies and friends. Alyattes built two temples of Athena at Assessus instead of one, and he recovered from his illness. That's how the war between Alyattes and Miletus came to an end.
Now about Periander, the man who tipped off Thrasybulus about the oracle: he was the son of Cypselus and the tyrant of Corinth — and I should note here that "tyrant" in this period simply meant a sole ruler, not necessarily a cruel one. During his lifetime, the Corinthians say — and the people of Lesbos agree — something truly remarkable happened: the poet Arion of Methymna was carried ashore at Taenarum on the back of a dolphin.
This Arion was the greatest musician alive in his day, and as far as we know, the first person to compose, name, and perform a dithyramb — a kind of choral hymn — at Corinth.
The story goes like this. Arion had spent most of his time at Periander's court, but he eventually decided to sail to Italy and Sicily. After earning a fortune there, he wanted to return to Corinth. He set sail from Taras, and since he trusted the Corinthians more than anyone else, he hired a Corinthian ship and crew. But once they were out on the open sea, the sailors plotted to throw him overboard and keep his money. Arion found out about their plan. He begged for his life and offered them all his wealth, but they wouldn't listen. They told him he could either kill himself on the spot so they could give him a proper burial on land, or he could jump into the sea.
Cornered like this, Arion made one request: since they were determined to kill him, would they at least let him stand on the deck in his full performer's costume and sing one last song? He promised to kill himself afterward. The sailors were delighted at the idea of hearing the world's greatest musician, so they moved back from the stern to the middle of the ship. Arion put on his full costume, took up his lyre, and standing on the deck, performed the Orthian melody — a high, stirring piece. When the song ended, he threw himself into the sea, just as he was, in all his finery.
The sailors continued on to Corinth. But a dolphin, they say, took Arion on its back and carried him to shore at Taenarum. From there, still in his performer's costume, he made his way to Corinth and told Periander everything that had happened. Periander didn't quite believe him. He kept Arion under guard and watched for the crew's return. When they arrived, Periander called them in and asked casually whether they had any news of Arion. "Oh yes," they said, "he's safe and sound in Italy — we left him doing well in Taras." At that moment, Arion appeared before them, wearing the same outfit he'd had on when he jumped from the ship. The sailors were dumbstruck and couldn't deny anything further. The Corinthians and the Lesbians both tell this story, and there's a small bronze statue at Taenarum — a man on a dolphin's back — that they say is a votive offering of Arion's.
After waging his war against Miletus, Alyattes died, having reigned fifty-seven years. He was the second king of his dynasty to send a dedication to Delphi: a great silver mixing bowl on a stand of welded iron. The iron stand is the most remarkable piece among all the offerings at Delphi. It was the work of Glaucus of Chios, who is said to have been the first person to discover the art of welding iron.
When Alyattes died, his son Croesus inherited the kingdom. He was thirty-five years old. As I mentioned, he turned his attention to the Greeks, starting with the Ephesians. When he besieged their city, the Ephesians tried a creative defense: they literally tied a rope from the temple of Artemis to the city wall, dedicating the whole city to the goddess as a kind of sacred sanctuary. The temple was about seven furlongs from the old city under siege. The Ephesians were the first Greeks Croesus targeted, but after them he went after the other Ionian and Aeolian cities one by one, finding pretexts for each — serious charges where he could, trivial ones where he couldn't.
Once he had conquered the Greeks of Asia and forced them to pay tribute, Croesus started planning to build a fleet and attack the island Greeks as well. But just as everything was ready for shipbuilding, they say that Bias of Priene — or by another account, Pittacus of Mytilene — arrived in Sardis. When Croesus asked whether there was anything new happening in Greece, the visitor's answer put a stop to the whole shipbuilding project.
"Your Majesty," he said, "the islanders are hiring ten thousand cavalry and plan to march on Sardis to fight you."
Croesus, thinking this was true, exclaimed: "If only the gods would put it in the islanders' heads to come fight the Lydians on horseback!"
"Your Majesty," the visitor replied, "I can see how eager you'd be to catch the islanders on the mainland riding horses — and understandably so. But tell me: what do you think the islanders have been praying for ever since they heard you were building a fleet? They'd love nothing more than to catch the Lydians at sea, so they could pay you back for what you've done to the Greeks on the mainland."
Croesus was delighted with this logic. Seeing the point, he abandoned his shipbuilding plans entirely and instead made friends with the Ionian islanders.
As time went on, Croesus conquered nearly every people west of the Halys River. The only ones he didn't bring under his control were the Cilicians and the Lycians. Everyone else — Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians, Mariandynians, Chalybians, Paphlagonians, the Thracian peoples of Thynia and Bithynia, Carians, Ionians, Dorians, Aeolians, and Pamphylians — all were subject to him.
With all these peoples under his rule, and Sardis at the peak of its wealth, all the great thinkers of Greece who happened to be alive at the time came to visit, each for their own reasons. Among them was Solon the Athenian.
Solon had made laws for Athens at the citizens' request, and then left the country for ten years, ostensibly to see the world, but really to avoid being pressured into repealing any of the laws he had enacted. The Athenians couldn't change them on their own — they had bound themselves by solemn oaths to live under Solon's laws for a decade.
So Solon traveled. He visited Amasis in Egypt, and he came to Sardis to see Croesus. When he arrived, Croesus hosted him as a guest in the royal palace. On the third or fourth day, Croesus ordered his servants to give Solon the full tour of the royal treasuries, showing him everything — how grand and magnificent it all was. After Solon had examined it all at his leisure, Croesus said to him: "My Athenian guest, we have heard a great deal about you — your wisdom and your travels, how you've journeyed far and wide in pursuit of knowledge. So I can't resist asking: of all the people you've seen, who is the happiest?"
Croesus asked this question expecting to be named the happiest man alive. But Solon wasn't one for flattery. He told the truth.
"Tellus the Athenian," he said.
Croesus was taken aback. "Why Tellus?" he demanded.
"Well," said Solon, "first of all, Tellus lived in a city that was prospering. He had fine sons, and he lived to see all of them have children who survived to grow up. He had what we consider a comfortable fortune. And then he had a magnificent death: in a battle the Athenians fought against their neighbors at Eleusis, he charged into the fight, routed the enemy, and died as bravely as a man can. The Athenians gave him a public funeral right on the spot where he fell and honored him greatly."
Solon's story about Tellus and all his good fortune left Croesus burning to know who was next on the list, sure that he would at least get second place. "All right," he said, "who comes after Tellus?"
"Cleobis and Biton," Solon replied. "They were from Argos, well off enough, and on top of that blessed with remarkable physical strength — both of them had won prizes in the athletic games. And here's the story told about them: There was a festival of Hera at Argos, and their mother absolutely had to get to the temple by ox-cart. But the oxen hadn't come in from the fields in time. With no time left, the two young men yoked themselves to the cart and pulled their mother the whole way — forty-five furlongs — to the temple. After this feat, witnessed by the whole festival crowd, their lives came to the most wonderful ending, and through them the gods showed that it's better for a person to die than to go on living. The Argive men who were gathered around praised the young men's strength, while the women congratulated their mother on having such sons. Overjoyed by both the deed and the praise, the mother stood before the statue of the goddess and prayed that Hera would grant Cleobis and Biton the greatest gift a person can receive. After this prayer, after the sacrifices and the feasting, the two young men lay down to sleep right there in the temple — and they never woke up. That was their end. The Argives had statues made of them and dedicated them at Delphi as men who had proved themselves truly excellent."
Now Croesus was angry. "My Athenian guest," he snapped, "do you hold my happiness in such contempt that you rank me below ordinary private citizens?"
Solon replied: "Croesus, you're asking about the human condition, and you're asking someone who knows very well how jealous and unpredictable fortune is. In a long life, a person is bound to see and suffer a great deal that he would rather not. I put the limit of a human life at seventy years. Those seventy years contain twenty-five thousand two hundred days, not counting intercalary months. If every other year is lengthened by one month to keep the seasons aligned, that adds thirty-five intercalary months over the seventy years, giving another one thousand and fifty days. The total comes to twenty-six thousand two hundred and fifty days — and not a single one of them brings exactly the same thing as any other.
"So you see, Croesus, a human being is entirely a creature of chance. I can see that you are very wealthy and the king of many people. But I can't call you what you're asking me to call you — not until I hear that you've ended your life well. The very rich man is not necessarily happier than the man who has just enough to live on — unless he also has the luck to end his life with all his blessings intact. Plenty of extremely wealthy people are miserable, while plenty of people with modest means are fortunate. The rich man who isn't happy has only two real advantages over the lucky man of modest means, while the modest man has many advantages over the unhappy rich one. The rich man can more easily satisfy his desires and absorb a disaster. But the fortunate man — even if he can't match those advantages — has his good luck to shield him from disaster and desire in the first place. He's healthy, free from suffering, blessed with good children, and good-looking. If, on top of all this, he ends his life well, then he is the man you're looking for — he deserves to be called happy. But until he's dead, hold off on the word 'happy.' Call him fortunate, if you like, but not happy.
"No single person can have everything, just as no single country produces all it needs — it has one thing but lacks another. The best country is the one that has the most. The same goes for people. No person is complete in himself; he has this quality but lacks that one. The person who goes through life with the greatest number of blessings and then comes to a gracious end — that person, in my judgment, O king, deserves the name. But in everything, you must look at the ending and see how it turns out. God gives many people a glimpse of happiness, then tears them up by the roots."
With this speech, Solon thoroughly failed to please Croesus, who dismissed him as worthless — a fool who ignored the obvious good fortune right in front of him and kept telling people to look at how things end.
After Solon left, the vengeance of the gods fell heavily on Croesus — almost certainly because he considered himself the happiest man alive.
It began with a dream. A vision came to him in his sleep revealing the truth about the disaster that was about to befall his son. Croesus had two sons. One was disabled — he was deaf and mute. The other, named Atys, far surpassed every young man his age in every way. The dream told Croesus that he would lose Atys to the point of an iron spear.
When he woke up and thought it over, Croesus was terrified. He immediately arranged a marriage for his son. He stopped sending Atys to lead the Lydian armies, which the young man had always done before. He gathered up all the javelins, spears, and weapons from the men's quarters and piled them in the inner bedrooms, afraid that something might fall on his son.
While the wedding preparations were underway, a stranger arrived in Sardis — a man with blood on his hands, a Phrygian of royal blood. He came to Croesus' household and, following the custom of the land, asked for ritual purification. Croesus purified him — the Lydian ritual is much the same as the Greek one. When the ceremony was over, Croesus asked who he was and where he came from.
"Friend, who are you? Where in Phrygia do you come from, to sit at my hearth? And who is it that you killed?"
The man replied: "Your Majesty, I am Adrastus, son of Gordias, son of Midas. I killed my own brother — not on purpose — and my father has banished me and stripped me of everything."
Croesus answered: "You come from a family that are friends of ours, and you've come to friends. You'll lack for nothing as long as you stay here. Bear this misfortune as lightly as you can — that will serve you best." So Adrastus took up residence with Croesus.
During this same period, a boar of monstrous size appeared on Mount Olympus in Mysia. It kept coming down from the mountain to devastate the Mysians' fields. The Mysians went out against it again and again but couldn't bring it down — and suffered casualties of their own in the attempts. Finally, messengers came to Croesus: "Your Majesty, an enormous boar has appeared in our land and is destroying our fields. We've tried and failed to kill it. Please send your son with a picked group of young men and dogs to help us destroy it."
Remembering his dream, Croesus told them: "Don't mention my son again. I won't be sending him with you. He's just married and has his wedding to attend to. But I'll send you a handpicked group of Lydian men and my whole pack of hunting dogs, and I'll order them to do everything in their power to help you kill the beast."
The Mysians were satisfied with this answer. But then Atys himself walked in, having heard their request. When Croesus refused to let him go, the young man protested: "Father, I used to have the finest, most honorable role any man could ask for — I led armies and went on hunts and won glory for it. Now you've shut me out of both. And you haven't even seen any cowardice in me! How am I supposed to show my face in the city? What will the citizens think of me? What will my new wife think she's married? Either let me go on this hunt, or explain to me why it's better for things to be the way they are."
Croesus answered: "Son, it's not because I've seen cowardice in you or anything else I'm unhappy about. It's this: a dream came to me in my sleep and told me that your life would be short — that you would die by the point of an iron spear. That's why I rushed your marriage, and that's why I won't send you on this expedition. I'm trying to protect you, to steal you from your fate for as long as I'm alive. You're my only real son — the other one, being deaf, I can't count."
The young man replied: "Father, I can forgive you for worrying after seeing a dream like that. But there's something you've missed — the dream has slipped past you. You say the dream told you I'd die by an iron spear-point. But what hands does a boar have? What iron spear-point could it wield? If the dream had said I'd die by a tusk, or by something that resembles a tusk, then you'd be right to keep me here. But it said 'a spear-point.' Since we're not fighting men, let me go."
Croesus conceded: "Son, you've made a fair argument about the dream. I'm convinced. I change my mind — you can go on the hunt."
Then Croesus sent for Adrastus the Phrygian. When he arrived, Croesus said to him: "Adrastus, when you were struck by a terrible misfortune — and I don't hold it against you — I purified you and took you into my house and provided for all your needs. You owe me a kindness in return. I'm asking you to be my son's protector on this hunt, in case any bandits try to cause trouble on the road. Besides, you should go where you can distinguish yourself — it's your birthright, and you have the strength for it."
Adrastus replied: "Your Majesty, normally I wouldn't go anywhere near an adventure like this. A man carrying the kind of misfortune I carry shouldn't seek out the company of those who are doing well, and I have no desire for it. I've held myself back for many reasons. But since you're pressing me, and since I owe you a debt of kindness, I'm ready to do it. You can expect your son, whom you're entrusting to my protection, to come home safe, as far as his protector can manage."
With that, they set out with a picked group of young men and dogs. They reached Mount Olympus, tracked the boar, surrounded it, and began hurling their spears. Then the guest — the man purified of blood-guilt, Adrastus himself — threw his spear at the boar, missed it, and struck Croesus' son. The spear-point found its mark, and the dream's prophecy was fulfilled.
A runner raced back to Sardis to tell Croesus what had happened. When he heard the news of his son's death, Croesus was shattered. What made it unbearable was that the man who killed his son was the very man he himself had purified. In his agony, Croesus cried out to Zeus, calling on him as the god of Purification, bearing witness to what he had suffered at his guest's hands. He called on Zeus as Protector of Suppliants and as Guardian of Friendship — the same god under different names — because he had taken the stranger into his home as a suppliant, unknowingly harboring his own son's killer, and because he had sent the man along as a protector only to find in him his worst enemy.
Then the Lydians arrived carrying the body, with the killer walking behind. Adrastus came and stood before the corpse. He stretched out his hands and told Croesus to kill him right there over the body. He spoke of his earlier misfortune — the brother he had killed — and now this: he had destroyed the very man who had purified him. Life, he said, was no longer worth living.
Croesus, hearing this, pitied Adrastus despite his own crushing grief. "Guest," he said, "I've already received from you all the justice I'm owed, since you've condemned yourself to death. You aren't really the cause of this evil, except that your hand was the unwilling instrument of it. The cause is some god, the same one who warned me long ago what was going to happen."
Croesus buried his son with all proper rites. But Adrastus — son of Gordias, son of Midas, the man who had killed his own brother and then killed the man who purified him — waited until everyone had left the tomb. Then, recognizing that he was the most wretched man alive, he killed himself on the grave.
For two years Croesus sat in mourning, destroyed by the loss of his son. Then events in the wider world roused him. Cyrus, son of Cambyses, had overthrown Astyages, son of Cyaxares, and the Persians were growing more powerful by the day. Croesus stopped grieving and started thinking about how to check Persian power before it grew any greater.
With this plan in mind, he immediately set about testing the oracles — both the Greek ones and the one in Libya. He sent messengers in every direction: some to Delphi, some to the oracle at Abae in Phocis, some to Dodona, others to the shrines of Amphiaraus and Trophonius, and still others to the Branchidae near Miletus. Those were the Greek oracles. He also sent to the oracle of Ammon in Libya. The purpose of sending to all these places was to test them — to find out which ones actually knew anything. If any proved to have genuine knowledge, he would send to them a second time with the real question: should he go to war against the Persians?
Here was his test. He told his messengers to count the days from the moment they left Sardis, and on the hundredth day, to ask each oracle what Croesus, son of Alyattes, king of the Lydians, was doing at that precise moment. Whatever the oracles answered, the envoys were to write it down and bring it back.
What the other oracles prophesied, nobody has recorded. But at Delphi, the moment the Lydians entered the sanctuary and put their question, the priestess answered in hexameter verse:
"I know the number of grains of sand and the measure of the ocean. I understand the mute and I hear the one who does not speak. The smell has come to my senses of a hard-shelled tortoise boiling in a bronze cauldron, together with the flesh of lamb. Bronze lies beneath it, and bronze is spread above."
When the Lydians had written down the prophecy, they hurried back to Sardis. When all the messengers had returned with their answers, Croesus opened the responses one by one. None of them impressed him. But when he heard the one from Delphi, he immediately accepted it and did reverence to the god, convinced that the Oracle at Delphi was the only true one — because it had discovered what he had actually done. After sending his messengers out with their instructions, he had kept the appointed day in mind and devised a test that would be impossible to discover or guess: he personally cut up a tortoise and a lamb, boiled them together in a bronze cauldron, and put a bronze lid on top.
That was the answer Delphi gave. As for the oracle of Amphiaraus, I can't say what the Lydians were told after performing the customary rites in his temple, because there's no record of it — only that Croesus considered it, too, to be a true oracle.
After this, Croesus set about winning the favor of the god at Delphi with enormous sacrifices. He offered three thousand animals of every kind suitable for sacrifice. He heaped up couches plated with gold and silver, golden cups, and purple robes and tunics, made a great pyre of all of it, and burned it — hoping to win the god's support for Lydia. He commanded every Lydian to make a sacrifice with whatever each man had. When the sacrifices were over, he melted down a vast quantity of gold and cast it into one hundred and seventeen half-bricks, each six handspans long, three wide, and one tall. Four of these were pure gold, each weighing two and a half talents; the rest were an alloy of gold and silver, each weighing two talents. He also had a lion made of pure gold, weighing ten talents. When the temple at Delphi later burned down, this lion fell off the half-bricks it stood on and now sits in the treasury of the Corinthians, weighing only six and a half talents — three and a half having melted away in the fire.
When all of this was ready, Croesus sent it to Delphi, along with a number of other gifts: two enormous mixing bowls, one gold and one silver. The gold one was placed to the right as you enter the temple, the silver one to the left — though their positions were changed after the temple burned down. The gold bowl now sits in the treasury of the people of Clazomenae, weighing eight and a half talents plus twelve pounds. The silver bowl stands in the corner of the entrance hall. It holds six hundred amphoras and is filled with wine by the Delphians during the festival of the Theophania. The Delphians say it's the work of Theodorus of Samos, and I think they're right — the craftsmanship is clearly extraordinary.
Croesus also sent four silver wine jars, which stand in the Corinthian treasury, and two basins for holy water, one gold and one silver. The gold one is inscribed "from the Spartans," who claim it as their own offering — but they're wrong. It's from Croesus too. One of the Delphians wrote the inscription to flatter the Spartans. I know his name but won't mention it. The statue of a boy with water flowing through his hands is from the Spartans, but neither basin is. Along with all this, Croesus sent many other offerings not individually remarkable, including round silver castings and a golden statue of a woman, three cubits high, which the Delphians say represents Croesus' baker. He also dedicated the jewelry from his wife's neck and her belts.
These were his gifts to Delphi. To the shrine of Amphiaraus, having heard of his courage and his tragic fate, Croesus dedicated a shield made entirely of solid gold and a spear that was solid gold from point to shaft. Both were still there in my own time, at Thebes, in the temple of Ismenian Apollo.
Croesus then instructed the Lydians carrying these gifts to ask the oracles one more question: should Croesus march against the Persians, and if so, should he seek allies? When the envoys arrived at their destinations and made the dedications, they put the question: "Croesus, king of the Lydians and other nations, believes that these are the only true oracles in the world. He sends you gifts worthy of your revelations, and now asks: should he march against the Persians, and should he seek an allied army?"
Both oracles — Delphi and Amphiaraus — gave the same answer. They told Croesus that if he marched against the Persians, he would destroy a great empire. And they advised him to find out which were the most powerful of the Greeks and make them his allies.
When Croesus heard these answers, he was overjoyed. Fully expecting to destroy the empire of Cyrus, he sent once more to Delphi and, having determined how many citizens the city had, presented every man in Delphi with two gold coins. In return, the Delphians granted Croesus and the Lydians priority in consulting the oracle, exemption from all fees, front-row seats at the games, and a standing offer that any Lydian who wished could become a citizen of Delphi, in perpetuity.
After his generous gifts to the men of Delphi, Croesus consulted the Oracle a third time. Once he'd confirmed that the Oracle was the real deal, he made heavy use of it. This time he asked whether his kingdom would last a long time. The Pythian priestess answered him in verse:
"When a mule becomes monarch of the Medes, then, soft-footed Lydian, flee by the pebbly Hermos -- run, and don't be ashamed to be called a coward."
These lines pleased Croesus more than anything the Oracle had ever told him. He figured a mule would never rule the Medes instead of a man, and therefore he and his descendants would hold power forever. With that confidence, he turned his attention to finding the most powerful Greek state to make into an ally.
After investigating, he found that the Spartans and the Athenians stood above the rest -- the Spartans being the leading Dorian people, the Athenians the leading Ionian people. These were the two most distinguished peoples of ancient times: the Ionians were originally Pelasgian, while the Dorians were Greek by origin. The Pelasgian people had never migrated from their homeland, but the Dorians were tremendous wanderers. In the time of Deucalion they lived in Phthiotis; in the time of Dorus, the son of Hellen, they lived in the region below Mount Ossa and Olympus called Histiaiotis. When the sons of Cadmus drove them out of Histiaiotis, they settled in the Pindus mountains and were called Macedonians. From there they moved to Dryopis, and finally from Dryopis to the Peloponnese, where they became known as Dorians.
Now, I can't say for certain what language the Pelasgians originally spoke. But if we can judge from the Pelasgians who still survive -- those living in the city of Creston above the Tyrrhenians, who were once neighbors of the people now called Dorians when they lived in what's now called Thessaliotis, and those who settled at Plakia and Scylace on the Hellespont, who had previously lived among the Athenians, and the inhabitants of the various other towns that are really Pelasgian despite having lost the name -- if we can judge from all these, the Pelasgians spoke a non-Greek language. And if that's the case, then the Attic people, being Pelasgian in origin, must have given up their old language when they became Greek. After all, the people of Creston don't speak the same language as any of their neighbors, and neither do the people of Plakia, but these two groups speak the same language as each other -- which proves they've kept the language they brought with them when they migrated.
As for the Greek-speaking peoples, they've used the same language, as far as I can tell, ever since they first came into existence. When they split off from the Pelasgians they were a small group, but from that modest beginning they grew into the many peoples we see today, mainly because so many non-Greek peoples were absorbed into their number. I also believe that the Pelasgians, as long as they remained non-Greek, never grew into a large population.
Of these two peoples, then, Croesus learned that the Athenians were oppressed and torn apart by internal strife under Peisistratus, the son of Hippocrates, who was at that time their tyrant -- their sole ruler. Here's how Hippocrates' son came to power.
When Hippocrates was still a private citizen, he went to watch the Olympic Games, and something extraordinary happened. After he made his sacrifice, the cauldrons sitting on the hearth -- full of meat and water -- boiled over without any fire under them. Chilon the Spartan happened to be there and witnessed this marvel. He advised Hippocrates, first, not to marry a woman who would bear him children; second, if he already had a wife, to divorce her; and third, if he had a son, to disown him. But Hippocrates, they say, refused to take Chilon's advice. And so Peisistratus was born.
When the Athenians split into factions -- the coastal party led by Megacles the son of Alcmaeon, and the plains party led by Lycurgus the son of Aristolaides -- Peisistratus saw his opportunity and aimed for sole power. He organized a third faction, calling himself the champion of the hill country people. Then he pulled off this scheme: he wounded himself and his mules, drove his cart into the marketplace, and claimed he'd barely escaped from enemies who had tried to kill him on the road. He asked the people for a bodyguard, pointing to his previous reputation from the war against Megara, where he'd captured Nisaea and performed other impressive feats. The Athenian people fell for it and gave him a bodyguard of chosen men from the city -- though they weren't spearmen but club-bearers who followed him around carrying wooden clubs. With these men, Peisistratus staged a coup and seized the Acropolis. And so Peisistratus became ruler of Athens, though he didn't disturb the existing officials or change the laws. He governed under the existing constitution and ran things fairly and well.
Before long, however, the followers of Megacles and Lycurgus joined forces and drove him out. That was the end of Peisistratus' first time in power -- he lost it before he'd firmly established it. But then the men who'd driven him out began feuding with each other again. Megacles, worn down by the factional fighting, sent a message to Peisistratus: would he be willing to marry Megacles' daughter in exchange for becoming ruler again?
Peisistratus accepted, and they agreed on terms. Then they hatched a scheme that I consider the silliest one ever attempted -- especially considering that this was in Athens, which the Greeks themselves said was the most sophisticated city in all of Greece, and that the Greek world had long since distinguished itself from non-Greek peoples as being more clever and less gullible.
In the district of Paiania there was a woman named Phya who was nearly six feet tall and strikingly beautiful. They dressed her in full armor, put her in a chariot, and coached her on how to look the part. Then they drove into the city, having sent heralds running ahead who announced: "People of Athens, welcome Peisistratus, whom Athena herself honors above all men and is now bringing back to her Acropolis!" The heralds spread this message everywhere. Word quickly reached the surrounding districts that Athena was personally escorting Peisistratus home, and the people in the city, convinced that this woman was actually the goddess, worshipped this mortal creature and welcomed Peisistratus back.
Having regained power this way, Peisistratus married Megacles' daughter as agreed. But since he already had grown sons, and since the family of Alcmaeon was said to be under a curse, he didn't want to father any children with his new wife. So he slept with her -- but not in the usual way. At first the woman kept this secret, but eventually she told her mother, whether because her mother asked or not I can't say, and the mother told Megacles.
Megacles was furious at being dishonored by Peisistratus. In his anger he immediately patched things up with his own faction. When Peisistratus learned what was happening, he left the country entirely and went to Eretria, where he took counsel with his sons. Hippias' advice won out: they would try to win back power. They began collecting money from states that owed them favors. Many contributed large sums, but the Thebans outstripped everyone in their generosity. To cut a long story short, time passed and eventually they had everything prepared for their return. Argive mercenaries came from the Peloponnese, and a man from Naxos named Lygdamis arrived on his own initiative, showing tremendous enthusiasm by providing both money and men.
Setting out from Eretria after ten years in exile, they returned. The first place they seized in Attica was Marathon. While they camped there, supporters streamed in from the city and from the countryside -- people to whom one-man rule was more welcome than freedom. All this time the Athenians in the city had paid no attention: not while Peisistratus was raising money, not even when he took Marathon. But when they heard he was marching from Marathon toward the city, they finally mobilized against him.
The two forces met at the temple of Athena Pallenis, where they camped facing each other. At that moment, as if guided by a god, a soothsayer named Amphilytus of Acarnania appeared before Peisistratus and delivered a prophecy in verse:
"The net has been cast and spread wide. In the moonlit night, the tuna will come darting through."
Peisistratus understood the oracle perfectly, accepted the prophecy, and led his army forward. The Athenians from the city happened to be eating their midday meal at the time, and afterward some were playing dice while others were napping. Peisistratus' forces fell on them and routed them. Then, as the Athenians fled, Peisistratus came up with a clever strategy to prevent them from regrouping: he mounted his sons on horseback and sent them riding ahead. Catching up to the fugitives, they delivered their father's message -- that everyone should take heart and go home.
The Athenians obeyed, and so Peisistratus seized Athens for the third time. This time he firmly rooted his power, using foreign mercenaries and ample revenue drawn from the local region and from around the river Strymon. He also took the sons of Athenians who'd stayed behind but hadn't immediately surrendered, and sent them to Naxos as hostages -- for Peisistratus had conquered Naxos by force and put Lygdamis in charge. On top of all this, he purified the island of Delos in obedience to the oracles. His purification went like this: everywhere within sight of the temple, he had all the dead bodies dug up and moved to another part of the island.
So Peisistratus was ruler of Athens. Some Athenians had fallen in battle, and others -- including the sons of Alcmaeon -- were living in exile.
That, then, was the state of affairs in Athens that Croesus learned about. As for Sparta, he heard that the Spartans had come through great difficulties and were now winning their war against Tegea.
During the reigns of Leon and Hegesicles, the Spartans had been successful in all their other wars but kept losing to Tegea. Before that, their laws had been among the worst of any Greek state -- both in their internal affairs and in their refusal to have dealings with foreigners. The way they changed to a good constitution was this: Lycurgus, a prominent Spartan, went to the Oracle at Delphi, and the moment he entered the sanctuary, the priestess declared:
"You have come, Lycurgus, to my rich temple, beloved by Zeus and all who dwell on Olympus. Whether to call you a god or a man I'm not sure, but I think you're a god, Lycurgus."
Some say the priestess also laid out for him the entire system of laws the Spartans now follow. But the Spartans themselves say that Lycurgus, when he became guardian of his nephew Leobotes -- who was king of Sparta -- brought the laws from Crete. As soon as he became guardian, he changed all the existing laws and made sure they wouldn't be violated. After that, Lycurgus established the military institutions: the sworn companies, the companies of thirty, and the common meals. He also created the board of Ephors and the Senate.
With these reforms, the Spartans suddenly had good laws. After Lycurgus died, they built him a temple and worshipped him with great devotion. With rich land and a large population, Sparta quickly became prosperous. Before long they weren't content to sit still -- they believed they were stronger than the Arcadians and asked the Oracle at Delphi about conquering all of Arcadia. The priestess replied:
"You ask me for Arcadia? You ask too much -- I refuse. Many tough men live in Arcadia, acorn-eaters, and they'll keep you out. But I'm not stingy: I'll give you Tegea to dance in with stamping feet, and a fine plain to measure out with a surveyor's line."
When the Spartans heard this, they left the rest of Arcadia alone and marched against Tegea with fetters in their hands, trusting in this misleading oracle and expecting to enslave the Tegeans. But they lost the battle, and those who were captured alive ended up wearing the very fetters they'd brought -- laboring in the fields of Tegea, "measuring out" and "dividing" that fine plain just as the oracle had predicted. Those fetters were still hanging in the temple of Athena Alea in Tegea in my own day.
So in the earlier war, the Spartans had consistently fared badly against Tegea. But in Croesus' time, during the reigns of Anaxandrides and Ariston at Sparta, the Spartans finally gained the upper hand. Here's how it happened.
Since they kept losing, they sent to Delphi and asked which god they should appease to start winning. The priestess told them to bring home the bones of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon. When they couldn't find the grave, they sent again to ask where Orestes was buried. The priestess answered in verse:
"In Arcadian Tegea, on a level plain, where two winds blow under strong compulsion, where stroke meets counterstroke and trouble lies on trouble -- there the earth holds Agamemnon's son. Bring him home, and you'll be master of Tegea."
Even after hearing this, the Spartans were no closer to finding the grave, despite searching everywhere. It wasn't until Lichas, one of the Spartans called the "Benefactors," figured it out. The Benefactors were the five eldest citizens who rotated out of the "Knights" each year and were sent on various missions for the state during their year of service.
Lichas, as one of these Benefactors, discovered the grave in Tegea through a combination of luck and cleverness. During a period of truce with Tegea, he visited a forge there and watched iron being worked. He stared in amazement at the process. The blacksmith noticed his fascination, stopped working, and said: "Friend, if you're this amazed at seeing iron worked, you'd really have marveled at what I once saw. I was trying to dig a well in this yard and I struck a coffin ten feet long. I couldn't believe men had ever been bigger than they are now, so I opened it -- and the body was just as long as the coffin. I measured it, then filled the earth back over it."
As the smith told his story, Lichas thought it over and concluded that this must be Orestes, just as the oracle described. Here was his reasoning: the smith's two pairs of bellows were the two winds; the anvil and hammer were "stroke meeting counterstroke"; and the iron being forged was "trouble lying on trouble" -- because iron had been discovered to humanity's harm.
With this figured out, Lichas returned to Sparta and told the whole story. The Spartans then brought a trumped-up charge against him and sent him into exile. He went back to Tegea, told the smith about his troubles, and tried to rent the yard. At first the smith refused, but eventually Lichas persuaded him. He moved in, dug up the grave, collected the bones, and brought them back to Sparta. From that day on, whenever the Spartans and Tegeans tested each other in war, Sparta had the clear advantage. By this time they'd already conquered most of the Peloponnese.
So Croesus, learning all this, sent messengers to Sparta with gifts to propose an alliance. His messengers delivered this speech: "Croesus, king of the Lydians and other nations, sends us to say: 'Spartans, since the god's oracle has instructed me to make the leading Greek state my friend, and since I've learned that you are the leaders of Greece, I invite you, in accordance with the oracle, to become my friend and ally, without any trickery or deception.'"
The Spartans, who had already heard about the oracle given to Croesus, were delighted when the Lydian envoys arrived and swore oaths of friendship and alliance. They already felt some obligation to Croesus: the Spartans had once sent to Sardis to buy gold for a statue of Apollo -- the one now standing on Mount Thornax in Spartan territory -- and Croesus had simply given it to them as a gift.
For this reason, and because he'd chosen them above all other Greeks, the Spartans eagerly accepted the alliance. They even had a great bronze mixing bowl made as a return gift, covered with figures around the rim and large enough to hold three hundred amphoras. They sent it off to Sardis, but it never arrived. Two stories explain what happened. The Spartans say that when the bowl reached the waters off Samos, the Samians sailed out with warships and seized it. The Samians tell a different version: the Spartans carrying the bowl, learning that Sardis had already fallen and Croesus was a prisoner, sold the bowl on Samos, and private citizens bought it and dedicated it in the temple of Hera. And quite possibly the men who sold it claimed, when they got back to Sparta, that the Samians had taken it.
Meanwhile, Croesus -- having completely misread the oracle -- was marching into Cappadocia, expecting to overthrow Cyrus and the Persian empire. While he prepared for the campaign, a Lydian named Sandanis, who was already considered wise and whose reputation grew enormously after this, offered him some advice: "Your Majesty, you're preparing to go to war against men who wear leather pants and leather everything else. They eat whatever they can get, not whatever they want, because they live in a harsh land. They don't drink wine -- they drink water. They don't even have figs for dessert, or any other fine thing. Now think about it: if you beat them, what will you take from them? They have nothing. But if they beat you, think about how much you'll lose. Once they've tasted our good things, they'll hold on tight and you'll never get rid of them. Personally, I thank the gods that they haven't put it into the Persians' heads to attack us." This advice did not persuade Croesus. And indeed, before the Persians conquered Lydia, they had no luxury and nothing fine at all.
Now, the Cappadocians are the people the Greeks call "Syrians." Before Persian rule, they'd been subjects of the Medes. At this time, they were subjects of Cyrus. The border between the Median empire and the Lydian empire was the Halys River, which flows from the mountains of Armenia through Cilician territory, then passes with the Matienians on its right bank and the Phrygians on its left. Flowing northward, it borders the Cappadocian Syrians on one side and the Paphlagonians on the other. The Halys effectively cuts off nearly all the lower portion of Asia from west to east, from the sea opposite Cyprus to the Black Sea. This stretch of land is the narrowest neck of the whole peninsula -- about a five-day journey for a man traveling light.
Croesus had several reasons for marching into Cappadocia. First, he wanted the territory. But mainly, he had confidence in the oracle and wanted to avenge Astyages against Cyrus. Cyrus the son of Cambyses had conquered Astyages and was holding him prisoner, and Astyages was Croesus' brother-in-law, the king of the Medes. The marriage connection had come about like this:
A band of Scythian nomads, at odds with their own people, took refuge in the land of the Medes. At that time the Median king was Cyaxares, the son of Phraortes, the son of Deioces. At first Cyaxares treated these Scythians well, since they'd come to him as refugees. He valued them so highly that he entrusted boys to them to learn the Scythian language and archery. Time passed, and the Scythians regularly went out hunting and always brought something back. But one day they returned empty-handed. Cyaxares -- who turned out to have quite a temper -- treated them harshly and insulted them.
The Scythians, feeling they'd been unjustly humiliated, came up with a terrible plan. They killed one of the boys who'd been placed in their care, butchered and cooked him the same way they usually prepared wild game, and served the flesh to Cyaxares as if it were their latest catch. After he'd eaten it, they fled as fast as they could to Alyattes, the son of Sadyattes, at Sardis. Cyaxares and his dinner guests had eaten the boy's flesh, and the Scythians became refugees under Alyattes' protection.
When Cyaxares demanded the Scythians back and Alyattes refused, war broke out between the Lydians and the Medes. It lasted five years, with the advantage going back and forth -- the Medes won some battles, the Lydians won others, and at one point they even fought a battle by night. Then, in the sixth year, something remarkable happened. In the middle of a battle, the day suddenly turned to night. Thales of Miletus had predicted this eclipse to the Ionians, naming this very year as the one when it would happen. When the Lydians and Medes saw daylight turn to darkness, they stopped fighting and became much more eager to make peace.
The men who brokered the peace were Syennesis of Cilicia and Labynetus of Babylon. They pushed for a sworn treaty and arranged an exchange of marriages: Alyattes would give his daughter Aryenis to Astyages, the son of Cyaxares -- because without a strong bond, agreements tend not to hold. These peoples sealed their oaths the same way the Greeks do, but with one addition: they cut into the skin of their arms and lick each other's blood.
This same Astyages -- Croesus' father-in-law -- was the man Cyrus had overthrown and taken prisoner, for reasons I'll explain later in this history. That was Croesus' grievance against Cyrus when he asked the oracles whether he should go to war with Persia. A misleading answer came back, and he marched into Persian territory, believing it was in his favor.
When Croesus reached the Halys River, he crossed it -- on the existing bridges, according to my account. But the story most Greeks tell is different. They say that Thales of Miletus, who was with the army, figured out a way to get the troops across when there were no bridges. He dug a deep channel in the shape of a crescent moon, starting upstream of the camp, so that the river was diverted and flowed behind the camp along the new channel before rejoining its original course. Once the river was split in two, both branches became shallow enough to ford. Some people even claim the original channel dried up completely. But I don't buy that version -- if so, how did they cross the river on the way back?
After crossing into Cappadocia, Croesus arrived at the place called Pteria, the strongest fortress in that region, located roughly on a line south of the Black Sea port of Sinope. He made camp there and devastated the surrounding countryside. He captured the city of the Pterians and sold the inhabitants into slavery, took all the surrounding towns, and drove out the local Syrians, who had done him no harm whatsoever.
Meanwhile, Cyrus had gathered his own forces along with every fighting man between him and the border, and was marching to meet Croesus. Before setting out, he'd sent messengers to the Ionians trying to get them to revolt from Croesus, but the Ionians refused.
When Cyrus arrived and made camp opposite Croesus, the two armies clashed in the land of Pteria. The fighting was fierce. Many fell on both sides, and when night came, neither side had won.
Croesus was unhappy with his army's size -- it was much smaller than Cyrus' force. Since Cyrus didn't advance the next day, Croesus marched back to Sardis. His plan was to call on his allies: the Egyptians, with whom he'd made an alliance under King Amasis before the Spartan alliance; the Babylonians under Labynetus, who were also bound to him by treaty; and the Spartans, whom he'd ask to come at an appointed time. Once he'd assembled all these forces and gathered his own army, he'd wait out the winter and march against the Persians in spring. With this plan in mind, as soon as he reached Sardis he sent heralds to his allies telling them to assemble at Sardis in five months. As for the mercenary army that had fought the Persians, he dismissed and disbanded it entirely, never imagining that Cyrus, after fighting to such an inconclusive draw, would actually march on Sardis.
While Croesus was making these plans, a strange omen occurred: the outskirts of the city suddenly swarmed with snakes, and the horses, abandoning their usual pastures, kept coming to eat them. Croesus recognized this as a portent and immediately sent messengers to the oracle interpreters at Telmessus. His envoys arrived and learned what the sign meant, but they never made it back in time to tell Croesus -- Sardis was captured before they could return by sea. The Telmessians' interpretation was this: Croesus should expect a foreign-speaking army to invade his land and conquer the native population. The snake, they explained, was a child of the soil, while the horse was an enemy and a foreigner. The Telmessians gave this answer after Croesus was already a prisoner, knowing nothing yet of what had happened to Sardis or to him.
Here's what Cyrus did. As soon as Croesus marched away from Pteria, Cyrus realized that Croesus intended to disband his army. He quickly decided that his best move was to march on Sardis as fast as possible, before the Lydian forces could reassemble. Having made this decision, he acted without delay. He led his army into Lydia so swiftly that he himself was the first to announce his own arrival to Croesus.
Croesus was in dire straits -- everything had turned out the opposite of what he'd expected -- but he still led the Lydians out to battle. At that time, no people in Asia were braver or more formidable in combat than the Lydians. They fought on horseback, carrying long spears, and were superb riders.
The armies met on the great plain in front of Sardis, a wide, open expanse crossed by rivers -- especially the Hyllos -- that all flow together into the largest, the Hermos, which rises from the mountain sacred to the goddess Dindymene and empties into the sea near the city of Phocaea. When Cyrus saw the Lydians forming up for battle, he was worried about their cavalry. On the advice of Harpagus the Mede, he came up with a scheme: he gathered every camel in his baggage train, unloaded them, and mounted soldiers on their backs, equipped as cavalry. He ordered this camel corps to advance first, ahead of everything else, toward the Lydian horsemen. Behind the camels came the infantry, and behind the infantry, the entire cavalry force. He gave orders that every Lydian who resisted was to be killed -- except Croesus himself, who was not to be harmed even if he fought back.
The reason for the camels was this: horses are afraid of camels. They can't stand the sight or the smell of them. That was the trick -- to neutralize the Lydian cavalry, the very force on which Croesus was counting most.
When the two sides engaged, the moment the horses caught the camels' scent and saw them, they wheeled around and bolted. Croesus' hopes collapsed in an instant. But the Lydians didn't act like cowards. When they realized what was happening, they leaped from their horses and fought the Persians on foot. Eventually, though, after heavy losses on both sides, the Lydians broke and fled behind the walls of their fortress. The Persians laid siege to Sardis.
With the siege established, Croesus -- assuming it would go on for a long time -- sent more messengers to his allies. The first messengers had told them to assemble at Sardis in five months; these new ones begged them to come immediately, because Croesus was under siege.
He sent word to all his allies, including Sparta. But the Spartans, as it happened, were in the middle of their own conflict with the Argives over the district called Thyrea. The Spartans had seized this territory from Argive possession. The Argives at that time held the entire western coast extending down to Cape Malea, including the mainland territory and the island of Cythera and the other islands.
When the Argives came to defend their stolen territory, the two sides negotiated an agreement: three hundred fighters from each side would settle the matter, and whichever side won would keep the land. Both main armies would withdraw so that neither side would be tempted to intervene if their men were losing.
With these terms agreed, the chosen men were left behind and fought. They were so evenly matched that out of six hundred men, only three survived: Alcenor and Chromios on the Argive side, and Othryades on the Spartan side. When night fell, the two Argives assumed they'd won and ran home to Argos. But the Spartan Othryades stripped the Argive dead, carried their weapons to his own camp, and stayed at his post.
The next day, both sides returned to survey the result. Each claimed victory: the Argives because more of their men had survived, the Spartans because the Argive survivors had run away while their man had stood his ground and stripped the enemy dead. The argument escalated into a full battle, and after heavy losses on both sides, the Spartans won.
After this, the Argives cut their hair short -- they'd previously been required by law to wear it long -- and passed a law, backed by a curse, that no Argive man would grow his hair long and no Argive woman would wear gold jewelry until they recovered Thyrea. The Spartans made the opposite law: from that day forward, they would wear their hair long, though they hadn't done so before. And they say that Othryades, the last surviving Spartan of the three hundred, was too ashamed to return to Sparta when all his comrades had fallen, and killed himself right there in Thyrea.
That was the situation in Sparta when the herald from Sardis arrived, asking them to help Croesus. Despite their own troubles, the Spartans were eager to go to his aid as soon as they heard the news, and they made their preparations. But when their ships were ready, a second message arrived: the Lydian fortress had fallen and Croesus had been captured. Only then, and with great sorrow -- treating it as a tremendous calamity -- did they call off the rescue.
Here is how Sardis fell. On the fourteenth day of the siege, Cyrus sent horsemen through his army announcing that he'd reward the first man to scale the walls. The army tried and failed. After everyone else had given up, a Mardian soldier named Hyroiades attempted to climb a section of the citadel where no guard had been posted. The Lydians hadn't worried about that spot because the cliff face was so steep and sheer that they considered it impossible to attack from there.
This was the only part of the wall where the former Lydian king Meles hadn't carried the lion that his concubine had borne him. The oracle interpreters at Telmessus had said that if the lion were carried around the walls, Sardis would be invulnerable. Meles had carried it around every other section of the fortifications, but he'd skipped this part, dismissing it as naturally impregnable since it faced Mount Tmolus.
Now, the day before, Hyroiades had happened to see a Lydian soldier climb down that very cliff face to retrieve a helmet that had rolled down from above, then pick it up and climb back. He noticed this and thought it over. The next day, he climbed up first, then other Persians followed. Once enough had made it up, Sardis fell and the entire city was given over to plunder.
As for Croesus himself, here is what happened. He had a son -- I mentioned him before -- who was a decent young man but couldn't speak. In his prosperous days, Croesus had tried everything he could think of for the boy. Among other things, he'd consulted Delphi about him. The priestess had said:
"Lydian, lord of many, foolish Croesus, blind to fate -- don't wish to hear that long-prayed-for voice in your halls, the voice of your son. Better for you if that never came, for his first words will be spoken on a day of disaster."
When the fortress was being stormed, a Persian soldier was about to kill Croesus, mistaking him for someone else. Croesus saw the man coming but didn't care -- given his misfortune, it was all the same to him whether he died. But his mute son, seeing the Persian charge at his father, was seized by such terror and anguish that the bonds of his speech burst open. He cried out: "Soldier, don't kill Croesus!" Those were the first words he ever spoke, and from that day forward, he could speak for the rest of his life.
The Persians had taken Sardis and captured Croesus himself, after he'd reigned for fourteen years and been besieged for fourteen days -- fulfilling the oracle by destroying his own great empire. They brought him before Cyrus, who had a great pyre built and made Croesus climb onto it in chains, along with fourteen Lydian boys. Perhaps Cyrus meant to offer them as a victory sacrifice to some god, or perhaps he was fulfilling a vow. Or perhaps he'd heard that Croesus was a pious man and wanted to test whether any divine power would save him from being burned alive.
Whatever his reason, this is what he did. And as Croesus stood on top of the pyre, in that desperate moment, the words of Solon came flooding back to him -- the words spoken as if by divine inspiration: that no living person can be called truly happy. When this thought struck him, they say he sighed from the depths of his soul and groaned aloud. After a long silence, he called out the name "Solon" three times.
Cyrus heard this and ordered his interpreters to ask Croesus who he was calling for. They came and asked. Croesus was silent at first, but when they pressed him, he said: "A man I would have given a fortune for every ruler on earth to meet." Since his words were cryptic, they pressed again. Finally, harassed into answering, he told the whole story: how Solon the Athenian had once come to visit, seen all his wealth, and dismissed it with such-and-such words. And how everything had turned out exactly as Solon had predicted. Solon hadn't been speaking specifically about Croesus, he said, but about all of humanity -- especially those who imagine themselves happy.
While Croesus was telling this story, the pyre had been lit and the edges were burning. When Cyrus heard from his interpreters what Croesus had said, he had a change of heart. He realized that he too was just a man, and he was about to burn alive another man who'd been no less blessed by fortune than himself. He feared divine retribution. He reflected that nothing in human life is secure. And so he ordered the fire extinguished as fast as possible and Croesus and the boys brought down.
But it was too late. His men tried but could no longer control the flames.
At that point, the Lydians say, Croesus -- seeing that Cyrus had changed his mind but that no one could put out the fire -- cried out to Apollo. If any gift he had ever given was pleasing to the god, let the god come to his rescue now. He wept as he prayed.
Suddenly -- out of clear, calm sky -- clouds gathered, a storm erupted, and a violent downpour extinguished the pyre.
Cyrus now understood that Croesus was beloved by the gods and was a good man. He had him brought down from the pyre and asked: "Croesus, who persuaded you to march against my land and become my enemy instead of my friend?"
Croesus replied: "Your Majesty, I did it to your good fortune and to my misfortune. The one to blame is the god of the Greeks, who encouraged me to attack. No one is fool enough to prefer war over peace -- in peace, sons bury their fathers, but in war, fathers bury their sons. I suppose it was the gods' will that things should happen this way."
With that, Cyrus freed him from his chains, seated him nearby, and treated him with great respect. Both Cyrus and everyone around him stared at Croesus in amazement.
Croesus sat wrapped in thought, saying nothing. Then he turned and saw the Persians sacking the Lydian city. "Your Majesty," he said, "should I say what's on my mind, or should I keep quiet, given my circumstances?"
Cyrus told him to speak freely.
"What are all those men so eagerly doing?" Croesus asked.
"They're plundering your city and carrying off your wealth," Cyrus said.
"No," Croesus replied. "It's not my city they're plundering and not my wealth they're carrying off. None of that belongs to me anymore. It's your wealth they're looting."
This struck Cyrus hard. He dismissed his attendants and asked Croesus privately what he saw in the situation. Croesus said: "Since the gods have made me your slave, I think I owe it to you to share any insight I have. The Persians are naturally unruly and they don't have much. If you let them plunder all this wealth and keep it, here's what will happen: whichever soldier grabs the biggest share will be the one most likely to rebel against you. So if you like my suggestion, do this: post your bodyguards at every gate and have them confiscate the loot, telling the soldiers that a tenth must be set aside for Zeus. This way you won't be hated for taking things by force, and they'll accept it willingly, recognizing that you're doing the right thing."
Cyrus was delighted with this advice. He thought it was excellent, praised Croesus warmly, and ordered his guards to carry it out. Then he said: "Croesus, since you're prepared to give a king good counsel and good service, ask me for any gift you want, and you'll have it right now."
Croesus said: "Master, the greatest favor you could do me is to let me send these chains to the god of the Greeks, the one I honored above all others, and ask him whether it's his custom to deceive those who treat him well."
Cyrus asked what complaint he had against the god. Croesus told him the whole story -- his plans, the oracle's answers, his offerings, and how the prophecy had spurred him to attack Persia. He came back around to his request: could he reproach the god?
Cyrus laughed. "You'll get that, Croesus, and anything else you ever want from me."
So Croesus sent Lydians to Delphi with instructions to lay the chains on the temple threshold and ask the god whether he felt no shame for having encouraged Croesus to attack Persia, leading him to believe he'd destroy Cyrus' empire, when these chains were the only trophies he'd won. They were to ask this, and also whether Greek gods considered it acceptable to be ungrateful.
When the Lydians arrived and delivered the message, the priestess reportedly answered: "Not even a god can escape destiny. Croesus has paid for the sin of his ancestor five generations back -- a bodyguard of the Heraclid kings who was tricked by a woman's scheme into murdering his master and seizing a throne that wasn't rightfully his. Apollo did his best to delay the fall of Sardis so that it would happen to Croesus' sons rather than to Croesus himself, but he couldn't bend the Fates. What the Fates allowed, Apollo did: he postponed the capture of Sardis by three years. Let Croesus know that he was taken prisoner three years later than fate originally decreed. Beyond that, Apollo rescued him from the pyre.
"As for the oracle, Croesus' complaint is unjustified. Apollo told him that if he attacked the Persians, he would destroy a great empire. If Croesus had thought clearly, he should have sent back to ask whether the god meant his empire or Cyrus'. But he didn't understand the answer and didn't ask for clarification, so he has only himself to blame.
"And as for the last oracle, about the mule -- Croesus didn't understand that either. The mule was Cyrus himself. Cyrus was born of two different peoples: his mother was a Mede, daughter of Astyages king of the Medes, while his father was a Persian, a subject people. She was royalty; he was a commoner, her inferior in every way -- yet he was her husband."
When the Lydians brought this answer back to Sardis and reported it, Croesus acknowledged that the fault was his own, not the god's.
And that is the story of how Croesus' empire ended and how Ionia was first conquered.
There are many other offerings Croesus made throughout Greece besides the ones I've already described. At Thebes in Boeotia, there's a golden tripod he dedicated to the Ismenian Apollo. At Ephesus, there are the golden cows and most of the temple's pillars. And in the temple of Athena Pronaia at Delphi, there's a large golden shield. All of these survived down to my own time, though other offerings of his have been lost. His offerings at the shrine of the Branchidae near Miletus were, I'm told, equal in weight and similar in design to those at Delphi.
The offerings he made at Delphi and at the shrine of Amphiaraus came from his own personal wealth -- the first-fruits of the fortune he'd inherited from his father. But the other offerings were made from the property of a political enemy who had opposed him before he became king and had conspired to put Pantaleon on the Lydian throne. Pantaleon was a son of Alyattes and half-brother to Croesus -- his mother was an Ionian woman, while Croesus' mother was Carian. When Croesus won the throne by his father's favor, he had this rival executed on a carding comb, and the man's confiscated property he dedicated at the shrines I've named.
But enough about his offerings.
The land of Lydia doesn't have much in the way of marvels compared to other countries -- aside from the gold dust that washes down from Mount Tmolus. But it does have one structure that surpasses everything else in the world except the monuments of Egypt and Babylon: the tomb of Alyattes, Croesus' father. Its base is built of enormous stones, and the rest is a great mound of earth. It was paid for by contributions from three groups -- the merchants, the craftsmen, and the working girls -- and in my time there were still five boundary stones on top of the monument, each inscribed to show how much of the work each group had funded. When measured, it turned out that the working girls had contributed the most.
Here's why: among the common people of Lydia, all the daughters practice prostitution to earn their own dowries, and they keep at it until they marry. Then they give themselves away in marriage. The monument's circumference is about three-quarters of a mile, and its width is about thirteen hundred feet. Next to it lies a great lake with a permanent water supply, called the Lake of Gyges. That is the nature of this monument.
The Lydians have customs very similar to the Greeks, aside from the prostitution of their daughters. And they were the first people in the world, as far as we know, to mint and use coins of gold and silver. They were also the first retail traders. The Lydians themselves claim that the games now popular among both them and the Greeks were also their invention, and they say these games were invented at the same time that they colonized Tyrrhenia. Here's their story:
During the reign of King Atys, the son of Manes, a terrible famine struck all of Lydia. For a while the Lydians endured it, but when it wouldn't let up, they looked for ways to cope. Different people devised different solutions. That, they say, is when dice, knucklebones, ball games, and all the other games were invented -- all except board games, which the Lydians don't claim credit for. They used these games as a weapon against hunger: on one day they'd play games all day long to take their minds off food, and the next day they'd stop playing and eat. They kept this up for eighteen years.
But when the famine still wouldn't ease off and only got worse, the king divided the entire Lydian people into two groups and drew lots -- one group would stay, the other would emigrate. The king himself would lead the group that stayed; his son Tyrrhenus would lead the group that left. The emigrants went down to the coast at Smyrna, built ships, loaded up everything they could carry, and sailed off in search of a livelihood and a new homeland. After passing many peoples, they finally reached the land of the Umbrians in Italy, where they founded cities and live to this day. They changed their name after the prince who led them: no longer Lydians, but Tyrrhenians.
And so the Lydians were conquered by the Persians, as I've described.
Now our history turns to Cyrus -- who he was, how he destroyed Croesus' empire, and how the Persians came to dominate Asia. I'll follow the account given by those Persians who want to tell the truth about Cyrus rather than glorify him, though I could present three other versions of the story as well.
The Assyrians ruled Upper Asia for five hundred and twenty years. The Medes were the first to revolt against them. They fought the Assyrians for their freedom, proved their courage, and threw off the yoke of slavery. After them, the other subject nations did the same. So all the peoples of the continent became independent.
But they fell back under one-man rule in the following way.
Among the Medes there was a man of great ability named Deioces, the son of Phraortes. Deioces had ambitions for power, and here's how he went about it. The Medes at that time lived in scattered villages, and there was lawlessness everywhere. Deioces, who already had a good reputation in his own village, began dispensing justice even more diligently and fairly than before, knowing perfectly well that injustice is the natural enemy of justice. The people of his village chose him as their judge.
Since he was aiming at power, he was scrupulously fair and honest, and his fellow villagers praised him for it. When people in other villages heard that Deioces was the only man who judged cases fairly -- unlike the corrupt judges they'd been suffering under -- they too flocked to him to have their disputes settled. Eventually, no one trusted anyone else with their cases.
As the cases kept piling up, since people learned his decisions were always sound, Deioces saw that everything now depended on him. So he refused to continue. He wouldn't sit in his usual public seat to hear cases anymore, saying it wasn't worth his time to neglect his own affairs just to settle other people's disputes all day.
The result was that robbery and lawlessness got even worse than before. The Medes assembled and discussed what to do. I imagine the friends of Deioces made speeches along these lines: "Since we can't live in this country under the current state of things, let's choose a king from among ourselves. Then the land will be well governed, and we can get back to our work instead of being ruined by anarchy." With arguments like these, they convinced themselves to accept a king.
When they immediately raised the question of whom to choose, Deioces was put forward and praised by everyone, and they agreed he should be their king. He told them to build him a palace worthy of a king and to provide him with a personal bodyguard of spearmen. The Medes did exactly that: they built him a large, strong palace in the location he chose, and let him pick his bodyguard from among all the Medes.
Once in power, Deioces ordered the Medes to build a single fortified city and focus their attention on it, paying less attention to the others. The Medes obeyed this too, and he built the great, strong walls now called Ecbatana -- seven circles of walls, each one nested inside the next, with each ring rising above the one outside it by the height of its battlements. The hill the city stands on helps with this design, but most of it was achieved by engineering. Within the innermost circle stood the royal palace and the treasury.
The outermost wall is roughly the same circumference as the walls of Athens. The battlements of the first circle are white, the second black, the third crimson, the fourth blue, the fifth orange-red. And the battlements of the two innermost circles are plated with silver and gold respectively.
Deioces built these walls for himself and around his own palace, while the common people were ordered to settle around the outside. Once everything was built, he established a protocol that he was the first to introduce: no one could enter the king's presence directly. All business had to be conducted through messengers. No one was to see the king in person. Furthermore, it was considered improper for anyone to laugh or spit in the royal presence.
He surrounded himself with all this ceremony for a reason: so that the men he'd grown up with -- men who were no less well-born and no less courageous than himself -- wouldn't become resentful at seeing him and plot against him. If he was invisible to them, they'd start to think he was made of different stuff.
Having established these rules and secured his power, Deioces was strict in administering justice. People wrote down their cases and sent them in to him, and he made his rulings and sent them back out. If he heard that anyone was causing trouble, he summoned them and punished them as the offense deserved. He had watchers and listeners throughout the land he ruled.
So Deioces unified the Median people and was their sole ruler. The Median tribes are the Busae, Paretacenians, Struchates, Arizantians, Budians, and Magians -- those are all the Median tribes.
Deioces' son was Phraortes. When Deioces died after a fifty-three-year reign, Phraortes inherited power. Not content to rule only the Medes, he marched against the Persians first. Once he'd subjugated them, he proceeded to conquer the rest of Asia, nation by nation, until finally he attacked the Assyrians -- specifically those at Nineveh, who had formerly ruled everything but were now standing alone, their allies having revolted, though they were still prosperous at home. Phraortes attacked them, I say, and was killed along with most of his army, after a reign of twenty-two years.
After Phraortes died, his son Cyaxares took power. He's said to have been even more warlike than his predecessors, and he was the first to organize Asian armies into separate divisions -- spearmen, archers, and cavalry arranged as distinct units, whereas before they'd all been jumbled together. This was the same king who fought the Lydians when day turned to night in mid-battle, and who united all of Asia above the Halys under his rule.
Gathering all his subjects, Cyaxares marched against Nineveh to avenge his father and conquer the city. He defeated the Assyrians in battle, but while he was besieging Nineveh, a vast Scythian army descended on him, led by Madyas the son of Protothyes, king of the Scythians. These Scythians had invaded Asia after driving the Cimmerians out of Europe, and in pursuing them they'd ended up in Median territory.
Now, from Lake Maeotis to the river Phasis and the land of the Colchians is a thirty-day journey for a man traveling light, and from Colchis it's not far into Media, with only the Saspirians in between. The Scythians, however, didn't take this route. They went the long way around, keeping the Caucasus Mountains on their right.
The Medes fought the Scythians and lost. The Scythians then held power over all of Asia.
From there, the Scythians set out to invade Egypt. When they reached Palestinian Syria, Psammetichus the king of Egypt met them with gifts and entreaties, and persuaded them to go no further. As they withdrew through the city of Ascalon in Syria, most of the Scythians passed through without causing any harm, but a few stragglers plundered the temple of Aphrodite Urania. This is the most ancient of all temples to this goddess, as I've determined -- even the one in Cyprus was founded from it, as the Cypriots themselves say, and the Phoenicians established the temple in Cythera from this same Syrian origin. The Scythians who looted the temple at Ascalon, and all their descendants forever after, were afflicted by the goddess with a disease that made them like women. The Scythians themselves say this is why they were cursed, and travelers to Scythia can still see among them the condition of those they call Enarees.
For twenty-eight years the Scythians ruled Asia, and their unruliness and recklessness ruined everything. On top of the tribute they demanded from each nation, they rode around stealing whatever they pleased. Then Cyaxares and the Medes, having invited most of the Scythians to a banquet, got them drunk and slaughtered them. That's how the Medes recovered their power and ruled the same nations as before. They also captured Nineveh -- how they took it I'll describe in another work -- and made the Assyrians their subjects, except for the land of Babylon.
After this, Cyaxares died. He'd reigned forty years, including the years of Scythian domination. His son Astyages succeeded him.
Astyages had a daughter named Mandane. One night he dreamed that she urinated so much that it filled his city and flooded all of Asia. He told the dream to the Magian interpreters, and their explanation terrified him. When Mandane reached marriageable age, he was too afraid of the dream to give her to any Mede of his own rank. Instead he married her off to a Persian named Cambyses -- a man of good family and quiet temperament, whom Astyages considered far below a middle-ranking Mede in social status.
In the first year of Mandane's marriage, Astyages had another dream. This time he saw a vine growing from his daughter's womb that spread across all of Asia. He told this dream to the interpreters too, then sent for his daughter, who was now pregnant, to come from Persia. When she arrived, he kept her under watch, intending to destroy whatever child she bore, because the Magian interpreters had told him that her offspring would become king in his place.
When Cyrus was born, Astyages summoned Harpagus -- his kinsman, his most trusted Mede, and the man who managed all his affairs -- and said to him: "Don't take this assignment lightly, Harpagus, and don't betray me. If you choose someone else's interests over mine, you'll bring destruction on yourself. Take the child Mandane bore. Carry it to your house and kill it. Then bury it however you see fit."
Harpagus replied: "Your Majesty, you have never found me disloyal, and I take care that you never will. If this is truly your wish, then it's my duty to carry it out faithfully."
When the child was handed over to him, dressed as if for burial, Harpagos went home weeping and told his wife everything Astyages had said. She asked him: "So what do you intend to do?"
He answered: "Not what Astyages ordered. Even if he goes crazier than he already is, I won't agree to this. I won't carry out a murder like that. I have many reasons. The child is my own blood relative. And Astyages is old, with no male heir. If the kingship passes to his daughter's line after he dies -- the daughter whose son he wants me to kill -- what then? I'd be in the worst danger imaginable. For my own safety, the child has to die. But one of Astyages' own servants must do the killing, not one of mine."
With that, he immediately sent a messenger to one of Astyages' herdsmen who, Harpagos knew, grazed his cattle on the most suitable mountain pastures -- mountains crawling with wild beasts. The herdsman's name was Mitradates, and he was married to a fellow slave whose name was Kyno in Greek, or Spaco in Median -- both words meaning "bitch."
The herdsman's pastures were on the mountain slopes north of Ecbatana, toward the Black Sea. That region bordering the Saspirians is heavily mountainous and thickly forested, unlike the rest of Media, which is flat plain.
When the herdsman arrived, summoned urgently, Harpagos said: "Astyages orders you to take this child and abandon it on the most desolate part of the mountains, so it will die as quickly as possible. And he told me to tell you this: if you don't kill it -- if you save it by any means at all -- he will execute you in the most agonizing way possible. I've been assigned to verify that the child is exposed."
The herdsman picked up the child and headed home. Now, it happened that his wife had been due to give birth any day, and by an extraordinary coincidence, she delivered her baby the very day her husband was away in the city. Both had been anxious about the other -- he worried about her labor, she worried about why Harpagos had summoned him, since that had never happened before.
The moment he walked through the door, she was so relieved to see him that she spoke first, asking why Harpagos had sent for him so urgently. He told her everything.
"Wife, when I got to the city, I saw and heard things I wish I hadn't, things I wish had never happened to our masters. Harpagos' whole house was in mourning. I went in, astonished, and as soon as I entered I saw a baby laid out -- gasping, crying, dressed in gold ornaments and embroidered clothes. When Harpagos saw me, he told me to take the child immediately and leave it on the most isolated part of the mountains, the part with the most wild beasts. He said it was Astyages' order, and he threatened me with terrible things if I didn't do it.
"So I picked up the child and carried it away. I assumed it belonged to one of the household servants -- I never could have guessed where it really came from. But I was amazed by the gold and fine clothing, and I was amazed at the open mourning in Harpagos' house. Then on the road, I learned the whole truth from the servant who escorted me out of the city and put the baby in my arms. It's the son of Mandane, Astyages' daughter, and of Cambyses the son of Cyrus. Astyages wants it dead. And here it is."
As he said this, the herdsman uncovered the child and showed it to her. When his wife saw how big and beautiful the baby was, she wept and threw herself at her husband's knees, begging him not to expose it. But he said he had no choice -- Harpagos would send people to check, and he'd be killed horribly if the child was still alive.
When she couldn't change his mind, she tried another approach. "Since I can't convince you not to expose it, then do this. I too have just given birth -- but my baby was born dead. Take the dead one and expose it instead, and let us raise the daughter of Astyages as our own child. That way you won't be caught disobeying your masters, and we'll have done well for ourselves: the dead child will get a royal burial, and the living one won't lose his life."
The herdsman thought this was excellent advice, given the circumstances. He did exactly as she said. He handed over the child he'd been carrying to his death, gave it to his wife, and took his own dead baby, dressed it in all the royal child's fine clothing, and placed it in the most desolate part of the mountains.
On the third day, the herdsman left one of his assistants to stand guard by the dead baby and went to the city. At Harpagos' house he announced that he was ready to show the body. Harpagos sent his most trusted men, who viewed the dead child and buried it. And so the herdsman's baby received a royal burial, while the child who would later be called Cyrus was taken in by the herdsman's wife and raised as her own -- though she gave him a different name, not Cyrus.
When the boy was ten years old, something happened that gave him away. He was playing in the village -- the one with the cattle stalls -- with other boys his age, right there in the road. The boys chose this supposed herdsman's son to be their king. He assigned some to build palaces, others to be his bodyguard. One boy he appointed as the "eye of the king," another as his official messenger, giving each one a role.
Now, one of the boys in this game was the son of Artembares, a prominent Mede. When this boy refused to carry out Cyrus' orders, Cyrus had the other boys seize him and gave him a severe beating. The boy, furious at being treated so roughly, ran straight to the city and complained to his father about what "the herdsman's son" had done to him -- he didn't call the boy Cyrus, since that wasn't yet his name. Artembares, outraged, went immediately to Astyages, bringing his son along, and said: "Your Majesty, look how we've been treated by your slave, the son of a herdsman!" And he showed the boy's bruised shoulders.
Astyages, wanting to avenge Artembares' honor, summoned both the herdsman and his boy. When they stood before him, Astyages looked hard at Cyrus and said: "You -- the son of a man this lowly -- you dared to treat the son of my most honored lord like this?"
The boy replied: "Master, I did it to him justly. The boys of the village -- and he was one of them -- chose me as their king in a game, because they thought I was the most fit. The other boys did what I ordered. This one disobeyed and ignored me, and so he was punished. If I deserve punishment for that, here I am."
As the boy spoke, a shock of recognition hit Astyages. The features of the boy's face seemed to resemble his own. The boy's manner of speaking was too bold for a herdsman's son. And the timing of the exposure matched the boy's age perfectly.
Struck dumb with amazement, Astyages sat speechless for a while. When he finally recovered, he wanted to get the herdsman alone. "Artembares," he said, "I will settle this matter so that neither you nor your son will have cause for complaint." He dismissed Artembares, and his servants led Cyrus inside.
When Astyages was alone with the herdsman, he asked where he'd gotten the boy and who had given the child to him. The herdsman insisted the boy was his own son, and that the mother was still living with him as his wife. Astyages told him it would be very unwise of him to put himself in a position requiring extreme measures -- and as he said this, he signaled his guards to seize the man.
As the herdsman was being dragged off to be tortured, he broke down and told the whole truth from beginning to end, finishing with a plea for forgiveness.
Once the herdsman had revealed everything, Astyages lost interest in him. But with Harpagos he was furious. He ordered his guards to summon him.
When Harpagos arrived, Astyages asked: "Harpagos, by what means did you kill the child I entrusted to you, the one born of my daughter?" Harpagos saw the herdsman standing there in the palace and knew that lying would only get him caught. So he told the truth:
"Your Majesty, when I received the child, I thought about how to carry out your wishes without being personally guilty of murder against your daughter and against you. So here's what I did. I called this herdsman and handed the child over to him, telling him that you were the one who'd ordered its death -- and in that, at least, I didn't lie, because you did give that command. I handed over the child with instructions to leave it on a deserted mountainside and to stay and watch until it died, threatening him with every kind of punishment if he failed. He did what I ordered, the child died, and I sent my most trusted eunuchs to inspect and bury it. That, Your Majesty, is how it happened, and that is the death the child died."
Harpagos told the truth. But Astyages hid the rage he felt. First he repeated the herdsman's version of events back to Harpagos. Then, once the full story had been recounted, he concluded by saying that the child was alive, and that everything had turned out well.
"I was deeply troubled," Astyages said, "by what had been done to this child, and I took it hard that my daughter was at odds with me. But consider this a happy turn of fortune. Now then: first, send your son to keep the newly arrived boy company. And since I intend to hold a thanksgiving sacrifice to the gods who rightfully deserve this honor for the child's preservation, come here tonight to dine with me."
When Harpagos heard this, he bowed and considered himself fortunate that his offense had worked out in his favor, and that he'd been invited to a celebration dinner. He went home and immediately sent off his only son -- a boy of about thirteen -- telling him to go to the palace and do whatever the king ordered. Then, overjoyed, he told his wife the good news.
But when Harpagos' son arrived at the palace, Astyages had the boy's throat cut. He butchered him limb from limb, roasted some of the flesh and boiled the rest, and had it all prepared and ready to serve.
When dinnertime came and the guests arrived -- including Harpagos -- tables of lamb were set before Astyages and all the other guests. But before Harpagos was placed the flesh of his own son -- all of it except the head, the hands, and the feet, which were kept covered in a basket nearby.
When Harpagos appeared to have eaten his fill, Astyages asked him whether he'd enjoyed the meal. Harpagos said he'd enjoyed it very much. Then the servants who'd been assigned the task brought out the covered basket containing the boy's head, hands, and feet, and standing before Harpagos, told him to uncover it and take whatever he liked.
Harpagos obeyed. He lifted the cover and saw what was left of his son. But he didn't cry out. He didn't lose control. He contained himself. Astyages asked if he knew what animal's flesh he'd been eating. He said he knew, and that whatever the king did was pleasing to him.
With that answer, he gathered up the remaining parts and went home. After that, I imagine, he collected all the pieces and buried them.
That was the punishment Astyages inflicted on Harpagos.
As for Cyrus, Astyages summoned the same Magian dream interpreters who had analyzed his vision earlier and asked them how they'd interpreted it. They repeated their original reading: the child was destined to become king, had he survived.
Astyages said: "The child is alive. He's been living in the countryside, and the village boys chose him as their king. He performed all the functions of a real king -- he appointed bodyguards, doorkeepers, messengers, and everything else. So where do you think this is heading?"
The Magians replied: "If the child is alive and has already been made king without anyone arranging it, take heart and have courage. He won't become king a second time. Some of our prophecies turn out to have trivial fulfillments, and things connected with dreams often end up amounting to very little."
Astyages answered: "I'm inclined to agree with you -- since the boy was named king, the dream has been fulfilled, and he's no longer a threat to me. But think carefully and advise me: what course is safest for my house and for you?"
The Magians said: "Your Majesty, it matters a great deal to us that your rule remains secure. If power passes to this boy, a Persian, then we Medes become slaves -- foreigners of no account in Persian eyes. But as long as you, one of our own people, are king, we share in your rule and enjoy great honors from you. So we must look out for you and your throne in every way. If we saw anything alarming in the situation now, we'd tell you plainly. But the dream has spent itself on a triviality, and we ourselves are relieved. We advise you to be relieved too. Send the boy away from your sight, back to the Persians and his parents."
Astyages was reassured. He called Cyrus to him and said: "My child, I wronged you because of a dream that came to nothing. But your own destiny kept you alive. Now go in peace to the land of the Persians -- I'll send an escort with you. When you get there, you'll find a father and mother of a rather different kind than Mitradates the herdsman and his wife."
With that, Astyages sent Cyrus away. When the boy arrived at the house of Cambyses, his parents welcomed him -- and once they learned who he really was, their joy was beyond words. They'd been sure their son had died right after birth. They asked how he'd survived, and he told them. He said that until the journey, he'd had no idea of his true identity and had been completely wrong about himself. On the road, the men escorting him had told him the whole story. He'd been raised by the herdsman's wife, and he praised her constantly -- Kyno was the name that kept coming up in his story.
His parents seized on this name. To make their son's survival sound even more miraculous to the Persians, they spread a story that Cyrus had been nursed by an actual female dog when he was exposed. And that's where the legend comes from.
As Cyrus grew into a man -- the bravest and best-loved of all his generation -- Harpagos began courting him with gifts, seeking an alliance. Harpagos wanted revenge on Astyages but saw no way to get it on his own, since he was a private citizen. But watching Cyrus grow up, he recognized a kindred spirit -- both of them had been wronged by Astyages.
Harpagos had already been laying groundwork. Since Astyages was ruling the Medes harshly, Harpagos had secretly approached each of the leading Medes and persuaded them that they should make Cyrus their leader and depose Astyages. When everything was in place and he was ready, Harpagos needed to get a message to Cyrus, who was living among the Persians. But the roads were watched. So he devised a trick.
He prepared a hare and slit open its belly without removing any fur. Inside, just as it was, he inserted a slip of paper on which he'd written his message. Then he sewed up the hare's belly, gave hunting nets to his most trusted servant -- as if the man were a hunter -- and sent him off to Persia. He told the servant to present the hare to Cyrus personally and to tell him to open it with his own hands, with no one else present.
This was carried out as planned. Cyrus received the hare, cut it open, and found the paper inside. The message read:
"Son of Cambyses: the gods watch over you, or you would never have come to such good fortune. Take vengeance on Astyages, your would-be murderer. As far as his intentions went, you are dead -- it's only thanks to the gods and to me that you're alive. I'm sure you learned long ago the full story of what happened to you, and what I suffered from Astyages for not killing you and giving you to the herdsman instead. Now, if you'll follow my advice, you can rule all the land that Astyages now rules. Persuade the Persians to revolt and march against the Medes. Whether Astyages appoints me or any other prominent Mede to lead the army against you, you'll have what you want -- because we'll be the first to desert him and join your side. Everything is ready here. Do this, and do it quickly."
When Cyrus read this, he began thinking about the cleverest way to persuade the Persians to revolt. After considering the matter, he settled on the following plan.
He wrote a message on a piece of paper and called an assembly of the Persians. Then he unfolded the paper and, reading from it, announced that Astyages had appointed him commander of the Persians. "And now, Persians," he said, "I order every one of you to come to me tomorrow carrying a reaping hook."
That was his proclamation. (There are many Persian tribes. The ones Cyrus gathered and persuaded to revolt were the ones all the other Persians depend on: the Pasargadae, the Maraphians, and the Maspians. The most noble are the Pasargadae, and from them comes the Achaemenid clan, the family of the Persian kings. The other Persian tribes are the Panthialaeans, Derusiaeans, and Germanians, who are all farmers, and the Dai, Mardians, Dropicans, and Sagartians, who are nomads.)
When they all arrived carrying the tools they'd been told to bring, Cyrus showed them a tract of Persian land about two miles across, completely overgrown with thorns, and ordered them to clear the whole thing in a single day. The Persians finished the back-breaking task. Then Cyrus told them to come back the next day, washed and clean.
In the meantime, Cyrus had gathered every goat, sheep, and cow his father owned, slaughtered them all, and prepared a feast -- complete with wine and every kind of delicacy. When the Persians arrived the next day, he had them recline in a meadow and served them a magnificent banquet.
After dinner, Cyrus asked them: "Which do you prefer -- yesterday, or today?"
They said the difference was enormous. Yesterday had been nothing but misery; today had been nothing but pleasure.
Cyrus seized on this. "Men of Persia," he said, "this is your situation. If you follow me, you'll have these good things and ten thousand more like them, without any slave labor. But if you refuse to follow me, you'll have endless toil like yesterday's. So do as I say and make yourselves free. I believe I was born by the will of the gods to take this task in hand. And I know that you're no worse than the Medes -- not in anything, and certainly not in war. All of this is true. So revolt from Astyages, and revolt now."
The Persians, who'd been chafing under Median rule for a long time, were delighted to have a leader and eagerly embraced the revolt. When Astyages heard what Cyrus was doing, he summoned him. Cyrus told the messenger to report back that he'd be with Astyages sooner than Astyages would like.
Astyages armed every Mede. Then -- in what can only be described as a divinely inspired act of forgetfulness -- he appointed Harpagos to command the army. When the Medes marched out to fight the Persians, some of them did their duty -- the ones who hadn't been in on the conspiracy. But others deserted to the Persians, and the majority simply hung back and refused to fight.
When the Median army fell apart in disgrace, Astyages received the news and threatened: "Even so, Cyrus won't get away with this!" With that, he impaled the Magian interpreters who had advised him to let Cyrus go. Then he armed everyone left in the city -- the young and the old -- and led them out personally. He fought the Persians and lost. Astyages himself was taken alive, along with the Medes he'd led into battle.
When Astyages was a prisoner, Harpagos came to stand over him, gloating and taunting him. Among other cutting remarks, he asked Astyages specifically how he was enjoying slavery compared to being king -- a pointed reference to the dinner at which Astyages had fed Harpagos his own son's flesh.
Astyages looked at him and asked whether he was claiming Cyrus' victory as his own work. Harpagos said that since he'd written the letter, the deed was rightfully his.
Astyages declared him both the stupidest and the most unjust man alive. The stupidest, because if the whole thing was really his doing, he could have made himself king -- instead he'd handed power to someone else. The most unjust, because for the sake of that one dinner, he'd enslaved the entire Median nation. If he absolutely had to give the throne away rather than keep it himself, it would have been fairer to give it to a Mede rather than a Persian. As it was, the innocent Medes had gone from being masters to being slaves, and the Persians, who had been Median subjects, were now their overlords.
And so Astyages, after thirty-five years as king, was deposed. Because of his cruelty, the Medes fell under the Persian yoke -- they who had ruled Asia above the Halys for a hundred and twenty-eight years, minus the period of Scythian domination. Later on, the Medes regretted what they'd done and revolted against Darius, but they were defeated in battle and brought back under control. At this time, though, in Astyages' reign, it was the Persians under Cyrus who rose up against the Medes and became the rulers of Asia from that day forward.
As for Astyages, Cyrus did him no harm but kept him at his court until he died. Such was the birth, upbringing, and rise to power of Cyrus. After this he conquered Croesus -- who, as I've already said, was the first to start the quarrel -- and so became ruler of all Asia.
Now let me describe the customs of the Persians, as far as I know them.
The Persians don't build images, temples, or altars. In fact, they consider it foolish to do so -- because, I believe, they don't think of the gods as having human forms, the way the Greeks do. Their custom is to climb to the tops of the highest mountains and make sacrifices to Zeus -- though by "Zeus" they mean the whole vault of the sky. They also sacrifice to the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, Fire, Water, and the Winds. These are the only gods they've worshipped from the beginning. Later, they learned to sacrifice to Aphrodite Urania as well, borrowing this practice from the Assyrians and the Arabians. The Assyrians call Aphrodite "Mylitta," the Arabians "Alilat," and the Persians "Mitra."
Their method of sacrifice is this: they build no altars and light no fire. They use no libation, no flute music, no garlands, and no sacrificial barley. When a man wants to sacrifice to one of the gods, he leads the animal to an open, clean place and calls upon the god, wearing his felt cap wreathed with myrtle. The man making the sacrifice cannot pray for good things for himself alone -- he must pray for the well-being of all Persians and of the king, since he himself is included among all Persians. Once he's cut up the victim and boiled the meat, he lays out a bed of the freshest grass -- clover especially -- and places all the pieces of meat on it. When everything is arranged, a Magian priest stands over it and chants a hymn about the origin of the gods. Without a Magian present, it's unlawful to perform a sacrifice. After a short wait, the sacrificer takes the meat away and does whatever he likes with it.
Of all days, the one they honor most is their own birthday. On that day they think it proper to serve a bigger feast than on any other. The wealthy serve a whole roasted ox, horse, camel, or donkey; the poor serve smaller animals the same way. They eat few main courses but many desserts, served one after another rather than all at once. This, in fact, is why the Persians say that Greeks leave the table hungry -- because Greeks have nothing worth eating after the main meal. If they had decent desserts, the Persians say, they'd never stop eating.
The Persians are extremely fond of wine. It's forbidden to vomit or urinate in front of another person. These are their rules on such matters.
They have a custom of deliberating on serious matters while drunk. Whatever decision pleases them during the drinking session, the master of the house where they're meeting presents it again to them the next day, when they're sober. If they still approve it sober, they adopt it. If not, they drop it. And it works the other way too: decisions first reached while sober are reconsidered while drinking.
You can tell the relative social rank of two Persians who meet on the road by how they greet each other. Equals kiss on the mouth. If one is slightly inferior to the other, they kiss on the cheek. If one is much lower in rank, he falls to the ground and prostrates himself before the other.
Of all nations, the Persians honor most highly the ones who live closest to them, next most the ones just beyond those, and so on in proportion to distance -- holding in least esteem the nations farthest away. They consider themselves far and away the finest people on earth, and they rank everyone else by proximity: the closer to Persia, the better; the farther away, the worse. Under Median rule, the same principle applied to governance -- the Medes ruled everyone, but especially their nearest neighbors, who in turn governed the next ring of peoples, and so on outward.
The Persians are more open to foreign customs than any other people. They wear Median clothing because they think it looks better than their own. For battle, they use Egyptian body armor. They adopt every kind of luxury they hear about, and they've even learned from the Greeks the practice of relations with boys. Each Persian man marries several wives and keeps an even larger number of concubines.
After valor in battle, the highest mark of excellence for a Persian man is to have many sons. The king sends yearly gifts to the man with the most, because they believe numbers equal strength. They educate their boys from the age of five to twenty in only three things: riding, archery, and telling the truth. Before the age of five, a boy doesn't even appear before his father -- he lives entirely with the women. The reasoning is that if the child should die during infancy, the father won't be burdened with grief.
I approve of this custom, and I also approve of the next one: neither the king nor any other Persian may put someone to death, or inflict any irreversible punishment on a servant, for a single offense. Instead, the man must weigh the offender's wrongs against his services, and only if the wrongs are more numerous and more serious may he act in anger. They also say that no one has ever killed his own father or mother. In every case that has appeared to be patricide or matricide, if properly investigated, it has turned out to involve either a changeling or a child born of adultery. They say it simply isn't reasonable to suppose that a true parent would be killed by their own child.
Whatever actions are forbidden among the Persians, it's also forbidden to even speak of them. They consider lying the most disgraceful thing in the world, and owing money the second most disgraceful -- for many reasons, but especially, they say, because a man in debt will inevitably be tempted to lie. Any citizen who has leprosy or a skin disease that causes white patches is barred from entering the city and from mixing with other Persians. They say such a person has sinned against the Sun. Many peoples also drive away foreigners who contract these diseases, and even white doves, for the same reason. The Persians never urinate or spit into a river, and they don't wash their hands in one, nor do they allow anyone else to do so. They hold rivers in deep reverence.
Here's another thing I've noticed about the Persians that they themselves haven't: all their names -- names that reflect either physical characteristics or social grandeur -- end in the same letter, the one the Dorians call "san" and the Ionians call "sigma." If you check, you'll find that every single Persian name ends in this letter, without exception.
These are things I can state for certain from my own knowledge. What comes next is reported as something of a secret, and the details aren't entirely clear: supposedly, a Persian's body isn't buried until it's been torn at by a bird or a dog. I know for a fact that the Magians do this, because they do it openly. In any case, the Persians coat the body in wax before burying it in the earth. The Magians are distinct from other people in many ways, just as they differ from Egyptian priests. Egyptian priests consider it a matter of purity not to kill any living creature except sacrificial animals. But the Magians kill everything they can get their hands on -- except dogs and humans. They actually make it a point of pride to kill ants, snakes, and every kind of crawling or flying creature. Well, let that custom be as it has always been. Now I return to the main story.
As soon as the Lydians had been conquered by the Persians, the Ionians and Aeolians sent messengers to Cyrus at Sardis, offering to submit to him on the same terms they'd had under Croesus. When Cyrus heard their proposal, he told them a fable.
A man who played the pipes, he said, once saw fish in the sea and played his music, expecting them to come out onto land. When they didn't, he took a net, hauled in a great catch, and dragged them onto the shore. Watching them flop around, he said to the fish: "You can stop your dancing now, since you wouldn't come out and dance when I was playing."
Cyrus told this fable to the Ionians and Aeolians because they'd refused to revolt from Croesus when he'd asked them to earlier, but now that the conquest was already complete, they were eager to submit. He said this to them in anger.
When the Ionians heard this response brought back to their cities, they immediately built walls around each of their towns and gathered together at the Panionion -- all of them except the Milesians, who alone had secured from Cyrus the same terms the Lydians had given them. The rest of the Ionians resolved by unanimous vote to send messengers to Sparta asking for help.
The Ionians who belong to the Panionion had the good fortune to build their cities in the finest climate of any people I know. No region to the north, south, east, or west of Ionia can match it: the lands in one direction suffer from cold and damp, those in another from heat and drought.
These Ionians don't all speak the same dialect -- they have four distinct variations. Their southernmost cities are Miletus, Myus, and Priene, settlements in Caria that share the same dialect. Then in Lydia there are Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Clazomenae, and Phocaea -- these speak a completely different dialect from the first group but agree with each other. Of the three remaining Ionian cities, two are on islands -- Samos and Chios -- and one, Erythrae, is on the mainland. The people of Chios and Erythrae speak the same dialect, while the Samians have one all their own. That makes four dialects in total.
Now, of these Ionians, the Milesians were safe from danger because they'd made a treaty with Cyrus. The islanders had nothing to fear either, since the Phoenicians weren't yet Persian subjects and the Persians themselves were not a naval people.
The reason these Ionians separated themselves from the rest of the Ionian name was simply this: at that time, the entire Greek world was weak, and the Ionian branch was the weakest and least significant of all -- Athens being its only notable city. Most Ionians, including the Athenians, avoided the name and didn't want to be called Ionians. Even now, I notice that most of them are ashamed of it. But these twelve cities embraced the name proudly, built their own exclusive temple called the Panionion, and resolved to share it with no other Ionians -- and indeed, no others asked to share it, except the people of Smyrna.
This was similar to how the Dorians of the region now called the Five Cities -- formerly the Six Cities -- take care not to admit any of the neighboring Dorians to the temple of the Triopian Apollo, and even exclude their own members who break the temple's rules. In the games of the Triopian Apollo, the prizes used to be bronze tripods, and the rule was that winners couldn't take them home but had to dedicate them on the spot to the god. A man from Halicarnassus named Agasicles won a tripod, ignored this rule, and took it home and hung it on a nail. For that, the other five cities -- Lindos, Ialysos, Cameiros, Cos, and Cnidos -- expelled Halicarnassus from the temple.
As for why the Ionians formed exactly twelve cities and refused to admit more, I believe it's because when they lived in the Peloponnese, they had twelve divisions -- the same number as the Achaean divisions that exist today, the Achaeans being the people who drove them out. Starting from the Sicyon side, the twelve are: Pellene, Aegira, Aegae (where the river Crathis flows, giving its name to the Italian river), Bura, Helice (where the Ionians fled when beaten by the Achaeans), Aegion, Rhypes, Patrae, Pharae, Olenus (where the great river Peiros is), Dyme, and Tritaeae, the only one of these that's inland. These are now twelve Achaean divisions, and they were formerly twelve Ionian ones.
That's why the Ionians made twelve cities. As for the idea that these particular Ionians are somehow purer or nobler than other Ionians -- that's nonsense. A large portion of them are actually Abantes from Euboea, who aren't even Ionians by name. Mixed in with them are Minyans from Orchomenus, Cadmeians, Dryopians, Phocians who broke away from their own people, Molossians, Arcadian Pelasgians, Dorians from Epidaurus, and many other peoples. The proudest among them, those who set out from the town hall of Athens and consider themselves the most purely Ionian -- even they brought no women with them when they colonized. Instead, they took Carian women whose fathers they'd just killed.
Because of this slaughter, these women established a rule among themselves, bound by oaths and passed down to their daughters: they would never eat with their husbands, and no wife would ever call her husband by name. The reason was that the Ionians had killed their fathers, husbands, and children, and then married them by force. This happened at Miletus.
Some of these Ionians set Lycian princes over themselves, descendants of Glaucus and Hippolochus. Others were ruled by Pylian Cauconians descended from Codrus the son of Melanthus. Still others had rulers from both lines. Since these twelve cities cling to the Ionian name more than any others, let them be called pure Ionians if they insist. But in truth, all peoples who trace their descent from Athens and celebrate the festival of the Apaturia are Ionians. Everyone does keep this festival -- except the Ephesians and the Colophonians, who are the only Ionians excluded from it because of some murder they committed.
The Panionion itself is a sacred place on the north side of Mount Mycale, dedicated by common agreement of the Ionians to Poseidon of Helice. Mycale is a promontory on the mainland jutting westward toward Samos, where the Ionians used to gather from their cities to celebrate a festival they called the Panionia. (And here's something interesting: not only the Ionian festivals but all Greek festivals have names ending in the same letter, just like Persian names.)
Those, then, are the Ionian cities.
The Aeolian cities are these: Cyme (also called Phriconis), Larisa, Neon Teichos, Temnos, Cilla, Notion, Aegiroessa, Pitane, Aegaeae, Myrina, and Gryneia -- eleven ancient cities, since the twelfth, Smyrna, had been taken from them by the Ionians. These mainland Aeolian cities used to number twelve as well. The Aeolians had the good fortune to settle in more fertile land than the Ionians, though the climate isn't as pleasant.
Here's how the Aeolians lost Smyrna. They took in some men of Colophon who'd been driven out by their political rivals. These Colophonian exiles waited for a day when the people of Smyrna were outside the walls celebrating a festival of Dionysus. Then they shut the gates and seized the city. The whole Aeolian league came to the rescue, but they eventually settled the matter by agreement: the Ionians would return all the movable property, and in exchange the Aeolians would give up Smyrna. When the Smyrnaeans accepted these terms, the remaining eleven cities divided them up and made them citizens.
Those are the Aeolian cities on the mainland, apart from the settlements on Mount Ida, which are separate. In the islands, there are five cities on Lesbos -- the sixth, Arisba, was enslaved by the people of Methymna despite being their kin. There's one city on Tenedos and one in the so-called Hundred Isles. The Lesbians and the people of Tenedos, like the Ionian islanders, had nothing to fear. The remaining mainland cities agreed to follow wherever the Ionians led.
When the Ionian and Aeolian messengers reached Sparta -- they'd moved quickly -- they chose a Phocaean named Pythermos to speak for them all. He put on a purple cloak to attract as much attention as possible and draw a crowd of Spartans, and once admitted to the assembly, he spoke at length, asking the Spartans for help.
The Spartans refused. They voted not to help the Ionians, and the ambassadors were sent away. However, the Spartans did dispatch a fifty-oared ship to observe the situation with Cyrus and in Ionia. These men sailed to Phocaea and sent their most distinguished member, a man named Lacrines, to Sardis to deliver a message to Cyrus: the Spartans forbade him to harm any Greek city. They would not permit it.
When the herald said this, Cyrus reportedly asked the Greeks in his court who the Spartans were and how many of them there were, that they should send him such a message. When he heard the answer, he said to the Spartan herald: "I have never feared men who set aside a special place in the center of their city where they get together and cheat each other with false oaths. If I stay healthy, they won't be talking about the Ionians' troubles -- they'll have plenty of their own to worry about."
Cyrus hurled this insult at the Greeks in general because they have marketplaces where they buy and sell, something the Persians don't do at all -- they have no marketplaces whatsoever.
After this, Cyrus entrusted Sardis to a Persian named Tabalus and put a Lydian named Pactyas in charge of Croesus' gold and the rest of the Lydian treasure. Then he himself marched away to Ecbatana, taking Croesus with him. He wasn't concerned about the Ionians for the moment: Babylon still lay ahead of him, as did the Bactrians, the Sacae, and the Egyptians. He planned to deal with those himself and send another commander to handle the Ionians.
But as soon as Cyrus left Sardis, Pactyas stirred the Lydians into revolt against Tabalus and Cyrus. With all the gold of Sardis at his disposal, he hired mercenaries, persuaded the coastal peoples to join him, and marched on Sardis, besieging Tabalus in the citadel.
When Cyrus heard the news on the road, he said to Croesus: "How will this end, Croesus? The Lydians apparently won't stop making trouble -- for me or for themselves. I'm starting to think it might be best to sell them all into slavery. As it is, I've acted like a man who killed the father but spared the sons. I took you prisoner -- you, who were more than a father to the Lydians -- and then handed their city back to them. Should I really be surprised that they've revolted?"
Croesus, alarmed that Cyrus might destroy Sardis, replied: "Your Majesty, what you say is reasonable. But don't give way entirely to your anger. Don't destroy an ancient city that's blameless in both the previous trouble and this one. The previous trouble was my doing, and I'm the one paying for it. This time the guilty party is Pactyas, the man you put in charge. Let him be the one who's punished. But spare the Lydians. Instead, give them these orders, designed to make sure they never revolt or threaten you again: forbid them to own weapons. Order them to wear tunics under their cloaks and soft shoes on their feet. Command them to teach their sons to play the lyre and the harp and to become shopkeepers. Before long, Your Majesty, you'll see them turn from men into women, and you'll never have to worry about a revolt again."
Croesus suggested this because he thought it was better for the Lydians than being sold into slavery. He knew he couldn't change Cyrus' mind without a practical alternative, and he feared that even if the Lydians escaped the present danger, they might revolt again later and be wiped out entirely.
Cyrus was delighted with the suggestion. His anger cooled, and he agreed. He then appointed Mazares, a Mede, to carry out Croesus' recommendations for the Lydians and also to sell into slavery everyone who had joined Pactyas' revolt. Above all, Pactyas himself was to be brought to Cyrus alive.
Cyrus gave these orders on the road and continued his march toward Persia. Pactyas, hearing that an army was coming for him, fled in terror to Cyme. Mazares marched to Sardis and, finding Pactyas gone, first forced the Lydians to carry out Cyrus' orders. From that point on, the Lydians changed their entire way of life.
Then Mazares sent a message to Cyme demanding they hand over Pactyas. The people of Cyme decided to consult the oracle at Branchidae -- an ancient oracle near Miletus that all the Ionians and Aeolians regularly consulted. They sent messengers to ask the god what they should do about Pactyas so as to please the gods. The oracle's answer came back: hand him over to the Persians.
When the people of Cyme heard this, they were ready to comply. But a respected citizen named Aristodicus, the son of Heraclides, stopped them. He didn't trust the answer and suspected the messengers weren't reporting it accurately. So a second delegation was sent, with Aristodicus himself among them.
When they reached Branchidae, Aristodicus stepped forward and put the question himself: "Lord, the Lydian Pactyas came to us as a suppliant, fleeing a violent death at the hands of the Persians. They're demanding we hand him over. We fear Persian power, but we haven't dared surrender a suppliant until you tell us clearly what we should do."
The god gave the same answer: hand him over to the Persians.
At that point, Aristodicus deliberately walked around the entire temple, pulling down every sparrow's nest and every other bird's nest he could find. As he did this, a voice spoke from the inner shrine: "You! Most impious of men! How dare you do this? How dare you drag my suppliants from my temple?"
Aristodicus was ready with his answer: "Lord, so you protect your own suppliants, but you tell the people of Cyme to give up theirs?"
The god replied: "Yes, I tell you to do it -- so that you may be destroyed all the sooner for your impiety, and never again come to my oracle asking about the surrender of suppliants."
When the people of Cyme heard this, they wanted neither to be destroyed for handing Pactyas over nor besieged for sheltering him, so they sent him to Mytilene. The people of Mytilene were preparing to hand Pactyas over for a fee -- how much, I can't say for certain, because the deal was never completed. The people of Cyme, learning what was happening, sent a ship to Lesbos and spirited Pactyas away to Chios. But the Chians dragged him out of the temple of Athena Poliouchos and surrendered him. In exchange, they received the territory of Atarneus, a region of Mysia opposite Lesbos. The Persians took custody of Pactyas to hold him for Cyrus.
For a long time afterward, no one in Chios would use barley from Atarneus for any sacred offering or bake sacrificial cakes from its grain. Everything produced in that territory was excluded from all religious ceremonies.
With Pactyas dealt with, Mazares campaigned against the cities that had joined the siege of Tabalus. He enslaved the people of Priene, overran the entire Maeander plain, letting his army plunder it freely, and did the same to Magnesia. Then suddenly he fell sick and died.
After Mazares' death, Harpagos came down to take command -- the same Harpagos who was a Mede, the same man whom King Astyages had served that unspeakable dinner, the same man who'd helped give the kingdom to Cyrus. Appointed as general by Cyrus, Harpagos arrived in Ionia and began taking cities one by one. His method was to throw up siege mounds: once he had a city penned behind its walls, he piled up earthworks against them and stormed them.
The first Ionian city he attacked was Phocaea.
Now, the Phocaeans were the first Greeks to make long sea voyages. They were the ones who discovered the Adriatic, Tyrrhenia, Iberia, and Tartessus -- and they sailed not in round merchant ships but in fifty-oared war galleys. At Tartessus they befriended the king, whose name was Arganthonius. He ruled the Tartessians for eighty years and lived to be a hundred and twenty. He liked the Phocaeans so much that he first invited them to leave Ionia and settle anywhere they wanted in his own land. When they turned that down, he heard from them how Median power was growing and gave them money to build a wall around their city -- and he gave generously, for the circuit of that wall runs for many furlongs, all built of large, close-fitted stones.
That was how the Phocaean wall was built. When Harpagos brought his army and besieged the city, he sent word that he'd be satisfied if the Phocaeans would just knock down one battlement of their wall and consecrate one building. The Phocaeans, who were deeply opposed to subjection, asked for one day to deliberate and requested that Harpagos pull back his army from the walls while they discussed.
Harpagos said he knew perfectly well what they were planning, but he allowed them their day.
When the army withdrew, the Phocaeans immediately launched their fifty-oared galleys, loaded in their children, women, and all their portable property, along with the sacred images and offerings from their temples -- everything except the bronze, stone, and painted works -- and sailed away to Chios. The Persians took possession of an empty city.
The Chians refused to sell the Phocaeans the islands called the Oenussae, fearing they'd be turned into a trading center that would cut Chios out of commerce. So the Phocaeans set their course for Corsica, where twenty years earlier they'd founded a colony called Alalia on the advice of an oracle. (Arganthonius was dead by this time.)
Before heading to Corsica, they first sailed back to Phocaea and slaughtered the Persian garrison that Harpagos had left there. After that, they pronounced terrible curses on anyone who stayed behind, and they sank a lump of iron in the sea and swore that they would not return to Phocaea until that iron rose to the surface.
But as they were preparing to sail for Corsica, more than half the citizens were overcome with longing for their city and their homeland. They broke their oath and sailed back to Phocaea. Those who kept the oath weighed anchor from the Oenussae and sailed on.
When they reached Corsica, they lived for five years alongside the earlier colonists, building temples there. But they took to plundering all their neighbors, so the Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians formed an alliance against them, each contributing sixty ships. The Phocaeans manned their own sixty ships and sailed out to meet them in the Sardinian Sea.
In the sea battle that followed, the Phocaeans won what you might call a Pyrrhic victory: forty of their ships were destroyed, and the remaining twenty had their rams bent and were useless. They sailed back to Alalia, picked up their women, children, and whatever belongings their ships could carry, and abandoned Corsica, sailing to Rhegium in southern Italy.
As for the sailors from the destroyed ships, the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians captured most of them, took them ashore, and stoned them to death. After this, the people of Agylla found that everything that passed by the place where the dead Phocaeans lay -- livestock, pack animals, people -- became crippled, twisted, or paralyzed. The people of Agylla sent to Delphi to find out how to atone for the crime, and the priestess instructed them to hold magnificent funeral rites and an ongoing festival of athletics and horse racing at the site, which they still do to this day.
That was the fate of some Phocaeans. Those who'd taken refuge at Rhegium went on to found a city in the land of Oenotria that is now called Hyele. They established it after learning from a man of Poseidonia that the oracle had meant them to found a temple to the hero Cyrnus, not to settle on the island of Corsica.
That is the story of Phocaea. The people of Teos behaved almost identically: when Harpagos took their walls with a siege mound, they all boarded their ships and sailed straight for Thrace, where they founded the city of Abdera. Before them, Timesios of Clazomenae had tried to establish a colony there but was driven out by the Thracians. He's now honored as a hero by the Teians in Abdera.
The Phocaeans and Teians were the only Ionians who chose to abandon their homes rather than accept subjection. The rest of the Ionians -- except for the Milesians -- did fight against Harpagos, and each people fought bravely for their own city. But when they were defeated, they stayed where they were and submitted to whatever was demanded of them. The Milesians, as I mentioned earlier, had their own treaty with Cyrus and remained undisturbed.
So Ionia was enslaved for the second time. Once Harpagos had conquered the mainland Ionians, the islanders saw what was happening and surrendered to Cyrus out of fear.
Even after this disaster, the Ionians continued to hold their gatherings at the Panionion. At one such assembly, I'm told, a man named Bias of Priene offered them the best advice anyone could have given: he proposed that all the Ionians should join together in one great expedition, sail to Sardinia, and found a single city for all Ionians. That way they'd escape subjection and prosper, inhabiting the largest island in the world and ruling over others. If they stayed in Ionia, he said, he didn't see how they could ever be free again.
That was the advice Bias gave after the catastrophe. But even before the fall of Ionia, Thales of Miletus -- who was of Phoenician descent -- had offered equally good counsel. He'd proposed that the Ionians establish a single central government at Teos, which was in the middle of Ionia. The other cities would continue to be inhabited, but they'd be treated like townships within one state.
Those were the two proposals. But neither was followed.
After subduing Ionia, Harpagos marched against the Carians, the Caunians, and the Lycians, bringing Ionian and Aeolian troops along as reinforcements.
The Carians originally came to the mainland from the islands. In ancient times, as subjects of King Minos, they were called Leleges and lived on the islands. They paid no tribute, as far as I can trace, but whenever Minos needed them, they crewed his ships. And since Minos conquered a lot of territory and was successful in his wars, the Carians were at that time by far the most famous nation in the world, alongside him. They produced three military innovations that the Greeks adopted: they were the first to attach crests to helmets, the first to put designs on shields, and the first to make shield handles -- before that, everyone who carried a shield used leather straps, hanging the shield from their neck and left shoulder.
Eventually, the Dorians and Ionians drove the Carians from the islands to the mainland. At least that's the Cretan version. The Carians themselves disagree entirely -- they claim they've always lived on the mainland and have always gone by the same name. As evidence, they point to an ancient temple of Carian Zeus at Mylasa, which is shared by the Mysians and Lydians as brother races of the Carians, since Lydus and Mysus were brothers of Car. Only these kinsman peoples may worship there -- anyone of a different race who happens to speak the same language is excluded.
The Caunians, in my opinion, have been there from the beginning as well, though they themselves claim to have come from Crete. Their language has either converged with Carian or the other way around -- I can't say which for certain. But their customs are quite different from both the Carians and everyone else. For instance, they think the finest thing in the world is to get together in large groups for drinking parties, organized by age or friendship, with men, women, and children all included. Also, after they'd established temples for foreign gods, they changed their minds and decided to worship only their own native deities. The entire young male population armed themselves, marched to the border of Calynda, beating the air with their spears, and declared that they were driving the foreign gods out of the country. Those are Caunian ways.
The Lycians originally came from Crete. In ancient times all of Crete was held by non-Greeks. When the sons of Europa -- Sarpedon and Minos -- fought over the kingdom, Minos won. He expelled Sarpedon and his followers, who then migrated to the land of Milyas in Asia. What's now called Lycia was then called Milyas, and its people were the Solymoi. While Sarpedon ruled them, they were called Termilae, the name the neighboring peoples still use for the Lycians. But when Lycus the son of Pandion came from Athens -- he too had been driven out, by his brother Aegeus -- and joined Sarpedon in the land of the Termilae, in time the people came to be called Lycians, after Lycus.
Lycian customs are partly Cretan and partly Carian, but they have one unique practice found nowhere else: they trace their descent through their mothers, not their fathers. If you ask a Lycian who he is, he'll recite his maternal ancestry, naming his mother's mother's mother. And if a female citizen marries a slave, the children are considered freeborn. But if a male citizen, even the most prominent man among them, takes a foreign wife or a concubine, his children have no civil rights.
The Carians were subdued by Harpagos without any notable resistance, either from themselves or from the Greeks living in their territory. Among these Greeks were the people of Cnidos, colonists from Sparta, whose territory juts out into the sea -- the peninsula called Triopion, starting from the coast of Bybassos. Since nearly all of Cnidos is surrounded by water (the Gulf of Ceramos to the north, the sea off Syme and Rhodes to the south), the only land connection is an isthmus about five furlongs wide. While Harpagos was conquering Ionia, the people of Cnidos began digging through this isthmus to make their territory an island.
But the workers kept getting injured at much higher rates than normal, in ways that seemed supernatural -- especially in their eyes, when they were breaking up the rock. They sent to Delphi to ask what was wrong. The priestess, as the people of Cnidos themselves report, answered in verse:
"Don't fence the isthmus with towers or dig it through. Zeus would have made it an island, had he wished."
When the oracle spoke, the people of Cnidos stopped digging and surrendered to Harpagos without a fight.
Inland from Halicarnassus lived the Pedasians, among whom something remarkable happened: whenever disaster was about to strike them or their neighbors, the priestess of Athena grew a long beard. This happened three times. The Pedasians were the only people in the Carian region who held out against Harpagos for any length of time, giving him real trouble by fortifying a mountain called Lide.
Eventually the Pedasians too were overcome. When Harpagos marched his army into the plain of Xanthus in Lycia, the Lycians came out to fight, few against many, and displayed remarkable courage. But when they were defeated and pushed back inside their city, they gathered their wives, children, property, and slaves into the citadel and set fire to it, burning everything. Then, having sworn terrible oaths to one another, they marched out to meet the enemy and fought to the death. Every last man of Xanthus was killed.
The Lycians who live there now and claim to be from Xanthus are mostly immigrants. Only eighty households survived, and only because they happened to be away from home at the time.
That's how Harpagos took Xanthus. He captured Caunus in much the same way, the Caunians having largely followed the Lycians' example.
So while Harpagos was conquering the coast of Asia, Cyrus was doing the same in the interior, subjugating every nation and passing none by. I'll skip most of these campaigns, but I'll describe the ones that gave him the most trouble and are most worth telling.
Once Cyrus had brought everything else on the mainland under his control, he turned to the Assyrians. Assyria has many great cities, but the most famous and strongest -- the place where the seat of government had been established after the destruction of Nineveh -- was Babylon. And what a city it was.
Babylon lies in a vast plain. It's shaped as a square, with each side measuring about fifteen miles, making the total circuit about sixty miles. That's how big Babylon is -- and it was built on a scale of magnificence beyond any city I know of.
First, a wide, deep moat full of water runs around the entire city. Behind that stands a wall eighty-five feet thick and three hundred and forty feet high (using the royal cubit, which is about three inches longer than the standard cubit).
Now I should explain what they did with all the earth from the moat and how the wall was constructed. As they dug the moat, they formed the excavated earth into bricks and baked them in kilns. Using hot asphalt for mortar and inserting reed mats every thirty courses, they first lined the edges of the moat and then built the wall itself in the same fashion. Along the top of the wall they built single-story chambers facing each other on both sides, with enough space between them to drive a four-horse chariot. A hundred gates pierce the circuit of the wall, all made entirely of bronze -- posts, lintels, and all.
There's another city called Is, eight days' journey from Babylon, with a small river also called the Is that flows into the Euphrates. This river carries lumps of asphalt along with its water, and this is where the asphalt for Babylon's wall came from.
The city is divided in two by the Euphrates, which flows right through the middle. The Euphrates rises in Armenia and is a large, deep, swift river that empties into the Red Sea. On each side, the main wall curves down to the riverbank, and from there, ramparts of baked brick run along both banks of the stream. The city itself is full of three- and four-story buildings. The streets are laid out in straight lines, including the cross streets that lead down to the river. At the end of each cross street, there's a bronze gate in the river rampart that opens onto the water.
This outer wall serves as the city's main defense, but inside it runs a second wall, slightly thinner but hardly less strong. In the center of each of the two city halves stood a great building: in one half, the royal palace, enormous and heavily fortified; in the other, the temple of Zeus Belus, with bronze gates. The temple precinct is a square, each side measuring a quarter mile. It still existed in my time.
In the center of the precinct stands a solid tower, a furlong in length and width, and on this tower another tower is built, and another on that one, and so on -- eight towers in all. A ramp spirals up around the outside of all the towers, and about halfway up there's a landing with benches where climbers can rest. At the very top of the last tower stands a great chapel. Inside the chapel is a large, richly covered couch with a golden table beside it. There is no statue in the chapel. No human being spends the night there except one local woman, chosen by the god -- or so the Chaldean priests of this god claim.
These same priests say that the god himself comes regularly to the chapel and sleeps on the couch. I don't believe this, though similar things are reported at Egyptian Thebes, where a woman sleeps in the temple of the Theban Zeus. (Both these women are said to abstain from relations with men.) The same practice exists with the prophetess at Patara in Lycia, at least when there's an oracle operating there -- she's locked in the temple at night.
In the temple at Babylon there's another chapel at ground level containing a great golden seated statue of Zeus, with a large golden table beside it and a golden footstool and throne. The Chaldeans told me that eight hundred talents of gold went into making all of this. Outside this chapel stands a golden altar, and also a larger altar where full-grown animals are sacrificed (only suckling animals may be offered on the golden one). On the larger altar, the Chaldeans burn a thousand talents of frankincense every year at the god's festival.
In Cyrus' time, there was also a solid gold statue twelve cubits high -- about eighteen feet -- in these precincts. I didn't see this myself, but I'm reporting what the Chaldeans told me. Darius the son of Hystaspes had designs on this statue but didn't dare take it. Xerxes the son of Darius did take it -- and killed the priest who tried to stop him. Such is the magnificence of this temple, along with many private offerings.
Of the many rulers of Babylon, two were women, and I'll discuss both in more detail in my Assyrian history. The first, Semiramis, who lived five generations before the other, built the remarkable embankments on the plain that control the river, which before her time used to flood like a sea.
The second queen, Nitocris, was cleverer than Semiramis. She left behind monuments I'll describe, and she also made defensive preparations against the growing Median threat -- by that time Nineveh itself had fallen to the Medes. First, she altered the course of the Euphrates, which had previously flowed straight through the city. By digging channels upstream, she made the river so winding that it actually passes the same Assyrian village, Ardericca, three times. Even now, travelers sailing down the Euphrates from our sea to Babylon arrive at this one village on three separate days.
She also built massive embankments along both riverbanks. Then, well upstream of Babylon, she excavated a great basin for an artificial lake, digging just far enough from the river at every point to hit water. The lake's circumference was about fifty miles, and she used the excavated earth to build up the river embankments. When the basin was finished, she lined its edges with stone.
She had two purposes in doing all this -- making the river wind and creating the lake. The winding course slowed the river's current, and the lengthy detours would make any enemy's approach to Babylon much slower. She built these works on the side facing Media, the most direct route into Babylonian territory, to keep the Medes from learning about her kingdom's defenses.
There was another problem she solved as well. The city was divided in two by the river, and in earlier times, to cross from one half to the other you had to take a boat -- which must have been quite inconvenient. Nitocris found a solution while she was digging the lake. She had massive stones cut. When they were ready and the basin was excavated, she diverted the entire Euphrates into the lake bed. While the old riverbed was dry, she lined the banks with baked brick walls matching the city's main ramparts, and she built a bridge across the middle of the city, using the cut stones bound together with iron and lead. During the day, squared timbers were laid across the bridge for people to walk on. At night the timbers were removed, to prevent people from crossing in the dark and stealing from each other. When the lake had filled with water and the bridge was complete, she redirected the Euphrates back into its original channel. The excavated area became a useful swamp, and the city had its bridge.
This same queen devised another clever trick. Above the busiest gate in the city, she placed a tomb for herself, right over the gateway, with this inscription carved on it: "If any king of Babylon after me finds himself short of money, let him open this tomb and take as much as he needs. But don't open it for any other reason -- that won't go well for you."
This tomb went undisturbed until Darius became king. Darius thought it was absurd not to use this gate (he couldn't, because the corpse would have been directly above his head as he drove through) and equally absurd not to take the money when it was practically inviting him to do so. He opened the tomb. Inside he found no money at all, just the corpse and a new inscription: "If you weren't so insatiably greedy, you would not have opened the resting-places of the dead."
That was the kind of queen Nitocris was. It was her son, Labynetus -- bearing the same name as his father -- who ruled the Assyrians when Cyrus marched against them.
Now, when the Great King goes on campaign, he travels well supplied. He brings provisions and livestock from home, and he even brings water from the river Choaspes, which flows past Susa -- the only water the king will drink. This water is boiled and carried in silver vessels on a vast number of four-wheeled, mule-drawn wagons that accompany him wherever he goes.
On his way to Babylon, when Cyrus reached the river Gyndes -- which rises in the Matienian mountains, flows through Dardanian territory, and joins the Tigris, which passes the city of Opis and empties into the Red Sea -- when Cyrus, I say, was trying to cross this navigable river, one of his sacred white horses plunged in with a spirited leap and was swept away by the current and drowned.
Cyrus was furious at the river for this insolence. He vowed to make it so weak that even women could cross it in the future without getting their knees wet. He set aside his march to Babylon, divided his army in half, and on each bank of the river he marked out a hundred and eighty channels radiating in every direction. He set his entire army to digging. With so many men at work the job was finished, but they'd wasted the entire summer on it.
Having taken his revenge on the Gyndes by splitting it into three hundred and sixty channels, Cyrus waited for the following spring and then resumed his march on Babylon. The Babylonians marched out of the city to meet him. When the two armies engaged in front of the city, the Babylonians were beaten and driven back inside their walls.
But they already knew that Cyrus was a man who couldn't sit still, and they'd watched him attack one nation after another. So they'd stockpiled years' worth of food in advance. They felt no urgency about the siege. Meanwhile, Cyrus was getting nowhere -- much time passed with no progress.
Then -- whether someone else suggested it or he thought of it himself -- Cyrus came up with a plan. He stationed part of his army at the point where the Euphrates enters the city, and another part where it exits. He told his men that as soon as they saw the riverbed become passable, they should wade in and enter the city.
Having arranged his troops, Cyrus himself marched with the non-combat portion of his army to the same artificial lake that Queen Nitocris had created. He did exactly what she had done: he diverted the Euphrates through a channel into the lake, which was then a marsh, and the river level in the city dropped rapidly.
When the Persians stationed at the city walls saw the Euphrates had fallen to about mid-thigh depth, they waded in along the riverbed and entered Babylon. If the Babylonians had noticed what was happening, or had realized what Cyrus was doing, they could have trapped the Persians and destroyed them easily. They could have locked every gate along the riverfront and climbed the embankment walls, catching the invaders like fish in a trap. But as it happened, the Persians took them completely by surprise. The city was so enormous that, according to the residents, the people in the center of Babylon had no idea the outer districts had already been captured. They were in the middle of a festival, dancing and celebrating, and only learned the truth when it was far too late.
That was how Babylon fell for the first time.
As for the wealth of Babylon and how great it is, I'll demonstrate it with many proofs, including this one: to support the Great King and his army, the entire empire (apart from the regular tribute) has been divided into districts assigned to provide food for different months of the year. Out of twelve months, the territory of Babylon provides support for four -- and the whole rest of Asia covers the remaining eight. That means Babylonian territory alone accounts for a third of all Asia's wealth.
The governorship of this province -- satrapy, as the Persians call it -- was the richest of them all. When Tritantaechmes the son of Artabazus held it from the king, a full artab of silver (a Persian measure a bit larger than the Attic medimnos) came in to him every single day. As private property -- separate from his war horses -- he kept eight hundred stallions and sixteen thousand mares, each stallion serving twenty mares. He also kept so many Indian hunting dogs that four large villages on the plain were exempt from all other obligations just to provide food for the dogs.
That gives you an idea of the governor of Babylon's wealth. The land of Assyria itself gets little rain. The rainfall is just enough to sprout the grain, but the crops are grown to maturity by irrigation from the river -- not like Egypt, where the Nile itself rises and floods the fields, but by hand irrigation using water-lifting devices. The whole territory, like Egypt, is crisscrossed by canals. The largest canal is navigable by ship and runs southeast from the Euphrates to the Tigris, on which Nineveh stands.
This is, without question, the most productive grain-growing land I know of. It doesn't even try to grow figs, grapes, or olives. But for grain, it regularly yields two hundredfold, and in its best years three hundredfold. The leaves of the wheat and barley grow four fingers wide. As for the size of the trees that millet and sesame grow into -- I know from personal experience, but I won't mention it, since I'm well aware that what I've already said about the crops will be disbelieved by anyone who hasn't been there.
They use no olive oil, only sesame oil. Date palms grow across the whole plain, most of them fruit-bearing. From the dates they make food, wine, and honey. They tend their date palms the way others tend fig trees, and in particular they tie the fruit of the male palm to the female trees so that the gall-fly can enter the dates and ripen them, preventing them from falling off prematurely.
But the greatest marvel in all this land, after the city itself, is the boats. They're round and made entirely of leather. The frames are made of willow ribs, cut in the Armenian highlands, and around these they stretch hides to form the hull, without shaping a stern or pointing a prow -- just a round shape, like a shield. They stuff the boat with straw and send it downstream loaded with cargo, most often casks of date wine. Two men steer the craft, standing upright with two oars each -- one pulling, the other pushing. These boats come in all sizes. The largest can carry a cargo of five thousand talents' weight. And every boat carries a live donkey -- the bigger boats carry several.
Here's why: when they reach Babylon and sell their cargo, they auction off the willow ribs and the straw, but they load the hides onto their donkeys and drive them back to Armenia. You can't sail upstream against the Euphrates' powerful current -- that's why they make the boats of hide instead of wood. When they get back to Armenia, they build new boats the same way.
As for their clothing, the Babylonians wear a linen tunic reaching to their feet, then a woolen tunic over that, and then a white cloak wrapped around them. Their shoes are of a local style, somewhat like Boeotian slippers. They wear their hair long, bind turbans around their heads, and anoint their entire bodies with perfume. Every man carries a personal seal and a hand-carved walking stick. Each staff has a carved emblem on top -- an apple, a rose, a lily, an eagle, or some other device. It's not their custom to carry a staff without one.
Among Babylonian customs, the wisest in my opinion is this one, which I'm told the Eneti of Illyria also practice. Once a year in every village, when the girls reached marriageable age, they were all gathered together in one place. A crowd of men stood around them, and an auctioneer called each girl up one at a time, starting with the most beautiful. She was sold to the highest bidder. Then the next most beautiful, and so on. They were being sold as brides. The wealthy Babylonians who wanted to marry competed fiercely for the most beautiful girls. But the common men who wanted wives weren't looking for beauty -- they were willing to take the less attractive girls plus a cash payment.
Here's how it worked: when the auctioneer finished selling the most beautiful girls, he'd call up the least attractive one, or one who was physically disabled, and ask who'd accept the least amount of money to take her. She went to whoever asked for the smallest sum. The money came from the sale of the beautiful girls -- so the good-looking women effectively provided dowries for the plain or disabled ones. A father wasn't allowed to give his daughter in marriage to any man he chose, and a buyer couldn't take the girl home without providing guarantors that he would actually marry her. If the couple didn't get along, the law required him to return the money. Anyone was free to come from another village to buy.
This was their finest custom. Unfortunately, it no longer exists. Lately they've found another practice instead. Ever since the conquest brought poverty and ruin, the common people have taken to prostituting their daughters for income.
Their second wisest custom is this: they bring their sick out to the marketplace, because they don't use doctors. Passersby come up to the sick person and offer advice -- specifically, anyone who has suffered the same illness or knows someone who has. They're required to approach and share what remedy worked for them or for the person they knew. It's forbidden to walk past a sick person in silence without asking what's wrong.
They bury their dead in honey, and their funeral rites are similar to the Egyptian ones. After a Babylonian man sleeps with his wife, both of them sit by burning incense, and at dawn they bathe -- neither will touch anything until they've washed. The Arabians do likewise.
Now for the most shameful of Babylonian customs: every woman in the country is required to sit in the precinct of Aphrodite once in her life and have intercourse with a stranger. Many of the wealthy women, considering themselves too good to mingle with the rest, drive to the temple in covered carriages drawn by pairs of horses, with a large retinue of attendants. But most women do it this way: they sit in the sacred enclosure wearing wreaths of cord on their heads, and there are great numbers of them at any time, some arriving and others leaving. Roped-off lanes run in every direction through the crowd, and the male strangers walk along them making their selection.
Once a woman takes her seat, she doesn't go home until a stranger has tossed a silver coin into her lap and slept with her outside the temple. As he throws the coin, he must say: "I summon you in the name of the goddess Mylitta" -- Mylitta being the Assyrian name for Aphrodite. The coin can be any size -- she's not allowed to refuse it, since the act makes it sacred. She must go with the first man who throws a coin; she may not reject anyone. After she's done her duty to the goddess, she goes home, and from that point on, no gift however large can win her.
The attractive, tall women are released quickly. But the homely ones sometimes wait a very long time to fulfill the requirement -- some as long as three or four years. A similar custom exists in parts of Cyprus.
Those are the customs of the Babylonians. There are also three tribes among them that eat nothing but fish. They catch the fish, dry them in the sun, pound them in mortars, and strain the result through cloth. Then they either knead it into cakes or bake it like bread, according to taste.
When Babylon too had been conquered, Cyrus set his sights on the Massagetae. This nation is reputed to be both large and warlike. They live to the east, beyond the river Araxes, opposite the Issedones. Some say they're actually a Scythian people.
The Araxes is said by some to be larger than the Danube and by others to be smaller. They say it contains many islands about the size of Lesbos, and on these islands live people who dig up roots of all kinds in summer and eat them, and who have discovered certain tree fruits that they store when ripe and eat through the winter. They've also discovered other trees that produce a fruit with unusual properties: when they gather in groups, light a fire, and throw this fruit into the flames, they become intoxicated by the smoke, the way Greeks get drunk on wine. The more fruit they throw on the fire, the more intoxicated they become, until they stand up and start dancing and singing. That, they say, is how these islanders live.
As for the Araxes itself, it flows from the land of the Matienians (the same source as the Gyndes, which Cyrus divided into three hundred and sixty channels) and splits into forty branches. All but one end in swamps and marshes, where people are said to live who eat raw fish and wear seal skins. The one remaining branch flows with a clear, unbroken current into the Caspian Sea.
The Caspian is a sea entirely on its own, unconnected to any other body of water. The sea that the Greeks navigate, the ocean beyond the Pillars of Heracles called the Atlantic, and the Red Sea -- all of these are actually one interconnected body of water. But the Caspian is completely separate. It takes fifteen days to cross it by oar, and at its widest point, eight days. Along its western shore runs the Caucasus, the most extensive and highest of all mountain ranges. Many diverse peoples live in the Caucasus, subsisting mostly on wild forest products. Among them are said to be trees whose leaves, when pounded and mixed with water, can be used to paint figures on clothing -- figures that never wash out but age with the fabric as if woven in from the start. The people of this region, they say, have sexual intercourse in the open, like animals.
West of the Caspian, then, the Caucasus forms the boundary. Eastward, an endless plain stretches as far as the eye can see. The Massagetae occupy a large portion of this vast plain, and it was against them that Cyrus was eager to march. He had many reasons driving him on: first, his extraordinary birth and the conviction people had that he was more than a mere mortal; and second, his unbroken string of military successes. Wherever Cyrus led his army, no nation could escape.
The ruler of the Massagetae was a woman -- Queen Tomyris, who had taken power after her husband's death. Cyrus sent envoys to her, pretending he wanted to marry her. But Tomyris wasn't fooled: she understood that he was courting her kingdom, not her, and she rejected his advances.
When seduction failed, Cyrus stopped pretending. He marched openly to the Araxes and began building pontoon bridges for his army to cross, constructing towers on the boats that would carry his men across the river.
While this work was underway, Tomyris sent a herald with this message: "King of the Medes, stop pressing forward with what you're doing. You can't know whether it will end well for you or not. Stop, I say. Be king over your own people, and put up with the sight of me ruling mine. But since I know you won't take this advice -- since you'd choose anything over peace -- very well: if you're so eager to test yourself against the Massagetae, then stop your bridge-building. Cross into our land, and we'll withdraw three days' march from the river. Or if you'd rather host us in yours, do the same yourself."
Cyrus convened his senior advisors and put the question to them. They unanimously recommended inviting Tomyris into his territory.
But Croesus, who was present, disagreed. "Your Majesty," he said, "I told you once before that since Zeus gave me to you, I'd do whatever I could to ward off any harm I saw coming your way. My own bitter sufferings have taught me wisdom. If you think you're immortal and that you command an immortal army, then my advice would be useless. But if you know that you're mortal and that your soldiers are too, then understand this: there is a wheel of human fortune that spins around and never lets the same people be lucky forever.
"So here's my thinking, which is opposite to what these men are saying. If we let the enemy into our territory and we lose, you lose your whole empire -- because the Massagetae won't turn around and go home. They'll march straight into your provinces. But if you win on this side, the victory won't be as decisive as if you'd crossed into their land, defeated them, and pursued them into their own territory.
"Beyond that, it would be a disgrace for Cyrus the son of Cambyses to give ground before a woman.
"So my advice is this: cross the river, advance as far as they retreat, and then try to get the upper hand by doing the following. I hear the Massagetae know nothing about Persian luxuries and have never tasted the good life. So slaughter cattle without limit, prepare a magnificent feast in our camp, and lay out bowls of undiluted wine and food of every kind. Then leave behind your weakest troops to guard the feast and withdraw the rest toward the river. If I'm not mistaken, when the Massagetae see all that fine food, they'll fall on it. And after that, it will be time for us to prove ourselves."
These were the competing proposals. Cyrus abandoned the first plan and chose Croesus' strategy. He sent word to Tomyris to pull back, as he intended to cross into her territory. She withdrew as promised.
Cyrus then entrusted Croesus to the care of his son Cambyses, to whom he meant to leave the kingdom, with strict instructions to honor Croesus and treat him well -- especially if the campaign against the Massagetae went badly. Having sent them back to Persia, Cyrus crossed the river with his army.
After crossing the Araxes, that night in the land of the Massagetae, Cyrus had a dream. He saw the eldest son of Hystaspes with wings on his shoulders -- one wing overshadowing Asia, the other overshadowing Europe. Hystaspes was a man of the Achaemenid clan, the son of Arsames, and his eldest son was Darius, at that time a young man of about twenty who'd been left behind in Persia because he wasn't old enough for the campaign.
When Cyrus woke, he brooded on the vision. It seemed enormously significant. He summoned Hystaspes to a private meeting and said: "Hystaspes, your son has been caught plotting against me and my throne. I know this for certain, because the gods watch over me and show me everything that threatens me. Last night in my sleep I saw your eldest son with wings on his shoulders, overshadowing Asia with one and Europe with the other. This can only mean he's plotting against me. Go back to Persia immediately, and when I return after conquering these lands, make sure your son is there for me to question."
Cyrus said this because he believed Darius was conspiring against him. But in truth, the gods were showing him that he was destined to die there, and that his kingdom would pass to Darius.
Hystaspes replied: "Your Majesty, may there never be a Persian who plots against you. If there is, let him be destroyed as quickly as possible. You made the Persians free instead of slaves, rulers instead of the ruled. If a dream tells you my son is planning rebellion, I hand him over to you to do with as you see fit."
With that, Hystaspes crossed back over the Araxes and returned to Persia to watch his son Darius on Cyrus' behalf.
Cyrus advanced one day's march from the Araxes and carried out Croesus' plan. He and the best Persian troops withdrew toward the river, leaving behind the weakest soldiers with the feast. When a third of the Massagetae army attacked, they killed the men who'd been left behind -- though not without a fight. Then they saw the feast laid out before them, and once they'd conquered their enemies, they lay down and ate and drank until they fell asleep.
The Persians came back and slaughtered a great number of them, and took even more alive. Among the prisoners was the commander of the Massagetae army -- Spargapises, the son of Queen Tomyris.
When Tomyris learned what had happened to her army and her son, she sent a herald to Cyrus with this message:
"Cyrus, you bloodthirsty man, don't let this make you proud. It wasn't through courage in battle that you overcame my son -- it was through that fruit of the vine, the one that makes you Persians so crazy that evil words rise to your lips as the wine goes down. You set a trap with that drug and overpowered him. Now hear my good advice: give me back my son and leave this land unpunished, even though you've brutalized a third of the Massagetae army. But if you refuse, I swear by the Sun, lord of the Massagetae -- I will give you your fill of blood, insatiable as you are."
Cyrus ignored the message completely.
When Spargapises, the queen's son, sobered up and realized his situation, he begged Cyrus to free him from his chains. His request was granted. But the moment his hands were unbound, he killed himself.
And so Tomyris, since Cyrus would not listen, gathered her entire force and gave battle. This fight was, in my judgment, the fiercest of all the battles fought among non-Greek peoples. Here is how I'm told it went: first the two sides stood apart and shot arrows at each other. When all their arrows were spent, they fell on each other with spears and daggers and fought hand to hand for a very long time. Neither side would give way. Finally, the Massagetae won. Most of the Persian army was destroyed on the spot, and Cyrus himself died there, after a reign of twenty-nine years.
Tomyris then filled a leather bag with human blood and searched among the Persian dead for Cyrus' body. When she found it, she pushed his head down into the bag of blood and spoke over his corpse: "Though I live and have conquered you in battle, you destroyed me by capturing my son through treachery. But I warned you: I have given you your fill of blood."
Many stories are told about the end of Cyrus' life, but this account is the one I find most believable.
As for the Massagetae, they dress like the Scythians and live a similar life. Some are cavalry, some are infantry. They use both bows and spears, and they carry battle-axes. For everything they make, they use either gold or bronze: bronze for spear points, arrowheads, and battle-axes, and gold for decorating their headgear, belts, and arm-bands. They armor their horses' chests with bronze breastplates and use gold on their bridles, bits, and cheek-pieces. They have no iron or silver at all -- those metals don't exist in their land -- but gold and bronze they have in abundance.
These are their customs. Each man marries one wife, but the wives are shared. The Greeks say the Scythians do this, but it's actually the Massagetae: any man who desires a woman simply hangs his quiver on the front of her wagon and has relations with her freely.
They have no fixed limit for human life. But when a man grows very old, all his nearest relatives come together, slaughter him ceremonially along with some cattle, boil the flesh, and feast on it. This is considered the happiest way to die. A person who dies of disease is not eaten but buried in the ground -- they consider it a misfortune not to have lived long enough to be slaughtered.
They grow no crops. They live on livestock and fish, which they catch in abundance from the river Araxes, and they drink milk. The only god they worship is the Sun, and to him they sacrifice horses -- their logic being that to the swiftest of gods, they should offer the swiftest of mortal creatures.
When Cyrus had come to the end of his life, the royal power passed to Cambyses, his son by Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes. Cyrus had mourned deeply when Cassandane died before him, and had ordered all his subjects to mourn her as well. Cambyses, then, being the son of this woman and of Cyrus, regarded the Ionians and Aeolians as slaves he'd inherited from his father. And so when he organized his army to march against Egypt, he brought along not only his other subject peoples but also the Greeks under his control.
Now, the Egyptians used to believe they were the oldest people on earth -- until Psammetichus became king and decided to settle the question of which people came first. After that, they conceded that the Phrygians were older, but still maintained they were older than everyone else.
Here's how Psammetichus ran his experiment. Unable to find out by ordinary inquiry which people had existed first, he devised the following scheme. He took two newborn babies from ordinary parents and gave them to a shepherd to raise among his flocks, with these strict instructions: no one was to speak a single word in the children's presence. They were to be kept in a room by themselves where no one could visit. The shepherd was to bring she-goats to them at the proper times, give them their fill of milk, and take care of their other needs. Psammetichus did all this because he wanted to hear what word the children would utter first, once they'd gotten past the stage of meaningless babbling.
Things turned out exactly as planned. After two years, when the shepherd opened the door and went in, both children fell on their knees before him, reached out their hands, and said the word "bekos." The first time the shepherd heard this, he kept quiet. But when the word was repeated every time he visited, he finally told his master. Psammetichus ordered the children brought before him, and when he'd heard the word himself, he investigated which people called something "bekos." He discovered that the Phrygians used this word for bread.
And that is how the Egyptians, guided by this evidence, conceded that the Phrygians were older than themselves.
I heard this story from the priests of Hephaestus at Memphis. The Greeks have their own version, among many other silly tales -- they say that Psammetichus cut out women's tongues and then had the children raised by these mute women.
That's what I was told about the rearing of the children. I learned many other things at Memphis, too, from conversations with the priests of Hephaestus. I also traveled to Thebes and Heliopolis for this very purpose: to see whether the priests in those places would agree with the ones at Memphis. The priests of Heliopolis are said to be the most learned in Egyptian records.
Now, about their accounts of the gods -- I'm not keen to write out everything they told me. I'll mention the gods only by name, because I believe that all people are equally ignorant about divine matters. Whatever I do report on this subject, I'll report only when the story requires it.
But on matters concerning human beings, the priests all agreed: the Egyptians were the first people on earth to work out the course of the year, dividing it into twelve parts based on the stars. In this, they are wiser than the Greeks, it seems to me, because the Greeks have to insert an intercalary month every other year to keep the seasons right, whereas the Egyptians simply count twelve months of thirty days each and add five extra days every year, which brings the cycle of seasons back around to its starting point perfectly.
The priests also said that the Egyptians were the first to assign names to the twelve gods, and that the Greeks adopted these names from them. They were the first to dedicate altars, images, and temples to the gods, and the first to carve figures in stone. Most of this they demonstrated to me with hard evidence.
They said that the first man to become king of Egypt was Min, and that in his time all of Egypt except the district of Thebes was a swamp. Nothing that now lies below Lake Moeris was then above water -- and Lake Moeris is a seven-day river journey from the sea.
I thought the priests made excellent sense about the land. It's obvious to anyone who visits -- even someone who hasn't been told beforehand, provided they have eyes and a brain -- that the Egypt the Greeks sail to is land the Egyptians have gained as an addition. It is a gift of the river. The same is true of the land upstream of the lake for another three days' sail, about which the priests didn't say as much, but where the nature of the land is just the same.
Here's the evidence: when you're still a day's sail from the Egyptian coast and you drop a sounding line, you'll bring up mud from a depth of eleven fathoms. That tells you the land is extending outward through deposits of silt.
As for the extent of Egypt along the coast, it measures sixty schoines -- if we define Egypt as running from the Gulf of Plinthine to the Serbonian Lake, along which Mount Casion stretches. (Now, people who have very little land measure in fathoms. Those who have a bit more use furlongs. Those with a lot of land use parasangs -- a parasang being about three and a half miles. And those with vast amounts of land use schoines -- each schoine being an Egyptian measure equal to sixty furlongs, or about seven miles.) So Egypt's coastline comes to about thirty-six hundred furlongs, or roughly four hundred and fifty miles.
From the coast to Heliopolis, the interior of Egypt is broad. The land is entirely flat, waterless, and made of mud. The road from the sea to Heliopolis is about the same distance as the road from the altar of the twelve gods in Athens to the temple of Olympian Zeus at Pisa -- if you do the math, the difference between the two routes is only about fifteen furlongs. The Athens-to-Pisa road falls fifteen furlongs short of fifteen hundred, while the sea-to-Heliopolis road hits that mark exactly.
From Heliopolis upriver, Egypt becomes narrow. On the Arabian side, a mountain range runs alongside, stretching from north to south without a break, all the way to the Red Sea. In this range are the quarries from which the stone for the pyramids at Memphis was cut. The range ends there and turns back, and at its widest it's a two-month journey across. Its eastern borders are said to produce frankincense.
On the Libyan side, another range runs parallel -- rocky, sand-covered, containing the pyramids. It runs in the same direction as the Arabian range to the south. So from Heliopolis onward, Egypt proper is actually not very wide. For about four days' sailing upriver, the valley between these two mountain ranges is narrow -- at its tightest, it seemed to me to be no more than twenty-five miles across. After that, Egypt widens out again.
Such is the geography. From Heliopolis to Thebes is a nine-day voyage upriver, covering about forty-eight hundred and sixty furlongs. To sum up the measurements: the coastline is about thirty-six hundred furlongs, the distance from the sea inland to Thebes is six thousand one hundred and twenty furlongs, and from Thebes to the city of Elephantine is another eighteen hundred furlongs.
Now, about the claim that most of this land has been gained as an addition -- I believe the priests entirely, and my own observations confirm it. I could see that Egypt projects into the sea beyond the land on either side. I found seashells on the mountains. A salt crust forms on the surface, corroding even the pyramids. The only mountains in Egypt that have sand are the range above Memphis. And the soil of Egypt is nothing like the soil of neighboring Arabia, Libya, or Syria. It's black and crumbly -- mud and silt brought down from Ethiopia by the river. Libyan soil, we know, is reddish and sandy. Arabian and Syrian soil is somewhat clayey and rocky.
The priests gave me further proof. In the time of King Moeris, the Nile only needed to rise eight cubits -- about twelve feet -- to flood the land below Memphis. Moeris had died only nine hundred years before I heard this. But now the river needs to reach at least fifteen or sixteen cubits to flood the land.
I think that the Egyptians living below Lake Moeris, especially those in the Delta, will eventually face the very thing they warned the Greeks about. When they heard that Greek land is watered by rain rather than rivers, the Egyptians said that the Greeks would one day suffer a terrible disappointment and starve -- because if their god stopped sending rain and allowed drought to persist, the Greeks would have no other water source. They'd be entirely at the mercy of Zeus.
The Egyptians are right about the Greeks. But here's their own problem: if the land below Memphis keeps rising at the same rate, and the Nile can no longer flood their fields and they don't get rain, those Egyptians too will face famine.
For the moment, though, the people of the Delta gather their harvests with less effort than anyone else in the world -- less even than other Egyptians. They don't need to break up the ground with a plough or do any hoeing or any of the other hard work that farmers elsewhere must do. The river rises on its own, waters their fields, and then recedes. Each farmer then scatters seed on his own plot and drives pigs across it to trample the seed into the ground. After that, he simply waits for harvest time. When the grain is ripe, he uses the pigs again to thresh it, and then gathers it in.
Now, if we follow the Ionian definition of Egypt -- they say only the Delta is truly Egypt, reckoning the coast as running from the watchtower of Perseus to the fish-curing houses of Pelusium, about forty schoines, and measuring the interior up to the city of Cercasorus, where the Nile divides into the Pelusian and Canobic branches, with everything else assigned to either Libya or Arabia -- if we follow that definition, we'd have to conclude that in former times the Egyptians had no land at all. Their Delta, as we've established, is alluvial land that appeared relatively recently, as the Egyptians themselves say and as I believe. So if they had no land originally, why did they bother with that experiment to prove they were the oldest people on earth? They wouldn't have needed to test what language children speak first.
I don't think, however, that the Egyptians came into existence at the same time as the Delta. They've existed as long as the human race has. As the land grew outward, some stayed in their original homes while others gradually moved down into the newer territory. In ancient times, after all, it was Thebes that bore the name "Egypt," and the circumference of that district measures six thousand one hundred and twenty furlongs.
So if my analysis is correct, the Ionians' definition of Egypt is wrong. But if the Ionians are right, then I declare that neither the Greeks nor the Ionians themselves know how to count! They say the earth has three continents -- Europe, Asia, and Libya -- but they should count a fourth, the Egyptian Delta, since it belongs to neither Asia nor Libya. After all, their own theory says the Nile divides Asia from Libya, but the Nile splits at the apex of the Delta and flows around it on both sides, which would put the Delta between Asia and Libya, belonging to neither.
I'll set aside the Ionian view and state my own opinion: Egypt is all the land inhabited by Egyptians, just as Cilicia is the land inhabited by Cilicians and Assyria the land inhabited by Assyrians. There is no true boundary between Asia and Libya except the borders of Egypt.
However, if we follow the conventional Greek view, we'd have to say that all of Egypt from the Cataract and the city of Elephantine onward is divided in two, belonging simultaneously to Libya and Asia. The Nile flows from the Cataract to the sea, cutting Egypt through the middle. As far as the city of Cercasorus it flows in a single channel, but from that point it splits three ways. One branch, the Pelusian mouth, turns east. Another, the Canobic mouth, runs west. The third branch continues straight ahead, flowing down through the center of the Delta to the sea. This is the Sebennytic mouth -- not the smallest or least famous. There are also two more mouths branching off from the Sebennytic: the Saitic and the Mendesian. The Bolbitine and Bucolic mouths, on the other hand, aren't natural -- they were dug by human hands.
The oracle of Ammon supports my view of Egypt's extent. I learned about this oracle's pronouncement only after I'd already formed my own opinion. The people of Marea and Apis, who live on the Libyan border of Egypt, considered themselves Libyans, not Egyptians. They resented the Egyptian religious rules, particularly the prohibition against eating beef. So they sent to the oracle of Ammon, claiming they had nothing in common with the Egyptians since they lived outside the Delta. They wanted permission to eat whatever they liked.
The god refused. He declared that all the land the Nile floods with its waters is Egypt, and that all who live below Elephantine and drink from that river are Egyptians. That was the oracle's verdict.
And indeed, the Nile in flood spreads not only over the Delta but also over the lands called Libyan and Arabian on either side, sometimes as far as two days' journey in each direction, and occasionally even more.
About the nature of the river itself, I could learn nothing from the priests or from anyone else. I was particularly eager to find out the answer to these questions: why does the Nile begin to rise at the summer solstice and keep rising for a hundred days, then recede and stay low all winter until the next summer solstice? And why, unlike all other rivers, does it generate no breezes? No Egyptian I asked could tell me.
Three Greek theories have been proposed, by men eager to make a name for their cleverness. Two of them aren't even worth discussing in detail -- I'll just indicate what they are.
The first theory says the Etesian winds cause the Nile to rise by preventing it from flowing into the sea. But the Etesian winds often fail to blow, and the Nile rises anyway. And besides, if the Etesian winds were the cause, every other river flowing against them should be affected the same way -- even more so, since they're smaller and have weaker currents. There are many such rivers in Syria and Libya, and none of them behave like the Nile.
The second theory shows even more ignorance, and is frankly more absurd: it claims the Nile floods because it flows from the Ocean, which supposedly flows around the entire earth.
The third theory sounds the most plausible but is actually the most wrong. It says the Nile's water comes from melting snow. But the Nile flows from Libya through the heart of Ethiopia and only then into Egypt -- from the hottest regions on earth to cooler ones. How could it possibly flow from snow?
Most of the evidence argues against the snow theory, for anyone capable of reasoning about such things. First, the winds that blow from those regions are hot. Second, the land there never has rain or frost -- and after snowfall, rain must necessarily follow within five days, so if it snowed there, it would also rain, but it doesn't. Third, the people who live there are black-skinned because of the burning heat. Furthermore, kites and swallows stay in that region year-round and never leave, and cranes migrate there from Scythia to escape the winter cold. If there were even a little snowfall in the land where the Nile rises and flows, none of these things could possibly be true.
As for the man who talked about the Ocean, he carried his story off into the realm of the unverifiable, and so he can't be refuted. I myself know of no river called "Ocean." I suspect Homer or one of the earlier poets invented the name and slipped it into his verse.
But if, after criticizing these theories, I'm obliged to offer my own explanation for why the Nile rises in summer -- well, here it is. During winter, the Sun is driven from his normal path through the sky by storms and shifts to the upper parts of Libya. That's the short version. Whatever region the Sun approaches most closely and stands directly above, that region naturally loses the most water, and its local rivers dry up.
To explain at greater length: as the Sun passes through the upper parts of Libya, this is what happens. Since the air there is always clear and the country always warm -- there are no cold winds -- the Sun does what it normally does in summer when it passes through the center of the sky: it draws up water. Having drawn it, the Sun pushes it to the higher parts of the country, where the winds take over, scattering and dissolving it into rain. So it makes sense that the south and southwest winds, which blow from these regions, are by far the rainiest.
I don't think the Sun sends away all of the Nile's water each year -- it keeps some for itself. Then when winter eases, the Sun returns to the middle of the sky and draws water equally from all rivers. During winter, those other rivers run full because rain falls into them and their country is soaked with runoff. In summer, when the rain stops and the Sun draws from them, they run low.
The Nile, however, is affected differently. In winter, with no rain and with the Sun drawing its water, it naturally flows at much less than its summer volume. In summer, the Sun draws from it equally with all other rivers. And so the Nile bears the burden alone in winter, but in summer it shares the Sun's attention with every other river.
That, I believe, is why the Nile does what it does. The Sun is also the cause, in my opinion, of the dry air in those parts -- it scorches the sky along its path. That's why it's always summer in upper Libya. But if the positions of the seasons were reversed -- if the north wind and winter occupied the place where the south wind and midday now are, and vice versa -- the Sun, driven from the center of the sky by winter and the north wind, would travel to the upper parts of Europe instead of Libya. And as it passed through all of Europe, I believe it would do to the Danube exactly what it now does to the Nile.
As for why no breeze blows off the Nile, my view is simply this: it's not natural for a breeze to blow from a place that's very hot. Breezes normally come from someplace cold.
But let these matters be as they are and always have been. As for the sources of the Nile: no one -- not among the Egyptians, the Libyans, or the Greeks -- no one I spoke with claimed to know where they are. The one exception was the treasury scribe of the temple of Athena in the city of Sais. But even he didn't seem to me to be serious. He said there were two mountains with sharp peaks, called Crophi and Mophi, situated between the city of Syene (in the district of Thebes) and Elephantine. The sources of the Nile, he claimed, sprang from a bottomless depth between these mountains, with half the water flowing north to Egypt and the other half south to Ethiopia. As proof that the depth was bottomless, he said that King Psammetichus had twisted together a rope many thousands of fathoms long and lowered it there, but it never found the bottom. If the scribe was telling the truth, what I think this really showed was that there were powerful eddies and backwash currents where the water crashes against the mountains, which kept the sounding line from reaching the bottom.
I wasn't able to learn anything more from anyone else. But here's what I found out through my own careful investigation. I traveled as an eyewitness as far as the city of Elephantine, and from there onward I gathered my information from others.
Going upriver from Elephantine, the land becomes steeply sloping. In this stretch you have to fasten ropes to both sides of your boat, like yoking an ox, and haul it along. If the rope breaks, the boat is instantly swept away by the violent current. This difficult passage takes about four days, and the Nile through here is winding like the Maeander, covering about twelve schoines that you must navigate in this laborious way. After that, you reach a level plain where the Nile flows around an island called Tachompso. (From Elephantine onward, Ethiopians begin to appear -- they occupy half the island, Egyptians the other half.) Next to this island is a great lake, around which Ethiopian nomad tribes live. Sailing through this lake, you rejoin the Nile's channel, which feeds into it. Then you disembark and walk overland for forty days, because in this stretch the Nile is full of sharp rocks and reefs that no boat can pass.
After traveling through this country for forty days on foot, you embark again and sail for twelve days. Then you reach a great city called Meroe, said to be the mother-city of all Ethiopia. Its people worship only two gods -- Zeus and Dionysus -- and honor them greatly. They have an oracle of Zeus there, and they launch military campaigns whenever and wherever the god directs them through prophecy.
Sailing on from this city, you will reach the "Deserters" in the same number of travel days as it took to get from Elephantine to Meroe. These Deserters are called Asmach, which in Greek means "those who stand on the king's left hand." They were two hundred and forty thousand Egyptian soldiers who revolted and went over to the Ethiopians, and here's why.
In the time of Psammetichus, garrisons were posted in three locations: one at Elephantine facing Ethiopia, one at Daphnae of Pelusium facing Arabia and Assyria, and one at Marea facing Libya. Even in my day, the Persian garrisons are posted in the same three places. These Egyptian soldiers had been serving at their posts for three years with no one coming to relieve them. They discussed the matter, reached a unanimous decision, and deserted Psammetichus en masse, heading for Ethiopia.
When Psammetichus learned of this, he went after them. When he caught up, he pleaded with them at length, begging them not to abandon the gods of their homeland or their wives and children. At that point, one of the soldiers reportedly pointed to his genitals and said, "Wherever this is, there we'll have wives and children."
When they reached Ethiopia, they gave themselves over to the Ethiopian king. He rewarded them by ordering them to drive out certain Ethiopians he was feuding with and settle in their land. And so, with these Egyptians living among them, the Ethiopians became more civilized, having learned Egyptian customs.
The Nile, then, is known for a distance of four months' travel by river and land beyond Egypt -- that being the total calculated travel time from Elephantine to these Deserters. The river flows from the west and the setting sun. But beyond that point, no one can say anything definitive, because the land is uninhabited desert, burnt by the heat.
However, I did hear the following from some men of Cyrene. They told me that when they visited the oracle of Ammon, they fell into conversation with Etearchus, the king of the Ammonians. The discussion turned to the Nile and the mystery of its source. Etearchus told them that he'd once been visited by some Nasamonians -- a Libyan people who live in the Syrtis region and the land to the east of it.
When he'd asked the Nasamonians whether they could tell him anything about the desert interior of Libya, they told him this story: some young men from their leading families -- wild, reckless youths -- had devised all sorts of extravagant schemes as they grew up, and among these they'd drawn lots to send five of their number to explore the Libyan desert and try to see more than anyone had seen before.
To explain the geography: along the northern coast of Libya, from Egypt to Cape Soloeis (the westernmost point of the continent), Libyans of many different peoples live along the entire shore, except for the parts held by Greeks and Phoenicians. Above this coastal strip, beyond the settled zone, Libya is a land of wild beasts. And above the land of wild beasts, it is nothing but sand -- terrifyingly waterless and completely empty.
The young men, then, well supplied with water and food by their companions, set out. They passed through the inhabited zone, then through the land of wild beasts, and then struck out into the desert, heading west. After many days crossing vast tracts of sand, they finally saw trees growing on a level plain. They went up and began picking the fruit. But as they picked, small men -- smaller than average -- appeared, seized them, and carried them off. Neither the Nasamonians could understand the speech of these people, nor could these people understand the Nasamonians.
They led the young men through great swamps and finally brought them to a city where everyone was the same small size as their captors and had black skin. Past the city flowed a great river, running from west to east, and in it they could see crocodiles.
That's as much as I'll relate of Etearchus the Ammonian's account, except to add that, according to the men of Cyrene, he said the Nasamonians returned home safely and that the people they'd encountered were all sorcerers.
As for the river flowing past that city, Etearchus concluded it was the Nile -- and reason supports this conclusion. The Nile flows from Libya, cutting it through the middle. And as I reason from what's known to what's unknown, I believe the Nile originates at a distance from its mouth equal to the Danube's length. The Danube begins among the Celts near the city of Pyrene and flows through the middle of Europe, dividing it in two. (The Celts live beyond the Pillars of Heracles, bordering the Cynesians, who are the westernmost people of Europe.) The Danube flows through all of Europe and empties into the Black Sea at the Milesian colony of Istria.
Because the Danube flows through inhabited country, its course is well known from many reports. But no one can describe the Nile's sources, because the part of Libya it flows through is uninhabited desert. I've already told everything I could learn about its course through the most diligent investigation. It empties into Egypt, which lies roughly opposite the mountain districts of Cilicia. From Cilicia to Sinope on the Black Sea is a straight-line journey of five days for a man traveling light, and Sinope is opposite the Danube's mouth. So I believe the Nile traverses the whole of Libya and matches the Danube in length.
Enough about the Nile.
Now I will speak about Egypt at length, because it has more wonders than any other land, and more works beyond description than any place on earth. For that reason, more needs to be said.
The Egyptians, in keeping with their unique climate and their unique river, have established customs and practices that are opposite to those of other peoples in almost every way.
Among them, the women go to market and conduct trade, while the men stay home and weave. Other weavers push the weft upward; the Egyptians push it down. Men carry loads on their heads, women on their shoulders. Women urinate standing up, men squatting down. They relieve themselves indoors but eat outside in the streets, explaining that things that are unseemly but necessary should be done in private, while things that aren't unseemly should be done in public. No woman serves as a priest to any god, male or female -- only men serve as priests to all gods of both sexes. Sons are not required by law to support their parents if they don't wish to, but daughters are compelled to do so whether they want to or not.
In other countries, priests grow their hair long. In Egypt, they shave their heads. Among other peoples, mourners cut their hair short. Egyptians, who are normally clean-shaven, let their hair grow long on both head and chin when someone dies. Other people keep their food separate from their animals. Egyptians live alongside their animals. Other people eat wheat and barley. Any Egyptian who eats wheat or barley is deeply ashamed -- they make their bread from emmer wheat, which some call spelt. They knead dough with their feet and clay with their hands (and also pick up dung with their hands). Other peoples, unless they've learned it from the Egyptians, leave their bodies as nature made them. The Egyptians practice circumcision. Men wear two garments, women only one. Other people fasten their sail ropes on the outside of the ship. Egyptians do it on the inside. The Greeks write and do arithmetic moving from left to right. The Egyptians move from right to left -- and they insist that their way is the "right" way, while the Greeks do it the "left" way. They use two forms of writing: one called sacred, the other common.
The Egyptians are excessively religious, more than any other people. Here are some of their practices. They drink from bronze cups and rinse them out every day -- every single person, without exception. They wear freshly laundered linen garments and make a special point of this. They practice circumcision for the sake of cleanliness, preferring to be clean rather than attractive. The priests shave their entire bodies every other day to prevent any lice or other impurity from being on them when they serve the gods. Priests wear only linen garments and papyrus sandals -- no other material for either. They wash in cold water twice during the day and twice at night, and they perform what seems like an almost infinite number of other religious observances.
But the priests also enjoy considerable benefits. They don't spend or consume any of their own resources. Sacred bread is baked for them, and every day each priest receives generous portions of beef and goose meat, along with grape wine. Fish, however, they may not eat. As for beans, the Egyptians don't plant them at all, and whatever beans grow wild they won't eat, either raw or cooked. The priests can't even stand to look at beans, considering them an unclean food. Each god has not one priest but many, with one serving as chief priest. When a priest dies, his son takes his place.
Male cattle are considered to belong to the god Epaphus, and for this reason they're tested in the following way. If a priest finds even a single black hair on the beast, it's considered unfit for sacrifice. A specially appointed priest examines each animal, both standing up and lying on its back. He even pulls out the tongue to check for specific signs, which I'll describe in another part of this work. He also inspects the tail hairs to make sure they grow naturally. If the animal passes every test, the priest marks it by wrapping papyrus around its horns, sealing it with clay, and stamping it with his signet ring. After that, the animal is led away. The penalty for sacrificing an unmarked animal is death.
That's how they test the animals. The sacrificial procedure itself goes like this. They lead the sealed animal to the altar and light a fire. Then they pour wine over the altar so it flows down on the victim, call upon the god, and cut the animal's throat. After cutting the throat, they sever the head from the body and flay the carcass. Before anything else, they heap many curses on the severed head. If there's a marketplace in the area with Greek traders, they take the head there and sell it. If there are no Greeks around, they throw it into the river.
The curse they pronounce over the heads is this: if any evil is about to fall on the people making the sacrifice or on Egypt as a whole, let it be diverted onto this head instead. This practice -- the cursing of heads and the pouring of wine -- is the same for all Egyptian sacrifices. And because of this custom, no Egyptian will eat the head of any animal.
The method for butchering and burning the victims varies from sacrifice to sacrifice. But let me describe the ritual for the goddess they consider the greatest, in whose honor they hold their greatest festival. After flaying the bull and pronouncing the curse, they remove all the lower entrails but leave the upper entrails and the fat in the body. They cut off the legs, the end of the loin, the shoulders, and the neck. Then they stuff the rest of the body with pure bread, honey, raisins, figs, frankincense, myrrh, and every other kind of spice. Having stuffed it with all this, they burn it, pouring great quantities of oil over it. They fast before the sacrifice, and while the offerings burn, everyone beats their breasts in mourning. When the beating is done, they serve up as a feast whatever they didn't burn.
All Egyptians sacrifice clean male cattle and calves. But they may never sacrifice females, which are sacred to Isis. The image of Isis takes the form of a woman with cow's horns, just as the Greeks depict Io. All Egyptians without distinction revere cows far above any other animal. For this reason, no Egyptian man or woman will kiss a Greek on the mouth, or use a Greek's knife, or roasting spits, or cooking pot, or taste the meat of a clean animal that was cut with a Greek's knife.
When cattle die, they dispose of them as follows: females are thrown into the river, but males are buried in the suburbs of each town, with one horn (sometimes both) left sticking up to mark the spot. When the bodies have rotted and the appointed time arrives, a boat comes to each city from the island of Prosopitis in the Delta -- an island with a circumference of nine schoines. On this island, among many other cities, stands Atarbechis, which contains a holy temple of Aphrodite. It's from Atarbechis that these boats go out in every direction. When they arrive, the people dig up the ox bones, transport them, and bury them all together in a single communal place. They treat all other cattle the same way when they die -- the same law applies to them all, and they too are never killed.
Now, all Egyptians who have a temple of the Theban Zeus or who belong to the district of Thebes sacrifice goats and abstain from sheep. Those who have a temple of Mendes or belong to the Mendesian district abstain from goats and sacrifice sheep. Not all Egyptians worship the same gods -- except for Isis and Osiris (whom they identify with Dionysus), who are universally revered.
The Thebans and those who follow their example explain their avoidance of sheep with this story: Heracles desperately wanted to see Zeus, but Zeus didn't want to be seen. When Heracles kept insisting, Zeus came up with a solution: he skinned a ram, held the ram's head in front of his own face, and draped the fleece over himself. Then he revealed himself to Heracles.
This is why the Egyptians give Zeus the face of a ram in their statues, and the Ammonians (who are colonists from both Egypt and Ethiopia and speak a language that blends both) do the same. I believe the Ammonians even took their name from this god, since the Egyptians call Zeus "Amun." So the Thebans don't sacrifice rams -- they hold them sacred. But once a year, on the feast of Zeus, they slaughter a single ram, skin it, and drape the fleece over the statue of Zeus, then bring a statue of Heracles up to it. After this, everyone in the temple beats their breasts in mourning for the ram, and then they bury it in a sacred tomb.
Regarding Heracles: I was told that he's one of the twelve ancient gods. But I couldn't find any trace in Egypt of the other Heracles -- the one the Greeks know. And I have considerable evidence that the Egyptians didn't borrow the name Heracles from the Greeks, but rather the other way around -- specifically, those Greeks who gave the name Heracles to the son of Amphitryon took it from Egypt.
Here's my main proof: both of Heracles' parents, Amphitryon and Alcmene, were of Egyptian descent. Furthermore, the Egyptians say they don't recognize the names Poseidon or the Dioscuri, and these have never been accepted as gods among their pantheon. Now, if the Egyptians had borrowed any divine name from the Greeks, Poseidon and the Dioscuri are the ones they would have remembered above all others -- since some Greeks have always been seafaring people, as I believe and as my reasoning compels me to conclude. The Egyptians would have learned the names of sea gods before any others. But in fact, Heracles is a very ancient Egyptian god. By their own account, seventeen thousand years passed between the time when the twelve gods (including Heracles) were born of the eight primordial gods and the beginning of King Amasis' reign.
Wanting to learn something definite about these matters, I also sailed to Tyre in Phoenicia, since I'd heard there was an ancient temple of Heracles there. I saw it, and it was richly furnished with votive offerings. In particular, it contained two pillars -- one of pure gold, the other of emerald stone so large that it glowed at night. I spoke with the priests of the god and asked how long ago their temple had been founded. They, too, disagreed with the Greek dating: they said the temple was established when Tyre was founded, two thousand three hundred years ago.
I also saw another temple of Heracles at Tyre, one called "Thasian Heracles." And I visited Thasos as well, where I found a temple of Heracles built by the Phoenicians who had colonized Thasos while searching for Europa. This was a full five generations before Heracles the son of Amphitryon was born in Greece.
My investigations make it clear, then, that Heracles is an ancient god. Those Greeks who maintain two temples of Heracles seem to me to have it exactly right -- sacrificing to one as an immortal Olympian god, and making offerings to the other as a hero.
The Greeks also tell many other stories without thinking them through, but this tale about Heracles is particularly foolish: they say that when Heracles came to Egypt, the Egyptians crowned him with garlands and led him in procession to be sacrificed to Zeus. For a while he went along quietly, but when they started the sacrifice at the altar, he summoned his strength and killed every one of them.
In my opinion, the Greeks who tell this story know absolutely nothing about Egyptian character and customs. These are people for whom it's unlawful to sacrifice any animal except pigs, male cattle and calves (only those certified as clean), and geese. How could they possibly sacrifice human beings? And besides, how could Heracles, being just one man and a mortal as they themselves claim, slaughter many thousands?
Having said all this about these matters, may both the gods and the heroes forgive us our words.
Now, the reason those Egyptians I mentioned earlier don't sacrifice goats -- male or female -- is this: the people of Mendes consider Pan to be one of the eight original gods, the ones they say existed before the twelve younger gods. Their painters and sculptors depict Pan the same way the Greeks do -- with a goat's face and goat legs -- though they don't actually believe he looks like that. They think he resembles the other gods. As for why they portray him this way, I'd rather not say. The Mendesians revere all goats, and males more than females. Goatherds, in fact, enjoy higher status than other herdsmen. One particular male goat receives special worship, and when he dies, the entire district of Mendes goes into deep mourning. In the Egyptian language, both the goat and Pan share the same name: Mendes. And during my own lifetime, something remarkable happened in that district -- a male goat mated with a woman in public view, put on display for everyone to see.
The Egyptians consider pigs to be filthy animals. If any Egyptian so much as brushes against a pig in passing, he goes straight to the river and plunges in, clothes and all. Swineherds, even though they're native-born Egyptians, are the only people in the country barred from entering any temple. No one will marry their daughter to a swineherd, and no one will marry a swineherd's daughter. So swineherds have no choice but to marry among themselves.
The Egyptians don't think it's right to sacrifice pigs to any of their gods -- except for the Moon and Dionysus. To these two alone, on the same night of the full moon, they sacrifice pigs and eat the meat. As for why they abominate pigs at every other festival but sacrifice them at this one, the Egyptians have an explanation, and I know what it is, but it's not the kind of story I ought to tell.
Here's how the pig sacrifice to the Moon works: once the priest has slaughtered the animal, he takes the tip of the tail, the spleen, and the fatty membrane covering the intestines, wraps them all up in the fat from around the belly, and burns them as an offering. The rest of the meat they eat on that night of the full moon -- but they won't touch it on any day after that. The poor, who can't afford a real pig, shape pigs out of dough, bake them, and offer those instead.
On the eve of the festival of Dionysus, each man slaughters a pig by cutting its throat right at his own front door. Then he hands the pig back to the swineherd who sold it, to carry away. The rest of the festival the Egyptians celebrate much the same way the Greeks do -- with one exception. Instead of carrying phallic symbols in procession, the Egyptians have invented something different: wooden figures about eighteen inches tall, worked by strings, that women carry through the villages. These figures have an oversized male member that moves up and down -- nearly as big as the rest of the body. A flute player walks ahead, and the women follow, singing hymns to Dionysus. Why the figure has this member so disproportionately large, and why it's the only part that moves -- well, there's a sacred story about that.
Now, I believe that Melampus son of Amythaon was no stranger to these Egyptian rites. In fact, Melampus was the first person to introduce the Greeks to the name of Dionysus, the form of sacrifice, and the phallic procession. Strictly speaking, he didn't explain everything in full -- the wise men who came after him filled in the details. But Melampus was the one who first taught the Greeks about the phallic procession for Dionysus, and from him they learned the practices they still follow.
My view is that Melampus was a clever man who developed a skill for divination. Having learned many things from Egypt, he taught them to the Greeks -- including the worship of Dionysus, with a few modifications. I'm certainly not going to claim that the Egyptian and Greek rites of Dionysus are identical by coincidence -- if they were, the Greek version would look like other native Greek worship instead of being so obviously recent. And I'm definitely not going to say the Egyptians borrowed from the Greeks. What I think is most likely is that Melampus learned these things from Cadmus of Tyre and the Phoenicians who came with him to the land we now call Boeotia.
Furthermore, the names of almost all the gods came to Greece from Egypt. My inquiries confirm that they came from non-Greek peoples, and I believe Egypt is the most likely source. Aside from Poseidon and the Dioscuri -- which I've discussed already -- and also Hera, Hestia, Themis, the Graces, and the Nereids, the Egyptians have known the names of all the other gods in their country since the beginning of time. I'm reporting what the Egyptians themselves believe. As for the gods whose names they say they don't recognize, I think those were named by the Pelasgians -- with the exception of Poseidon. The Greeks learned about Poseidon from the Libyans, since no other people had his name from the very beginning or honored him continuously. The Egyptians, it should be noted, have no tradition of hero worship.
These practices, then, along with others I'll mention, the Greeks adopted from the Egyptians. But the custom of making statues of Hermes with an erect phallus -- that they learned not from the Egyptians but from the Pelasgians. The Athenians were the first Greeks to adopt this practice, and the rest picked it up from them. The timing is significant: the Pelasgians came to live alongside the Athenians just as Athens was beginning to be counted among the Greeks, and it was from that point that the Pelasgians themselves began to be considered Greek. Anyone who has been initiated into the mysteries of the Cabiri, which the Samothracians celebrate -- having received them from the Pelasgians -- will understand what I mean. These very Pelasgians who settled with the Athenians had previously lived in Samothrace, and it was from them that the Samothracians received their mysteries. So the Athenians were the first Greeks to make the phallic statues of Hermes, having learned the custom from the Pelasgians, who have a sacred story explaining it -- a story revealed in the mysteries at Samothrace.
In the old days, the Pelasgians used to make all their sacrifices by calling on "the gods" in their prayers -- I know this from what I learned at Dodona -- but they didn't give any of them individual names or titles. They called them "gods" based on a kind of wordplay: since the gods had set everything in order and distributed all things, they called them by a word suggesting "those who set things in place." Much later, they learned the individual names of the gods from Egypt -- all except Dionysus, whose name they learned even later still. Eventually the Pelasgians consulted the oracle at Dodona about whether they should adopt these foreign names. Dodona is considered the most ancient oracle among the Greeks, and at that time it was the only one. The oracle told them to go ahead and use the names. From that point on they sacrificed using proper divine names, and the Greeks later inherited these names from the Pelasgians.
But as for where the individual gods came from, whether they all existed from the beginning, and what they look like -- the Greeks only learned these things yesterday, so to speak. Homer and Hesiod, I'd estimate, lived about four hundred years before my time, no more. And it was these two poets who created the Greek theogony: they gave the gods their titles, assigned them their domains and abilities, and described their forms. The poets who supposedly came before Homer and Hesiod actually came after them, in my opinion. The first part of what I've said comes from the priestesses of Dodona; the second part, about Hesiod and Homer, is my own view.
Regarding the oracles -- both the one in Greece and the one in Libya -- the Egyptians tell this story. The priests of Zeus at Thebes told me that two women who served the temple there were kidnapped by Phoenicians. They'd heard that one was sold into Libya and the other to Greece, and that these women were the ones who first established the oracles in those two lands. When I asked how they could be so certain about this, they said a thorough search had been made for the women without success, and they'd heard this account about them afterward.
That's what I was told at Thebes. The priestesses at Dodona tell a different version. They say that two black doves flew from Egyptian Thebes -- one to Libya and one to Dodona. The one that came to Dodona landed on an oak tree and spoke with a human voice, declaring that an oracle of Zeus must be established in that place. The people of Dodona understood this as a message from the gods and built the oracle accordingly. The dove that went to Libya, they say, instructed the Libyans to establish an oracle of Ammon -- which is also an oracle of Zeus. The priestesses who told me this were named Promeneia (the eldest), Timarete, and Nicandra (the youngest), and the other people of Dodona who served the temple confirmed their account.
Here's what I think actually happened. If the Phoenicians really did kidnap those consecrated women and sold one into Libya and the other into Greece, then I believe the woman sold into Greece ended up in the land of the Thesprotians -- which was then called Pelasgia, not yet Greece. Being a slave there, she set up a sanctuary of Zeus beneath an oak tree. After all, it was only natural that a woman who had served the sanctuary of Zeus at Thebes would establish a shrine to Zeus wherever she ended up. Once she learned the Greek language, she founded an oracle, and she apparently told people that her sister had been sold into Libya by the same Phoenicians who sold her.
I also think the Dodoneans called these women "doves" because they were foreigners whose speech sounded to Greek ears like the twittering of birds. When they say the dove later "spoke with a human voice," they mean the woman finally learned to speak Greek. As long as she spoke a foreign language, she seemed to them to be chirping like a bird. After all, how could an actual dove speak with a human voice? And when they describe the dove as "black," they're indicating that the woman was Egyptian. The methods of oracle-giving at Thebes in Egypt and at Dodona are, as it happens, quite similar. And the practice of divination from sacrificed animals also came to Greece from Egypt.
The Egyptians were also the first people to hold religious festivals, processions, and ceremonial approaches to temples. The Greeks learned all of this from them, and my evidence is simple: the Egyptian celebrations have been going on since ancient times, while the Greek versions were introduced only recently.
The Egyptians hold their religious festivals not just once a year but many times. The grandest and most enthusiastically attended is the festival of Artemis at the city of Bubastis. Second comes the festival of Isis at Busiris, where there's an enormous temple of Isis right in the middle of the Delta. (Isis, by the way, is the Egyptian equivalent of the Greek Demeter.) Third is the festival of Athena at Sais, fourth the festival of the Sun at Heliopolis, fifth the festival of Leto at Buto, and sixth the festival of Ares at Papremis.
Here's how the journey to Bubastis works. Men and women sail together, huge crowds in every boat. Some of the women shake rattles the whole way. Some of the men play flutes. The rest -- both men and women -- sing and clap. Whenever their boat passes a riverside town, they pull up to the bank. Some of the women keep up their rattling and singing, but others shout taunts at the women of that town, some dance wildly, and some stand up and pull up their skirts. They do this at every single town along the river. When they finally reach Bubastis, they celebrate with grand sacrifices, and more grape wine gets consumed during this one festival than in all the rest of the year combined. The locals say that up to seven hundred thousand men and women gather there -- not counting children.
That's how they celebrate at Bubastis. I've already described how they celebrate the festival of Isis at Busiris. After the sacrifice, everyone beats themselves in mourning -- vast numbers of men and women alike. But for whom they beat themselves, religious custom forbids me to say. The Carians living in Egypt go even further than the Egyptians themselves, slashing their foreheads with knives -- which is how you can tell they're foreigners and not native Egyptians.
At Sais, on a certain night during the festival, everyone lights countless oil lamps in the open air all around their houses. The lamps are shallow dishes filled with a mixture of salt and oil, with a floating wick, and they burn all night long. The festival is called the Lychnocaia -- the Festival of Lamps. Even Egyptians who haven't come to the festival observe the night by lighting lamps in their own homes, so it's not just Sais that's illuminated but all of Egypt. There is a sacred explanation for why this particular night receives such light and honor.
At Heliopolis and Buto, the people come each year simply to perform sacrifices. But at Papremis, they do something extra. As the sun begins to set, a small group of priests tends to the image of the god while the rest -- a large number -- station themselves at the temple entrance holding wooden clubs. Facing them stands a crowd of more than a thousand men who have come to fulfill religious vows, all armed with their own wooden staves. The day before, the god's image -- housed in a small gilded wooden shrine -- is moved to a different sacred building. On the festival day, the few priests who stayed with the image load the shrine onto a four-wheeled cart and begin to pull it toward the temple. The priests blocking the gateway try to stop it from entering. The men who've made vows come to the god's defense, and a fierce fight breaks out, staves swinging freely. They crack each other's heads open, and I'm fairly sure quite a few actually die from their wounds -- though the Egyptians insist that nobody does.
The locals say they established this custom for the following reason: Ares' mother lived in that temple. Ares had been raised elsewhere, and when he grew up he came to visit his mother. But the temple attendants, who had never seen him before, refused to let him in. So he went to another city, rounded up some men, and forced his way past the attendants to reach his mother. That's why the mock battle has been part of the festival ever since.
The Egyptians were also the first to make it a religious rule not to have sex in temples, and not to enter a temple after sex without first bathing. Almost every other people besides the Egyptians and the Greeks see nothing wrong with either practice, reasoning that humans are no different from animals in this respect -- after all, they say, you can see animals and birds mating in temples and sacred enclosures, and if the gods objected, the animals wouldn't do it. This is how those people defend their behavior, but I don't agree with them.
The Egyptians are extraordinarily careful about all their religious observances, and here's another example. Although Egypt borders Libya, it doesn't have a great abundance of wild animals. But every single animal they do have, domestic or wild, they consider sacred. If I tried to explain why each animal is considered sacred, I'd have to get into theological matters I'd very much prefer to avoid. What I've already said touching on the subject was only because I couldn't avoid it.
Their system of caring for sacred animals works like this: specific men and women are appointed to feed each species, and these positions pass from parent to child. Citizens in the various towns fulfill their vows to the relevant god as follows: when making a vow, they shave their child's head -- all of it, or half, or a third -- then weigh the hair against silver. Whatever it weighs, they give that amount of silver to the animal keeper, who cuts up an equal value of fish to feed the animals. This is how the animals' upkeep is funded. If anyone kills a sacred animal deliberately, the penalty is death. If the killing was accidental, the priests determine the punishment. But anyone who kills an ibis or a hawk -- whether on purpose or by accident -- must die.
There are large numbers of animals that live alongside humans, and there would be even more cats if it weren't for a peculiar thing that happens to them. When female cats have kittens, they stop going to the males. The toms, desperate to mate, resort to a trick: they either snatch or secretly steal the kittens and kill them -- though they don't eat them. The mothers, deprived of their young and wanting more, go back to the males. Cats, you see, are very devoted to their offspring. And when a fire breaks out, something seemingly supernatural happens with the cats. The Egyptians line up and try to guard them, making no effort to fight the fire, but the cats slip through or leap right over the people and hurl themselves into the flames. When this happens, the Egyptians are struck with terrible grief. In any household where a cat dies a natural death, everyone in the house shaves off their eyebrows. When a dog dies, they shave their entire body, head included.
Dead cats are taken to sacred buildings in the city of Bubastis, where they're embalmed and buried. Dogs are buried by their owners in sacred tombs in their own cities. Mongooses get the same treatment as dogs. Shrews and hawks are taken to the city of Buto, and ibises to Hermopolis. Bears, which are rare in Egypt, and wolves -- which are not much bigger than foxes -- are buried wherever they happen to be found.
Here's everything I learned about crocodiles. For the four coldest months of the year, a crocodile eats nothing. It's a four-footed creature that lives on both land and water: it lays and hatches its eggs on land and spends most of the day on dry ground, but it spends the entire night in the river, since the water is actually warmer than the open night air and the dew. Of all the creatures we know of, the crocodile grows to the greatest size from the smallest beginning. Its eggs are no bigger than goose eggs, and the hatchling is proportional to the egg -- but as it grows, it can reach twenty-five feet or even more. It has eyes like a pig's and huge projecting teeth proportional to its body. Uniquely among animals, it has no tongue. Its lower jaw doesn't move -- instead, it's the only creature that brings its upper jaw down to meet the lower one. It has powerful claws and a hide of thick scales on its back that no weapon can pierce. It's nearly blind in the water but has extremely sharp vision on land. Because it lives in the water, the inside of its mouth fills with leeches. Every other bird and beast flees from the crocodile, but one bird -- the trochilus, or plover -- has a special relationship with it. When the crocodile comes out of the water onto the bank and opens its mouth wide (which it usually does facing the west wind), the plover hops right in and swallows down the leeches. The crocodile enjoys this service and never harms the plover.
Different Egyptians have different attitudes toward crocodiles. Some consider them sacred; others treat them as enemies. The people around Thebes and around Lake Moeris hold them in the highest reverence. Each of these communities keeps one specially chosen crocodile, tamed and trained. They hang ornaments of molten glass and gold from its ears and put bracelets around its front feet. They feed it specially prepared food and sacrificial offerings and treat it like royalty for as long as it lives. When it dies, they embalm and bury it in a sacred tomb. But the people around the city of Elephantine actually eat crocodiles and don't consider them sacred at all. The Egyptians don't call them "crocodiles," by the way -- they call them champsai. It was the Ionians who gave them the name "crocodile," because they thought they looked like the small lizards they had back home, which went by that name.
There are many methods for catching crocodiles, but I'll describe the one I find most interesting. A hunter baits a hook with a pig's back and lets it float into the middle of the river. Meanwhile, on the bank, he takes a live piglet and beats it. The crocodile, hearing the squealing, swims toward the sound and swallows the baited hook. The hunters haul it to shore, and the first thing the hunter does is plaster mud over the crocodile's eyes. Once he's done that, the rest is easy. But if he doesn't blind it first, he's in for a real struggle.
The hippopotamus is sacred in the district of Papremis, but not to the rest of the Egyptians. Here's what it looks like: it's a four-footed animal with cloven hooves like an ox, a flat nose, a horse-like mane, tusks that show when it opens its mouth, a horse-like tail and voice, and it's about the size of the largest ox. Its hide is so incredibly thick that when dried, it can be shaped into javelin shafts.
There are also otters in the river, which the Egyptians consider sacred. Among fish, they hold the lepidotus and the eel to be sacred to the Nile. Among birds, they revere the fox-goose.
There's another sacred bird called the phoenix. I never saw one myself -- only paintings of it -- because it appears very rarely. The people of Heliopolis say it comes only once every five hundred years, and only when its father dies. If the paintings are accurate, here's what it looks like: its feathers are partly golden and partly red, and in shape and size it's very similar to an eagle. They say -- though I find this hard to believe -- that the phoenix does the following: starting from Arabia, it carries its father's body all the way to the temple of the Sun, encased in myrrh, and buries him there. The method is this: first, the phoenix shapes an egg of myrrh as large as it can carry. Then it tests the weight by flying with it. Once it's satisfied it can carry the load, it hollows out the egg, places its father's body inside, and seals the opening with more myrrh. With its father enclosed inside, the egg weighs the same as before. Then the phoenix carries the whole thing to Egypt, to the temple of the Sun. That, at least, is what they say this bird does.
Near Thebes there are also sacred serpents, small and harmless to humans, with two little horns growing from the top of their heads. When these snakes die, they're buried in the temple of Zeus, the god to whom they're considered sacred.
There's a place in Arabia, situated roughly opposite the city of Buto, that I actually traveled to in order to learn about the winged serpents. When I got there, I saw bones and spines of serpents in quantities beyond counting. There were heaps upon heaps of spines -- large piles, medium piles, smaller piles -- scattered everywhere. The terrain is a narrow mountain pass opening onto a broad plain that connects to the Egyptian plain. The story goes that every spring, winged serpents fly out of Arabia heading for Egypt, but the ibises meet them right at this pass and won't let them through, killing them on the spot. The Arabians say this is why the Egyptians honor the ibis so highly, and the Egyptians agree -- this is exactly why they revere those birds.
The ibis looks like this: it's jet black all over, with legs like a crane and a very curved beak, and it's about the size of a rail. That's the black variety -- the one that fights the serpents. But there's a second kind, more commonly seen around people, that has a bare head and throat and is white all over except for the head, neck, wingtips, and rump, which are deep black. Its legs and beak are shaped like the other kind's. As for the winged serpents themselves, they have a form like a water snake, with wings that aren't feathered but look very much like a bat's. That's enough about sacred animals.
Now, about the Egyptians themselves -- specifically those who live in the farming region of Egypt, the cultivated land. These people cultivate their memories more than any other people and are far and away the most learned in history of anyone I've ever met.
Their way of life is as follows. For three consecutive days each month, they purge themselves with emetics and enemas, pursuing good health on the theory that all human diseases come from the food people eat. The Egyptians are, even without this practice, the healthiest people in the world after the Libyans. I think this is because their seasons never change -- diseases tend to strike hardest during periods of seasonal transition, and Egypt has none. Their diet consists of bread made from a grain called spelt, which they call kyllestis. They drink a wine made from barley, since they have no grapevines. They eat some fish dried in the sun without cooking and others preserved in brine. Of birds, they eat quail, duck, and various small birds raw after curing. Everything else in the way of birds and fish -- except what's been set aside as sacred -- they eat either roasted or boiled.
At the dinner parties of wealthy Egyptians, after the meal is finished, a servant carries around a wooden figure of a corpse in a coffin, carved and painted as realistically as possible, about eighteen inches to three feet long. He shows it to each guest and says: "Look at this. Drink and enjoy yourself, for when you die, this is what you'll be." That's what they do at their feasts.
The Egyptians stick to the customs they've inherited from their ancestors and don't adopt new ones. Among their noteworthy traditions is one particular song -- the Song of Linos. This same song is sung in Phoenicia, Cyprus, and other places, though it goes by different names in different countries. It matches exactly the song the Greeks sing under the name of Linos. Among the many things about Egypt that amaze me, this is one of the most puzzling: where did they get this song? They've clearly been singing it since time immemorial. In the Egyptian language, Linos is called Maneros. The Egyptians told me he was the only son of Egypt's first king, and that when he died before his time, the Egyptians honored him with these songs of mourning. It was their first and only song.
The Egyptians share one custom with the Spartans -- and no other Greeks: when a younger person meets an older one, the young person steps aside to make way. When an older person approaches, the younger ones stand up from their seats. But here's where they differ from all Greeks: instead of greeting each other with words in the street, they bow, lowering one hand to the knee.
They wear linen tunics with fringed hems that hang around their legs -- garments they call calasiris. Over these they throw cloaks of white wool. But woolen garments are never brought into temples, and the dead are never buried in them -- that's against their religion. In this, their practices align with the rites called Orphic and Bacchic (which are actually Egyptian in origin) and also with those of the Pythagoreans, who likewise have a religious rule against being buried in wool. There's a sacred story that explains all this.
The Egyptians also figured out which god belongs to each month and each day, and they can tell you what fortune a person born on any given day will meet, how they'll die, and what kind of person they'll be. Greek poets have made use of these ideas. The Egyptians have also catalogued more omens than any other people: whenever a portent occurs, they carefully record what follows from it, and if a similar portent appears later, they expect a similar outcome.
Their system of divination works like this: the art doesn't belong to any human practitioner but is assigned to specific gods. There are oracles of Heracles, Apollo, Athena, Artemis, Ares, and Zeus in the land, but the one held in highest honor of all is the oracle of Leto in the city of Buto. The methods of divination vary from oracle to oracle.
Egyptian medicine is organized by specialty: each doctor treats one disease and one disease only. As a result, the country is full of doctors -- there are specialists for the eyes, specialists for the head, specialists for the teeth, specialists for the stomach, and specialists for more obscure ailments.
Their mourning and burial customs are as follows. When a man of any standing dies, all the women of the household immediately plaster their heads -- and sometimes their faces -- with mud. Then they leave the body in the house and roam through the city beating themselves, their clothes hitched up with a belt and their breasts exposed. All the dead man's female relatives join them. On the other side, the men beat themselves too, their clothes similarly hitched up. After this mourning, they carry the body to be embalmed.
There are professional embalmers who make this their trade, passing it down through families. When a body is brought to them, they show the relatives wooden model corpses, painted and carved to look realistic. The best and most expensive method, they explain, is named after a god whose name I think it would be impious to mention in this context. The second option they show is less elaborate and less expensive. The third is the cheapest of all. They explain all the options and ask the family which method they'd like. The family agrees on a price and leaves, and the embalmers get to work.
The best method goes like this. First, they extract the brain through the nostrils using a curved iron tool, partly pulling it out and partly dissolving it with drugs. Then they make an incision along the side of the body with a sharp Ethiopian stone and remove all the internal organs. After cleaning out the cavity and rinsing it with palm wine, they clean it again with ground spices. They fill the belly with pure ground myrrh, cassia, and other spices -- everything except frankincense -- and sew it up again. Then they cover the body in natron and leave it for seventy days -- no longer, that's the rule. After the seventy days, they wash the body and wrap it entirely in strips of fine linen, coating the underside of the wrappings with gum, which the Egyptians use the way we use glue. The family then takes the body back, has a wooden coffin made in the shape of a man, places the mummy inside, closes it up, and stores it in a burial chamber, standing upright against the wall.
That's the most expensive method. For those who want the middle option and want to keep costs down, the process is different. They fill syringes with cedar oil and inject it into the body through the rectum -- without making any incision or removing the organs. They plug up the opening so nothing leaks out, then keep the body in natron for the prescribed number of days. On the last day, they drain the cedar oil back out, and it's so powerful that it dissolves and brings out the intestines and internal organs with it. The natron, meanwhile, dissolves the flesh, leaving nothing but skin and bones. They hand the body back in that condition without doing anything more to it.
The third and cheapest method is simply this: they flush out the intestines with a purging solution, keep the body in natron for seventy days, and then hand it back.
One more thing about their practices: the wives of important men, and any women who are especially beautiful or prominent, are not handed over to the embalmers immediately after death. They wait three or four days. The reason is to prevent the embalmers from having sex with the corpses. They say this actually happened once -- an embalmer was caught with the body of a recently dead woman, and a coworker reported him.
If anyone -- Egyptian or foreigner -- is snatched by a crocodile or drowned by the river itself, the people of whatever city the body washes up near are required by law to embalm it as beautifully as possible and bury it in a sacred tomb. No relatives or friends may touch the body. Only the priests of the Nile handle and bury it, treating it as something more than the remains of a mere mortal.
The Egyptians refuse to adopt Greek customs -- and, to put it broadly, they won't adopt the customs of any other people either. Most Egyptians stick rigidly to this rule. But there's one notable exception: a large city called Chemmis in the Theban district, near Neapolis. In this city there's a square-shaped temple of Perseus son of Danae, surrounded by date palms. The temple gateway is built of stone and impressively large, with two great stone statues standing at the entrance. Inside the enclosure is the main temple building with a statue of Perseus.
The people of Chemmis say that Perseus frequently appears in their land and inside the temple. Sometimes a sandal he's worn is found there -- about three feet long -- and whenever it appears, all of Egypt prospers. They honor Perseus in the Greek manner by holding an athletic competition with a full program of games, offering cattle, cloaks, and animal skins as prizes. When I asked them why Perseus appeared only to them and why they alone among Egyptians held Greek-style games, they told me that Perseus was originally from their city. Danaus and Lynceus, they said, were men of Chemmis who sailed to Greece, and they traced their lineage from those men down to Perseus. They said Perseus came to Egypt for the same reason the Greeks give -- to bring back the Gorgon's head from Libya -- and that he visited Chemmis too, recognizing all his relatives there. He'd already learned the name of the city before arriving in Egypt, having heard it from his mother. And they said they held the athletic contest at his own command.
All these customs belong to the Egyptians who live above the marshlands. Those who live in the marshlands follow mostly the same practices as other Egyptians, including the custom of each man having just one wife, as the Greeks do. But when it comes to food, they've come up with some inventions of their own. When the river floods and the plains are underwater, huge numbers of lilies grow in the water -- the Egyptians call them lotos. They harvest these with sickles and dry them in the sun, then grind up the poppy-like seed head from the center and bake it into bread. The root of the lotus is also edible, with a pleasantly sweet taste. It's round and about the size of an apple. There's another kind of lily too, resembling a rose, that also grows in the river. Its fruit grows in a separate pod that sprouts from the root beside the main stalk, and it looks very much like a wasp's nest. Inside are numerous edible seeds, each about the size of an olive pit, which can be eaten fresh or dried. They also pull up papyrus, which grows back every year. They cut off the top part for other uses, but the bottom section -- about eighteen inches of stalk -- they either eat or sell. Those who want the papyrus at its very best roast it in a red-hot oven before eating it. Some of these marsh-dwellers live entirely on fish: they catch them, gut them, dry them in the sun, and eat them like that.
The schooling fish don't breed much in the rivers but in the lakes. Here's what happens: when it's breeding season, they swim out in shoals toward the sea. The males lead the way, shedding their milt as they go, and the females follow behind, swallowing it up and becoming pregnant from it. Once the females are full of eggs down in the sea, they all swim back to their home waters. This time, though, the females lead. As they go, they release their eggs in small batches, and the males following behind swallow them up. But those eggs that survive and aren't eaten grow into new fish. Here's an interesting detail: fish caught swimming downstream toward the sea are worn on the left side of their heads, while those caught swimming back upstream are worn on the right side. This happens because they swim close to the left bank on the way down and stick to the same side on the way back up, hugging the shore as closely as possible to avoid being swept off course by the current. When the Nile begins to rise, the low-lying areas and depressions along the riverbanks are the first to fill with water, and as soon as they're flooded, they're instantly teeming with tiny fish. I think I know where these come from: the previous year, when the water receded, the fish laid their eggs in the mud before retreating with the last of the floodwaters. When the river rises again the following year, those eggs hatch immediately into the fish I'm describing.
That's the story with the fish. For oil, the Egyptians in the marshlands use the castor plant -- which they call kiki. They grow it along the banks of rivers and lakes. In Greece, this plant grows wild, but in Egypt they cultivate it deliberately. It produces abundant berries, though they smell terrible. Some people harvest the berries, crush them, and press out the oil. Others roast them first, then boil them and collect the liquid that runs off. The resulting oil is rich and just as good for burning as olive oil, but it has a foul smell.
As for the mosquitoes, which are incredibly numerous, the Egyptians have figured out ways to deal with them. Those who live above the marshes sleep in towers -- they climb up at bedtime because the mosquitoes can't fly that high in the wind. Those who live in the marshes have a different solution. Every man has a fishing net, which he uses to catch fish during the day. At night, he drapes the net around his bed, crawls under it, and goes to sleep. If you sleep wrapped in a cloak or linen sheet, the mosquitoes bite right through. But they don't even try to bite through the net.
Their cargo boats are made from the thorny acacia tree, which has a shape similar to the lotus of Cyrene and produces a sap that serves as gum. They cut two-foot pieces from this wood and lay them together like bricks, fastening the hull by driving long pegs through the planks. They lay crossbeams over the top but don't use ribs, and they caulk the seams with papyrus from the inside. Each boat has a single steering oar that passes through the hull, a mast of acacia, and sails of papyrus. These boats can't sail upstream unless there's a very strong wind, so they have to be towed from shore. Going downstream, though, they use a clever system: they have a raft-like frame made of tamarisk wood and reed mats sewn together, plus a stone weighing about 120 pounds with a hole bored through it. The boatman ties the frame to the front of the boat with a rope and lets it float ahead, then ties the stone to the back and lets it drag behind. The current pushes the frame forward, which pulls the boat along, while the stone trailing behind in the deep water keeps it going straight. They have huge numbers of these boats -- called baris in Egyptian -- and some can carry enormous loads of cargo.
When the Nile floods, only the cities are visible above the water, rising up like islands in the Aegean Sea. The rest of Egypt becomes an inland sea, and people travel by boat not along the river channels but straight across the open water of the plain. For instance, when sailing from Naucratis to Memphis during the flood, you pass right by the pyramids -- whereas the normal route at other times follows the tip of the Delta past the city of Cercasorus. And sailing from the coast at Canopus to Naucratis across the flooded plain, you pass by Anthylla and the city named after Archander.
Of these, Anthylla is a notable city, specifically designated to supply sandals for the wife of whoever rules Egypt -- a practice that's been in place since Egypt came under Persian control. The other city seems to me to take its name from Archander, who was the son-in-law of Danaus and the son of Phthius, son of Achaeus. It's called the City of Archander. There could be some other Archander it's named after, but either way, the name isn't Egyptian.
Up to this point, everything I've described has come from my own observation, judgment, and research. But from here on, I'm going to tell the history of Egypt based on what I was told by others -- though I'll add my own eyewitness observations where I can.
According to the priests, Min was the first king of Egypt. His great achievement was diverting the Nile. The entire river used to flow along the sandy mountain range on the Libyan side, but Min built embankments at a bend about twelve miles south of Memphis, dried up the old channel, and redirected the river so that it flowed down the middle between the mountains. Even now, the Persians keep extremely careful watch over this bend, reinforcing the embankment every year -- because if the river ever broke through here, Memphis would be in danger of being completely flooded. Once Min had reclaimed this land, he founded the city now called Memphis on the newly dry ground. Memphis sits in the narrow part of Egypt, and outside the city he dug a lake on the north and west sides, connecting it to the river. The east side was already bounded by the Nile itself. He also built the great temple of Hephaestus in the city -- a truly magnificent structure.
After Min, the priests read me the names of three hundred and thirty more kings from a papyrus scroll. In all those generations, eighteen were Ethiopians, one was a woman -- a native Egyptian -- and the rest were Egyptian men. The woman who ruled was named Nitocris, the same name as the Babylonian queen. The story they told about her was this: she wanted vengeance for her brother, who had been king of Egypt until the Egyptians murdered him and gave the kingship to her. So she devised a plan. She had an enormous underground chamber constructed, and under the pretense of holding its grand opening, she invited all the Egyptians she knew to have been most involved in her brother's murder. She threw a magnificent banquet for them -- and while they were feasting, she opened a secret channel and flooded the chamber with river water, drowning them all. That was the only story they told about her, except that after she'd done this, she threw herself into a room full of hot ashes to escape the revenge that would have followed.
As for the other kings who came after Min, the priests said none of them had achieved anything notable or earned any particular fame -- with one exception: the last in the line, King Moeris. He built the northern gateway of the temple of Hephaestus as his monument, and he dug a lake -- whose size and features I'll describe later, when I discuss the lake itself. He also built pyramids in the lake. Besides Moeris, the priests said, none of those kings left anything worth mentioning.
So I'll skip over those unremarkable rulers and move on to the king who came after them: Sesostris. The priests told me that he was the first Egyptian king to launch a military expedition by sea, sailing from the Arabian Gulf and conquering the peoples along the shores of the Red Sea. He kept going until he reached waters too shallow for his ships to navigate. After returning to Egypt, he raised a massive army -- according to the priests -- and marched across the entire continent, conquering every nation in his path. In the lands of those who fought bravely for their freedom, he set up pillars inscribed with his own name, his country, and a declaration that he had conquered them by force. But in the lands of those who surrendered without a fight or gave in easily, he inscribed the pillars with the same text -- and added a carving of female genitalia, to show that those people were cowards.
Campaigning across the continent like this, Sesostris eventually crossed from Asia into Europe and conquered both the Scythians and the Thracians. I believe these were the farthest peoples the Egyptian army reached, because pillars with his inscriptions have been found in their territory but nowhere beyond it. From there he turned around and headed back. When he reached the river Phasis, I can't say for certain what happened next -- whether King Sesostris himself detached part of his army and left them there as settlers, or whether some of his soldiers, exhausted by the long marches, simply stayed behind on their own at the river Phasis.
The people of Colchis are clearly Egyptian in origin -- I figured this out on my own before anyone told me. When I looked into it, I asked both peoples: the Colchians remembered the Egyptians better than the Egyptians remembered them, but the Egyptians said they believed the Colchians were descended from Sesostris' army. I came to the same conclusion myself, not just because they're dark-skinned with curly hair (other peoples share those traits, so that alone proves nothing), but more importantly because the Colchians, Egyptians, and Ethiopians are the only peoples who have practiced circumcision since ancient times. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine openly admit they learned the practice from the Egyptians. The Syrians living near the rivers Thermodon and Parthenius, along with their neighbors the Macronians, say they learned it more recently from the Colchians. These are the only peoples in the world who practice circumcision, and they all do it in the same manner as the Egyptians. As for whether the Egyptians or the Ethiopians were first -- I can't say, since it's clearly a very ancient custom among both. But I'm convinced the other nations learned it through contact with Egypt. Here's one strong piece of evidence: those Phoenicians who have regular dealings with Greece have stopped following the Egyptian example and no longer circumcise their sons.
Let me mention one more thing about the Colchians that shows their connection to Egypt: they're the only people besides the Egyptians who work flax in the same way. The two peoples are alike in their entire way of life and even in their language. The Greeks call Colchian linen "Sardonic," while Egyptian linen is simply called "Egyptian."
Most of the pillars that Sesostris set up across the various countries are no longer standing. But in Syria Palestine I myself saw some still there, with the inscriptions and the emblem I mentioned. There are also two rock carvings of this man in Ionia -- one on the road from Ephesus to Phocaea, the other on the road from Sardis to Smyrna. In each place, there's a figure of a man carved into the rock, about seven feet tall, holding a spear in his right hand and a bow and arrows in his left. The rest of his equipment is similarly both Egyptian and Ethiopian. Across his chest from shoulder to shoulder runs an inscription in sacred Egyptian characters that reads: "This land I won with my own shoulders." He doesn't identify himself by name in these carvings, though he does elsewhere. Some people who've seen these figures guess they depict Memnon, but they're way off the mark.
Now, when Sesostris was returning home, bringing with him throngs of captives from the nations he'd conquered, he reached Daphnae in the Pelusium district. There his brother -- to whom he'd entrusted the rule of Egypt in his absence -- invited him and his sons to a feast. But once they were inside, his brother piled brushwood around the building and set it on fire. Sesostris immediately consulted his wife, who was traveling with him. She advised him to lay two of their six sons across the burning wood as a bridge, so that the rest could walk over their bodies and escape. And that, they say, is exactly what Sesostris did. Two of his sons burned to death, but the rest escaped with their father.
After returning to Egypt and taking his revenge on his brother, Sesostris put the hordes of captives he'd brought back to work. These were the men who hauled the enormous stones to the temple of Hephaestus during his reign. They were also forced to dig all the canals that now crisscross Egypt. This had an unintended consequence: Egypt, which had previously been perfectly suited for horses and chariots, became unfit for either, because the canals cut through the land in every direction. The reason the king ordered the canals dug was practical: Egyptians whose cities lay inland, away from the river, had nothing but brackish well water to drink once the Nile's floods receded.
There's another tradition about this king: he divided the land among all Egyptians, giving each person an equal square plot, and levied an annual tax on it. If the river's flooding washed away part of anyone's plot, the owner could go to the king and report the loss. The king would send surveyors to measure how much land had been lost, and the tax would be reduced proportionally. I believe this is how the art of geometry was invented, and from Egypt it later came to Greece. The sundial, the gnomon, and the division of the day into twelve parts, however -- those the Greeks learned from the Babylonians.
Sesostris was the only Egyptian king to rule over Ethiopia as well. He left as monuments two stone statues in front of the temple of Hephaestus, each forty-five feet tall -- one of himself and one of his wife -- along with four more, each thirty feet tall, of his sons. Long afterward, when Darius the Persian wanted to set up a statue of himself in front of these, the priest of Hephaestus refused, telling him that his deeds didn't measure up to those of Sesostris. After all, the priest said, Sesostris had conquered just as many nations as Darius, plus the Scythians -- and Darius hadn't been able to beat the Scythians. So it wouldn't be right for him to set up a statue in front of Sesostris' unless he could surpass him. Darius, they say, took this well.
After Sesostris died, his son Pheros inherited the throne. This king launched no military campaigns, but he went blind from the following incident. The Nile had flooded higher than ever before -- reaching twenty-seven feet -- and when a wind stirred up the swollen river into waves, the king, in a fit of arrogant rage, snatched up a spear and hurled it into the churning water. Immediately his eyes became diseased and he lost his sight.
For ten years he remained blind. In the eleventh year, an oracle from the city of Buto told him that his punishment had run its course and that he would see again -- if he washed his eyes with the urine of a woman who had been faithful to her husband alone. He tried his own wife first. Still blind. He tried one woman after another, and at last he could see. Then he rounded up every woman he'd tested, except the one who'd cured him, and herded them all into a single city -- now called Erythrabolos, the "Red Soil" -- and burned them alive, along with the city. The woman who'd cured his blindness he took as his wife. Once he'd recovered his sight, he made offerings at every major temple. His most impressive dedication was at the temple of the Sun: two obelisks, each carved from a single block of stone, a hundred and fifty feet tall and twelve feet wide.
After Pheros, a man from Memphis came to the throne whose name in Greek was Proteus. There's a sacred enclosure at Memphis in his honor to this day, beautifully maintained, on the north side of the temple of Hephaestus. Phoenicians from Tyre live all around this enclosure, and the whole neighborhood is called the Camp of the Tyrians. Within Proteus' enclosure stands a temple called the temple of the "Foreign Aphrodite." I believe this is actually a temple of Helen, daughter of Tyndareus -- not just because of the story that Helen lived with Proteus, but especially because of that name, "Foreign Aphrodite." None of the other temples of Aphrodite have that modifier.
When I asked the priests about Helen, here's what they told me. Paris -- whom the Egyptians call Alexander -- had carried off Helen from Sparta and was sailing home. But when he reached the Aegean, contrary winds blew him off course to Egypt, landing at what's now called the Canopic mouth of the Nile, at Taricheia. On the shore there was -- and still is -- a temple of Heracles, with a long-standing rule: any slave who takes refuge there and has the sacred marks branded upon him, giving himself over to the god, cannot be seized. This custom has remained unchanged from ancient times down to my own day. Paris' servants, knowing about this rule, ran away from him, took sanctuary at the temple, and accused their master. They told the whole story about Helen and the wrong done to Menelaus, making their complaint not only to the priests but also to the warden of the river mouth, a man named Thonis.
When Thonis heard this, he immediately sent a message to King Proteus in Memphis: "A stranger has arrived, a Trojan, who has committed a terrible crime in Greece. He seduced his host's wife and has come here with the woman herself and a great deal of stolen wealth, driven to our shores by the wind. Shall we let him sail away unharmed, or shall we confiscate what he brought with him?" Proteus sent back this reply: "Seize this man, whoever he is, who has committed sacrilege against his own host, and bring him before me. I want to hear what he has to say for himself."
Thonis arrested Paris, impounded his ships, and brought him up to Memphis, along with Helen, the stolen treasure, and the runaway slaves. Once everyone was assembled, Proteus asked Paris who he was and where he'd sailed from. Paris gave his lineage and homeland. Then Proteus asked how he'd gotten Helen. Paris started to wander in his account, departing from the truth -- at which point the slaves exposed his lies, telling the whole sordid story. Finally Proteus delivered his verdict:
"If I didn't make it a strict principle never to kill strangers who are blown to my shores by the wind, I would punish you on behalf of your Greek host. You, worst of men, were received as a guest and repaid that hospitality by sleeping with your host's wife. As if that weren't enough, you fired up her desire and stole her away like a thief. And even that wasn't enough -- you plundered your host's house on the way out. So here is my judgment: since I won't stain my hands by killing a stranger, I'm going to keep this woman and the treasure safe for the Greek until he comes to collect them himself. As for you and your crew -- you have three days to leave my country. If you're still here after that, you'll be treated as enemies."
That's how Helen came to stay with Proteus, according to the priests. And I think Homer knew this version of the story too, but he set it aside because it didn't suit his poem as well as the version he went with. Still, he made it clear that he knew about it. In the Iliad, when he describes Paris' wandering voyage home with Helen, he mentions that Paris stopped at Sidon in Phoenicia -- which doesn't make sense unless he was blown far off course. Here's the passage:
"There she had robes many-colored, the works of women of Sidon, / Those whom godlike Alexander himself / Carried from Sidon, when the broad sea-path he sailed over / Bringing back Helen home, of a noble father begotten."
And in the Odyssey too, there are references:
"Such had the daughter of Zeus, such drugs of exquisite cunning, / Good, which to her the wife of Thon, Polydamna, had given, / Dwelling in Egypt, the land where the bountiful meadow produces / Drugs more than all lands else, many good being mixed, many evil."
And Menelaus says to Telemachus:
"Still the gods kept me in Egypt, though I desired to come home, / Kept me from voyaging back, since I had not performed the due sacrifice."
These lines make it clear that Homer knew about Paris' detour to Egypt -- since Syria borders Egypt, and the Phoenicians, including those of Sidon, live in Syria.
These passages also prove conclusively that the Cyprian Epic was not written by Homer but by someone else. That poem says Paris reached Troy from Sparta in three days, with a gentle wind and smooth sea. But the Iliad says he wandered far off course. Enough about Homer and the Cyprian Epic.
I did, however, ask the priests whether the Greek account of the Trojan War is just a fanciful story. Here's what they said -- claiming they got their information from Menelaus himself. After Helen was taken, a huge Greek army indeed sailed to Troy to support Menelaus. Once they'd beached their ships and set up camp, they sent messengers into the city -- Menelaus among them -- demanding the return of Helen and the stolen treasure, and satisfaction for the wrongs committed. The Trojans gave the same answer then that they'd give repeatedly afterward, with oaths and without: they truly didn't have Helen or the treasure. Both were in Egypt, and they couldn't be expected to make restitution for what King Proteus was holding. The Greeks thought they were being mocked and besieged the city. When they finally took it and still didn't find Helen, they heard the same story again. This time they believed it and sent Menelaus to Egypt.
Menelaus sailed to Egypt, went up to Memphis, and told the truth of the matter. He was treated with great hospitality and received Helen back unharmed, along with all his property. After all this generosity, however, Menelaus proved himself ungrateful to the Egyptians. When he was trying to sail home and contrary winds kept him stuck, he did something terrible: he seized two Egyptian children and sacrificed them. When this became known, the Egyptians were outraged. Menelaus fled, making his escape by ship to Libya. Where he went after that, the Egyptians couldn't say. They told me they'd learned part of this through investigation and the rest from firsthand knowledge of what happened in their own country.
I personally agree with the Egyptian version of the Helen story, and here's my reasoning. If Helen had actually been in Troy, the Trojans would have given her back to the Greeks whether Paris wanted it or not. Priam certainly wasn't so deranged, and neither was anyone else in his household, that they'd be willing to risk total destruction for themselves, their children, and their city just so Paris could keep sleeping with Helen. Even if they'd felt that way at first, after many Trojans were being killed in battle after battle -- with two or three of Priam's own sons dying every time there was a fight, if we're to believe the epic poets -- even Priam himself would have handed Helen back if she'd been his own wife, just to end the suffering. And the throne wasn't even going to Paris next -- Hector, who was both older and far more capable, would have inherited the kingdom after Priam. Hector had every reason not to tolerate his brother's wrongdoing when it was bringing catastrophe on everyone.
The truth is, the Trojans simply didn't have Helen to give back. They told the truth, but the Greeks refused to believe them. And this, I believe, was the working of divine will -- the gods intended Troy's utter destruction, to make it clear to all humanity that great wrongs bring great punishments from the gods. That's my view on the matter.
After Proteus, the throne passed to Rhampsinitus. He left as his monument the western gateway of the temple of Hephaestus, and in front of it he set up two statues, each about thirty-seven feet tall. The Egyptians call the one on the north side "Summer" and the one on the south side "Winter." They worship the Summer statue and make offerings to it, but they do the opposite with the Winter statue.
This king, they said, amassed vast wealth in silver, more than any king who came after him could match or even approach. Wanting to keep his treasure safe, he had a stone treasury built with one wall adjoining the outside of his palace. But the builder had a secret plan. He set one of the stones so that it could easily be removed from the wall by two men, or even one. When the treasury was finished, the king stored his money inside. Some time later, the builder, near the end of his life, called his two sons and revealed his secret: how he'd designed the treasury with a removable stone, all for their benefit, so they'd have ample means of living. He gave them the exact measurements and instructions for removing the stone, then died.
The sons didn't waste time. They went to the palace at night, found the stone, removed it easily, and helped themselves to a generous portion of the king's treasure.
When the king happened to open the treasury, he was astonished to find the money diminished -- but he couldn't figure out who to blame. The seals were unbroken and the chamber had been locked tight. When he opened it a second and third time and the money kept shrinking (the thieves showed no sign of stopping), the king ordered traps made and placed around the treasure vessels. The next time the thieves came, the one who went in first was immediately caught in a trap. Realizing he was doomed, he called to his brother and showed him the situation. He told his brother to cut off his head right away, so that when the body was found, no one would recognize it and bring destruction on the family. The brother saw the wisdom in this. He did it, replaced the stone, and went home carrying his brother's head.
When daylight came and the king entered the treasury, he was utterly bewildered. There was the headless body of the thief, caught in the trap -- but the chamber was completely sealed, with no way in or out. Not knowing what else to do, the king hung the headless body on the wall outside and posted guards, with orders to seize anyone they saw weeping or mourning near it.
When the mother saw her son's body hanging there, she was devastated. She told her surviving son that he had to find a way to retrieve his brother's body, and if he didn't, she threatened to go to the king and reveal that he was the one with the stolen money.
The son tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't budge. So he came up with a plan. He loaded some donkeys with wineskins and drove them past the guards. When he reached the spot where the body hung, he loosened the necks of two or three skins so the wine poured out. Then he started beating his head and wailing as if he couldn't decide which leaking skin to fix first. The guards saw the wine streaming out and ran into the road with cups, collecting the spillage and counting themselves lucky. He cursed at them, pretending to be furious. They tried to calm him down. Gradually he feigned acceptance, drove his donkeys to the side of the road, and began adjusting their loads. They chatted more, a few of them cracked jokes, and eventually he laughed along. He gave them an extra wineskin as a gift. They sat down right there to drink, insisting he join them, and -- naturally -- he let himself be persuaded. As they kept drinking and treating him like a friend, he gave them another skin. Before long the guards were thoroughly drunk and fell asleep right where they'd been drinking.
Late that night, the thief took down his brother's body. Then, as a final insult, he shaved the right cheek of every guard. He loaded his brother's body onto the donkeys and drove home, having done exactly what his mother demanded.
When the king learned the body had been stolen, he was furious. Desperate to find the man behind it all, he did the following -- though I don't believe this part of the story myself. He supposedly installed his own daughter in a brothel, with instructions to receive all comers equally, but to make each man, before sleeping with her, tell her the cleverest and the most wicked thing he'd ever done. Whoever confessed to the theft, she was to grab him and not let him escape.
The daughter followed her father's orders. But the thief, hearing what was going on and determined to outwit the king one more time, cut the arm off a fresh corpse and hid it under his cloak. He went in to the princess, and when she asked him the question, he answered: the most wicked thing he'd ever done was cut off his brother's head when his brother was caught in a trap in the king's treasury. The cleverest was getting the guards drunk and stealing the body back. She lunged to grab him -- but in the darkness he held out the dead man's arm. She seized it, thinking she had him. But the thief left the arm in her grip and slipped out through the door.
When the king heard about this too, he was amazed at the man's ingenuity and daring. He sent proclamations to every city, offering the thief a full pardon and a great reward if he'd come forward. The thief trusted the offer and presented himself. Rhampsinitus was so impressed that he gave the man his daughter in marriage, considering him the most resourceful person alive. After all, the king said, the Egyptians are wiser than all other peoples, and this man was the wisest of all Egyptians.
After all this, they say, Rhampsinitus went down alive to the place the Greeks call Hades. There he played dice with Demeter, sometimes winning and sometimes losing, and came back with a golden cloth as her gift. The Egyptians celebrate a festival commemorating this journey, which they were still observing in my time -- though whether they hold the festival for this reason or some other, I can't say for certain. On the day of the feast, the priests weave a complete robe, blindfold one of their number, lead him with the robe to the road that goes to the temple of Demeter, and leave him there. Two wolves then appear, they say, and lead the blindfolded priest to the temple, about two and a half miles away, and afterward the wolves lead him back to the same spot.
As for these Egyptian tales, anyone can believe them if they find them credible. My own rule throughout this entire work is that I write down what each people reports, as I heard it. The Egyptians say that Demeter and Dionysus are the rulers of the underworld. The Egyptians were also the first to teach the doctrine that the human soul is immortal -- that when the body dies, the soul enters into whatever creature happens to be born at that moment, and after passing through every form of life on land, sea, and air, it enters a human body again at birth, completing the cycle in three thousand years. Some Greeks adopted this doctrine, some earlier and some later, as if they'd invented it themselves. I know their names, but I won't record them.
Down to the time of Rhampsinitus, the priests told me, Egypt enjoyed perfect order and great prosperity. But then Cheops became king and brought the country to utter misery. He shut down all the temples, banned all sacrifices, and forced every Egyptian to labor for him. Some were assigned to haul stones from the quarries in the Arabian mountains to the Nile. Others had to receive the stones after they were ferried across the river and drag them to the Libyan mountains. They worked in shifts of a hundred thousand men, each shift laboring for three months. It took ten years of this oppression just to build the causeway along which the stones were dragged -- and the causeway itself, in my view, is nearly as impressive as the pyramid. It's about half a mile long, sixty feet wide, and at its highest point about forty-eight feet, built of polished stone carved with figures. That was ten years' work. Add to that the time spent on the underground chambers on the hill where the pyramids stand, which Cheops had built as his burial vaults on an island surrounded by water channeled from the Nile.
The pyramid itself took twenty years to build. It's square, with each side measuring eight hundred feet, and it's the same height. It's constructed of smoothly polished stone blocks fitted together with perfect precision, none of them less than thirty feet long.
The pyramid was built in step fashion -- some call the steps "rows" and others "platforms." After the first tier was completed, they raised the remaining stones using machines made of short wooden beams, lifting them from the ground to the first step, then to a machine on the first step that lifted them to the second, and so on -- one machine for each level. Or perhaps they used a single machine that was light enough to carry from level to level. I've heard it told both ways, so I'll mention both. The upper portions were finished first, then the parts just below, and finally the lowest sections near the ground.
There's an inscription on the pyramid, written in Egyptian characters, recording how much was spent on radishes, onions, and leeks for the workers. As I recall from the interpreter who read it to me, the amount was sixteen hundred talents of silver. If that's true, imagine how much more must have been spent on the iron tools, the bread and clothing for the workers, given all the years this construction took -- not to mention the additional time for quarrying, transporting the stones, and excavating underground.
Cheops sank to such depths of wickedness, they said, that when he ran short of money, he put his own daughter in a brothel and ordered her to charge a certain fee -- they didn't tell me exactly how much. She not only earned the amount her father required but also decided to leave a monument of her own. She asked each man who visited her to give her one stone for her building project. From these stones, they told me, the pyramid was built that stands in front of the Great Pyramid, in the middle of the three -- each side measuring a hundred and fifty feet.
Cheops reigned for fifty years, they said. After his death, his brother Chephren inherited the kingdom. He continued in the same manner -- including building a pyramid, though it didn't match the dimensions of the earlier one. I know this because I measured it myself. It has no underground chambers, and no channel from the Nile flows to it as one does to Cheops' pyramid, where water runs through a built conduit around an island where Cheops himself is said to lie buried. Chephren used multicolored Ethiopian stone for the base course and built it forty feet lower than his brother's pyramid, positioning it right next to the Great Pyramid. Both stand on the same hill, which is about a hundred feet high. Chephren reigned fifty-six years.
So between them, that's a hundred and six years during which the Egyptians suffered nothing but misery, and the temples remained shut the entire time. The Egyptians hate these two kings so much that they don't even like to name them. They actually call the pyramids after a shepherd named Philitis, who grazed his flocks in the area at that time.
After Chephren, Mykerinos became king -- the son of Cheops. He disapproved of his father's actions. He reopened the temples. He freed the people, who had been ground down to their last extremity, to return to their own work and their sacrifices. He delivered justice more fairly than any other king. The Egyptians praise him above all others for this: not only did he judge cases fairly, but when anyone was dissatisfied with a verdict, Mykerinos compensated them from his own pocket.
But while Mykerinos was ruling so mercifully, calamities struck. The first was the death of his daughter -- his only child. Overwhelmed with grief, he wanted to give her a burial surpassing anything seen before. He had a hollow wooden cow made, covered it entirely with gold, and placed his dead daughter inside it.
This golden cow was not buried underground. It was still visible in my own time, at Sais, inside a richly decorated chamber of the royal palace. Every day they burn incense of all kinds before it, and every night a lamp burns beside it until morning. In another chamber nearby stand the images of Mykerinos' concubines -- at least that's what the priests at Sais told me. There are in fact about twenty colossal wooden statues of naked women, but I can only report what I was told about who they represent.
Some people tell a different story about the cow and the statues. They say that Mykerinos fell in love with his own daughter and raped her, and that the girl hanged herself in grief. He buried her in the golden cow. Her mother then cut off the hands of the servant women who had betrayed her daughter to her father, and the statues are of those maids, showing the same mutilation they suffered in life. But this version is nonsense, in my opinion -- especially the part about the hands. I could see with my own eyes that the statues' hands had simply fallen off from age, and they were still lying on the ground at the statues' feet in my time.
The cow itself is draped in a crimson robe, with only the head and neck exposed, which are heavily gilded. Between the horns is a golden disc representing the sun. The cow is not standing but kneeling, and it's life-size -- as large as a real cow. Every year they bring it out of the chamber into the daylight. They do this during the festival when the Egyptians mourn for the god whose name I won't mention in this context. The story is that the dying girl asked her father Mykerinos to let her see the sun once a year.
Then a second misfortune struck Mykerinos. An oracle from the city of Buto declared that he had only six more years to live and would die in the seventh. He was furious. He sent a message back to the oracle reproaching the god: his father and uncle, who had closed the temples, ignored the gods, and destroyed their people, had lived long lives -- but he, who had been pious, was condemned to die so soon? The oracle sent back a second message: that was exactly why his life was being cut short. He had failed to do what was fated. Egypt was destined to suffer for a hundred and fifty years. The two kings before him had understood this; he hadn't. When Mykerinos heard this and realized his fate was sealed, he ordered countless lamps made. Every evening he lit them and threw himself into a life of drinking and pleasure, stopping neither day nor night. He roamed the marshes and the groves, seeking out every place suitable for enjoyment. His plan was to prove the oracle wrong: by turning his nights into days, he'd get twelve years instead of six.
Mykerinos also left behind a pyramid, much smaller than his father's -- each side measuring about 280 feet. It's built of Ethiopian stone up to half its height. Some Greeks claim this pyramid was built by the courtesan Rhodopis, but they're wrong. This is clearly the work of ignorance: they don't even know who Rhodopis was, or they wouldn't attribute to her a project that cost, one might say, countless thousands of talents. Besides, Rhodopis lived during the reign of Amasis, many generations after the pyramid builders.
By birth, Rhodopis was Thracian. She was a slave belonging to Iadmon, son of Hephaistopolis, a Samian -- and a fellow slave of Aesop the fable writer. Yes, Aesop was a slave too, as proved by the fact that when the people of Delphi repeatedly issued proclamations, following an oracle, offering blood-money for Aesop's death, no one came forward to claim it until finally Iadmon's grandson, also named Iadmon, took the payment. This confirms that Aesop belonged to the elder Iadmon.
Rhodopis came to Egypt brought by Xanthes, a Samian, to work as a courtesan. She was eventually freed for a large sum by Charaxos of Mytilene, the son of Scamandronymos and brother of the poet Sappho. Once free, Rhodopis stayed in Egypt and earned a great deal of money through her beauty -- a lot for someone like her, though not nearly enough to finance a pyramid. You can verify that her wealth was not that great, because the tithe of her fortune can still be seen to this day. She wanted to leave a memorial of herself in Greece -- something no one had ever thought to make and dedicate at a temple before. So with her tithe she had an enormous number of iron roasting spits made, each large enough to skewer a whole ox, and sent them to Delphi. They're still there, heaped together behind the altar the Chians dedicated, right across from the inner chamber of the temple. Courtesans of Naucratis tend to become famous, it seems. Rhodopis became so well known that every Greek knew her name. After her, another courtesan named Archidice became famous across Greece, though she was less talked about. As for Charaxos, when he returned to Mytilene after freeing Rhodopis, Sappho savaged him in one of her poems. But enough about Rhodopis.
After Mykerinos, the priests said, Asychis became king. He built the eastern gateway of the temple of Hephaestus -- by far the most beautiful and largest of all the gateways, and though every gateway has carved figures and elaborate architectural decoration, this one surpasses them all.
During his reign, they told me, money was in short supply and credit was tight, so a law was passed allowing Egyptians to borrow money by pledging their father's mummified body as collateral. An additional provision gave the lender a claim to the borrower's entire family tomb. Any borrower who failed to repay the debt was subject to this penalty: he couldn't be buried in his family tomb or any other when he died, and he couldn't bury any of his relatives who died either. This king, wanting to outdo all the Egyptian kings before him, left a pyramid of bricks. On it is a stone inscription that reads: "Don't look down on me compared to the stone pyramids. I'm as far above them as Zeus is above the other gods. Workers plunged a pole into the lake, and whatever mud clung to it, they made bricks from that, and that's how they built me."
Those were the deeds of Asychis. After him came a blind king from the city of Anysis, also named Anysis. During his reign, the Ethiopians invaded Egypt under their king Sabacos with a massive army. The blind king fled into the marshlands, and the Ethiopian ruled Egypt for fifty years. His policy was this: whenever an Egyptian committed a crime, he never had the man executed. Instead, he sentenced criminals to labor, building up the embankments around their home cities. This raised the cities even higher than they'd been after the canal-digging under Sesostris, making them very high indeed. I think the city of Bubastis was built up the most. In Bubastis there's a temple especially worth mentioning -- there are larger and more expensive temples elsewhere, but none more beautiful. Bubastis, in the Greek language, is Artemis.
Here's what the temple looks like. Except for the entrance, it's completely surrounded by water -- two channels from the Nile, each a hundred feet wide and shaded by trees, run around it on either side without meeting, each ending at the temple entrance. The gateway stands sixty feet high and is decorated with carved figures nine feet tall. The temple sits in the center of the city, and you can look down into it from all sides, because the city has been built up over time while the temple has stayed at its original level. A carved stone wall runs around it. Inside the wall is a grove of very tall trees surrounding the main temple building, which contains the image of the goddess. The temple is about six hundred feet on each side. A stone-paved road, about three-quarters of a mile long and four hundred feet wide, leads from the entrance through the marketplace toward the east, lined on both sides with enormously tall trees. The road leads to the temple of Hermes.
The Ethiopian king's departure came about this way. He had a dream in which a figure appeared and urged him to gather all the priests of Egypt and cut them in half. He took this as a sign from the gods, designed to tempt him into committing a sacrilege so they'd have an excuse to punish him. He refused to do it. Besides, he said, the time allotted to him was up. Before leaving Ethiopia, the oracles there had prophesied that he would rule Egypt for fifty years. The fifty years were now over, and the dream disturbed him. So Sabacos voluntarily left Egypt.
Once the Ethiopian was gone, the blind king came back from the marshes and resumed his rule. He'd survived his fifty-year exile on an island he'd built up himself, by having every Egyptian who brought him food also bring a load of ashes, mixed with earth. No one could find this island until the time of Amyrtaios -- for over seven hundred years, the kings who preceded Amyrtaios had searched for it without success. The island is called Elbo, and it measures about a mile and a quarter on each side.
After the blind king, the throne went to the priest of Hephaestus, a man named Sethos. He showed contempt for the warrior class, thinking he'd never need them. Among other slights, he stripped them of the grants of farmland that previous kings had given them -- twelve plots to each man. Then Sennacherib, king of the Arabians and Assyrians, marched against Egypt with a great army. The Egyptian warriors refused to fight. The priest-king, desperate, went into the temple sanctuary and wept before the image of the god over the danger he faced. As he was lamenting, sleep came over him, and in a dream the god appeared, standing beside him, telling him not to worry: if he went out to face the Arabian army, the god himself would send helpers.
Trusting in this dream, Sethos gathered whatever Egyptians were willing to follow him -- not a single professional soldier among them, just shopkeepers, artisans, and market vendors -- and set up camp at Pelusium, where the invasion route entered Egypt. That night, an army of field mice swarmed over the enemy camp and gnawed through their quivers, their bowstrings, and the leather handles of their shields. In the morning, the invaders found themselves defenseless. They fled, and a great slaughter followed. A stone statue of this king still stands in the temple of Hephaestus, holding a mouse in his hand. The inscription reads: "Look upon me, and learn to revere the gods."
Up to this point, the Egyptians and their priests were my sources. They reported that from the first king down to this priest of Hephaestus who reigned last, there were three hundred and forty-one generations, with the same number of chief priests and the same number of kings. Three hundred generations equal ten thousand years, counting three generations to a century. The remaining forty-one generations add another thirteen hundred and forty years, for a total of eleven thousand three hundred and forty years. In all that time, they said, no god had appeared in human form -- not before, during, or after the period of these kings. They also told me that during those millennia, the sun had changed its position four times: twice rising where it now sets, and twice setting where it now rises. And none of this had caused any change in Egypt -- no change in what the earth produced, no change in what the river brought, no change in the pattern of diseases or deaths.
Earlier, when the historian Hecataeus was in Thebes, he'd traced his own lineage back to a god in the sixteenth generation. The priests of Zeus did to him essentially what they did to me -- though I hadn't traced my own ancestry to any god. They led me into the vast inner sanctuary of the temple and showed me a series of colossal wooden statues, counting them as they went. Each chief priest sets up an image of himself during his lifetime. The priests counted their way through the statues, declaring that each was the son of the one before, starting from the most recent and going all the way back -- three hundred and forty-five statues in all. When Hecataeus had traced his descent to a god in the sixteenth generation, they traced a counter-descent against his claim. They rejected the idea that any man could be born from a god. Instead, they declared that each of their three hundred and forty-five statues represented a piromis, son of a piromis -- never connecting the line to any god or hero. Piromis, in Greek, means "a noble and good man."
The conclusion was clear: the men represented by those statues were human, nothing more. But before their time, the Egyptians said, gods had ruled Egypt, not mingling with humans, and one god held power at a time. The last god to rule Egypt was Horus, son of Osiris -- whom the Greeks call Apollo. He deposed Typhon and became the last divine king. Osiris, in the Greek language, is Dionysus.
Among the Greeks, Heracles, Dionysus, and Pan are considered the youngest gods. But the Egyptians say Pan is one of the oldest, belonging to the eight primordial gods. Heracles is of the second generation, the twelve gods, and Dionysus is of the third, born from the twelve. I've already shown how far back the Egyptians date Heracles -- to before the reign of Amasis. Pan they say is even older, and Dionysus, the youngest of the three, they place at fifteen thousand years before the reign of Amasis. The Egyptians claim to know these dates precisely because they've always kept careful records. The Greek Dionysus, said to be born of Semele daughter of Cadmus, was born only about sixteen hundred years before my time. Heracles, son of Alcmene, about nine hundred years before. And the Greek Pan, said to be the son of Hermes and Penelope, was born after the Trojan War -- about eight hundred years before my time.
Of these two chronologies -- the Egyptian and the Greek -- everyone can choose whichever they find more believable. I've already stated my own opinion. If these gods had actually lived out ordinary human lives in Greece -- Dionysus son of Semele, Pan son of Penelope -- as Heracles son of Amphitryon did, then one would say they were simply men who happened to share the names of far more ancient gods. But the Greeks say that Zeus sewed Dionysus into his thigh the moment he was born and carried him to Nysa, in Ethiopia above Egypt. And as for Pan, they can't even say where he went after birth. It's clear to me that the Greeks learned these gods' names much later than the others and simply dated their births to whenever they first heard of them.
Up to this point, the history has been told by the Egyptians themselves.
But now I'll recount what other nations also tell, in agreement with the Egyptians, about what happened in this land -- and I'll add my own observations.
After the Egyptians were freed from the priest of Hephaestus' reign, they found they couldn't live without a king. So they divided Egypt into twelve parts and set up twelve kings. These kings intermarried with one another and ruled under a pact: none of them would try to overthrow the others by force or seek advantage over them, but they'd live in perfect friendship. The reason they guarded this agreement so carefully was an oracle that had been given to them at the start: whichever of them poured a libation with a bronze cup in the temple of Hephaestus would become king of all Egypt. They regularly assembled together in all the temples.
The twelve kings also decided to create a joint monument. They built the labyrinth, located just above Lake Moeris and nearly opposite the city called Crocodilopolis. I saw this place myself, and it surpasses description. If you added up all the buildings and great works ever produced by the Greeks, they'd prove inferior in labor and expense to this single labyrinth -- even though the temple at Ephesus and the one at Samos are remarkable works. The pyramids, too, are beyond words, each one matching many great Greek works. But the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids.
It has twelve roofed courtyards, with gates facing each other -- six on the north side and six on the south, all connected, with a single wall enclosing the whole complex. Inside there are two sets of chambers: one set underground and one above, three thousand in total -- fifteen hundred of each kind. I personally walked through the upper chambers and saw them with my own eyes, so I can speak from direct experience. The underground chambers I know only from what I was told -- the Egyptian keepers refused to show them, saying they contained the tombs of the kings who originally built the labyrinth and of the sacred crocodiles. So I can only report the lower chambers by hearsay, while the upper ones I saw for myself and found to be works beyond human achievement. The passages through the chambers, the winding routes through the courtyards, the stunning decoration -- all of it was an endless source of wonder as we passed from courtyards to chambers, from chambers to colonnades, from colonnades to more rooms, and from those rooms to yet more courtyards. The ceiling over everything is stone, just like the walls. The walls are covered with carved figures, and each courtyard is surrounded by columns of perfectly fitted white stone. At the far corner of the labyrinth stands a pyramid about 240 feet high, with large figures carved on it, reached by an underground passage.
As impressive as the labyrinth is, Lake Moeris -- which it's built beside -- is even more astonishing. The lake's circumference is about 420 miles, the same as the entire Egyptian coastline. It stretches north to south, and at its deepest point it's about 300 feet. That this lake is artificial, dug by human hands, is obvious: right in the middle stand two pyramids, each rising 300 feet above the water, with an equal amount built below the surface. On top of each sits a colossal stone statue on a throne. So the total height of each pyramid is 600 feet. The lake's water doesn't come from the surrounding area, which is very dry, but is channeled from the Nile through a canal. For six months the water flows into the lake, and for six months it flows back into the Nile. During the six months of outflow, the fish caught in the lake bring a talent of silver a day into the royal treasury. During the six months of inflow, the revenue drops to twenty silver pounds a day.
The locals also told me the lake has an underground outlet leading to the Syrtis in Libya, running westward along the mountain above Memphis. I was curious about where all the excavated earth had been put, since I couldn't see any piles of it. When I asked the people living nearest the lake, they told me where the earth had been carried, and I believed them readily. I knew from other accounts that the same thing had been done at Nineveh, the Assyrian capital. There, thieves once planned to tunnel into the palace of King Sardanapalus and steal his vast underground treasure. They dug from their own house toward the palace, and every night they dumped the excavated dirt into the Tigris River, which flows past the city. They kept at it until they succeeded. The Egyptian lake excavation was similar, they told me, except it was done in daylight: the workers simply dumped the dirt into the Nile, which carried it away and dispersed it. That's how the lake was dug.
The twelve kings ruled justly for a time. But then, after a sacrifice in the temple of Hephaestus, as they were about to pour the closing libation on the last day of the feast, the chief priest made a mistake: he brought out only eleven golden cups for twelve kings. Psammetichus, who happened to be standing last in line and had no cup, took off his bronze helmet, held it out, and used it to pour his libation. All the kings happened to be wearing helmets at the time.
Psammetichus had done this without any scheming intent. But the other eleven kings immediately remembered the oracle -- that whoever poured a libation from a bronze cup would become sole king of Egypt. After looking into it and confirming that Psammetichus had acted without forethought, they decided not to kill him. But they stripped him of almost all his power and banished him to the marshlands, forbidding him to have any dealings with the rest of Egypt.
This Psammetichus had already been a fugitive once before, fleeing from the Ethiopian king Sabacos, who had killed his father Necho. He'd escaped to Syria, and when the Ethiopian left Egypt after his dream, the people of the Sais district brought him back. Now it was his fate to be a fugitive a second time -- this time because of a helmet, driven into the marshes by the eleven kings.
Feeling deeply wronged, Psammetichus plotted his revenge. He sent to the oracle of Leto at Buto, the most truthful oracle in Egypt, and received this reply: vengeance would come when men of bronze appeared from the sea. He was highly skeptical -- bronze men from the sea? But not long afterward, a group of Ionian and Carian pirates, blown off course, landed on the Egyptian coast wearing bronze armor. One of the Egyptians, who had never seen bronze-armored men before, ran to Psammetichus in the marshes with the report that bronze men had come from the sea and were raiding the plain.
Psammetichus recognized the oracle being fulfilled. He approached the Ionians and Carians, made them generous promises, and persuaded them to join his cause. Then, with these foreign mercenaries and the Egyptians who supported him, he overthrew the eleven kings.
Once Psammetichus had control of all Egypt, he built the southern gateway of the temple of Hephaestus at Memphis and constructed a courtyard for Apis -- the sacred bull that is housed there when he appears. The courtyard faces the gateway and is surrounded by columns and adorned with carved figures. Instead of regular columns, the roof is supported by colossal statues, each eighteen feet tall. Apis is the Greek Epaphus.
Psammetichus rewarded the Ionians and Carians who had helped him with grants of land to settle on, facing each other across the Nile. These settlements were called "the Camps." He gave them the land and everything he'd promised, and he also placed Egyptian boys with them to learn Greek. From those boys who mastered the language descend the interpreters who exist in Egypt to this day. The Ionians and Carians lived in these settlements for a long time, on the coast a little below Bubastis, near the Pelusian mouth of the Nile. King Amasis later relocated them to Memphis to serve as his personal guard against the Egyptians. Thanks to their presence in Egypt, we Greeks have reliable knowledge of everything that happened in Egypt from the reign of Psammetichus onward -- they were the first foreign-language speakers to settle permanently in the country. In the settlements they left behind, the boat sheds and ruins of their houses could still be seen in my time.
That's how Psammetichus won Egypt. I've mentioned the oracle at Buto several times already, so let me give it a proper description, since it's worth it. This oracle is sacred to Leto and is located in a large city near the Sebennytic mouth of the Nile, called Buto. In Buto there's a temple of Apollo and Artemis, and the main temple building of Leto -- where the oracle resides -- is both large and imposing, with a gateway sixty feet tall. But the thing that amazed me most was this: there's a building within the sacred enclosure that's made from a single block of stone, equal in height and length, with each wall measuring about sixty feet. The roof is another single stone, with a four-foot overhang.
Of everything I saw in the sanctuary, this monolithic building was the most marvelous. The next most amazing thing is the island called Chemmis, located in a deep, wide lake next to the temple at Buto. The Egyptians say this island floats. I personally never saw it float or move from its place, and I have to say I was surprised by the claim. On this island there's a large temple of Apollo, with three altars, and many palm and other trees, both fruit-bearing and ornamental. The Egyptians explain the floating by telling this story: Leto, one of the eight primordial gods, lived in Buto where she now has her oracle. When Isis entrusted the infant Apollo to her for safekeeping, Leto hid him on this island -- which wasn't floating yet -- to protect him from Typhon, who was searching everywhere for the son of Osiris. The Egyptians say that Apollo and Artemis are children of Dionysus and Isis, and that Leto was their nurse and protector. In Egyptian, Apollo is Horus, Demeter is Isis, and Artemis is Bubastis. Aeschylus, the son of Euphorion, borrowed from this Egyptian tradition when he made Artemis the daughter of Demeter -- breaking with all previous Greek poets. And that, they say, is why the island became a floating island.
That's their story. As for Psammetichus, he reigned fifty-four years, of which he spent twenty-nine besieging the city of Azotus in Syria, until he finally took it. Azotus holds the record for the longest siege any city has ever withstood, as far as we know.
Psammetichus' son was Necho, and he became the next king. Necho was the first to attempt building a canal to the Red Sea -- a project that Darius the Persian later completed. The canal is four days' voyage in length and wide enough for two triremes to be rowed side by side. Water from the Nile feeds into it. The canal starts a little above the city of Bubastis, runs past the Arabian city of Patumos, and empties into the Red Sea. It's cut first through the Egyptian plain that borders Arabia, running along the base of the mountains that extend opposite Memphis, where the stone quarries are. The canal runs from west to east for a long stretch along the foot of these mountains, then turns south through a gap in the hills toward the Arabian Gulf. The shortest distance from the northern sea to the southern sea -- also called the Red Sea -- runs from Mount Casion on the Egyptian-Syrian border to the Arabian Gulf, a distance of about 125 miles. But the canal is much longer because of its winding course. During Necho's time, a hundred and twenty thousand Egyptians died digging it. Necho eventually abandoned the project because an oracle warned him that he was "working for the barbarian" -- meaning a foreigner would benefit. The Egyptians call everyone who doesn't speak their language a barbarian.
After halting work on the canal, Necho turned to warfare. He built warships for both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea -- the sheds for these ships were still visible in my time. He used these ships as needed, and on land he fought the Syrians at Magdolus and defeated them. After the battle, he captured the great Syrian city of Cadytis. He dedicated the armor he'd worn during these conquests to Apollo at the temple of the Branchidae near Miletus. After a total reign of sixteen years, Necho died and was succeeded by his son Psammis.
While Psammis was king, envoys arrived from Elis. The Eleans boasted that their management of the Olympic Games was the fairest and most honorable arrangement possible, and that not even the Egyptians -- the wisest people on earth -- could improve upon their rules. When they arrived in Egypt and explained their purpose, Psammis assembled Egypt's wisest men. After hearing the Eleans describe their entire system, the Egyptians asked one question: Were Elean citizens allowed to compete? Yes, the Eleans said -- anyone could compete, their own citizens and other Greeks alike. The Egyptians' verdict was blunt: if Elean citizens were allowed to compete, there was no way to prevent bias in favor of a hometown athlete. If the Eleans truly wanted fairness -- and if that was genuinely why they'd come to Egypt -- they should restrict the games to foreigners only and bar all Eleans from competing. That was the Egyptians' advice.
Psammis reigned only six years. He campaigned against Ethiopia, and immediately afterward he died. His son Apries inherited the throne. Apries became the most prosperous king since his ancestor Psammetichus and reigned for twenty-five years, during which he campaigned against Sidon and fought a naval battle with the king of Tyre. But fate had marked him for disaster. The full story I'll tell in my account of Libya, so for now I'll keep it brief. Apries sent a large army against the Cyrenaeans and suffered a devastating defeat. The Egyptians blamed him for the disaster, convinced he'd deliberately sent them to their deaths so that the survivors would be fewer and easier to control. The returning soldiers and the families of the dead openly revolted.
When Apries heard about the revolt, he sent Amasis to talk the rebels down. But while Amasis was speaking to the crowd, trying to persuade them to stop, one of the Egyptians walked up behind him and put a helmet on his head -- crowning him king. Amasis didn't seem to mind this at all. Once the rebels had proclaimed him king, he prepared to march against Apries. Apries, hearing this, sent one of his close advisors -- a respected Egyptian named Patarbemis -- to bring Amasis back alive. When Patarbemis arrived and summoned Amasis, Amasis happened to be on horseback. He lifted his leg and made an extremely crude gesture, telling Patarbemis to take that back to Apries. Still, Patarbemis insisted: the king had sent for him, and he needed to come. Amasis replied that he'd been planning to do just that and that Apries would have no cause for complaint -- he'd be there soon enough, and he wouldn't be coming alone. Patarbemis understood perfectly what Amasis meant. Seeing the military preparations underway, he hurried back to report to the king. When he arrived without Amasis, Apries -- in a blind rage, not even listening to what Patarbemis had to say -- ordered his ears and nose cut off. When the rest of the Egyptians still loyal to Apries saw this shameful treatment of their most respected man, they waited no longer. They switched sides and handed themselves over to Amasis.
Apries armed his foreign mercenaries and marched against the Egyptians. He had about thirty thousand Ionian and Carian mercenaries, and his palace in Sais was large and impressive. Apries and his mercenaries marched against the Egyptian forces, while Amasis and his army marched against them. Both sides converged on the city of Momemphis and prepared for battle.
Now, the Egyptians are divided into seven classes: priests, warriors, cowherds, swineherds, shopkeepers, interpreters, and boatmen. The warrior class consists of two divisions: the Hermotybians and the Calasirians, drawn from different districts -- all of Egypt being divided into districts.
The Hermotybians come from the districts of Busiris, Sais, Chemmis, Papremis, the island of Prosopitis, and half of Natho. At their peak, they numbered a hundred and sixty thousand. None of them practice any trade -- they dedicate themselves entirely to warfare.
The Calasirians come from the districts of Thebes, Bubastis, Aphthis, Tanis, Mendes, Sebennytus, Athribis, Pharbaethus, Thmuis, Onuphis, Anytis, and Myecphoris (this last being on an island opposite Bubastis). At their peak, they numbered two hundred and fifty thousand. Like the Hermotybians, they're forbidden from practicing any craft -- they pass down the military tradition from father to son.
Whether the Greeks learned to look down on craftsmen from the Egyptians, I can't say for certain. I notice that the Thracians, Scythians, Persians, Lydians, and nearly all non-Greek peoples also consider tradespeople lower in status than the rest of the population, while those devoted to warfare are considered noble. However it came about, the Greeks have all adopted this attitude, especially the Spartans. The Corinthians are the least contemptuous of craftsmen.
One special privilege was reserved for the warrior class, shared only with the priests: each man received twelve plots of tax-free land. Each plot measured a hundred Egyptian cubits on each side -- and the Egyptian cubit happens to equal the Samian cubit. In addition, a thousand Calasirians and a thousand Hermotybians took turns each year serving as the king's bodyguard. While on duty, they received a daily ration in addition to their land: five pounds of bread, two pounds of beef, and four half-pints of wine per man.
When Apries with his mercenaries and Amasis with the Egyptian army met at Momemphis, the battle was joined. The mercenaries fought well, but they were vastly outnumbered and went down to defeat. Apries, they say, had been so confident that he believed not even a god could dislodge him from power. In the battle, he was defeated, captured alive, and brought to Sais -- to what had been his own palace but was now the palace of Amasis.
For a while, Amasis kept him in the palace and treated him well. But eventually the Egyptians complained, saying it was wrong to keep alive the man who was their greatest enemy. So Amasis handed Apries over to the people, and they strangled him. After that, they buried him in his family's burial place in the temple of Athena, close to the sanctuary, on the left side as you enter. The people of Sais buried all the kings of their district inside the temple. Even Amasis' tomb, though farther from the sanctuary than those of Apries and his ancestors, is still within the temple court. It consists of a large stone colonnade with pillars carved to resemble palm trees, lavishly decorated. Inside the colonnade are double doors, and behind the doors lies the burial chamber.
Also at Sais is the tomb of a god whose name I consider it impious to mention in this context. It's in the temple of Athena, behind the main temple building, stretching along the entire back wall. Large stone obelisks stand in the sacred enclosure, and nearby is a lake, beautifully built with a stone border in a perfect circle. It's about the same size as the pool called the "Round Pool" on the island of Delos.
On this lake, they perform nighttime reenactments of the god's sufferings -- what the Egyptians call "Mysteries." I know a good deal more about exactly how these are performed, but I'll keep that to myself. I'll also keep quiet about the mysteries of Demeter, which the Greeks call the Thesmophoria, except for what piety permits me to say. It was the daughters of Danaus who brought this rite from Egypt and taught it to the Pelasgian women. Later, when the Dorians drove out the original inhabitants of the Peloponnese, the rite was lost everywhere except among the Arcadians, who hadn't been displaced.
With Apries overthrown, Amasis became king. He came from the district of Sais, from a town called Siuph. At first the Egyptians looked down on him because he'd been a commoner from an undistinguished family. But Amasis won them over through cleverness, not force. Among his many treasures was a golden foot-basin in which he and his guests used to wash their feet. He had it broken up and melted down into a statue of a god, which he set up at a prominent spot in the city. The Egyptians flocked to worship it. When Amasis learned about this, he called the people together and told them the truth: this statue they were worshipping so devoutly had been made from the foot-basin they used to vomit into, urinate into, and wash their dirty feet in. "And that," he said, "is exactly my situation. I used to be a commoner, but now I'm your king. Honor me accordingly."
That's how he won the Egyptians over. Here's how he organized his day. Every morning until the marketplace filled up, he worked diligently through whatever business was brought before him. After that, he spent his time drinking and joking around with his companions, behaving in an irreverent and playful manner. His friends were troubled by this and admonished him: "Your Majesty, you're not conducting yourself properly. You should be sitting on your throne all day long, attending to affairs of state. That way the Egyptians would know they're ruled by a great man, and you'd have a better reputation. As it is, you're not behaving like a king at all."
Amasis replied: "When men have bows, they string them when they need to use them and unstring them when they're done. If a bow were kept strung all the time, it would break, and you couldn't use it when you needed it. It's the same with people. If a man is always serious and never allows himself time for play, he'll either go mad or have a stroke without even realizing what's happening. I understand this perfectly well, so I give each part of life -- work and play -- its proper share."
Even before he became king, Amasis had been a drinker and a joker who never took anything too seriously. When his money ran out from drinking and living large, he'd go around stealing. The people he robbed would accuse him and haul him before whatever oracle was in their area. Sometimes the oracles convicted him, sometimes they acquitted him. When he became king, he did an interesting thing: he completely neglected the temples of every god whose oracle had acquitted him, since they were clearly worthless liars. But the temples of gods whose oracles had convicted him? Those he maintained with great devotion, considering them genuine gods with trustworthy oracles.
Amasis built and completed a temple gateway for Athena at Sais that was a true marvel, far surpassing anything before it in height and grandeur, with massive stones of extraordinary quality. He also dedicated great colossal statues and enormous man-headed sphinxes, and he brought in gigantic stones for restoration work. Some came from the quarries opposite Memphis, others -- of truly immense size -- from Elephantine, a voyage of at least twenty days from Sais. But the thing that amazed me most was a monolithic chamber he transported from Elephantine. It took two thousand boatmen three years to move it. The outside dimensions are about thirty-one feet long, twenty-one feet wide, and twelve feet high. Inside, it measures about twenty-eight feet long, eighteen feet wide, and seven and a half feet high. It sits beside the entrance to the temple but was never brought inside. The story goes that as the chamber was being dragged into position, the chief engineer groaned aloud -- exhausted after the years of effort -- and Amasis took this as a bad omen and ordered them to stop. Others say that one of the workers was crushed and killed by the stone while using a lever, and that's why they left it outside.
Amasis dedicated impressive works at all the major temples. At Memphis, in front of the temple of Hephaestus, there's a colossal statue lying on its back, seventy-five feet long, with two twenty-foot statues on the same base, one on each side. There's another colossal statue of the same size at Sais, lying in the same position. Amasis also built the great temple of Isis at Memphis, which is enormously large and well worth seeing.
During the reign of Amasis, Egypt is said to have reached its greatest prosperity ever -- both in terms of what the river gave the land and what the land gave its people. The country had twenty thousand inhabited cities at that time. Amasis also enacted the law requiring every Egyptian to declare annually to the governor of their district how they made their living. Anyone who failed to make this declaration, or who couldn't show an honest livelihood, was punished with death. Solon the Athenian borrowed this law from Egypt and established it in Athens, where they still observe it -- and it's an excellent law.
Amasis was a great friend to the Greeks. Among other gestures of friendship, he gave the city of Naucratis to Greeks who came to settle in Egypt. For those who didn't want to stay permanently but just visited for trade, he granted land where they could build altars and sacred enclosures for their gods. The largest and most famous of these enclosures is called the Hellenion, established jointly by several Greek cities: of the Ionians -- Chios, Teos, Phocaea, and Clazomenae; of the Dorians -- Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus, and Phaselis; and of the Aeolians -- Mytilene alone. These are the cities that share ownership of the Hellenion and appoint the port superintendents; any other city that claims a stake in it has no legitimate right. Separately, the Aeginetans set up their own enclosure to Zeus, the Samians one to Hera, and the Milesians one to Apollo.
In the old days, Naucratis was the only port in Egypt open to foreign trade. If any foreign ship landed at any other mouth of the Nile, the captain had to swear under oath that the landing was unintentional, then sail around to the Canopic mouth. If contrary winds made that impossible, he had to ferry his cargo in small boats all the way around the Delta to Naucratis. That's how privileged Naucratis was.
When the Amphictyonic council contracted out the building of the current temple at Delphi -- the previous one having burned down accidentally -- at a cost of three hundred talents, the people of Delphi were responsible for a quarter of the payment. They went around collecting contributions from various cities, and Egypt was one of their most generous donors. Amasis contributed a thousand talents' weight of alum, while the Greeks living in Egypt gave twenty pounds of silver.
Amasis also formed a friendship and alliance with the people of Cyrene, and he decided to marry a woman from there -- whether because he wanted a Greek wife, or simply to strengthen the alliance, or both. He married a woman named Ladice -- accounts differ on whether she was the daughter of Battus, or Arcesilaus, or Critobulus (a prominent citizen). But whenever Amasis went to bed with her, he found himself unable to perform -- though he had no such problem with his other wives. After this happened repeatedly, Amasis said to her: "Woman, you've put a spell on me. You're going to die more miserably than any woman ever has." Ladice, seeing that her denials only made Amasis angrier, silently made a vow to Aphrodite: if Amasis managed to have intercourse with her that very night -- the only thing that could save her life -- she would send a statue to the goddess at Cyrene. Immediately after the vow, Amasis performed successfully. From then on, he was able to sleep with her every time, and he became deeply attached to her. Ladice kept her vow: she had an image made and sent it to Cyrene, where it was still standing in my time, facing away from the city. When Cambyses conquered Egypt and learned who Ladice was, he sent her back to Cyrene unharmed.
Amasis also made dedications across Greece: at Cyrene, a gold-covered image of Athena and a painted portrait of himself; at the temple of Athena at Lindos on Rhodes, two stone statues and a remarkable linen corselet; at Samos, two wooden statues of himself dedicated to Hera, which were still standing in the great temple behind the doors in my time. His dedication at Samos was on account of his personal friendship with Polycrates, son of Aeaces. At Lindos it was because the temple there was said to have been founded by the daughters of Danaus, who landed there while fleeing the sons of Aegyptus. These were the offerings Amasis made. He was also the first man to conquer Cyprus and force it to pay tribute.
It was against this Amasis, then, that Cambyses son of Cyrus launched his invasion, bringing with him not just the peoples he already ruled but also Greeks -- both Ionians and Aeolians. The cause of the expedition was this: Cambyses had sent an envoy to Egypt requesting Amasis' daughter in marriage. The idea came from an Egyptian who had a personal grudge against Amasis. This man had been a physician -- the best eye doctor in Egypt -- and when Cyrus had asked Amasis to send him the country's top eye specialist, Amasis had selected this man and torn him away from his wife and children to serve in Persia. Nursing this resentment, the doctor urged Cambyses to ask for Amasis' daughter, calculating that Amasis would be tormented either way: if he gave her up, he'd grieve; if he refused, he'd make an enemy of Cambyses.
Amasis was caught in a dilemma. He was afraid of Persian power, but he knew perfectly well that Cambyses wanted the girl not as his wife but as his concubine. So he devised a plan. Apries, the former king, had left behind a daughter named Nitetis -- tall, beautiful, and the last surviving member of the royal house. Amasis dressed her up in fine clothes and gold and sent her off to Persia as his own daughter. But after some time, when Cambyses greeted her using her father's name, the girl spoke up: "My king, you don't realize how you've been deceived. Amasis dressed me up and sent me to you pretending I was his daughter. But I'm really the daughter of Apries -- Amasis' own former master, whom he overthrew and murdered." Those words, and the anger they provoked, are what drove Cambyses against Egypt.
That's the Persian version. The Egyptians tell it differently. They claim Cambyses was actually one of them -- born to this very daughter of Apries -- and that it was Cyrus, not Cambyses, who had requested the girl. But this doesn't hold up. The Egyptians know Persian customs perfectly well, and they know two things: first, bastards can't inherit the throne when there's a legitimate heir; and second, Cambyses was the son of Cassandane, daughter of Pharnaspes, from the Achaemenid family -- not the son of any Egyptian woman. They're distorting the truth to claim kinship with the house of Cyrus.
There's another story told about this, though I don't believe it either. They say that a Persian noblewoman once visited the wives of Cyrus, and when she saw Cassandane's tall, handsome children standing beside her, she praised them lavishly. Cassandane, who was Cyrus' wife, replied bitterly: "Even though I'm the mother of these fine children, Cyrus treats me with contempt and showers his attention on that woman he brought from Egypt." At this, her elder son Cambyses -- who was perhaps ten years old -- said: "Don't worry, Mother. When I'm a man, I'll turn Egypt upside down." The women were astonished, but he remembered it. And so, they say, when he grew up and took the throne, he launched the invasion.
There was another factor too. Among Amasis' foreign mercenaries was a man from Halicarnassus named Phanes -- capable, brave, and well-connected. This Phanes had some sort of falling-out with Amasis and fled Egypt by ship, intending to reach Cambyses. Since Phanes was a man of high standing among the mercenaries and knew all of Egypt's military secrets, Amasis took the matter seriously and sent his most trusted eunuch after him in a warship. The eunuch caught Phanes in Lycia, but Phanes outwitted him -- he got his guards drunk and escaped to Persia. When Cambyses was planning his march on Egypt and worrying about how to get his army safely across the waterless desert, Phanes showed up and told him everything he needed to know about Egypt's defenses. He also solved the logistics problem: he advised Cambyses to send to the king of the Arabians and request safe passage through the desert.
Now, the only practical route into Egypt runs like this. From Phoenicia to the city of Cadytis, the coast belongs to the Palestinian Syrians. From Cadytis -- which is a city roughly the size of Sardis -- the coastal trading stations as far as the city of Ienysos belong to the Arabian king. From Ienysos, the land is Syrian again as far as the Serbonian lake, where Mount Casion extends toward the sea. Beyond the Serbonian lake -- where legend says Typhon lies buried -- the land is Egypt. The stretch between Ienysos and Mount Casion, about three days' march, is a brutally waterless desert.
Now, here's an observation that most people who sail to Egypt haven't noticed. Twice a year, from all over Greece and from Phoenicia, earthenware jars full of wine are shipped into Egypt. Yet you'd be hard-pressed to find a single empty wine jar anywhere in the country.
So where do they all go? Here's what happens. The head man of each district is required to collect all the empty jars from his town and send them to Memphis. In Memphis, they're filled with water and transported out to those waterless stretches of Syria. So the jars that regularly arrive in Egypt full of wine are emptied, then shipped to Syria and added to the water supply already stored there. This system was organized by the Persians after they conquered Egypt. But at the time we're talking about, no water supply existed yet. So Cambyses, following Phanes' advice, sent envoys to the Arabian king. They exchanged pledges of friendship, and the Arabian king granted safe passage.
The Arabians take pledges of friendship as seriously as any people on earth. Here's how they seal them. A third man -- not one of the two parties -- stands between them and uses a sharp stone to cut the palms of both men along the base of the thumb. Then he takes a thread from each man's cloak, dips it in their blood, and smears it on seven stones laid out between them. As he does this, he invokes Dionysus and Urania -- the only gods the Arabians worship. They call Dionysus "Orotalt" and Urania "Alilat." The Arabians also say they cut their hair in the same style as Dionysus -- in a circle, with the temples shaved. Once the pledges are sealed, the man who gave them commends the stranger to his friends, who feel bound to honor the agreement as well.
So the Arabian king, having given his pledge to Cambyses' envoys, loaded camel skins full of water onto every camel he owned and drove them out into the desert to await Cambyses' army. That's the more believable version. There's a less credible account that I should mention too: supposedly there's a great river in Arabia called the Corys, flowing into the Red Sea, and the Arabian king had a pipeline made from stitched-together ox hides and other skins, long enough to reach from this river to the desert. He piped water through it into huge cisterns dug in the waterless region. This version says he used three separate pipelines, feeding three different locations, over a twelve-day stretch. It's quite a claim.
Meanwhile, Psammenitus, the son of Amasis, was camped at the Pelusian mouth of the Nile, waiting for Cambyses. Amasis himself had died before Cambyses reached Egypt. He'd reigned forty-four years without suffering any major disaster. After his death, he was embalmed and buried in the tomb he'd built for himself in the temple. During the brief reign of Psammenitus, something astonishing happened -- the most remarkable omen Egypt had ever experienced: it rained at Thebes. Rain had never fallen there before, the Thebans said, and it hasn't since. In upper Egypt, it simply doesn't rain. But on this occasion, it did -- a drizzling shower.
When the Persians had crossed the desert and made camp near the Egyptian forces, the Greek and Carian mercenaries serving the Egyptian king took out their fury on Phanes for leading a foreign army against Egypt. Here's what they did: they brought Phanes' children -- whom he'd left behind in Egypt -- to the camp where their father could see them. They set up a mixing bowl between the two armies, then one by one led the children forward and cut their throats over the bowl. When they'd slaughtered every last child, they mixed wine and water with the blood in the bowl, and every mercenary drank from it. Only then did they engage the enemy. After a ferocious battle with heavy casualties on both sides, the Egyptians broke and fled.
I personally witnessed something remarkable at the battlefield, as the locals pointed it out to me. The bones of the fallen were still scattered there, the Persian dead on one side and the Egyptian dead on the other. The skulls of the Persians are so thin that you could put a hole in one with a pebble. The skulls of the Egyptians are so thick you could barely crack one with a large stone. The explanation, they said -- and I readily believe it -- is that Egyptians shave their heads from childhood, and the constant sun exposure thickens the bone. This is also why Egyptians almost never go bald. The Persians, by contrast, keep their heads shaded and delicate under felt caps from birth, producing thin, fragile skulls. I saw the same thing at Papremis, among the bones of the Persians killed there alongside Achaemenes son of Darius, by Inaros the Libyan.
The Egyptians fled in disorder and shut themselves up in Memphis. Cambyses sent a Mytilenean ship upriver with a Persian herald aboard to offer surrender terms. But when the Egyptians saw the ship enter Memphis, they swarmed out of the fortress, destroyed the ship, tore the crew limb from limb, and carried the pieces back inside. After a siege, the Egyptians eventually surrendered. The neighboring Libyans, terrified by what had happened, surrendered without a fight, accepting tribute obligations and sending gifts. The people of Cyrene and Barca did the same. Cambyses graciously accepted the Libyans' gifts, but he was contemptuous of the Cyrenaeans' offering -- a mere five hundred pounds of silver -- which he scooped up by the handful and scattered among his soldiers.
Ten days after taking the fortress of Memphis, Cambyses decided to humiliate Psammenitus, who had been king for just six months. He sat Psammenitus down with other Egyptian nobles in the city's outskirts and began testing his spirit. First, he dressed Psammenitus' daughter in slave clothing and sent her out with a pitcher to fetch water, accompanied by other daughters of Egyptian nobles, all similarly dressed as slaves. As the girls walked past, crying and wailing, all the other fathers broke down and wept aloud at the sight of their daughters' degradation. But Psammenitus, seeing it all, only bowed his head to the ground in silence.
After the water-bearers passed, Cambyses sent out Psammenitus' son, along with two thousand young Egyptian men of the same age, all with ropes around their necks and bits in their mouths. They were being led to execution -- the Royal Judges had decreed that ten noble Egyptians must die for each of the Mytilenean crew who'd been torn apart. Psammenitus watched his own son being led to his death, and again he reacted just as he had for his daughter -- sitting in silence while the other Egyptian men wept and grieved around him.
But then, after these two groups had passed, it happened that an old man walked by -- a former companion of the king's who had lost everything and was now a beggar, asking the soldiers for handouts. When Psammenitus saw this man, he let out a great wail of grief, called his friend by name, and beat himself on the head.
Now, watchers had been posted to report everything Psammenitus did. Cambyses, puzzled by his behavior, sent a messenger to ask: "Your master Cambyses wants to know why, when you saw your daughter humiliated and your son led to execution, you didn't cry out or weep for them, but you honored this beggar -- who, he's told, is no relation of yours -- with all these signs of grief."
Psammenitus replied: "Son of Cyrus, my own troubles were too great for tears. But the suffering of my companion called for weeping -- a man who had great wealth and has fallen to beggary at the threshold of old age."
When this answer was reported, it struck everyone as well said. The Egyptians say that Croesus wept -- he had come to Egypt with Cambyses, as fate would have it -- and the Persians present wept too. Even Cambyses felt some pity. He immediately ordered that Psammenitus' son be spared from the executions, and that Psammenitus himself be brought from the outskirts into his presence.
But they were too late for the son -- he'd been the first one killed. Psammenitus himself, however, was brought before Cambyses and lived at court from then on without violence. If he'd been able to keep himself from plotting, he would have been given Egypt to govern, since the Persians customarily honor the sons of kings -- even kings who've revolted against them -- by restoring power to their sons. There are many examples: Thannyras, son of Inaros, was given back his father's power, and so was Pausiris, son of Amyrtaios, even though Inaros and Amyrtaios had done more damage to the Persians than anyone. But Psammenitus was caught stirring up a revolt. When this was discovered, he drank bull's blood and died immediately. That was his end.
From Memphis, Cambyses went to Sais to carry out what he'd come for. He entered Amasis' palace and immediately ordered the body of Amasis dragged out of its tomb. When they'd done this, he had the mummy whipped, had its hair torn out, had it stabbed repeatedly, and subjected to every other outrage they could think of. But the embalmed body held up remarkably well -- it didn't fall apart no matter what they did to it. Finally, exhausted, Cambyses ordered them to burn it. This was an offense against the customs of both nations: the Persians consider fire a god, and burning a corpse would mean giving a human body to a deity, which is sacrilege; the Egyptians believe fire is a living beast that devours everything it touches and dies with it, and since they won't give a man's body to wild beasts, they embalm their dead precisely to prevent this.
The Egyptians, however, have a different version. They say it wasn't actually Amasis' body that was desecrated but that of another Egyptian of similar build. Amasis, they claim, had been warned by an oracle about what would happen to him after death. So he placed the substitute body near the entrance of his tomb and instructed his son to place his own body as deep in the inner chamber as possible. Personally, I don't think these instructions were ever actually given. I suspect the Egyptians just made this up out of pride.
After this, Cambyses planned three military campaigns: one against Carthage, one against the Ammonians, and one against the "Long-lived" Ethiopians in southern Libya. He decided to send his fleet against Carthage, a detachment of his army against the Ammonians, and spies ahead to the Ethiopians -- ostensibly bearing gifts for their king but really to scout the country and investigate whether the famous "Table of the Sun" actually existed.
The Table of the Sun, they say, works like this: in a meadow outside the Ethiopian capital, boiled meat from every kind of animal is laid out. The local authorities supposedly place the meat there at night, and during the day anyone who wants to can come and eat. The natives claim that the earth itself produces this food continually.
After deciding to send the spies, Cambyses immediately summoned men from the Fish-Eaters living near Elephantine who spoke the Ethiopian language. While they were being fetched, he ordered his fleet to sail against Carthage. But the Phoenicians refused. They said they were bound by solemn oaths not to attack their own colonists, and they wouldn't commit such a sacrilege. Without the Phoenicians, the rest of the fleet wasn't strong enough for the job. So Carthage escaped Persian conquest -- Cambyses didn't think it right to force the Phoenicians, since they'd voluntarily joined the Persian empire and the entire navy depended on them. The Cypriots, too, had voluntarily submitted to Persia and were serving in the Egyptian campaign.
When the Fish-Eaters arrived from Elephantine, Cambyses sent them to the Ethiopians bearing gifts: a purple robe, a twisted gold necklace with bracelets, an alabaster box of perfumed ointment, and a jar of palm wine. These Ethiopians are said to be the tallest and most beautiful people on earth. Among their customs, one is especially remarkable: they choose their king by selecting whichever man is tallest and strongest in proportion to his height.
The Fish-Eaters presented the gifts to the Ethiopian king and delivered their message: "The king of Persia, Cambyses, wishes to become your friend and ally. He sends you these gifts -- the things he himself most enjoys."
The Ethiopian king, immediately seeing through the pretense, replied: "The king of Persia didn't send you with gifts because he genuinely wants to be my friend. You've come as spies to scout out my kingdom, and your king is no just man. If he were just, he wouldn't covet another man's land or try to enslave people who have done him no wrong. So here -- give him this bow, and deliver this message: the king of the Ethiopians advises the king of the Persians that when the Persians can draw a bow this size as easily as I do, then -- and only if he brings overwhelming numbers -- should he dare to march against the Long-lived Ethiopians. Until that day, let him thank the gods that they haven't put it into the minds of the Ethiopians to go conquering other people's lands."
With that, he unstrung the bow and handed it over. Then he picked up the purple robe and asked what it was and how it was made. When the Fish-Eaters explained about the murex shellfish and the dyeing process, the king said the men were deceitful, and so were their clothes. Next he asked about the gold necklace and bracelets. When the Fish-Eaters described how they were crafted, the king burst out laughing, thinking they were shackles. "We have stronger chains than these in our country," he said. Then he asked about the ointment, and when they described it, he made the same remark as about the robe. Finally he came to the wine. When he tasted it, he was delighted and asked what the Persian king ate and how long Persians lived. They told him the king ate bread -- explaining first how wheat was grown -- and that the longest a Persian could expect to live was eighty years. The Ethiopian king said he wasn't surprised they lived such short lives, since they fed on dung. In fact, he said, they probably couldn't even manage eighty years if they didn't have the wine to sustain them -- for that, at least, was one thing where the Persians had the better of his people.
When the Fish-Eaters asked the king in turn about the length and manner of Ethiopian life, he said most of them lived to be a hundred and twenty, and some even longer. Their food was boiled meat and their drink was milk. When the spies expressed amazement at these ages, the king took them to a certain spring. After bathing in its water, they found their skin became sleeker and smoother, as if they'd bathed in oil, and it gave off a scent like violets. The spies reported that the water was so remarkably light that nothing could float on it -- not wood, not anything lighter than wood; everything sank straight to the bottom. If this water really is as described, it might well be the reason these people live so long, since they use it for everything. From the spring, the king led them to a prison where all the inmates were bound in golden fetters -- for among these Ethiopians, bronze is the rarest and most precious of metals. After inspecting the prison, they also saw the Table of the Sun.
Last of all, the spies were shown the Ethiopians' coffins, which are said to be made of crystal. Here's how they prepare their dead: they dry out the body -- either the Egyptian way or by some other method -- then cover it completely with plaster and decorate it with paint, making the figure look as much as possible like the living person. Then they encase it in a hollowed-out block of crystal, which they quarry in large quantities and which is easy to work. The body is visible through the crystal on all sides, producing no unpleasant smell and no unseemly effects -- it looks exactly like the actual person. The nearest relatives keep the crystal coffin in their house for a year, giving the dead man the first portion of everything and making offerings to him. After a year, they carry it out and set it up around the outskirts of the city.
After the spies had seen everything, they returned to Cambyses with their report. He flew into a rage and immediately ordered the march against the Ethiopians -- without arranging food supplies, without pausing to consider that he was marching to the ends of the earth. Like a madman, like a man not in his right mind, the instant he heard the Fish-Eaters' report he launched the expedition. He ordered the Greek forces to stay behind in Egypt and took his entire land army.
When he reached Thebes on the march, he detached about fifty thousand men and ordered them to enslave the Ammonians and burn the oracle of Zeus. He continued on with the rest toward Ethiopia. But before the army had covered even a fifth of the distance, their food supplies ran out completely. After that, they ate the pack animals. If Cambyses had come to his senses at this point and turned back, he'd have been a wise man despite his initial blunder. Instead, he pressed on without stopping. The soldiers kept themselves alive by eating whatever they could pull from the ground, as long as there was anything growing. But when they reached the desert sand, some of them did something truly horrifying: in each company of ten, they chose one man by lot and ate him. When Cambyses heard about the cannibalism, he was finally alarmed enough to abandon the Ethiopian campaign and turned back. He arrived at Thebes having lost a huge portion of his army. From Thebes he went down to Memphis and allowed the Greeks to sail home.
That was the Ethiopian expedition. As for the fifty thousand sent against the Ammonians: they marched from Thebes with their guides and are known to have reached the city of Oasis, inhabited by Samians said to belong to the Aeschrionian tribe, a seven-day march from Thebes across the desert. This place is called the "Island of the Blessed" in Greek. The army reached Oasis -- that much is confirmed. But from that point on, no one except the Ammonians themselves, and those who've heard the story from them, can say what happened. The army never reached the Ammonians, and it never came back. The Ammonians tell this story: as the Persian force was crossing the desert between Oasis and their territory, roughly halfway through the journey, a massive south wind rose up while the soldiers were eating their midday meal. It buried them under mountains of sand. They simply vanished.
When Cambyses got back to Memphis, the sacred bull Apis appeared to the Egyptians -- the one the Greeks call Epaphus. The moment Apis appeared, the Egyptians put on their finest clothes and began celebrating. Cambyses, seeing the festivities and assuming the Egyptians were rejoicing at his military disasters, summoned the governors of Memphis and demanded to know why the Egyptians were celebrating now, when they'd done no such thing during his previous visit to the city. They explained that a god had appeared to them, one who shows himself at long intervals, and that whenever he appears, all Egypt celebrates. Cambyses said they were liars and sentenced them to death.
After executing them, he called in the priests, who gave the same explanation. Cambyses replied that he'd soon know whether a "tame god" had really come to Egypt. He ordered them to bring Apis into his presence. Now, the Apis bull is born from a cow that can never conceive again afterward. The Egyptians say a beam of light descends from heaven onto the cow, and from this she produces Apis. The calf is black, with a white square on its forehead, the shape of an eagle on its back, double hairs in its tail, and a mark like a beetle on its tongue.
When the priests brought Apis before him, Cambyses -- already somewhat mad -- drew his dagger, aimed for the bull's belly, and struck it in the thigh. Then he laughed and said to the priests: "You pathetic fools! Are the gods really made of blood and flesh, vulnerable to iron weapons? This is exactly the kind of god Egyptians deserve. But you won't get away with making a fool of me." He ordered his men to whip the priests mercilessly and to kill any Egyptian found celebrating the festival. The celebration was crushed. The priests were flogged. And Apis, wounded in the thigh, lay dying in the temple.
When the bull died of his wound, the priests buried him in secret, without Cambyses' knowledge. But the Egyptians say that immediately after this sacrilege, Cambyses went completely insane -- though he hadn't exactly been in his right mind before.
His first act of madness was murdering his own brother Smerdis, who had the same father and the same mother. He'd already sent Smerdis back from Egypt to Persia out of envy: Smerdis alone of all the Persians had been able to draw the Ethiopian king's great bow, pulling it about two finger-widths -- none of the other Persians could draw it at all. After Smerdis left, Cambyses had a dream: a messenger came from Persia reporting that Smerdis was sitting on the royal throne with his head touching the sky. Terrified that his brother would kill him and seize power, Cambyses sent his most trusted man, Prexaspes, to Persia with orders to kill Smerdis. Prexaspes went to Susa and did it. Some say he took Smerdis out hunting and killed him; others say he brought him to the Red Sea and drowned him.
This was the first of Cambyses' crimes. The next was the murder of his sister -- who had also accompanied him to Egypt, and whom he'd married (she was his full sister, same father and mother). He'd married her in the following way: since no Persian before him had ever married his sister, he summoned the Royal Judges and asked whether any law permitted a man to marry his sister. The Royal Judges -- who hold their positions for life unless convicted of corruption, and who serve as the supreme interpreters of Persian law -- gave him a masterfully diplomatic answer. They said they could find no law that permitted a brother to marry his sister. But they had found a different law: the king of Persia may do whatever he wishes. This way they neither bent the law out of fear nor got themselves killed defending it -- they simply found another law that served the king's purpose. Cambyses married the sister he was in love with, and later took another sister as well. It was the younger one, who'd gone with him to Egypt, whom he killed.
There are two versions of her death. The Greeks say that Cambyses had set a lion cub against a puppy in a fight. As the puppy was losing, another puppy -- its brother -- broke its chain and came to its rescue, and the two together overpowered the cub. Cambyses enjoyed the spectacle, but his wife, sitting beside him, began to weep. When he asked why, she said she had wept watching the puppy come to its brother's aid, because it made her think of Smerdis -- and how there was no one left to help him. For that remark, the Greeks say, Cambyses killed her.
The Egyptians tell it differently. They say the couple was sitting at dinner when the wife picked up a head of lettuce, stripped off all its leaves, and asked her husband: "Which is more beautiful -- the lettuce with its leaves, or stripped bare?" He said with its leaves. She replied: "And yet you did to the house of Cyrus what I've done to this lettuce -- you stripped it bare." He flew into a rage and leaped on her. She was pregnant, and she miscarried and died.
Such were the acts of madness Cambyses committed against his own family -- whether driven mad by the crime against Apis, or by some other cause, since many afflictions can seize a person. In fact, Cambyses is said to have suffered from a serious illness since birth -- what some call the "sacred disease," epilepsy. It would be no surprise if a man with a grievous illness of the body had an unsound mind as well.
He committed acts of madness against the other Persians too. Take Prexaspes, the man he honored above all others and who served as his personal messenger -- whose son served as Cambyses' cup-bearer, itself a high honor. To Prexaspes he said one day: "What kind of man do the Persians think I am? What do they say about me?" Prexaspes replied: "Master, they praise you highly in all respects, except they say you're too fond of wine." This enraged Cambyses. "So the Persians say I drink too much and I'm out of my mind? Then their earlier words were lies too." He was referring to a previous occasion when he'd asked the Persians and Croesus, sitting in council, how he compared to his father Cyrus. The Persians had answered that he was better -- he had everything Cyrus had, plus Egypt and the sea. But Croesus, unsatisfied with this flattery, had said: "In my view, son of Cyrus, you're not yet your father's equal -- you don't yet have a son like the one he left behind in you." Cambyses had been pleased by Croesus' more honest assessment.
But now, remembering that exchange, he said to Prexaspes in fury: "Then let me show you right now whether the Persians are telling the truth or are out of their minds themselves. If I can shoot your son -- standing right there in the doorway -- and hit him in the very center of his heart, that proves the Persians are liars. If I miss, then they're right and I'm insane." He drew his bow and hit the boy. When the boy fell, Cambyses ordered the body cut open to inspect the wound. The arrow was lodged in the heart. He laughed with delight and said to the boy's father: "Well, Prexaspes -- you can see plainly that I'm not mad. It's the Persians who are out of their senses. Now tell me: has anyone in history ever shot so accurately?" Prexaspes, seeing that the man was insane and fearing for his own life, replied: "Master, I don't think even God himself could have hit the mark so well." That was one incident. On another occasion, Cambyses convicted twelve Persians of the highest rank on a trivial charge and buried them alive, head-first.
When Croesus saw this behavior, he judged it was time to speak up: "My king, don't give in to the heat of youth and passion in everything. Restrain yourself. Prudence is a good thing, and foresight is wisdom. You're executing your own people on trivial charges. You're killing men's sons. If you keep this up, beware -- the Persians will revolt. Your father Cyrus charged me specifically to advise you and suggest what I thought was good for you."
He said this out of goodwill. Cambyses replied: "You dare advise me? You, who governed your own country so brilliantly? Who gave my father such wise counsel when you urged him to cross the Araxes and attack the Massagetae on their own ground -- thereby ruining yourself through your own incompetent rule and ruining Cyrus for following your advice? Well, you won't escape now. I've been looking for an excuse to deal with you."
He grabbed his bow to shoot Croesus, but Croesus jumped up and ran out. Since Cambyses couldn't shoot him, he ordered his servants to seize him and kill him. But the servants, knowing their master's volatile moods, hid Croesus instead. Their reasoning: if Cambyses changed his mind and wanted Croesus back, they could produce him and be rewarded for saving his life. If he didn't change his mind, they could always kill him then. Sure enough, not long afterward Cambyses expressed a desire to see Croesus again. The servants told him Croesus was still alive. Cambyses said he was glad -- but he executed the servants for disobeying his orders.
He committed many more such acts of madness against Persians and allies while at Memphis. He opened ancient tombs and examined the dead bodies. He went into the temple of Hephaestus and ridiculed the statue of the god -- which looks very much like the Phoenician figures called Pataikoi that Phoenicians mount on the prows of their warships. For anyone who hasn't seen these: they look like dwarfish men. He also broke into the temple of the Cabiri, where only the priest is allowed to enter, and after thoroughly mocking the images there, he had them burned. These images too look like those of Hephaestus and are said to be the god's children.
From all this evidence, it's clear to me that Cambyses was utterly mad. Otherwise he would never have mocked other people's religious rites and customs. If you were to ask all the peoples of the world to examine every custom in existence and choose the best ones, each group would, after thorough consideration, choose their own. Everyone believes their own customs are the best by far. So only a madman would treat such things as a joke. That all peoples share this conviction about their own customs can be demonstrated by many examples, but here's a particularly good one: Darius, during his reign, once summoned the Greeks at his court and asked them for what price they'd be willing to eat the bodies of their dead fathers. They said no amount of money could induce them to do such a thing. Then Darius called in some Indians of the tribe called the Callatians, who do eat their parents' bodies, and asked them -- in the presence of the Greeks, who were listening through an interpreter -- for what price they'd agree to cremate their fathers instead. The Callatians cried out in horror and begged him to stop saying such dreadful things. That's how deeply custom runs. Pindar was right when he said that "Custom is king of all."
While Cambyses was busy invading Egypt, the Spartans had launched their own expedition -- against Samos and its ruler Polycrates, son of Aeaces. Polycrates had risen up and seized power. At first he'd divided the island three ways, sharing rule with his two brothers, Pantagnotus and Syloson. But then he killed one and banished the younger one, Syloson, and took the whole island for himself. Once in power, he struck up a friendship with Amasis of Egypt, exchanging gifts with him. After that, Polycrates' power grew astonishingly fast. His fame spread not just across Ionia but throughout all of Greece. Every military campaign he launched succeeded. He had a fleet of a hundred fifty-oared warships and a thousand archers, and he plundered everyone without discrimination. As he liked to say, you earn more gratitude from a friend by giving back what you've taken from him than by never taking it in the first place. He conquered many of the islands and numerous mainland cities. He defeated the Lesbians in a sea battle when they came to help the Milesians with their entire force; the captured Lesbians dug the great trench around the walls of Samos, working in chains.
Amasis couldn't help noticing that Polycrates was spectacularly lucky, and it worried him. When the good fortune just kept coming, he wrote Polycrates a letter:
"Amasis to Polycrates, greetings. It is a pleasure to hear that a friend is doing well. But your extraordinary good fortune alarms me, because I know that the divine is jealous. What I'd wish for myself and for those I care about is a life of mixed fortune -- success in some things, failure in others -- rather than success in everything. I've never heard of anyone who prospered in all things and didn't come to a terrible end. So take my advice: think about what you value most, the one thing whose loss would cause you the deepest pain in your heart. Then take that thing and get rid of it in such a way that it can never return to human sight. If your luck still doesn't alternate between good and bad after that, keep applying this remedy."
Polycrates read the letter and recognized it as good advice. He searched among his treasures for the one thing whose loss would grieve him most, and he settled on this: a signet ring he always wore, set in gold, made of emerald stone, the work of Theodorus son of Telecles of Samos. Having decided to throw it away, he manned a fifty-oared galley, sailed out into deep water, and in full view of everyone aboard, took off the ring and hurled it into the sea. Then he sailed home and grieved for his loss.
Five or six days later, a fisherman caught a large, beautiful fish and decided it was too fine for the market -- it deserved to be a gift for the king. He brought it to the palace door and asked to see Polycrates. When admitted, he presented the fish, saying: "My king, when I caught this fish, I thought it wasn't right to take it to market, even though I'm a working man who lives by his hands. It seemed worthy of you and your reign. So I've brought it as a gift." Polycrates was pleased and replied: "You've done very well, and I owe you double thanks -- for your kind words and for the fish itself. Please join us for dinner." The fisherman went home delighted. When the servants cut open the fish, they found Polycrates' signet ring inside its belly. They brought it to Polycrates with great excitement. He realized this was the work of the divine. He wrote down everything that had happened and sent the letter to Amasis in Egypt.
When Amasis read it, he understood that no man can save another from the fate that awaits him. Polycrates was clearly destined for a bad end, since he couldn't shed his prosperity even by throwing it away -- it came right back. So Amasis sent an envoy to Samos announcing that he was breaking off the friendship. He did this so that when some terrible catastrophe finally struck Polycrates, he wouldn't have to grieve for him as a friend.
It was against this same Polycrates -- prosperous in all things -- that the Spartans now launched their expedition. They'd been invited by the Samians who later settled at Cydonia in Crete. Here's the background: Polycrates had secretly sent an envoy to Cambyses while Cambyses was assembling his army for the Egyptian campaign, asking him to also request military support from Samos. Cambyses was happy to oblige and sent a message asking Polycrates for a naval force. Polycrates used this as an opportunity to get rid of the citizens he most suspected of plotting against him. He selected them and sent them off in forty triremes, with instructions to Cambyses never to send them back.
Some say the Samians that Polycrates sent away never even reached Egypt -- that when they got as far as Carpathos, they talked it over and decided not to go any further. Others say they made it to Egypt but were kept under guard there and eventually escaped. In any case, when they sailed back to Samos, Polycrates met them with his fleet and fought them. The returning Samians won the sea battle and landed on the island, but they lost the follow-up battle on land and sailed to Sparta. Some claim the returning Samians actually defeated Polycrates in the naval engagement, but I don't think that's right -- if they'd been able to handle Polycrates on their own, they wouldn't have needed Spartan help. Besides, Polycrates had a large force of foreign mercenaries and native archers. It doesn't make sense that such a small group of returning exiles could beat him. Meanwhile, Polycrates had gathered up the wives and children of his subjects and locked them in the ship sheds, ready to burn them all if his people defected to the exiles' side.
When the exiled Samians reached Sparta, they were brought before the magistrates and gave a long speech pleading for help. The Spartans' response to their first appearance? They said they'd forgotten what was said at the beginning and couldn't follow what was said at the end. The Samians came back a second time, this time bringing a bag. They said nothing except: "This bag needs grain." The Spartans replied that the bag was unnecessary -- the words were enough. Still, they agreed to help.
The Spartans prepared an expedition against Samos. According to the Samians, the Spartans were repaying an old favor -- the Samians had once sent ships to help them against the Messenians. But the Spartans tell a different story. They say they launched the expedition not so much to help the Samians as to get revenge for two thefts: the Samians had stolen a bronze mixing bowl the Spartans were sending as a gift to Croesus, and a linen corselet that Amasis of Egypt had sent to them. The corselet, stolen the year before the bowl, was itself a remarkable piece of work -- made of linen woven with many figures, embroidered with gold and cotton, with each thread composed of 360 individual fibers, all visible to the eye. Amasis had dedicated a similar corselet to Athena at Lindos.
The Corinthians also joined the expedition eagerly, nursing their own grudge against the Samians from a generation earlier. Periander, son of Cypselus -- the tyrant of Corinth -- had sent three hundred sons of Corcyra's leading families to Sardis to be castrated. When the Corinthian escort stopped at Samos, the Samians learned what was happening and told the boys to take sanctuary in the temple of Artemis. Then they refused to let the Corinthians drag them away. When the Corinthians tried to starve the boys out, the Samians created a festival -- which they still celebrate to this day -- in which they held nighttime dances of young men and women, making it a rule that dancers carry cakes of sesame and honey, so the Corcyraean boys could snatch the food and survive. This went on until the Corinthians gave up and left, and the Samians sent the boys safely home to Corcyra.
Now, if the Corinthians and the Corcyraeans had been on good terms after Periander's death, the Corinthians wouldn't have joined the expedition against Samos over this old incident. But the two cities have been bitter enemies ever since Corinth first colonized the island, and this was just another reason for the grudge.
The reason Periander had tried to castrate the Corcyraean boys in the first place was revenge, because the Corcyraeans had started the feud by committing a terrible wrong against him. After Periander killed his wife Melissa, a second misfortune struck him, involving his two sons -- one seventeen, the other eighteen. Their maternal grandfather, Procles, who was ruler of Epidaurus, invited the boys to visit and treated them kindly. As he was sending them home, he said: "Do you know, boys, who killed your mother?"
The elder brother thought nothing of this remark. But the younger, Lycophron, was devastated. When he got back to Corinth, he refused to speak to his father -- wouldn't greet him, wouldn't answer questions, treating him as his mother's killer. Periander, furious, drove his son out of the house.
After banishing Lycophron, Periander asked the elder son what their grandfather had said. The boy described how kindly Procles had treated them but had no memory of the parting remark. Periander pressed him until he remembered and reported the words. Periander, not willing to show any weakness, sent messages to everyone who took Lycophron in, ordering them to turn him out. Whenever the boy was driven from one house and went to another, Periander would threaten his hosts and order them to refuse him. Some people, because he was Periander's son, took him in anyway despite their fear.
Finally Periander issued a public proclamation: anyone who sheltered Lycophron or even spoke to him would have to pay a fine to Apollo. The amount was specified. After this, no one would take the boy in, and even he himself gave up trying, since it had been forbidden. He just lay around in the porticos, exposed to the elements. On the fourth day, Periander saw his son in this wretched, starving condition and felt pity. Setting his anger aside, he approached him and said:
"Son, which would you rather have -- the miserable existence you're living now, or to inherit the power and wealth I have, by simply submitting to your father's will? You're my son, prince of wealthy Corinth, yet you've chosen the life of a vagrant by defying the one person you should defy least. If some tragedy occurred in the matter that's turned you against me, it happened to me first -- I share in the misfortune more than anyone, since I was the one who did it. Now that you've learned how much better it is to be envied than pitied, and what a terrible thing it is to be angry at your parents and those who are more powerful than you, come home."
Lycophron said nothing in reply except that his father now owed a fine to the god for speaking to him. Periander, seeing that his son's stubbornness was incurable, sent him away to Corcyra, which he also ruled, to get him out of sight. Then he went to war against his father-in-law Procles, blaming him for everything. He conquered Epidaurus and took Procles prisoner.
Years later, when Periander had grown old and felt he could no longer manage the government effectively, he sent to Corcyra to call Lycophron home to take over the throne. He saw no potential in the elder son -- the boy was clearly not bright enough. Lycophron didn't even bother to reply to the messenger. Then Periander sent his daughter -- Lycophron's sister -- hoping she could be more persuasive. She went to Corcyra and spoke to her brother:
"Brother, would you really rather the throne fall into strangers' hands and our father's wealth be plundered than come home and claim what's yours? Come back. Stop punishing yourself. Pride is a destructive luxury. Don't cure evil with more evil. Plenty of people choose compromise over strict justice, and plenty of people, in pursuing their mother's cause, have lost their father's inheritance. Tyranny is a slippery thing, and many men want it. Our father is old now and past his prime. Don't give away what belongs to you."
She said the most persuasive things she could -- her father had coached her beforehand. But Lycophron replied that he would never come to Corinth as long as he knew his father was alive. When his sister reported this, Periander sent a third time and proposed a swap: he'd go to Corcyra himself, if Lycophron would come to Corinth and take the throne. The son agreed. But when the Corcyraeans heard about the arrangement, they killed the young man to prevent Periander from coming to their island. That's why Periander took his revenge on the Corcyraean boys.
So the Spartans came with a large force and besieged Samos. They attacked the walls and briefly seized a tower on the seaward side of the city's outskirts, but Polycrates counterattacked with a strong force and drove them back. Meanwhile, near the upper tower on the mountain ridge, the foreign mercenaries and many Samians themselves sallied out and briefly held their ground against the Spartans before falling back. The Spartans pursued, cutting them down.
If every Spartan there had fought as well as Archias and Lycopas, Samos would have fallen that day. Those two alone charged into the city with the retreating Samians, got cut off from retreat, and were killed inside the walls. I personally met the grandson of this Archias -- another Archias, son of Samius, son of Archias -- in his home district of Pitane. He honored the Samians above all other foreigners because his grandfather had died gloriously at Samos and been given a public funeral by the Samians. His father had been named "Samius" in honor of that event.
After forty days of siege with no progress, the Spartans packed up and went home. There's a less credible version that says Polycrates bought them off by minting a large quantity of lead coins, plating them with gold, and giving them to the Spartans, who accepted the bribe and sailed away. This was the first Spartan military expedition into Asia.
The Samian exiles, abandoned by the Spartans, also sailed away. They needed money, so they headed to Siphnos. The Siphnians were at the peak of their prosperity at that time, the wealthiest of all the islanders, thanks to their gold and silver mines. Their treasury at Delphi, built with a tithe of the mining revenue, was as richly furnished as the finest there. Every year the citizens divided the mining profits among themselves. When they were setting up the treasury, they'd consulted the oracle about whether their prosperity would last. The Pythia replied:
"But when with white shall be shining the hall of the city in Siphnos, / And when the market is white of brow, then one wary is needed -- / Beware of an army of wood and a red-colored herald."
At that time, the Siphnians' marketplace and city hall had just been decorated with Parian marble.
The Siphnians couldn't make sense of this oracle, not when it was first given and not when the Samians showed up. As soon as the Samians arrived at Siphnos, they sent one of their ships ahead with envoys. Now, in those days all ships were painted red -- that's what the Pythia meant by the "red-colored herald." The envoys asked the Siphnians to lend them ten talents. When the Siphnians refused, the Samians started plundering their countryside. The Siphnians came out to fight but were defeated, with many cut off and shut out of their city. The Samians then extracted a hundred talents from them.
From the people of Hermione, the Samians purchased the island of Hydra, off the Peloponnesian coast, and entrusted it to the Troizenians. They themselves settled at Cydonia in Crete -- not because that was their original destination, but to drive out the Zakynthians who were already there. They prospered for five years, building the temples that still stand at Cydonia, including the temple of Dictyna. In the sixth year, the Aeginetans, together with the Cretans, defeated them in a sea battle and enslaved them. They cut off the boar-shaped prows of the Samian ships and dedicated them at the temple of Athena on Aegina. The Aeginetans did this because of an old grudge: the Samians had once attacked Aegina during the reign of King Amphicrates, doing and receiving considerable damage.
I've given the Samians this much attention because they've produced three of the greatest engineering works in the Greek world. First, a tunnel dug through a mountain about 900 feet high -- the tunnel is nearly a mile long and eight feet high and wide. Running through the entire length is a secondary channel, twenty cubits deep and three feet wide, that carries water through pipes from a large spring into the city. The engineer was Eupalinus of Megara, son of Naustrophus. Second, there's a breakwater in the harbor, extending into the sea to a depth of about 120 feet and stretching more than a quarter mile in length. Third, they built a temple that's larger than any other temple we know of. The first architect was Rhoecus, son of Philes, a Samian. That's why I've gone on at length about the Samians.
Now, while Cambyses was spending his time in Egypt, going further and further out of his mind, two brothers who were Magi rose up against him. One of them had been left behind by Cambyses to manage his household. This man, perceiving that the murder of Smerdis was being kept secret and that most Persians still believed Smerdis was alive, saw his opportunity to seize the throne. His plan depended on his brother -- the one who, as I said, joined in the rebellion. This brother bore a close physical resemblance to Smerdis, the son of Cyrus whom Cambyses had killed. Not only did he look like Smerdis, he even shared his name: Smerdis. The first Magus, Patizeithes, convinced his brother that he'd handle everything, then brought him in and sat him on the royal throne. He sent heralds throughout the provinces -- including one to the army in Egypt -- proclaiming that everyone must obey Smerdis son of Cyrus from now on, not Cambyses.
The heralds made their proclamations, and the one assigned to Egypt found Cambyses and his army at Agbatana in Syria. He stood in the midst of the camp and announced the Magus' orders. When Cambyses heard this, he assumed it was true -- that he'd been betrayed by Prexaspes, who must not have actually killed Smerdis when sent to do so. He turned on Prexaspes: "Is this how you carried out the task I gave you?"
"Master," Prexaspes replied, "this report is not true. Your brother Smerdis has not risen against you, and you'll have no trouble from him, great or small. I carried out your orders personally and buried him with my own hands. If the dead are coming back to life, then you'd better expect Astyages the Mede to rise up against you too. But if things are as they were before, then nothing new can spring from that quarter. I suggest we send men to chase down this herald and interrogate him -- find out who actually sent him to tell us to obey Smerdis as king."
Cambyses liked this advice. The herald was immediately tracked down and brought back. Prexaspes questioned him: "You say you come as a messenger from Smerdis son of Cyrus. Now tell the truth and go in peace. Did Smerdis himself appear before you and give you this order, or was it someone in his service?"
The herald replied: "I've never once laid eyes on Smerdis son of Cyrus, not since King Cambyses marched to Egypt. It was the Magus whom Cambyses left in charge of his household who gave me the message, saying that Smerdis son of Cyrus was the one ordering it."
The herald spoke without adding any lies. Cambyses said: "Prexaspes, you did your duty well and are cleared of blame. But who among the Persians has risen up against me using Smerdis' name?" Prexaspes replied: "I think I understand what's happened, my king. The Magi have risen against you -- Patizeithes, the one you left as household steward, and his brother Smerdis."
When Cambyses heard the name Smerdis, the truth of the situation hit him all at once. He suddenly understood the real meaning of his dream -- in which someone had reported that Smerdis was sitting on the royal throne with his head touching the sky. He realized he'd murdered his own brother for nothing. He began to weep for Smerdis and to grieve over his entire situation. Then, in a surge of determination, he leaped onto his horse, intending to march his army to Susa as fast as possible to overthrow the Magus. But as he leaped up, the cap fell off his sword sheath, and the bare blade struck his thigh -- in exactly the same spot where he'd stabbed the sacred bull Apis.
Believing the wound was mortal, Cambyses asked the name of the town. They told him: Agbatana. Now, an oracle from Buto had told him long ago that he would die in Agbatana. He'd always assumed this meant Agbatana in Media -- the capital, where he expected to die of old age. But the oracle, it turned out, meant Agbatana in Syria. When he learned the name and understood -- struck by the double blow of the Magus' coup and his wound -- he came to his senses at last and said: "Here it is fated that Cambyses son of Cyrus shall end his life."
That was all he said at first. But about twenty days later, he summoned the most eminent Persians in his army and addressed them:
"Persians, I must reveal to you something I've been hiding from everyone. While I was in Egypt, I had a vision in my sleep -- would to the gods I'd never had it. A messenger came from Persia and reported that Smerdis was sitting on the royal throne with his head touching the sky. Fearing that my brother would strip me of my power, I acted quickly instead of wisely. It seems that no man can avert what destiny has decreed. So I, fool that I was, sent Prexaspes to Susa to kill Smerdis. After this terrible deed was done, I lived without worry, never imagining that with Smerdis gone, some other man might rise against me. I completely misjudged what was coming. I murdered my brother for no reason, and I've lost the kingdom anyway -- because it was Smerdis the Magus, not my brother, that the divine power was warning me about in the dream.
"The deed is done, and I tell you: you no longer have Smerdis son of Cyrus. The Magi are your masters now -- the one I left as steward of my household, and his brother Smerdis. The man who should have avenged the dishonor I've suffered from the Magi has died at the hands of his own family. Since he's gone, I must charge you, as the next best thing, with what I want done after my death.
"In the name of the gods of the royal house -- and especially those of you who are Achaemenids, hear me -- I charge you: do not let power fall back into the hands of the Medes. If they won it by trickery, take it back by trickery. If they won it by force, take it back by force. If you do this, may the earth bring forth its fruit, may your wives and cattle be fruitful, and may you remain free forever. But if you fail to recover the kingdom, or don't even try, I curse you with the opposite of every blessing, and may every Persian end his life as I am ending mine."
With those words, Cambyses began to weep, lamenting his entire fate.
When the Persians saw their king weeping, they tore their clothes and mourned without restraint. Soon after, the bone became diseased and the wound turned gangrenous. Cambyses son of Cyrus was dead, having reigned a total of seven years and five months. He left behind no children at all, male or female.
The Persians who were present, however, simply did not believe that the Magi were in control. They were convinced that Cambyses had made up the story about Smerdis' death to turn all the Persians against his brother. They firmly believed that Smerdis son of Cyrus was their rightful king. Prexaspes reinforced this belief by vigorously denying that he'd killed Smerdis -- after all, with Cambyses dead, it wasn't safe for him to admit he'd killed a son of Cyrus with his own hands.
So when Cambyses died, the Magus took over as king without opposition, impersonating his namesake Smerdis son of Cyrus. He reigned for seven months, making up the remainder of Cambyses' eighth year. During that time, he did his subjects so much good that after his death, all the peoples of Asia mourned him -- all except the Persians themselves. He sent messengers throughout his empire proclaiming three years' exemption from military service and from taxes.
He made this announcement as soon as he took power. But in the eighth month, the deception was exposed, and here's how it happened. There was a nobleman named Otanes, son of Pharnaspes -- among the most eminent Persians in both birth and wealth. He was the first to suspect that the king was not Smerdis son of Cyrus but an imposter. His clue was that the king never left the royal fortress and never summoned any of the Persian nobility into his presence. Acting on his suspicion, Otanes did the following: Cambyses had married Otanes' daughter, a woman named Phaidyme. The Magus had kept her along with all of Cambyses' other wives. Otanes sent a message to his daughter asking who the man was that she was sleeping with -- was it Smerdis son of Cyrus, or someone else? She sent back word that she didn't know. She'd never seen Smerdis son of Cyrus before and had no idea who her husband really was.
Otanes sent a second message: "If you don't know Smerdis son of Cyrus by sight, ask Atossa. She'd certainly recognize her own brother." His daughter replied that she couldn't speak to Atossa or any of the other wives: "As soon as this man -- whoever he is -- became king, he separated us all into different quarters."
This made things even clearer to Otanes. He sent a third message: "Daughter, it's your duty as a woman of noble birth to take whatever risk your father asks of you. If this man is not Smerdis son of Cyrus but the person I think he is, he shouldn't get away with sleeping in your bed and sitting on the Persian throne. He must be punished. So here's what I need you to do. The next time he sleeps beside you, wait until he's sound asleep. Then feel for his ears. If he has ears, you're sleeping with Smerdis son of Cyrus. If he doesn't, it's Smerdis the Magus."
Phaidyme sent back word that this would be extremely dangerous -- if the man had no ears and she was caught feeling for them, he'd certainly kill her. But she agreed to do it. Now, the reason for the ear test was this: Cyrus had once had this particular Magus's ears cut off as punishment for some serious crime. Phaidyme waited until her turn came to sleep with the Magus -- the Persian custom being that wives visit in regular rotation. She lay down beside him, and when he had fallen into a deep sleep, she felt for his ears. It wasn't difficult to tell: the man had no ears at all. As soon as day broke, she sent word to her father.
Otanes immediately brought in Aspathines and Gobryas, leading Persians and his most trusted friends, and told them everything. As it turned out, they'd had their own suspicions. They agreed on a plan: each man would recruit the Persian he trusted most. Otanes brought in Intaphrenes, Gobryas brought in Megabyzus, and Aspathines brought in Hydarnes. That made six. Then, by good fortune, Darius son of Hystaspes arrived in Susa from the Persian homeland, where his father was governor. The six agreed to bring him in, making seven.
The seven met, exchanged pledges of loyalty, and deliberated. When it was Darius' turn to speak, he said: "I thought I was the only one who knew the truth -- that the Magus is reigning as king and that Smerdis son of Cyrus is dead. That's exactly why I came here in such urgency: to plot the Magus's destruction. Since I find that you know it too, and I'm not alone, I say we act immediately. Delay is the worse choice."
Otanes replied: "Son of Hystaspes, you're clearly the son of a noble father and proving yourself no less capable. But don't rush this without thinking it through. We need more men before we make our move."
Darius answered: "Listen carefully, all of you. If you follow Otanes' suggestion, you'll die miserable deaths. Someone will inform the Magus for personal gain. You should have done this on your own, without bringing in others. But since you chose to widen the circle and let me in on it, then either we act today, or I promise you this -- if you let this day pass, I won't wait to be denounced. I'll go to the Magus myself and tell him everything."
Otanes, seeing Darius' intensity, said: "Since you're forcing our hand and won't allow any delay, fine -- explain how we're supposed to get into the palace and attack the Magi. You must know there are guards posted everywhere."
Darius replied: "Otanes, there are many things that can't be explained in words but only in action, and other things that sound good in discussion but produce nothing worthwhile. As for the guards -- you know they won't be hard to get past. First, given who we are, no one will stop us, partly out of respect and partly from fear. Second, I have the perfect excuse for getting us in: I'll say I've just arrived from the Persian homeland with an urgent message from my father to the king. Where a lie needs to be told, let it be told. We're all aiming at the same goal -- those who lie and those who tell the truth. Some lie because they expect to gain by persuading others with their lies. Others tell the truth because they expect to profit from their honesty. Different methods, same objective. If there were nothing to gain, the truth-teller would lie just as readily, and the liar would speak the truth. Any doorkeeper who lets us pass willingly will be rewarded later. Any who tries to block us should be treated as an enemy on the spot. Then we push through and get to work."
Gobryas spoke up: "Friends, when will we ever have a better chance to reclaim our kingdom -- or die trying? We're Persians, being ruled by a Mede, a Magus, a man with no ears! Those of you who were with Cambyses when he was dying remember what he laid upon us -- to recover the kingdom from the Magi. We didn't believe him then. We thought he was just trying to deceive us and stir up trouble. But now I vote we follow Darius' plan: let's go straight from this meeting to attack the Magus."
Everyone agreed.
While the Seven were plotting, something else was happening by coincidence. The Magi had decided to recruit Prexaspes as an ally, for three reasons: Cambyses had wronged him terribly by killing his son; Prexaspes was the only person who knew for certain that Smerdis son of Cyrus was dead, having killed him with his own hands; and Prexaspes carried enormous authority among the Persians. So they summoned him, secured his friendship with pledges and oaths, made him swear to keep their deception secret, and promised him immense rewards. When Prexaspes agreed, the Magi proposed something further: they would assemble all the Persians at the palace wall, and Prexaspes would climb a tower and declare publicly that the people were living under the rule of Smerdis son of Cyrus and no one else. They chose Prexaspes for this because he had the greatest credibility among the Persians, and he'd repeatedly denied killing Smerdis.
Prexaspes said he was willing. The Magi assembled the Persians and sent him up the tower to address the crowd. But he chose to forget everything they'd asked him to say. Instead, he began with Achaemenes and traced the entire genealogy of Cyrus on his father's side. When he reached Cyrus himself, he described all the great things Cyrus had done for the Persians. Then he revealed the truth. He said he'd kept it hidden before because it wasn't safe to tell, but now he was compelled to speak. He confessed that he himself had killed Smerdis son of Cyrus, on Cambyses' orders, and that the Magi were now ruling the empire. He called down terrible curses on the Persians if they failed to recover the throne and take revenge on the Magi. Then he threw himself headfirst from the tower.
That was the end of Prexaspes -- a man who had been respected throughout his life.
The Seven Persians, having resolved to attack the Magi immediately, said their prayers and set out. They knew nothing about what had happened with Prexaspes. But when they were halfway to the palace, they got the news. They stepped aside to reconsider. Otanes and his supporters argued strongly for delay -- things were too volatile. Darius and his supporters pushed for immediate action. While they were debating, seven pairs of hawks appeared, chasing two pairs of vultures, tearing at them and pulling out their feathers. The moment all seven saw this, they endorsed Darius' plan and headed for the palace, encouraged by the omen.
When they reached the gates, it went exactly as Darius had predicted. The guards, deferential toward men of such rank and unsuspecting of any violent intent, let them pass through without a question -- as if guided by divine will. When they entered the courtyard, they encountered the eunuchs who carried messages to the king. These eunuchs asked what they wanted, and when the seven tried to push forward, the eunuchs turned threatening -- berating the gate guards for letting them in and trying to block their way. The seven gave each other the signal, drew their daggers, and stabbed the eunuchs on the spot. Then they ran for the Magi's chamber.
Both Magi happened to be inside at that moment, discussing the Prexaspes situation. When they heard the eunuchs screaming, they ran back into the room and, realizing what was happening, turned to fight. One managed to grab his bow and arrows. The other snatched up a spear. The bowman's weapons were useless -- the attackers were already on top of him at close range. But the one with the spear fought effectively, striking Aspathines in the thigh and Intaphrenes in the eye. Intaphrenes lost the eye but survived. While one Magus wounded two of the attackers, the other -- finding his bow and arrows useless -- fled into an adjoining bedroom, trying to shut the door behind him. Two of the seven, Darius and Gobryas, burst in after him. Gobryas grappled with the Magus in the dark. Darius stood over them with his dagger drawn but hesitated, afraid of stabbing Gobryas by mistake.
"What are you waiting for?" Gobryas shouted. "Use your hands!"
"I'm afraid I'll hit you," Darius said.
"Thrust your blade through us both if you have to!" Gobryas answered.
Darius drove his dagger forward and hit the Magus.
After killing both Magi and cutting off their heads, they left behind the two wounded men to guard the fortress. The other five ran out into the streets carrying the Magi's heads, shouting and clanging their weapons, calling on every Persian to join them and showing the evidence. At the same time, they killed every Magus they encountered. When the Persians heard what the Seven had done and understood the Magi's deception, they drew their own daggers and hunted down every Magus they could find. If night hadn't fallen and stopped them, not a single Magus in Persia would have survived. The Persians celebrate this day above all others, with a great festival called the Magophonia -- the Massacre of the Magi. On this day, no Magus is permitted to appear in public; they all stay shut inside their houses.
After the tumult died down and five days had passed, the men who had overthrown the Magi met to deliberate about the future form of government. They delivered speeches that some Greeks refuse to believe were actually made -- but made they were.
Otanes argued for giving power to the people. He said: "It seems best to me that no single one of us should be sole ruler anymore. That's neither pleasant nor beneficial. You saw how far the arrogance of Cambyses went, and you experienced the arrogance of the Magus. How can one-man rule be a well-ordered system when the ruler can do whatever he wants without answering to anyone? Take the best man alive and put him in that position, and it will change him. The good things he enjoys breed arrogance; envy is planted in human nature from birth. With those two qualities, a man has every vice. He'll commit acts of reckless violence -- sometimes from the arrogance that comes with having too much, sometimes from sheer envy. You'd think a tyrant would be free from envy, since he has everything, but in fact he's the opposite: he resents the best of his subjects for simply being alive and thriving. He delights in the worst citizens and eagerly listens to slanderers. He's impossibly inconsistent -- show him moderate respect and he's offended you're not groveling enough; grovel before him and he despises you as a flatterer. And worst of all: he overturns ancestral customs, forces himself on women, and puts men to death without trial.
"Government by the many, on the other hand, has the most beautiful name of all: equality. The people don't do any of the things a tyrant does. Offices are assigned by lot. Magistrates are held accountable for their actions. All decisions are referred to the public assembly. Therefore I propose we abandon monarchy and give power to the people. In the many lies everything."
Megabyzus argued for oligarchy: "I agree with everything Otanes said against tyranny. But his proposal to hand power to the masses is wrong. Nothing is more thoughtless or more violent than a worthless mob. To escape the arrogance of a tyrant only to fall under the arrogance of an undisciplined populace? That's unbearable. A tyrant at least knows what he's doing. The common people don't even know that much. How could they? They've never been taught, they've never figured anything out for themselves, they just rush headlong into things like a flooding river, with no understanding. Let democracy be the choice of Persia's enemies. I say we choose a group of the best men and give them the power. We ourselves would be among them, and the best men will naturally produce the best policies."
Darius argued for monarchy: "Megabyzus was right about the mob but wrong about oligarchy. Consider three forms of government, each at its best: the best democracy, the best oligarchy, the best monarchy. Monarchy is far superior. Nothing can be better than the rule of one man -- the best man -- because he'll use excellent judgment to govern the people without reproach, and military plans against enemies will be kept secret.
"In an oligarchy, though, when several men are all striving to serve the state, fierce personal rivalries inevitably spring up between them. Everyone wants to be the leader, everyone wants their counsel to prevail. These rivalries produce factions. Factions produce violence. Violence ends in one-man rule. Which just proves that monarchy was best all along.
"When the common people rule, corruption is inevitable. And when corruption infects public life, the corrupt don't become enemies of each other -- they become close friends, conspiring together in secret to damage the state. This goes on until eventually some champion of the people rises up and puts a stop to it. The people admire this man, and before you know it, he's a monarch. Here again we see that everything leads back to one-man rule.
"Finally, to settle the question with a single point: where did our freedom come from? Who gave it to us? The people? An oligarchy? A monarch? Since we were set free by one man, I say we should preserve that system. And beyond that, we shouldn't discard our ancestral customs when they've served us well."
Three proposals, then. The other four members of the Seven sided with Darius. Otanes, seeing his position defeated, addressed the group:
"Fellow conspirators, it's clear that one of us must become king -- whether chosen by lot, by popular vote, or by some other method. But I will not compete for the throne. I have no desire to rule, and I have no desire to be ruled. I withdraw from the competition on this condition: that neither I nor any of my descendants will ever be subject to any of you."
The other six agreed to these terms. Otanes stepped aside. To this day, the house of Otanes remains the only free family in Persia, subject to royal authority only as far as they choose to be, provided they don't break Persian law.
The remaining six discussed how to select a king in the fairest way. They agreed that if the kingship went to any of the others, Otanes and his descendants would receive special gifts forever: a Median robe each year and all the presents considered most valuable among the Persians -- in recognition of his being the first to conceive the conspiracy and organize them all. In addition, they decided that all seven would have the right to enter the royal palace without being announced, unless the king was sleeping with his wife. And the king could only marry from the families of the other six conspirators. As for choosing the king himself, they settled on this method: they would ride to the outskirts of the city at dawn, and whichever man's horse neighed first at sunrise would be king.
Now, Darius had a clever groom named Oibares. After the meeting broke up, Darius went to him and said: "Oibares, here's how we've agreed to decide the kingship: the man whose horse neighs first at sunrise tomorrow will be king. If you have any tricks, figure out how to win this for me."
Oibares replied: "Master, if your becoming king truly hangs on this, take heart and don't worry. No one else will be king before you. I have my methods."
"Then do whatever you're going to do," Darius said. "Our trial is tomorrow."
That night, Oibares took one of the mares -- the one Darius' horse was most attracted to -- and led her out to the spot in the suburbs where they'd be riding the next morning. He tied her up there, then brought Darius' stallion and led him around her in circles, close enough to touch, and finally let him mount her.
At dawn, the six rode out as agreed. As they passed through the suburbs, when they reached the spot where the mare had been tethered the night before, Darius' horse broke forward and neighed. At that exact moment, lightning flashed and thunder cracked from a clear sky. These signs, coming together with the neigh, confirmed Darius' claim as if by divine design. The other five immediately dismounted and bowed before Darius.
Some say that was Oibares' trick. Others tell it differently: that Oibares rubbed his hands on the mare's genitals, then kept his hand hidden inside his trousers. At dawn, when the horses were released, he pulled out his hand and held it to the nostrils of Darius' horse. The stallion, smelling the mare, snorted and neighed. The Persians tell the story both ways.
And so Darius son of Hystaspes became king. All the peoples of Asia were his subjects -- conquered first by Cyrus, then again by Cambyses -- except the Arabians, who had never submitted to Persian rule but were considered allies, having granted Cambyses passage to Egypt. Without Arabian cooperation, the Persians wouldn't have been able to invade Egypt at all. Darius secured his position with the most prestigious marriages available: he married two daughters of Cyrus -- Atossa (who had previously been married to her brother Cambyses and then to the Magus) and the virgin Artystone. He also married Parmys, daughter of Smerdis son of Cyrus, and the daughter of Otanes, the man who had exposed the Magus. Power filled his hands completely. His first act was to commission a stone carving and set it up: it depicted a man on horseback, with this inscription: "Darius son of Hystaspes, by the excellence of his horse" -- naming the horse -- "and of his groom Oibares, won the kingdom of Persia."
After establishing himself as king, Darius organized his realm into twenty provinces -- the Persians call them satrapies -- and appointed a governor over each one. He then fixed the tribute that each province owed, grouping neighboring peoples together with the main ethnic group or, in some cases, assigning more distant peoples to various provincial units. Those paying in silver used the Babylonian talent as their standard; those paying in gold used the Euboean talent. (A Babylonian talent equals about seventy-eight Euboean pounds.)
Under Cyrus and again under Cambyses, there had been no fixed system of tribute -- people simply brought gifts as they saw fit. It was because of this formalized tax system, and similar bureaucratic measures, that the Persians have a saying about their three kings: Darius was a shopkeeper, Cambyses was a tyrant, and Cyrus was a father. Darius got his label because he handled everything like a businessman; Cambyses because he was cruel and contemptuous of everyone; and Cyrus because he was gentle and devoted to their welfare.
Here, then, are the provinces and what each one paid.
The first division comprised the Ionians, the Magnesians of Asia, the Aeolians, Carians, Lycians, Milyans, and Pamphylians -- all assessed together at four hundred talents of silver.
The second division -- the Mysians, Lydians, Lasonians, Cabalians, and Hytennians -- paid five hundred talents.
The third -- the peoples along the Hellespont on the right as you sail in, plus the Phrygians, the Thracians of Asia, the Paphlagonians, Mariandynians, and Syrians -- paid three hundred and sixty talents.
The fourth was Cilicia, which owed three hundred and sixty white horses (one for every day of the year) plus five hundred talents of silver. Of the silver, a hundred and forty talents went to maintain the cavalry that guarded Cilician territory, and the remaining three hundred and sixty went to Darius.
The fifth division started from the city of Posideion, founded by Amphilochus son of Amphiaraus on the Cilician-Syrian border, and extended all the way to Egypt, excluding Arabian territory (which was tax-exempt). It included all of Phoenicia, Palestinian Syria, and Cyprus, and paid three hundred and fifty talents.
The sixth was Egypt, along with the bordering regions of Libya, plus Cyrene and Barca, which were attached to the Egyptian province. This division brought in seven hundred talents -- and that was apart from the income generated by the fish of Lake Moeris, and apart from the grain that was contributed separately. The grain amounted to a hundred and twenty thousand bushels, supplied to feed the Persian garrison at the White Fortress in Memphis and their mercenary troops.
The seventh division -- the Sattagydians, Gandarians, Dadicans, and Aparytians, assessed together -- paid a hundred and seventy talents.
The eighth was Susa and the rest of the Kissian territory: three hundred talents.
The ninth was Babylon and the rest of Assyria: a thousand talents of silver, plus five hundred castrated boys.
The tenth -- Ecbatana and the rest of Media, along with the Paricanians and Orthocorybantians -- paid four hundred and fifty talents.
The eleventh -- the Caspians, Pausicans, Pantimathians, and Dareitians together -- paid two hundred talents.
The twelfth was the Bactrians and their neighbors as far as the Aeglians: three hundred and sixty talents.
The thirteenth -- Pactyike, the Armenians, and the peoples bordering them as far as the Black Sea -- paid four hundred talents.
The fourteenth -- the Sagartians, Sarangians, Thamanaians, Utians, Mycians, and the inhabitants of the islands in the Red Sea (where the king settles the people called "the Deported") -- paid six hundred talents in all.
The fifteenth -- the Sacae and the Caspians -- paid two hundred and fifty talents.
The sixteenth -- the Parthians, Chorasmians, Sogdians, and Areians -- paid three hundred talents.
The seventeenth was the Paricanians and the Asian Ethiopians: four hundred talents.
The eighteenth -- the Matienians, Saspeirians, and Alarodians -- paid two hundred talents.
The nineteenth -- the Moschians, Tibarenians, Macronians, Mossynoecians, and Mares -- paid three hundred talents.
The twentieth and final division was India, by far the most populous nation on earth. The Indians paid the largest tribute of all: three hundred and sixty talents of gold dust.
Now, if you convert everything to a single standard -- Babylonian silver talents to Euboean -- the silver comes to nine thousand eight hundred and eighty talents. And if you value gold at thirteen times the weight of silver, the Indian gold dust alone equals four thousand six hundred and eighty Euboean talents. Add it all together, and the total annual tribute collected by Darius came to fourteen thousand five hundred and sixty Euboean talents. I am leaving out the smaller amounts and rounding down.
This was the tribute that came in from Asia and a small part of Libya. As time went on, additional revenue arrived from the Aegean islands and from the European peoples as far as Thessaly. The king stores this tribute in the following way: he melts down the metal and pours it into clay jars. When the jars are full, he breaks away the clay and has solid ingots of metal. Whenever he needs money, he simply cuts off however much he requires.
Those were the provinces and their assessments. Persia itself, you will notice, was not on the list -- the Persians occupy their own land free of any tribute. Several other peoples also paid no fixed tribute but brought gifts instead. The Ethiopians who border Egypt -- the ones Cambyses subdued during his march against the Long-Lived Ethiopians, the ones who live near the sacred mountain of Nysa and celebrate festivals of Dionysus -- these Ethiopians and their neighbors brought gifts every two years, and still do down to my own time: two large measures of unrefined gold, two hundred blocks of ebony, five Ethiopian boys, and twenty large elephant tusks. The Colchians and the peoples bordering them up to the Caucasus range (for Persian rule extends to those mountains, though the peoples beyond them to the north pay Persia no attention whatsoever) -- these brought self-imposed gifts every four years, and still do in my time: a hundred boys and a hundred girls. And the Arabians brought a thousand talents of frankincense every year. Such were the gifts these peoples brought the king, over and above the regular tribute.
Now let me explain how the Indians obtain all that gold dust they bring to the king. The part of India that faces the rising sun is nothing but sand. Of all the peoples in Asia about whom we have any reliable information, the Indians live farthest to the east, nearest the sunrise. East of them, the land is uninhabitable desert.
There are many Indian tribes, and they do not all speak the same language. Some are nomadic pastoralists, others are not. Some live in the river marshes and eat nothing but raw fish, which they catch from boats made of a single joint of cane. These marsh Indians wear clothing woven from river rushes -- they harvest and cut the rushes, weave them into something like a mat, and wear it like a breastplate.
Another group of Indians, living to the east of these, are nomadic and eat raw meat. They are called the Padaians, and their customs are as follows. Whenever anyone in their tribe falls ill -- whether man or woman -- the man's closest male companions kill him, arguing that the disease is ruining his flesh and wasting it for them. The sick man protests and insists he is not ill at all, but they pay no attention. They kill him and feast on his body. With women, the procedure is the same, carried out by her closest female companions. Even those who reach old age are slaughtered and eaten -- though very few live that long, since they kill everyone at the first sign of sickness.
Other Indians live in exactly the opposite way. They kill no living thing, they plant no crops, and they have no houses. They eat wild herbs and a grain about the size of millet, enclosed in a husk, that grows naturally from the ground. They gather it, boil it husk and all, and that is their food. When anyone falls sick, they go out to the desert and lie there. Nobody pays any attention to the dead or the dying.
Sexual intercourse among all these Indian peoples is conducted openly, like cattle. Their skin is the same dark color as the Ethiopians'. Their semen, too, is black rather than white -- just like the Ethiopians'. These particular tribes live far to the south, well beyond the reach of Persian power, and they never became subjects of Darius.
But other Indians, in the region near the city of Caspatyrus and the country of Pactyike, live to the north of their countrymen and follow a way of life very similar to the Bactrians. These are the most warlike of all the Indians, and they are the ones who go on expeditions to collect the gold. For in this part of the country the desert is home to ants smaller than dogs but larger than foxes -- in fact, some of them have been captured and are kept at the Persian king's palace. These ants dig their burrows underground and bring up sand in exactly the same way that ants do in Greece, and they look very much like Greek ants too. The sand they bring up contains gold.
To collect this sand, the Indians mount expeditions into the desert. Each man yokes three camels together -- a female in the middle, with a male on each side as trace animals. The rider sits on the female, taking care to choose one that has recently been separated from nursing young -- the more recently the better. Their female camels are as fast as horses and far better at carrying heavy loads.
I will not describe what a camel looks like, since Greeks already know. But I will mention one detail that is not widely known: the camel has four thigh bones and four knee joints in its hind legs, and its genitals face backward, between the hind legs toward the tail.
The Indians ride out to collect the gold at the calculated time when the heat is most intense, because the heat drives the ants underground. In these regions, the sun is hottest not at noon but in the morning -- from sunrise until midmorning. During those hours, the heat is far greater than the Greek midday sun, so intense that the people reportedly soak themselves with water. At actual midday, the heat is about the same as anywhere else. After noon, their sun feels like the morning sun in other countries, and as it moves toward setting, the air grows cooler and cooler until by sunset it is genuinely cold.
When the Indians arrive at the site with their bags, they fill them with the gold-bearing sand and ride back as fast as they can. The ants, the Persians say, detect them by smell and immediately give chase. According to the Persians, these ants are the fastest creatures on earth -- if the Indians did not get a head start while the ants were still gathering, not a single one of them would survive. The male camels, being slower than the females, start to flag and are cut loose one at a time to lighten the load. But the females, remembering the young they left behind, never slow down. That, the Persians say, is how the Indians get most of their gold. There is also some gold obtained by mining, but in smaller quantities.
It seems that the edges of the inhabited world received from nature the most beautiful and rare things, just as Greece received the most perfectly balanced climate.
India, the easternmost inhabited land (as I said above), has animals -- both birds and four-footed beasts -- far larger than those elsewhere, with the exception of its horses, which are inferior to the Median breed called Nesaean. Gold is abundant there, obtained by mining, brought down by rivers, and stolen from the ants as I have described. And in India, trees growing wild produce a kind of wool superior in beauty and quality to sheep's wool, which the Indians use for clothing.
Arabia, the southernmost inhabited land, is the only place in the world where frankincense, myrrh, cassia, cinnamon, and gum-mastic grow. All of these except myrrh are obtained with considerable difficulty.
For frankincense: the trees that produce it are guarded by winged serpents, small and of various colors, swarming in vast numbers around each tree -- the same kind that try to invade Egypt. The only way to drive them off is by burning storax gum and smoking them out.
The Arabians also say that the whole world would be overrun with these serpents if the same thing did not happen to them that happens to vipers. It seems that Divine Providence -- being wise, as one would expect -- has arranged things so that timid animals useful for food breed prolifically, while fierce and dangerous ones produce very few offspring. The hare, for instance, is hunted by every creature alive -- beasts, birds, and humans -- and so it is spectacularly fertile: the hare is the only animal that conceives again while already pregnant, carrying young in its womb at every stage of development, some with fur, some still bare, some just being formed in the womb while another is being conceived. The lioness, on the other hand, the strongest and most courageous of animals, bears only one cub in her entire life, because when the cub starts moving inside her, its claws -- far sharper than any other animal's -- tear at the womb, and as it grows larger it shreds it completely, so that by the time of birth the womb is utterly destroyed.
Similarly with vipers and the winged serpents of Arabia: if they reproduced normally, human life would be impossible. But when vipers mate, the female seizes the male by the neck at the moment of insemination and does not let go until she has bitten clean through it. The male dies this way. But the female pays for his death: the young, while still in the womb, avenge their father by eating their way through their mother's belly to get out. Other serpents, the harmless kind, simply lay eggs and hatch large broods. Vipers are found everywhere in the world, but the winged serpents exist only in Arabia, concentrated in great numbers there -- which is why they seem so numerous.
That is how the Arabians get their frankincense. For cassia, the method is this: they wrap themselves head to toe in cowhide and other skins, leaving only their eyes exposed, and then go after the cassia. It grows in a shallow pool, and around and inside the pool live winged creatures resembling bats that screech horribly and fight fiercely. These must be kept away from the collectors' eyes while they cut the cassia.
Cinnamon is collected in an even more marvelous way. The Arabians cannot say where it grows or what land produces it, except that some suggest -- plausibly enough -- that it comes from the region where Dionysus was raised. They say that large birds carry the dried sticks (which the Phoenicians taught us to call cinnamon) to nests made of mud plastered on sheer cliff faces that no human can climb. The Arabian solution is this: they cut up the carcasses of dead oxen, donkeys, and other beasts of burden into large pieces and lay them near the nests. Then they withdraw to a distance. The birds fly down and carry the chunks of meat up to their nests, but the nests cannot bear the weight. They collapse and fall to the ground, and the men rush in to collect the cinnamon. Gathered this way, it reaches the other countries of the world.
Gum-mastic -- which the Arabians call ladanon -- comes in the strangest way of all. Though it is the sweetest-smelling of all substances, it comes from the foulest-smelling source: it forms in the beards of male goats, produced there like resin oozing from wood. It is used in many perfumes, and the Arabians burn it as incense more than anything else.
But enough about spices. The whole land of Arabia breathes with their fragrance, a scent marvelously sweet.
Arabia also has two remarkable breeds of sheep found nowhere else. One kind has a tail so long -- at least four and a half feet -- that if the animals were allowed to drag them on the ground, they would develop sores from the constant friction. So every shepherd, knowing enough carpentry for the task, builds a little wooden cart and ties it under each sheep's tail, fastening the tail to the cart. The other breed has a tail that is broad rather than long -- as much as eighteen inches wide.
Beyond the noonday sun, the Ethiopian land extends farther to the southwest than any other inhabited country. Ethiopia produces gold in abundance, huge elephants, wild trees of every kind, ebony, and men who are the tallest, most beautiful, and longest-lived of all peoples.
Those are the edges of the world in Asia and Africa. As for the western edge of Europe, I cannot speak with any certainty. I do not accept the story of a river called the Eridanus -- supposedly a non-Greek name -- flowing into the northern sea, from which amber is said to come. Nor do I know for certain that the "Tin Islands" from which we get our tin actually exist. The name "Eridanus" is obviously Greek, not foreign -- some poet made it up. And despite my best efforts, I have never been able to find anyone who has actually seen with their own eyes a sea beyond the northern edge of Europe. Nevertheless, tin and amber do reach us from somewhere at the far end of the continent.
Similarly, there is evidently a vast quantity of gold in northern Europe, far more than anywhere else. How it is obtained, I again cannot say for certain. The story goes that the one-eyed Arimaspians steal it from griffins. But I do not believe that either -- that nature produces one-eyed men who are otherwise exactly like other people. Still, the general principle holds true: the edges of the world seem to possess the things we consider most beautiful and most rare.
Now, there is a plain in Asia surrounded by mountains on all sides, with five narrow passes through them. This plain once belonged to the Chorasmians, lying on the borders of the Chorasmians, Hyrcanians, Parthians, Sarangians, and Thamanaians. But since the Persians came to power, it belongs to the king. A great river called the Akes flows out of these encircling mountains. It once watered the lands of all five nations, channeled through a separate mountain pass to each. But after these peoples came under Persian rule, the king blocked up the passes and built gates at each one. With the water's outlets sealed, the plain inside the mountains became a lake, since the river flows in but has no way out.
The consequences are dire for the peoples who once depended on that water. In winter they have rain like everyone else, but in summer, when they need water for their millet and sesame crops, they get nothing. When the water is denied them, they come to Persia -- men and women alike -- and stand at the gates of the king's court, crying and wailing. The king then orders the gates opened for whichever people needs water most urgently. When their land has drunk its fill, those gates are closed, and the gates leading to the next most desperate people are opened. I have heard that the king charges enormous sums for this, over and above their regular tribute.
So much for that. Now, among the seven men who had risen against the Magus, one of them -- Intaphrenes -- was put to death almost immediately after the revolt, and for the following reason. He wanted to enter the palace and have an audience with the king. The rule was that any of the Seven could walk in to the king's presence without being announced, unless the king happened to be in bed with a woman. Intaphrenes refused to have himself announced -- since he was one of the Seven, he considered it his right to go straight in. But the gatekeeper and the king's messenger blocked his way, telling him the king was with a woman. Intaphrenes, convinced they were lying, drew his sword and cut off both men's ears and noses, strung them on his horse's bridle, tied the bridle around their necks, and let them go.
They showed themselves to the king and told him what had been done to them and why. Darius, alarmed that the other six might have acted in concert, summoned each one privately and tested whether they approved of what Intaphrenes had done. When he was fully satisfied that Intaphrenes had acted alone, he arrested Intaphrenes, his sons, and all his male relatives, strongly suspecting that the family was plotting rebellion. He put them all in chains and sentenced them to death.
Then the wife of Intaphrenes came to the palace gates every day, weeping and lamenting. She kept at it so persistently that Darius took pity on her. He sent a messenger to say: "Woman, King Darius grants you the life of one of your kinsmen now in chains. Choose whichever one you wish."
She thought it over and answered: "If the king truly grants me the life of one, I choose my brother."
Darius was astonished. He sent another message: "Woman, the king wants to know what was in your mind when you chose your brother over your own husband and children. Your brother is surely less close to you than your children and less dear than your husband."
She replied: "O king, if the gods will it, I might have another husband and other children, should I lose these. But since my father and mother are no longer alive, I can never have another brother. That was my reasoning."
Darius found her logic impeccable. He freed not only the brother she had asked for, but also her eldest son, because he was so pleased with her answer. The rest he put to death. And so one of the Seven perished almost at the very start.
Around the time of Cambyses' illness, the following events took place. A Persian named Oroites had been appointed by Cyrus as governor of the province of Sardis. This man conceived an unholy desire: to seize and kill Polycrates of Samos, a man who had never wronged him, whom he had never even met. Most accounts say the reason was this: Oroites and another Persian named Mitrobates, the governor of Dascylion, were sitting at the king's court when they fell into an argument about their respective achievements. Mitrobates taunted Oroites: "You call yourself a man, yet you never managed to win the island of Samos for the king -- an island right next to your province, so ridiculously easy to conquer that one of its own citizens seized it with just fifteen armed men and now rules it as tyrant!" Some say it was this taunt that stung Oroites into wanting to destroy Polycrates -- not so much to punish Mitrobates, but to annihilate the man whose existence had become his humiliation.
A smaller number of sources tell a different story: that Oroites sent a herald to Samos to request something -- exactly what is not recorded -- and Polycrates happened to be reclining in the men's hall of his palace, with Anacreon of Teos also present. Whether deliberately or by chance, when the herald of Oroites was admitted and delivered his message, Polycrates, who happened to be facing the wall, neither turned around nor gave any answer.
Both causes are reported for the death of Polycrates; believe whichever you prefer.
In any case, Oroites, based at the Magnesia on the Maeander River, had perceived Polycrates' ambitions. For Polycrates was the first Greek we know of -- setting aside Minos of Cnossos and anyone else who may have ruled the sea before him -- the first in what we may call the mortal age of man, who set his mind on commanding the sea. He had great expectations of becoming master of Ionia and the islands. Oroites, recognizing these designs, sent him a message:
"Oroites to Polycrates: I have learned that you are planning great things, but that your wealth does not match your ambitions. If you do as I suggest, you will advance your own cause and save my life as well. King Cambyses is plotting my death -- I have reliable intelligence of this. Carry me and my treasure to safety. Keep part of the wealth for yourself, and let me keep the rest. With that money backing you, you will be ruler of all Greece. If you doubt what I say about the treasure, send your most trusted man, and I will show it to him."
Polycrates was delighted. He was very eager for wealth, it seems, so he first sent his secretary, Maiandrios son of Maiandrios -- a Samian who later dedicated the splendid furnishings of Polycrates' men's hall as an offering at the temple of Hera -- to inspect the treasure. When Oroites heard the inspector was on his way, he filled eight chests with stones, leaving only a thin layer of gold on top, then tied the chests shut and kept them ready. Maiandrios came, looked, and brought back his report to Polycrates.
Polycrates prepared to go in person, despite the strong objections of his diviners and his friends. His daughter, too, had seen a vision in a dream: her father lifted up in the air, bathed by Zeus and anointed by the Sun. She used every means to dissuade him from going. Even as he was boarding his fifty-oared galley, she called out words of warning. He threatened her: if he returned safely, she would remain unmarried for a long time. She said she prayed that this would come true -- she would rather be unmarried a long time than be an orphan.
But Polycrates ignored every warning and sailed to meet Oroites, taking many friends with him, including the physician Democedes of Croton, the most skilled doctor of his time. When he arrived at Magnesia, Polycrates was killed -- horribly, in a manner unworthy of both his person and his aspirations. Among all the Greek tyrants, with the possible exception of the rulers of Syracuse, none could compare with Polycrates in magnificence. After killing him in a way not fit to describe, Oroites had his body impaled. He released the Samians in Polycrates' company, telling them to be grateful for their freedom. But all the foreigners and slaves in the party he kept as his own slaves. And so Polycrates, hanging on that stake, fulfilled his daughter's dream in every detail: he was bathed by Zeus whenever it rained, and anointed by the Sun as moisture oozed from his body.
Thus the extraordinary good fortune of Polycrates came to the end that Amasis, the king of Egypt, had long foreseen.
But it was not long before retribution caught up with Oroites as well. After the death of Cambyses, during the reign of the Magi, Oroites stayed in Sardis and did nothing to help the Persians when their empire was usurped by the Medes. During this period of chaos, he murdered Mitrobates -- the very governor of Dascylion who had taunted him about Polycrates -- and Mitrobates' son Cranaspes with him, both men of high standing among the Persians. He committed other acts of arrogance too: when a courier arrived from Darius with a message he did not like, he had men ambush and kill the courier on his return journey, and disposed of both the man's body and his horse.
When Darius came to the throne, he wanted revenge on Oroites for all this -- especially for the murders of Mitrobates and his son. But he did not think it wise to send an army openly, since his own position was still new and unsettled, and he had heard that Oroites commanded formidable strength: a personal guard of a thousand Persian spearmen and control of the provinces of Phrygia, Lydia, and Ionia.
So Darius used cunning instead. He assembled his most distinguished Persians and said to them: "Which of you will undertake this task for me -- with brains, not brute force? Where intelligence is called for, there is no need for an army. Who among you will bring me Oroites alive, or kill him? He has never done the Persians any service, and he has done us great harm. He destroyed two of our people, Mitrobates and his son. He murders the messengers I send to summon him -- an intolerable outrage. He must be stopped by death before he can do us even worse."
Thirty men volunteered, each wanting the mission for himself. Darius settled the competition by having them draw lots, and the lot fell to Bagaios son of Artontes.
Bagaios devised an elegant plan. He wrote several official documents on various subjects, sealed them all with Darius' royal seal, and took them to Sardis. When he arrived and was admitted to Oroites' presence, he opened them one at a time and handed each to the Royal Secretary to read aloud -- every provincial governor has a Royal Secretary on staff. Bagaios was doing this deliberately, to test the loyalty of Oroites' guard. When he saw that the spearmen treated the documents with great reverence and even greater respect for the words read from them, he handed over another document containing the words: "Persians, King Darius forbids you to serve as guards to Oroites." When the spearmen heard this, they lowered their spears. Seeing their obedience, Bagaios took courage and produced the final document. The secretary read: "King Darius commands the Persians in Sardis to kill Oroites." The spearmen drew their swords and killed him on the spot.
Thus retribution for the murder of Polycrates of Samos overtook Oroites the Persian.
When Oroites' wealth had been confiscated and brought to Susa, it happened not long afterward that King Darius, while hunting, twisted his foot badly as he leaped from his horse. The ankle joint was dislocated -- seriously, it turned out. He had always kept Egyptian physicians about him, considered the best in the world, and he turned to them now. But the Egyptians, wrenching and forcing the foot, only made things worse. For seven days and seven nights Darius could not sleep from the pain. On the eighth day, when he was in a wretched state, someone who had heard about the skill of Democedes of Croton while still at Sardis mentioned it to the king. Darius ordered him brought immediately. They found him somewhere among Oroites' slaves, unnoticed, and dragged him forward still wearing his chains and dressed in rags.
When Democedes stood before the king, Darius asked if he knew the art of medicine. He denied it, afraid that if he revealed himself he would never be allowed to return to Greece. But Darius could see he was lying, and ordered the men who had brought him to produce whips and prods. At that, Democedes confessed -- partially. He said he did not really understand the art, but had spent time with a physician and picked up some rough knowledge.
After Darius put the case in his hands, Democedes used Greek remedies -- gentle treatments in place of the violent methods the Egyptians had used -- and gave the king sleep. In a short time, he had Darius perfectly well, though the king had given up hope of ever walking normally again. Darius then presented him with two pairs of golden fetters. Democedes asked him: "Is it your intention to double my suffering, because I made you well?" Delighted by the joke, Darius sent him to visit his wives. The eunuchs who escorted him told the women: "This is the man who gave the king back his life." Each wife plunged a cup into her gold chest and gave so generously to Democedes that his servant, a man named Sciton, who followed behind picking up the coins that spilled from the overloaded cups, collected a very large fortune for himself.
This Democedes had originally come from Croton and entered Polycrates' service in the following way. He lived at Croton in constant conflict with his harsh-tempered father. When he could no longer endure him, he left and went to Aegina. In his very first year there, he surpassed all the other physicians on the island, despite having no equipment or instruments whatsoever. In his second year, the state of Aegina hired him at a salary of one talent. In his third year, the Athenians engaged him for a hundred pounds of silver. In his fourth year, Polycrates hired him for two talents. That is how he came to Samos. It was largely because of Democedes that the physicians of Croton gained their reputation as the best in Greece -- this happened at the time when the Crotonian school was first spoken of as preeminent, with the physicians of Cyrene ranked second. (Around the same period, the Argives had the reputation of being the finest musicians in Greece.)
Once he healed King Darius, Democedes had a grand house in Susa, dined at the king's table, and wanted for nothing -- except the one thing he desired most: to go home to Greece. When the Egyptian physicians who had treated the king before him were about to be impaled for proving inferior to a Greek doctor, Democedes interceded with the king and saved their lives. He also rescued an Eleian prophet who had been part of Polycrates' entourage and was languishing unnoticed among the slaves. In short, Democedes stood very high in the king's favor.
Not long after this, another thing happened. Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus and wife of Darius, developed a growth on her breast. It burst and then began spreading. As long as it was small she concealed it, too ashamed to tell anyone. But when it became serious, she sent for Democedes and showed it to him. He said he could cure her, but made her swear to do him a favor in return -- nothing shameful, he promised.
After he had healed her, Atossa, coached by Democedes, said the following to Darius in their bedchamber:
"My lord, you have all this power, yet you sit idle, winning no new territory or peoples for Persia. A man who is young and master of such great wealth ought to be seen accomplishing some great deed, so that the Persians know they are ruled by a real man. This serves two purposes: the Persians will know their king is a man of action, and they will be kept too busy with war to plot against you. Now is the time -- while you are young. As the body ages, the spirit ages with it, and grows dull for every kind of enterprise."
She was following her instructions. Darius replied: "Woman, you have said exactly what I have been thinking myself. I have already planned to build a bridge from this continent to the other and launch an expedition against the Scythians. It will happen soon."
Atossa said: "Wait -- forget the Scythians for now. They will be at your mercy whenever you choose. March against Greece first. I have heard about the women of Sparta, Argos, Athens, and Corinth, and I want some of them as my attendants. And you have the perfect man to show you everything about Greece and serve as your guide -- the man who healed your foot."
Darius answered: "Woman, since you think we should try Greece first, I think the best course is to start by sending Persian scouts along with this man, to investigate and report back on everything. Then, fully informed, I will attack."
He matched his words with action. At dawn the next day, he summoned fifteen distinguished Persians and ordered them to travel the coast of Greece with Democedes as their guide, with strict instructions not to let him escape but to bring him back at all costs. Then he summoned Democedes himself and asked him to guide the Persians through Greece, show them everything, and then return. He told him to take all his movable property as gifts for his father and brothers, promising to replace it many times over. On top of that, he said he would send a merchant ship loaded with all kinds of goods to sail with him.
Darius, I believe, made these promises in good faith. But Democedes, suspecting a trap, did not rush to accept everything. He said he would leave his own things behind so they would be waiting when he returned, but he did accept the merchant ship Darius offered for gifts to his brothers. With these orders given, Darius sent the whole party down to the coast.
They went down to Phoenicia, and in the city of Sidon they manned two warships and also loaded a large merchant vessel with goods. When everything was ready, they set sail for Greece, surveying the coastline, visiting the notable places, and writing descriptions as they went. After they had seen most of the famous sights, they came to Taras in Italy. There, as a favor to Democedes, King Aristophilides of Taras removed the steering oars from the Persian ships and threw the Persians themselves into prison, claiming they were spies. While they were locked up, Democedes slipped away and reached Croton. Once he was safely home, Aristophilides released the Persians and returned their equipment.
The Persians sailed on and pursued Democedes to Croton, where they found him in the marketplace and grabbed him. Some of the Crotonians, intimidated by Persian power, were willing to give him up, but others seized him back and beat the Persians with staves. The Persians protested: "Men of Croton, think about what you are doing! You are rescuing a slave who ran away from King Darius. Do you think the king will take this insult lightly? Do you think this will go well for you? What city do you think we will attack first if not this one?" But their words failed to persuade the Crotonians. Democedes was rescued from them, and the merchant ship was confiscated too. The Persians sailed back toward Asia, making no effort to explore any more of Greece now that they had lost their guide.
But as they were leaving, Democedes gave them one parting message to deliver to Darius: he was engaged to marry the daughter of the wrestler Milon. The name of Milon carried great weight at the Persian court, and I suspect Democedes spent heavily on this marriage precisely so that Darius would see he was a man of importance in his own country too.
The Persians, after leaving Croton, were shipwrecked on the coast of Iapygia and taken into slavery there. A Tarentine exile named Gillos rescued them and brought them back to King Darius. In gratitude, Darius offered Gillos whatever he wanted. Gillos chose to be restored to Taras, but to avoid causing a major international incident -- a large Persian fleet sailing against Italy just for him -- he asked only that the people of Cnidos, who were friends of the Tarentines, arrange his return. Darius agreed and sent word to Cnidos. The Cnidians obeyed Darius but were unable to persuade the Tarentines, and they were not strong enough to force the issue. So that was how it ended. But these Persians were the first to travel from Asia to Greece, and they came as spies, for the reason I have described.
After all this, King Darius took Samos before any other city, Greek or non-Greek, and for the following reason. When Cambyses was marching against Egypt, many Greeks traveled to Egypt -- some hoping to profit from the campaign, some simply to see the country. Among them was Syloson, son of Aeaces and brother of Polycrates, a political exile from Samos. Syloson had a remarkable stroke of good fortune. He was walking through the marketplace in Memphis wearing a flame-red cloak when Darius -- then just one of Cambyses' spearmen, a man of no particular standing -- spotted the cloak and wanted it. He approached Syloson and offered to buy it. Syloson, sensing something in the moment, said: "I will not sell this for any price. But I will give it to you for nothing, if it really must be yours." Darius accepted, and Syloson walked away certain he had lost his cloak to foolish generosity.
But when, in the course of time, Cambyses died and the Seven rose against the Magus and Darius won the throne, Syloson learned that the man he had given his cloak to in Egypt was now king of Persia. He traveled to Susa, sat down at the entrance to the king's palace, and announced that he was a benefactor of Darius.
The gatekeeper reported this to the king. Darius was puzzled. "What Greek is my benefactor?" he said. "I have barely been king long enough for any Greek to have done me a service, and hardly any of them have visited my court. I owe no debt to any Greek that I know of. But bring him in -- let me hear what he means."
The gatekeeper brought Syloson in, and through interpreters the king asked who he was and what service he claimed to have performed. Syloson told the whole story of the cloak and said he was the man who had given it.
"Most generous of men!" Darius exclaimed. "You are the one who gave me a gift when I had no power at all. The gift may have been small, but the kindness I count as great as if someone were to give me some magnificent thing today. In return, I will give you gold and silver without limit, so that you will never regret having done a service for Darius son of Hystaspes."
Syloson replied: "My king, give me neither gold nor silver. Instead, recover my homeland Samos for me and give it back. My brother Polycrates has been killed by Oroites, and the island is now in the hands of a man who was our slave. Give me Samos -- but without bloodshed or enslavement."
Darius agreed and dispatched an expedition under the command of Otanes, one of the Seven, with orders to fulfill Syloson's request in full. And Otanes went down to the coast to prepare.
At this time, Samos was governed by Maiandrios son of Maiandrios, who had been entrusted with power by Polycrates. Maiandrios wanted to prove himself the most righteous of men, but he did not succeed. When news came of Polycrates' death, here is what he did. First, he built an altar to Zeus the Liberator and marked out a sacred precinct around it -- the one that still exists in the outskirts of the city. Then he called an assembly of all the citizens and spoke:
"As you know perfectly well, Polycrates' scepter and all his power have been entrusted to me. I could make myself your ruler right now. But what I condemn in others, I refuse to do myself. I did not approve of Polycrates lording it over men who were his equals, and I do not approve of anyone else doing so either. Polycrates has met his destiny, and I am placing power in the hands of the people. I proclaim equality for all. I ask only this for myself: six talents from Polycrates' treasury as a special payment, and for my family in perpetuity, the priesthood of Zeus the Liberator, whose temple I myself founded. Beyond that -- liberty is yours."
A fine speech. But one of the citizens stood up and said: "You're not worthy to rule us either -- you are a lowborn nobody. Instead of making speeches, how about you give an accounting of the money you have been handling?"
The man who said this was Telesarchus, a person of standing in the community. And Maiandrios, realizing that if he actually gave up power, someone else would simply make himself tyrant in his place, abandoned his democratic ideals entirely. He retreated to the fortress, summoned citizens one by one under the pretense of presenting his financial accounts, and when they arrived, he arrested them and put them in chains.
While they lay imprisoned, Maiandrios fell seriously ill. His brother Lycaretus, expecting him to die, had all the prisoners executed to make his own seizure of power easier. And so it turned out that the Samians simply did not want to be free.
When the Persian fleet arrived at Samos with Syloson aboard, no one resisted. Maiandrios and his supporters declared they were willing to leave the island under a negotiated truce. Otanes agreed and made a treaty. The most distinguished Persians had chairs set out and were sitting in state in front of the fortress.
Now, the former tyrant Maiandrios had a brother named Charilaos, a man somewhat out of his mind, who had been locked up in an underground dungeon for some offense. At this moment, Charilaos put his head up out of the dungeon and, seeing the Persians sitting peacefully outside, began shouting that he wanted to speak with Maiandrios. When he was brought before him, he tore into his brother with abuse:
"You coward! You locked me in a dungeon -- your own brother, who did nothing to deserve chains -- and now, when the Persians are throwing you out of your own land and making you homeless, you do not dare lift a finger against them? And they are so easy to beat! If you are too frightened to fight them yourself, give me your mercenaries and I will make them pay for coming here. And you -- I will let you leave the island."
Maiandrios accepted the offer -- not, I think, because he was foolish enough to believe he could defeat the king of Persia, but because he grudged Syloson the prospect of receiving the island intact, without any damage. He wanted to provoke the Persians into fury so they would devastate Samos before handing it over. He was quite sure that once the Persians suffered losses, they would take their anger out on the Samians as a whole. And he had his own escape route ready: a secret tunnel running from the fortress to the sea.
Maiandrios himself sailed away from Samos. But Charilaos armed all the mercenaries, threw open the fortress gates, and sent them charging out at the Persians, who were completely unprepared -- they thought the treaty was settled. The mercenaries fell on the most distinguished Persians, the ones sitting in their chairs of state, and began killing them. But the rest of the Persian army came to the rescue, and the mercenaries were driven back into the fortress.
After this, the Persian commander Otanes -- seeing how badly his men had suffered -- deliberately set aside the orders Darius had given him: not to kill any Samian, not to sell any into slavery, but to deliver the island to Syloson unharmed. He gave his army a new order: kill every man and boy they found, without exception, inside sanctuaries or out. And so, while part of the army besieged the fortress, the rest swept through the island slaughtering everyone they met.
Meanwhile, Maiandrios had escaped and sailed to Sparta. When he arrived, he had the valuables he had taken with him brought up to the city, and then he set about trying to corrupt King Cleomenes, son of Anaxandrides. He would set out his gold and silver cups, and while his servants cleaned them, he would strike up a conversation with Cleomenes and eventually bring the king to his house. When Cleomenes saw the cups and admired them, Maiandrios would say: "Take as many as you like." He repeated this offer two or three times. But Cleomenes showed himself the most upright of men. Not only did he refuse to take anything, but when he realized that Maiandrios would offer the same cups to other citizens and thereby buy himself allies, he went straight to the Ephors and told them it would be better for Sparta if this Samian stranger were expelled from the Peloponnese, before he managed to corrupt either Cleomenes himself or some other Spartan. The Ephors took his advice and expelled Maiandrios by official decree.
As for Samos, after the Persians had swept the population off the island like fish from a pond, they handed it over to Syloson -- empty of people. Later, however, the commander Otanes helped resettle it, prompted by a dream and by an affliction in his genitals.
After the naval expedition against Samos, the Babylonians revolted. They had prepared extremely well for this -- through the entire period of the Magi's reign and the upheaval of the Seven's revolt, they had been quietly stockpiling provisions and fortifying for a siege, and somehow no one noticed. When they finally rose in open rebellion, they did a terrible thing. Every man set aside his mother and chose one other woman from his household -- whichever one he wished. Then they gathered together all the remaining women and strangled them. Each man kept one woman to bake bread, and they killed the rest to conserve their food supply.
When Darius learned of the revolt, he assembled his entire army and marched against Babylon. He laid siege to the city, but the Babylonians were utterly unconcerned. They would climb up on their battlements and dance and mock Darius and his army with taunting gestures. One of them shouted down: "What are you doing sitting there, Persians? Why don't you go home? You will take our city when mules give birth!"
The Babylonian who said this was quite confident that a mule would never bear young.
A year and seven months passed, and Darius and his entire army were growing desperate. He had tried every stratagem and every kind of assault, including the trick by which Cyrus had taken Babylon before him, but the Babylonians were fanatically on guard and he simply could not break through.
Then, in the twentieth month, a miraculous thing happened to Zopyros son of Megabyzus -- the Megabyzus who had been one of the seven who killed the Magus. One of Zopyros' pack mules gave birth to a foal. When it was reported to him, he did not believe it until he saw the foal with his own eyes. Then he swore his witnesses to secrecy and sat down to think.
He remembered the Babylonian's taunt: "You will take our city when mules give birth." Now that a mule had given birth, he felt certain it was a sign from the gods that Babylon was destined to fall.
He went to Darius and asked him how important the capture of Babylon really was. Darius said it was of the highest importance. So Zopyros devised a plan. Among the Persians, great services to the crown are rewarded with the highest honors, and Zopyros was determined that the capture of Babylon would be his achievement and his alone. He concluded that the only way to take the city was to mutilate himself and defect to the enemy.
Making light of his own body, he cut off his own nose and ears, hacked his hair into a disfiguring mess, and scourged himself with a whip. Then he went before Darius.
Darius was appalled to see his most respected nobleman in this condition. He leaped from his throne and cried out: "Who did this to you? For what reason?"
Zopyros said: "There is no man alive except you, my king, with the power to reduce me to this state. No stranger did this -- I did it to myself. I found it unbearable that the Babylonians should mock the Persians."
Darius replied: "You reckless man! You put the prettiest name on the ugliest deed by saying you mutilated yourself for the sake of those under siege! How will the enemy surrender any faster because you have destroyed yourself? You must have been out of your mind!"
Zopyros said: "If I had told you my plan in advance, you would not have allowed it. So I acted on my own. Now, unless you fail to do your part, we will take Babylon. I will go to the wall as a deserter and tell them you did this to me. Once I have convinced them, I believe they will give me command of a force. Here is what you must do. On the tenth day after I enter the city, station a thousand of your most expendable troops at the gate called the Gate of Semiramis. Seven days after that, post two thousand more at the Gate of the Ninevites. Then wait twenty days and place four thousand at the Gate of the Chaldeans. None of these men should carry any weapon except a dagger. After the twentieth day, order a general assault on the walls from all sides, but station your best Persian troops at the gates called the Gate of Belus and the Gate of Kissia. I believe that after I have shown the Babylonians great feats of military prowess, they will entrust me with the command of their army and the keys to their gates. After that, it will be up to me and the Persians to do what must be done."
With these instructions given, Zopyros went to the gate of Babylon, looking back over his shoulder as he ran, exactly like a real deserter. The sentries on the towers spotted him, ran down, and opened one wing of the gate a crack. They asked who he was and what he wanted. He said he was Zopyros, and that he had deserted to their side. They brought him before the Babylonian assembly, where he displayed his mutilated body and lamented his fate. He told them he had suffered this at his own king's hands because he had advised Darius to withdraw the army, since there seemed to be no way to take the city. "Now," he said, "I come bringing the greatest possible benefit to you, Babylonians, and the greatest possible harm to Darius, his army, and the Persians. He will not escape unpunished for what he did to me. I know all his plans inside and out."
The Babylonians, seeing the most distinguished Persian alive standing before them with his nose and ears cut off and his body covered in welts and blood, were completely convinced he was telling the truth and had come to help them. They gave him everything he asked for -- namely, command of a fighting force.
Then Zopyros executed the plan exactly as agreed with Darius. On the tenth day, he led a Babylonian force out of the city, surrounded the thousand expendable troops Darius had positioned at the first gate, and slaughtered them all. The Babylonians, seeing that his actions matched his words, were elated and ready to serve him in any way. After the agreed interval, he led out another force and destroyed the two thousand at the second gate. After this second victory, the name of Zopyros was on every tongue in Babylon. Again after the agreed interval, he led them to the appointed place and wiped out the four thousand. After this third triumph, Zopyros was everything in Babylon -- he was made commander of their army and guardian of their walls.
Then Darius launched his general assault on every side of the wall, just as planned. And Zopyros showed his hand. While the Babylonians were up on the walls fighting off Darius' attacks from every direction, Zopyros opened the gates of Kissia and the Gate of Belus and let the Persians pour inside. Some Babylonians saw what was happening and fled to the temple of Zeus Belus. The rest stayed at their posts until they too realized they had been betrayed.
So Babylon was taken for the second time. When Darius had conquered it, he first demolished the city's walls and tore down all its gates -- Cyrus had done neither of these things when he took Babylon the first time. Then Darius impaled about three thousand of the leading citizens. The rest he allowed to keep the city. And since the Babylonians had strangled their own women to conserve food, Darius took steps to ensure the population could recover: he ordered the surrounding nations each to send a fixed number of women to Babylon. The total came to fifty thousand. From these women the present-day Babylonians are descended.
In Darius' judgment, no Persian -- past or future -- ever rendered greater service than Zopyros, with the sole exception of Cyrus, to whom no Persian ever dared compare himself. Darius is said to have declared many times that he would rather have Zopyros unharmed than have twenty more Babylons added to the one he already held. He heaped honors on Zopyros: every year he gave him the gifts that Persians consider most distinguished, and he granted him Babylon to govern tax-free for the rest of his life, along with many other rewards. The son of this Zopyros was Megabyzos, who commanded the Persian forces in Egypt against the Athenians and their allies. And the son of that Megabyzos was another Zopyros, who defected from Persia to Athens.
After Babylon had been taken, Darius himself led a march against the Scythians. Asia was now flourishing with a growing population and revenue was pouring in, so Darius decided it was time to take revenge on the Scythians. They had been the first aggressors — they had invaded Median territory years ago, defeated everyone who opposed them, and started the whole cycle of conflict. As I mentioned earlier, the Scythians had ruled over Upper Asia for twenty-eight years. They had swept into Asia chasing the Cimmerians and had overthrown the Medes, who had been the dominant power before the Scythians arrived.
Now when the Scythians finally returned to their own land after those twenty-eight years away, they found a challenge waiting for them just as serious as the one they had faced against the Medes. A sizable army stood in their way — because during their long absence, the Scythian women had taken up with the slaves.
Here's some context for that: the Scythians blind all their slaves, and it has to do with the way they get their milk. They take hollow bone tubes, like flutes, and insert them into the mares' vaginas while blowing through them. Some men blow while others do the milking. They say this works because the blowing fills the mare's veins with air and causes the udder to drop. Once they've drawn the milk, they pour it into hollowed-out wooden vessels and station their blind slaves around them to churn it. They skim off whatever rises to the top — that's the good stuff — while the part that settles to the bottom is considered inferior. This is why the Scythians blind every slave they capture: they're not farmers who work the soil but nomads whose economy revolves around their herds.
So from these slaves and the Scythian women, a whole generation of young men had been born and raised. When they learned the truth about their origins, they decided to resist the returning Scythians. First, they cut off the land by digging a broad trench stretching from the Tauric mountains all the way to Lake Maeotis at its widest point. Then when the Scythians tried to cross back into their territory, these sons of slaves took up defensive positions and fought them. The battles went back and forth with neither side gaining an advantage, until one Scythian said: "What are we doing here, men? We're fighting our own slaves! Every one of us who falls in battle means fewer Scythians — and every one of them we kill means fewer slaves for us to command. Here's what I think we should do: put down the spears and bows, and let every man pick up his horse-whip instead. As long as they see us carrying weapons, they think they're our equals, men of the same standing. But once they see whips instead of swords, they'll remember what they are — slaves — and they won't stand their ground."
The Scythians did exactly this, and it worked perfectly. The slave-soldiers were so panicked by the sight of the whips that they forgot all about fighting and fled. That's how the Scythians had originally ruled Asia, and that's how they returned to their homeland. And it was to punish them for that original invasion that Darius was now assembling his army.
Now, the Scythians themselves say their nation is the youngest of all peoples, and they tell the story like this: The first man to exist in their land — which was empty wilderness at the time — was named Targitaos. According to them (though I personally don't believe it), his parents were Zeus and a daughter of the river Borysthenes. Whatever his origins, Targitaos had three sons: Lipoxais, Arpoxais, and the youngest, Colaxais. During their time, certain objects wrought in gold fell from the sky into Scythian territory: a plow, a yoke, a battle-axe, and a drinking cup. The eldest brother saw them first and went to pick them up, but the gold blazed with fire as he approached. He backed away. The second brother tried, and the same thing happened — the gold flared up again. But when the youngest, Colaxais, came forward, the flames died down and he was able to carry everything home. The two older brothers, recognizing what this meant, handed over all royal power to the youngest.
From Lipoxais, the Scythians say, descend the clan called the Auchatae. From the middle brother Arpoxais come the Catiaroi and the Traspians. And from the youngest, Colaxais, descend the Royal Scythians, called the Paralatae. Together, they all go by the name Scoloti, after their king — but the Greeks gave them the name "Scythians."
That's the Scythians' own account of their origins, and they claim that from their first king Targitaos to the time Darius marched against them was exactly a thousand years. As for the sacred gold, the kings guard it with extreme care and visit it every year with elaborate sacrificial ceremonies. There's a tradition that if anyone falls asleep while keeping watch over the gold during the festival, he won't live out the year — but in compensation, he's given as much land as he can ride around on horseback in a single day. Since the territory was vast, Colaxais divided it into three kingdoms for his sons, making one larger than the rest, and that's where the gold is kept. As for the regions to the north, beyond the peoples who live in the upper country, the Scythians say it's impossible to see or travel any farther because the land and air are filled with feathers that block the view.
That's what the Scythians say about themselves and the land above them. But the Greeks who live around the Black Sea tell a different story. According to them, Heracles was driving the cattle of Geryon through this land — which was then uninhabited desert — on his way from the island the Greeks call Erytheia, near Gadeira beyond the Pillars of Heracles on the shore of Ocean. (As for Ocean, people claim it flows around the entire earth starting from the east, but they offer no proof of this.) From there Heracles came to the land now called Scythia, and when he was caught in a storm with freezing cold, he pulled his lion skin over himself and fell asleep. While he slept, his mares — still harnessed to his chariot — vanished by some miraculous chance as they were grazing.
When Heracles woke up and went searching for them, he traveled across the entire land until he reached the region called Hylaia. There in a cave he found an extraordinary creature — half woman, half serpent. From the buttocks up she was a woman, but her lower half was a snake. Astonished, he asked her if she'd seen his stray horses anywhere. She told him she had them, but she wouldn't give them back until he slept with her. So Heracles did, on the condition of getting his horses back. She kept putting off the return of the mares, wanting to keep Heracles with her as long as possible, while he just wanted his horses and to be on his way. Finally she gave them back, saying: "When these mares wandered here, I saved them for you, and you've given me my reward — I now carry three sons by you. Tell me: when they grow to manhood, should I settle them here in this land where I rule, or send them to you?"
Heracles replied — so the story goes — "When you see that the boys have grown into men, do this and you won't go wrong: whichever of them can string this bow as I do now and buckle on this belt, let him stay and rule this land. But any who fail the test, send them away. Do this and you'll both be satisfied and fulfill my instructions."
Then he drew one of his two bows — for up to that point, they say, Heracles always carried two — and showed her the belt, which had a golden cup hanging from the end of its clasp. He gave her the bow and belt, then left. When her sons were born and grew to manhood, she named them: the first Agathyrsos, the second Gelonos, and the youngest Scythes. Remembering Heracles' instructions, she put them to the test. The two older sons, Agathyrsos and Gelonos, couldn't manage the challenge and were cast out of the land by their own mother. But the youngest, Scythes, succeeded and stayed. From Scythes, son of Heracles, all the succeeding kings of the Scythians are said to descend. And the Scythians say it's because of that golden cup that they still, to this day, wear cups hanging from their belts — the one thing his mother arranged for Scythes. That's the version told by the Greeks living around the Black Sea.
There is, however, yet another account, and this is the one I'm most inclined to believe myself. It says that the nomadic Scythians who had been living in Asia were hard pressed in war by the Massagetae, so they crossed the river Araxes and migrated into Cimmerian territory — because the land now occupied by Scythians is said to have once belonged to the Cimmerians. When the Cimmerians saw this massive host bearing down on them, they held a council. Opinion was sharply divided. The common people argued that they should retreat rather than risk fighting such overwhelming numbers. But the kings insisted on standing and fighting for their homeland. Neither side could persuade the other — the people refused to follow the kings into battle, and the kings refused to flee with the masses. The kings looked at all the good fortune they had enjoyed and all the suffering that exile would bring, and chose to die in their own country rather than run. Having made this decision, they split into two equal groups and fought each other to the death. The Cimmerian people buried these fallen kings along the banks of the river Tyras — their tomb can still be seen there — and then marched out of the land. When the Scythians arrived, they found the country abandoned.
Even today in Scythian territory you can find Cimmerian walls, a Cimmerian ferry-crossing, a region called Cimmeria, and the strait known as the Cimmerian Bosphorus. It's also known that the Cimmerians, fleeing into Asia from the Scythians, settled on the peninsula where the Greek city of Sinope now stands. And the Scythians pursued them but went the wrong way: the Cimmerians kept to the coastline in their flight, while the Scythians chased them with the Caucasus mountains on their right, veering inland until they ended up invading Media instead. This account is told by both Greeks and non-Greeks alike.
Now, Aristeas — son of Caystrobios, a man from Proconnesus — claimed in his epic poem that, possessed by the god Apollo, he had traveled to the land of the Issedonians. Beyond them, he said, lived the Arimaspians, a one-eyed people, and beyond the Arimaspians were the gold-guarding griffins, and beyond those the Hyperboreans, extending all the way to the sea. All these peoples except the Hyperboreans were constantly at war with their neighbors, each pushing the next along in a chain: the Arimaspians drove out the Issedonians, the Issedonians drove out the Scythians, and the Scythians pushed the Cimmerians off their land along the southern coast. So even Aristeas doesn't agree with the Scythians' own account.
As for Aristeas himself, I've already mentioned where he was from. Now let me tell you the story I heard about him in Proconnesus and Cyzicus. They say that Aristeas, who was of the highest social standing, walked into a fuller's shop in Proconnesus and dropped dead on the spot. The fuller locked up his workshop and went to notify the dead man's relatives. Word quickly spread through the city that Aristeas had died. But then a man from Cyzicus who had just arrived from the town of Artake challenged the report, insisting that he had met Aristeas on the road to Cyzicus and spoken with him. While this argument was still raging, the relatives showed up at the fuller's shop with everything needed for the burial — but when they opened the place up, Aristeas was gone. No body, dead or alive. Seven years later he reappeared in Proconnesus, composed the poem now known as the Arimaspeia, and then vanished for a second time.
Here's something else I know about: in Metapontium in Italy, two hundred and forty years after Aristeas' second disappearance — and I worked out this timeline by comparing evidence from Proconnesus and Metapontium — the people there say Aristeas himself appeared and told them to set up an altar to Apollo with a statue bearing his name beside it. He told them that theirs was the only land in Italy that Apollo had ever visited, and that he, Aristeas, had accompanied the god in the form of a raven. After saying this, he vanished. The Metapontines sent to the oracle at Delphi to ask what the apparition meant, and the Pythia told them to obey — it would be to their benefit. So they did. And to this day a statue bearing Aristeas' name stands right next to an altar dedicated to Apollo, surrounded by laurel trees, set up in the marketplace. But enough about Aristeas.
Now, about the land we've been discussing: no one knows for certain what lies beyond it. I can't find anyone who claims to have seen it with their own eyes. Even Aristeas — despite writing an entire epic poem about the region — never claimed to have gone past the Issedonians. Everything beyond them he reported as hearsay, attributed to the Issedonians themselves. But as far as careful inquiry and secondhand reports can take us, I'll lay it all out.
Starting from the trading post of Borysthenes — which sits at the center of the Scythian coastline — the nearest peoples are the Callipidae, who are Greek-Scythians. Above them lives another group called the Alazonians. Both the Callipidae and Alazonians follow Scythian customs in most respects, but they also grow grain — as well as onions, leeks, lentils, and millet — and use it for food. Above the Alazonians are farming Scythians who grow grain not to eat themselves but to sell.
Beyond these farmers live the Neuri, and beyond the Neuri, heading north, the land is uninhabited as far as anyone knows. These peoples live along the river Hypanis, west of the Borysthenes. After you cross the Borysthenes, the first region from the coast is Hylaia, and above that, heading upriver, you find the agricultural Scythians — the ones the Greeks on the Hypanis call "Borysthenites," while calling themselves citizens of Olbia. These agricultural Scythians occupy a region stretching three days' journey to the east as far as the river Panticapes, and eleven days' sail northward up the Borysthenes. Beyond them begins a vast stretch of desert, and on the far side of that desert live the Androphagi — the "Man-Eaters" — a people entirely separate from the Scythians. Beyond the Man-Eaters is true desert with no inhabitants at all, as far as anyone knows.
East of the farming Scythians, across the river Panticapes, you enter the territory of the nomadic Scythians, who neither plant nor plow. This whole region is treeless except for Hylaia. The nomads range across a territory stretching fourteen days' journey eastward to the river Gerros.
On the far side of the Gerros lie what are called the Royal Lands, home of the Royal Scythians — the bravest and most numerous of their people, who consider all other Scythians their slaves. Their territory extends south to the Tauric peninsula, east to the trench dug by the sons of the blinded slaves and to the trading post called Cremnoi on the shore of Lake Maeotis, and in some parts reaches the river Tanais. Beyond the Royal Scythians to the north live the Melanchlaeni — the "Black-Cloaks" — a different people entirely, not Scythian at all. Beyond them the land turns to marsh, and as far as we know, no one lives there.
Once you cross the river Tanais, you're no longer in Scythia. The first territory belongs to the Sauromatae, who occupy the land stretching fifteen days' journey northward from the corner of Lake Maeotis — a completely treeless country, both wild and cultivated. Above them, in the next division, live the Budini, whose land is entirely covered with dense forest of every kind of tree.
Beyond the Budini to the north, there's first a stretch of desert lasting seven days' journey. Then, turning somewhat to the east, you reach the Thyssagetae, a large and distinct people who live by hunting. Neighboring them in the same region are a people called the Iyrcae, who also live by hunting but in a remarkable way: the hunter climbs a tree and waits in ambush — and trees are plentiful throughout this country. Each hunter has a horse trained to lie flat on its belly to stay low, plus a dog. When the hunter spots game from his tree, he shoots an arrow, then jumps on his horse to give chase while the dog runs the animal down. Beyond the Iyrcae, heading east, live yet more Scythians — breakaway groups that split off from the Royal Scythians and migrated to this region.
As far as the territory of these rebel Scythians, the whole land is flat with deep, rich soil. But beyond that point it becomes stony and rough. After passing through a great stretch of this rugged country, you reach the foothills of tall mountains where a people live who are said to be bald from birth — men and women alike — with flat noses and large chins. They speak their own language but dress in the Scythian style and live off the fruit of trees. The tree they depend on is called the Pontic tree, roughly the size of a fig tree, bearing a bean-sized fruit with a stone inside. When the fruit ripens, they strain it through cloth, and a thick dark juice runs out — they call it aschy. They either lick this up straight or drink it mixed with milk, and from the solid residue left over they make cakes to eat. They don't have much livestock because the pasture there isn't great. Each person makes their home under a tree, wrapping it in thick white felt during winter and leaving it uncovered in summer. No one harms these people, for they're considered sacred and possess no weapons whatsoever. They also serve as arbitrators when neighboring peoples have disputes, and any fugitive who takes refuge among them is safe from harm. They're called the Argippaeans.
Now, as far as these bald-headed people, there's solid, reliable information about the land and the peoples on this side of them. Various Scythians visit them regularly — and it's not hard to get information from them — along with Greeks from the trading posts on the Borysthenes and elsewhere along the Black Sea coast. The Scythians who make the journey conduct their business through seven interpreters speaking seven different languages.
So that far, the land is known. But about what lies north of the bald-headed people, no one can speak with certainty. Towering, impassable mountains block the way, and no one crosses them. The bald-headed people do claim — though I don't believe it — that the mountains are inhabited by goat-footed men, and that beyond them live people who sleep for six months of the year. That I don't accept at all. What is known with certainty is that the land east of the bald-headed people belongs to the Issedonians. But what lies north of both these peoples is unknown, except from whatever accounts they themselves give.
The Issedonians are said to have these customs: when a man's father dies, all the relatives bring cattle to the house. They slaughter the animals and cut up the meat, then also cut up the dead man's body, mix all the flesh together, and serve it as a feast. They strip the skull clean, gild it, and treat it as a sacred object, performing elaborate sacrificial rites for the dead man every year afterward. Each son does this for his father, much as the Greeks keep memorial days for their dead. In other respects, the Issedonians are said to be a just people, and notably, their women have equal rights with their men.
Those peoples, then, are also known. But as for what lies beyond them, it's the Issedonians who report the existence of one-eyed men and gold-guarding griffins. The Scythians picked up this story from the Issedonians, and the rest of us got it from the Scythians. We call them Arimaspians, using the Scythian language, because the Scythians call the number one arima and the eye spu.
The entire region I've been describing has an incredibly harsh climate. For eight months of the year the frost is so intense it's almost unbearable. During this time, if you pour out water you won't make mud — only by lighting a fire can you do it. The sea freezes over, and so does the entire Cimmerian Bosphorus, allowing the Scythians who live inside the trench to drive their wagons across the ice into the territory of the Sindians. Winter lasts a full eight months, and even the remaining four months are cold. This winter is completely unlike winters anywhere else in the world: there's virtually no rain during what would normally be the rainy season, while in summer it rains constantly. Thunder, which comes during the regular season in other countries, is very frequent in summer there. If thunder occurs in winter, it's regarded as a supernatural sign. Similarly, earthquakes — whether in summer or winter — are treated as omens in Scythia. Horses can endure this winter, but mules and donkeys cannot tolerate it at all. This is the opposite of most places, where horses standing in severe frost risk losing their limbs to frostbite while mules and donkeys bear up fine.
I also think this is the reason the hornless breed of cattle in that country never grow horns. There's a line from Homer in the Odyssey that supports my view:
"Also the Libyan land, where the sheep very quickly grow horned"
— which correctly implies that in warm climates horns come in quickly, while in extreme cold, animals either don't grow horns at all or barely do.
So that's what happens in Scythia on account of the cold. But here — since my account has always been one to welcome a good digression — I have to say I'm puzzled that in the entire land of Elis, mules simply cannot be bred. The climate there isn't cold, and there's no other obvious explanation. The Eleians themselves say it's because of a curse. When their mares are ready to conceive, they drive them out to neighboring territories, let the stallion-donkeys mate with them there, and once the mares are pregnant, drive them back home.
Now about those "feathers" the Scythians say fill the air and prevent anyone from seeing or traveling through the far north — here's what I think: in the regions beyond this land, it snows constantly, though less in summer than in winter as you'd expect. Anyone who has seen heavy snow falling close up knows exactly what I mean — snowflakes look like feathers. It's because of this extreme winter weather that the northern parts of the continent are uninhabitable. I believe the Scythians and their neighbors are using "feathers" as a poetic way of describing snow. So much for the most distant reports.
As for the Hyperboreans, the Scythians say nothing about them, and neither does anyone else in the region, unless perhaps the Issedonians — but in my opinion, even they have nothing to say, because if they did, the Scythians would pass it along, just as they do the stories about the one-eyed people. Hesiod did mention the Hyperboreans, and so does Homer in the Epigoni — if Homer really did write that poem.
But the people of Delos have far more to say about the Hyperboreans than anyone else. According to them, sacred offerings wrapped in wheat straw are sent from the land of the Hyperboreans and passed to the Scythians, then from the Scythians each neighboring people passes them westward in turn until they reach the Adriatic Sea. From there they're sent south, and the people of Dodona are the first Greeks to receive them. From Dodona they travel down to the Malian Gulf and across to Euboea, where they're passed from city to city until they reach Carystus. After that, Andros is skipped — the Carystians take them directly to Tenos, and the Tenians bring them to Delos. That's how the sacred offerings reach Delos, they say.
But at first, the Hyperboreans sent two maidens to carry the offerings — their names, according to the Delians, were Hyperoche and Laodice — escorted by five men of their nation for protection, the ones now known as Perpheres who receive great honors in Delos. But when the Hyperboreans found that their envoys never came back, they decided they couldn't keep sending people out to never return. So instead they began wrapping the offerings in wheat straw, carrying them to the border of their territory, and entrusting them to their neighbors with instructions to pass them on to the next people, and so on. And that's how the offerings reach Delos through this chain, they say.
I know from my own experience of something similar: the women of Thrace and Paeonia, when they sacrifice to Artemis the Queen, always include wheat straw in their offerings.
As for those two Hyperborean maidens who died in Delos, they receive special honors from the islanders. Before their wedding, the girls of Delos cut a lock of hair, wind it around a spindle, and lay it on the tomb — which sits on the left side as you enter the temple of Artemis, with an olive tree growing over it. The boys of Delos likewise wind some of their hair around a green branch and place it on the tomb.
The Delians also say that two other maidens, Arge and Opis, came from the Hyperboreans even earlier than Hyperoche and Laodice, traveling through the same chain of peoples. These two came not to bring offerings but as companions of the gods Artemis and Apollo themselves. The women of Delos collect donations in their names, singing the hymn composed for them by Olen, a man from Lycia. The other islanders and the Ionians learned from the Delians to sing hymns naming Opis and Arge while collecting offerings. This same Olen came from Lycia and composed many of the other ancient hymns sung in Delos. Furthermore, when victims are burned on the altar, the ashes are scattered on the grave of Opis and Arge, which lies behind the temple of Artemis, facing east, near the banqueting hall of the people of Ceos.
Enough about the Hyperboreans. I'm not going to tell the story of Abaris, said to be a Hyperborean, and how he supposedly carried an arrow around the entire world without eating any food. But I will say this: if there really are Hyperboreans — people who live "beyond the north wind" — then there should also be Hypernotians, people "beyond the south wind." And I have to laugh when I see all these maps people have drawn of the world, with none of them getting it right. They show Ocean flowing around an earth that's perfectly circular, as if drawn with a compass, and they make Asia and Europe the same size. Let me briefly describe the actual size and shape of each continent.
The Persians inhabit Asia all the way to the southern sea — the Red Sea. Above them to the north live the Medes, above the Medes the Saspirians, and above them the Colchians, extending to the northern sea where the river Phasis empties. These four nations stretch from sea to sea.
From this line, two peninsulas jut westward from Asia into the sea. The first peninsula, on its northern side, runs from the Phasis along the Black Sea and the Hellespont as far as Sigeum in the land of Troy. On its southern side, the same peninsula stretches from the Myriandrian gulf near Phoenicia along the coast to Cape Triopion. Thirty different peoples live in this peninsula.
That's the first one. The second peninsula starts from Persian territory and extends to the Red Sea. It includes Persia, then Assyria, then Arabia, and ends — or is commonly said to end — at the Arabian Gulf, into which Darius cut a canal from the Nile. From Persia to Phoenicia the land is broad and spacious, but beyond Phoenicia this peninsula follows the coast of our sea through Palestine and Syria to Egypt, where it ends. It contains only three nations.
Those are the western portions of Asia. But as to the parts east of Persia, Media, the Saspirians, and Colchis — on one side the Red Sea runs along them, and on the north both the Caspian Sea and the river Araxes, which flows eastward. Asia is inhabited as far as India, but beyond India to the east everything becomes desert, and no one can say what sort of land it is.
Such is Asia, in extent and nature. Libya occupies the second peninsula, since it comes right after Egypt. At Egypt the peninsula is narrow — the distance from our sea to the Red Sea is only about a hundred thousand fathoms, roughly a thousand stades. But beyond this narrow stretch, the part called Libya becomes enormously wide.
I'm genuinely puzzled by the people who have divided the world into three parts — Libya, Asia, and Europe — because the differences between them are hardly small. In length, Europe stretches alongside both the other continents, and in breadth it clearly surpasses them beyond comparison. As for Libya, it demonstrably proves itself to be surrounded by sea on all sides except where it borders Asia. The first person we know of to prove this was Necho, king of Egypt. After he abandoned the canal project connecting the Nile to the Arabian Gulf, he sent out Phoenician sailors with orders to sail around Libya, pass through the Pillars of Heracles, and return to Egypt by way of the northern sea. The Phoenicians set out from the Red Sea and sailed into the southern ocean. Each autumn they would put ashore, sow grain wherever they happened to be along the Libyan coast, and wait for the harvest. After reaping their crop they would sail on again. After two years of this, in the third year they rounded the Pillars of Heracles and made it back to Egypt. They reported something I personally cannot believe — though someone else might — that while sailing around Libya they had the sun on their right side.
That's how this continent was first proven to be what it is. After that, the Carthaginians confirmed it. As for Sataspes, son of Teaspes the Achaemenid — he was sent on the same voyage but failed. He was terrified by the length of the journey and the desolation of the coast, and turned back without completing the mission his mother had arranged for him. Here's what happened: Sataspes had raped the virgin daughter of Zopyrus, son of Megabyzus, and was sentenced to death by impalement on King Xerxes' orders. But his mother, who was Darius' sister, begged for his life, promising to impose a punishment worse than execution: he would be forced to sail all the way around Libya until he reached the Arabian Gulf and completed the circuit.
Xerxes agreed to the terms. Sataspes went to Egypt, got a ship and crew from the Egyptians, and sailed to the Pillars of Heracles. He passed through them, rounded the promontory of Libya called Cape Soloeis, and headed south. He sailed across a great expanse of ocean over many months, but as the voyage kept getting longer and longer, he lost his nerve, turned around, and sailed back to Egypt. He went before King Xerxes and reported that at the farthest point he had reached, he was sailing past a coast inhabited by small people who wore clothing made from palm fibers. Whenever his crew put ashore, these people would abandon their towns and flee to the mountains. His men, he said, did no harm — they only took food. The reason he hadn't completed the circumnavigation, he claimed, was that his ship couldn't make any further progress and got stuck.
Xerxes didn't believe a word of it. Since Sataspes hadn't completed the assigned task, he had him impaled — the original sentence carried out after all. A eunuch belonging to Sataspes, as soon as he learned his master was dead, escaped to Samos with a large amount of money. A man from Samos seized the fortune. I know his name, but I'll deliberately leave it out.
Most of Asia was explored by Darius, who wanted to know about the Indus River — the second river in the world to produce crocodiles — and specifically where it empties into the sea. He sent a naval expedition that included, among other trustworthy men, Scylax of Caryanda. They set out from the city of Caspatyrus in the land of Pactyice, sailed down the river eastward to the sea, then sailed west across the ocean and reached, in the thirtieth month, the same place from which the Egyptian king had originally sent the Phoenicians to circumnavigate Libya. After this voyage, Darius conquered the Indians and made regular use of that sea route. So Asia too — except for its easternmost reaches — has been found to have similar characteristics to Libya in being bounded by sea.
As for Europe, though, no one knows whether it's surrounded by water to the east or north. What we do know is that in length it extends alongside both the other continents. And I simply cannot understand why three different names — all derived from women — were given to what is, after all, a single earth, or why the Nile and the Phasis in Colchis (or, as some say, the Tanais and the Cimmerian ferry-crossing) were set as the boundaries between them. I can't even find out who established these boundaries or where the names came from.
Most Greeks say Libya was named after a woman called Libya who was native to that continent, and Asia after the wife of Prometheus. But the Lydians claim the name Asia for themselves, saying it comes from Asias, son of Cotys, son of Manes — not from Prometheus' wife — and that the Asian tribe in Sardis takes its name from this same Asias. As for Europe, no one knows whether it's surrounded by sea, and there's no obvious explanation for where the name came from — unless we say it was named after Europa of Tyre. But she clearly belongs to Asia and never came to the land the Greeks now call Europe. She only traveled from Phoenicia to Crete, and from Crete to Lycia. But let that be enough about names. I'll just go with the commonly accepted terms.
Now, the Black Sea region that Darius was preparing to invade contains — setting aside the Scythians — the most ignorant peoples on earth. We can't point to any nation in the entire Black Sea region that's distinguished for intelligence, nor do we know of a single notable thinker to have come from there — with the exception of the Scythian people and Anacharsis. The Scythians have, in one crucial respect, devised the most brilliant solution to the most important problem in human affairs — more clever than any other people I know of. In everything else I don't particularly admire them. But this one great discovery of theirs is this: they've made it so that no invader who attacks them can ever escape, and no one can catch them if they don't want to be caught. They have no cities, no walls — they carry their houses with them. They're all mounted archers who live not from farming but from their herds, and their homes are on wagons. How could such people not be unconquerable and impossible to engage?
They've been able to devise this way of life because their land is perfectly suited to it and their rivers serve as natural allies. The land is flat, grassy, and well-watered, and the rivers that flow through it are almost as numerous as the canals of Egypt. Let me name the notable ones that are also navigable from the sea: there's the Ister with its five mouths, then the Tyras, the Hypanis, the Borysthenes, the Panticapes, the Hypakyris, the Gerros, and the Tanais. Here's how each of them flows.
The Ister — the Danube, as we know it — is the greatest of all rivers known to us. It flows at the same volume year-round, summer and winter alike. It's the westernmost of the Scythian rivers, and the reason it's so great is that many other rivers feed into it. Five rivers flow through Scythian territory and join it: the one the Scythians call the Porata (Greeks call it the Pyretus), plus the Tiarantos, Araros, Naparis, and Ordessos. The first of these is a large river lying to the east where it joins the Ister. The Tiarantos is smaller and farther west. The Araros, Naparis, and Ordessos flow into the Ister between these two.
Those are the native Scythian tributaries. The Maris flows from the land of the Agathyrsians and joins the Ister too. From the heights of Mount Haemus, three more great rivers flow northward into it: the Atlas, the Auras, and the Tibisis. Through Thrace and Thracian Crobyzi territory flow the Athrys, Noes, and Artanes, all emptying into the Ister. From Paeonia and Mount Rhodope, the river Cios cuts through the middle of Haemus and joins it as well. From Illyria, the river Angros flows northward into the Triballian plain and into the river Brongos, and the Brongos flows into the Ister — so the Ister receives both of these major rivers. From the region above the Umbrians, the rivers Carpis and Alpis also flow northward into it. The Ister, after all, runs the entire length of Europe, beginning in the land of the Celts — who, after the Cynesians, live farther west than any other people in Europe — and having traversed all of Europe, it enters the sea at the border of Scythia.
It's because all these rivers and many others join together that the Ister becomes the mightiest of all rivers. If you compare them as single streams, though, the Nile surpasses it in volume, since no river or spring feeds into the Nile — it produces all its own water. The reason the Ister maintains such a consistent level year-round, I believe, is this: in winter it flows at roughly its natural volume, perhaps just a bit above, because the land gets very little rain in winter but constant snow. Then in summer, all that snow — which fell abundantly in winter — melts and pours into the Ister from every direction. This snowmelt plus the frequent heavy summer rains combine to swell the river in summer by roughly the same amount that evaporation in the summer heat reduces it. These factors balance each other out, and so the river appears to flow at the same volume always.
So the Ister is one of the Scythian rivers. Next comes the Tyras, which flows from the north, starting from a large lake that marks the boundary between Scythian and Neurian territory. At its mouth live the Greeks known as Tyritae.
The third river is the Hypanis, which also rises in Scythia from a great lake where white wild horses graze — the lake is fittingly called "Mother of the Hypanis." From this lake the Hypanis flows shallow and sweet for five days' sail. But from that point on, for four days' sail to the sea, it becomes extremely bitter, because a bitter spring empties into it — a spring so intensely bitter that, despite its small size, it transforms the entire Hypanis, which is otherwise one of the great rivers of the region. This spring sits on the border between the farming Scythians and the Alazonians. Its name in Scythian is Exampaios, and in Greek, Sacred Roads. The Tyras and the Hypanis flow close together in the land of the Alazonians, their courses winding near each other, but after that they diverge and the space between them widens.
The fourth river is the Borysthenes — the Dnieper — which is both the largest of these rivers after the Ister and, in my opinion, the most useful river in the world, not just among Scythian rivers but among all rivers everywhere, second only to the Nile of Egypt (to which no other river can be compared). But of all the rest, the Borysthenes is the most useful. It provides the finest and richest pastures for cattle, fish that are superior in quality and quantity to any other river's, the sweetest drinking water, and a clear current where other rivers run muddy. The crops along its banks are better than anywhere else, and where the land isn't cultivated, the grass grows remarkably deep. Salt forms naturally in great quantities at its mouth. It produces enormous boneless fish called antacaioi — excellent for salting — and many other remarkable things besides.
The Borysthenes is known to flow from the north for as far as the country of the Gerrhians, which is a forty-day voyage upstream. But beyond that, no one can say what peoples it passes through. What's certain is that it flows through uninhabited country before reaching the farming Scythians, who live along its banks for a ten-day stretch. This is the only river, besides the Nile, whose sources I can't determine — and I don't think any other Greek can either. Where the Borysthenes approaches the sea, the Hypanis merges with it, both flowing into the same marsh. The wedge of land between the two rivers is called the Point of Hippoles, and on it stands a temple dedicated to the Mother Goddess. On the far bank of the Hypanis, opposite the temple, live the Borysthenites.
That covers those rivers. The fifth river is the Panticapes, which also flows from the north out of a lake. Between this river and the Borysthenes live the farming Scythians. It flows through the region of Hylaia and then joins the Borysthenes.
The sixth is the Hypakyris, which starts from a lake and flows through the middle of nomadic Scythian territory, emptying into the sea near the city of Carkinitis. Along its right bank it skirts Hylaia and what's known as the Racecourse of Achilles.
The seventh is the Gerros, which branches off from the Borysthenes near the point where our knowledge of that river's course runs out. It takes its name from this region — also called Gerros — and as it flows toward the sea it forms the boundary between the nomadic and the Royal Scythians, emptying into the Hypakyris.
The eighth is the Tanais — the Don — which begins its course from a large lake and flows into an even larger one called Lake Maeotis, the body of water that separates the Royal Scythians from the Sauromatae. Another river, the Hyrgis, feeds into the Tanais as well.
Those are the notable rivers available to the Scythians. As for the grass that grows in Scythia, it produces more bile in cattle than any other grass in the world. You can see this for yourself if you open up the animals.
So the Scythians have abundant resources for what matters most to them. As for the rest of their customs, here's how they worship. The gods they honor are these, and only these: Hestia above all others, then Zeus and Earth — they consider Earth to be Zeus' wife — and after them Apollo, Aphrodite Urania, Heracles, and Ares. All Scythians worship these gods, and the Royal Scythians additionally sacrifice to Poseidon. In the Scythian language, Hestia is called Tabiti; Zeus — named with perfect appropriateness in my view — is Papaeus; Earth is Api; Apollo is Oitosyros; Aphrodite Urania is Argimpasa; and Poseidon is Thagimasadas. They have no tradition of making images, altars, or temples for any god except Ares — for him alone they build shrines.
Their method of sacrifice is the same for all their gods and works like this: the sacrificial animal stands with its front legs tied. The priest stands behind it, pulls a cord to throw the beast to the ground, and as it falls, calls out to whichever god he's sacrificing to. He then loops a noose around its neck, inserts a small stick, and twists — strangling the animal. No fire is lit, no preliminary offering is made, no libation poured. Once the animal is strangled and skinned, the priest proceeds to boil the meat.
Now, since Scythia has almost no trees, they've devised an ingenious solution for this: after skinning the victim and stripping the flesh from the bones, they toss the meat into cauldrons — locally made bronze vessels that look like Lesbian mixing bowls, only much bigger — and use the animal's own bones as fuel to boil it. If they don't have a cauldron handy, they stuff all the meat into the animal's stomach, add water, and burn the bones underneath. The bones burn beautifully, and the stomach easily holds all the boneless meat. In this way, an ox essentially boils itself — and every other type of sacrificial animal does the same. When the meat is cooked, the person making the sacrifice takes a first portion of the flesh and organs and throws it on the ground in front of him. They sacrifice various kinds of livestock, but horses most of all.
That's how they sacrifice to most of their gods. But for Ares, they do something different. In every district of every province, they build a shrine to Ares constructed like this: bundles of brushwood are piled up into a structure roughly three stades long and wide but somewhat lower in height. On top is a flat, level platform. Three sides are sheer, but the fourth side forms a slope you can climb. Every year they add a hundred and fifty wagonloads of fresh brushwood, since the pile constantly settles from the weather. On top of each of these piles stands an ancient iron sword — the sacred symbol of Ares. Every year they bring offerings of cattle and horses to this sword, and beyond the regular animal sacrifices, they do something more: of all the enemies they capture in war, they sacrifice one man in every hundred. But the method is different from animal sacrifice. First they pour wine over the prisoner's head, then cut his throat so the blood runs into a bowl. They carry the bowl up to the top of the brushwood pile and pour the blood over the iron sword. While that's happening at the top, others below at the base of the shrine are cutting off the right arms — hands and all — of the slaughtered prisoners and flinging them into the air. When they've finished with all the other victims, they leave. The arms lie wherever they happen to fall, separate from the bodies.
Those are their established sacrificial practices. As for pigs — the Scythians want nothing to do with them. They don't use them and won't even keep them in their country.
Now for their customs of war. When a Scythian kills his first man in battle, he drinks some of the dead man's blood. He brings the heads of everyone he kills to the king — because only warriors who present a head get a share of the plunder; those who bring nothing get nothing. The way they process the scalps is this: the warrior cuts the skin in a circle around the ears, grabs the scalp, and shakes it off. Then he scrapes the flesh clean with an ox rib and works the skin with his hands until it's supple. He keeps it as a hand-towel, hanging it from the bridle of his horse, and takes great pride in it — the man with the most scalps displayed is considered the bravest. Many Scythians also sew these skins together to make cloaks, like the leather coats shepherds wear. Others skin the right hands of their dead enemies, fingernails and all, and make them into quiver covers. Human skin, as it turns out, is both thick and remarkably glossy — brighter white than almost any other kind. Some even skin whole bodies, stretch the hides on wooden frames, and carry them around on horseback.
Those are their established practices. As for the skulls of their greatest enemies — not all enemies, just the most formidable ones — the warrior saws off everything below the eyebrows and cleans out the inside. If he's poor, he just stretches ox-hide around the outside and uses it as a drinking cup. If he's rich, he gilds the interior as well. They also do this with the skulls of their own relatives if they've had a falling out and the man wins his case before the king. When important visitors come, the host will bring out these skull-cups and tell the story: "These belonged to members of my own family who challenged me — and I defeated them." This they consider proof of true manhood.
Once a year, each district governor mixes a bowl of wine, and only Scythians who have killed an enemy get to drink from it. Those who haven't killed anyone don't get a taste — they have to sit apart in disgrace, which is the greatest humiliation among the Scythians. Warriors who have killed a particularly large number of enemies get to drink with two cups at the same time.
The Scythians have many diviners, who practice their craft with bundles of willow rods. They lay these out on the ground, unroll the bundle, and set each rod apart individually while making their prophecy. Then they roll them up again and lay them out a second time, one by one. This method has been handed down from their ancestors. But there's another group — the Enarees, or "man-women" — who say Aphrodite gave them the gift of prophecy. These use strips of linden bark instead: they split the bark into three strips, weave them between their fingers, and then unweave them, pronouncing their oracle as they do so.
When the king of the Scythians falls ill, he sends for the three most respected diviners, who practice divination in the way I've described. They usually say something like this: "So-and-so has sworn a false oath on the king's hearth" — and they name some citizen at random. Now, swearing by the king's hearth is the most solemn oath a Scythian can take. The accused man is immediately seized and brought in. The diviners confront him, saying their divination has proven that he swore falsely by the royal hearth, and that this is why the king is suffering. The accused naturally denies everything and protests furiously. So the king sends for a second group of diviners, double the number of the first. If they also pronounce him guilty, the man's head is cut off on the spot, and the original diviners divide his property among themselves by lot. But if the second group acquits him, more diviners are called in, and then still more. If the majority ultimately clear the man, the sentence falls on the original diviners — they themselves are put to death.
Here's how they execute them: they fill a wagon with brushwood and yoke oxen to it. Then they bind the diviners' feet, tie their hands behind their backs, gag their mouths, and lash them down in the middle of the brushwood. They set fire to the wood and then stampede the oxen. Sometimes the oxen burn to death along with the diviners. Sometimes the animals escape when the yoke-pole burns through, though they get badly scorched. They also burn diviners this way for other offenses — "false prophets," they call them. And when the king executes someone, he kills all the man's sons as well; the daughters he doesn't touch.
This is how the Scythians swear oaths: they pour wine into a large earthenware cup and mix in blood drawn from the oath-takers — either pricked with an awl or nicked with a dagger. Then they dip a sword, arrows, a battle-axe, and a javelin into the cup, invoke terrible curses on anyone who breaks the oath, and then drink it off — both the oath-takers and the most distinguished men present as witnesses.
The burial place of the Scythian kings is in the land of the Gerrhians, at the farthest navigable point of the Borysthenes. When a king dies, they dig a large square pit. They prepare the body by coating it in wax, slitting open the belly, cleaning it out, and then stuffing it with chopped cypress, incense, parsley seed, and anise before sewing it back up. Then they load the body on a wagon and carry it to the next tribal nation. Each people that receives the royal corpse does the same thing the Royal Scythians do: they cut off part of their ear, shave their heads, slash their arms all over, gash their foreheads and noses, and drive arrows through their left hands. From there the procession moves on to the next nation, with all the previous peoples joining the escort. After they've made the circuit of all the nations under Scythian rule, they arrive at last in the land of the Gerrhians, the most remote of their subject peoples, where the burial ground is located.
There they lay the body on a bed of leaves in the tomb, plant spears along both sides, stretch wooden beams across them, and cover the whole thing with mats of woven rushes. In the remaining space of the tomb they strangle and bury: one of the king's concubines, his cup-bearer, his cook, his groom, his personal attendant, and his messenger — along with horses and a selection of all his finest possessions, including golden cups. They don't use silver or bronze at all. After this, everyone works together to pile up an enormous burial mound, competing with each other to make it as large as possible.
When a year has passed, they do something even more remarkable. They select the fifty most capable of the king's remaining servants — and these are native-born Scythians, not purchased slaves, since only men the king personally commands serve him. They strangle all fifty of them and also fifty of the finest horses. They gut the horses, clean out the bellies, stuff them with chaff, and sew them back up. Then they set up half-wheels on pairs of stakes, hollow side up, and mount the stuffed horses on these frames — front wheels supporting the shoulders, rear wheels supporting the bellies, with all four legs hanging free. They put bridles and bits on the horses and stretch the reins out taut to pegs driven in the ground. Then they take each of the fifty strangled servants, run a straight stake through each body from bottom to top along the spine up to the neck, and fix the projecting end of the stake into a socket on the horse's back-stake. In this way they mount all fifty dead horsemen in a circle around the tomb. Then they ride away.
That's how they bury their kings. For ordinary Scythians, when someone dies, the nearest relatives lay the body in a wagon and take it around to visit friends in turn. Each host entertains the funeral party and serves portions of food to the corpse just as to the living guests. Private citizens are carted around like this for forty days before burial.
After the burial, the Scythians purify themselves in a remarkable way. They wash their heads with soap and water first. Then for their bodies, they set up three poles leaning together, drape them with thick felt coverings to make a sealed tent, and toss red-hot stones into a basin set in the middle.
Now, hemp grows in their land — it looks very much like flax, except it's thicker and taller. It grows both wild and cultivated. The Thracians even weave garments from it that look so much like linen that you couldn't tell the difference unless you were an expert — someone who'd never seen hemp cloth would swear it was flax.
The Scythians take the seeds of this hemp and crawl under the felt tent, then throw the seeds onto the red-hot stones. The seeds smolder and produce such a thick vapor that no steam bath in Greece could match it. The Scythians howl with delight. This serves as their bath — they never actually wash their bodies with water.
Their women, however, have their own beauty treatment: they pound cypress wood, cedar, and frankincense tree on a rough stone, adding water to make a thick paste, and plaster it over their entire bodies and faces. Not only does this give them a pleasant smell, but when they peel off the paste the next day, their skin comes out clean and glowing.
The Scythians are deeply hostile to foreign customs — they reject outside practices, even those of other Scythian tribes, and above all those of the Greeks. The fates of Anacharsis and later Scyles prove this.
First, Anacharsis: after traveling widely and gaining a reputation for wisdom throughout many lands, he was sailing home through the Hellespont when he stopped at Cyzicus. Finding the people there celebrating a magnificent festival in honor of the Mother of the Gods, Anacharsis made a vow that if he returned safely to Scythia, he would worship her with the same rites he had witnessed and hold a night-festival in her honor. So when he reached Scythia, he went down to the woodland region called Hylaia — the one near the Racecourse of Achilles, which happens to be thick with trees of every kind — and began performing the full ritual for the goddess, complete with hand-drum and sacred images hung about his person. But a Scythian spotted him and reported it to King Saulius. The king came in person, and when he saw Anacharsis performing the rite, he shot him dead with an arrow. To this day, if you ask the Scythians about Anacharsis, they claim never to have heard of him — because he left his country and adopted foreign customs.
I was told by Tymnes, the steward of Ariapeithes, that Anacharsis was actually the uncle of the Scythian King Idanthyrsus — son of Gnurus, son of Lycus, son of Spargapeithes. If that genealogy is correct, then Anacharsis was killed by his own brother, since Idanthyrsus was the son of Saulius, and Saulius was the one who shot Anacharsis.
I've also heard another version told by the Peloponnesians: that Anacharsis was sent abroad by the Scythian king himself to study Greek ways, and when he returned he reported that all the Greeks were devoted to every kind of intellectual pursuit — except the Spartans, who were the only ones who knew how to have a proper conversation. But this story was obviously invented by the Greeks themselves. However that may be, the man was killed in the way I've already described.
That was Anacharsis' fate, and it came from adopting foreign customs. Many years later, Scyles the son of Ariapeithes suffered almost the same thing. Ariapeithes, king of the Scythians, had several sons, and Scyles was born to a woman from Istria — definitely not a native Scythian. His mother taught him the Greek language and Greek writing. In time, Ariapeithes was murdered through treachery by Spargapeithes, king of the Agathyrsians. Scyles inherited the throne — along with his father's wife Opoia, a native Scythian woman who had borne Ariapeithes a son named Oricos.
But although Scyles was now king of the Scythians, he was never content with the Scythian way of life. His Greek upbringing had given him a strong preference for Greek customs. Here's what he would do: whenever he led the Scythian army to the city of the Borysthenites — who claim to be originally from Miletus — he would leave his troops in the suburbs, enter the city alone, and have the gates closed behind him. He would strip off his Scythian gear, put on Greek clothing, and walk around the marketplace with no guards or attendants. Meanwhile, men watched the gates to make sure no Scythian saw him dressed this way. He adopted Greek customs in every respect, including Greek forms of worship. After a month or more of this, he would change back into Scythian dress and leave. He did this repeatedly, even building a house in the city and marrying a local Greek woman.
But fate had marked him for disaster, and here's how it happened: he decided to be initiated into the rites of Dionysus-Bacchus, and just as the initiation was about to begin, an enormous omen occurred. He owned a large, expensive house in the city — the same one I just mentioned — and around it stood sphinxes and griffins carved from white stone. Lightning struck the house and burned it completely to the ground. But Scyles went ahead with the initiation anyway.
Now, the Scythians mocked the Greeks for their Bacchic rites. They said it was absurd to worship a god who drives men to frenzy. So after Scyles had been initiated, a citizen of Borysthenes went to the Scythians and said: "You laugh at us Scythians for performing the rites of Bacchus and being seized by the god. Well, this same deity has now seized your own king — he's joining in the Bacchic rites and raving under the god's influence. If you don't believe me, follow me and I'll show you."
The Scythian chiefs followed him. The Borysthenite led them secretly into the city and stationed them on a tower. When Scyles passed by with the procession of revelers, and the Scythians saw their own king participating in the rites of Bacchus, they were horrified. They left the city and told the entire army what they had seen.
After that, when Scyles rode out to return to his own territory, the Scythians revolted against him and put his brother Octamasades — son of the daughter of Teres — at their head. When Scyles realized what was happening and why, he fled to Thrace. Octamasades marched after him. When he reached the Ister, the Thracians confronted him, and the two armies were about to clash when Sitalces, king of Thrace, sent a message to Octamasades: "Why should we fight each other? You're my sister's son, and you have my brother in your power. Give him back to me, and I'll hand over your brother Scyles. Let's not risk our armies." Sitalces made this proposal because a brother of his had gone into exile and was staying with Octamasades. Octamasades agreed. He gave up his maternal uncle to Sitalces and received Scyles in return. Sitalces took his brother and led him away as a prisoner. Octamasades beheaded Scyles on the spot.
That is how fiercely the Scythians guard their own customs, and these are the punishments they inflict on anyone who adopts foreign ways.
As for how many Scythians there are, I couldn't get a precise figure — the reports vary wildly, some claiming enormous numbers, others saying they're actually quite few when you count only the true Scythians. But I can report something I saw with my own eyes. Between the rivers Borysthenes and Hypanis there's a place called Exampaios — I mentioned it before as the location of the bitter spring that makes the Hypanis undrinkable. In this place stands a bronze bowl that easily holds six hundred amphoras of liquid, and it's six fingers thick. To give you a sense of scale, it's at least six times the size of the mixing bowl that Pausanias son of Cleombrotus dedicated at the entrance to the Black Sea — and for anyone who hasn't seen that one, the Scythian bowl is truly enormous.
The locals told me the story behind it: a Scythian king named Ariantas wanted to know the population of his people, so he ordered every Scythian to bring one arrowhead from his own quiver, with death as the penalty for refusal. Such a mountain of arrowheads was collected that the king decided to create a memorial from them. He had this enormous bronze bowl cast and dedicated it at Exampaios.
That's what I learned about Scythian numbers. As for marvels, the land doesn't have much to show apart from its extraordinarily large and numerous rivers. But there is one thing worth mentioning: a footprint of Heracles is pointed out on a rock by the river Tyras. It looks like a human footprint, but it's about three feet long. Having described that, let me now return to the story I was originally telling.
While Darius was preparing his expedition against the Scythians — sending messengers in every direction to order some to supply ground troops, others to furnish ships, and yet others to bridge the Thracian Bosphorus — his brother Artabanus, son of Hystaspes, urged him strongly not to go, warning him how difficult the Scythians would be to deal with. But good advice went unheeded. Darius ignored him, and once all preparations were complete, he marched his army out of Susa.
Before they left, a Persian named Oiobazus, who had three sons all serving in the expedition, asked Darius as a favor to leave one behind. Darius, calling him a friend making a reasonable request, said he would leave all three behind. Oiobazus was overjoyed, thinking his sons had been freed from service. But Darius ordered the officers in charge to execute all three of Oiobazus' sons. And there they were left — killed on the spot.
Darius, meanwhile, marched from Susa to the Bosphorus, where the bridge of boats had been constructed in the territory of Chalcedon. He boarded a ship and sailed to the so-called Cyanean Rocks — the ones the Greeks say once moved back and forth. Taking his seat at the temple there, he gazed out over the Black Sea, which truly is a sight worth seeing. Of all seas, it's the most remarkable. It measures eleven thousand one hundred stades in length and three thousand three hundred at its widest point. Its mouth, however, is only four stades across, and the strait called the Bosphorus — where the bridge had been built — extends for at least one hundred and twenty stades. The Bosphorus opens into the Propontis, which is five hundred stades wide and fourteen hundred long. The Propontis leads to the Hellespont, only seven stades wide at its narrowest but four hundred stades long, and the Hellespont opens out into the broad expanse of the Aegean Sea.
Here's how I calculated these measurements: a ship can cover roughly seventy thousand fathoms in a long day and sixty thousand in a night. From the mouth of the sea to the river Phasis — where the Black Sea reaches its greatest length — is a voyage of nine days and eight nights, which comes to 1,110,000 fathoms, or eleven thousand one hundred stades. From the Sindian territory to Themiscyra on the river Thermodon — the widest point — is a three-day, two-night voyage, totaling 330,000 fathoms, or three thousand three hundred stades. Those are my measurements of the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, and the Hellespont. The Black Sea also has a lake that empties into it — Lake Maeotis, called "Mother of the Black Sea" — which is not much smaller than the sea itself.
After gazing at the Black Sea, Darius sailed back to the bridge, which had been designed by Mandrocles of Samos. He also inspected the Bosphorus and set up two pillars of white stone on its banks, one inscribed in Assyrian characters and the other in Greek, listing the names of every nation in his army — and he was leading contingents from every people he ruled. The total land force, including cavalry, was reckoned at seven hundred thousand, and six hundred ships had been assembled. These pillars were later carried off by the Byzantines and used for the altar of Artemis Orthosia — all except one stone, which was left standing beside the temple of Dionysus in Byzantium, covered with Assyrian writing. The spot on the Bosphorus where Darius built his bridge was, as I calculate, roughly midway between Byzantium and the temple at the entrance to the Black Sea.
Pleased with the bridge, Darius rewarded its builder Mandrocles of Samos with lavish gifts. From these rewards, Mandrocles commissioned a painting showing the entire scene — the bridge across the Bosphorus, King Darius seated prominently, and his army crossing over — and dedicated it in the temple of Hera with this inscription:
"Bridging the Bosphorus, rich in fish, to Hera he offers This painting — Mandrocles, to record his work. He set a crown upon himself and brought glory to Samos, Fulfilling for Darius everything to his mind."
That was the memorial left by the bridge's builder. After rewarding Mandrocles, Darius crossed into Europe. He had already ordered the Ionians to sail through the Black Sea to the river Ister, wait for him there, and build a bridge across the river. The core of his naval force was made up of Ionians, Aeolians, and Hellespontines. The fleet sailed through the Cyanean Rocks, headed straight for the Ister, and then rowed two days' journey upstream to the neck of the river where its mouths branch off. There they built their bridge. Meanwhile, Darius was advancing overland through Thrace. When he reached the headwaters of the river Tearos, he made camp for three days.
The Tearos, according to the locals, is the finest of all rivers — excellent for healing, and especially good for curing skin diseases in both men and horses. It has thirty-eight springs, all flowing from the same rock, some cold and some warm. The distance to these springs is equally two days' journey from Heraeum near Perinthus and from Apollonia on the Black Sea. The Tearos flows into the Contadesdus, the Contadesdus into the Agrianes, and the Agrianes into the Hebrus, which reaches the sea at the city of Aenus.
Darius was so pleased with this river that he set up another pillar there, inscribed with these words: "The headwaters of the river Tearos produce the finest and most beautiful water of all rivers. To these springs came, leading an army against the Scythians, the finest and most handsome of all men — Darius, son of Hystaspes, King of the Persians and of the entire continent."
From there Darius proceeded to another river called the Artescus, flowing through the land of the Odrysians. At this river he did the following: he designated a spot for the army and ordered every soldier passing by to place one stone in the pile. When the army had marched past, great mounds of stones stood in its wake.
Before reaching the Ister, Darius first conquered the Getae, who believe in immortality. The other Thracians in the region — those occupying Salmydessus and the territory above the cities of Apollonia and Mesambria, called the Cyrmianae and the Nipsaei — surrendered to Darius without a fight. But the Getae, the bravest and most upright of all the Thracians, stubbornly resisted and were promptly subdued.
Their belief in immortality works like this: they don't think they actually die. Instead, they believe that the dead go to join Salmoxis — a divine being whom some of them also call Gebeleizis. Every four years they send a messenger to Salmoxis, chosen by lot, loaded with whatever requests they need to make. They send him in this way: some men hold three javelins with the points up, while others grab the chosen messenger by his hands and feet, swing him back and forth, and hurl him into the air to land on the spear points. If he dies from the impalement, they take it as a sign that the god looks favorably on them. If he survives, they blame the messenger himself — calling him a worthless man — and send another in his place. They give him the message to deliver while he's still alive. These same Thracians also shoot arrows at the sky during thunderstorms and shout threats at the heavens, believing no god exists besides their own.
Now, I've heard from the Greeks living around the Hellespont and Black Sea that this Salmoxis was actually a man — a slave, in fact, belonging to Pythagoras the philosopher, son of Mnesarchus, on the island of Samos. After gaining his freedom, he amassed great wealth and returned to his homeland. Finding the Thracians living a rough, simple life, Salmoxis — who was familiar with the Ionian way of life and with manners more sophisticated than anything the Thracians had seen, having lived among Greeks and specifically with Pythagoras, one of the most brilliant thinkers Greece ever produced — built a grand banquet hall. There he hosted the leading men of the tribe, and over dinner he taught them that neither he himself, nor his guests, nor their descendants would truly die, but would go to a place where they would live forever in perfect happiness. While preaching this doctrine, he was secretly building an underground chamber. When it was finished, he vanished from Thracian society and descended into his hidden room, where he lived for three years. The Thracians mourned him as dead. Then in the fourth year he reappeared — and after that, everything Salmoxis had taught them seemed perfectly credible.
That's the Greek version of the story. Personally, I neither entirely disbelieve the tale of Salmoxis and his underground chamber nor do I put much faith in it. But I do think Salmoxis lived many years before Pythagoras. In any case, whether Salmoxis was a real man or simply a native god of the Getae, let's leave him behind now.
So: the Getae, with their beliefs as I've described, were conquered by the Persians and forced to join the march. When Darius and the entire land army reached the Ister and everyone had crossed over, he ordered the Ionians to dismantle the floating bridge and follow him overland along with the rest of the naval forces. The Ionians were about to comply when Coes, son of Erxander, commander of the Mytilenaean contingent, spoke up — after first asking whether the king would welcome some advice.
"King," he said, "you're about to march into a country where you'll find no cultivated fields and no towns. Leave this bridge standing and post the men who built it to guard it. If we find the Scythians and things go as we hope, we'll have a route back. And even if we can't find them, at least our retreat is secure. I've never worried that the Scythians could beat us in battle — what I fear is that we might not find them and get lost wandering in the wilderness. Some might say I'm speaking out of self-interest, to be left behind with the guard. Not at all — I'll be marching with you myself. I'm simply offering you the best advice I can."
Darius was greatly pleased. "Friend from Lesbos," he replied, "when I return safely home, make sure you come see me so I can repay good counsel with good rewards."
Having said this, Darius tied sixty knots in a leather thong and summoned the Ionian commanders. "Men of Ionia," he said, "I've changed my mind about the bridge. Take this thong and do as I say: from the moment you see me march toward the Scythians, begin untying one knot each day. If I haven't returned by the time all the knots are undone, sail home to your own countries. But until then — since plans have changed — guard the bridge with all the diligence you can muster. Do this, and you'll have my deepest gratitude." With that, Darius pressed forward.
Now, in front of Scythia toward the coast lies Thrace. Where the Thracian coast curves into a bay, Scythia begins — and here the Ister empties into the sea, its mouth pointing southeast. Starting from the Ister, I'm going to trace the coastline of true Scythia and give the measurements.
From the Ister, the original Scythian territory runs south along the coast as far as the city of Carkinitis. Beyond that, the mountainous country that juts out toward the Black Sea is occupied by the Taurians, extending to what's called the Rugged Peninsula, which reaches the sea on the eastern side. Two of Scythia's four boundaries run along the sea — one on the south, one on the east — rather like Attica. In fact, the territory of the Taurians bears a strong resemblance to Attica. It's as if some non-Athenian people occupied the promontory of Sunium — imagining it jutting further into the sea than it actually does — from Thoricos to Anaphlystos. That's what the shape of Tauric territory is like, if I may compare small things with great. For anyone who hasn't sailed along that stretch of the Attic coast, here's another comparison: it's as if in Iapygia some non-Iapygian people had cut off and occupied the heel of the boot, from the harbor of Brentesium to Taras. By mentioning these two parallels, I could suggest many other similar cases, but these should make the point.
Beyond the Tauric land, Scythians once again occupy the coastline — the territory above the Taurians along the eastern sea, west of the Cimmerian Bosphorus and Lake Maeotis, all the way to the river Tanais at the lake's northern corner. Inland, Scythia is bounded first by the Agathyrsians starting from the Ister, then by the Neuri, then the Man-Eaters, and finally the Black-Cloaks.
If you picture Scythia as a rough square with two sides along the sea, each of its sides is roughly equal. From the Ister to the Borysthenes is ten days' journey; from the Borysthenes to Lake Maeotis another ten days. Inland from the coast to the Black-Cloaks is twenty days. I've calculated the day's journey at two hundred stades, which makes Scythia about four thousand stades on each side. That's the size of the country.
The Scythians, calculating that they couldn't defeat Darius' army alone in a pitched battle, sent envoys to their neighbors. The kings of these nations had already gathered in council, alarmed at the size of the approaching force. Those who assembled were the kings of the Taurians, Agathyrsians, Neuri, Man-Eaters, Black-Cloaks, Gelonians, Budini, and Sauromatae.
The Taurians have these customs: they sacrifice shipwrecked sailors and any Greeks they capture at sea to a goddess they call "the Maiden." Their method is to strike the victim's head with a club. Some say they then push the body off the cliff where the temple stands and set the head on a stake. Others agree about the head but say the body is buried rather than thrown from the cliff. The Taurians themselves identify this goddess as Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon. As for enemies they defeat in war, each man cuts off a head and carries it home, where he impales it on a tall stake set high above his house — typically above the chimney. They say these serve as guardians watching over the entire household. The Taurians live by plunder and war.
The Agathyrsians are the most luxurious of all these peoples. They wear gold jewelry constantly. They also practice communal sharing of their women, so that all the men are effectively brothers and, being closely related, feel no jealousy or hostility toward one another. In their other customs they resemble the Thracians.
The Neuri follow Scythian customs. One generation before Darius' expedition, they were forced to abandon their homeland entirely because of snakes. Their territory produced enormous numbers of them, and even more flooded in from the wilderness beyond their borders. Finally, overwhelmed, they left and settled among the Budini. These people are apparently sorcerers, for both the Scythians and the Greeks living in Scythia say that once a year every Neurian turns into a wolf for a few days and then changes back to human form. Personally, I don't believe a word of it — but they say it anyway, and they swear to it.
The Man-Eaters have the most savage customs of any people on earth. They recognize no law and follow no established customs. They're nomads who dress like Scythians but speak their own language, and they alone among all these nations eat human flesh.
The Black-Cloaks all wear black clothing — that's where their name comes from — and otherwise follow Scythian customs.
The Budini are a very large and numerous people, and they're all strikingly blue-eyed and fair-skinned. In their territory stands a wooden city called Gelonus, with walls thirty stades long on each side and built entirely of timber — walls, houses, and temples alike. It contains temples to Greek gods, furnished in the Greek style with statues, altars, and shrines, all made of wood. Every other year they hold a festival for Dionysus and celebrate the Bacchic rites. The reason is that the Gelonians are originally Greeks who emigrated from the coastal trading posts and settled among the Budini. They speak a mixture of Scythian and Greek. But the Budini themselves are not the same as the Gelonians — they speak a different language and live a different life.
The Budini are the native people, nomads who are the only inhabitants of the region to eat pine cones. The Gelonians, on the other hand, are farmers who grow grain and keep gardens — they look nothing like the Budini in either appearance or complexion. Despite this, the Greeks call the Budini "Gelonians" too, which is incorrect. The land of the Budini is thickly forested with every kind of tree, and in the densest part of the forest there's a large, deep lake surrounded by marshland and reeds. In this lake they catch otters, beavers, and other animals with flat, square-shaped faces. The furs are sewn as trim on their leather coats, and the animals' testicles are used as a remedy for diseases of the womb.
Now for the Sauromatae — and this is one of the great stories. Here's how it goes:
When the Greeks fought the Amazons at the battle of the Thermodon — the Scythians call the Amazons "Oiorpata," which means "man-killers" in Greek, since oior means "man" and pata means "to kill" — after the Greeks won, they sailed away with three ships full of captured Amazons. But out on the open sea, the Amazons attacked the crews and threw them overboard. The problem was, they knew nothing about ships — how to steer, work the sails, or handle the oars. So after killing the Greek sailors, they just drifted at the mercy of wind and waves until they washed up at Cremnoi on the shore of Lake Maeotis, in the territory of the free Scythians. There the Amazons climbed ashore, captured the first herd of horses they came across, mounted up, and began raiding Scythian settlements.
The Scythians couldn't figure out what was going on. They didn't recognize the language, the clothing, or the people themselves, and had no idea where they'd come from. They assumed the raiders were young men and fought several battles against them. But after one engagement, they recovered some of the enemy dead and discovered they were women. This changed everything. They held a council and decided that instead of trying to kill these women, they would send their youngest men out to them — roughly matching the number of Amazons. The young men were told to make camp near the Amazons and mirror whatever they did. If the women approached, they shouldn't fight but should fall back. When the women stopped, they should make camp nearby. The Scythians' plan was to have children by these women.
The young men carried out their orders. When the Amazons realized these men meant no harm, they left them alone. Day by day, the two camps edged closer together. The young men, like the Amazons themselves, had nothing besides their weapons and horses, and they lived the same way — by hunting and raiding.
At midday, the Amazons would scatter in ones and twos to relieve themselves some distance from camp. The Scythian men noticed this and did the same. One of the young men approached an Amazon who had gone off alone, and she didn't push him away — she let him sleep with her. She couldn't speak to him, since they didn't share a language, but she made signs for him to come back to the same place the next day and bring a companion — holding up two fingers to show she'd bring one of her own. The young man returned and told the others. The next day he went back with a friend and found the Amazon waiting with a companion. When the rest heard, they each paired off with an Amazon of their own.
After that, the two camps merged. Each man stayed with the woman he had first been with. The men couldn't learn the Amazon language, but the women picked up Scythian. Once they could communicate, the men said to the Amazons: "We have parents and property. Let's stop living like this — come back to the main body of our people and live with us. We'll marry you and no one else."
The Amazons replied: "We couldn't live with your women. We and they have nothing in common. We shoot bows, throw javelins, and ride horses — we never learned women's domestic work. Your women do none of the things we do. They stay in the wagons doing household chores and never go out hunting or anywhere else. We could never get along with them. But if you want to keep us as your wives and be fair about it, go to your parents, get your share of the family property, and come back. Then we'll go off and live on our own."
The young men agreed. They went home, collected their inheritance, and returned to the Amazons. Then the women said: "Honestly, we're afraid to live in this territory. We've cut you off from your families and done serious damage to your land. Since you're willing to have us as wives, let's do this: let's leave this country, cross the river Tanais, and settle on the other side."
The young men agreed to this too. They crossed the Tanais and traveled three days' journey east from the river and three days north from Lake Maeotis, reaching the place where they live to this day. And that is how the Sauromatae came to be. From that time on, the women of the Sauromatae have maintained their ancient Amazon way of life — riding out to hunt both with and without the men, going to war, and wearing the same clothing as men.
The Sauromatae speak a form of Scythian, though they've spoken it badly from the beginning because the Amazons never learned it properly. Their marriage custom is this: no maiden can marry until she has killed an enemy in battle. Some grow old and die unmarried because they can't fulfill this requirement.
So the Scythian envoys came before the assembled kings of all these nations and laid out their case: the Persian king, having conquered everything on the other continent, had bridged the Bosphorus, crossed over, subdued the Thracians, and was now bridging the Ister with the intention of bringing all these territories under his control as well.
"You absolutely cannot stand by and watch us be destroyed," the Scythians said. "Join us — let's face this enemy together. If you won't, we'll be forced to either abandon our land or stay and make terms with the invader. What else can we do without your help? And don't think that after dealing with us, the Persians will leave you alone. He's coming for you every bit as much as for us. Once he's conquered us, he won't stop there. Here's the proof: if Darius had only wanted revenge on the Scythians for our ancient invasion, he should have left everyone else alone and marched straight for our territory — making it clear to the whole world that he was fighting us and no one else. Instead, from the moment he crossed to this continent, he's been conquering every people in his path. He already holds all the Thracians, including the Getae, our nearest neighbors."
The kings listened and deliberated. Opinion was split. The kings of the Gelonians, Budini, and Sauromatae agreed to help the Scythians. But the kings of the Agathyrsians, Neuri, Man-Eaters, Black-Cloaks, and Taurians gave this reply:
"If you hadn't been the ones to wrong the Persians first and start this war, we would consider your request justified, and we'd be willing to join you. But you invaded their land without consulting us and ruled over the Persians for as long as heaven allowed it. Now the same divine force is stirring them to pay you back in kind. As for us, we did the Persians no wrong then and we don't intend to now — unprovoked. But if the Persians invade our territory and strike first, we won't submit either. Until we see that happen, we'll stay out of it. In our judgment, the Persians haven't come for us — they've come for the people who started this."
When the Scythians heard this answer, they abandoned any thought of fighting a pitched battle — since these allies had refused them. Instead, they adopted a plan of strategic withdrawal: they would fall back before the Persians, driving their livestock ahead, filling in every well and spring along the way, and destroying the grass as they went.
They divided their forces into two groups. The first division, under King Scopasis, would be reinforced by the Sauromatae. If the Persians turned in their direction, this group would retreat along the shore of Lake Maeotis toward the river Tanais, and when the Persians turned back, they would follow and harry them. The second group — which combined the other two Scythian kingdoms under King Idanthyrsus and King Taxacis, along with the Gelonians and Budini — would also stay one day's march ahead of the Persians, withdrawing before them and executing the scorched-earth plan. First, they would lead the Persians directly toward the territories of the nations that had refused the alliance — the idea being to drag them into the war whether they wanted it or not. After that, they would double back into their own land and attack the Persians if the council decided the time was right.
Having settled on this strategy, the Scythians rode out to meet Darius' army, sending their best horsemen ahead as scouts. All their wagons — which carried their women and children — along with all their cattle (except enough to feed the army), they sent north with orders to keep moving and not stop.
When the Scythian scouts discovered the Persians about three days' march from the Ister, they marked the enemy's position and began their withdrawal, staying one day's march ahead and systematically destroying everything that grew from the ground. When the Persians saw the Scythian horsemen appear, they followed in their tracks. The Scythians led them straight toward the first of the two divisions — east, toward the river Tanais. The Scythians crossed the Tanais, and the Persians crossed right after them, pursuing until they had passed entirely through Sauromatae territory and reached the land of the Budini.
Now, as long as the Persians were moving through Scythia and the Sauromatae lands, there was nothing to destroy — the country was already bare. But when they entered Budini territory, they came upon the wooden-walled city, which the Budini had deserted and left completely empty. The Persians burned it to the ground. Then they pushed on, following the trail of the retreating Scythians, until they had traversed the entire Budini land and reached the desert beyond. This uninhabited wilderness lies north of the Budini, stretching for seven days' journey. Beyond the desert live the Thyssagetae, and from their territory four large rivers flow through the land of the Maeotians and empty into Lake Maeotis: the Lycus, the Oarus, the Tanais, and the Syrgis.
When Darius reached the desert, he called a halt and camped his army along the river Oarus. He began constructing eight large fortifications, equally spaced about sixty stades apart — the ruins of which still existed in my time. But while he was busy with this project, the Scythians he'd been chasing looped around through the upper country and slipped back into Scythia. When the Scythians vanished completely and were nowhere to be seen, Darius abandoned the half-built forts, turned his army westward, and set off in pursuit, assuming these were the entire Scythian force and that they were fleeing in that direction.
Marching at top speed, he reached Scythia and encountered both Scythian divisions together. He gave chase, and they maintained their withdrawal, always staying one day's march ahead. Since Darius wouldn't stop pursuing, the Scythians followed their plan and led him straight into the territories of the peoples who had refused to join their alliance. First came the Black-Cloaks — and when both Scythians and Persians invaded their country and threw it into chaos, the Scythians led the way into the land of the Man-Eaters. After disrupting them too, they moved on to the Neuri. With the Neuri in turmoil as well, the Scythians headed toward the Agathyrsians. But the Agathyrsians, watching their neighbors flee in disorder one after another, sent a herald to the Scythians before they could cross their border with a blunt warning: stay out of our territory, or fight us first. Then the Agathyrsians marched to their borders in full force, ready to repel any invader. The Black-Cloaks, Man-Eaters, and Neuri, however, when the Persians and Scythians poured into their lands together, put up no resistance at all. They forgot their earlier brave talk and fled north in panic toward the desert. The Scythians, having been warned off by the Agathyrsians, didn't try to enter their territory but instead led the Persians back from the Neuri's country into their own Scythian homeland.
This went on and on with no end in sight. Finally Darius sent a horseman to King Idanthyrsus of the Scythians with this message: "You extraordinary man — why do you keep running? You have two choices: if you think you're strong enough to resist my power, then stop wandering and fight. But if you admit you're too weak, then stop running anyway — come to your master with gifts of earth and water, and let's talk."
King Idanthyrsus replied: "Here's how things stand with me, Persian. I have never fled from any man out of fear — not before, and not from you now. What I'm doing is no different from what I do in peacetime. As for why I don't fight you head-on, I'll explain. We have no cities to be captured and no farmland to be ravaged — nothing that would make us rush into battle to protect it. But if you really want to force a fight, we do have one thing: the tombs where our ancestors are buried. Find those. Try to destroy them. Then you'll find out whether we'll fight or not. Until then, unless the spirit moves us, we won't engage you. That's all I have to say about fighting. As for masters — the only masters I acknowledge are Zeus, my ancestor, and Hestia, queen of the Scythians. Instead of gifts of earth and water, I'll send you the gifts you truly deserve. And as for your claim to be my master — you'll regret those words."
That is what the Scythians call "the Scythian proverb."
After the herald departed to report this, the Scythian kings were furious at the very mention of submitting to a master. They sent Scopasis' division — the one joined with the Sauromatae — to make contact with the Ionians guarding the Ister bridge. Meanwhile, the remaining Scythian forces abandoned their strategy of leading the Persians around and instead decided to attack them whenever they went out foraging. They watched for Darius' men gathering supplies and struck. The Scythian cavalry consistently routed the Persian horsemen, who would fall back on their infantry for support. The Scythians would then wheel away, fearing the foot soldiers. They also launched similar raids at night.
Now here's something remarkable — the one thing that actually helped the Persians and hindered the Scythian attacks on Darius' camp: the braying of the donkeys and the sight of the mules. As I mentioned before, Scythia produces neither donkeys nor mules — the cold is too extreme for them, and there isn't a single one in the entire country. So when the donkeys let loose their riotous braying, it threw the Scythian cavalry into confusion. Often, right in the middle of a charge against the Persian lines, the Scythian horses would hear the donkeys and bolt — ears pricked, bewildered by a sound they'd never heard and a creature they'd never seen.
That small advantage helped the Persians for a while. But the Scythians, noticing how rattled the Persians were getting, devised a clever counter-tactic to keep them in Scythia as long as possible, so they'd suffer from the lack of everything. They would leave some of their own cattle behind with herdsmen and ride off somewhere else. The Persians would find the cattle, seize them, and feel encouraged by their "success."
This happened over and over, and Darius' situation grew increasingly desperate. The Scythian kings, sensing this, sent Darius a present: a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. The Persians asked the messenger what the gifts meant. He said he'd been told nothing except to deliver them and leave quickly — the Persians could figure out the meaning themselves, if they were wise enough.
The Persians debated. Darius' interpretation was optimistic: the Scythians were surrendering to him — giving themselves, their earth, and their water. His reasoning was that mice come from the earth and eat the same grain as humans, frogs live in water, birds are like horses, and the arrows represented their military power being handed over. But Gobryas, one of the seven conspirators who had killed the false Magus, offered a very different reading: "Unless you become birds and fly into the sky, Persians, or become mice and burrow under the earth, or become frogs and leap into the lakes — you will never return home, because these arrows will strike you down."
While the Persians were debating the gifts, Scopasis' division arrived at the Ister bridge and addressed the Ionians: "Men of Ionia, we've come to bring you freedom — if you're willing to listen. We know that Darius ordered you to guard this bridge for only sixty days, and if he hadn't returned by then, to sail home. Well, the time has passed. If you do as we say, you'll be blameless both in his eyes and in ours: wait out the appointed days, then leave." The Ionians agreed to this, and the Scythians hurried back.
Meanwhile, after receiving the mysterious gifts, the Scythians who had stayed behind drew up in battle formation, infantry and cavalry alike, as if to fight. But just as the armies faced each other, a hare darted between the lines — and every Scythian unit broke ranks to chase it. When Darius heard the commotion and learned they were running after a hare, he said to his usual advisors: "These men have nothing but contempt for us. I now see that Gobryas was right about those gifts. Since I myself agree with his reading, we need a plan for getting out of here safely." Gobryas replied: "King, I already knew these people would be impossible to deal with — mostly by reputation, and now from seeing them mock us with my own eyes. Here's what I think we should do: tonight, light the campfires as usual. Take all the donkeys and tie them up here. Then tell the weakest and most expendable soldiers that we're about to launch an attack on the Scythians — and leave them. Then the rest of us get out of here before the Scythians reach the Ister to destroy the bridge, or the Ionians decide on something that could destroy us."
That was Gobryas' advice, and when night fell, Darius acted on it. He left behind the weakest troops and all the donkeys. The donkeys served a purpose: tied up, they would bray all night. The men were left behind because they were too weak to march, though Darius officially told them he was taking the best fighters to attack the Scythians while they defended the camp. With this lie delivered and the campfires blazing, Darius raced for the Ister with his best troops. The donkeys, missing the usual crowds around them, brayed even louder than normal. The Scythians heard the noise and assumed the entire Persian army was still in camp.
When dawn came, the abandoned soldiers realized they'd been betrayed. They stretched out their hands to the Scythians in surrender and explained their situation. The Scythians immediately united all three divisions — both their own combined force and the Sauromatae, Budini, and Gelonians — and set off in pursuit, heading straight for the Ister. But the Persian army was mostly infantry and didn't know the roads, since the country had no beaten paths, while the Scythians were all cavalry and knew every shortcut. The two forces missed each other completely, and the Scythians reached the bridge well ahead of the Persians.
Finding that the Persians hadn't arrived yet, the Scythians called out to the Ionians in their ships: "Men of Ionia, your allotted days have passed, and you're wrong to still be waiting here. Before, you stayed out of fear — but now, break up this crossing as fast as you can and go home free and clear, thanking both the gods and the Scythians. As for your former master — we'll make sure he never marches an army against any people again."
The Ionians debated. Miltiades the Athenian, who was commander and ruler of the Chersonese on the Hellespont, argued they should follow the Scythians' advice and liberate Ionia. But Histiaeus of Miletus took the opposite view. He pointed out that every one of them currently ruled as tyrant over a city thanks to Darius' backing. If Darius' power were destroyed, none of them would be able to maintain their rule — every city would choose democracy over tyranny. The moment Histiaeus made this argument, everyone swung to his side, abandoning the position Miltiades had taken just moments before.
Here are the men who voted — all of them important figures in the king's eyes. From the Hellespont: Daphnis of Abydos, Hippoclus of Lampsacus, Herophantos of Parium, Metrodorus of Proconnesus, Aristagoras of Cyzicus, and Ariston of Byzantium. From Ionia: Strattis of Chios, Aeaces of Samos, Laodamas of Phocaea, and Histiaeus of Miletus — whose proposal had defeated Miltiades'. The only notable Aeolian present was Aristagoras of Cyme.
Having adopted Histiaeus' position, they decided to add a clever deception: they would dismantle the part of the bridge on the Scythian side — just far enough to be out of arrow range — so the Scythians would think something was being done, without actually destroying the bridge or allowing the Scythians to force their way across. While demolishing this section, they would tell the Scythians they intended to do everything they asked.
Histiaeus himself delivered the message: "Scythians, you've brought us good news, and your timing couldn't be better. You're giving us the right guidance, and we're doing our part. As you can see, we're already breaking up the crossing, and we'll spare no effort — we want our freedom. While we work on this, you should go find those people you're looking for, and when you catch them, take your revenge on them for us as well as for yourselves."
The Scythians believed the Ionians a second time and turned back to search for the Persians. But they completely missed the Persian line of march — and it was their own fault. They had destroyed all the horse pastures and filled in the water sources in that region. If they hadn't, they could have easily found the Persians. But the very measures they'd taken for their own advantage backfired. The Scythians searched through areas where grass and water still existed, assuming the Persians would logically flee through such country. Instead, the Persians stuck carefully to their original route — the tracks they'd made on the way in — and managed, with difficulty, to find the river crossing. They arrived at night and discovered the bridge partially dismantled. Seized with terror, they feared the Ionians had abandoned them.
Now, traveling with Darius was an Egyptian who had the loudest voice of any man on earth. Darius ordered him to stand on the bank of the Ister and shout for Histiaeus of Miletus. He did, and Histiaeus heard the very first call. He immediately brought all the ships across to ferry the army over and reassembled the bridge.
And so the Persians escaped. The Scythians, searching in the wrong places, missed them a second time. Their verdict on the Ionians was this: considered as free men, the Ionians are the most worthless cowards alive; considered as slaves, they are the most loyal and least likely to run away of any slaves anywhere. That is the insult the Scythians hurl at the Ionians.
Darius marched through Thrace and reached Sestos in the Chersonese. From there he crossed by ship to Asia, leaving behind Megabazus, a Persian general, to command the army in Europe. Darius once paid Megabazus a famous compliment in Persia: he was eating a pomegranate, and when he opened the first one, his brother Artabanus asked him what he would want in the same quantity as the seeds. Darius replied that he would rather have that many men like Megabazus than have all of Greece under his control. With that tribute, he left Megabazus in command of eighty thousand troops.
Megabazus himself left behind a memorable remark. When he learned that the people of Chalcedon had settled their city seventeen years before the Byzantines founded theirs, he declared that the Chalcedonians must have been blind — because why else would anyone choose the inferior site when the better one was right there? This same Megabazus was the one now in command of the Hellespont, and he set about conquering every people in the region that didn't already support the Persians.
While Megabazus was engaged in this work, a great expedition was simultaneously being mounted against Libya. But before I tell you about that, let me explain what led to it.
The grandchildren of the men who sailed on the Argo had been driven from Lemnos by the Pelasgians — the same ones who had kidnapped Athenian women from Brauron. Expelled from Lemnos, these descendants sailed to Sparta and sat down on Mount Taygetus, where they lit a fire. The Spartans sent a messenger to ask who they were and where they'd come from. They answered that they were Minyans, descendants of the heroes who sailed on the Argo, who had stopped at Lemnos and fathered the line from which they were descended. The Spartans, hearing about their ancestry, sent again to ask why they'd come and why the fire. The Minyans said they'd been expelled by the Pelasgians and had come to the land of their fathers — which seemed only right — asking to be allowed to settle there with a share of civil rights and land.
The Spartans agreed, moved primarily by the fact that the sons of Tyndareus — Castor and Pollux — had sailed on the Argo. So they welcomed the Minyans, gave them plots of land, and enrolled them in the tribes. The Minyans immediately married Spartan women and gave their own Lemnian wives in marriage to others.
But before long, the Minyans got greedy. They demanded a share of the royal power and committed other offenses. The Spartans decided to execute them and threw them in prison. (The Spartans always carry out executions at night, never during the day.) Just as the prisoners were about to be killed, the Minyans' wives — who were native Spartan women, daughters of Sparta's leading citizens — begged to be allowed to visit their husbands one last time. The guards let them in, suspecting no trick. But once inside, the wives gave their husbands all their own clothing and put on the men's garments. The Minyans walked out dressed as women and escaped. They went straight back up Mount Taygetus.
Now at that very time, Theras — son of Autesion, son of Tisamenos, son of Thersander, son of Polynices — was preparing to leave Sparta and found a colony. Theras was of the line of Cadmus and was the maternal uncle of Eurysthenes and Procles, sons of Aristodemus. He had served as regent while his nephews were children, but once they grew up and took power, Theras — unable to bear being ruled by others after having tasted rule himself — declared he would sail away to join his kinsmen.
On the island now called Thera, but formerly known as Calliste, there lived descendants of Membliarus, a Phoenician. Cadmus himself, in his search for Europa, had landed on this island, and whether because the place pleased him or for some other reason, he left behind Membliarus and other Phoenicians to settle there. They had occupied the island for eight generations before Theras arrived from Sparta.
Theras set out to join these people, taking settlers from the Spartan tribes. He intended to live alongside the existing inhabitants, not displace them — they were his kinsmen, after all. When the Minyans escaped from prison and returned to Taygetus, Theras persuaded the Spartans not to kill them, promising to take them out of the country himself. The Spartans agreed, and Theras sailed with three thirty-oared galleys to join Membliarus' descendants — though he took only a few of the Minyans. The majority headed instead for the territory of the Paroreatae and Caucones, drove them out, and founded six towns: Lepreon, Macistus, Phrixae, Pyrgos, Epium, and Nudium. Most of these were sacked by the Eleans within my own lifetime. The island, meanwhile, was renamed Thera after its colonizer.
Theras' son refused to sail with him, so Theras said he was leaving him behind "like a sheep among wolves." From this remark the young man got the nickname Oiolycus — "lone wolf" — which stuck and replaced his original name. From Oiolycus descended Aegeus, who gave his name to the Aegidae, a powerful clan in Sparta. The men of this clan, finding that their children kept dying young, established a temple to the Avenging Spirits of Laius and Oedipus on the advice of an oracle. The same practice was later continued in Thera by their descendants.
Up to this point the Spartans and the Therans agree. From here on, only the Therans tell the story, and it goes like this:
Grinnus, son of Aesanius and a descendant of the original Theras, was king of Thera. He went to Delphi with a state offering of a hundred cattle. Among his companions was Battus, son of Polymnestus, who was descended from Euphemus, one of the Minyans. When Grinnus consulted the oracle about other matters, the Pythia unexpectedly told him to found a city in Libya. "My lord," he replied, "I'm a bit old and stiff for that sort of thing. Why don't you tell one of these younger men to do it?" As he spoke, he pointed at Battus. And that was the end of it — for the moment. They went home and ignored the oracle, having no idea where Libya even was and not daring to send a colony to an unknown land.
Then for seven years it didn't rain on Thera. Every tree on the island withered except one. When the Therans consulted Delphi again, the Pythia blamed their failure to colonize Libya. With no other solution, they sent men to Crete to find anyone who'd visited Libya. In the city of Itanus they found a purple-dye fisherman named Corobius, who said he'd been blown off course and landed on the island of Platea off the Libyan coast. They hired him and brought him to Thera, then sent a small scouting party with Corobius as guide. They reached Platea, left Corobius there with several months' provisions, and sailed back to report.
When the scouts took longer to return than planned, Corobius ran out of food. But a Samian merchant ship captained by Colaeus, heading for Egypt, was blown off course to Platea. Hearing Corobius' story, the Samians left him a year's worth of provisions. They set out again for Egypt but were driven by an unceasing east wind all the way through the Pillars of Heracles to Tartessus — a trading port that had never been visited before. The Samians returned home with the greatest trading profit of any Greeks we know of, with the sole exception of Sostratus of Aegina, whom nobody can match. They set aside six talents — a tenth of their profits — and commissioned a bronze vessel in the Argolic style, decorated with a ring of projecting griffin heads, and dedicated it in the temple of Hera, supported by three colossal bronze statues seven cubits tall, kneeling. This generous act was the beginning of a lasting friendship between the Samians and the peoples of Cyrene and Thera.
The Theran scouts, meanwhile, returned home and reported that they'd established a base on an island off the Libyan coast. The Therans resolved to send a colony: one brother from every pair of brothers, chosen by lot, plus men drawn from all seven districts of the island, with Battus as their leader and king. They dispatched two fifty-oared galleys to Platea.
That's the Theran version. From this point on, the Therans and the Cyrenians agree — because when it comes to Battus, the Cyrenians tell a very different origin story:
In the Cretan city of Oaxus, there was a king named Etearchus. After his first wife died, leaving a daughter named Phronime, Etearchus remarried. The new wife was a stepmother in every sense of the word — she tormented Phronime and devised every possible cruelty against her. Finally, she accused the girl of sexual impropriety and convinced her husband it was true. Etearchus, persuaded by his wife, devised a horrible plan. A Theran merchant named Themison was visiting, and Etearchus made him swear a guest-friendship oath to do whatever was asked. Then Etearchus handed over his own daughter and told Themison to throw her into the sea. Themison was furious at the deception but felt bound by his oath. His solution: he took the girl to sea, lowered her over the side on ropes, then hauled her back up. Oath technically fulfilled. He brought her to Thera.
There, a prominent Theran named Polymnestus took Phronime as his mistress. In time she bore him a son with a speech impediment — a stutter or lisp. Both the Therans and the Cyrenians say the child was named Battus, though I believe he originally had a different name and took "Battus" only after reaching Libya, inspired by the Delphic oracle and his royal status — because the Libyans call a king battus. I think the Pythia used the Libyan word deliberately, knowing he would become king in Libya.
When Battus grew up, he went to Delphi to consult the oracle about his voice. The Pythia replied:
"For a voice you came here, Battus, but lord Phoebus Apollo Sends you forth as a settler to Libya, land of fine flocks."
— as if she had said in Greek, "For a voice you came, O King." Battus protested: "My lord, I came about my speech, and you're telling me to colonize Libya? With what resources? What army?" But nothing he said could get a different answer. The Pythia just kept repeating the same prophecy until Battus left in the middle of her oracle and returned to Thera.
After that, misfortune struck both Battus and the rest of the Therans. Not understanding what was happening, they sent to Delphi again. The Pythia told them their troubles would end if they helped Battus found Cyrene in Libya. So they sent him off with two fifty-oared galleys. But when they reached Libya, they had no idea what to do, so they turned around and came home. The Therans met them at the harbor with a hail of missiles, refusing to let them land, shouting at them to turn around and sail back. Under this compulsion they returned to the island of Platea off the Libyan coast and made a settlement. The island, they say, was about the same size as the later city of Cyrene.
They lived there for two miserable years, then left one man behind and sailed back to Delphi to complain that they were living in Libya and things were no better. The Pythia was not sympathetic:
"Better than I you think you know Libya, land of fine flocks? You who haven't been there know better than I who have? At your wisdom I marvel."
Taking the hint — the god was clearly not going to let them off the hook — Battus and his companions sailed back, picked up the man they'd left behind, and settled on the Libyan mainland itself, at a place called Aziris opposite the island, enclosed by beautiful woods with a river on one side.
They lived at Aziris for six years. In the seventh year, the Libyans persuaded them to move, promising to lead them somewhere better. The Libyans guided them westward, carefully timing the march so they passed through the most beautiful region — a place called Irasa — at night, so the Greeks wouldn't see it and want to stop there. They brought the colonists to a spring called the Fountain of Apollo and said: "Greeks, this is the place for you — here the sky has holes in it." Meaning: here it actually rains.
During the lifetime of the first settler Battus, who reigned forty years, and his son Arcesilas, who reigned sixteen more, the colony's population stayed about the same as when it was founded. But under the third king, Battus the Prosperous, the Pythia issued an oracle urging Greeks everywhere to join the Cyrenians in settling Libya. The Cyrenians were offering land, and the oracle said:
"Whoever comes to beloved Libya after the land has been divided, I say he will someday regret it."
Settlers flocked to Cyrene in great numbers, and the neighboring Libyans found themselves losing enormous amounts of territory. These Libyans, under their king Adicran, outraged at being dispossessed and humiliated, sent to Egypt and placed themselves under the protection of King Apries. Apries raised a large Egyptian army and sent it against Cyrene. The Cyrenians marched out to meet them at the region of Irasa, near the spring called Theste. They routed the Egyptians. The Egyptians, having never fought Greeks before and underestimating them completely, were slaughtered so thoroughly that only a handful made it back to Egypt. The disaster was so severe that the Egyptians blamed Apries and revolted against him.
This Battus the Prosperous had a son named Arcesilas, who immediately upon becoming king quarreled with his own brothers. They eventually left and founded the city of Barca in a separate part of Libya, simultaneously inciting the local Libyans to revolt from Cyrene. Arcesilas marched against both the rebellious Libyans and his brothers' allies. The Libyans fled eastward toward other Libyan tribes, and Arcesilas pursued them all the way to Leucon in Libya. There the Libyans turned and fought, winning so decisively that seven thousand Cyrenian heavy infantrymen fell. After this catastrophe, Arcesilas fell ill, drank some medicine, and was strangled by his brother Learchus. Learchus was then treacherously killed by Arcesilas' wife, Eryxo.
Next came Battus the Lame, son of Arcesilas. The Cyrenians, overwhelmed by their misfortunes, sent to Delphi for advice on how to govern themselves. The Pythia told them to bring in a constitutional reformer from Mantinea in Arcadia. They sent the request, and the Mantineans gave them their most distinguished citizen, Demonax. Arriving in Cyrene, Demonax studied the situation thoroughly and then reorganized the state. He created three tribes: one composed of the Therans and their dependents, another of Peloponnesians and Cretans, and a third of all the islanders. He reserved royal estates and priesthoods for King Battus but transferred all other political power to the people.
This arrangement held during Battus' reign, but his son Arcesilas refused to accept it. Arcesilas — son of Battus the Lame and Pheretime — demanded the restoration of the old royal powers. He stirred up a revolt, was defeated, and fled to Samos, while his mother Pheretime went to Salamis in Cyprus. The ruler of Salamis at that time was Euelthon — the same man who dedicated the magnificent censer at Delphi, which is kept in the Corinthian treasury. Pheretime asked Euelthon for an army to restore herself and her son. Euelthon was willing to give her anything except an army. Each time he sent a gift, she'd say it was lovely but an army would be lovelier still. Finally he sent her a golden spindle, a distaff, and wool. When she made her usual response, Euelthon said: "These are the sorts of gifts one gives a woman — not armies."
Meanwhile, Arcesilas was in Samos recruiting followers with promises of land redistribution. Once he'd assembled a large force, he went to Delphi to ask about his return. The Pythia answered: "Apollo grants your dynasty — four kings named Battus and four named Arcesilas, eight generations — the throne of Cyrene. Beyond that, he advises you not to even try. As for you: when you return home, if you find the kiln full of jars, don't fire them too hot. Let them cool naturally. But if you fire the kiln fiercely, do not enter the place surrounded by water — for if you do, both you and the finest bull shall die."
Arcesilas returned to Cyrene with his Samian recruits and seized power. But he promptly forgot the oracle's warning and set about punishing his political enemies. Some escaped the country entirely. Others he captured and shipped to Cyprus for execution, though they were blown off course to Cnidus, where the people rescued them and sent them on to Thera. Still others took refuge in a great tower belonging to a private citizen named Aglomachus, and Arcesilas burned them alive by piling brushwood around it. Only then did he realize what the oracle had meant — the "jars" were the people, and the "kiln" was the tower, and he had "fired them too fiercely." Terrified of the rest of the prophecy — dying in the place surrounded by water — he deliberately avoided the city of Cyrene, thinking it might be the "place flowed round by water" since it could refer to its springs. He took refuge instead with his father-in-law Alazeir, king of Barca. But men of Barca, together with some of his Cyrenian exiles, spotted him in the marketplace and killed him — along with Alazeir. So Arcesilas, whether he understood the oracle correctly or not, fulfilled his destiny.
His mother Pheretime, while Arcesilas was living in Barca and bringing ruin on himself, held the royal power in Cyrene — attending councils and exercising all her son's prerogatives. When she learned he'd been killed, she fled to Egypt. Her claim on Persian help was strong: it was her son Arcesilas who had submitted Cyrene to Cambyses and agreed to pay tribute. Pheretime presented herself as a suppliant before Aryandes, the Persian governor of Egypt, claiming her son had been murdered for his loyalty to Persia.
Now, Aryandes had been appointed governor by Cambyses, and he would eventually be executed for overreaching. Having seen Darius strike gold coins of the purest quality, Aryandes did the same with silver — and to this day the purest silver is called "Aryandic." When Darius learned about this act of imitation, he had Aryandes killed on a trumped-up charge of rebellion.
But at this point in the story, Aryandes took pity on Pheretime and gave her the entire Egyptian army — land and naval forces alike. He appointed Amasis, a Maraphian, to command the army, and Badres, of the Pasargadae clan, to command the fleet. Before sending them off, he dispatched a herald to Barca demanding to know who had killed Arcesilas. The people of Barca all claimed collective responsibility, saying they had suffered too much at his hands. When Aryandes heard this, he sent the army along with Pheretime. That was the official pretext. But the real purpose, I believe, was to conquer Libya — because the Libyan peoples were many and varied, and very few of them acknowledged Persian authority. Most paid no attention to Darius at all.
Now let me describe the Libyan peoples, from east to west.
Starting from Egypt, the first Libyans are the Adyrmachidae. They follow mostly Egyptian customs but dress like the other Libyans. Their women wear a bronze ring on each ankle. They grow their hair long, and when they catch lice, each woman bites her own in retaliation before throwing it away — they're the only Libyans who do this. They're also the only ones who present their unmarried daughters to the king, and whichever girl pleases him, he deflowers. The Adyrmachidae occupy the coast from Egypt to the port called Plynus.
Next come the Giligamae, who occupy the coastal territory westward to the island of Aphrodisias. Within this stretch lies the island of Platea, where the Cyrenians first settled, and on the mainland are Port Menelaus and Aziris, where the Cyrenians once lived. This is where the silphium begins — it grows along the coast from Platea to the entrance of the Syrtis. This people's customs are similar to the others.
West of the Giligamae are the Asbystae. They live inland above Cyrene, not reaching the sea — the Cyrenians hold the coast. They are the greatest four-horse chariot drivers of all the Libyans and generally try to imitate Cyrenian customs.
West of the Asbystae come the Auschisae, living above Barca and reaching the sea at Euesperides. In the middle of their territory lives a small tribe, the Bacales, who reach the coast at Taucheira in Barcan territory. Their customs match those of the people above Cyrene.
West of the Auschisae are the Nasamonians, a numerous people. In summer they leave their flocks by the sea and travel inland to the oasis of Augila to harvest dates, which grow in great abundance. They hunt wingless locusts, dry them in the sun, grind them up, sprinkle the powder on milk, and drink it. Each man has many wives, and they share sexual access to them in much the same way as the Massagetae — they plant a staff outside the door as a signal. When a Nasamonian takes his first wife, the bride on the wedding night goes through all the male guests in succession. Each man who sleeps with her gives her whatever gift he's brought from home. For oaths, they swear by the tombs of the men considered most righteous and brave in their history, laying their hands on the graves. For divination, they visit their ancestors' burial mounds, pray, and fall asleep on them — whatever they dream is their oracle. When sealing a pact, each man drinks from the other's hand. If they have no liquid, they take dust from the ground and lick it.
Bordering the Nasamonians are the Psylli — who no longer exist. Here's what happened: the South Wind dried up all their water sources, and their land, which lay entirely within the Syrtis, became completely waterless. They held a council and resolved — by unanimous vote — to march in arms against the South Wind. (I'm reporting what the Libyans say.) When they reached the desert sands, the South Wind blew and buried them all. After the Psylli were wiped out, the Nasamonians took over their land.
South of these peoples, in the region of wild animals, live the Garamantians, who avoid all human contact. They possess no weapons and don't know how to defend themselves.
These Garamantians live above the Nasamonians. West along the coast from the Nasamonians come the Macae, who wear their hair in a distinctive mohawk style — long down the middle, shaved close on both sides. They fight with shields made of ostrich skin. Through their territory the river Cinyps flows to the sea from a hill called the Hill of the Graces, which is thickly forested — unusual for Libya, where most of the land is treeless. The distance from the sea to this hill is about two hundred stades.
Next are the Gindanes. Their women wear leather anklets, one for each man who has slept with them. The woman with the most anklets wins the greatest respect, since she's been desired by the most men.
On a peninsula jutting out from Gindanes territory live the Lotus-Eaters, who survive entirely on the fruit of the lotus. The lotus fruit is about the size of a mastic berry and tastes like a date. The Lotus-Eaters even make wine from it.
Next along the coast come the Machlyes, who also eat the lotus but less than the Lotus-Eaters. Their territory extends to a large river called the Triton, which flows into a large lake called Tritonis. In the lake is an island called Phla, about which there was supposedly an oracle telling the Spartans to found a settlement there.
There's also a story that Jason, after completing the Argo at the foot of Mount Pelion, loaded it with a hecatomb and a bronze tripod and sailed around the Peloponnese toward Delphi. Near Cape Malea a north wind seized his ship and carried it to Libya, where he found himself stuck in the shallows of Lake Tritonis. The god Triton appeared and offered to show them the way out in exchange for the tripod. Jason agreed. Triton guided them through the shallows, placed the tripod in his own temple, and uttered a prophecy over it: whenever a descendant of the Argonauts carried off this tripod, fate decreed that a hundred Greek cities would be founded around Lake Tritonis. When the native Libyans heard this prophecy, they hid the tripod.
Next come the Auseans, who share Lake Tritonis with the Machlyes, with the river Triton as the boundary. The Machlyes grow their hair long at the back; the Auseans grow theirs in front. At an annual festival of Athena, their young women form two opposing groups and fight each other with stones and sticks, performing what they say are ancestral rites for the goddess born in their land — the one we call Athena. Any girl who dies from her wounds they call a "false maiden." Before the fight begins, they choose the most beautiful girl, dress her in a Corinthian helmet and full Greek armor, put her in a chariot, and parade her around the lake. (I can't say what they used before the Greeks arrived nearby, but I'd guess Egyptian armor — because I maintain that both the shield and the helmet came to Greece from Egypt.) The Auseans say Athena is the daughter of Poseidon and Lake Tritonis, that she had some quarrel with her father, and that she gave herself to Zeus, who adopted her. They share their women communally, mating like cattle rather than marrying. When a woman's child is old enough, the men hold a meeting within three months, and the child is assigned to whichever man it most resembles.
Those are the nomadic Libyans who live along the coast. Inland above them is the region of wild animals, and above that stretches a raised belt of sand running from Egyptian Thebes all the way to the Pillars of Heracles. Along this belt, at intervals of roughly ten days' journey, you find hills of salt — great lumps of it — and at the top of each salt hill, a spring of cold, sweet water bubbles up, with people living around it at the very edge of the desert.
The first of these, ten days' journey from Thebes, are the Ammonians, whose temple derives from the shrine of Theban Zeus — the image of Zeus in Thebes also has a ram's head, as I've mentioned before. The Ammonians have a remarkable spring: in the early morning the water is warm; by mid-morning, when the marketplace fills up, it's cooler; at noon it's cold, and that's when they water their gardens. As afternoon progresses, the water warms again, and by sunset it's hot. It keeps heating up through the night until midnight, when it actually boils and bubbles. After midnight it gradually cools until dawn. They call it the Fountain of the Sun.
Ten more days' journey along the sand belt brings you to Augila, another salt hill with a spring and people living around it. This is where the Nasamonians come each year to harvest dates.
Another ten days' journey brings you to the Garamantians, a very large nation. They carry soil to spread over the salt deposits and then plant crops. From here the shortest route to the Lotus-Eaters is thirty days. Among the Garamantians live the cattle that graze backwards — their horns curve forward, so they have to walk backward while eating; otherwise the horns would dig into the ground. They're otherwise identical to normal cattle except for their remarkably thick, tough hides. The Garamantians hunt the cave-dwelling Ethiopians with four-horse chariots — because the cave-dwelling Ethiopians are the swiftest runners of any people in the known world. They eat snakes, lizards, and similar reptiles, and they speak a language unlike any other — they squeak like bats.
Ten more days from the Garamantians brings you to another salt hill and spring, around which live the Atarantes. These are the only people in the world, as far as we know, who have no individual names. Collectively they're called Atarantes, but each person goes unnamed. They curse the blazing sun as it passes overhead and heap every kind of abuse on it for scorching both them and their land.
Another ten days' journey brings another salt hill and spring, near which stands a mountain called Atlas — narrow, perfectly rounded, and reportedly so tall that its summit has never been seen, since clouds never leave it, summer or winter. The locals call it the pillar of heaven. These people take their name from it: they're called the Atlantians. They're said to eat nothing that lives and to have no dreams.
Up to the Atlantians I can name the peoples settled along the sand belt. Beyond them, I cannot. But the belt itself continues all the way to the Pillars of Heracles and even beyond. Every ten days there's another salt mine with inhabitants. All these people build their houses from blocks of salt — since it never rains in that part of Libya, and if it did, salt walls wouldn't last. The salt quarried there is both white and purple. South of the sand belt, in the direction of the interior, the country is completely uninhabited — no water, no animals, no rain, no trees, not a trace of moisture.
Now, I've said that from Egypt to Lake Tritonis the Libyans are nomads who eat meat and drink milk. They don't touch cow's flesh, for the same reason as the Egyptians, and they won't keep pigs. The women of Cyrene also won't eat beef, out of respect for the Egyptian goddess Isis — they even keep fasts and hold festivals in her honor. The women of Barca avoid both beef and pork.
West of Lake Tritonis, the Libyans are no longer nomads. Their customs are different, and they don't practice what the nomads do to their children — which is this: many of the nomad Libyans (whether all, I can't say for certain) take their children at age four and burn the veins in the crowns of their heads with a greasy piece of sheep's wool. Some burn the veins at the temples instead. The purpose is to prevent mucus from draining down from the head and causing illness for the rest of their lives. They claim this is why the Libyans are the healthiest people in the world — and whether or not this practice is the reason, they are undeniably the healthiest people we know of. If a child has convulsions during the burning, they've found a remedy: they pour goat's urine on the child and it recovers. I'm reporting what the Libyans themselves say.
The nomads sacrifice by cutting off a piece of the animal's ear as a first offering and tossing it over the house, then twisting the animal's neck. They sacrifice only to the Sun and the Moon, though the people around Lake Tritonis also worship Athena, Triton, and Poseidon.
I believe the Greeks modeled the dress and the aegis of their images of Athena on the clothing of Libyan women. Except that the Libyan version is made of leather rather than the serpent-fringed aegis of Greek art — with leather tassels instead of snakes — the resemblance is exact. Even the name proves it: Libyan women wear bare goatskins over their clothes, tasseled and dyed red, and the Greek word aigis comes from the word for goatskin, aix. I also think the custom of ululating during sacred rites originated in Libya — the Libyan women do it beautifully. And the Greeks learned four-horse chariot driving from the Libyans.
The nomads bury their dead in the same way as Greeks, with one exception: the Nasamonians bury the body in a seated position, carefully propping the dying person upright at the moment of death rather than letting them lie on their backs. Their dwellings are portable — frames made of asphodel stalks woven with rushes, which they carry around with them.
West of the river Triton, beyond the Auseans, come the Maxyans — farmers who live in permanent homes. They grow their hair long on the right side and shave the left, and they paint their bodies with red ochre. They claim descent from the men of Troy.
This western part of Libya, and indeed everything beyond the nomads' territory, is far more heavily forested and full of wild animals. The eastern portion, where the nomads live, is flat and sandy up to the river Triton. But the western agricultural land is extremely mountainous, densely wooded, and full of wildlife: enormous snakes, lions, elephants, bears, venomous serpents, horned donkeys, plus — according to the Libyans — dog-headed men, headless men with eyes in their chests, wild men and wild women, and a great many other beasts that, unlike these, are not fabulous at all.
In the nomad region, none of these exist. Instead you find white-rump antelopes, gazelles, buffalo, donkeys (the non-horned kind that never drink water), oryx (whose horns are used for the arms of the Phoenician lyre — an ox-sized animal), small foxes, hyenas, porcupines, wild rams, jackals, panthers, boryes, land crocodiles about four and a half feet long that look like huge lizards, ostriches, and small one-horned snakes. That's the wildlife of the region, along with everything found elsewhere — except deer and wild boar, which Libya completely lacks. There are also three kinds of mice: one called the "two-footed," another the zegeris (a Libyan word meaning "hill" in Greek), and a third the "prickly" mouse. Weasels are found in the silphium beds, very similar to those at Tartessus. That's all we could learn about Libyan wildlife through our most extensive inquiries.
Next to the Maxyans are the Zaueces, whose women drive the war chariots.
Next come the Gyzantes. Bees produce large quantities of honey in their territory, but far more is reportedly made by craftsmen working as a trade. In any case, these people smear themselves with red ochre and eat monkeys, which swarm on their mountains.
Off their coast, the Carthaginians say, lies an island called Cyraunis — two hundred stades long but narrow, accessible by foot from the mainland, and full of olives and vines. On this island there's supposedly a pool where the local girls dip birds' feathers smeared with pitch into the mud and bring up gold dust. I don't know if this is true, but I'm writing down the report. Nothing is impossible, after all — I've personally seen pitch brought up from a pool of water in Zakynthos. There are several pools there, the largest measuring seventy feet square and two fathoms deep. They dip a pole with a myrtle branch tied to it into the pool and bring up pitch that smells like asphalt but is otherwise superior to the pitch from Pieria. They pour it into a pit next to the pool, collect a large quantity, and then transfer it to storage jars. Anything that falls into the pool travels underground and resurfaces in the sea, about four stades away. So the report about the island off Libya is probably true as well.
The Carthaginians also tell of a place in Libya beyond the Pillars of Heracles where they conduct trade with the locals. When the Carthaginians arrive, they unload their merchandise, arrange it along the beach, get back in their ships, and raise a smoke signal. The natives see the smoke, come to the shore, lay down gold next to the goods, and withdraw. The Carthaginians come back ashore and inspect the gold. If they think it's a fair price for the merchandise, they take it and leave. If not, they get back on their ships and wait. The locals then return and add more gold until the Carthaginians are satisfied. Neither side cheats the other: the Carthaginians don't touch the gold until it matches the value of their goods, and the locals don't touch the merchandise until the Carthaginians have taken the gold.
These are the Libyan peoples I can identify by name. Most of them paid no attention to the king of Persia then, and they don't now. I'll add one more observation about this continent: it's home to four races and no more, as far as we know — two native and two foreign. The Libyans and the Ethiopians are native, occupying the northern and southern parts respectively. The Phoenicians and the Greeks are newcomers.
I don't think Libya's soil is particularly outstanding compared to Asia or Europe — with one exception: the Cinyps region, named after the river. This land rivals the best farmland anywhere for growing grain, and it's nothing like the rest of Libya. It has rich black soil, it's fed by springs, and it neither fears drought nor suffers from too much rain — because it does rain in this part of Libya. The yields match those of Babylonia. The land around Euesperides is also good — at its best it produces a hundredfold. But the Cinyps region sometimes yields three hundredfold.
The territory of Cyrene, the highest part of the Libya occupied by nomads, boasts an astonishing three harvest seasons within its borders. First the coastal crops ripen for reaping and vintage. Once those are gathered in, the middle zone — the "hills" — comes ready. And by the time that middle crop is harvested, the highland crop at the very top ripens. So the first harvest is being eaten and drunk up just as the last one comes in. The Cyrenian harvest season lasts eight months. Enough about that.
Now, the Persian army sent from Egypt by Aryandes to help Pheretime arrived at Barca and laid siege to the city. They demanded the people hand over those responsible for Arcesilas' murder. But since the entire population had participated, they refused the terms. The siege lasted nine months. The Persians dug tunnels toward the walls and launched direct assaults. A bronze-worker devised a method for detecting the tunnels: he carried a bronze shield around the inside of the walls, pressing it against the ground. In most places it was silent, but over the tunnels the bronze rang out. The Barcaeans would then dig counter-tunnels and kill the Persian sappers. That dealt with the underground approach, and the above-ground attacks were repulsed too.
After a long stalemate with heavy losses on both sides — especially the Persians — the army commander Amasis devised a stratagem. Recognizing that Barca couldn't be taken by force but might fall to trickery, he had his men dig a broad trench by night and lay thin timbers across it, covered with earth leveled to match the surrounding ground. At dawn he invited the Barcaeans to a peace conference. They were glad to accept. Standing over the hidden trench, the two sides swore an oath: "For as long as this earth remains as it is, so long shall this oath hold firm." The Barcaeans agreed to pay fair tribute to the king, and the Persians promised no further violence. Trusting the agreement, the Barcaeans opened their gates and let the Persians enter. But the Persians immediately broke down the concealed bridge beneath the trench. Their reasoning? They had sworn the oath would hold "as long as this earth remains as it is" — and once they broke through the timbers, the earth no longer remained as it was. Technically, the oath was void.
Pheretime took the most guilty Barcaeans — as identified by the Persians — and impaled them in a ring around the city walls. She also cut off the breasts of their wives and displayed them along the walls as well. The remaining inhabitants she turned over to the Persians as slaves — all except those belonging to the house of Battus who had no part in the murder. To these she entrusted the city.
The Persians departed with their new slaves. When they reached Cyrene, the Cyrenians let them pass through the city in order to fulfill some oracle. As the army was passing through, Badres, the fleet commander, urged that they seize Cyrene. But Amasis, the army commander, refused — they had been sent against Barca only, not any other Greek city. After passing through, they camped on the hill of Zeus Lycaeus. They then regretted not having taken Cyrene and tried to go back, but the Cyrenians wouldn't let them in. Suddenly, even though no one was attacking them, the Persians were seized by blind panic. They ran about sixty stades before making camp. There a messenger from Aryandes arrived, summoning them home. They asked the Cyrenians for travel provisions, got them, and departed for Egypt.
But on the way back, the Libyans picked them off — killing stragglers and men who fell behind for the sake of their clothes and equipment. The army's farthest point in Libya was Euesperides. As for the enslaved Barcaeans, the Persians transported them from Egypt all the way to Bactria, where King Darius gave them a village to settle. They named it Barca, and it was still inhabited in my own time, deep in the land of Bactria.
Pheretime, however, did not end her life well. As soon as she returned to Egypt from Libya after her revenge, she died a terrible death: she was eaten alive by worms while still breathing. It seems the gods take offense when human beings exact punishments that are too extreme. Such was the vengeance of Pheretime, wife of Battus, upon the people of Barca.
Meanwhile, the Persians who had been left behind in Europe under Megabazus' command were hard at work. Their first target was Perinthus, on the Hellespont, whose people refused to submit to Darius. The Perinthians had been through this before — years earlier, the Paeonians from the Strymon had attacked them following an oracle. The god had told the Paeonians to march against the Perinthians, and if the Perinthians shouted their name during battle, to attack — but if they didn't, to hold back.
When the two armies faced each other outside Perinthus, they arranged a series of three single combats: man against man, horse against horse, and dog against dog. The Perinthians won two of the three, and in their excitement they broke into a victory shout of "Paean!" The Paeonians decided this was the shout the oracle meant. "Now our prophecy is being fulfilled — now is the time to act!" They charged the celebrating Perinthians and crushed them, leaving few survivors.
That was the old history. This time, the Perinthians fought bravely for their freedom, but the Persians under Megabazus overwhelmed them with sheer numbers. After taking Perinthus, Megabazus marched the length of Thrace, forcing every city and every tribe to submit to the king — those were his orders from Darius.
The Thracian race is the second most numerous in the world after the Indians. If they could ever unite under a single leader — or even agree among themselves — they would be irresistible in battle and by far the mightiest of all nations. That, in my opinion, is their potential. But of course, this is completely impossible for them and will never happen, which is exactly why they remain weak. They go by many different tribal names depending on where they live, but their customs are largely the same — with the exception of the Getae, the Trausians, and the people who live above the Crestonians.
I've already described the Getae and their belief in immortality. The Trausians follow the same customs as other Thracians in most things, but their treatment of birth and death is distinctive: when a child is born, the family sits around it and mourns, listing all the suffering the poor creature will have to endure now that it's entered the world. But when someone dies, they bury them with joy and celebration, talking about all the miseries the person has escaped and how they're now in a state of perfect happiness.
The people above the Crestonians practice polygamy. When a man dies, a fierce competition breaks out among his wives, with their respective supporters arguing passionately over which wife was loved most. The one judged the winner is publicly praised by both men and women — and then has her throat cut over her husband's tomb and is buried alongside him. The rest are devastated, because being passed over is considered the ultimate disgrace.
Other Thracian customs: they sell their children into slavery abroad. They don't watch over their unmarried daughters at all — the girls can sleep with whoever they please — but they guard their wives extremely jealously. They buy their wives from the girls' parents for large sums. Being tattooed is a sign of noble birth; having unmarked skin means you're common. Idleness is honored above all else, and farming is the most disgraceful occupation. Living by raiding and warfare is the noblest life.
Those are their most notable customs. They worship only three gods: Ares, Dionysus, and Artemis. Their kings, however — unlike the common people — worship Hermes above all others, swear only by Hermes, and claim descent from him.
Rich Thracians are buried like this: the body is displayed for three days while they slaughter livestock and feast, with mourning at the beginning. Then they either cremate or bury the body, heap up a mound over it, and hold games with every kind of competition — with the biggest prizes going to the single combat events.
As for the territory north of Thrace beyond the Ister, no one can say with certainty who lives there. The land immediately beyond the river is known to be vast and empty. The only people I've heard of living across the Ister are called the Sigynnae, who dress in the Median style. Their horses are covered in shaggy hair up to five fingers long. The animals are small, flat-nosed, and too weak to carry riders, but when harnessed to chariots they're very spirited — so the people there are chariot drivers. Their territory supposedly extends to near the Eneti on the Adriatic coast, and they claim to be colonists from the Medes. How Median colonists ended up there, I personally can't imagine, but anything is possible over vast stretches of time. It's worth noting that the Ligurians who live inland above Massalia use the word sigynnae for "traders," and the Cypriots use the same word for "spears."
The Thracians claim that the far side of the Ister is inhabited by bees so thick that no one can get through. This strikes me as unlikely, since bees are notoriously sensitive to cold and I think the real reason those northern regions are uninhabitable is the cold climate. But those are the stories. Whatever the truth, Megabazus was busy bringing the Thracian coastlands under Persian control.
Meanwhile, as soon as Darius crossed back over the Hellespont and arrived in Sardis, he remembered the services of two men: Histiaeus of Miletus, who had saved the bridge, and Coes of Mytilene, who had given him wise advice. He summoned both to Sardis and offered them a choice of rewards. Histiaeus, who was already tyrant of Miletus, didn't ask for another city to rule. Instead he requested the district of Myrcinus in the territory of the Edonians, where he wanted to found a new settlement. Coes, who was an ordinary citizen rather than a tyrant, asked to be made ruler of Mytilene.
Both wishes were granted, and they set off to claim their rewards. But right around this time, something happened that made Darius decide to order Megabazus to uproot the Paeonians from Europe and transport them to Asia. Here's what triggered it:
Two Paeonians named Pigres and Mantyas came to Sardis after Darius had crossed back to Asia. They wanted to become rulers of the Paeonians. They brought their sister with them — a tall, beautiful woman. They watched for the day when Darius held public court in the suburbs of the Lydian capital. Then they dressed their sister up in her finest clothes and sent her out to fetch water, with a jar on her head, a horse led by a bridle wound around her arm, and a spindle spinning flax — all at the same time.
When the woman passed by Darius, he couldn't help noticing. This wasn't Persian behavior, or Lydian, or anything he'd seen from any Asian people. Fascinated, he sent some of his bodyguards to follow her and watch. She went to the river, watered the horse, filled her jar, and came back the same way — jar on her head, horse at her arm, spindle turning. Darius, amazed by both what his men reported and what he'd seen himself, had her brought to him. Her brothers appeared too — they'd been watching from nearby. Darius asked where she was from.
"We're Paeonians," the young men said. "She's our sister."
"And who are the Paeonians? Where do they live? And what are you doing in Sardis?"
They explained that they had come to submit to him, that Paeonia was on the river Strymon not far from the Hellespont, and that they were colonists originally descended from the Trojans. Darius had one more question: "Are all the women there as hardworking as your sister?" The brothers — this being exactly the response they'd engineered — answered enthusiastically that yes, they absolutely were.
Darius immediately wrote a letter to Megabazus in Thrace ordering him to uproot the Paeonians — men, women, and children — and bring them to him. A mounted courier raced to the Hellespont with the message, crossed over, and delivered the letter to Megabazus. Megabazus got Thracian guides and marched on Paeonia.
The Paeonians, learning that the Persians were coming, assembled their forces and marched toward the coast, assuming that's where the Persian attack would come. But Megabazus, learning that the Paeonians were guarding the coastal approach, took the upper road with his guides. Moving unseen, he descended on the Paeonian towns, which had been emptied of fighting men. He took them without resistance. When the Paeonians heard that their cities had fallen, each tribe scattered to its own territory and surrendered to the Persians. That's how the Siropaeonians, the Paeoplians, and everyone up to Lake Prasias were uprooted and marched off to Asia.
But the peoples around Mount Pangaeum and the Doberians, Agrianians, and Odomantians, as well as those living on Lake Prasias itself, were never conquered by Megabazus. He did try to subdue the lake dwellers, but they lived in an extraordinary way: their houses stood on platforms supported by tall wooden piles driven into the lakebed, with only a single narrow bridge connecting them to the mainland. Originally the whole community had set up the piles together, but since then a rule had been established: every man who married brought three new piles from Mount Orbelos for each wife — and every man took many wives. Each person had a hut on the platform with a trapdoor leading down to the lake. They tied their babies to a rope by the foot to keep them from rolling into the water. They fed their horses and pack animals on fish, which were so plentiful that a man could lower an empty basket through the trapdoor on a rope and pull it up full moments later. There were two kinds of fish — they called them paprax and tilon.
So the conquered Paeonians were being marched to Asia. Megabazus, meanwhile, having dealt with Paeonia, sent seven Persians — the most distinguished men in his army after himself — as ambassadors to Macedonia, to demand earth and water from King Amyntas on behalf of Darius. From Lake Prasias it's a short distance to Macedonia: right near the lake is a silver mine that later brought in a talent of silver every single day for Alexander. Past the mine, over Mount Dysorus, and you're in Macedonia.
The seven Persians arrived at Amyntas' court and demanded earth and water for King Darius. Amyntas agreed to give it, and invited them to dinner. He put on a magnificent feast and received the Persians with warm hospitality. After dinner, as the drinking continued, the Persians said: "Macedonian friend, it's our custom when we throw a great banquet to bring in our concubines and wives to sit beside us. Since you've received us so generously and are willing to give King Darius earth and water, won't you follow our custom?"
Amyntas replied: "That isn't our way, Persians — we keep men and women separate. But since you are our masters and make this request, it will be done." He sent for the women. They came and sat in a row facing the Persians. The Persians looked them over and said this arrangement wouldn't do: it was worse for the women to come and sit across from them than not to come at all — sitting opposite and out of reach was torture for their eyes. So Amyntas, under pressure, told the women to move and sit next to the Persians. They obeyed. Immediately the Persians, thoroughly drunk, began groping their breasts, and some tried to kiss them.
Amyntas saw it all and held his temper, though he was seething — because he was terrified of the Persians. But his son Alexander, who was also present, was young and had never experienced real adversity. He couldn't take it any longer. "Father," he said, "you should go rest — you've been drinking a long time and your age demands it. I'll stay here and give our guests everything they require."
Amyntas, understanding perfectly well that his son was planning violence, said: "Son, I can practically see the fire in your words — you want to send me away and do something rash. I beg you, don't attack these men. It will be the ruin of us. Endure what you see. But as for retiring — yes, I'll do that."
After Amyntas left, Alexander turned to the Persians: "Gentlemen, these women are completely at your disposal. Sleep with any or all of them, as you please — just say the word. But the hour is getting late, and I can see you've had plenty to drink. Let the women go and bathe first. Then you can have them back."
The Persians readily agreed. Alexander sent the women away to the women's quarters. Then he handpicked the same number of smooth-cheeked young men, dressed them in women's clothing, gave each one a dagger, and led them into the banquet hall. As they entered, he said: "Persians, I believe you've been entertained with a feast that lacked nothing. Everything we had has been given to you, and now — the crowning gift — we freely offer you our mothers and sisters, so you'll know beyond any doubt that you're being honored as you deserve. And so you can report to the king who sent you that a Greek ruler in Macedonia treated you well at both table and bed."
With those words, he seated a Macedonian man dressed as a woman beside each Persian. And when the Persians reached out to fondle them, the Macedonians killed them all.
That was their end — the Persians and their entire retinue of servants, carriages, and baggage, all of it eliminated. Soon afterward the Persians launched a search for the missing envoys. Alexander silenced the investigation with a combination of large bribes and his own sister Gygaea, whom he gave in marriage to Bubares, the Persian commander leading the search.
Thus the death of these Persians was hushed up and forgotten. Now, I happen to know personally that these Macedonian rulers are Greeks, as they themselves claim — and I'll prove it later in my narrative. The judges at Olympia confirmed it too: when Alexander wanted to compete in the games, the Greek athletes tried to bar him, saying the competition was for Greeks, not non-Greeks. But Alexander proved his descent from Argos, was ruled Greek, and entered the foot race — where his lot drew him against the very first heat.
Around this same time, Megabazus arrived at the Hellespont with the deported Paeonians, crossed the strait, and came to Sardis. There he discovered that Histiaeus of Miletus was already at work fortifying a new settlement at Myrcinus on the river Strymon — the very place Darius had given him as a reward for saving the bridge. Megabazus went straight to Darius with a warning: "Your Majesty, what have you done? You've given a clever and ambitious Greek permission to build a city in Thrace — a place with timber for shipbuilding in abundance, plenty of wood for oars, silver mines, and large populations both Greek and non-Greek living all around. Once that man has a following, they'll do whatever he commands, day and night. Stop him now before you find yourself in a civil war. Send for him politely — but once you have him, make sure he never sets foot in Greek territory again."
Megabazus had no trouble persuading Darius, who could see exactly where this was heading. Darius sent a message to Myrcinus: "Histiaeus — King Darius says the following: After much reflection, I've concluded that no one is more genuinely devoted to me and my power than you are. This I know from your actions, not just your words. I have great plans in mind, and I need you here to discuss them. Come to me at once."
Histiaeus believed every word and was flattered at the prospect of becoming the king's personal advisor. He went to Sardis, and Darius told him: "Histiaeus, here's why I sent for you. After I returned from the Scythian campaign and you were gone from my sight, there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to see you again and talk with you. I've come to realize that the most valuable possession a man can have is a friend who is both intelligent and loyal — and I know you are both, as your service to me has proven. Now that you've come, here is my proposal: forget about Miletus and your new city in Thrace. Come with me to Susa. Share my table, be my counselor. Everything I have will be yours."
With those words — a gilded cage of flattery — Darius took Histiaeus to Susa. He appointed his own half-brother Artaphernes as governor of Sardis, and named Otanes to command the coastal forces. Now, this Otanes had a notable pedigree: his father Sisamnes had been a Royal Judge who was caught accepting bribes to deliver unjust verdicts. King Cambyses had him executed — and not just executed. He had Sisamnes flayed, his skin tanned and cut into leather strips, which were then stretched across the very chair where Sisamnes used to sit in judgment. Cambyses then appointed Sisamnes' own son to serve as judge in his father's place, with the instruction to remember whose seat he was sitting in.
This Otanes, the one who sat in that memorable chair, now succeeded Megabazus as commander. He conquered the Byzantines and the Chalcedonians, took Antandrus in the Troad, and captured Lamponium. Using ships supplied by the Lesbians, he conquered Lemnos and Imbros — both still inhabited at that time by Pelasgians. The Lemnians fought well and held out for a long time before finally being overwhelmed. The Persians installed as governor of Lemnos none other than Lycaretus — the brother of Maeandrius, who had once been ruler of Samos. Lycaretus ruled Lemnos until he died, constantly finding excuses to enslave and subdue the population, accusing some of desertion to the Scythians and others of damaging Darius' army during its retreat from Scythia.
After Otanes' conquests, there was a brief respite from trouble. But soon enough, a new wave of disasters struck the Ionians, originating from Naxos and Miletus. Naxos was the wealthiest of all the islands, and Miletus had just reached the height of its prosperity — the jewel of Ionia. Before this, Miletus had been torn apart for two generations by civil strife, until the Parians were brought in as reformers. Here's how the Parians settled it: they sent their best men to Miletus, and when they saw the devastation throughout the countryside, they said they'd like to survey the territory. As they traveled across the land, whenever they found a well-maintained farm amid the general ruin, they wrote down the owner's name. After covering the whole territory, they'd found only a handful of such men. They called a public assembly and appointed these farmers to run the state — reasoning that men who managed their own land well would manage public affairs well too. The rest of the Milesians, who had been at each other's throats, were told to obey these men.
That's how the Parians restored order in Miletus. But now trouble came to Ionia from these two cities in the following way: wealthy aristocrats were expelled from Naxos by the common people and fled to Miletus. At that time Miletus was governed by Aristagoras, son of Molpagoras — who was both the son-in-law and the cousin of Histiaeus, the rightful tyrant of Miletus now detained at Susa. The exiled Naxians had been guest-friends of Histiaeus, so when they arrived in Miletus they asked Aristagoras for military help to restore them to their island.
Aristagoras calculated that if the Naxians returned through his agency, he'd effectively control Naxos. Using Histiaeus' guest-friendship as his excuse, he made them a proposal: "I can't promise I have enough military force to restore you against the will of the Naxians who now hold power — I hear they can field eight thousand infantry and have many warships. But I'll do my best to find a way. Here's my plan: Artaphernes is my friend. Now, Artaphernes — as you should know — is a son of Hystaspes and brother of King Darius, and he governs all the coastal peoples of Asia with a large army and fleet. I believe he'll do whatever we ask." The Naxian exiles told Aristagoras to manage it as best he could, and promised to cover all expenses and gifts — they were confident that once they showed up at Naxos, the Naxians and the other islanders would fall in line. At that point, none of the Cyclades were yet under Darius' control.
Aristagoras went to Sardis and pitched the plan to Artaphernes: Naxos was a small but beautiful and fertile island near Ionia, rich in wealth and slaves. "Send an expedition against it and restore these exiles. I have large sums of money ready for you, aside from the campaign expenses — which we the organizers will naturally cover. And by taking Naxos, you'll also win for the king all the islands dependent on it — Paros, Andros, and the rest of the Cyclades. From there you can easily strike at Euboea, a huge and wealthy island, as big as Cyprus and easy to conquer. A hundred ships should do it."
Artaphernes replied: "You bring good news for the king's interests, and your advice is sound in every respect except the number of ships. Instead of a hundred, I'll have two hundred ready for you by the start of spring. But the king himself must approve the plan."
Aristagoras went back to Miletus delighted. Artaphernes wrote to Susa, got Darius' approval, assembled two hundred triremes and a large force of Persians and allies, and appointed Megabates — an Achaemenid and cousin to both himself and Darius — as commander. (This was the same Megabates whose daughter was later betrothed to Pausanias of Sparta — if the story is true — when Pausanias was scheming to make himself tyrant of Greece.) With Megabates in command, Artaphernes dispatched the fleet to Aristagoras.
Megabates assembled the Naxian exiles and the fleet, and sailed with the ostensible destination of the Hellespont. But when he reached Chios, he anchored at Caucasa to wait for a north wind to carry them across to Naxos. Then, because it was not fated for the Naxians to be destroyed by this expedition, the following incident occurred: Megabates was making his rounds inspecting the guard posts on the ships when he found a vessel from Myndus completely unguarded. Furious, he ordered his men to find the ship's captain — a man named Scylax — and bind him in an oar-hole with his head sticking out and his body inside. When Aristagoras learned that his guest-friend from Myndus had been treated this way, he went to Megabates and asked for the man's release. Megabates refused. So Aristagoras went and freed Scylax himself.
Megabates was livid. Aristagoras snapped: "What business is this of yours? Didn't Artaphernes send you to take orders from me and sail where I tell you? Why are you meddling?" In a rage, Megabates secretly sent a boat to Naxos that night to warn the Naxians of the coming attack.
The Naxians had had no idea the expedition was targeting them. But now, forewarned, they rushed all their property inside the walls, stockpiled food and water, and fortified their defenses. When the fleet arrived from Chios, they found Naxos fully prepared. The siege dragged on for four months. When the Persians had spent all the money they'd brought — plus a great deal more that Aristagoras had contributed from his own pocket — and the siege kept demanding ever more, they finally gave up. They built a fortification for the Naxian exiles and sailed back to the mainland in failure.
Aristagoras was in deep trouble. He couldn't fulfill his promise to Artaphernes. He was being pressed for the expedition's expenses. He had made an enemy of Megabates. And he feared he would lose his position as ruler of Miletus. With all these anxieties pressing in on him at once, he began planning a revolt.
And right at that very moment, a slave arrived from Histiaeus in Susa — a man with a message tattooed on his scalp. Histiaeus had wanted to tell Aristagoras to revolt but couldn't send the message safely because all the roads were watched. So he shaved the head of his most trusted slave, tattooed the message on his scalp, waited for the hair to grow back, then sent him to Miletus with one instruction: "When you arrive, tell Aristagoras to shave your head and look at it." The tattoo said: revolt. Histiaeus did this because he hated being stuck at Susa. He calculated that if a revolt broke out, Darius would send him to the coast to deal with it. If nothing happened, he had no hope of ever leaving Susa.
So when the tattooed slave arrived and everything converged at once, Aristagoras consulted his inner circle. He shared both his own thinking and Histiaeus' message. Everyone agreed they should revolt — except Hecataeus the historian. Hecataeus first argued that they shouldn't go to war with the king of Persia at all, listing every nation Darius ruled and the full extent of his power. When this failed to persuade them, he offered a fallback: they should seize the treasures stored in the temple of the Branchidae — the ones Croesus had dedicated — and use them to build a fleet. That way they'd at least control the sea, and the enemy couldn't plunder the treasure either. Those offerings were enormously valuable, as I've described earlier. But this advice was also rejected. They resolved to revolt, and as their first move, sent a man to Myus, where the fleet that had returned from Naxos was anchored, to try to seize the commanders aboard the ships.
The agent — Iatragoras — captured by deception a number of them: Oliatus of Mylasa, Histiaeus of Termera, Coes of Mytilene (the same one Darius had rewarded), Aristagoras of Cyme, and several others. The revolt was now open, and Aristagoras devoted himself entirely to harming Darius. His first move was a brilliant piece of political theater: he publicly renounced his own tyranny and declared Miletus a democracy, with equal rights for all citizens — so the Milesians would willingly join the revolt. Then he did the same throughout the rest of Ionia. Some tyrants he drove out. The ones he'd captured from the Naxos fleet he surrendered to their home cities as a goodwill gesture, handing each man over to his own people.
The Mytileneans, as soon as they got Coes in their hands, dragged him out and stoned him to death. The Cymaeans released their tyrant, and most other cities did the same. So tyrannies fell across the cities. Aristagoras told each city to appoint its own generals, then set sail for Sparta as an ambassador. He desperately needed to find a powerful ally.
At Sparta, Anaxandrides had died, and the throne belonged to his son Cleomenes. Cleomenes had inherited the kingship not by merit but by seniority. Here's the background: Anaxandrides was married to his own sister's daughter, and he loved her dearly, but she bore him no children. The Ephors summoned him and said: "Even if you won't look out for yourself, we can't allow the line of Eurysthenes to die out. Divorce your wife — since she's clearly barren — and marry another. Do this, and you'll please the Spartans."
Anaxandrides refused flat out. He said it was dishonorable advice — to cast off a wife who had done nothing wrong — and he wouldn't do it.
The Ephors and Senators huddled together and came back with a compromise: "Fine. Since you're clearly devoted to your wife, don't divorce her. Keep giving her everything you give her now. But take a second wife as well, to bear you children." Anaxandrides agreed to this arrangement — and so, against all Spartan custom, he maintained two wives.
Before long, the second wife gave birth to Cleomenes. And then — just as she was presenting the throne with an heir — the first wife, who had been childless all this time, suddenly became pregnant. It really was true, but the second wife's relatives were suspicious and accused her of faking it, planning to pass off someone else's baby as her own. The Ephors, skeptical, stationed themselves around the woman during labor to watch. She gave birth to Dorieus. Then she immediately conceived again and bore Leonidas, and right after that, Cleombrotus. (Some say Leonidas and Cleombrotus were twins.) The second wife — who had borne Cleomenes — never had another child.
Now, Cleomenes was reportedly somewhat unhinged — not quite right in the head, bordering on madness. Dorieus, on the other hand, was the finest man of his generation and assumed he would become king on merit. So when Anaxandrides died and the Spartans followed custom by crowning the eldest son, Dorieus was furious. Refusing to be Cleomenes' subject, he asked the Spartans for a band of followers and led them off to found a colony — without even consulting the oracle at Delphi about where to go, or performing any of the customary rites. He sailed to Libya in a rage, with Therans as his guides, and settled at the most beautiful spot in the country, along the banks of the river Cinyps. But within three years the Macae, the Libyans, and the Carthaginians drove him out, and he returned to the Peloponnese.
Then a man named Antichares of Eleon, citing the oracles of Laius, advised him to found Heraclea in Sicily — the whole territory of Eryx, he said, rightfully belonged to the descendants of Heracles, since Heracles himself had won it. This time Dorieus went to Delphi first, and the Pythia confirmed he would conquer the land. Taking the same expedition he'd brought to Libya, he sailed along the coast of Italy.
Now at this time, according to the people of Sybaris, they and their ruler Telys were about to attack Croton. The Crotonians, terrified, asked Dorieus for help and got it. Dorieus joined them in the campaign and helped conquer Sybaris — that's the Sybarite version. The Crotonians deny it, claiming no foreigner helped them except a single diviner, Callias of Elis, a descendant of Iamus. The story goes that Callias had defected from Telys the Sybarite tyrant after getting unfavorable omens while sacrificing for the campaign against Croton.
Both sides point to evidence. The Sybarites show a sacred enclosure and temple beside the dried-up bed of the Crathis, which they say Dorieus built for Athena after helping capture the city. They also argue that Dorieus' death proves he acted against the oracle — if he'd stuck to his mission instead of getting sidetracked, he'd have conquered the territory of Eryx and kept it instead of dying. The Crotonians point out that Callias of Elis received large tracts of Crotonian land — still held by his descendants in my time — while Dorieus and his family received nothing at all. If Dorieus had really helped, he'd have gotten far more than Callias. Those are the competing accounts — believe whichever you find more convincing.
Several Spartans sailed with Dorieus as joint-founders: Thessalus, Paraibates, Celeas, and Euryleon. They all reached Sicily together, but all were killed in battle against the Phoenicians and the people of Segesta — all except Euryleon, the sole survivor. He gathered the remnants of the expedition, captured Minoa (a colony of Selinus), and helped the people of Selinus overthrow their tyrant Peithagoras. After deposing Peithagoras, Euryleon seized power in Selinus for himself — but only briefly, because the Selinuntines revolted and killed him even though he'd taken refuge at the altar of Zeus Agoraios.
One other notable man who accompanied Dorieus and died with him was Philip, son of Butacides, of Croton. He had been betrothed to the daughter of Telys the Sybarite, but was exiled from Croton and, cheated out of his marriage, sailed to Cyrene, outfitted a trireme at his own expense, and joined Dorieus' expedition. He had been an Olympic victor and was the most beautiful Greek of his time. His looks earned him a unique honor from the people of Segesta: they built a hero-shrine over his tomb and still offer him sacrifices to this day.
So Dorieus met his end. Had he been willing to submit to Cleomenes and stay in Sparta, he would have become king — because Cleomenes reigned only a short time and died leaving no son, only a daughter named Gorgo.
But back to Aristagoras: the tyrant of Miletus arrived in Sparta while Cleomenes was still on the throne. According to the Spartans, he came to their meeting carrying a bronze tablet with a map of the entire world engraved on it — every sea and every river. He addressed Cleomenes:
"Don't be surprised by my urgency in coming here, Cleomenes. Consider the situation: the sons of Ionia are slaves instead of free men. This is a disgrace and a grief to us above all, but after us, to you most of all — since you are the leaders of Greece. Now I beg you, by the gods of Greece, rescue the Ionians from slavery. They are your own kinsmen! And this is easily done. These non-Greeks are not brave fighters. They go into battle with bows, short spears, trousers, and pointed caps. They're easily beaten. And the wealth of that continent surpasses everything the rest of the world combined possesses: gold, silver, bronze, embroidered cloth, pack animals, slaves — all yours for the taking. Let me show you."
He pointed to his map. "Here are the Ionians. Next to them, the Lydians — rich in gold and silver, living in fertile land. Next, the Phrygians — more sheep and cattle and better crops than any people I know. Then the Cappadocians — we call them Syrians. Then the Cilicians, running down to this coast here with the island of Cyprus — they pay the king five hundred talents a year. Then the Armenians — also rich in livestock. Then the Matienians. Then Cissia, where the city of Susa sits on the river Choaspes — the great king's own capital, where all the treasure is stored. Take that city and you can rival Zeus himself in wealth. But here you are, fighting the Messenians and Arcadians and Argives — peoples who match you in battle — over scraps of land that aren't particularly large or fertile, and these people have no gold or silver worth fighting for. When you could easily rule all of Asia instead?"
Cleomenes replied: "Guest-friend from Miletus, I'll give you my answer the day after tomorrow."
When the appointed day came and they met again, Cleomenes asked one question: how many days' journey was it from the Ionian coast to the king's capital? And Aristagoras — who had handled everything else so cleverly — made a fatal mistake. He told the truth: it was a three-month journey from the sea. Cleomenes cut him off before he could say another word: "Guest-friend from Miletus, leave Sparta before sunset. You are asking the Spartans to travel three months from the sea. That will not happen."
Cleomenes went home. But Aristagoras wasn't finished. He took a suppliant's branch, went to Cleomenes' house, and asked to be heard. Cleomenes' daughter Gorgo happened to be standing beside him — she was his only child, eight or nine years old. Cleomenes told Aristagoras to say what he wanted and not worry about the child. Aristagoras began offering money: ten talents if Cleomenes would grant his request. Cleomenes refused. Aristagoras kept raising the offer — twenty, thirty, forty — until he reached fifty talents. At that point the little girl cried out: "Father, the stranger is going to corrupt you if you don't get away from him!"
Cleomenes, delighted by his daughter's advice, left the room. Aristagoras left Sparta for good, never getting the chance to explain the details of the road to Susa.
Here are those details, for the record. The entire route has royal staging posts and excellent lodging, running through inhabited, safe country. Through Lydia and Phrygia there are twenty stages, covering ninety-four and a half parasangs. After Phrygia you reach the river Halys, where there's a gateway you must pass through and a strong guard post. Crossing into Cappadocia, it's twenty-eight stages and a hundred and four parasangs to the Cilician border. At the Cilician border you pass through two sets of gates with two guard posts. Through Cilicia it's three stages, fifteen and a half parasangs, to the river Euphrates — a navigable river that marks the Armenian border. Armenia has fifteen stages totaling fifty-six and a half parasangs, with a guard post along the way. From Armenia into the land of Matiene is thirty-four stages, a hundred and thirty-seven parasangs. Four navigable rivers run through Matiene, all requiring ferry crossings: first the Tigris, then two rivers both called by the same name (though they're different rivers from different sources — one from Armenia, the other from Matiene), and fourth the river Gyndes, the same one Cyrus once divided into three hundred and sixty channels. From Matiene into the land of Cissia is eleven stages, forty-two and a half parasangs, to the river Choaspes — another navigable stream — on which stands the city of Susa.
The total comes to one hundred and eleven stages. If the Royal Road has been accurately measured in parasangs, and if the parasang equals thirty stades (as it certainly does), then the total distance from Sardis to the palace of Memnon at Susa is 13,500 stades. At a hundred and fifty stades per day, the journey takes exactly ninety days.
So Aristagoras of Miletus was perfectly correct when he told Cleomenes the Spartan that it was a three-month journey from the coast to the king's residence. But for anyone who wants even more precision: the road from Ephesus to Sardis adds another 540 stades, bringing the total from the Greek sea to Susa to 14,040 stades — which adds three days to the three-month journey.
Driven out of Sparta, Aristagoras headed for Athens, which had recently been freed from tyranny. Here's how that happened.
Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus and brother of the tyrant Hippias, was assassinated by Aristogeiton and Harmodius — men who were originally of Gephyraean descent. Hipparchus had been warned: the night before the Panathenaic festival, he dreamed that a tall, handsome man stood over him and spoke these riddling verses:
"With a lion's enduring soul, endure the unendurable evil: No man who does wrong shall escape the judgment appointed."
As soon as day broke, Hipparchus told the dream-interpreters about the vision. But then he dismissed it from his mind and joined the very procession in which he would be killed. The Athenians, however, continued under tyranny for another four years after the assassination — and if anything, the oppression grew worse, not better.
Now the Gephyraeans, the family to which the assassins of Hipparchus belonged, claimed to be originally from Eretria. But from my own research, I have found that they were actually Phoenicians — part of the group that came to Boeotia with Cadmus. They settled in the district of Tanagra, which had been allotted to them. Later, after the Cadmeans were first driven out by the Argives, the Gephyraeans were expelled by the Boeotians and made their way to Athens. The Athenians accepted them as citizens, though with certain restrictions not worth detailing here.
These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus introduced many arts to Greece when they settled in Boeotia, but most importantly they brought the alphabet, which, as far as I can tell, the Greeks did not have before this. At first the letters were the standard Phoenician forms, but over time, as the language shifted, so did the shapes of the letters. In most of the places where the Phoenicians settled, the neighboring Greeks were Ionians, and it was the Ionians who adopted the alphabet, modifying the letter forms slightly. They called these letters "Phoenician" — and rightly so, since Phoenicians had introduced them to Greece. The Ionians also still call papyrus "skins," from the old days when papyrus was scarce and they wrote on goat and sheep hides instead. Even in my own time, many non-Greeks still write on such skins.
I myself have seen Cadmean characters in the temple of Ismenian Apollo at Thebes in Boeotia, engraved on certain tripods and mostly resembling Ionic letters. One of these tripods bears the inscription:
"Amphitryon dedicated me, returning from the land of the Teleboians."
This inscription would date to the time of Laius, the son of Labdacus, the son of Polydorus, the son of Cadmus.
Another tripod reads, in hexameter verse:
"Scaius the boxer offered me to you, far-shooting Apollo, a victory prize, a beautiful gift in your honor."
This Scaius would be the son of Hippocoon — at least if it was really he who dedicated it and not someone else with the same name — and would date to the time of Oedipus, son of Laius.
The third tripod, also in hexameter verse, reads:
"Laodamas himself dedicated me to you, sure-aiming Apollo, from his own wealth, being king — a beautiful gift in your honor."
Now it was during the reign of this very Laodamas, son of Eteocles, that the Cadmeans were driven out by the Argives and went to live among the Encheleans. The Gephyraeans, left behind, were later forced by the Boeotians to retreat to Athens. They have temples in Athens that are not shared with other Athenians, including a temple of Demeter Achaea and a celebration of her mysteries.
I have now told the story of Hipparchus' dream vision, and explained where the Gephyraeans came from — the family that produced Hipparchus' assassins. But I must now return to the story I was about to tell: how the Athenians were freed from tyranny.
While Hippias held power as tyrant, he dealt harshly with the Athenians in the aftermath of Hipparchus' murder. The Alcmaeonidae — an Athenian family who had been driven into exile by the sons of Pisistratus — had tried repeatedly, along with other exiles, to return by force and liberate Athens, but they kept failing. Their most notable defeat was at Leipsydrium, above Paeonia, which they had fortified. After that disaster, they tried a different approach. They accepted the contract to rebuild the temple at Delphi — the one that stands today but had not yet been completed. Being wealthy and already distinguished, they built the temple even more beautifully than the plan required. The contract called for common limestone, but they used Parian marble for the front facade.
According to the Athenians, once the Alcmaeonidae were established at Delphi, they bribed the priestess so that whenever Spartans came to consult the oracle — whether on private or public business — she would always add the same message: free Athens. The Spartans, hearing this same command every time they visited, finally sent Anchimolius, son of Aster, a man of high standing, with an army to drive out the sons of Pisistratus. They did this even though the Pisistratids were closely connected to them by ties of guest-friendship, because they believed that the god's commands should take priority over human obligations. They sent this force by sea.
Anchimolius landed at Phalerum and disembarked his army. But the sons of Pisistratus, who had received advance warning, called in help from Thessaly — they had an alliance with the Thessalians — and the Thessalians responded by sending, at public expense, a thousand cavalry under their king Cineas, a man from Conium. With these allies, the sons of Pisistratus employed the following strategy: they cleared the trees from the plain of Phalerum to make the ground suitable for cavalry, then unleashed the horsemen against the Spartan camp. The cavalry fell on them and killed many, including Anchimolius himself. The survivors were penned up against their ships. That was the outcome of the first expedition from Sparta. The tomb of Anchimolius stands at Alopecae in Attica, near the temple of Heracles at Cynosarges.
After this, the Spartans assembled a larger force and sent it against Athens, this time appointing King Cleomenes, son of Anaxandrides, as commander and sending it by land rather than sea. When the army invaded Attica, the Thessalian cavalry engaged them first — but was routed in short order, losing more than forty men. The survivors immediately headed home to Thessaly. Then Cleomenes marched to the city itself, together with those Athenians who wanted freedom, and began besieging the tyrants, who were shut up behind the Pelasgian wall.
Now, the Spartans would never actually have dislodged the sons of Pisistratus — they had no intention of conducting a long siege, and the tyrants were well supplied with food and water. After a few days, the Spartans would simply have packed up and gone home. But then something happened that was disastrous for one side and a godsend for the other: the children of the Pisistratids were captured while being secretly smuggled out of the country. This threw everything into confusion. To get their children back, the tyrants agreed to the Athenians' terms: leave Attica within five days.
And so they departed, withdrawing to Sigeion on the Scamander, after their family had ruled Athens for thirty-six years. They were originally Pylians, descendants of Neleus — the same lineage as Codrus and Melanthus, who had become kings of Athens as foreign settlers. This is why Hippocrates had named his son Pisistratus, after Pisistratus the son of Nestor.
Thus the Athenians were freed from tyranny. Now, the noteworthy events they experienced between their liberation and the time when Ionia revolted from Darius and Aristagoras of Miletus arrived to ask for their help — these I will set out before going any further.
Athens, already a great city, became even greater once free of its tyrants. Two men rose to dominate its politics: Cleisthenes, a descendant of Alcmaeon — the same man reported to have bribed the priestess at Delphi — and Isagoras, son of Tisander. Isagoras came from a distinguished family, though I cannot trace its original ancestry. His relatives, however, offer sacrifices to Carian Zeus. These two men struggled for power, and when Cleisthenes found himself losing, he took a revolutionary step: he made common cause with the people.
He then reorganized Athens into ten tribes instead of the old four, discarding the ancient tribal names derived from the sons of Ion — Geleon, Aegicores, Argades, and Hoples — and replacing them with names taken from other heroes, all native Athenians, except Ajax, whom he included as a neighboring ally even though he was not Athenian.
In doing this, it seems to me that Cleisthenes was imitating his maternal grandfather, Cleisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon. That earlier Cleisthenes, during his war against Argos, first banned the rhapsodic contests at Sicyon that celebrated Homer's poems, because the poems glorify Argives and Argos at nearly every turn. Next, because there was a hero-shrine to Adrastus, son of Talaus, right in the marketplace of Sicyon, Cleisthenes wanted to expel this Argive hero from the land. He went to Delphi and asked if he could cast Adrastus out. The priestess shot back: "Adrastus is king of the Sicyonians; you are a mere stone-thrower." Since the god would not permit it, Cleisthenes went home and devised another plan: he would make Adrastus want to leave on his own. He sent to Thebes in Boeotia and requested the bones of Melanippus, son of Astacus — and the Thebans agreed. Cleisthenes brought Melanippus to Sicyon, gave him a sacred precinct within the town hall itself, and installed him in the most prominent position. He chose Melanippus specifically because Melanippus had been Adrastus' greatest enemy, having killed both his brother Mecisteus and his son-in-law Tydeus. Once the new shrine was established, Cleisthenes stripped Adrastus of his sacrifices and festivals and gave them all to Melanippus.
The Sicyonians had previously honored Adrastus with great devotion — the land had once belonged to his grandfather Polybus, and Adrastus had inherited the kingdom. Among other honors, they had celebrated his sufferings with tragic choruses, paying the honor to Adrastus rather than to Dionysus. Cleisthenes transferred the choruses back to Dionysus and gave all the rest to Melanippus.
That was what he did about Adrastus. He also changed the names of the Dorian tribes, so that the Sicyonians would not share the same tribal names as the Argives. In doing this, he showed magnificent contempt for his own people. The new names were derived from the words for "pig" and "donkey," with only the endings changed — except for his own tribe, which he named "Rulers of the People." The others he called "Pig-men," "Donkey-men," and "Swine-men." The Sicyonians used these humiliating names not only during Cleisthenes' reign but for sixty years after his death. Eventually, they reconsidered and changed the names to the standard Dorian ones — Hylleis, Pamphyloi, and Dymanatae — adding a fourth tribe named Aegialeis, after Aegialeus the son of Adrastus.
That was the Sicyonian Cleisthenes. The Athenian Cleisthenes, his daughter's son and namesake, seems to me to have imitated him — despising the Ionians just as his grandfather had despised the Dorians. When he brought the whole Athenian common people over to his side — a group he had previously looked down on — he changed the tribal names and increased the number of tribes. He created ten tribal leaders instead of four and distributed the local districts among the ten tribes. With the people on his side, he was far stronger than his opponents.
Isagoras, now finding himself outmatched, fought back with a scheme of his own. He called in Cleomenes of Sparta, who had been his personal guest-friend since the siege of the Pisistratids — and there was an additional rumor that Cleomenes had been sleeping with Isagoras' wife. First, Cleomenes sent a herald to Athens demanding the expulsion of Cleisthenes and many other Athenians, calling them "the accursed" — a message he sent at Isagoras' instruction. The accusation referred to the Alcmaeonidae and their role in a specific murder, one in which Isagoras and his friends had played no part.
Here is what the "curse" was about. There was once an Athenian named Cylon who had won an Olympic victory. Puffed up with ambition and wanting to make himself tyrant, he gathered a group of followers his own age and tried to seize the Acropolis. When his coup failed, he sat as a suppliant before the goddess's statue. The presidents of the naucraries — the officials who governed Athens at that time — persuaded the suppliants to leave their sanctuary, promising them any punishment short of death. But the Alcmaeonidae are accused of having killed them anyway. This all happened before the time of Pisistratus.
So when Cleomenes demanded the expulsion of Cleisthenes and "the accursed," Cleisthenes quietly slipped away. But Cleomenes came to Athens anyway with a small force, expelled seven hundred Athenian families whose names Isagoras had given him, then tried to dissolve the council and hand all government offices to three hundred of Isagoras' supporters. But the council resisted and refused to submit. Cleomenes and Isagoras and their faction then seized the Acropolis. The rest of the Athenians, united for once, besieged them for two days. On the third day, the Spartans among them were allowed to leave under a truce.
And so a prophecy was fulfilled. When Cleomenes had first gone up to the Acropolis intending to occupy it, he headed for the goddess's sanctuary to pray. But the priestess rose from her seat before he even reached the door and said: "Spartan stranger, go back. Do not enter the temple. It is not lawful for Dorians to pass in here." He replied: "Woman, I am no Dorian — I am an Achaean." Ignoring the warning, he pressed ahead with his attempt, and was expelled along with the rest of the Spartans. The other occupiers were thrown into prison and executed — among them Timesitheus the Delphian, whose feats of strength and courage I could tell at length.
After the executions, the Athenians recalled Cleisthenes and the seven hundred exiled families. Then, understanding that Sparta and Cleomenes were now their bitter enemies, they sent envoys to Sardis hoping to form an alliance with Persia. When the envoys reached Sardis and made their request, Artaphernes, son of Hystaspes, the governor, asked who these "Athenians" were and where on earth they lived. When he found out, he gave them a simple answer: if the Athenians were willing to give earth and water to Darius, he would accept the alliance. Otherwise, they could leave. The envoys, acting on their own authority and eager for the deal, said they were willing.
When they returned home, they were severely condemned for it.
Meanwhile, Cleomenes — furious at having been humiliated by the Athenians — was assembling an army from across the Peloponnese. He kept his real purpose secret, but his goal was to take revenge on Athens and install Isagoras as tyrant. Cleomenes marched his large force to Eleusis. At the same time, by prearrangement, the Boeotians captured Oenoe and Hysiae, border towns of Attica, while the Chalcidians invaded from the other side and began raiding. The Athenians, attacked on three fronts, decided to deal with the Peloponnesians first and worry about the Boeotians and Chalcidians later.
But just as the armies at Eleusis were about to engage, the Corinthians had second thoughts. Deciding they were doing something wrong, they turned around and marched home. Then Demaratus, son of Ariston — who was the other king of Sparta alongside Cleomenes and had co-led the expedition but had no prior quarrel with him — also withdrew. As a result of this fiasco, Sparta passed a new law: from now on, both kings could not accompany the same army. Previously both had always gone together. With one king now staying behind, one of the two Dioscuri — the sons of Tyndareus — was also to remain in Sparta, since previously both divine protectors had been invoked to march with the army.
Back at Eleusis, when the rest of the allies saw that the two Spartan kings disagreed and the Corinthians had abandoned their positions, they too packed up and left. This was the fourth time that Dorians had come to Attica — twice to make war and twice to help the Athenian people. The first time was when they settled Megara, during the reign of Codrus. The second and third were the two expeditions from Sparta to drive out the Pisistratids. The fourth was now, when Cleomenes led the Peloponnesians to Eleusis.
After this army dissolved in disgrace, the Athenians turned to payback. They marched first against the Chalcidians, but the Boeotians came to the Euripus to help defend them. The Athenians, seeing the reinforcements, decided to deal with the Boeotians first. They engaged and won a decisive victory, killing a great many and taking seven hundred prisoners. That very same day, they crossed over to Euboea, fought the Chalcidians too, and beat them as well. They settled four thousand Athenian allotment-holders on the land of the wealthy Chalcidians — the so-called "Horse-Breeders." The prisoners from both battles they held in chains, later releasing them for a ransom of two minas of silver each. The fetters they hung on the Acropolis, where they were still visible in my time, hanging on walls scorched by the Persian fire, directly opposite the west-facing sanctuary. They also dedicated a tenth of the ransom money to make a bronze four-horse chariot, which stands on the left as you enter the Propylaea on the Acropolis. The inscription reads:
"Athens' sons in the deeds of war tamed Boeotia and Chalcis, Quenched their arrogance in chains of dark iron; From the ransom, a tenth — these horses for Athena."
The Athenians grew mightily in power. And this demonstrates — not just in one way but in every way — that political equality is a powerful thing. While the Athenians were under tyrants, they were no better in war than any of their neighbors. But the moment they were free, they surged to the very top. This proves that while they were oppressed, they deliberately held back, since they were working for a master. Once liberated, each man was eager to achieve something for himself.
After their defeats, the Thebans sent to Delphi, wanting revenge on Athens. The priestess told them they could not achieve this on their own strength, and instructed them to bring the matter before "the many-voiced" and seek help from those "nearest" to them. When the delegation reported this back, the Thebans assembled and debated the oracle's meaning. "Our nearest neighbors are Tanagra, Coronea, and Thespiae," some argued, "and they already fight alongside us. What would be the point of asking them? Surely the oracle means something else."
While they were puzzling over it, someone finally grasped the meaning. "Asopus is said to have had two daughters, Thebe and Aegina. Since these are sisters, I believe the god is telling us to ask the Aeginetans for help." Since this seemed the best interpretation, they sent immediately and asked the Aeginetans for assistance, invoking the oracle. The Aeginetans responded by "sending the sons of Aeacus" — a symbolic gesture of their legendary ancestors' aid.
The Thebans tried attacking Athens with this spiritual alliance and were roughly handled. So they sent back the sons of Aeacus and asked instead for actual men. The Aeginetans, flush with prosperity and nursing an ancient grudge against Athens, needed no further encouragement. Without even declaring war, they sailed against Attica while the Athenians were busy with the Boeotians, raided Phalerum and many coastal towns, and inflicted serious damage.
The grudge the Aeginetans held against Athens went back a long way, and here is how it started. The land of Epidaurus had stopped producing fruit, so the Epidaurians consulted Delphi. The priestess told them to set up images of Damia and Auxesia, and their fortunes would improve. When they asked whether the statues should be bronze or stone, the priestess said neither — they must be carved from cultivated olive wood. The Epidaurians asked the Athenians for permission to cut olive trees, since Athenian olives were considered the most sacred — some even say that at that time olives grew nowhere else on earth. The Athenians agreed, on condition that the Epidaurians make annual offerings to Athena Polias and Erechtheus. The Epidaurians accepted, carved the images, set them up, and their land bore fruit again. For a time, they kept their end of the bargain.
Now in those days and before, the Aeginetans were subject to the Epidaurians and even crossed over to Epidaurus to have their legal disputes settled. But eventually they built ships, revolted from Epidaurus out of sheer willfulness, and — since they now controlled the sea — began raiding them. Among other things, they stole the very images of Damia and Auxesia and set them up at a place called Oia, about twenty stades inland from their city. There they worshipped the goddesses with sacrifices and women's choruses that featured scurrilous mockery. Ten men were appointed for each goddess to organize the choruses, and the women's mockery was directed not at men but at the local women. The Epidaurians had the same rites, along with certain secret ceremonies.
Once the images were stolen, the Epidaurians stopped making their offerings to Athens. The Athenians protested, and the Epidaurians replied — fairly enough — that while the images were in their country, they had kept their agreement, but now that they had lost them, it was no longer just to pay. They told the Athenians to demand the images from the Aeginetans. The Athenians sent to Aegina and demanded the statues back. The Aeginetans told them it was none of their business.
The Athenians report that they then sent citizens in a single trireme to Aegina, where they tried to wrench the wooden images off their pedestals, since the wood rightfully belonged to Athens. When they could not pull them free, they tied ropes around them. But as they hauled on the ropes, thunder broke out and an earthquake struck at the same time, and the sailors went mad, turning on each other as if they were enemies, killing one another until only a single man was left. He alone made it back to Phalerum.
That is the Athenian version. The Aeginetans tell it differently. They say the Athenians came not with one ship but with a whole fleet. The Aeginetans chose not to fight at sea — they cannot say for certain whether this was because they were outmatched or because they had a plan — and instead let the Athenians land. When the Athenians tried to tear the images from their bases and failed, they roped them and pulled. And here the Aeginetans report something I personally do not believe, though someone else may: they say both images fell to their knees before the Aeginetans and have stayed in that position ever since. Meanwhile, the Aeginetans say, they had called for help from Argos, and just as the Athenians were hauling at the statues, the Argives landed secretly on the island and cut them off from their ships. At that very moment, the thunder and earthquake struck.
Both the Argives and Aeginetans agree that only one Athenian survived and made it home to Attica. The Argives say they destroyed the rest; the Athenians say it was divine power. But even that one survivor did not live long. When he reached Athens and reported the disaster, the wives of the men who had gone to Aegina were so outraged that he alone had returned that they surrounded him and stabbed him to death with the bronze pins of their cloaks, each one demanding "Where is my husband?" He died right there. The Athenians found the women's deed even more terrible than the military catastrophe itself, and — not knowing how else to punish them — they changed Athenian women's clothing from the Dorian style (which resembles Corinthian dress and requires large pins) to the Ionian linen tunic, which needs no brooches at all.
In truth, though, this style of dress is not originally Ionian but Carian. All the old Greek women's clothing was what we now call Dorian. In response to these events, the Argives and Aeginetans made it a custom in both their countries to have their women's brooches half again as large as before, and to make a special point of dedicating brooches at the temple of these goddesses. They also banned Athenian pottery and anything else of Athenian manufacture from the temple, requiring that the drinking vessels be locally made.
From that time onward, the women of Argos and Aegina continued to wear these oversized brooches — a custom that persists even in my time. And that is how the enmity between Athens and Aegina began. So when the Thebans called on Aegina for help, the Aeginetans gladly obliged, remembering the old business with the statues. They raided the Athenian coast. The Athenians were preparing to retaliate when an oracle from Delphi told them to wait thirty years from the time of the Aeginetan offense, then in the thirty-first year to dedicate a precinct to Aeacus and begin the war — and they would succeed. But if they attacked immediately, they would suffer greatly before eventually prevailing. The Athenians did set aside a precinct for Aeacus — the one that still stands near the marketplace — but they could not endure waiting thirty years after what the Aeginetans had done to them.
Just as they were preparing for vengeance, however, a Spartan initiative got in the way. The Spartans had learned about the Alcmaeonidae's bribery of the Delphic priestess and how they themselves had been manipulated into attacking the Pisistratids. This galled them doubly: they had driven out men who were their guest-friends, and the Athenians had shown them no gratitude whatsoever. On top of that, they had acquired a collection of oracles — the ones Cleomenes had brought back from the Athenian Acropolis, where the Pisistratids had left them when they fled — that predicted the Spartans would suffer many injuries at Athenian hands. Oracles they had known nothing about until now.
Having recovered these oracles and watching the Athenians grow powerful and clearly unwilling to submit to Spartan leadership — recognizing that the Athenian people, once free, were becoming a match for Sparta itself, whereas under tyranny they had been weak and docile — the Spartans summoned Hippias from Sigeion on the Hellespont and invited envoys from all their allies to a conference. When they had assembled, the Spartans addressed them:
"Allies, we acknowledge that we acted wrongly. Misled by fraudulent oracles, we drove into exile men who were our closest guest-friends and who had been keeping Athens obedient to us. Then we handed the city over to an ungrateful populace, which — the moment we freed them — raised its head, drove us and our king out with shameful insolence, and now, swollen with pride, is growing more powerful by the day. Their nearest neighbors, the Boeotians and Chalcidians, have already learned this at their cost, and others will too unless they are careful. Since we erred in doing what we did, we now intend to make amends by going there together with you. That is exactly why we sent for Hippias — whom you see before you — and for all of you: so that by common plan and united force we can escort him back to Athens and restore what we took away."
That was the Spartan proposal. But the majority of the allies were not persuaded. Most kept quiet, but Socles, the Corinthian representative, spoke up:
"Truly, the heavens will sink below the earth and the earth will rise above the sky, and men will live in the sea and fish on dry land, before you Spartans abolish free governments and bring tyranny back to our cities! There is nothing more unjust or more bloodstained among men. If you think it so fine for cities to be ruled by tyrants, then set one up in Sparta first and then try to impose them on the rest of us. But you yourselves have never experienced tyranny and take the greatest care that it never comes to Sparta. If you had experienced it as we have, you would have better opinions on the subject.
"For this was the established order at Corinth. The government was an oligarchy: the Bacchiadae held power and married only among themselves. One of them, a man named Amphion, had a daughter who was born lame. Her name was Labda. Since none of the Bacchiadae would marry her, she was taken as a wife by Aetion, son of Echecrates, a man from the district of Petra, but by origin a Lapith descended from Caeneus. Neither from this wife nor any other were children born to him, so he went to Delphi to ask about offspring. The moment he entered, the priestess addressed him:
'Much to be honored are you, Aetion, yet no one honors you. Labda conceives and will bear a boulder that rolls Down on the heads of kings, and brings justice to Corinth.'
"This oracle was somehow reported to the Bacchiadae, who had previously received another oracle they could not interpret but which pointed to the same thing:
'An eagle conceives in the rocks and will bear a ravening lion, Strong and fierce, who will loosen the knees of many. Ponder this well, I tell you, Corinthians who dwell By fair Pirene's spring and on the heights of Corinth.'
"The earlier oracle had been incomprehensible, but when they heard Aetion's, they immediately understood both. Even so, they kept quiet and waited. As soon as Aetion's wife bore a child, they sent ten of their own number to the district where he lived to kill the infant. These men arrived at Petra, entered Aetion's courtyard, and asked for the baby. Labda, suspecting nothing and thinking they wanted to see the child out of affection for its father, brought it out and placed it in the hands of the first man. Now, the ten had agreed along the way that whoever first held the baby would dash it to the ground. But when Labda handed it over, by divine providence the child smiled at the man holding it. He noticed the smile, and compassion stopped him from killing it. Moved by pity, he passed it to the next man, who passed it to the third. And so it went through all ten hands, because none of them could bring himself to do it. They gave the child back to its mother and filed out.
"Standing by the doorway, they berated each other — especially blaming the first man for not carrying out the plan — until they finally steeled themselves to go back in and all share in the killing. But it was fated that Aetion's offspring would bring trouble to Corinth. Labda had been standing just inside the door and had heard everything. Terrified they would change their minds and come for the child again, she hid it in the most unlikely place she could think of — a grain chest — knowing they would search everywhere else. And that is exactly what happened. They came back in, searched the house, failed to find it, and decided to report to their masters that the job was done.
"And so Aetion's son grew up. Because he had escaped death in the grain chest, he was given the nickname Cypselus, after the word for chest. When Cypselus reached manhood, he consulted Delphi and received a double-edged oracle. Trusting it, he made his move against Corinth and seized it. The oracle said:
'Happy the man who enters my temple, Cypselus, son of Aetion: he shall rule famous Corinth, He and his sons — but not his sons' sons.'
"That was the oracle. And Cypselus as tyrant was a man of this sort: he drove many Corinthians into exile, stripped many of their property, and killed far more. After a thirty-year reign that ended prosperously, his son Periander succeeded him. Periander at first was milder than his father. But after he exchanged messages with Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, he became far more murderous. He had sent a messenger to Thrasybulus asking what the safest policy was for governing. Thrasybulus led the messenger out into a field of standing grain. As they walked, he kept asking the messenger why he had come from Corinth — all while lopping off every stalk that rose above the rest. By the time they reached the other side, he had destroyed the finest part of the crop, and yet he had spoken not a single word of advice. He simply sent the messenger away.
"When the messenger returned and reported that Thrasybulus had offered no counsel and seemed to be a madman who destroyed his own property, Periander understood perfectly. Thrasybulus was advising him to kill the most prominent citizens. And from that moment, Periander unleashed every kind of cruelty. Whatever Cypselus had left undone in the way of killing and exile, Periander finished.
"One day he even stripped all the Corinthian women of their clothing — and for the following reason. He had sent messengers to the Oracle of the Dead at the river Acheron, in Thesprotia, to ask about a deposit left by a guest-friend. The ghost of Melissa, his dead wife, appeared and said she would not reveal where the deposit was hidden, because she was cold and naked. The clothes he had buried with her were no use, she said, because they had not been burned. And as proof that she was telling the truth, she added that Periander had 'put his loaves into a cold oven' — a reference that Periander understood, since he had had intercourse with Melissa's corpse.
"Immediately upon hearing this, he sent out a proclamation ordering all the women of Corinth to come to the temple of Hera. They arrived dressed in their finest, as if for a festival. Periander had his guards waiting in ambush. He stripped every woman — free and slave alike — piled all their clothes into a pit, and burned them, praying to Melissa the whole time. After that, he sent to the oracle again, and Melissa's ghost told him where the deposit was.
"That, Spartans, is what tyranny is and what it does. We Corinthians were astounded when we first heard you were sending for Hippias, and we are even more astounded now. We appeal to you in the name of the gods of Greece: do not impose tyrannies on our cities. If you will not abandon this plan but insist on restoring Hippias against all justice, know that at the very least, the Corinthians do not consent."
That was the speech of Socles, the Corinthian envoy. Hippias replied, calling the same gods to witness, that the Corinthians would regret the loss of the Pisistratids more than anyone when the appointed days came for Athens to cause them trouble. He said this because he was better acquainted with the oracles than any man alive. But the rest of the allies, who had been holding their tongues, now spoke up freely. One after another they endorsed the Corinthian position, urging the Spartans not to do violence to a Greek city.
And so the matter ended. Hippias was dismissed. Amyntas, king of Macedonia, offered him the city of Anthemus, and the Thessalians offered him Iolcus. He accepted neither and went back to Sigeion, the city Pisistratus had seized from the Mytilenians and installed his illegitimate son Hegesistratus as tyrant. It had not been held without a fight: the Mytilenians and Athenians had warred over it for years, the Mytilenians based at Achilleion and the Athenians at Sigeion, one side demanding the place back and the Athenians arguing that the Aeolians had no better claim to the land of Troy than they or any other Greeks who had fought alongside Menelaus to avenge the abduction of Helen.
During this war, there was one memorable incident. In a battle that the Athenians were winning, the poet Alcaeus fled the field and escaped with his life, but the Athenians captured his armor and hung it on the walls of Athena's temple at Sigeion. Alcaeus wrote a poem about this embarrassing episode and sent it to his friend Melanippus in Mytilene. The war was eventually settled by Periander, son of Cypselus, whom both sides accepted as arbitrator. His ruling was that each side should keep what it currently held.
So Sigeion had come under Athenian control. Now, when Hippias returned to Asia from Sparta, he set about stirring up trouble between Athens and Artaphernes, working by every means to bring Athens under his own rule and that of Darius. When the Athenians heard what he was doing, they sent envoys to Sardis urging the Persians not to listen to exiled Athenians. But Artaphernes replied that if they wanted to remain safe, they must take Hippias back. The Athenians flatly refused, and from that moment they considered themselves openly at war with Persia.
It was precisely at this time — while Athens was already at odds with Persia — that Aristagoras of Miletus arrived in Athens, having been turned away by Cleomenes of Sparta. Athens, after Sparta, was the most powerful city in Greece. Aristagoras came before the Athenian assembly and made the same pitch he had given at Sparta — the wealth of Asia, how the Persians fought without shields or spears and could be easily beaten. He added one more argument: the Milesians were originally colonists from Athens, and it was only right that the Athenians, with all their power, should rescue their own offspring. He promised everything and held nothing back, pressing his case with relentless urgency, until at last he persuaded them.
Apparently it is easier to deceive thirty thousand people than one — for Aristagoras failed to fool Cleomenes alone, but he succeeded with the entire Athenian assembly.
The Athenians voted to send twenty ships to help the Ionians and appointed Melanthius, a citizen of high reputation, as their commander. These ships, as it turned out, were the beginning of troubles for both Greeks and non-Greeks alike.
Aristagoras sailed on ahead to Miletus. There he devised a scheme that offered no real benefit to the Ionians — nor was it intended to. He was trying to antagonize King Darius. He sent a messenger to the Paeonians whom Megabazus had deported from the Strymon River and who were living in their own separate district in Phrygia. The messenger said: "Paeonians, Aristagoras the ruler of Miletus has sent me to offer you salvation, if you are willing to act. All of Ionia has revolted from the king, and you have a chance to reach your homeland safely. Getting to the coast is your problem — after that, we will take care of the rest."
The Paeonians received this as the best news they had ever heard. Taking their wives and children, they made a dash for the sea — though some lost their nerve and stayed behind. When they reached the coast, they crossed to Chios. A large force of Persian cavalry arrived hard on their heels and sent a message to Chios ordering the Paeonians to come back. The Paeonians refused. The Chians transported them to Lesbos, the Lesbians brought them to Doriscus, and from there they marched overland all the way home to Paeonia.
Meanwhile, the Athenians arrived with their twenty ships, and with them came five triremes from Eretria. The Eretrians had joined the expedition not for Athens' sake but to repay a debt to Miletus — for in an earlier war between Eretria and Chalcis, the Milesians had stood by the Eretrians while the Samians had helped Chalcis. When all the allied forces had assembled, Aristagoras organized the march on Sardis — though he himself stayed behind in Miletus, appointing his brother Charopinus and another citizen named Hermophantus as commanders.
With this force, the Ionians reached Ephesus, left their ships at Coressus in Ephesian territory, and marched inland in strength, taking Ephesian guides. They followed the Cayster River, crossed the ridge of Tmolus, and descended on Sardis. They took the city without resistance — all except the citadel, which Artaphernes held with a substantial garrison.
What prevented them from plundering the city was this: most of the houses in Sardis were built of reeds, and even the brick houses had thatched roofs. When one soldier set fire to a house, the flames raced from building to building until the entire city was ablaze. The Lydians and Persians trapped inside, cut off by the fire spreading around the edges, with no escape route, poured into the marketplace and down to the river Pactolus — the river that carries gold dust down from Tmolus through the center of the market and into the Hermus and so to the sea. Gathering at the Pactolus and in the marketplace, the Lydians and Persians were forced to make a stand. The Ionians, seeing the enemy rallying and more troops approaching, grew alarmed, withdrew to Mount Tmolus, and at nightfall retreated to their ships.
Sardis burned. With it burned the temple of the local goddess Cybebe — which the Persians would later cite as justification for burning Greek temples in return. At the time, the Persian forces stationed within the Halys region had been alerted and were converging to aid the Lydians. They arrived to find the Ionians already gone from Sardis, but they followed their trail and caught up with them at Ephesus. The Ionians formed up to fight, but the battle went badly against them. Among the notable dead was Eualcides, commander of the Eretrians, a man who had won wreaths at athletic games and whom Simonides of Ceos had celebrated in poetry. The survivors scattered to their home cities.
After this battle, the Athenians washed their hands of the Ionians entirely. Despite repeated appeals from Aristagoras, they refused to send further help. But the Ionians, even without Athens, pressed on with the war — their offenses against Darius were already too great to turn back. They sailed to the Hellespont and brought Byzantium and all the other cities in the region under their control. Then, sailing back out, they won over most of Caria to their cause. Even Caunus, which had previously refused to join, came over to the revolt once it heard that Sardis had been burned.
The Cypriots also joined the revolt voluntarily — all except Amathus. The driving force was Onesilos, younger brother of Gorgos, king of Salamis in Cyprus and son of Chersis, son of Siromos, son of Euelthon. Onesilos had been urging Gorgos to revolt for some time, and when news came of the Ionian uprising, he pressed even harder. But Gorgos would not be persuaded. So Onesilos waited for his brother to leave the city, then locked him out of the gates. Gorgos fled to the Persians, and Onesilos took control of Salamis and worked to bring all of Cyprus into the revolt. He convinced everyone except the Amathusians, whom he besieged.
While Onesilos was besieging Amathus, word reached King Darius that Sardis had been captured and burned by the Athenians and Ionians, with Aristagoras of Miletus as the ringleader. When Darius first heard the news, it is said, he took no notice of the Ionians — he knew they would be punished eventually. Instead he asked: "Who are the Athenians?" When someone told him, he called for his bow, fitted an arrow to the string, and shot it into the sky, saying: "Zeus, grant that I may take vengeance on the Athenians!" Then he ordered one of his servants to say to him three times, every day before dinner: "Master, remember the Athenians."
Having issued this command, he summoned Histiaeus of Miletus, whom he had been keeping at court for some time, and said: "I have learned, Histiaeus, that your deputy — the man you left in charge of Miletus — has revolted against me. He brought in men from the other continent and persuaded the Ionians — who will pay dearly for what they have done — and together they robbed me of Sardis. Now tell me: does this seem right to you? How could anything like this have happened without your involvement? Be careful that you don't end up blaming yourself."
Histiaeus replied: "My king, what are you saying? That I planned something that could cause you any trouble, great or small? What motive could I have? What do I lack? I have everything you have, and I am honored to share in all your councils. If my deputy is truly acting as you describe, know that he has done it entirely on his own. Frankly, I do not even believe the report — that the Milesians and my deputy are rebelling against your authority. But if it turns out to be true, then consider this, my king: see what you did by removing me from the coast. It seems that the Ionians, the moment I was out of their sight, did what they had long wanted to do. If I had been in Ionia, not a single city would have stirred. Let me go immediately. I will set everything right, deliver this deputy of Miletus into your hands, and once I have done everything to your satisfaction — I swear by the gods of the royal house — I will not even change out of the tunic I am wearing when I reach Ionia until I have made Sardinia, the greatest of all islands, a tributary to you."
With these words, Histiaeus was trying to deceive the king — and Darius believed him. He let Histiaeus go, ordering him to return to Susa once he had accomplished what he promised.
While the news about Sardis was traveling to the king, and while Darius shot his arrow, confronted Histiaeus, and sent him on his way to the coast — during all this time, the following events were unfolding.
While Onesilos of Salamis was besieging Amathus, word reached him that Artybius, a Persian commander, was on his way to Cyprus with a large army by ship. When Onesilos learned this, he sent messengers throughout Ionia calling for help. The Ionians responded swiftly and arrived in force. The Ionians reached Cyprus just as the Persians, having crossed from Cilicia, were marching overland to attack Salamis while the Phoenician fleet sailed around the headland called the "Keys of Cyprus."
Under these circumstances, the Cypriot kings called together the Ionian commanders and said: "Men of Ionia, we Cypriots give you a choice: which enemy would you rather fight — the Persians on land, or the Phoenicians at sea? If you want to face the Persians on land, now is the time to disembark and form up, and we will take your ships to fight the Phoenicians. But if you would rather take on the Phoenicians — whichever you choose, do your best to ensure that both Ionia and Cyprus are freed."
The Ionians replied: "The Ionian League sent us to guard the sea, not to hand our ships over to Cypriots and fight Persians on dry land. We will do our best in the role we were assigned. As for you — remember the sufferings you endured when you were slaves to the Persians, and prove yourselves brave men."
On the day of battle, the Ionians at sea performed brilliantly and defeated the Phoenicians, with the Samians winning the most distinction. On land, when the armies clashed, the two commanders squared off. Artybius rode a horse that had been specially trained to rear up against infantry and attack with its hooves and teeth. When Onesilos learned about this horse, he spoke to his Carian shield-bearer — a man of formidable courage and reputation — and said: "I hear that Artybius' horse rears up and attacks with hooves and jaws. Think it over and tell me right now: do you want to deal with the horse, or with Artybios himself?"
His attendant replied: "My king, I am ready for either or both, and I will do whatever you command. But here is what I think is most fitting for your station. A king and commander should fight against a king and commander. If you kill their general, that is great glory for you. And if he kills you — which the gods forbid — death at the hands of a worthy enemy is only half the grief. Let those of us who serve fight his servants — and his horse. Do not worry about the animal's tricks. I promise you: after today, that horse will never stand against any man again."
Shortly after, the two armies joined battle on land and sea. That day, the Ionians at sea won a magnificent victory over the Phoenicians, and on land the armies locked together. As for the two commanders: when Artybius, mounted on his horse, charged at Onesilos, Onesilos struck at Artybius himself, just as planned. When the horse reared and smashed its hooves against Onesilos' shield, the Carian attendant swung his curved blade and cut off the horse's feet.
Artybius, the Persian commander, fell right there along with his horse. But while the fighting raged elsewhere, Stesenor, the tyrant of Curium — whose people were said to be colonists from Argos — deserted with his entire force. Then the war chariots of the Salaminians followed suit. With those defections, the Persians gained the upper hand. The Cypriot army was routed. Among the many dead were Onesilos himself and Aristocyprus, king of the Solians and son of Philocyprus — the Philocyprus whom Solon of Athens, during his visit to Cyprus, had praised in verse above all other rulers.
The Amathusians cut off Onesilos' head — because he had besieged their city — brought it to Amathus, and hung it over the city gate. When the head became hollow, a swarm of bees moved in and filled it with honeycomb. The Amathusians consulted an oracle about this, and were told to take the head down, bury it, and sacrifice to Onesilos as a hero every year. If they did this, things would go well for them. The Amathusians followed this instruction, and they were still doing so in my time.
When the Ionians who had fought the sea battle off Cyprus learned that Onesilos was dead and all the Cypriot cities were under siege — except Salamis, which had been handed back to its former king Gorgos — they sailed home to Ionia. Of the Cypriot cities, Soli held out the longest; the Persians finally took it in the fifth month by undermining the walls. Thus the Cypriots, after one year of freedom, were enslaved once more.
Meanwhile, Daurises, Hymaees, and Otanes — all Persian commanders and all married to daughters of Darius — had pursued the Ionians who had marched on Sardis, beaten them in battle, and driven them back to their ships. After that, they divided up the rebel cities among themselves and set about sacking them.
Daurises headed for the Hellespont and took, one per day, the cities of Dardanus, Abydos, Percote, Lampsacus, and Paesus. While marching from Paesus against Parium, he received word that the Carians had joined the Ionians in revolt. He turned from the Hellespont and marched his army toward Caria.
Somehow the Carians learned of his approach before he arrived. They gathered at a place called the "White Pillars," on the river Marsyas, which flows from the Idrias region into the Maeander. Many proposals were debated, but the best, in my opinion, came from Pixodarus, son of Mausolus, a man from Cindye who was married to the daughter of Syennesis, king of Cilicia. Pixodarus argued that the Carians should cross the Maeander and fight with the river at their backs, so that — unable to retreat — they would fight even more bravely than they otherwise would. This plan was not adopted. Instead, they decided the Persians should have the Maeander at their backs — the reasoning being that if the Persians lost and fled, they would be pushed into the river and never make it home.
When the Persians arrived and crossed the Maeander, the two armies fought a long and hard-contested battle on the banks of the Marsyas. In the end, the Carians were defeated by sheer numbers. About two thousand Persians fell, but ten thousand Carians. The survivors retreated to Labraunda, to the sanctuary of Zeus Stratios — a great sacred grove of plane trees. The Carians are the only people known to sacrifice to Zeus Stratios. Trapped there, they debated whether to surrender to the Persians or to abandon Asia altogether.
While they deliberated, the Milesians and their allies arrived to reinforce them. The Carians abandoned their earlier plans and prepared to fight again from scratch. When the Persians attacked, the Carians engaged them but were beaten even more decisively than before. Heavy casualties fell on all sides, but the Milesians suffered the worst.
Later, however, the Carians recovered. Learning that the Persians were marching against their cities, they laid an ambush on the road near Pedasus. The Persians walked into it at night and were destroyed — commanders and all. The dead included Daurises, Amorges, and Sisimaces, and with them Myrsus the son of Gyges. The leader of this ambush was Heracleides, son of Ibanollis, a man from Mylasa.
That was how those Persian commanders died. Meanwhile, Hymaees — another of the generals who had pursued the Ionians after the Sardis raid — marched to the Propontis and captured Cius in Mysia. Learning that Daurises had left the Hellespont for Caria, Hymaees moved to fill the gap, bringing his army to the Hellespont. He conquered all the Aeolians in the Ilion district, as well as the Gergithes — the last remnant of the ancient Teucrians. But while conquering these peoples, Hymaees fell ill and died in the Troad.
After his death, Artaphernes the governor of Sardis and Otanes, the third of the Persian commanders, were assigned to campaign against Ionia and the neighboring part of Aeolia. They took the Ionian city of Clazomenae and the Aeolian city of Cyme.
As the cities were falling one by one, Aristagoras of Miletus proved himself — it must be said — not the bravest of men. He had plunged Ionia into turmoil and set great events in motion, but now, watching it all collapse and understanding that it was impossible to overcome King Darius, he began planning his escape. He called together his supporters and laid out the situation: it would be best, he said, to have a refuge prepared in case they were driven from Miletus. Should he lead them to Sardinia to found a colony? Or to Myrcinus in the land of the Edonians, which Histiaeus had been fortifying as a gift from Darius?
Hecataeus the historian, son of Hegesander, advised him to go to neither place. Instead, he should build a fortified base on the island of Leros and sit tight. If forced out of Miletus, he could use Leros as a base from which to stage his return.
That was Hecataeus' counsel. But Aristagoras was set on Myrcinus. He entrusted the government of Miletus to Pythagoras, a prominent citizen, then sailed to Thrace with all who wished to follow. He occupied the region he had aimed for, but then ventured out to make war on a nearby city — and was killed. The Thracians destroyed both Aristagoras and his army when the besieged city's defenders sallied out under a flag of truce.
So Aristagoras, the man who had set the Ionian revolt in motion, met his end in Thrace. Meanwhile Histiaeus, the former tyrant of Miletus, had been released by Darius and made his way to Sardis. When he arrived from Susa, Artaphernes the governor of Sardis asked him point-blank why he thought the Ionians had revolted. Histiaeus played innocent — he said he had no idea, and acted shocked at the whole affair, as if he knew nothing about it. But Artaphernes saw right through his performance. Knowing the truth about the revolt, he said: "Here's what happened, Histiaeus — you stitched the shoe, and Aristagoras put it on."
That was a devastating remark, and Histiaeus knew it. Terrified of Artaphernes, he fled the very next night under cover of darkness and made for the coast. He had deceived King Darius by promising to subdue Sardinia, the largest of islands, but instead he was now trying to take personal command of the Ionian war against Darius. He crossed over to Chios, where the Chians promptly threw him in chains, accusing him of plotting some kind of political upheaval on behalf of Darius. But when the Chians heard the full story and realized that Histiaeus was actually an enemy of the king, they released him.
The Ionians then asked Histiaeus directly: why had he so urgently ordered Aristagoras to revolt against the king, bringing such disaster upon them all? Histiaeus never told them the real reason. Instead, he claimed that King Darius had planned to uproot the Phoenicians from their homeland and resettle them in Ionia, while transplanting the Ionians to Phoenicia — and that was why he had sent the order to revolt. This was a complete fabrication. The king had never contemplated any such thing. But it served Histiaeus's purpose of keeping the Ionians alarmed and loyal to his cause.
After this, Histiaeus tried to stir up further trouble by using a messenger named Hermippus, a man from Atarneus, to carry secret letters to certain Persians in Sardis — men he had supposedly already been plotting with about a revolt. But Hermippus never delivered those letters to their intended recipients. Instead, he took them straight to Artaphernes and handed them over. Artaphernes, now seeing the full scope of the conspiracy, told Hermippus to go ahead and deliver Histiaeus's letters to the Persians they were meant for — but then to bring him back the replies. When the correspondence was intercepted on the return trip, Artaphernes had many of the implicated Persians put to death.
So the plot at Sardis unraveled. When Histiaeus found that scheme had failed, the Chians attempted to restore him to Miletus at his own request. But the Milesians, who had been perfectly happy to get rid of Aristagoras, were even less eager to welcome another tyrant back. They had tasted freedom, and they liked it. When Histiaeus tried to force his way back into Miletus under cover of night, one of the Milesians stabbed him in the thigh. Driven out of his own city, he retreated to Chios, and when the Chians refused to give him ships, he crossed over to Mytilene and talked the Lesbians into manning eight triremes for him. With this little fleet, he sailed to Byzantium and set up shop as a pirate, seizing merchant vessels as they sailed out of the Black Sea — sparing only those whose crews declared their loyalty to him.
While Histiaeus and the men of Mytilene were playing pirates on the straits, a massive Persian force — both army and navy — was closing in on Miletus itself. The Persian commanders had combined their forces into a single army and were marching on Miletus, treating the other rebel cities as secondary targets. Their fleet was spearheaded by the Phoenicians, the most aggressive sailors in the force, along with the recently conquered Cypriots, the Cilicians, and the Egyptians.
As this armada bore down on Miletus and the rest of Ionia, the Ionians got wind of it and sent representatives to the Panionion, their common council. After deliberation, they made a fateful decision: they would not try to assemble a land army to face the Persians. Instead, the Milesians would defend their own walls by themselves, while every Ionian city would man every ship it possessed. The combined fleet would assemble at Lade — a small island just off the coast of Miletus — and fight a naval battle to save the city.
The Ionians manned their ships and gathered at Lade, joined by the Aeolians of Lesbos. The battle line was arranged as follows: the Milesians themselves held the eastern end with eighty ships. Next to them were the Prienians with twelve ships and the men of Myus with three. Then the Teians with seventeen, the Chians with a hundred, the Erythraeans with eight, the Phocaeans with three, the Lesbians with seventy, and finally the Samians with sixty ships holding the western end of the line. The total came to three hundred and fifty-three triremes.
That was the Ionian fleet. The Persian side had six hundred ships. When these too had arrived off the Milesian coast and their entire land army was in position, the Persian commanders took stock of the Ionian numbers and grew worried. They were not at all sure they could win the naval battle, and without command of the sea, taking Miletus would be far more difficult. Worse still, failure might bring down the wrath of Darius on their own heads. So they devised a strategy. They gathered together the former tyrants of the Ionian cities — men who had been deposed by Aristagoras and were now exiles living among the Persians, having joined the expedition against Miletus. The Persian commanders told these deposed tyrants: "Ionians, now is your chance to prove yourselves useful to the king. Each of you, try to peel your own countrymen away from this alliance. Make them promises: if they surrender, they'll suffer no punishment for the revolt. Their temples won't be burned, their houses won't be touched, and they'll be treated no worse than they were before any of this happened. But if they refuse and insist on fighting, tell them exactly what awaits them — because this will happen: when they lose, they will be enslaved. We will castrate their sons, carry off their daughters to Bactria, and hand their land over to others."
The deposed tyrants did as they were told. Each one sent secret messages to his own former subjects that night. But the Ionians who received these messages stood firm and refused to consider betraying their cause. Each city, remarkably, assumed the offer had been sent only to them and not to the others.
This all happened as soon as the Persians arrived at Miletus. Then the Ionians gathered at Lade and began holding war councils. Among those who spoke, the most memorable was Dionysius, the Phocaean commander. He addressed the assembled Ionians: "Men of Ionia, our fate is balanced on a razor's edge. We will be free men or slaves — and if slaves, we'll be treated like runaway slaves at that. If you're willing to accept some hardship now, you'll have to work hard for a while, but you'll be able to defeat the enemy and live as free men. But if you keep on being lazy and undisciplined, I have no hope that you'll escape punishment from the king for this revolt. Listen to me: put yourselves under my command, and I promise you — if the gods give us a fair fight — either the enemy won't dare engage us, or if they do, they'll be thoroughly beaten."
The Ionians agreed and handed themselves over to Dionysius's training regimen. Every day he took the fleet out in single file, drilling the rowers in breakthrough maneuvers — ships cutting through each other's lines — while the marines practiced under arms. Then for the rest of the day he kept the ships at anchor, giving the Ionians no rest whatsoever. For seven days they submitted to this regime. But on the eighth day, the Ionians — who were simply not used to this kind of grueling work, exhausted by the labor and the blazing sun — began grumbling to each other: "What god have we offended to deserve this? We must have been out of our minds to hand ourselves over to this Phocaean blowhard who brings all of three ships to the fight! He's taken charge of us and is working us to death. Half of us are already sick, and the rest will be soon enough. Anything would be better than this — even the slavery that's coming, whatever that turns out to be, would be better than the tyranny we're suffering right now. Come on — let's stop obeying this man." And from that moment, every single one of them refused to follow orders. They pitched their tents on the island like an army in camp, lay around in the shade, and refused to board their ships or do any more training.
When the Samian commanders saw this breakdown of discipline, they finally accepted the deal that Aeaces son of Syloson had been offering them on behalf of the Persians — to desert the Ionian alliance. The Samians looked at the situation and decided it was hopeless: the Ionians were completely undisciplined, and besides, even if they somehow beat this Persian fleet, another one five times larger would come right after it. So when they saw the Ionians refusing to do their duty, they took it as their opportunity to save their own temples and property. This Aeaces, by the way, was the son of Syloson, son of Aeaces, and had been tyrant of Samos until Aristagoras stripped the Ionian tyrants of their power.
So when the Phoenicians sailed out to attack, the Ionians also put to sea in their line of battle. When the two fleets closed and the fighting began, I cannot say with any certainty which Ionians fought bravely and which proved themselves cowards in this battle, because they all blame each other. But what is reported is this: the Samians, in accordance with their secret agreement with Aeaces, raised their sails and headed straight back to Samos, abandoning their position in the line — all except eleven ship captains, who refused to obey the order to retreat and stayed to fight. (The Samian state later honored those eleven men by having their names and their fathers' names inscribed on a pillar in the marketplace for their bravery; that pillar still stands.) When the Lesbians saw the ships next to them in the line fleeing, they did the same. And after that, most of the remaining Ionians followed suit.
Of those who stayed and fought, the Chians suffered the worst — and showed the greatest courage. They had brought, as I mentioned, a hundred ships, each carrying forty picked fighting men. When they saw the bulk of their allies deserting them, they refused to sink to the level of the cowards. Largely abandoned, with only a handful of allies still fighting alongside them, they kept pressing the attack and breaking through the enemy line — until finally, after capturing many Persian ships, they lost most of their own.
The surviving Chian ships fled back toward home. But those whose vessels were too damaged to continue, being pursued, ran their ships ashore at Mycale and abandoned them, then set off on foot across the mainland. When the Chians entered Ephesian territory during their march, they happened to arrive at night — and it was during the festival of the Thesmophoria, a women's celebration. The Ephesians, who hadn't heard anything about what had happened to the Chians and only knew that an armed force had entered their territory, assumed these must be bandits coming after their women. They turned out in full force and killed the Chians. That was the tragic fate of those men.
As for Dionysius the Phocaean, when he saw that the Ionian cause was lost, he captured three enemy ships and sailed away — not to Phocaea, since he knew perfectly well it would be enslaved along with the rest of Ionia — but straight to Phoenicia instead. There he attacked and sank several merchant ships, seized a great haul of goods, and then sailed on to Sicily. Using that island as his base of operations, he became a pirate — but one with principles: he only plundered Carthaginians and Etruscans, never Greeks.
The Persians, now victorious at sea, besieged Miletus by land and water, undermining its walls and bringing every kind of siege engine against it. They took the city completely in the sixth year after Aristagoras had started the revolt, and they reduced the population to slavery. The catastrophe matched an oracle that had been given about Miletus.
When the Argives had consulted the oracle at Delphi about the safety of their own city, they received a prophecy that applied to both the Argives and the Milesians. The part concerning the Argives I will record when I reach that point in my story. The part that referred to the Milesians — who weren't even present at Delphi — went like this:
And at that time, Miletus, you contriver of evil deeds, You shall become for many a splendid feast and a gift. Your wives shall wash the feet of the long-haired men, And at Didyma, others shall tend my shrine.
At the time I'm describing, these words came true in every detail. Most of the Milesian men were killed by the Persians — who are indeed long-haired — and the women and children were carried off as slaves. The temple at Didyma, with its sacred precinct and oracle, was first plundered and then burned. I have mentioned the treasures of this temple elsewhere in my account.
After the fall of the city, the Milesian prisoners were marched to Susa. King Darius did them no particular harm — he settled them on the coast of the Red Sea, in a city called Ampe, near where the Tigris flows into the sea. As for the territory of Miletus, the Persians kept the city itself and the surrounding plain for themselves, while they gave the highlands to the Carians of Pedasa.
When the Milesians suffered this fate, the people of Sybaris — who by that time were living in exile at Laos and Scidros, having lost their own city — did not return the favor the Milesians had once shown them. For when Sybaris had been destroyed by the men of Croton, the entire population of Miletus, from young men to old, had shaved their heads in mourning. No two cities in the known world had been more closely bonded by friendship than Miletus and Sybaris. The Sybarites, however, failed to repay this loyalty.
The Athenians, by contrast, made their grief unmistakable. They showed it in many ways, but most memorably through this: when the playwright Phrynichus staged a drama called "The Capture of Miletus," the entire audience burst into tears. The Athenians then fined the poet a thousand drachmas for reminding them of their own calamities, and they decreed that no one should ever perform that play again.
So Miletus was emptied of its people. But among the Samians, the wealthier citizens were deeply unhappy with the deal their fleet commanders had struck with the Persians. Right after the sea battle, they held a council and decided that rather than stay behind and become subjects of the Persians and their puppet-tyrant Aeaces, they would sail away and found a colony somewhere else. As it happened, the people of Zancle in Sicily were just then sending envoys to Ionia, inviting the Ionians to come settle at a place called the "Fair Coast" on the Sicilian side facing Etruria, where they wanted to establish an Ionian city. Of all the Ionians, only the Samians accepted this invitation, along with some Milesian refugees. Here is what happened next.
As the Samians were sailing toward Sicily, they put in at Locri Epizephyrii. At that very moment, the people of Zancle and their ruler Scythes were away from home, besieging a native Sicilian town. When Anaxilaus, the tyrant of Rhegium, learned of this situation — he was at odds with the Zanclaeans at the time — he contacted the Samians and persuaded them to forget about the Fair Coast and seize the undefended city of Zancle instead. The Samians did exactly that. When the men of Zancle heard that their city had been taken, they rushed back to retake it and called on their ally Hippocrates, the tyrant of Gela, for help. But when Hippocrates arrived with his army, he turned on the Zanclaeans instead: he arrested their ruler Scythes for letting the city fall, along with Scythes' brother Pythogenes, and shipped them both off to the town of Inycus. Then he cut a deal with the Samians, betraying the rest of the Zanclaean people in exchange for half of all the movable property and slaves in the city, plus all the surrounding farmland. He threw most of the Zanclaean citizens in chains and kept them as his own slaves, but he handed over the three hundred leading men to the Samians to be executed. The Samians, however, did not kill them.
Scythes, the deposed ruler of Zancle, eventually escaped from Inycus to Himera, and from there made his way to Asia and the court of King Darius. Darius considered him the most honorable of all the Greeks who had ever come to his court. He gave Scythes permission to visit Sicily and then return — and Scythes did just that, traveling back and forth until he finally died of old age among the Persians, a wealthy man. So the Samians, having escaped Persian rule, found themselves in possession of the beautiful city of Zancle without having had to fight for it.
After the sea battle that decided the fate of Miletus, the Phoenicians — on Persian orders — restored Aeaces son of Syloson as tyrant of Samos, since he had done them such valuable service. The Samians were the only people who had revolted from Darius whose city and temples were not burned — and that was because their fleet had deserted during the battle. With Miletus fallen, the Persians quickly swept through Caria as well, some cities submitting voluntarily and others being taken by force.
Meanwhile, Histiaeus — who was still at Byzantium seizing Ionian merchant ships sailing out of the Black Sea — received word of what had happened at Miletus. He left the Hellespont in the hands of Bisaltes son of Apollophanes, a man from Abydos, and sailed with the Lesbians to Chios. When a Chian garrison refused to let him land, he attacked them at a place called "the Hollows" in Chian territory. He killed many of them, and then, using Polichne on Chios as his base and with the help of the Lesbians, he conquered the rest of the Chians — who were in no shape to resist, having already been shattered by the sea battle.
Heaven tends to give advance warning when great disasters are about to fall on a city or a people. The Chians had received remarkable signs before all of this. First, they had sent a chorus of a hundred young men to Delphi, and only two came back alive — the other ninety-eight were struck down by a plague and carried off. Second, around the same time — just before the sea battle — the roof of a school collapsed on the children inside. Of a hundred and twenty children, only one survived. These were the signs God showed them in advance. Then came the sea battle that brought their state to its knees, and after that Histiaeus, who had no difficulty finishing the job.
From Chios, Histiaeus launched an expedition against Thasos with a large force of Ionians and Aeolians. But while he was besieging the city, word reached him that the Phoenicians were sailing from Miletus to subdue the rest of Ionia. He abandoned the siege of Thasos immediately and hurried back to Lesbos with his entire army. But his troops were running short of food, so he crossed from Lesbos to the mainland to harvest the grain in the territory of Atarneus and in the Caicus plain, which belonged to the Mysians. As it happened, a Persian commander named Harpagus was in the area with a substantial force. Harpagus engaged Histiaeus as soon as he landed, captured Histiaeus himself, and destroyed the greater part of his army.
Here is how Histiaeus was taken. The battle took place at Malene in the district of Atarneus. The two sides fought at close quarters for a long time, until the Persian cavalry finally charged and broke the Greek line — the cavalry, in fact, decided the battle. When the Greeks broke and ran, Histiaeus — convinced that the king would not actually put him to death for his current offense — chose to cling to life. As he was being overtaken in his flight by a Persian soldier who was about to run him through, Histiaeus cried out in Persian and identified himself: "I am Histiaeus of Miletus!"
If he had been brought before King Darius as a prisoner, I believe he would have been forgiven and suffered no real harm — Darius had a soft spot for him. But that is precisely why Artaphernes the governor of Sardis, along with Harpagus who had captured him, decided to kill him on the spot. They did not want Histiaeus to escape punishment and then worm his way back into the king's favor and regain his former influence. So when Histiaeus arrived at Sardis, they executed him immediately. His body they impaled, and his head they embalmed and sent up to Darius in Susa. When Darius learned what had happened, he was angry with Artaphernes and Harpagus for not bringing Histiaeus to him alive. He ordered the head to be washed, given proper care, and buried with full honors, as befitting a man who had been a great benefactor to both the king and the Persian empire.
That was the end of Histiaeus.
The Persian fleet, after wintering near Miletus, sailed out the following year and easily conquered the islands near the coast — Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos. Whenever they took an island, the Persians would "net" the inhabitants: they would form a human chain stretching from the northern shore to the southern shore, each man holding the hand of the next, and then sweep across the entire island, hunting down every last person. They conquered the Ionian cities on the mainland as well, though they did not use the netting technique there — the geography simply didn't allow it.
Then the Persian commanders made good on the threats they had issued before the battle. In every conquered city, they selected the most handsome boys and castrated them, turning them into eunuchs. The most beautiful girls they sent to the king. And they burned the cities along with their temples. So for the third time, the Ionians had been reduced to slavery — first by the Lydians, and then twice in succession by the Persians.
The fleet then moved on from Ionia, conquering everything on the European side of the Hellespont. (The Asian side had already been subdued by the Persian land forces.) The cities of the Hellespont in Europe included, first, the Chersonese with its many towns, then Perinthus, the strongholds along the Thracian border, Selymbria, and Byzantium. The people of Byzantium and Calchedon on the opposite shore didn't even wait for the Persian ships to arrive — they abandoned their homes and fled deeper into the Black Sea, settling at the city of Mesambria. After burning these places, the Phoenicians sailed to Proconnesus and Artace, torched those too, and then headed back to the Chersonese to destroy the remaining cities they had skipped on their first pass. The one place they left alone was Cyzicus, because the people of Cyzicus had already submitted to the king on their own initiative, having come to terms with Oebares son of Megabazus, the Persian governor at Dascylium.
In the Chersonese, the Phoenicians conquered every city except Cardia. Up to this point, the ruler of the Chersonese had been Miltiades son of Cimon, son of Stesagoras. The dynasty had been established by an earlier Miltiades, son of Cypselus, and here is how that came about.
The Chersonese was inhabited by the Dolonkian Thracians. These Dolonkians, under heavy pressure from the neighboring Apsinthians, sent their kings to Delphi to consult the oracle about the war. The Pythian priestess told them to bring back as the founder of a colony the first man who offered them hospitality on their journey home from the temple. The Dolonkians traveled along the Sacred Road through the lands of the Phocians and the Boeotians, but no one invited them in. So they turned aside to Athens.
Now at that time Athens was ruled by Pisistratus, but Miltiades son of Cypselus was also a man of some influence — a member of a wealthy family that kept four-horse chariot teams, tracing his lineage all the way back to Aeacus and the island of Aegina, though in more recent generations the family had become Athenian. Philaeus son of Ajax had been the first of the line to become an Athenian citizen. This Miltiades was sitting in the doorway of his house when he spotted the Dolonkians walking by. Their foreign clothes and spears caught his eye, and he called out to them. When they came over, he offered them lodging and a meal. The grateful Dolonkians told him everything the oracle had said, then asked him to obey the god's command. Miltiades was persuaded on the spot — he was already unhappy under the rule of Pisistratus and eager to get away. He went to Delphi to confirm, and the oracle told him to go ahead.
So Miltiades son of Cypselus — a man who had already won an Olympic victory with a four-horse chariot — gathered together every Athenian willing to join the expedition, sailed with the Dolonkians, and took possession of the land. The people who had invited him promptly made him their ruler. The first thing he did was build a wall across the narrow isthmus of the Chersonese, from the city of Cardia to Pactye, to keep the Apsinthians from raiding the peninsula. The isthmus is about thirty-six stades across, and the Chersonese beyond it runs some four hundred and twenty stades in length.
After walling off the isthmus and keeping the Apsinthians at bay, Miltiades went to war — first against the people of Lampsacus, who ambushed and captured him. Now, Miltiades happened to be a friend of Croesus the Lydian king. When Croesus heard about the capture, he sent a message to the Lampsacenes ordering them to release Miltiades — or, he threatened, he would destroy them "like a pine tree." The Lampsacenes puzzled over what this threat could possibly mean, until finally one of the elders figured it out: the pine is the only tree that, once cut down, never grows back but is utterly destroyed. Frightened by Croesus's threat, the people of Lampsacus let Miltiades go.
He escaped that time thanks to Croesus, but eventually he died without leaving a son. He passed his rule and possessions to Stesagoras, the son of his half-brother Cimon on his mother's side. The people of the Chersonese still honor him after death with the sacrifices customary for a city's founder, including horse races and athletic competitions — from which, pointedly, no citizen of Lampsacus is allowed to compete. After this, war with Lampsacus broke out again. Stesagoras also died without an heir — struck on the head with an axe in the town hall by a man who pretended to be a deserter but turned out to be very much an enemy, and a passionate one at that.
After Stesagoras's death, the sons of Pisistratus sent the younger Miltiades — son of Cimon and brother of the dead Stesagoras — to the Chersonese by trireme to take control of the government. The Pisistratids had treated Miltiades well in Athens, acting as if they'd had nothing to do with the death of his father Cimon. (How that death actually came about, I will explain elsewhere in this history.) When Miltiades arrived in the Chersonese, he stayed inside his house, ostensibly mourning his brother. The leading men of the Chersonese, hearing about this, gathered from every city and came in a body to pay their respects and offer condolences. Miltiades promptly had them all arrested. With that, he established his authority over the Chersonese, maintaining a force of five hundred mercenaries. He also married Hegesipyle, the daughter of Olorus, king of the Thracians.
Now, this Miltiades son of Cimon had only recently returned to the Chersonese at the time we're discussing, and since his return things had gone from bad to worse. Two years earlier, he had been forced to flee the country when the nomadic Scythians — provoked by Darius's invasion — had banded together and marched as far as the Chersonese. Miltiades hadn't waited around to fight them but had fled, and he stayed away until the Scythians withdrew and the Dolonkians brought him back. That had been two years before his current troubles.
Now, learning that the Phoenicians were at Tenedos, Miltiades loaded five triremes with whatever property he could gather and sailed for Athens. He departed from the city of Cardia and was sailing through the Gulf of Melas, hugging the shore of the Chersonese, when the Phoenicians spotted his ships. Miltiades himself escaped with four of the five ships and reached Imbros, but the fifth was captured. It happened that this ship was commanded by Metiochos, the eldest of Miltiades' sons — not by Hegesipyle the Thracian, but by another wife. The Phoenicians captured Metiochos along with his ship. When they learned he was the son of Miltiades, they sent him to King Darius, expecting to earn great credit. After all, it was Miltiades who had urged the Ionians to listen to the Scythians and break up the bridge of boats — which would have stranded Darius north of the Danube. But Darius, far from punishing Metiochos, treated him generously: he gave him a house, an estate, and a Persian wife, by whom Metiochos had children who were counted as Persians. Miltiades, meanwhile, made it from Imbros to Athens.
During that year, the Persians took no further hostile action against the Ionians. In fact, some things happened that year that were very much to the Ionians' advantage. Artaphernes the governor of Sardis summoned envoys from all the Ionian cities and compelled them to make binding agreements with each other, so that disputes would be settled by arbitration rather than by raiding each other's territory. He also surveyed their lands, measuring them out in parasangs — a parasang being what the Persians call a distance of about thirty stades — and assigned each city a fixed amount of tribute. The amounts he established have remained unchanged all the way down to my own time, and they were roughly the same as what each city had been paying before the revolt.
These measures brought peace to Ionia. But at the start of the following spring, the king recalled all his other commanders and sent Mardonius son of Gobryas to the coast at the head of an enormous army and fleet. Mardonius was a young man, recently married to Artozostra, a daughter of King Darius. When Mardonius reached Cilicia, he boarded a ship and sailed with the fleet, while other commanders marched the land army to the Hellespont. As Mardonius sailed along the coast of Asia Minor, he came to Ionia — and here I am going to relate something that will astonish those Greeks who refuse to believe that during the debate of the seven Persian conspirators, Otanes argued in favor of democracy. Mardonius deposed every single tyrant in the Ionian cities and established democratic governments in their place. Having done this, he hurried on to the Hellespont. When a vast number of ships and a large army had been assembled, they crossed the Hellespont and began their march through Europe. Their stated target was Eretria and Athens.
Those cities provided the pretext for the expedition, but the Persians really intended to subdue as many Greek cities as they could. With the fleet, they first conquered the Thasians, who surrendered without a fight. With the land army, they added the Macedonians to their subjects — though all the peoples east of Macedonia were already under Persian control. Crossing from Thasos to the opposite coast, they worked their way along the shore as far as Acanthus, and from there they attempted to round Mount Athos by sea. But as they sailed around the promontory, a tremendous north wind struck them — a wind they could do nothing against. It wrecked their fleet, smashing ship after ship against the rocks of Athos. The number of ships destroyed is said to have been about three hundred, and more than twenty thousand men perished. The waters around Athos are infested with sea creatures, and some men were snatched by these and killed. Others were dashed against the rocks. Some drowned because they could not swim. Others died of exposure in the cold.
That was the fate of the fleet. Meanwhile, Mardonius and the land army were attacked in the night while encamped in Macedonia by the Brygian Thracians, who killed many of his men and wounded Mardonius himself. Even so, the Brygians did not escape subjugation — Mardonius refused to leave the region until he had conquered them. But having subdued the Brygians, he led his army back, since the expedition had been a disaster on both fronts: a catastrophic loss of ships at Athos and a bloody beating from the Brygians in Macedonia. The expedition slunk back to Asia having accomplished nothing of note.
The following year, Darius first dealt with the Thasians, who had been accused by their neighbors of planning a revolt. He ordered them to tear down their city walls and bring their ships to Abdera. The Thasians had indeed been building up their defenses — using their substantial revenues to construct warships and strengthen their fortifications. They had been under pressure since Histiaeus's siege, and they had the money to spend. Their revenues came from mines on the mainland and on the island itself. The gold mines at Scapte Hyle typically brought in about eighty talents a year. The mines on Thasos itself produced somewhat less, but overall the Thasians — without levying any taxes on their agricultural produce — took in two hundred talents a year from the mainland and the mines combined, and in the best years as much as three hundred.
I have seen these mines myself. By far the most remarkable are the ones that the Phoenicians discovered when they first settled the island along with Thasos — after whom the island is named. These Phoenician mines are located in the part of Thasos between the places called Ainyra and Coenyra, facing Samothrace, where a great mountain has been completely turned inside out in the search for metal. In any case, the Thasians obeyed the king's command: they tore down their walls and delivered all their ships to Abdera.
After this, Darius began testing the Greeks to see which way they would jump — whether they intended to fight him or surrender. He sent heralds throughout Greece demanding earth and water, the traditional tokens of submission. At the same time, he dispatched other heralds to his own tribute-paying cities along the coast, ordering them to build warships and horse-transport vessels.
While these preparations were underway, the heralds traveled through Greece, and many of the mainland communities gave what the Persian demanded. Every island they visited submitted as well. Among the islanders who gave earth and water were the Aeginetans. When Athens heard that Aegina had submitted to Persia, the Athenians immediately went on the offensive, assuming the Aeginetans had done it out of hostility toward them and planned to join the Persians in an attack on Athens. The Athenians were also, frankly, glad to have a pretext for action against Aegina. They went to Sparta and formally accused the Aeginetans of betraying Greece.
In response to this accusation, King Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides crossed over to Aegina intending to arrest the most guilty parties. But when he tried to make the arrests, certain Aeginetans resisted him, and one man in particular — Crios son of Polycritus — told him outright that he would not get away with seizing a single Aeginetan. Crios said that Cleomenes was acting without the authority of the Spartan state, that he had been bribed by the Athenians to do this — otherwise he would have come with the other king as well. Crios said this because of a message he had received from Demaratus. As Cleomenes was leaving Aegina, he asked Crios his name. When Crios told him — the name means "Ram" — Cleomenes replied: "Well then, Ram, you'd better get your horns tipped with bronze, because you're about to face some serious trouble."
Meanwhile, back in Sparta, Demaratus son of Ariston had been undermining Cleomenes, bringing charges against him — not because he cared about the Aeginetans, but out of pure envy and spite. Demaratus was also a king of the Spartans, though of the junior royal house. (I should note that the junior house is inferior only in the sense that it receives slightly less honor — being descended from the younger twin — and not in any other way, since both houses trace their ancestry to the same source.)
Now, the Spartans — disagreeing with all the poets on this point — tell the story this way. It was Aristodemus himself, they say — the son of Aristomachus, son of Cleodaeus, son of Hyllus — who led them as king to the land they now possess, not his sons. After no great length of time, Aristodemus's wife, whose name was Argeia — she was the daughter of Autesion, son of Tisamenus, son of Thersander, son of Polynices — gave birth to twins, and Aristodemus lived only long enough to see his children before dying of illness. The Spartans of that time resolved, according to custom, to make the elder of the twins their king. But the problem was that the two boys were identical — same appearance, same size — and no one could tell which was the elder. When they found themselves unable to distinguish between them, or perhaps even before that, they asked the mother. She said she couldn't tell them apart either. This was a lie — she knew perfectly well which was which — but she said it because she wanted both of them to become kings.
The Spartans were at a loss. They sent to Delphi to ask what they should do, and the Pythia told them to treat both children as kings but to give greater honor to the firstborn. This left the Spartans no better off, since they still couldn't identify the elder. At that point, a Messenian named Panites made a suggestion: watch the mother and see which child she fed and washed first. If she always followed the same order, that would answer their question. If she varied the order, it would prove that even she didn't really know, and they would need to find another way.
The Spartans followed this advice. They watched the mother of Aristodemus's sons without her knowledge, and they found that she consistently gave priority to the same child — in feeding, in bathing, in everything — not realizing she was being observed. They took the favored child and raised him as the firstborn in the public dining hall. He was named Eurysthenes. The other was called Procles. Even as grown men, the two brothers were at odds with each other for their entire lives — and their descendants continued the rivalry.
Only the Spartans tell that version of the story. What follows is the account accepted by the rest of the Greeks. They agree that the names of the Dorian kings are correctly traced back through the generations as far as Perseus son of Danae — leaving the god out of the account — and that these kings are proven to be of Greek descent. I say "as far as Perseus" because there is no mortal father named for Perseus, the way Amphitryon is named as Heracles' father. So "up to Perseus" is the right way to put it. But if you trace the ancestry further back, starting from Danae the daughter of Acrisius, the rulers of the Dorians turn out to be Egyptians by direct descent.
That is the genealogy according to the Greeks. The Persians, however, tell a different story: they say that Perseus himself was an Assyrian who became a Greek, and that his ancestors were not Greek at all. As for the ancestors of Acrisius, the Persians say they had no connection to Perseus whatsoever, and agree with the Greek account that they were Egyptians.
But enough about all that. The question of how these men, being Egyptians, came to rule the Dorians — well, other people have told that story, so I will leave it alone. I will instead record the things that other writers have not covered.
These are the special privileges that the Spartans grant their kings. Two priesthoods: of Zeus of Lacedaemon and of Zeus of Heaven. They have the right to make war against whatever country they choose, and no Spartan may hinder them in this — anyone who tries falls under a curse. On campaign, the kings march out first and return last. A bodyguard of a hundred picked men protects them in the field. They may sacrifice as many cattle as they wish when going to war, and they keep the hides and chines of every animal sacrificed.
Those are their wartime privileges. In peacetime, they enjoy these: at any public sacrifice, the kings take their seats at the feast before anyone else. They are served first, and they receive double portions of everything — twice what any other guest gets. They pour the first libations and receive the hides of sacrificial animals. On every new moon and seventh day of the month, each king receives at public expense a full-grown animal for sacrifice at the temple of Apollo, plus a measure of barley meal and a Laconian quart of wine. At all athletic games, they have reserved seats of honor. They have the right to appoint any citizen they choose as official host to foreign visitors. Each king selects two "Pythians" — officials who are sent to consult the oracle at Delphi and who dine at the kings' table at public expense. If the kings do not attend dinner, each is sent two quarts of barley meal and half a pint of wine at his home. If they do attend, they receive double portions of everything, and the same honor is extended when they dine at a private citizen's invitation. The kings are responsible for safeguarding oracular responses, though the Pythians also have access to them. The kings alone have judicial authority in these matters: disputes over the marriage of a woman who has inherited her father's estate and has not been betrothed, disputes about public roads, and cases of adoption — which must be carried out in the presence of the kings. They sit in council with the twenty-eight Senators, and if they are absent, their closest relatives among the Senators exercise the royal vote — casting two votes for the absent kings, plus their own, for a total of three.
These are the kings' privileges during their lifetimes. After death, the honors are these: horsemen ride through all of Laconia announcing the king's death, while in the city itself, women go through the streets beating on bronze kettles. Whenever this happens, two free persons from every household — one man and one woman — must go into mourning; severe penalties await anyone who fails to comply. The Spartan customs surrounding the death of their kings closely resemble those of the non-Greek peoples of Asia, since most of those peoples follow similar practices. When a Spartan king dies, a fixed number of the "dwellers-around" — the non-citizen subjects — from all over Laconian territory are required to attend the funeral, along with the helots and the Spartans themselves.
When these many thousands have gathered — men and women together — they beat their foreheads with abandon and wail without restraint, declaring that this most recently deceased king was the best king they ever had. Whenever a king falls in battle, they make a lifelike image of him, lay it on a richly decorated bier, and carry it out for burial. After the burial, no public assembly is held for ten days, no elections take place, and the people observe full mourning. In one more respect the Spartans resemble the Persians: when a king dies and a new one takes the throne, the incoming king forgives all debts owed by Spartan citizens to the previous king or to the state. Among the Persians too, a new king remits all overdue tribute from the cities when he comes to power.
The Spartans also resemble the Egyptians in this: their heralds, flute-players, and cooks inherit their trades from their fathers. A flute-player's son becomes a flute-player, a cook's son a cook, a herald's son a herald. No one can take over these professions just because he happens to have a loud voice — the trades pass by inheritance.
That is how these things work. Now, at the time I was discussing, while Cleomenes was on Aegina doing what he believed was a service to all of Greece, Demaratus was back in Sparta making trouble for him — not out of any concern for the Aeginetans, but purely out of jealousy and spite. When Cleomenes returned from Aegina, he made up his mind to get Demaratus removed from the throne. He found his opportunity in the following story.
When Ariston was king of Sparta, he had married twice but had no children. Refusing to believe the problem was his, he married a third time — and here is how that came about. He had a close friend, a Spartan citizen, who happened to be married to the most beautiful woman in all of Sparta. But here is the remarkable thing: this woman had once been the ugliest. When she was a child and her appearance was distressingly plain, her nurse — knowing that the girl came from a wealthy family and seeing how troubled her parents were by their daughter's looks — came up with a plan. Every day, the nurse carried the child to the temple of Helen at a place called Therapne, which stands above the temple of Apollo. Each visit, she would set the child before the statue of Helen and pray to the goddess to take away the girl's ugliness. One day, as the nurse was leaving the temple, a woman appeared before her and asked what she was carrying. The nurse said it was a child. The woman asked to see the child, but the nurse refused — the parents had forbidden her to show the child to anyone. The woman persisted, begging to see the baby. Finally, seeing how eager the woman was, the nurse relented and showed her the child. The woman stroked the little girl's head and declared that she would grow up to be the most beautiful woman in Sparta. And from that very day, the child's appearance began to change. When she reached the age for marriage, she was wed to Agetus son of Alcides — the same man who was Ariston's closest friend.
Now Ariston, as it turned out, was consumed with desire for this woman. So he hatched a scheme. He made a deal with his friend Agetus, the woman's husband: each man would give the other any one thing he chose from his possessions. Agetus agreed without hesitation — he had no fear for his wife, since Ariston already had a wife of his own. They sealed the pact with solemn oaths. When the time came, Ariston gave Agetus whatever treasure he picked out. Then, seeking the same in return, Ariston demanded Agetus's wife. Agetus protested that this was the one thing he would not give — but the oath was binding, and the treachery of the arrangement trapped him. In the end, he was forced to let his wife go.
So Ariston brought this third wife into his house, having dismissed the second. But the new wife did not carry her child the full ten months — she gave birth to Demaratus in a shorter time. When a servant came to tell Ariston the news as he sat in council with the Ephors, Ariston counted the months on his fingers and denied the child with an oath: "This can't be mine." The Ephors heard this remark but didn't think much of it at the time. The boy grew up, and Ariston came to regret what he had said, because he eventually became convinced that Demaratus was indeed his son. He gave the boy the name "Demaratus" — "prayed for by the people" — because before these events, the entire Spartan people had prayed for Ariston to have a son, since he was considered the most distinguished of all the kings Sparta had ever had.
Time passed. Ariston died, and Demaratus inherited the throne. But it was apparently fated that the circumstances of his birth would come to light and cost him his kingship. Demaratus had already clashed with Cleomenes — first when Cleomenes pulled his army back from Eleusis, and now more than ever, after Cleomenes had crossed over to Aegina to arrest those who had surrendered to Persia.
Cleomenes, determined to get his revenge, struck a deal with Leotychides son of Menares, a man from the same royal house as Demaratus. If Cleomenes helped him become king in Demaratus's place, Leotychides would accompany him on the expedition against Aegina. Leotychides had his own grudge against Demaratus: he had been engaged to marry a woman named Percalus, the daughter of Chilon son of Demarmenos, but Demaratus had snatched her away first and married her himself. So the enmity was personal. Now, at Cleomenes' urging, Leotychides brought a formal charge against Demaratus, claiming he had no right to the throne because he was not truly Ariston's son. He prosecuted his case by pointing to Ariston's old remark — the one made in front of the Ephors, when he had counted the months on his fingers and denied the child. Leotychides even produced as witnesses the very Ephors who had been sitting with Ariston that day and heard him say it.
When the matter could not be settled by argument, the Spartans decided to consult the oracle at Delphi and ask whether Demaratus was really Ariston's son. This referral to Delphi was exactly what Cleomenes had been maneuvering toward. He had already gotten to a powerful Delphian named Cobon son of Aristophantus, and Cobon in turn persuaded the priestess Periallus to give the answer Cleomenes wanted. So when the Spartan envoys put their question, the Pythia declared that Demaratus was not the son of Ariston. The truth came out later, of course — Cobon was exiled from Delphi, and Periallus was stripped of her office. But by then, the damage was done.
That is how Demaratus was deposed from the kingship. What drove him into exile among the Persians was a particular humiliation. After losing his throne, Demaratus had been elected to a public magistracy and was attending the festival of the Gymnopaidiai as a spectator. Leotychides, now king in his place, sent a servant over to ask Demaratus — in a tone of mockery — what it was like being a mere magistrate after having been king. Stung by the insult, Demaratus replied: "I have now had experience of both. You haven't. But mark this: that question of yours will prove to be the beginning of either countless disasters or countless blessings for the Spartans." With those words, he covered his head and walked out of the theater. He went straight home, made preparations, sacrificed an ox to Zeus, and summoned his mother.
When she arrived, he placed some of the sacred offering in her hands and pleaded with her: "Mother, I beg you — by all the gods, and above all by this Zeus who guards our household — tell me the truth. Who is really my father? Leotychides claims in his suit that you came to Ariston already pregnant by your first husband. Others tell an even uglier story — that you slept with the household's donkey-keeper, and that I am his son. I beg you, by the gods, tell me the truth. If you did any of these things, you are hardly alone — plenty of women have done the same. And the rumor in Sparta is that Ariston simply could not father children — otherwise his earlier wives would have given him sons."
His mother answered: "My son, since you beg me so earnestly to tell the truth, I will tell you everything. When Ariston first brought me to his house, on the third night an apparition came to me in the form of Ariston. It lay with me and placed garlands on my head. Then the apparition left, and a short time later the real Ariston came in. When he saw me wearing garlands, he asked who had given them to me. I said he had. He denied it. I began to insist, swearing that he had come just a little while before, lain with me, and given me the garlands. Ariston, seeing that I was making a sworn statement, realized that something divine had happened. The garlands, it turned out, had come from the hero-shrine by the front door of the house — the shrine they call the temple of Astrabacus. And the seers confirmed that the visitor had been this very hero. So there you have it, my son — everything you wanted to know. Either you were fathered by the hero Astrabacus, or by Ariston, for it was on that night that you were conceived. As for the argument your enemies press hardest — that Ariston himself denied you when your birth was announced because the ten months had not yet passed — he spoke out of ignorance. Women do give birth at nine months, or even at seven. Not everyone goes the full ten months. I bore you at seven months. Ariston himself realized before long that his remark had been foolish. Don't believe any other stories about your birth. You have heard the full truth. And as for Leotychides and the people spreading these rumors — may their wives bear children by donkey-keepers!"
Having heard what he needed to hear, Demaratus gathered travel supplies and set out, announcing that he was going to Delphi to consult the oracle. But the Spartans, suspecting he was trying to escape, pursued him. He made it to Zacynthus before they caught up. They crossed over after him, seized his person, and took away his attendants. But the Zacynthians refused to hand him over, and he eventually crossed from there to Asia, to the court of King Darius. Darius received him with great honor and gave him land and cities. That was how Demaratus came to Persia — a man who had been distinguished in Sparta both for his deeds and his counsel, and who had brought the Spartans the honor of an Olympic victory in the four-horse chariot, the only Spartan king ever to have done so.
With Demaratus deposed, Leotychides son of Menares took the throne. He fathered a son, Zeuxidemos, whom some Spartans called "the Pup." But Zeuxidemos never became king — he died before his father, leaving a son named Archidemos. After losing Zeuxidemos, Leotychides married a second wife, Eurydame, the sister of Menios and daughter of Diactorides. She gave him no sons, but a daughter named Lampito, whom he gave in marriage to his grandson Archidemos.
Leotychides himself did not grow old in Sparta. He paid a kind of karmic debt for what had been done to Demaratus. He led a Spartan army into Thessaly, and when he could have conquered the whole country, he took a massive bribe instead. He was caught red-handed in his camp, sitting on a glove stuffed full of silver coins. He was brought to trial, banished from Sparta, and his house was razed to the ground. He went into exile at Tegea and died there.
But all of that came later. At the time I was describing, once Cleomenes had successfully arranged Demaratus's removal, he immediately took Leotychides with him and went back to Aegina, burning with anger over the earlier insults. Now that both kings had come against them, the Aeginetans thought it best not to resist any longer. The Spartans selected ten of the most prominent Aeginetans — men of the greatest wealth and highest birth — and carried them off as prisoners, including Crios son of Polycritus and Casambus son of Aristocrates, the two most powerful men on the island. They handed these hostages over to the Athenians, Aegina's bitterest enemies, for safekeeping.
After this, Cleomenes' corruption of the Delphic oracle became public knowledge, and he fled Sparta in fear. First he went to Thessaly, then to Arcadia, where he began stirring up serious trouble — uniting the Arcadians against Sparta and making them swear oaths to follow him wherever he led. He was especially eager to bring the Arcadian leaders to the city of Nonacris and have them swear by the water of the Styx. According to the Arcadians, the water of the Styx is found near this city: a small stream trickles from a cliff into a hollow ravine ringed by a rough stone wall. Nonacris is an Arcadian city near Pheneus.
When the Spartans heard what Cleomenes was up to, they grew alarmed and brought him home to resume his kingship on the same terms as before. But as soon as he returned, he was seized by madness — though he had shown signs of instability even before this. Whenever he encountered any Spartan, he would smash his staff into the man's face. When this behavior made it clear he had completely lost his mind, his relatives had him put in the stocks. While confined, he noticed that his guard had been left alone — the others had stepped away. He demanded a knife. The guard refused at first, but Cleomenes threatened him with what he would do when he got free, and the man — a helot, terrified of his master — gave him the blade. Cleomenes then began to mutilate himself, starting with his legs. He cut strips of flesh from his shins, then his thighs, then his hips and flanks, working his way upward until he reached his belly. He sliced his belly into strips and died.
Most Greeks say this was divine punishment for bribing the oracle to rule against Demaratus. The Athenians alone say it was because he had violated the sacred precinct of the goddesses when he invaded Eleusis. The Argives say it was because of what he did at their sanctuary of Argos — luring Argive fugitives out of the sacred grove and killing them, and then setting fire to the grove itself. Here is what happened.
When Cleomenes consulted the oracle at Delphi, he was told he would conquer "Argos." So he led his Spartans to the river Erasinus, which is said to flow from the Stymphalian lake — the lake's waters vanish underground, they say, and reappear in Argive territory as the Erasinus. Cleomenes sacrificed to the river, but the omens were unfavorable for crossing. He remarked that he admired the Erasinus for not betraying its own people — but the Argives would not escape even so. He withdrew and took a different route, marching the army down to Thyrea, sacrificing a bull to the sea, and transporting his men by ship to the territory of Tiryns and Nauplia.
When the Argives learned of this, they rushed to the coast and took up a position near Tiryns at a place called Hesipeia, facing the Spartan army with only a narrow gap between them. The Argives were not afraid of a fair fight — they were afraid of trickery. This, they believed, was what the oracle had warned about, the prophecy given jointly to them and the Milesians:
But when the female shall conquer the male in the battle, And drive him forth, and win glory among the Argives, Then many Argive wives shall tear both cheeks in their mourning. And one day men shall say, of those who come after: "The terrible three-coiled serpent was quelled by the spear."
Terrified of being outmaneuvered, the Argives devised a plan: they would simply copy everything the Spartan herald announced. Whenever the Spartan herald called an order to the Spartans, the Argives would do the same thing — march when they marched, halt when they halted.
Cleomenes noticed what they were doing. He passed the word to his men: when the herald calls for breakfast, take up your weapons and attack. The Spartans did exactly that. While the Argives were sitting down to eat in response to the herald's breakfast call, the Spartans fell on them with weapons drawn. They killed many and drove many more into the sacred grove of Argos, where they took refuge. Cleomenes then surrounded the grove.
Using information from deserters, Cleomenes sent a herald to call out individual Argives by name, claiming their ransom had been paid (the standard ransom among the Peloponnesians was two minas of silver per prisoner). About fifty men came out one by one, and he killed every single one of them. The men still inside the grove didn't know this was happening — the trees were too thick for them to see what was going on outside — until finally one of them climbed a tree and saw the slaughter. After that, no one came out when called.
Cleomenes then ordered his helots to pile brushwood around the sacred grove and set it on fire. As the flames rose, he asked one of the deserters which god the grove was sacred to. The man said it was sacred to Argos. Cleomenes groaned and said: "Apollo, god of prophecy, you have greatly deceived me. You said I would conquer 'Argos' — and I see now that the oracle has been fulfilled, but not as I expected."
After this, Cleomenes dismissed most of his army back to Sparta but kept a thousand of his best men and went to the temple of Hera to sacrifice. When the priest told him that religious law forbade a foreigner from sacrificing there, Cleomenes ordered his helots to drag the priest away from the altar and flog him, then performed the sacrifice himself.
When he returned to Sparta, his political enemies hauled him before the Ephors and accused him of accepting bribes to spare the city of Argos when he could easily have taken it. Cleomenes defended himself — and whether he spoke truthfully or not, I cannot say with certainty — by explaining that after he conquered the sacred grove of "Argos," he believed the oracle had been fulfilled. Therefore he hadn't thought it right to attack the city itself until he had consulted the gods. When he sacrificed at the temple of Hera, a flame had blazed from the breast of the divine image — which told him he would not take the city. Had the flame come from the head, he said, he would have conquered it completely from top to bottom. But since it came from the breast, everything the god intended had already been accomplished. The Spartans found this explanation credible and reasonable, and he was easily acquitted.
Argos, however, was so stripped of men that their slaves seized control of the entire state, running the government and managing all affairs until the sons of the fallen warriors grew to manhood. These young men eventually reclaimed Argos and expelled the slaves, who fled to Tiryns and took it by force. For a time the two sides coexisted peacefully, but then a prophet named Cleander — a Phigalian from Arcadia — came to the slaves and persuaded them to attack their former masters. This sparked a long war, which the Argives eventually won, but only with great difficulty.
So the Argives say that Cleomenes went mad because of what he did at their sacred grove. The Spartans themselves, however, tell a different story: they say no god drove him mad — he simply became a drunkard from associating with the Scythians. The Scythian nomads, they explain, had come to Sparta after Darius invaded their country, hoping to form an alliance. Their plan was for the Scythians to invade Persia from the east, via the river Phasis, while the Spartans attacked from the west, marching inland from Ephesus, and the two armies would meet in the middle. During these negotiations, Cleomenes spent too much time socializing with the Scythians and picked up their habit of drinking wine unmixed with water. That, the Spartans believe, is what drove him insane. To this day, whenever the Spartans want to drink their wine stronger than usual, they say "Pour it Scythian style." That is the Spartan version. Personally, I think Cleomenes' madness was punishment for what he did to Demaratus.
When the Aeginetans heard that Cleomenes had died, they sent envoys to Sparta to denounce Leotychides over the hostages still being held at Athens. The Spartans convened a court, which found that the Aeginetans had been treated outrageously, and condemned Leotychides to be handed over to the Aeginetans in exchange for their imprisoned men. But just as the Aeginetans were about to take the Spartan king away, Theasides son of Leoprepes, a respected Spartan, stopped them: "Men of Aegina, what do you think you're doing? You're going to drag off the king of the Spartans, handed to you by his own people? If the Spartans have made this decision in a moment of anger, beware — someday they may come to regret it and bring destruction down on your land." The Aeginetans backed off. Instead, they reached an agreement that Leotychides would accompany them to Athens and demand the hostages back.
When Leotychides arrived in Athens and asked for the hostages, the Athenians refused. They argued that since two kings had deposited the prisoners, it wouldn't be proper to return them to just one. When the Athenians held firm, Leotychides addressed them:
"Athenians, do whatever you like. If you return the hostages, you do the righteous thing. If you refuse, you do the opposite. But let me tell you a story about what once happened in Sparta concerning a deposit. We Spartans say that about two generations before my time, there lived in Sparta a man named Glaucus, the son of Epicydes. He was renowned above all men for his integrity. A man from Miletus came to him and said: 'Glaucus, I am a Milesian, and I've come to you because of your famous honesty. I've been thinking about how Ionia is always in danger, while the Peloponnese is secure — and how no one keeps their wealth for long in uncertain times. So I've decided to convert half my fortune into cash and place it with you for safekeeping, since I know it will be safe in your hands. Take this money and these tokens. Whoever comes to you in the future with the matching tokens — give him the money.' Glaucus accepted the deposit on those terms.
"A long time later, the Milesian's sons came to Sparta with their tokens and asked for the money back. Glaucus pretended not to remember. 'I don't recall this matter,' he said. 'Nothing comes to mind. But I want to do the right thing — so give me three months, and I'll sort this out.' The Milesians left, convinced they'd been robbed. Glaucus, meanwhile, went to Delphi to ask the oracle whether he should steal the money by swearing a false oath. The Pythia rebuked him with these verses:
Glaucus, son of Epicydes — yes, for the moment It profits you more to conquer their claim with an oath and to rob them. Swear, then — since death awaits even the man who swears truly. But know that Oath has a son, one nameless and handless and footless, Yet swift he pursues, without hands he seizes, and wholly He shall destroy the race and the house of the man who offends. But the man who keeps his oath — his line shall prosper hereafter.
"Hearing this, Glaucus begged the god to forgive him for what he had asked. But the priestess told him that to test the god and to commit the crime were one and the same thing. Glaucus sent for the Milesians and gave the money back. But here is why I am telling you this story, Athenians: today there is no descendant of Glaucus alive, no hearth that is considered his. He has been utterly destroyed and rooted out of Sparta. That is how dangerous it is to have any thought about a deposit other than returning it when the owners ask."
But even this story didn't persuade the Athenians, and Leotychides went home empty-handed. The Aeginetans, now furious — having still not been punished for the wrongs they had earlier committed against Athens at Thebes' instigation — took matters into their own hands. They ambushed the sacred Athenian ship that was sailing to the four-yearly festival at Sunium, captured it along with all the prominent Athenians aboard, and threw them in chains.
After this outrage, the Athenians held back nothing in their efforts to harm Aegina. A prominent Aeginetan exile named Nicodromus son of Cnithus, who had a grudge against his countrymen for having banished him, offered to betray Aegina to Athens. He told the Athenians when he would make his move and when they needed to arrive with support. Nicodromus kept his end of the deal and seized the old citadel of Aegina on schedule — but the Athenians failed to arrive on time. They didn't have enough ships to fight the Aeginetan fleet, and by the time they had borrowed twenty ships from Corinth — selling them at five drachmas apiece, since Corinthian law wouldn't allow giving them away for free — and assembled a fleet of seventy in all, they were a day late.
Nicodromus, abandoned by his allies, escaped from Aegina by ship. The Athenians settled him and his followers at Sunium, from where they raided the Aeginetans on the island. But that came later. At the time, the Aeginetan upper classes crushed the popular uprising that Nicodromus had led, captured the rebels, and marched them out for execution. From this they brought a terrible curse upon themselves that they could never expiate, despite everything they tried. They had taken seven hundred prisoners and were leading them to their deaths when one man broke free and fled to the entrance of the temple of Demeter the Lawgiver. He grabbed the door-latch and clung to it. When they couldn't pull him away, they cut off his hands and dragged him off — and his severed hands stayed there, gripping the latch.
That is what the Aeginetans did to their own people. When the Athenians eventually came with their seventy ships, the Aeginetans defeated them in a sea battle. The Aeginetans then called on the Argives for help — the same Argives who had helped them before. But the Argives refused this time, still angry because Aeginetan ships had participated in Cleomenes' invasion of Argive territory, and Aeginetan crews had gone ashore alongside the Spartans. The Argives had fined both Aegina and Sicyon a thousand talents — five hundred each. The Sicyonians admitted their guilt and negotiated the fine down to a hundred talents. The Aeginetans admitted nothing and remained defiant. So when they now asked for help, no official Argive force came — though a thousand Argive volunteers did, led by a commander named Eurybates, a man who had competed in the pentathlon. Most of these volunteers never returned home, having been killed by the Athenians on Aegina. Eurybates himself fought in single combat and killed three men before falling to the fourth — Sophanes of Decelea. The Aeginetans, however, caught the Athenian fleet in disarray and defeated them, capturing four ships with their crews.
While Athens and Aegina were at war, the Persian king was pressing forward with his plans. His servant reminded him daily to "remember the Athenians." The sons of Pisistratus were at his side, constantly maligning the Athenians. And Darius himself was eager to use the failed revolt as a pretext to subdue every Greek state that had not submitted to him. He relieved Mardonius of command — after his disastrous expedition — and appointed two new generals: Datis, a Mede by birth, and Artaphernes, the son of the governor Artaphernes and Darius's own nephew. He sent them out with orders to enslave Athens and Eretria and bring the captives before him.
These commanders marched their forces to the Aleian plain in Cilicia, where the massive land army was assembled. The entire fleet that Darius had ordered his subject nations to build came to meet them there, along with the horse-transport ships he had commissioned the year before. They loaded the cavalry aboard, embarked the infantry, and sailed for Ionia with six hundred triremes. But instead of hugging the coast and sailing through the Hellespont toward Thrace — the route Mardonius had taken — they struck out from Samos across the open Icarian Sea, island-hopping directly toward their targets. The reason, I believe, was simple: they were terrified of rounding Mount Athos after the previous year's catastrophe. And besides, there was the matter of Naxos, which had resisted Persian conquest before and still needed to be dealt with.
When the fleet arrived at Naxos from the Icarian Sea — for Naxos was their first objective, in memory of the earlier failed attempt — the Naxians didn't even try to fight. They fled to the mountains. The Persians enslaved those they caught and burned both the temples and the city. Then they sailed on to the other islands.
While this was happening, the Delians abandoned Delos and fled to Tenos. But when the fleet approached, Datis sailed ahead and refused to let his ships anchor at Delos, mooring them instead at Rheneia across the strait. He then sent a herald to the Delians with this message: "Holy men, why have you fled? You have misjudged me. I have enough wisdom on my own, and the king has commanded me as well: the land where the two gods were born shall not be harmed, neither the land itself nor its people. Return to your homes and live on your island." After making this proclamation, Datis piled three hundred talents' weight of frankincense on the altar and burned it as an offering.
Datis then sailed against Eretria first, bringing Ionians and Aeolians in his force. After his fleet departed, Delos was shaken by an earthquake — the first and last, the Delians told me, down to my own time. This was surely a divine portent of the evils to come. For in the reigns of Darius son of Hystaspes, Xerxes son of Darius, and Artaxerxes son of Xerxes — three successive generations — more disasters befell Greece than in the twenty generations before Darius, some caused by the Persians and others by the Greeks' own leaders fighting each other for supremacy. It was not unreasonable, then, that Delos should tremble, though it had never moved before. And indeed there was an oracle about it:
Delos too will I move, though unmoved it has been before now.
In Greek, by the way, these kings' names have appropriate meanings: Darius means "the Compeller," Xerxes means "the Warrior," and Artaxerxes means "the Great Warrior."
The Persian fleet, after leaving Delos, touched at the islands along the way, taking on additional troops and seizing the islanders' sons as hostages. When they reached Carystus, the Carystians refused either to give hostages or to join an expedition against their neighbors Eretria and Athens. The Persians besieged them and ravaged their land until the Carystians too gave in.
When the Eretrians learned that the Persian armada was heading straight for them, they asked Athens for help. The Athenians did not refuse — they sent the four thousand settlers who had been given the confiscated lands of the wealthy Chalcidians. But the Eretrians, it turned out, had no coherent plan. Some wanted to abandon the city and retreat to the highlands of Euboea. Others were secretly planning to surrender to the Persians for personal profit. When Aeschines son of Nothon, one of the Eretrian leaders, learned about this split, he told the Athenian reinforcements everything and begged them to leave before they were destroyed along with Eretria. The Athenians took his advice and crossed over to Oropus, saving themselves.
The Persians sailed on and landed their ships at Temenos, Choereae, and Aegilea in Eretrian territory. They began disembarking their horses and preparing to attack. The Eretrians had decided not to come out and fight but to try to hold their walls instead — the faction that wanted to stay having prevailed over those who wanted to flee. The assault on the walls was fierce, and for six days men fell on both sides. On the seventh day, two prominent citizens — Euphorbos son of Alcimachus and Philagros son of Cyneas — betrayed the city to the Persians. The Persians entered, plundered and burned the temples in retaliation for the burning of Sardis, and enslaved the population, just as Darius had ordered.
After securing Eretria, the Persians waited a few days, then sailed for Attica. They pressed hard, confident that they would crush the Athenians as easily as they had the Eretrians. Marathon was the most suitable place in Attica for cavalry operations and was also the closest point to Eretria, so that is where Hippias son of Pisistratus guided them.
When the Athenians learned this, they marched to Marathon to defend their land. They were led by ten generals, of whom the tenth was Miltiades. His father Cimon, the son of Stesagoras, had been driven into exile by Pisistratus the son of Hippocrates. While in exile, Cimon won a victory at the Olympic games with a four-horse chariot — matching the feat of his half-brother, the elder Miltiades, who had the same mother. At the next Olympics, he won again with the same mares but let Pisistratus be proclaimed as the victor, and in exchange for this concession he was allowed to return to Athens under a peace agreement. Later, he won a third time with the same team — and the sons of Pisistratus had him murdered. They ambushed him at night near the City Hall. Cimon's tomb lies on the outskirts of the city, across the road called the Way through Coele, and directly opposite him are buried those remarkable mares that won three Olympic games. The only other horses to accomplish this belonged to Euagoras the Spartan. Cimon's elder son Stesagoras had been raised by his uncle in the Chersonese, while the younger son was raised in Athens with Cimon himself. He was named Miltiades after the founder of the Chersonese colony.
This Miltiades, then, had recently arrived from the Chersonese and was now an Athenian general. He had narrowly escaped death twice — first from the Phoenicians who chased him as far as Imbros trying to capture him for the king, and then from his political enemies in Athens, who prosecuted him for tyranny in the Chersonese. Having survived both dangers, he had been elected general by the people.
The first thing the generals did, while still in the city, was send a runner to Sparta — Pheidippides, an Athenian who was a professional long-distance runner. On his way, near Mount Parthenion above Tegea, Pheidippides reported that he encountered the god Pan, who called him by name and told him to ask the Athenians why they paid him no attention, when he was well-disposed toward them and had helped them many times before and would do so again. The Athenians believed this story. When their affairs turned out well, they built a temple to Pan beneath the Acropolis and honored him ever after with annual sacrifices and a torch race.
But at the time of the story, Pheidippides reached Sparta the day after he left Athens and addressed the magistrates: "Spartans, the Athenians ask you to come to their aid and not allow the most ancient city in Greece to be enslaved by foreigners. Eretria has already been captured, and Greece is weaker by one renowned city." He delivered the message as instructed, and the Spartans were willing to help — but they said they could not march immediately. It was the ninth day of the month, and they would not set out until the moon was full.
So the Spartans waited for the full moon. Meanwhile, Hippias was guiding the Persians to Marathon. The night before, he had a dream: he dreamed he slept with his own mother. He interpreted this to mean he would return to Athens, reclaim power, and die peacefully of old age in his homeland. As he was directing the Persian landing — first depositing the Eretrian prisoners on the island called Aegleia, belonging to the Styrians, and then mooring the ships at Marathon and organizing the troops on the beach — he was suddenly seized by a fit of sneezing and coughing more violent than usual. He was an old man, and most of his teeth were loose. One tooth was knocked out by the force of the cough and fell into the sand. He searched frantically for it but couldn't find it, and he groaned to those around him: "This land is not ours. We will never be able to conquer it. Whatever share of it was mine, the tooth now possesses."
Hippias concluded that the dream's prophecy had been fulfilled — but not as he had hoped.
Meanwhile, after the Athenians had taken up their position in the sacred precinct of Heracles at Marathon, the Plataeans arrived to support them — every last man. The Plataeans had given themselves to Athens, and the Athenians had fought many battles on their behalf. Here is how the alliance came about. When the Plataeans were being oppressed by Thebes, they first tried to submit to Cleomenes and the Spartans, who happened to be in the area. But the Spartans refused, saying: "We live too far away. Our help would be cold comfort — you might be conquered several times over before we even heard about it. You'd be better off giving yourselves to the Athenians. They're your neighbors, and they're pretty good in a fight." This advice was offered not so much out of goodwill toward Plataea as from a Spartan desire to embroil Athens in a conflict with Boeotia. The Plataeans followed the advice: during an Athenian religious ceremony at the altar of the Twelve Gods, they sat down as suppliants and formally gave themselves to Athens. When the Thebans heard and marched against Plataea, the Athenians came to their defense. The Corinthians happened to be present and mediated, establishing boundaries and stipulating that the Thebans should leave alone any Boeotians who did not wish to be counted as Boeotians. But as the Athenians were marching home, the Boeotians attacked them — and lost. The Athenians then pushed the boundaries beyond what the Corinthians had set, making the Asopus River itself the border between Theban and Plataean territory. That is how the Plataeans came to be allies of Athens, and that is why they came to Marathon to fight.
Now, the Athenian generals were split. Half argued they were too few to take on the entire Persian army and should not risk battle. The other half, led by Miltiades, wanted to fight. The split was five to five, and the timid faction seemed about to prevail. But there was one more vote to be cast: the war-archon — the polemarch — had a vote equal to the generals', and the current polemarch was Callimachus of the deme of Aphidnae. Miltiades went to him privately.
"Callimachus," he said, "it is now in your hands. You will either bring Athens under the yoke of slavery, or by keeping her free, you will leave a memorial for all time greater than even Harmodius and Aristogeiton. The Athenians face the greatest danger they have ever known. If we submit to the Persians, we know what will happen — we'll be handed over to Hippias. But if this city wins, it can become the foremost city in all of Greece. Here is how this comes down to you. The ten generals are evenly split — five for fighting, five against. If we don't fight now, I expect a great wave of division will sweep through the Athenian people and shake their resolve until they surrender to the Persians. But if we fight before that rot sets in, we can win — if the gods give us a fair chance. All of this depends on you. Vote with me, and your fatherland will be free and your city the greatest in Greece. Vote with the others, and you will have the opposite of everything I've just described."
Miltiades won him over. With the polemarch's deciding vote, the battle was on. After this, those generals who had voted to fight yielded their days of command to Miltiades. He accepted their gesture but waited to engage until his own day of command came around.
When his day arrived, the Athenians drew up for battle. The polemarch Callimachus commanded the right wing, as Athenian custom required. The ten tribes were arrayed in order from right to left, with the Plataeans holding the left wing. (Ever since this battle, whenever the Athenians hold their four-yearly festivals and the herald offers prayers, he prays for blessings on both the Athenians and the Plataeans.) The Athenian line was stretched to match the width of the Persian front, which meant the center was thin — only a few ranks deep — while both wings were packed with men.
When the formations were set and the sacrifices proved favorable, the Athenians charged — at a run. The distance between the two armies was no less than eight stades. The Persians, watching them come, thought they were witnessing a suicidal charge by madmen — so few in number, running straight at them with no cavalry and no archers to support them. That was what the Persians thought. But the Athenians, when they crashed into the enemy line as one body, fought with extraordinary ferocity. They were the first Greeks we know of who attacked the enemy at a run, and the first who could endure the sight of Persian battle dress and the men who wore it. Until that day, the very name "Persian" was enough to make Greeks tremble.
The battle at Marathon raged for a long time. In the center of the line, where the Persians themselves and the Sacae were positioned, the invaders broke through — shattering the Athenian ranks and driving them inland. But on both wings, the Athenians and Plataeans were winning. Having routed the Persian flanks, they let the fleeing barbarians go and instead wheeled inward, converging on the Persian center from both sides. The Persians who had broken through now found themselves surrounded. The Athenians cut them to pieces. Then they pursued the routed Persians all the way to the beach, calling for fire as they tried to seize the ships.
It was in the fighting at the ships that the polemarch Callimachus fell, having fought with great courage. The general Stesilaus son of Thrasilaus was also killed. And Cynegirus son of Euphorion — as he grabbed the stern ornament of a Persian ship — had his hand chopped off with an axe and fell dead. Many other notable Athenians perished there as well.
The Athenians captured seven ships in this way. The Persians managed to push off from the beach with the rest, and after picking up the Eretrian prisoners from the island where they had left them, they sailed around Cape Sunium, hoping to reach Athens before the Athenian army could march back. A rumor circulated among the Athenians that the Alcmaeonids had arranged this by signaling to the Persians with a flashing shield once they were back aboard their ships.
The Persians were sailing around Sunium. The Athenians raced back to the city as fast as their legs would carry them — and they won the race. They arrived before the Persian fleet, marching from one temple of Heracles (at Marathon) to another (at Cynosarges). The Persians anchored off Phalerum — that was the Athenian port at the time — but when they saw that the army had beaten them back, they simply turned their ships around and sailed back to Asia.
In the battle of Marathon, the Persians lost about six thousand four hundred men. The Athenians lost a hundred and ninety-two. Those were the casualties on both sides.
A strange thing happened during the battle. An Athenian named Epizelos son of Cuphagoras was fighting in the thick of the action and acquitting himself bravely when he suddenly went completely blind — without being struck by any weapon or hit by any missile. He remained blind for the rest of his life. The story he told about what happened to him, as I was informed, was this: a gigantic warrior in full armor appeared before him, whose beard was so enormous it overshadowed his entire shield. This phantom passed him by — but killed the man standing next to him.
Datis, meanwhile, was sailing back to Asia with his fleet. When he reached Myconos, he saw a vision in his sleep. What the vision was, no one reports. But at first light, he ordered a search of the ships. In a Phoenician vessel they found a gilded image of Apollo that had been looted from some temple. Datis inquired where it had come from, and when he was told which temple it belonged to, he sailed to Delos in his own ship. The Delians had by now returned to the island, and Datis deposited the statue in the temple and asked the Delians to take it back to Delium, a town in Theban territory on the coast opposite Chalcis. The Delians, however, never got around to it. Twenty years later, the Thebans themselves brought it to Delium, following an oracle.
As for the enslaved Eretrians, Datis and Artaphernes brought them to Susa. King Darius, despite his fury at the Eretrians before their capture — for they had attacked him without provocation — did them no further harm once he had them in his power. He settled them in the Cissian land, on one of his own estates called Ardericca, about two hundred and ten stades from Susa and forty stades from a remarkable well that produces three different substances. Using a sweep with a half-skin attached instead of a bucket, workers draw up liquid that separates into asphalt, salt, and oil. The Persians call this oil rhadinake — it is black and has a foul smell. Here Darius settled the Eretrians, and in my own time they still lived there, speaking their original language.
Two thousand Spartans arrived in Athens after the full moon, having marched with such urgency that they reached Attica on the third day out of Sparta. They were too late for the battle, but they wanted to see the Persians. They marched out to Marathon and surveyed the battlefield and the dead. Then they went home, praising the Athenians and the work they had done.
Now, I find it astonishing — and I refuse to believe it — that the Alcmaeonids would have signaled to the Persians with a shield, conspiring to place Athens under Persian rule and under Hippias. They were demonstrably enemies of tyranny, as much as or more than Callias son of Phaenippus, the father of Hipponicus. Callias was the only Athenian who dared to buy Pisistratus's confiscated property when it was auctioned off after the tyrant's expulsion, and he opposed the tyranny in every other way he could. This Callias deserves to be remembered: he was an outstanding patriot, an Olympic victor in the horse race and a runner-up in the chariot race, a previous winner at the Pythian games — a man who made himself famous throughout Greece for his generosity. He had three daughters, and when they came of age, he gave them lavish dowries and let each one marry whichever Athenian man she chose.
The Alcmaeonids were equally hostile to tyranny, if not more so. That's why I reject the shield-signal accusation. They were in exile for the entire duration of the tyranny. It was through their scheming that the sons of Pisistratus gave up power. In my judgment, the Alcmaeonids did more to liberate Athens than Harmodius and Aristogeiton. Those two merely enraged the remaining Pisistratids by killing Hipparchus — they did nothing to end the tyranny itself. But the Alcmaeonids actually freed the city, at least if it was truly they who bribed the Delphic priestess to keep telling the Spartans to liberate Athens, as I described earlier.
Now, someone might argue that the Alcmaeonids had some grudge against the Athenian people and therefore wanted to betray the city. But in fact, no family was more esteemed or more honored in Athens than theirs. It defies reason to think they would have signaled with a shield. A shield was displayed — that much is undeniable, and I cannot dispute it. But who displayed it? That, I cannot say.
The Alcmaeonid family had been prominent in Athens from the earliest times, and from the generation of Alcmaeon onward, they became spectacularly distinguished. First, Alcmaeon son of Megacles served as a friend and assistant to the Lydian envoys whom Croesus sent to Delphi. When Croesus heard how helpful Alcmaeon had been, he summoned him to Sardis and offered him a gift: as much gold as he could carry on his person at one time. Alcmaeon rose to the occasion with extraordinary ingenuity. He put on the baggiest tunic he could find, leaving a deep fold hanging in front. He pulled on the widest boots available. Then he was led to the treasury, where he fell upon a heap of gold dust. First he packed gold into his boots up to his shins. Then he stuffed the entire fold of his tunic with gold. He sprinkled gold dust in his hair. He crammed some into his mouth. When he staggered out of the treasury, barely able to drag his boots, he looked like anything on earth except a human being — his mouth stuffed, every part of him bulging. Croesus took one look at him and burst out laughing. He gave Alcmaeon everything he had taken, and then matched it with an equal gift on top. That is how the family became fabulously wealthy, and how this Alcmaeon became a breeder of chariot-horses and an Olympic victor.
In the next generation, Cleisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon elevated the family even further by choosing an Alcmaeonid husband for his daughter. Cleisthenes — the son of Aristonymus, son of Myron, son of Andreas — had a daughter named Agariste. He wanted to find the best man in all of Greece to marry her. So when he won the four-horse chariot race at Olympia, he made a public proclamation: any Greek who considered himself worthy of becoming Cleisthenes' son-in-law should come to Sicyon within sixty days. Cleisthenes would make his decision within a year.
Suitors came from all over the Greek world. From Italy came Smindyrides of Sybaris, the most extravagantly luxurious man alive — Sybaris being at the height of its prosperity — and Damasus of Siris, son of Amyris called "the Wise." From the Ionian Gulf came Amphimnestos of Epidamnus. From Aetolia came Males, brother of the famous strongman Titormos, who had fled from civilization to the remotest corners of Aetolia. From the Peloponnese came Leocedes, son of Pheidon the tyrant of Argos — the Pheidon who established the Peloponnesian system of weights and measures and whose arrogance was legendary (he once kicked out the Elean officials and presided over the Olympic games himself). Also from the Peloponnese: Amiantos son of Lycurgus, an Arcadian from Trapezus; Laphanes, an Azanian from the city of Paeus, whose father Euphorion had once hosted the divine twins Castor and Pollux and thereafter kept open house for all travelers; and Onomastus son of Agaeus, from Elis. From Athens came two men: Megacles, son of that Alcmaeon who had visited Croesus, and Hippocleides son of Tisandros, who surpassed all other Athenians in both wealth and good looks. From Eretria, then at its peak, came Lysanias — the only Euboean. From Thessaly came Diactorides of Crannon, one of the Scopad family. And from the Molossians came Alcon.
Such was the field of suitors. When they arrived by the appointed day, Cleisthenes first inquired about each man's homeland and ancestry. Then he kept them for an entire year, testing their courage, temperament, education, and character — spending time with each one individually and with the group as a whole. He brought the younger ones out for athletic competitions, and he observed them all carefully at the communal dinners, where he also entertained them magnificently. As it happened, the two Athenians pleased him most of all, and of these, Hippocleides son of Tisandros was the slight favorite, both for his personal qualities and because he was related by descent to the Cypselid family of Corinth.
Then came the appointed day — the banquet at which Cleisthenes would announce his choice. He sacrificed a hundred oxen and feasted the suitors and all the people of Sicyon. After dinner, the suitors competed in music and in giving speeches to the assembled company. As the wine flowed, Hippocleides was thoroughly dominating the entertainment. He asked the flute-player for a dance tune, and when the music started, he danced. He was very pleased with himself. Cleisthenes was less pleased — he watched the whole performance with growing unease. After a while, Hippocleides called for a table to be brought in. When it arrived, he danced Spartan figures on it, then Athenian figures, and then — flipping himself upside down — he planted his head on the table and waved his legs in the air. Cleisthenes had kept his composure through the first and second dances, though the thought of this man becoming his son-in-law already appalled him. But when Hippocleides started waving his legs in the air, Cleisthenes could contain himself no longer. "Son of Tisandros," he snapped, "you have danced away your marriage!" To which Hippocleides cheerfully replied: "Hippocleides doesn't care!" And that became a proverb.
Cleisthenes called for silence and addressed the company: "Gentlemen, suitors of my daughter — I commend you all, and if I could, I would gratify every one of you without choosing one over the rest. But since I have only one daughter, I cannot please everyone. To those of you who are not chosen, I give each man a talent of silver, in recognition of the honor you have done me by seeking to marry into my family and for the time you have spent away from home. And to Megacles, the son of Alcmaeon, I betroth my daughter Agariste, according to Athenian custom." Megacles accepted, and the marriage was settled.
That is how the suitors were judged, and how the Alcmaeonid family became famous throughout Greece. From this marriage was born that Cleisthenes who established the tribes and democracy at Athens — named after his maternal grandfather, Cleisthenes of Sicyon. Megacles also had a son named Hippocrates. Hippocrates' children included another Megacles and another Agariste, named after her grandmother. This younger Agariste married Xanthippus son of Ariphon. While pregnant, she dreamed she gave birth to a lion. A few days later, she bore Xanthippus a son: Pericles.
After Marathon, Miltiades — already admired by the Athenians — rose to even greater heights of prestige. He asked the people for seventy ships, an army, and money, without telling them where he intended to go. He promised only that if they followed him, he would make them rich — he would lead them to a land where gold was abundant and easy to get. The Athenians were excited and gave him everything he asked for.
Miltiades took his fleet to Paros. His stated pretext was that the Parians had supported the Persians by sending triremes to Marathon. But he also had a personal grudge — a Parian named Lysagoras son of Tisias had slandered him to the Persian commander Hydarnes. When he arrived, Miltiades besieged the city, pinning the Parians inside their walls. He sent a herald demanding a hundred talents, threatening that his army would not leave until it had conquered them completely. The Parians had no intention of paying. Instead, they focused on defense, and wherever they found a weak spot in the wall, they raised it to double height overnight.
That much of the story everyone agrees on. What happened next is told only by the Parians. They say that when Miltiades was stymied, a Parian woman named Timo — a prisoner of war who had been an under-priestess of the Earth Goddesses — came to him with advice. She told him that if conquering Paros mattered to him, he should do what she suggested. Following her instructions, Miltiades went to the hill in front of the city and jumped over the fence surrounding the temple of Demeter the Lawgiver, unable to open the door. He then headed toward the inner sanctuary, intending to do something inside — whether to lay hands on sacred objects or something else, no one knows. But when he reached the door, a sudden shuddering terror came over him. He turned and ran the same way he had come, and as he jumped down from the wall, he dislocated his thigh — or, as others say, smashed his knee.
Miltiades sailed home in a wretched state — bringing the Athenians neither money nor Paros, having done nothing but besiege the city for twenty-six days and ravage the island. The Parians, meanwhile, wanted to punish Timo for helping Miltiades. They sent to Delphi to ask if they should execute her. The Pythia forbade it: Timo was not the true cause of what had happened. Miltiades was destined to come to a bad end, and Timo had merely appeared to guide him toward his fate.
When Miltiades returned to Athens, the people turned against him. Xanthippus son of Ariphon led the prosecution, charging him before the assembly and demanding the death penalty for deceiving the Athenians. Miltiades was present but could not defend himself — his thigh was gangrenous and he lay on a stretcher in full view of the assembly. His friends spoke in his defense, invoking his victory at Marathon and his conquest of Lemnos, where he had punished the Pelasgians and handed the island to Athens. The people were persuaded enough to spare his life, but they fined him fifty talents. Shortly after, Miltiades died when his thigh wound turned gangrenous and killed him. His son Cimon paid the fine.
Here is how Miltiades had conquered Lemnos. After the Pelasgians were expelled from Attica by the Athenians — whether justly or unjustly, I cannot say; I can only report what is told — Hecataeus the historian, son of Hegesander, said in his work that it was unjust. According to him, the Athenians had given the Pelasgians land below Mount Hymettus as payment for building the wall around the Acropolis. When the Athenians saw that the Pelasgians had turned this once-worthless land into productive farmland, they were seized with jealousy and drove them out without any legitimate reason. The Athenians themselves, however, tell it differently: the Pelasgians, living below Hymettus, used their position to harass the Athenians. Athenian girls would go to fetch water at the spring of Enneacrunus — in those days, neither Greeks nor anyone else had household servants — and the Pelasgians would assault them. That wasn't even the worst of it: the Pelasgians were eventually caught plotting an actual attack on the city. The Athenians say they showed remarkable restraint — they could have killed the Pelasgians for their conspiracy but merely expelled them instead. The Pelasgians departed and settled in various places, particularly on Lemnos. That is Hecataeus's version versus the Athenian version.
These Pelasgians, now living on Lemnos, nursed a desire for revenge against Athens. Knowing the Athenian festival calendar, they got hold of some fifty-oared galleys and ambushed Athenian women celebrating the festival of Artemis at Brauron. They kidnapped a number of them, carried them off to Lemnos, and kept them as concubines. When these women had children, they taught them the Attic dialect and Athenian customs. These children refused to associate with the sons of Pelasgian women, stuck together and defended each other, and claimed authority over the other boys — and got it. The Pelasgians watched this with growing alarm. They discussed it among themselves: if these boys were already banding together and dominating the others, what would happen when they became men? They decided to kill the sons of the Athenian women — and did so. They killed the mothers as well. From this act, and from the earlier crime when the women of Lemnos murdered their own husbands led by Thoas, it became a custom throughout Greece to call any act of extraordinary cruelty a "Lemnian deed."
After the Pelasgians killed their sons and the women, their land stopped producing crops, their women stopped bearing children, and their cattle stopped breeding. Pressed by famine and barrenness, they sent to Delphi to ask for relief. The Pythia told them to pay whatever penalty the Athenians demanded. The Pelasgians went to Athens and declared their willingness to make amends. The Athenians set out a couch in the finest possible manner in the City Hall, laid beside it a table loaded with every delicacy, and told the Pelasgians: "Hand over your land to us in this condition." The Pelasgians replied: "When a ship sails from your land to ours with a north wind in a single day — then we will give it up." They thought this was an impossibly clever answer, since Athens lies far to the south of Lemnos.
Many years later, when the Chersonese had come under Athenian control, Miltiades son of Cimon waited for the Etesian winds — which blow steadily from the north — and sailed from Elaeus in the Chersonese to Lemnos in a single day. He then ordered the Pelasgians to leave, reminding them of their oath — which they had never expected anyone to fulfill. The people of Hephaestia complied. The people of Myrina, however, refused to acknowledge that the Chersonese counted as Attica and had to be besieged before they too submitted.
And that is how the Athenians and Miltiades took possession of Lemnos.
When the news of the battle at Marathon reached King Darius son of Hystaspes, his fury — already burning hot against the Athenians for their attack on Sardis — exploded to an entirely new level. He immediately sent orders throughout the empire commanding his subjects to prepare a military force, each nation to furnish far more than it had provided before: not just warships this time, but horses, provisions, and transport vessels. The orders went out, and for three years all Asia was in motion, as the best men of every nation were drafted for the expedition against Greece and set about making preparations. In the fourth year, however, Egypt — which had been subjugated by Cambyses — revolted from Persia. This only sharpened Darius's appetite: now he was determined to march against both nations at once.
But while Darius was preparing his expeditions against Egypt and Athens, a fierce succession dispute broke out among his sons. They insisted that he must designate his successor before marching out — as Persian custom required. Darius had three sons by his first wife, the daughter of Gobryas, born before he became king, and four more by Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, born after he took the throne. The eldest of the first set was Artobazanes; the eldest of the second was Xerxes. Since they were born of different mothers, they quarreled. Artobazanes argued that he was the eldest of all the sons, and that universal custom gave the throne to the firstborn. Xerxes countered that he was the son of Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, and that Cyrus was the man who had won the Persians their freedom.
While Darius had not yet announced his decision, it happened that Demaratus — the deposed king of Sparta who had exiled himself to Persia — arrived at Susa at exactly this moment. Hearing about the dispute, Demaratus reportedly went to Xerxes and suggested a new argument: Xerxes should point out that he had been born after Darius became king, while Artobazanes had been born when Darius was still a private citizen. Therefore it was neither fitting nor just that another should take precedence. Even in Sparta, Demaratus noted, this was the custom: if a king had sons born before his accession, and then another born after, the later-born son inherited the throne. Xerxes used this argument, and Darius — finding it persuasive — designated him as successor. Though in my opinion, Xerxes would have become king regardless of Demaratus's advice, because Atossa wielded supreme influence.
Having named Xerxes as the next king, Darius was eager to set out on his campaigns. But in the year following the Egyptian revolt, before he could march, Darius died, having reigned for a total of thirty-six years. He never got his revenge — not on the rebellious Egyptians, and not on the Athenians.
The kingdom passed to Xerxes. At first, the new king had no interest whatsoever in invading Greece. Egypt was the priority, and that was where he focused his preparations. But Mardonius son of Gobryas, who was Xerxes' cousin — his mother was Darius's sister — had constant access to the king and more influence than any other Persian. He kept pressing the case: "My lord, it is not right that the Athenians, who have done us such terrible harm, should go unpunished. Finish what you're already doing — crush the Egyptian revolt — and then march against Athens. That way you'll earn a glorious reputation, and from now on, people will think twice before attacking your territory." That was the revenge argument. But Mardonius would always add something else: Europe, he said, was a beautiful land, incredibly fertile, with every kind of cultivated tree — a land fit for no one to possess except the king alone.
Mardonius said these things because he was a man who craved adventure and wanted to become the Persian governor of Greece. Eventually, he wore Xerxes down. Other factors helped his cause. Envoys had come from the Aleuadae, the ruling family of Thessaly, actively inviting Xerxes to invade Greece and pledging their full support. The sons of Pisistratus, who were at the Persian court, pushed the same message. They had even brought along an Athenian named Onomacritus — a man who collected and arranged the oracles of Musaeus, and who was also an oracle-monger himself. The Pisistratids had patched up their old quarrel with him. (Onomacritus had previously been banished from Athens by Hipparchus son of Pisistratus for being caught red-handed by Lasus of Hermione inserting a forged oracle into the works of Musaeus — one predicting that the islands off Lemnos would sink into the sea.) But now they'd made peace, and when they brought Onomacritus before the king, the sons of Pisistratus spoke of him in glowing terms. He recited various oracles for Xerxes — but if any of them predicted disaster for the Persians, he conveniently left those out. He selected only the most auspicious ones, telling the king that it was destined for a Persian to bridge the Hellespont, and describing the manner of the invasion. Between the oracles, the Pisistratids, and the Aleuadae, Xerxes was surrounded by voices urging him to march.
Once Xerxes was persuaded to invade Greece, he first dealt with the Egyptian revolt — the year after Darius's death. He subdued the country and imposed a harsher subjugation than it had suffered under Darius. He appointed his own brother Achaemenes, a son of Darius, as governor. (This Achaemenes was later killed by Inaros, son of Psammetichus, a Libyan.)
After conquering Egypt, Xerxes was ready to turn his attention to Athens. He summoned an assembly of the most distinguished Persians to hear their counsel and to announce his intentions. When they had gathered, Xerxes spoke:
"Persians, I am not establishing a new tradition but following one I inherited. As I learn from my elders, we Persians have never been at rest since we took the supremacy from the Medes, since Cyrus overthrew Astyages. It is the will of heaven that leads us, and our constant striving has served us well. I need not speak of the nations that Cyrus, Cambyses, and my father Darius conquered — you know them well. As for myself, from the moment I inherited this throne, I have thought ceaselessly about how I might live up to those who came before me and add no less to Persian power than they did. And I have found a way — a way to win glory, to gain a land no smaller or worse than what we possess now, and to take vengeance as well. That is why I have assembled you: to share my plans.
"I intend to bridge the Hellespont, march an army through Europe, and attack Greece — to punish the Athenians for everything they have done to us and to my father. You saw how my father was preparing to march against them when death took him before he could have his revenge. I will not stop until I have conquered Athens and burned it to the ground. They wronged us first — unprovoked. They came to Sardis with Aristagoras, that slave of ours from Miletus, and burned our sacred groves and temples. And then what they did to us at Marathon, when Datis and Artaphernes commanded our army, you all know well enough.
"For these reasons I am resolved to march. And when I calculate the advantages, here is what I find: if we conquer the Athenians and their neighbors in the land of Pelops the Phrygian, we will make the Persian empire border the sky of Zeus itself. The sun will look down on no land that borders ours that is not part of our domain. With your help, I will make all the lands of the earth into one — for I am told there is no city or nation remaining that can stand against us, once we have dealt with these. The guilty and the innocent alike will wear the yoke.
"You will please me best by being ready when I give the word. Whoever brings the best-equipped force will receive the most magnificent gifts our land can offer. That is how it must be done. But so that I am not seen to act on my own counsel alone, I open the floor: anyone who wishes may speak his mind."
After Xerxes sat down, Mardonius spoke next: "My lord, you surpass not only every Persian who came before you but every one who will come after. Everything you have said is perfectly true and perfectly judged. Above all, you are right that you will not allow the Ionians living in Europe to make fools of us. It would be a strange thing indeed if we — who have conquered and kept as subjects Sacae, Indians, Ethiopians, Assyrians, and countless other great nations that never did us any harm, simply because we wanted to expand our empire — should then fail to punish the Greeks, who wronged us without provocation. What do we have to fear from them? Their numbers? Their wealth? We know how they fight, and we know how weak they are. We've already conquered their sons — the Ionians, Aeolians, and Dorians living in our territory. And I myself have personal experience of marching against these people, when your father sent me. I got all the way to Macedonia — practically to Athens itself — and no one came out to fight me.
"The Greeks do wage war, I'm told, but they do it in the most senseless way imaginable. When they declare war on each other, they find the flattest, most open field they can, march down to it, and have a battle — so that even the winners walk away having suffered terrible losses. I won't even mention the losers, because they're completely destroyed. These are people who speak the same language! They ought to settle their differences with heralds and negotiations rather than battles. And if they absolutely must fight, each side should find the terrain where it has the greatest advantage. Instead, they use a method so foolish that when I marched to Macedonia, none of them even considered opposing me. Who, then, is going to resist you, King, when you lead the full might of Asia and the entire fleet? No. The Greeks are not that bold. But even if I'm wrong, and they do something reckless enough to meet us in battle, they'll learn that we are the best fighters in the world. In any case, nothing should be left untried — nothing comes to men without effort."
Mardonius had neatly smoothed over Xerxes' position and then fell silent. The other Persians said nothing — no one dared contradict the king's stated intention. Then Artabanus son of Hystaspes, Xerxes' uncle, spoke up. He had the confidence of his kinship to rely on.
"O King, if opposing views are not heard, then it is impossible to choose the better course — you have to go with whatever has been said. But when both sides are heard, you can distinguish the better argument, just as you cannot judge gold by looking at it alone but only by rubbing it against a touchstone next to other gold. I gave your father Darius this same advice: I told him not to march against the Scythians, a people who had no cities to conquer. He didn't listen. He marched and came back having lost many good men. But the people you intend to fight, O King, are far better than the Scythians. They are reported to be excellent fighters both on land and at sea. And I must tell you what is to be feared.
"You say you will bridge the Hellespont and march through Europe to Greece. Now suppose you are defeated — on land, or at sea, or both. These men are formidable. We can judge as much for ourselves: the Athenians alone destroyed the entire army that Datis and Artaphernes brought against them. But even if they don't succeed on both fronts — even if they only win at sea and then sail to the Hellespont and destroy the bridge — that, O King, is the real danger.
"This is no idle conjecture on my part. Something very nearly like this happened before, when your father bridged the Bosporus and the Danube and crossed over to attack the Scythians. The Scythians used every argument they could to persuade the Ionians guarding the bridge to destroy it. And if Histiaeus, the tyrant of Miletus, had sided with the other tyrants instead of opposing them, the entire might of Persia would have been destroyed. It is a terrifying thing even to say: the survival of the whole empire came down to one man's decision.
"So do not rush into this danger when there is no need. Dismiss this assembly. Think it over carefully, by yourself. Then announce whatever seems best to you. Good counsel is worth everything. Even if fortune goes against you, the counsel was still sound — it was merely defeated by chance. But a man who plans badly and gets lucky has stumbled onto a prize by accident. His counsel was still bad.
"You see how God strikes down with thunderbolts the creatures that tower above the rest, and does not allow them to display their pride — while the small ones do not provoke him. You see how he always hurls his bolts at the tallest buildings and the tallest trees. God likes to cut down whatever stands above the rest. And in the same way, a great army can be destroyed by a small one, when God grows jealous and sends panic or thunder against them, and they are destroyed in a way that does not match their strength. God tolerates no one having high thoughts but himself.
"Haste in any endeavor breeds disaster. From patience come many good things — perhaps not obvious at first, but revealed in time.
"That is my counsel to you, O King. And you, Mardonius, son of Gobryas — stop belittling the Greeks. They do not deserve it. By slandering them, you are goading the king toward this expedition, which is exactly what you want. Don't do it. Slander is a vile thing: it involves two wrongdoers and one victim. The slanderer wrongs the absent man; the listener wrongs him by believing the slander before knowing the truth; and the absent man is wronged by both.
"But if this expedition absolutely must happen, then here is my proposal: let the king himself stay in Persia. You and I will each stake our sons' lives on the outcome. Lead your own army — pick the men you want, take as large a force as you please. If things go as you predict, let my sons be killed, and me along with them. But if things go as I predict, let your sons die — and you too, if you make it home. And if you're not willing to accept those terms but insist on leading the army to Greece anyway, then I will tell you this: those who stay behind in Persia will hear that Mardonius, having brought ruin on the Persians, was torn apart by dogs and birds — either in the land of the Athenians or in the land of the Spartans, if not sooner along the way. Then you will know what kind of men you are urging the king to fight."
Xerxes was furious. "Artabanus," he replied, "you are my father's brother, and that alone will save you from the punishment your foolish words deserve. But I do attach this dishonor to you: you are a coward, and you will not march with me against Greece. You will stay here with the women. I will accomplish everything I said — without your help. May I not be a descendant of Darius, son of Hystaspes, son of Arsames, son of Ariaramnes, son of Teispes, son of Cyrus, son of Cambyses, son of Teispes, son of Achaemenes — may I not be a Persian at all — if I fail to take vengeance on the Athenians. I know perfectly well that even if we keep still, they will not. They will attack us again — if we judge by what they have already done, burning Sardis and invading Asia. There is no stepping back for either side. The question is whether we will act or be acted upon, whether all Greek lands will fall under Persian rule or all Persian lands under theirs. There is no middle ground in this enmity. It is only right that we, who were wronged first, should take revenge. And then I will find out what terrible thing awaits me when I march against these men — men whom Pelops the Phrygian, slave to my ancestors, conquered so thoroughly that to this very day both the people and the land bear his name."
That ended the day's debate. But that night, Artabanus's words kept gnawing at Xerxes. He thought it over in the dark and decided that invading Greece was actually a bad idea. Having reached this new conclusion, he fell asleep — and saw a vision. According to the Persians, a tall, handsome figure appeared beside his bed and spoke: "So you are changing your mind, Persian? You announced to your people that they should gather an army, and now you are reversing yourself? You are wrong to change your mind, and the one who stands before you will not excuse it. Follow the course you set by day."
The figure vanished. When dawn came, Xerxes ignored the dream completely. He reassembled the Persians and addressed them: "Persians, forgive me for changing my mind so quickly. My judgment is not yet fully mature, and the men who urge this expedition on me never leave me alone. When I first heard Artabanus's opinion, my youthful temper flared up, and I said things to an older man that I should not have said. But now I see that he was right, and I will follow his advice. I have decided not to march against Greece. Be at peace."
The Persians were delighted and bowed in relief. But when night came again, the same dream appeared to Xerxes: "Son of Darius, so you have publicly abandoned the expedition and ignored my words, as if they came from nobody? Know this: if you do not march immediately, then just as you rose to greatness in a short time, so you will be brought low again just as quickly."
Xerxes leaped from his bed in terror and sent for Artabanus. "Uncle," he said, "I apologize for the foolish things I said to you because of your good advice. It wasn't long before I changed my mind and realized you were right. But I find I cannot do what you suggested, much as I want to. Ever since I reversed my decision, a dream keeps haunting me — it will not let me abandon the expedition. Just now it left me with a direct threat. If this dream is sent by a god, and it is truly the divine will that we invade Greece, then the same dream will come to you as well. Here is what I think: put on my clothes, sit on my throne, and then go to sleep in my bed."
Artabanus was reluctant at first — he didn't think it proper to sit on the royal throne. But Xerxes insisted, and finally Artabanus agreed, though not before making a speech:
"In my view, having wisdom and being willing to listen to good advice amount to the same thing. You possess both qualities, but you have been led astray by bad associates — just as they say the sea, which is the most useful thing in the world for mankind, is prevented by the blasts of wind from being true to its own nature. When you spoke harshly to me, what stung me was not the insult itself. It was this: when two courses were offered to the Persians — one that fed their arrogance, one that restrained it and counseled that the soul should not always be grasping for more — you chose the more dangerous course.
"Now you say you've come around to the better view, but a dream sent by some god will not let you abandon the expedition. My son, this is not the work of the divine. Dreams are nothing more than the things we were thinking about during the day, wandering through our sleep at night. And we have been thinking about nothing but this campaign for days.
"But if this dream is truly something more than I think — if it does come from God — then you have summed it up well: let it appear to me just as it appeared to you. But I must say, it is no more likely to appear because I am wearing your clothes or sleeping in your bed. Whatever this thing is, it is surely not so foolish as to see me in your robes and mistake me for you. The real test is whether it ignores me completely and keeps haunting only you — whether I am dressed in my own clothes or yours. If it does haunt me, I will be willing to call it divine. But until then, I will hold to my own view."
Expecting to prove Xerxes wrong, Artabanus put on the king's robes, sat on the royal throne, and then went to sleep in Xerxes' bed. The same dream that had been visiting Xerxes came and stood over him: "Are you the one who is trying to dissuade Xerxes from marching against Greece, pretending to be concerned for his welfare? You will not escape punishment — not now, not in the future — for trying to deflect what is fated to happen. As for Xerxes, what will happen to him if he disobeys has already been made clear to the man himself."
That was the threat. And then — Artabanus dreamed — the figure moved to burn out his eyes with red-hot irons. He leaped from the bed with a scream, sat down beside Xerxes, described every detail of the dream, and then said:
"O King, I have seen great things brought low by lesser ones. I urged you not to give in to the impulses of youth, because I knew how dangerous it is to be always wanting more. I remembered how Cyrus's campaign against the Massagetae ended. I remembered Cambyses' expedition against the Ethiopians. And I served alongside your father on the march against the Scythians. Knowing all this, I believed you would be the envy of all men if you simply kept still. But now a divine force is at work, and heaven-sent destruction, it seems, is reaching out for the Greeks. I am changed. I reverse my position. Tell the Persians that God has sent you this vision. Order them to follow the preparations you originally commanded. Do everything in your power — since God is handing this to you, let nothing on your side be lacking."
That settled it. Emboldened by the vision, both men waited for dawn. Then Xerxes announced the expedition to the Persians, and Artabanus — who alone had stood against the war — now came forward to urge it on.
After this, Xerxes had a third dream. He dreamed he was crowned with a wreath of olive branches, and the shoots from the olive tree spread until they covered the entire earth — and then the wreath disappeared from his head. The Magi interpreted this to mean that Xerxes would rule the world, that all people would become his subjects. Every Persian who had been assembled went home to his province and threw himself into preparations with extraordinary zeal, each hoping to win the magnificent rewards Xerxes had promised. And so Xerxes gathered his army, searching every corner of the continent.
For four full years after the conquest of Egypt, he prepared the army and everything it would need. In the course of the fifth year, he set out on campaign with a force of staggering magnitude. Of all the armies ever assembled in human history, this was by far the greatest. The army Darius led against the Scythians was nothing compared to it. Neither was the Scythian horde that had poured into Media chasing the Cimmerians and conquered nearly all of upper Asia — the invasion Darius had later tried to avenge. Nor the army of the sons of Atreus at Troy — if we can trust what is said about it. Nor the force of the Mysians and Teucrians who before the Trojan War crossed the Bosporus into Europe, conquered all the Thracians, and pushed south to the Adriatic Sea and as far as the river Peneus. All of those expeditions combined — and any others you care to add — do not equal this single one. What nation did Xerxes not lead out of Asia against Greece? What river was not drunk dry by his host, save only the greatest? Some nations supplied ships, some infantry, some cavalry, some horse-transports while also serving as soldiers, some warships for the bridges, some supply vessels.
The first major engineering project was the canal at Athos. After the fleet's catastrophe there on the previous expedition, work had been underway for about three years. Triremes anchored at Elaeus in the Chersonese served as the base of operations, and men from every nation in the army were set to digging, driven by the lash, working in shifts. The people living around Athos dug too. The project was overseen by two Persians: Bubares son of Megabazus and Artachaees son of Artaeus. Mount Athos is a great and famous mountain that runs down to the sea, inhabited by people. Where it meets the mainland, the terrain forms something like a peninsula, with an isthmus about twelve stades across. The isthmus is flat land or low hills, stretching from the sea off Acanthus to the sea off Torone. On the isthmus, where Athos ends, stands a Greek city called Sane, and beyond it, within the Athos peninsula, are other cities: Dion, Olophyxus, Acrothoum, Thyssus, and Cleonae. The Persian canal would turn all of these into island cities.
Here is how they dug. The work was divided by nationality, with each contingent assigned a section. They drew a straight line across the isthmus at Sane. When the channel grew deep, the men at the bottom dug while others passed the earth up to men standing on the sides above them, like a bucket brigade on steps, until it reached the top, where the last group carried it off and dumped it. Every nation except the Phoenicians had twice the work it needed to, because their trench walls kept collapsing: naturally, when you make the cut at the top the same width as the bottom, the sides will cave in. But the Phoenicians showed their characteristic engineering skill. When they received their section, they dug the opening at the top twice as wide as the channel was meant to be at the bottom, then gradually narrowed it as they went deeper. By the time they reached the bottom, their section was exactly the same width as everyone else's — but with no cave-ins. In a meadow nearby, a marketplace was set up for the workers, and great quantities of pre-ground grain were shipped in from Asia on a regular basis.
It seems to me, thinking about this project, that Xerxes ordered the canal dug out of pure love of magnificence and a desire to display his power and leave a lasting monument. They could easily have dragged the ships across the isthmus with far less effort. But instead he ordered a canal wide enough for two triremes to sail through side by side, propelled by oars. The same workforce was also assigned to bridge the river Strymon.
While these projects were underway, Xerxes was also having ropes manufactured for the Hellespont bridges — ropes of papyrus and white flax, the Phoenicians making one kind and the Egyptians the other. He also had provisions stockpiled along the army's route, so that neither the troops nor the pack animals would go hungry during the march. After surveying the best locations, he had supplies shipped by merchant vessels and ferries from all across Asia. Most of the grain was deposited at a place called White Cape in Thrace. Other stockpiles went to Tyrodiza in the territory of the Perinthians, to Doriscus, to Eion on the Strymon, and to Macedonia — the work divided among them all.
While the supply lines and engineering projects moved forward, the entire land army was assembling. It marched with Xerxes from Critalla in Cappadocia — the designated assembly point for all forces traveling with the king overland — to Sardis. Which governor brought the best-equipped contingent and won the king's promised prize, I cannot say, because I'm not even sure the competition actually took place. After crossing the Halys River and entering Phrygia, the army marched to Celaenae, where the sources of the Maeander River rise, along with another river no smaller — the Catarractes, which rises right in the city's marketplace and flows into the Maeander. It is also in Celaenae that the flayed skin of the satyr Marsyas hangs, which the Phrygians say Apollo himself stripped off and hung up.
At Celaenae, a Lydian named Pythius son of Atys was waiting for the king. He entertained Xerxes and his entire army with the most lavish hospitality imaginable, and offered to fund the war. When Pythius made this offer, Xerxes asked his courtiers who this man was and how much money he had. They told him: "This is the man who gave your father Darius the famous golden plane tree and golden vine. Even now, he is the wealthiest man we know of — after you."
Xerxes was impressed and asked Pythius directly how much money he had. Pythius replied: "O King, I will not hide the truth or pretend ignorance of my own fortune. I know exactly what I have, because as soon as I heard you were marching to the coast, I counted it all, wanting to offer it to you for the war. I have two thousand talents of silver, and of Daric gold staters I have four million — minus seven thousand. All of this I give you. I have enough to live on from my slaves and my land."
Xerxes was delighted. "My Lydian host," he said, "since I left Persian territory, you are the only man who has offered to entertain my army or voluntarily contributed money for the war. You have feasted us magnificently, and now you offer an enormous sum. In return, I give you these rewards: I make you my guest-friend, and I will complete your four million staters by adding the seven thousand from my own treasury, so that your account is a round number — not short by those seven thousand, but full and complete, thanks to me. Keep what you have. Continue to be the man you are. You will never regret it."
He kept his promise and continued the march. Passing through Anaua, a Phrygian city, and a lake where salt is produced, he reached Colossae, a great city of Phrygia where the river Lycus plunges into a chasm in the earth, vanishes, and reappears about five stades later before flowing into the Maeander. From Colossae, the army marched to the boundary between Phrygia and Lydia, arriving at the city of Cydrara, where a pillar erected by Croesus marks the border with an inscription.
Entering Lydia, the road forks: the left branch leads to Caria, the right to Sardis. Taking the right-hand road, the army had to cross the Maeander and pass by the city of Callatebos, where the inhabitants make a kind of honey from tamarisk and wheat flour. Along this road, Xerxes came upon a plane tree of such extraordinary beauty that he adorned it with gold ornaments and appointed a permanent guardian for it in perpetuity. The next day he reached Sardis.
At Sardis, Xerxes sent heralds throughout Greece demanding earth and water — the tokens of submission — and ordering advance preparation of meals for the king's arrival. He sent these demands to every Greek state except Athens and Sparta. The reason he sent a second time for earth and water — Darius having already made the same demand — was that he expected fear of his massive force would succeed where Darius had failed. He wanted to test this theory.
After this, he made preparations to march to Abydos, while his engineers were bridging the Hellespont from Asia to Europe. In the Chersonese, between the cities of Sestus and Madytus, a broad headland juts into the sea directly opposite Abydos. This is the place where, not long afterward, the Athenians under Xanthippus son of Ariphon captured Artayctes, a Persian governor of Sestus, and nailed him alive to a plank — this was the man who used to bring women into the temple of Protesilaus at Elaeus and commit sacrilege there.
Two bridge crews were assigned to the headland, working from the Abydos side. The Phoenicians built one bridge using ropes of white flax, the Egyptians the other using papyrus rope. The distance from Abydos to the opposite shore is seven stades. When the bridges were completed, a massive storm swept in, smashed everything to pieces, and broke both bridges apart.
When Xerxes heard this, he was beside himself with rage. He ordered the Hellespont to be given three hundred lashes with a whip, and had a pair of shackles lowered into the water. I have even heard that he sent men with branding irons to brand it as well. In any case, as the men lashed the water, they were ordered to say: "Bitter water, your master inflicts this punishment on you because you wronged him without having been wronged by him. King Xerxes will cross you whether you like it or not. You deserve no sacrifices from any man — you treacherous, foul stream." That was how the sea was punished. As for the engineers who had supervised the bridging, Xerxes had their heads cut off.
The men assigned to that ugly duty carried out their orders. Then new chief engineers set about building replacement bridges. Here is how they did it. They anchored together fifty-oared galleys and triremes — three hundred and sixty for the bridge on the Black Sea side, three hundred and fourteen for the other — positioning the vessels parallel to the current but perpendicular to the strait, to support the tension of the ropes. Very heavy anchors were set: on the Black Sea side against the winds blowing out from within, on the western side against the south and southeast winds. They left a gap in the line of ships so that small vessels could still sail in and out of the Black Sea. Then they stretched the ropes tight using wooden windlasses. This time, instead of using separate rope types for each bridge, they assigned each bridge two ropes of white flax and four of papyrus. The ropes were of equal thickness and beautiful workmanship, though the flax ropes were heavier — a cubit's length weighing one talent. Once the ropes were taut, they sawed logs to the width of the bridge and laid them across the ropes, fastened them down, and then spread brushwood on top of the logs, then packed earth over the brushwood, and stamped it firm. Finally, they built barriers along both sides so the pack animals and horses would not panic at seeing the sea below.
When the bridges were finished — and when the Athos canal was also reported complete, including the breakwaters at its mouth to prevent the openings from silting up — the army, having spent the winter at Sardis, set out at the beginning of spring for Abydos. But just as they departed, the sun vanished from the sky — though there were no clouds and the air was perfectly clear. Day turned to night. Xerxes was alarmed and asked the Magi what this portent meant. They told him the sun foretold the future for the Greeks, and the moon for the Persians; therefore the god was announcing the abandonment of Greek cities. Reassured, Xerxes continued the march in high spirits.
Then, as the army was moving out, Pythius the Lydian — unnerved by the celestial sign but emboldened by the gifts he had received — came to Xerxes with a request. "My lord, I have a favor to ask. It would be a small thing for you to grant, but it would mean the world to me." Xerxes, expecting the request to be for anything but what it actually turned out to be, told him to speak freely. Encouraged, Pythius said: "My lord, I have five sons, and all five are marching with you against Greece. I am an old man. I ask you, out of compassion, to release just one of them — the eldest — so that he may take care of me and my estates. Take the other four with you, and may you accomplish everything you have in mind and return home safely."
Xerxes exploded with fury. "You miserable wretch! I am marching against Greece in person, taking my own sons, my brothers, my relatives, my friends — and you dare mention your son? You are my slave! You should be marching alongside me with your entire household, your wife included! Know this: the spirit of a man lives in his ears. When it hears good things, it fills the body with joy. When it hears shameful things, it swells with rage. When you did me good and offered more, you cannot boast of having outdone the king in generosity — for I matched your gifts. And now that you have turned to shamelessness, you will receive less than you deserve. Your hospitality saves your own life and the lives of four of your sons. But the one you cling to most — that one will pay the price."
Having said this, he immediately gave orders. His men found the eldest son of Pythius, cut him in half, and placed one half on the right side of the road and the other on the left. The army marched between them.
First came the baggage train with the pack animals. Then the main body — a vast horde of every nation, marching without distinction. When more than half had passed, there was a gap, separating the common troops from the king. Before Xerxes himself rode a thousand elite Persian horsemen, then a thousand elite spearmen with their spear-points turned toward the ground. Then came ten sacred horses of the Nesaean breed, in magnificent trappings. (These horses are called Nesaean because they come from a great plain of that name in Media, which produces these enormous horses.) Behind the ten horses came the sacred chariot of Zeus, drawn by eight white horses, with a charioteer following on foot — for no mortal may sit in that chariot's seat. Behind the chariot came Xerxes himself in a chariot drawn by Nesaean horses, his charioteer riding beside him — a man named Patiramphes, son of Otanes the Persian.
That is how Xerxes marched out of Sardis. He would switch between the chariot and a covered carriage whenever he pleased. Behind him marched another thousand of the noblest Persian spearmen, holding their weapons in the customary way. After them, another thousand picked horsemen. After the horsemen, ten thousand infantry selected from the rest of the Persians — the Immortals. A thousand of these had golden pomegranates on the butts of their spears instead of the usual spike; these formed the outer ring. The nine thousand within them carried silver pomegranates. The men who marched with their spear-points toward the ground also carried golden pomegranates, while those closest behind Xerxes carried golden apples. After the ten thousand Immortals came ten thousand Persian cavalry, and after the cavalry a gap of about two stades. Then the rest of the army followed in one undifferentiated mass.
The army marched from Lydia to the Caicus River and the land of Mysia. From the Caicus, keeping Mount Cane on the left, it passed through the territory of Atarneus to the city of Carene, then across the Theban plain past the cities of Adramyttium and Antandrus of the Pelasgians. With Mount Ida on the left, the army entered the land of Troy. And there, while camped at night beneath Ida, a thunderstorm struck and killed a great many men.
When the army reached the river Scamander — the first river since leaving Sardis that failed to provide enough water for the army and its animals — Xerxes went up to the citadel of Priam. He had wanted to see it. After touring the ruins and hearing the full history of the place, he sacrificed a thousand heifers to Athena of Ilion, and the Magi poured libations in honor of the heroes. After they did this, a panic fell upon the army in the night. At dawn, Xerxes set out again, keeping on his left the cities of Rhoeteum, Ophrynium, and Dardanus (which borders on Abydos), with the Gergithian Teucrians on his right.
When Xerxes arrived at Abydos, he wanted to see his entire army. A throne of white stone had been built for him on a hilltop — the people of Abydos had constructed it in advance at the king's orders. He took his seat there and looked down at the shore. He gazed at his land forces. He gazed at his fleet. As he watched, he felt a desire to see the ships compete in a race. A contest was held, and the Phoenicians of Sidon won. Xerxes was delighted, both with the race and with the whole spectacle of his armament.
Then, looking out and seeing the entire Hellespont covered with ships, and every beach and every plain of Abydos packed with men, Xerxes declared himself a happy man.
And then he began to weep.
His uncle Artabanus — the same man who had first spoken out boldly against the invasion — noticed the tears and said: "O King, what a contrast between what you are doing now and what you said a moment ago. You called yourself happy, and now you weep." Xerxes replied: "I was struck by a sudden thought — how pitifully short is the whole span of human life. Of all these thousands of men, not a single one will be alive a hundred years from now." Artabanus answered: "And yet there are things in life even more pitiable than that. Short as life is, there is not a single person among all these men — or among any people anywhere — so fortunate that the wish to be dead rather than alive will not come to him, not once but many times. Misfortunes fall on us, diseases afflict us, and they make even a short life feel unbearably long. Death has become the most welcome refuge a man has. And God, having given us a taste of life's sweetness, turns out to be jealous even in that."
Xerxes said: "Artabanus, let us not dwell on human life, which is as you describe it. Let us not think of sorrows when we have good fortune in hand. But tell me this: if the dream had not appeared so clearly, would you still hold to your original opinion, opposing the march against Greece? Or have you changed your mind?" Artabanus answered: "O King, may the dream be fulfilled as we both wish. But I am still full of fear, and I cannot contain it. There are many things that worry me, but above all, I can see that two of the greatest things in the world are utterly hostile to you."
"What are these two things?" Xerxes asked. "Is the land army not large enough? Do you think the Greek army will outnumber ours many times over? Or do you think our fleet will fall short of theirs? Or both? Because if you think our forces are insufficient, I can raise another army immediately."
Artabanus replied: "O King, no man of sense could find fault with this army or this fleet. And if you assembled even more, the two enemies I speak of would only become more dangerous. These two enemies are the land and the sea. The sea, I believe, has no harbor anywhere large enough to shelter your fleet if a storm strikes — and you would need not just one such harbor, but many, all along the coast as you sail. Since there are no such harbors, understand this: accidents master men; men do not master accidents.
"That is one of the two. The other is the land. The land is hostile to you in this way: if no one comes out to oppose you, the land itself becomes more and more your enemy the further you advance — always tempting you onward, because men can never get enough of success. What I am saying is this: even with no opposition, the sheer distance of the march through ever-expanding territory will eventually produce famine. The best kind of man is one who feels fear when making plans — imagining every possible disaster — but acts boldly when the time comes."
Xerxes replied: "Artabanus, your reasoning is sound, but you cannot be afraid of everything. If you weighed every possibility equally, you would never accomplish anything. Better to be bold about everything and risk half the dangers than to be anxious about everything and risk nothing. If you argue against every proposal without offering a safe alternative, you're just as likely to fail as the man who urges the opposite course. How can any mortal know the safe path? No one can. Success generally comes to those who are willing to act, not to those who calculate and hang back. Look how far the Persian empire has advanced. If the kings before me had thought like you, or had advisers like you, the empire would never have grown to what it is. They took risks, and that is how great power was won. We are following their example, marching in the finest season. After we conquer all of Europe, we will return home without encountering famine or any other unpleasantness. We carry our own provisions, and we will take the crops of every land we enter. We are marching against farmers, not nomads."
Artabanus then offered one final piece of advice: "O King, since you insist on dismissing all fear, at least accept this counsel. Cyrus conquered all of Ionia except Athens, making it tributary to Persia. I urge you: do not lead the Ionians against their mother country. Even without them, we can defeat our enemies. If they come with us, they must either commit a terrible injustice by helping to enslave their parent cities, or a great act of justice by helping to free them. If they choose injustice, they add little to our strength. If they choose justice, they can cause devastating damage to our army. Remember the old proverb: at the beginning of things, the end is not yet in sight."
Xerxes answered: "Artabanus, of all your opinions, this one is the most mistaken. You worry that the Ionians might switch sides? But we have the best possible proof of their loyalty — and you yourself are a witness to it, along with everyone who marched with Darius against the Scythians. The fate of the entire Persian army was in the Ionians' hands then. They could have destroyed us or saved us. They chose loyalty and good faith, and showed nothing hostile. Besides, they have left their children, wives, and property in our territory. We need not even consider the possibility of rebellion. So set that fear aside, be of good courage, and guard my house and my authority. To you alone of all men I entrust my scepter."
Having said this, Xerxes sent Artabanus home to Susa. He then summoned the most distinguished Persians and addressed them: "Persians, I have gathered you here to ask you to prove yourselves worthy men who do not disgrace the great and glorious deeds of our predecessors. Let each of us individually, and all of us together, be zealous in this enterprise, for the good we seek is shared by all. I urge you: do not let up in the war, because the enemy we march against, I am told, are good fighters. If we overcome them, no other army on earth will ever stand against us. Now let us cross, after praying to the gods who watch over Persia."
That day was spent in preparation. The next morning, they waited for the sun to rise. While they waited, they burned incense of every kind on the bridges and strewed the roadway with myrtle branches. As the sun came up, Xerxes poured a libation from a golden cup into the sea and prayed to the sun: let no accident befall him that would prevent him from conquering all of Europe, clear to its farthest edges. After the prayer, he threw the cup into the Hellespont, along with a golden mixing bowl and a Persian short sword, which they call an akinakes. Whether these were offerings dedicated to the sun, or whether Xerxes was making amends to the sea for having scourged it, I cannot say for certain.
Then the crossing began. The entire infantry and cavalry went over one bridge — the one facing the Black Sea — while the baggage animals and camp followers used the other, facing the Aegean. The ten thousand Immortals led the way, all wearing wreaths. After them came the mixed body of troops from every nation. That was the first day. On the second day, first came the cavalry and the soldiers with their spear-points turned downward, also wearing wreaths. Then the sacred horses, the sacred chariot of Zeus, and then Xerxes himself with his spear-bearers and his thousand horsemen. After them, the rest of the army. At the same time, the fleet put out from shore and sailed to the opposite coast. (I have heard another account, though, that says the king was actually the last to cross.)
When Xerxes reached Europe, he watched his army crossing under the lash. It took seven days and seven nights, without pause, for the entire force to get across. After the crossing was complete, a local man is said to have exclaimed: "Zeus, why have you disguised yourself as a Persian and taken the name Xerxes instead of your own, and brought every nation on earth with you to destroy Greece? You could have done it without all of them."
After the entire army had crossed and was on the march, a great omen appeared — which Xerxes ignored, even though its meaning was obvious. A mare gave birth to a hare. The interpretation was clear enough: Xerxes was marching against Greece in great pomp and magnificence, but he would come running back to the same spot, fleeing for his life. There had been another portent while he was still at Sardis: a mule had given birth to a foal with both male and female reproductive organs. Xerxes ignored both omens and pressed on.
The fleet sailed out of the Hellespont and headed west, coasting toward the promontory of Sarpedon where it had been ordered to wait. Meanwhile, the land army marched east through the Chersonese, keeping the tomb of Helle daughter of Athamas on the right and the city of Cardia on the left, passing through a town called Agora. From there the army rounded the Gulf of Melas, crossed the river Melas — another stream that failed to supply enough water for the army — and marched westward past Aenus, a city of the Aeolians, and past Lake Stentoris, until they reached Doriscus.
Doriscus is a broad coastal plain in Thrace, through which flows the great river Hebrus. A royal fortress had been built there and garrisoned by Darius ever since his Scythian campaign. Xerxes decided it was the right place to organize and count his army. He ordered all the ship captains to bring their vessels to the beach at Doriscus — near the town of Sale (which belongs to the people of Samothrace), the town of Zone, and the promontory of Serreion. This was old Ciconian territory. The ships were beached and hauled up to dry, while Xerxes set about the count.
I cannot give precise figures for each nation's contribution — no one reports that — but the total number of the land army came to one million seven hundred thousand. Here is how they counted them: they packed ten thousand men together as tightly as they could in one place, drew a circle around them, and let them go. Then they built a low stone wall around the circle, waist-high. After that, they marched other groups into the enclosure, batch after batch, until everyone had been counted. They were then organized by nationality.
Here are the nations that served. The Persians wore soft felt caps called tiaras on their heads, embroidered tunics with sleeves that looked like fish scales made of iron, and trousers on their legs. Instead of ordinary shields, they carried wicker shields with quivers hanging behind them. They had short spears, large bows, reed arrows, and daggers hanging from the belt on the right thigh. Their commander was Otanes, the father of Amestris who was Xerxes' wife. The Persians were called Cephenes in ancient times by the Greeks, though they and their neighbors knew them as Artaeans. They trace their name to Perseus, who came to Cepheus and married his daughter Andromeda; their son Perses gave his name to the people.
The Medes served in identical equipment — this style of arms is actually Median, not Persian — under the command of Tigranes, an Achaemenid. The Cissians were armed like Persians but wore headbands instead of felt caps, commanded by Anaphes son of Otanes. The Hyrcanians were armed like Persians, led by Megapanus, who later became governor of Babylon. The Assyrians wore bronze helmets of a peculiar braided style hard to describe, and carried shields, spears, Egyptian-style daggers, wooden clubs studded with iron, and linen corselets. (The Greeks call these people Syrians; among themselves they have always been Assyrians.) Their commander was Otaspes son of Artachaees. The Bactrians wore headgear similar to the Medes and carried native bows of reed and short spears. The Sacae — Scythians whom the Persians call Sacans — wore tall pointed caps that stood up stiff, and carried trousers, native bows, daggers, and the battle-axe called the sagaris. Bactrians and Sacae were commanded by Hystaspes, son of Darius and Atossa.
The Indians wore garments of cotton and carried reed bows with iron-tipped arrows, assigned to Pharnazathres son of Artabates. The Arians carried Median bows but otherwise resembled the Bactrians, under Sisamnes son of Hydarnes. The Parthians, Chorasmians, Sogdians, Gandarians, and Dadicans all carried Bactrian-style equipment, each with their own commanders. The Caspians wore animal-skin coats, carried native bows and short swords, led by Ariomardus brother of Artyphius. The Sarangians stood out for their brightly dyed garments and knee-high boots, with Median bows and spears, under Pherendates son of Megabazus. The Pactyans wore skin coats and carried native bows and daggers, led by Artayntes son of Ithamitres. The Utians, Mycians, and Paricanians were equipped like the Pactyans. The Arabians wore loose mantles belted at the waist and carried enormous recurved bows on their right sides. The Ethiopians wore skins of leopards and lions, and their bows — enormous, at least four cubits long — were made from a single slip of palm wood. Their tiny reed arrows were tipped not with iron but with sharpened stone, the same kind used for engraving seals. They also carried spears tipped with gazelle horn, and heavy clubs. When going into battle, they painted half their bodies white and the other half red. The Arabians and the upper Ethiopians were commanded by Arsames, son of Darius and Artystone — the wife Darius loved above all others, for whom he had an image made in beaten gold.
The eastern Ethiopians — a different group from the African Ethiopians — served alongside the Indians. They were identical to the others except in language and hair: the eastern Ethiopians had straight hair, while the Libyans had the thickest, woolliest hair of any people on earth. The Asian Ethiopians were armed mostly like the Indians, but wore horse-scalp helmets with the ears standing upright, and used crane-skin shields. The Libyans wore leather equipment and fought with fire-hardened javelins, under Massages son of Oarizus.
The Paphlagonians wore braided helmets, small shields, and carried modest spears, javelins, daggers, and native boots reaching to mid-shin. The Ligyans, Matienians, Mariandynians, and Syrians (called Cappadocians by the Persians) all used similar equipment. The Phrygians were armed almost identically to the Paphlagonians — and according to the Macedonians, the Phrygians were originally called Brygians when they lived in Europe alongside the Macedonians, changing their name only after they migrated to Asia. The Armenians, being Phrygian colonists, were armed the same way. The Lydians had weapons closely resembling Greek ones; they were originally called Maeonians and took their current name from Lydus son of Atys. The Mysians wore native helmets, carried small shields, and used fire-hardened javelins. The Lydians and Mysians were commanded by Artaphernes — the same Artaphernes who, together with Datis, had led the attack at Marathon.
The Thracians wore fox-skin caps and tunics with colorful cloaks thrown over them, deerskin boots, and carried javelins, bucklers, and small daggers. After crossing to Asia they became known as Bithynians, though they say they were originally called Strymonians since they lived along the river Strymon. The Meonian Cabelians (also called Lasonians) had Cilician-style equipment. The Milyans carried short spears, wore leather caps, and some had Lycian bows. The Moschians wore wooden helmets and carried shields and long-pointed spears. The Tibarenians, Macronians, and Mossynoecians were similarly equipped. The Mares wore native braided helmets, carried hide shields and javelins. The Colchians wore wooden helmets and carried raw ox-hide shields, short spears, and knives.
The island peoples from the Red Sea region — those settled on islands where the king keeps his exiled subjects, called "the Removed" — had equipment resembling the Medes.
These were the nations that served in the infantry. The commanders I have mentioned organized them into divisions and appointed officers. The supreme commanders of the entire land force were six: Mardonius son of Gobryas; Tritantaechmes son of Artabanus (the very Artabanus who had argued against the invasion); Smerdomenes son of Otanes (both Tritantaechmes and Smerdomenes being cousins of Xerxes, sons of Darius's brothers); Masistes son of Darius and Atossa; Gergis son of Ariazus; and Megabyzus son of Zopyrus.
The Immortals — the elite ten thousand — were commanded by Hydarnes son of Hydarnes. They earned their name because their number was always maintained at exactly ten thousand: whenever a man was lost to death or disease, he was immediately replaced, so they were never more or fewer. Of all the nations, the Persians made the most magnificent display: their equipment was the finest, and they were the best soldiers. In addition to the arms already described, they dripped with gold. They brought carriages carrying their concubines and large retinues of well-equipped attendants, with special provisions carried by camels and pack animals.
The cavalry consisted of the following nations (though not all supplied horsemen): the Persians, equipped like their infantry but with some wearing beaten metal headpieces of bronze or iron. The Sagartians — Persian in race and language, with dress halfway between Persian and Pactyan — furnished eight thousand cavalry. They carried no weapons of bronze or iron except daggers, relying instead on leather lassos. In battle, they would throw these lassos with a noose at the end and drag in whatever they caught, whether man or horse, to be killed in the tangle. The Medes, Cissians, Indians, Bactrians, and Caspians all supplied cavalry matching their infantry equipment. The Indians rode both horses and chariots drawn by horses or wild asses. The Libyans all drove chariots. The Caspians and Paricanians rode camels, which could keep pace with horses. The total cavalry came to eighty thousand, not counting the chariots and camels. The Arabian cavalry was placed last in the marching order, because horses cannot tolerate the proximity of camels.
The cavalry commanders were Harmamithras and Tithaeus, sons of Datis. The third commander, Pharnuches, had been left behind at Sardis after an unfortunate accident: as they were setting out, a dog ran under his horse's feet. The startled horse reared and threw Pharnuches, who vomited blood upon landing and developed a wasting disease. His men immediately carried out his last order regarding the horse — they led it to the spot where it had thrown its master and cut off its legs at the knees.
The fleet numbered one thousand two hundred and seven triremes. The Phoenicians, together with the Syrians of Palestine, contributed three hundred ships; their marines wore helmets resembling the Greek style, linen corselets, rimless shields, and javelins. (The Phoenicians, by their own account, originally lived on the Red Sea before migrating to the Syrian coast. This stretch of Syria, extending to Egypt, is called Palestine.) The Egyptians furnished two hundred ships, with braided helmets, hollow shields with large rims, boarding spears, heavy axes, and for most men linen corselets and large daggers. The Cypriots furnished a hundred and fifty ships, their kings wearing royal fillets. The Cilicians supplied a hundred ships; the Pamphylians thirty; the Lycians fifty — wearing corselets and greaves, with cornel-wood bows, unfeathered reed arrows, javelins, goatskin cloaks, and felt caps wound with feathers, plus daggers and falchions. The Dorians of Asia contributed thirty ships with Greek-style arms; the Carians seventy; the Ionians a hundred; the islanders seventeen; the Aeolians sixty; the Hellespontine Greeks a hundred (minus the men of Abydos, whom the king had ordered to stay behind and guard the bridges).
On every ship, Persians, Medes, or Sacae served as marines. The best-sailing ships were those of the Phoenicians, and the finest Phoenician ships came from Sidon. Each nation had its own tribal leaders, but since I'm not required to name them all, I won't — they were not, for the most part, especially noteworthy, and each nation had as many chiefs as it had cities. These tribal leaders came along not as commanders but as subjects, like everyone else. The actual commanding generals — all of them Persian — I have already named.
The naval commanders were Ariabignes son of Darius, Prexaspes son of Aspathines, Megabazus son of Megabates, and Achaemenes son of Darius. In addition to the triremes, the fleet included some three thousand smaller vessels: thirty-oared galleys, fifty-oared galleys, light boats, and horse-transport ships.
Of all the notable figures who sailed with the fleet, the one I marvel at most is Artemisia — a woman. After her husband died, she took power herself, even though she had a grown son. She joined the expedition purely out of daring spirit and courage, under no compulsion whatsoever. Her name was Artemisia, daughter of Lygdamis. On her father's side she was from Halicarnassus; on her mother's side, from Crete. She ruled Halicarnassus, Cos, Nisyrus, and Calydna, and she furnished five ships. After those of the Sidonians, her ships were the most highly regarded in the entire fleet. And of all the king's allies, she gave him the best counsel. The people she ruled were all of Dorian stock — the Halicarnassians being originally from Troezen, the rest from Epidaurus.
After the army had been counted and organized into divisions, Xerxes wanted to inspect the whole force personally. He drove his chariot through every contingent, nation by nation, while scribes recorded the details, until he had passed from one end to the other of both the cavalry and infantry. Then the ships were launched, and Xerxes exchanged his chariot for a Sidonian galley. He sat under a golden canopy and sailed along the line of ships, just as he had done with the land army, inquiring about each contingent and having the answers written down. The captains had drawn up their ships about four hundred feet offshore in an even line, prows facing the beach, with their marines armed for battle. Xerxes sailed between the prows and the shore, inspecting them all.
After completing his review, Xerxes disembarked and sent for Demaratus son of Ariston, who was accompanying the expedition. "Demaratus," he said, "I would like to ask you something. You are a Greek — and not from the least or weakest city in Greece, as both you and the other Greeks I've spoken to have told me. Tell me: will the Greeks dare to resist me? Because I don't think that even if every Greek and every western nation were gathered together, they could withstand my attack — not without being united, at any rate. But I want to hear your opinion."
Demaratus asked: "Shall I tell you the truth, O King, or what you want to hear?" Xerxes told him to speak the truth, promising he would suffer nothing for it.
Demaratus spoke: "O King, since you command me to tell the truth at all costs, I will say this. Poverty has always been Greece's companion, but valor — that has been earned, built through intelligence and the force of law. Using this valor, Greece keeps both poverty and tyranny at bay. I praise all the Greeks who live in Dorian lands. But what I'm about to say concerns the Spartans alone. First: there is no chance whatsoever that the Spartans will accept your terms, since those terms mean slavery for Greece. Second: they will fight you, even if every other Greek goes over to your side. As for their numbers — don't bother asking how many they need to be. Whether they field a thousand men or fewer or more, they will fight."
Xerxes laughed. "Demaratus, what a thing to say — that a thousand men would fight this vast army! Tell me something: you say you were king of these people? Then by their laws, shouldn't you fight double the number any other Spartan faces? If each Spartan is worth ten of my soldiers, I'd expect their king to be worth twenty. That would confirm your boast. But if you and these Greeks who come to talk with me are just ordinary-sized people, then beware — this may be empty bragging. Let me apply simple logic: how could a thousand men, or ten thousand, or even fifty thousand — all equally free, not ruled by one man — stand against an army this size? We outnumber them more than a thousand to one, even if they had five thousand. If they were ruled by a single master, as we are, they might fight beyond their nature out of fear, or be driven by the lash to face superior numbers. But left to their own freedom, they would do neither. Personally, I think the Greeks would have trouble fighting the Persians even in equal numbers. This quality you speak of exists among us too — not commonly, but in rare individuals. I have Persian spearmen who would gladly take on three Greeks at once. You simply have no experience of this, and so you're talking nonsense."
Demaratus replied: "O King, I knew from the start that the truth would not please you. But since you forced me to speak, I told you about the Spartans. You know better than anyone how much love I bear them at this moment — they stripped me of my hereditary rank and made me a homeless exile, while your father took me in and gave me a livelihood and a home. No sensible man pushes away kindness; he embraces it. I don't claim to be able to fight ten men, or even two. Given the choice, I wouldn't fight even one. But if necessity demanded it or a great cause was at stake, I would most willingly fight any man who claims to be worth three Greeks. The Spartans are the same. One on one, they are inferior to no one. Fighting together, they are the best warriors on earth. They are free — but not completely free. They have a master over them: the Law. And they fear that master far more than your people fear you. Whatever the Law commands, they do. And it always commands the same thing: never retreat from battle, no matter the odds. Stand your ground. Win or die. If this sounds like nonsense to you, then I would rather say nothing more. I spoke only because you compelled me. But may everything turn out as you wish, O King."
Xerxes laughed it off and dismissed Demaratus with good humor. He then appointed Mascames son of Megadostes as the new governor of Doriscus, replacing the man Darius had installed, and led his army onward through Thrace.
This Mascames proved to be an extraordinary man. Xerxes sent him gifts every year for the rest of his life, judging him the finest governor either he or Darius had ever appointed. Artaxerxes after him continued the practice with Mascames' descendants. Before this expedition, Persian governors had been installed throughout Thrace and the Hellespont region. After the war, the Greeks conquered every single one of them — except Mascames at Doriscus. No one was ever able to take it, though many tried. That is why the reigning Persian king still sends gifts in his honor.
Of all the governors the Greeks did conquer, however, Xerxes respected only one: Boges of Eion. He never stopped praising that man, and he honored his children who survived him in Persia. And Boges deserved every word of praise. When the Athenians under Cimon son of Miltiades besieged him at Eion, he could have surrendered under a truce and gone home to Asia. He chose not to — he was afraid the king would think he had survived out of cowardice. Instead, he held out to the bitter end. When all the food was gone, he built an enormous pyre, slit the throats of his children, his wife, his concubines, and his servants, and threw their bodies into the flames. Then he scattered all the gold and silver in the city from the walls into the river Strymon. And then he threw himself into the fire. The Persians praise him for this even now, and rightly so.
From Doriscus, Xerxes continued his march toward Greece, conscripting everyone he passed along the way. All the territory as far as Thessaly had already been subjugated and made tributary — first by Megabazus and then by Mardonius, as I described earlier. After Doriscus, the army passed the Samothracian strongholds, the westernmost of which is a city called Mesambria. Next came Stryme, a Thasian settlement, with the river Lisus flowing between them — another river that failed to supply enough water for the army. This region was formerly called Gallaike but is now Briantike; strictly speaking, it belongs to the Ciconians.
Crossing the dried-up bed of the Lisus, the army passed the Greek cities of Maroneia, Dicaea, and Abdera, as well as several notable lakes: Lake Ismaris between Maroneia and Stryme; Lake Bistonis near Dicaea, fed by the rivers Travus and Compsantus; and at Abdera, the river Nestus, which flows into the sea. Then came the inland cities, near one of which was a brackish lake, about thirty stades around, full of fish — which the baggage animals alone managed to drink dry. That city is called Pistyrus.
The Greek coastal cities were passed on the army's left. The Thracian tribes through whose territory the army marched included the Paitians, Ciconians, Bistonians, Sapaeans, Dersaeans, Edonians, and Satrians. Those who lived on the coast accompanied Xerxes by ship; those who lived inland were forced to march with the army — all except the Satrians. The Satrians have never been subject to any man, as far as we know. They remain free to this day, alone among all the Thracians, because they live in high mountains covered with forests of every kind and with snow, and they are formidable warriors. They possess the oracle of Dionysus, which sits on their highest peaks. The Bessians, a Satrian clan, serve as the prophets of this temple. A priestess delivers the oracles, just as at Delphi. There is nothing more remarkable to say about them.
After passing through this territory, Xerxes came to the Pierian strongholds of Phagres and Pergamus. He marched close by their walls, keeping the great and lofty Mount Pangaeum on his right — a mountain containing gold and silver mines belonging to the Pierians, Odomantians, and especially the Satrians.
Passing the Paeonians, Doberians, and Paeoplians who dwell north of Pangaeum, he continued westward until he reached the river Strymon and the city of Eion, where Boges — the man I just told you about — was still governor as long as he lived. The region around Mount Pangaeum is called Phyllis; it stretches west to the river Angites, which flows into the Strymon, and south to the Strymon itself. At this river, the Magi performed sacrifices for good omens, slaughtering white horses.
After performing these rites and many other rituals as charms for the river, they crossed the Strymon at a place called the Nine Ways in Edonian territory, where they found the river already spanned by bridges. And when they learned the place was called Nine Ways, they buried alive that number of local boys and girls — nine of each. Burying people alive is a Persian custom. I am told that Amestris, the wife of Xerxes, when she was old, buried twice seven children of distinguished Persian families as an offering to the god who is said to dwell beneath the earth.
From the Strymon, the army continued along the coast toward the setting sun, passing the Greek city of Argilos. The region is called Bisaltia. From there, keeping on his left the gulf near the shrine of Poseidon, the army crossed the plain of Syleus, passed by Stagirus (a Greek city), and reached Acanthus. Along the way, Xerxes drafted every tribe he passed — those around Mount Pangaeum and those I listed before — those on the coast serving with the fleet, those inland marching on foot. The road by which King Xerxes marched his army is left undisturbed by the Thracians to this day: they neither plow it nor sow crops over it, but treat it with the deepest reverence.
When Xerxes reached Acanthus, he declared the Acanthians his guest-friends, presented them with Median robes, and praised their zeal for the war effort and their work on the canal.
While Xerxes was at Acanthus, the man who had overseen the digging of the canal — Artachaees by name — died of illness. He was a man of the Achaemenid family, highly esteemed by Xerxes. He was also the tallest of all the Persians, standing just four fingers short of five royal cubits, and he had the loudest voice of any man alive. Xerxes was deeply grieved by his death. He gave Artachaees a magnificent funeral, and the entire army helped raise a burial mound in his honor. The people of Acanthus, following an oracle, now offer sacrifices to Artachaees as a hero, calling upon his name in worship.
King Xerxes mourned Artachaees greatly. Meanwhile, the Greeks who had to entertain the army and provide dinners for Xerxes were being driven to complete ruin — bankrupt and homeless. When the Thasians, for example, fed Xerxes and his army on behalf of their mainland cities, a prominent citizen named Antipater son of Orgeus — the man appointed to manage the affair — reported that the dinner alone had cost four hundred talents of silver.
This was how cities prepared the dinner for the king, and every city that hosted the army reported roughly the same staggering expense. The preparations were elaborate and taken very seriously, since the orders came well in advance. As soon as the heralds arrived carrying the royal proclamation, the citizens in each city distributed grain among all their households, and everyone spent months grinding wheat and barley flour. They bought the finest cattle they could find at top prices, and fattened up land birds and waterfowl, keeping them in cages and ponds, all for the entertainment of the army. They had drinking cups and mixing bowls made of gold and silver, along with all the other fine tableware — but these were only for the king himself and those who dined at his table. For the rest of the army, only the food itself was provided.
Whenever the army arrived at a city, there would be a tent already pitched for Xerxes to stay in, while the rest of the troops camped in the open air. When dinnertime came, the hosts had their work cut out for them. But the soldiers, once they had eaten their fill and spent the night, would tear down the royal tent the next morning, carry off every piece of movable furniture, and march on, leaving nothing behind.
It was then that Megacreon of Abdera made his famous remark. He advised the people of Abdera to go in a body — men and women together — to their temples and sit as suppliants before the gods, thanking them for blessings already received and begging them to ward off half the evils that still threatened. The blessings they should be thankful for? The fact that King Xerxes was in the habit of eating only one meal a day. Because if they had been ordered to prepare a breakfast as well as a dinner, the people of Abdera would have had two choices: either flee before Xerxes arrived, or stay and be crushed more thoroughly than any people on earth.
Hard-pressed as they were, the cities did what was required of them. From Acanthus, Xerxes ordered his generals to wait for the fleet at Therma — the city on the Thermaic Gulf from which the gulf takes its name — because he had been told this was the shortest route. From Doriscus to Acanthus, the army had marched in three divisions. One division went along the coast, keeping pace with the fleet, and was commanded by Mardonius and Masistes. A second took the inland route under the command of Tritantaechmes and Gergis. The third, which Xerxes himself accompanied, marched in the middle between the other two, and was led by Smerdomenes and Megabyzus.
The fleet, once Xerxes released it, sailed straight through the canal cut across Athos — the canal that opened into the gulf where the cities of Assa, Pilorus, Singus, and Sarte are situated. After picking up contingents from these cities, the fleet sailed with a fair wind toward the Thermaic Gulf, rounding Cape Ampelos, the headland of Torone. Passing along that coast, it collected ships and men from the Greek cities there: Torone, Galepsus, Sermyle, Mecyberna, and Olynthus. This region is called Sithonia.
Cutting across from Cape Ampelos to the headland of Canastraeum, which juts out furthest to sea of all Pallene, the fleet took on contingents from Potidaea, Aphytis, Neapolis, Aege, Therambos, Scione, Mende, and Sane — these being the cities that occupy the region now called Pallene, though it was formerly known as Phlegra. Sailing along this coast as well, the fleet continued toward its rendezvous, gathering additional contingents from the cities that border the Thermaic Gulf: Lipaxus, Combreia, Lisae, Gigonus, Campsa, Smila, and Aeneia. The region where these cities lie is still called Crossaea today. From Aeneia — the last city on my list — the fleet entered the Thermaic Gulf proper and the territory of Mygdonia, arriving at last at Therma and the cities of Sindus and Chalestra on the river Axius. This river marks the boundary between Mygdonia and Bottiaeis, the narrow coastal strip of which is occupied by the cities of Ichnae and Pella.
So the fleet lay at anchor near the river Axius and the city of Therma and the towns in between, waiting for the king. Meanwhile, Xerxes and the land army were marching from Acanthus, cutting through the interior by the shortest route to reach Therma. He went through Paeonia and Crestonia to the river Cheidorus, which rises in Crestonian territory, flows through the region of Mygdonia, and empties out near the marsh by the river Axius.
As he was marching along this route, lions attacked the camels carrying his supplies. The lions would come down from their lairs regularly at night, but they touched nothing else — neither pack animals nor men — only the camels. I find this remarkable: what was it that compelled the lions to leave everything else alone and attack only the camels, creatures they had never seen before and had no experience of?
Now, there are in that region many lions, as well as wild oxen — the kind with enormously large horns that are often brought into Greece. The boundary of lion territory runs from the river Nestus, which flows through Abdera, to the Achelous, which flows through Acarnania. You will not see a lion anywhere in Europe east of the Nestus, nor in the rest of the continent west of the Achelous. Lions are found only in the country between those two rivers.
When Xerxes reached Therma, he camped the army there. His troops, encamped along the coast, occupied an enormous stretch of land — from the city of Therma and Mygdonia all the way to the rivers Lydias and Haliacmon, which form the boundary between Bottiaeis and Macedonia, mingling their waters into a single stream. Of all the rivers in that region, only the Cheidorus, flowing from the Crestonian lands, ran dry — it could not supply enough water for the army's drinking.
From Therma, Xerxes could see the mountains of Thessaly — Olympus and Ossa — looming enormously high, and he learned that between them lay a narrow gorge through which the river Peneus flowed. He also heard there was a road through this gorge into Thessaly. A desire seized him to sail there and see the outlet of the Peneus for himself, since he intended to march by the upper road through the inland part of Macedonia, passing through Perrhaebian territory by the city of Gonnus — which he had been told was the safest route. No sooner had the desire come to him than he acted on it. He boarded the Sidonian ship — the same one he always used for such excursions — and signaled the rest of the fleet to put out to sea as well, leaving the land army behind.
When Xerxes had seen the outlet of the Peneus, he was filled with wonder. He summoned his local guides and asked them whether it was possible to divert the river and bring it out to the sea by another route.
Now, Thessaly was said to have been a lake in ancient times, enclosed on every side by towering mountains: Pelion and Ossa on the east, their lower slopes meeting; Olympus on the north; Pindus on the west; and Othrys on the south. Thessaly sits in the hollow between these mountains. Many rivers flow into this plain, five of them particularly notable: the Peneus, the Apidanus, the Onoconus, the Enipeus, and the Pamisus. These rivers collect their waters from the surrounding mountains and flow into the plain under their separate names, but they all drain into the sea through a single narrow channel. Once they merge together, the Peneus gives its name to the combined stream and the others lose theirs. In ancient times, before this channel and outlet existed, these rivers — along with Lake Boebeis — had no names as they do now, but they made all of Thessaly into a sea with their flooding. The Thessalians themselves say that Poseidon created the channel through which the Peneus flows, and this seems reasonable enough: anyone who believes that Poseidon is the god who shakes the earth, and that the cracks produced by earthquakes are his work, would only have to look at this gorge to say it was Poseidon's doing. For the parting of those mountains is clearly the work of an earthquake, as is evident to me.
When Xerxes asked his guides whether there was any other outlet to the sea for the Peneus, they answered with precise knowledge: "O king, this river has no other path to the sea but this one alone, for all of Thessaly is ringed about with mountains as with a crown."
To this, Xerxes is said to have replied: "The Thessalians are prudent men, then. So this is what they were guarding against when they changed their minds and submitted to me in good time. They had been thinking about this especially, among other things — that they have a country which is easy to conquer and could be taken quickly. All I would need to do is dam up the river at its narrow channel and divert its course, and all of Thessaly, except for the mountains, would be underwater."
He said this in reference to the sons of Aleuas, because those Thessalians had been the first of the Greeks to submit to the king. Xerxes assumed they had offered their friendship on behalf of their entire nation. Having said this and viewed the place, he sailed back to Therma.
He then spent many days in the region of Pieria, for a third of his army was meanwhile cutting a road through the mountains of Macedonia so the whole force could pass through into Perrhaebian territory. And now the heralds who had been sent to Greece to demand earth and water came back — some empty-handed, others bearing earth and water.
Among those who submitted were the Thessalians, the Dolopians, the Enianians, the Perrhaeibians, the Locrians, the Magnesians, the Malians, the Achaeans of Phthiotis, and the Thebans, along with the rest of the Boeotians except for the Thespians and Plataeans. Against all of these, the Greeks who took up arms against the invader swore a solemn oath: that if their cause succeeded, they would compel every Greek state that had gone over to the Persians — without being forced — to pay a tithe of their wealth to the god at Delphi.
That was the oath the Greeks swore. But Xerxes had not sent heralds to Athens or Sparta to demand earth and water — and for this reason: the last time Darius had sent men for that very purpose, one people threw the heralds into a pit and the other threw them into a well, telling them to take their earth and water from there and carry it back to the king. That was why Xerxes did not send men to make the same demand. As for what evil befell the Athenians for having killed the heralds, I cannot say — except that their land and city were eventually laid waste. But I do not think that happened because of this.
On the Spartans, however, the wrath of Talthybius fell hard. Now, Talthybius was the herald of Agamemnon, and in Sparta there is a temple in his honor. His descendants, called the Talthybiads, hold as a hereditary right all diplomatic missions sent from Sparta. After the murder of the Persian heralds, the Spartans could no longer obtain favorable omens when they sacrificed. This went on for a long time. The Spartans were deeply troubled by it and considered it a great calamity. Assembly after assembly was called, and proclamation was made asking whether any Spartan was willing to die for the sake of his city. Finally, Sperthias son of Aneristus and Bulis son of Nicolaus — both Spartans of noble birth and great wealth — volunteered to pay the penalty to Xerxes for Darius's heralds who had been killed at Sparta. The Spartans sent these two men to the Persians to be put to death.
The courage of these two men is worthy of admiration, and so are the things they said along the way. When they came to Susa, they stopped at the court of Hydarnes — a Persian who was military governor of the Asian seacoast. He offered them hospitality and entertained them, and over dinner he asked: "Spartans, why do you refuse to become friends of the king? You can see how the king knows how to honor worthy men — just look at me and my good fortune. If you offered yourselves to the king, since he already regards you as brave men, each of you would be given rule over Greek territory by his hand."
They answered: "Hydarnes, the advice you give us is not evenly weighed. You speak from experience of one thing but ignorance of the other. You know well enough what it means to be a slave, but you have never tasted freedom — whether it is sweet or not. If you had tasted it, you would tell us to fight for it not just with spears, but with axes."
That was their answer to Hydarnes. When they continued to Susa and came into the presence of the king, the royal bodyguard first ordered them to prostrate themselves before Xerxes — and tried to force them to do so. They refused. They would not do it even if they were pushed down headfirst, they said, because it was not their custom to bow before a mortal man, and that was not the purpose of their journey. When they had resisted this, they spoke words to this effect: "King of the Persians, the Spartans sent us to pay the penalty for your heralds who were killed at Sparta."
When they said this, Xerxes, moved by magnanimity, replied that he would not behave like the Spartans. They had violated the laws that all peoples hold sacred by killing heralds, but he would not commit the very crime he condemned in them. He would not kill these men, nor would he absolve the Spartans of their guilt by doing so.
And so the wrath of Talthybius was calmed for the time being — even though the Spartans had done nothing more than send these men, and Sperthias and Bulis returned safely to Sparta. But a long time afterward, the wrath was roused again during the war between the Peloponnesians and Athenians, as the Spartans themselves tell it. This I regard as clearly the work of divine power. That the wrath of Talthybius fell upon messengers and would not rest until it was satisfied — that much was simple justice. But that it came to fall specifically upon the sons of the very men who had gone to the king to appease it — upon Nicolaus son of Bulis and Aneristus son of Sperthias (the same Aneristus who captured the fishermen of Halieis by sailing into their harbor with a merchant ship packed with soldiers) — by this it is clear to me that the outcome was divinely ordained. For these two men were sent by the Spartans as envoys to Asia, but they were betrayed by Sitalces son of Teres, king of the Thracians, and by Nymphodorus son of Pythes, a man of Abdera. They were captured at Bisanthe on the Hellespont, taken to Attica, and put to death by the Athenians — along with Aristeas son of Adeimantus of Corinth.
But all of that happened many years after the king's expedition. I return now to my earlier narrative.
The march of the king's army was directed in name against Athens, but in reality it was aimed at all of Greece. The Greeks had known about this for some time, but they were not all equally affected by the news. Those who had given earth and water to the Persians felt confident that they would suffer no harm from the invader. But those who had refused were in a state of great fear, since the ships in Greece were not numerous enough to meet the invader in battle, and the majority of Greek states were unwilling to take up the fight and had readily gone over to the Persian side.
Here I am compelled to declare an opinion that most people will find unwelcome — but I will not hold back from saying what I believe to be the truth. If the Athenians, seized by fear of the approaching danger, had abandoned their land, or if, without abandoning it, they had stayed and surrendered to Xerxes, no one would have attempted to oppose the king at sea. And if no one had opposed Xerxes at sea, this is roughly what would have happened on land: even if the Peloponnesians had built wall after wall across the Isthmus, the Spartans would have been abandoned by their allies — not willingly, but by necessity, as their cities were conquered one by one by the Persian fleet. Left alone, the Spartans would have performed great deeds of valor and then died nobly. Either that, or, seeing the rest of Greece going over to the Persians before it came to that, they would have come to terms with Xerxes themselves. Either way, Greece would have fallen under Persian rule. I cannot see what good walls across the Isthmus would have done when the king controlled the sea.
If someone were to say that the Athenians proved to be the saviors of Greece, that person would be hitting the truth exactly. Whichever way the Athenians leaned, that was the way the balance was going to tip. They chose for Greece to remain free, and it was they who roused every Greek state that had not gone over to the Persians. After the gods, the Athenians were the ones who drove the king back. Not even the terrifying oracles from Delphi, which were enough to make anyone's blood run cold, could persuade them to abandon Greece. They stood their ground and endured the coming of the invader.
The Athenians had sent envoys to Delphi, and when these men had performed the customary rites in the sacred precinct and entered the inner sanctuary to take their seats, the Pythian priestess — whose name was Aristonice — spoke this oracle to them:
Why do you sit here, wretches? Flee to the ends of the earth! Leave your homes, leave the heights of your wheel-shaped city! Neither the head remains safe, nor the body, nor the feet below, nor the hands, nor anything in between — all is ruined. Fire brings it down, and the fierce War-god driving his Syrian chariot at full speed. Not yours alone — many other strongholds too he will shatter, many temples of gods he will give to ravenous flame, temples that even now stand dripping with terror's sweat, trembling with dread, and from their highest rooftops dark blood trickles down, foretelling doom that cannot be escaped. Go forth from this shrine, and steep your souls in sorrow!
When the Athenian envoys heard this, they were plunged into the deepest despair. Overcome by the disaster the oracle foretold, they were ready to give up all hope. But then Timon son of Androbulus, one of the most respected men in Delphi, advised them to take up olive branches as suppliants and approach the oracle a second time. The Athenians followed his advice and said: "Lord Apollo, we beg you — have some regard for these suppliant branches we carry and give us a better oracle concerning our homeland. Otherwise we will not leave this sanctuary. We will stay right here until we die."
When they said this, the priestess delivered a second oracle:
Pallas Athena cannot appease great Zeus of Olympus, though she pleads with many words and all her cunning wisdom. But I will tell you this, and clench my words in adamant: When all else is taken — everything within the bounds of Cecrops and the dark ravines of holy Cithaeron — far-seeing Zeus grants the Trito-born goddess this: a wall of wood alone shall remain unconquered, a wall that shall save you and your children. Do not wait calmly for the cavalry and the vast infantry marching from the mainland, but turn your backs and withdraw. The day will come when you shall face them yet. O divine Salamis, you shall destroy the sons of women whether the grain is scattered or gathered in.
This oracle seemed — and in fact was — milder than the first. The envoys had it written down and returned to Athens. When they reported to the assembly, many different interpretations were offered, and two opinions stood out in sharpest opposition. Some of the older men argued that the god was prophesying the survival of the Acropolis. In the old days, the Athenian Acropolis had been surrounded by a thorn-bush fence, and they took the "wall of wood" to mean this hedge. Others argued that the god meant their ships, and they urged the Athenians to abandon everything else and prepare the fleet for battle. But those who favored the ship interpretation were troubled by the oracle's last two lines:
O divine Salamis, you shall destroy the sons of women whether the grain is scattered or gathered in.
These words shook them. The professional oracle-interpreters read them as meaning that the Athenians were fated to be defeated in a sea battle off Salamis.
But there was one Athenian who had recently risen to the front rank of public life. His name was Themistocles, and he was called the son of Neocles. This man argued that the interpreters had not read the oracle correctly. He made the following case: if the oracle had truly been directed against the Athenians, it would not have been expressed so gently. It would have said "cruel Salamis" rather than "divine Salamis" — at least if the island's own people were destined to die there. No, if you read it right, the god had spoken the oracle against the enemy, not against Athens. He therefore advised them to prepare for a naval battle, because that was what the "wall of wood" meant.
When Themistocles laid out this interpretation, the Athenians decided it was better than the advice of the oracle-interpreters, who were telling them not to prepare for a sea fight at all — in fact not to raise a hand in opposition, but simply to abandon Attica and settle somewhere else.
Another earlier decision by Themistocles had also proved perfectly timed. When the Athenians had accumulated a large sum of public money from the silver mines at Laurium, they were planning to divide it among themselves — each citizen receiving ten drachmas. Themistocles persuaded them to give up this plan and use the money instead to build two hundred warships for the war with Aegina. That war, which had broken out at just the right moment, turned out to be the salvation of Greece, because it forced the Athenians to become a naval power. The ships were never actually used for their original purpose — the Aeginetan war — but they were there when Greece needed them. These ships the Athenians already had, having built them in advance, and now they resolved to build more besides. After debating the oracle's meaning, they decided to meet the invader at sea with their full fleet, in obedience to the god's command, together with whatever Greeks were willing to join them.
Those were the oracles given to the Athenians. Now, the Greek states that had the welfare of Greece at heart came together in one place and held a council. They exchanged pledges with one another and deliberated. Their first order of business was to end the wars that various Greek states had with each other — particularly the conflict between Athens and Aegina.
After that, learning that Xerxes and his army were at Sardis, they decided to send spies to Asia to observe the king's forces. They also resolved to send envoys to Argos to form an alliance against Persia, and to send others to Sicily, to Gelon son of Deinomenes, and to Corcyra, to urge them to come to the defense of Greece. Still others were to be sent to Crete. Their aim was to unite the Greek world, if possible — to bring everyone together for common action, since the danger threatened all Greeks equally. And the power of Gelon was said to be immense, far greater than that of any other Greek state.
Having made these decisions, they first reconciled their quarrels and then sent three men as spies to Asia. These men reached Sardis and gathered intelligence about the king's forces, but they were discovered. The army generals interrogated them and were leading them away to be executed. When Xerxes learned of this, he overruled his generals and sent some of his own bodyguard with orders to bring the spies to him alive, if they had not already been killed. They found the men still living and brought them before the king.
Xerxes, learning why they had come, commanded his guards to take them on a tour of the entire army — infantry and cavalry alike — and then, once they had seen everything to their satisfaction, to let them go unharmed to whatever country they wished.
He explained his reasoning as follows: if the spies had been put to death, the Greeks would not have learned in advance how far beyond description his power really was — and three men's deaths would not have done the enemy much damage anyway. But if these men returned to Greece and reported what they had seen, he thought it likely the Greeks would surrender their freedom before the expedition even arrived. That way, there would be no need for the trouble of marching against them.
This kind of thinking was typical of Xerxes. When he had been at Abydos, he had spotted grain ships sailing out of the Black Sea through the Hellespont, heading for Aegina and the Peloponnese. His advisors, learning the ships belonged to the enemy, were eager to capture them and looked to the king for orders. But Xerxes asked where the ships were heading, and they answered: "To your enemies, Master, carrying grain to them." He replied: "Are we not sailing to the same place as those men, supplied with grain and everything else we need? How are they wronging us? They are carrying provisions for our use."
The spies, having been shown everything, were dismissed and returned to Europe. Meanwhile, the Greek states that had sworn the alliance against Persia sent envoys next to Argos. This is what the Argives themselves say happened:
They claim they had been aware from the very beginning of the Persian preparations against Greece, and knowing the Greeks would try to bring them into the alliance, they had sent to Delphi to ask how they should act for their own best interests. This was because Cleomenes and the Spartans had recently killed six thousand of their men, and that disaster was in fact the reason they were consulting the oracle. The Pythian priestess gave them this reply:
Hated by all your neighbors, beloved of the immortal gods, sit behind your spear and guard yourself well. Guard the head, and the head shall save the body.
That was the oracle's answer. When the Greek envoys later arrived in Argos and came before the council, the Argives said they were willing to join the alliance on two conditions: a thirty-year peace treaty with Sparta, and half the leadership of the combined Greek forces. By strict right, they said, they deserved sole command, but they would settle for half.
That was the council's answer — even though the oracle had warned them against joining the alliance. But they were anxious for a truce, they said, so that their young men could grow to manhood over the next thirty years. Without such a truce, they feared that if they suffered another disaster — this time fighting the Persians on top of their earlier losses — they might become permanently subject to Sparta.
The Spartan members of the delegation replied that they would refer the question of the truce to their assembly, but on the matter of the leadership they had already been authorized to answer: Sparta had two kings, while Argos had one. It was not possible to strip either Spartan king of the command, but there was nothing to prevent the Argive king from having an equal vote alongside each of theirs.
At this, the Argives say, they could not stomach the Spartans' grasping arrogance. They chose to be ruled by the Persians rather than yield anything to Sparta, and they told the envoys to leave Argive territory before sunset or be treated as enemies.
That is the Argive version. But there is another story told in Greece: that before launching his expedition, Xerxes sent a herald to Argos with this message: "Men of Argos, King Xerxes says this to you: We believe that our ancestor Perses was the son of Perseus and Danae, born from Andromeda the daughter of Cepheus. If so, we are descended from you. It is therefore not proper for us to march against our own ancestors, nor for you to oppose us by aiding others. Stay at home, keep to yourselves, and if things go as I plan, I will hold no people in higher regard than you."
When the Argives heard this, the story goes, they thought it a weighty matter. At first they neither offered help to the Greeks nor demanded a share of the command. Only later, when the Greeks actively sought their alliance, did they demand their share — knowing full well the Spartans would refuse — simply to have a pretext for sitting out the war.
Some Greeks also point to something that happened many years later as support for this account: Athenian envoys — Callias son of Hipponicus among them — happened to be in Susa on other business at the same time as Argive envoys, and the Argives asked Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, whether the friendship they had formed with his father was still in force. King Artaxerxes replied that it most certainly was, and that he considered no city more his friend than Argos.
Now, whether Xerxes really sent that herald to Argos, and whether Argive envoys really went to Susa and asked Artaxerxes about their friendship — I cannot say for certain. I declare no opinion on the matter beyond what the Argives themselves report. But I do know this much: if all the peoples of the world were to bring their own misfortunes together in one place, intending to trade them with their neighbors, each of them — after getting a good look at everyone else's troubles — would gladly take their own back home again.
So the Argives' behavior was not the most shameful of all. As for me, I am obliged to report what is reported, but I am not obliged to believe it all — and let this principle hold good for my entire history. For I must add that there is yet another account: that it was actually the Argives who invited the Persian to invade Greece, because their war with Sparta had gone so badly that they were willing to endure anything rather than the suffering they were already in.
So much for the Argives. Now, envoys had also come to Sicily from the Greek alliance to confer with Gelon, and among them was Syagrus of Sparta.
Gelon's ancestor — the original settler at Gela — was a man from the island of Telos, which lies off the coast near Triopium. When the Lindians of Rhodes and Antiphemmus founded Gela, he joined them. In time, his descendants became hereditary priests of the mysteries of the earth goddesses, an office originally won by one of their line named Telines. He had gained it in a remarkable way: when some citizens of Gela lost a political struggle and fled to the city of Mactorium in the hills above Gela, Telines brought them back from exile — not with any military force, but armed only with the sacred objects of the goddesses. Where he got these sacred objects, or whether he acquired them on his own, I cannot say. Trusting in their power, he led the exiles home on one condition: that his descendants would hold the priesthood of the mysteries forever.
What astonishes me is that Telines was able to accomplish this at all, considering what I have been told about him. Such feats, I would think, require a man of bold spirit and physical courage, but Telines is said by the Sicilians to have been rather the opposite — an effeminate man and somewhat lacking in spirit.
Be that as it may, the priesthood was his. When Cleander son of Pantares, who had been tyrant of Gela for seven years, was murdered by a man named Sabyllus, his brother Hippocrates took power. During Hippocrates' reign, Gelon — a descendant of the priest Telines — served as one of his bodyguards, along with many others, including Ainesidemus son of Pataeicus. Before long, Gelon was promoted by merit to command of all the cavalry. When Hippocrates besieged one city after another — Callipolis, Naxos, Zancle, Leontini, and Syracuse, plus various non-Greek towns — Gelon distinguished himself as the most brilliant warrior of them all. Not one of these cities except Syracuse escaped being brought under Hippocrates' rule. The Syracusans, defeated in battle at the river Helorus, were saved only by the intervention of the Corinthians and Corcyraeans, who brokered a peace settlement. The price was that Syracuse had to hand over Camarina to Hippocrates. Camarina had in ancient times belonged to Syracuse.
Then Hippocrates, like his brother Cleander, was killed — in his case while fighting the native Sicels near the city of Hybla, after the same number of years in power. Gelon then made a show of supporting Hippocrates' sons, Eucleides and Cleander, against citizens who no longer wished to submit. In reality, after winning a battle against the people of Gela, he seized power for himself and pushed the sons aside.
After this stroke of fortune, Gelon restored the so-called "landholders" of Syracuse — wealthy property owners who had been driven into exile by the common people and their own slaves (called the Cyllyrians) — bringing them back from the city of Casmene to Syracuse, and in the process taking control of that city too. The Syracusan commons surrendered their city and themselves to Gelon the moment he marched against them.
Once he had Syracuse, Gelon cared much less about Gela, though he still ruled it. He handed it over to his brother Hieron and devoted himself to building up Syracuse. The city immediately rose to prosperity. First, he transported the entire population of Camarina to Syracuse, made them citizens, and razed Camarina to the ground. He did the same with more than half the people of Gela. As for the Megarians of Sicily, when they surrendered after a siege, he drew a sharp distinction: the wealthy men, who had started the war and expected to be executed for it, he brought to Syracuse and made citizens. But the common people, who had no part in the war's guilt and expected no harm, he also brought to Syracuse — and sold them into slavery for export from Sicily. He did exactly the same thing to the people of Euboea in Sicily. He treated both cities this way because he considered a democratic populace the most unpleasant element in a state.
This was how Gelon had become a powerful ruler. When the envoys from the Greek alliance arrived at Syracuse, they gained an audience and spoke as follows: "The Spartans and their allies sent us to win you over against the invader. You have certainly heard that a Persian is coming to bridge the Hellespont and lead all the armies of the East against Greece. His pretext is an attack on Athens, but his real aim is to bring all of Greece under his power. You have risen to great strength and hold no small share of the Greek world as ruler of Sicily. Come to the aid of those who are fighting for Greece's freedom, and help us keep her free. For if all of Greece is united, we become a force large enough to fight the invaders. But if some of us go over to the enemy and the rest refuse to help, and only a fraction of Greece remains sound, then there is real danger that all of Greece will fall. Do not imagine that if the Persian defeats us, he will not come for you next. Prepare for that in advance. By helping us, you help yourself. A plan wisely laid tends to turn out well."
Gelon's reply was vehement: "Greeks — what a selfish speech you have brought! You dare come and invite me to be your ally against the Persians? But when I asked you in the past to join me in fighting a foreign enemy — when war broke out between me and the Carthaginians — and when I urged you to avenge the death of Dorieus son of Anaxandridas, and offered to help liberate the trading posts from which you have reaped great profits — you did not come to help me then. You did not come for my sake, and you did not come to avenge Dorieus. As far as you were concerned, this entire region might as well have fallen under foreign rule. But it turned out well for us, and things took a better course. Now that the war has come around to you, at last you remember Gelon.
"Still, although you treated me with contempt, I will not repay you in kind. I am prepared to come to your aid. I will supply two hundred triremes, twenty thousand heavy infantry, two thousand cavalry, two thousand archers, two thousand slingers, and two thousand light-armed runners to serve alongside the cavalry. And I will undertake to feed the entire Greek army for the duration of the war. But I offer all of this on one condition: that I shall be commander-in-chief of the Greek forces against the Persians. On no other terms will I come, or send anyone."
When Syagros heard this, he could not contain himself: "Surely Agamemnon son of Pelops would groan aloud if he heard that the Spartans had their command taken away by Gelon and the Syracusans! Say no more about us handing you the leadership. If you want to help Greece, know that you will serve under Spartan command. And if you truly claim you will not be commanded — then do not come at all."
Gelon, seeing how hostile Syagros' response was, made one final offer: "My Spartan guest-friend, insults that cut to the heart tend to stir a man's temper. But though you have been insolent in your speech, you will not provoke me into an unseemly reply. If you claim the command so fiercely, it would be even more fitting for me to claim it — since I command an army many times larger and far more ships. But since this condition is so distasteful to you, I will step back from my original demand. Suppose you lead the land forces and I lead the fleet. Or if you prefer to command the naval forces, I will lead the army on land. Either you must be satisfied with these terms, or you leave here without my alliance."
That was Gelon's offer. The Athenian envoy — speaking before the Spartan could reply — answered as follows: "King of Syracuse, Greece sent us to you not in search of a leader but of an army. Yet you offer no army unless you get the command. As long as you were demanding leadership of the entire force, it was enough for us Athenians to keep quiet, knowing the Spartan was capable of defending our interests as well as his own. But now that you have been refused the supreme command and are asking instead for command of the fleet — hear this: even if the Spartan were willing to let you have it, we would not allow it. The naval command is ours, if the Spartans do not want it themselves. If they wish to lead the fleet, we will not quarrel with them. But we will not yield it to anyone else. What would be the point of our having built the largest navy in Greece, if we — Athenians, the most ancient people in the Greek world, the only Greeks who have never been uprooted from their land, the people whose own Homer praised as the best at marshaling and arraying an army at Troy — what would be the point if we surrendered the command to Syracusans?"
Gelon answered: "My Athenian friend, it seems you have plenty of commanders — but you will have no one to command. Since you insist on everything and will yield nothing, I suggest you hurry home and tell Greece that the spring has been taken out of its year."
The meaning of this metaphor was clear: as spring is the finest season of the year, so Gelon's army was the finest part of the Greek fighting force. Greece without his alliance, he was saying, was like a year robbed of its spring.
After this exchange, the Greek envoys sailed away. Gelon, concerned that the Greeks might not be able to defeat the invader on their own, but finding it intolerable to go to the Peloponnese and serve under Spartan command — since he was the ruler of Sicily — abandoned that course and pursued another. As soon as he learned that the Persian had crossed the Hellespont, he sent Cadmus son of Scythes, a man of Cos, to Delphi with three penteconters loaded with money and friendly proposals. Cadmus was to wait at Delphi and see which way the war went. If the Persians won, he was to hand over the money and offer earth and water on behalf of Gelon's domains. If the Greeks won, he was to bring everything back.
This same Cadmus had earlier received from his father the prosperous rule over the people of Cos. He had voluntarily — with no danger threatening him, but moved purely by a sense of justice — given up power and placed the government in the hands of the people, then departed for Sicily, where he took from the Samians and settled in the city of Zancle, now renamed Messene. It was this record of integrity that led Gelon to choose him for the mission. And Cadmus added one more honorable deed to his record: though Gelon had entrusted him with an enormous sum of money that he could easily have kept for himself, he chose not to. When the Greeks won the sea battle and Xerxes retreated, Cadmus returned to Sicily with every last coin.
There is another story told by the Sicilians: that Gelon would have come to help the Greeks even under Spartan command, except that at that very moment Terillus son of Crinippus, the deposed tyrant of Himera — who had been expelled by Theron son of Ainesidemus, ruler of Agrigentum — was leading a massive invasion force into Sicily. This army consisted of Phoenicians, Libyans, Iberians, Ligurians, Elisycans, Sardinians, and Corsicans, totaling three hundred thousand men, under the command of Hamilcar son of Hanno, king of the Carthaginians. Terillus had persuaded Hamilcar to come partly through their own guest-friendship, but mainly through the efforts of Anaxilaus son of Cretines, tyrant of Rhegium, who was Terillus's son-in-law — married to his daughter Cydippe — and who had given his own sons as hostages to Hamilcar to bring him over. Because of this Carthaginian invasion, the Sicilians say, Gelon was unable to help the Greeks, and sent the money to Delphi instead.
They add that Gelon and Theron won their victory over Hamilcar the Carthaginian on the very same day that the Greeks defeated the Persian at Salamis. Hamilcar, who was Carthaginian on his father's side but Syracusan on his mother's, and who had risen to the Carthaginian throne by his own merit, disappeared during the battle. When the fight turned against him, he vanished — and neither alive nor dead did he ever appear again anywhere on earth, though Gelon searched for him everywhere.
The Carthaginians themselves tell a story about Hamilcar's fate that seems plausible enough. They say the fighting between the Greeks and the non-Greeks in Sicily lasted from early morning until late in the afternoon, and that throughout this entire time Hamilcar remained in the camp, offering sacrifices to obtain favorable omens, burning whole animal carcasses on a great pyre. When he saw his own army being routed, he happened to be pouring a libation over the victims on the pyre — and he threw himself into the flames. He was consumed by fire and vanished entirely. Whether he died this way or some other way, the Carthaginians sacrifice to him to this day and erected monuments in his honor in all their colonial cities — the greatest of them in Carthage itself.
So much for Sicily. As for the Corcyraeans, they gave the envoys a fine answer and then acted as I shall describe. The same envoys who had gone to Sicily approached them as well, making the same arguments they had made to Gelon. The Corcyraeans immediately promised to send a force and help in the defense. It would be intolerable, they said, to stand by while Greece was destroyed. If Greece fell, they would be enslaved from day one. They had to help with everything they had.
That was their fine-sounding reply. But when the time came to actually send help, they had other plans in mind. They manned sixty ships, and after making a great show of difficulty in putting to sea, they got as far as the Peloponnese — and there, off Pylos and Taenarus in Spartan territory, they dropped anchor and waited. Like Gelon, they wanted to see which way the war would go. They did not expect the Greeks to win. They believed the Persian would crush them easily and rule all of Greece. So they were positioning themselves deliberately, ready to say to the Persian: "O king, when the Greeks tried to recruit us for this war, we — who possess a naval power that is not the smallest, and could have supplied a fleet second only to the Athenians' — chose not to oppose you or do anything against your interests."
By saying this, they hoped to get better treatment than the rest. And I believe it would have worked out exactly that way. Meanwhile, they kept a ready-made excuse for the Greeks: when they were reproached for not helping, the Corcyraeans claimed they had manned sixty triremes but had been unable to get past Cape Malea because of the Etesian winds. That, they said, was why they had not reached Salamis. It was not any lack of courage that had kept them from the sea battle.
That was how the Corcyraeans dealt themselves out of the war.
That was how those people avoided the Greek request for help. As for the Cretans, when the Greek envoys tried to recruit them, here is what they did: they banded together and sent messengers to consult the oracle at Delphi, asking whether it would be in their interest to help Greece. The Pythian priestess answered: "You fools -- do you think the sorrows Minos sent upon you in his anger were not enough? He was furious that you helped Menelaus, since the other Greeks never joined you in avenging his death at Camicos, and yet you joined them in avenging the woman a foreigner carried off from Sparta." When the Cretans heard this reply, they dropped any idea of giving assistance.
The story behind this is as follows. Minos once traveled to Sicania -- now called Sicily -- in pursuit of Daedalus, and there he met a violent death. In time, the Cretans, urged on by a god, all except the people of Polichne and Praisos, came to Sicania with a massive force and besieged the city of Camicos -- which in my own time was held by the Agrigentines -- for seven years. In the end, unable either to capture it or to continue the siege because of famine, they gave up and sailed away. But when they were off the coast of Iapygia, a terrible storm struck and smashed their ships to pieces. Since they saw no way of getting back to Crete, they founded the city of Hyria right there on the Italian coast. They stayed and transformed themselves from Cretans into Messapians of Iapygia, from islanders into mainlanders. From Hyria they founded other settlements, which the people of Tarentum tried to destroy much later and suffered catastrophically for it -- in fact, this was the worst massacre of Greeks we know of, striking not only the Tarentines themselves but also the citizens of Rhegium who had been forced by Micythus son of Choerus to go help the Tarentines. Three thousand men from Rhegium were killed in this disaster. As for the Tarentine dead, no one even tried to count them. This Micythus had been a servant of Anaxilaus, who had left him in charge of Rhegium. He was the same man who, after being driven out of Rhegium, settled in Tegea in Arcadia and dedicated all those famous statues at Olympia.
But this story about Rhegium and Tarentum has been a digression. Back to Crete: according to the people of Praisos, after the island had been stripped of its population, various peoples settled there, especially Greeks. Then in the generation after Minos came the Trojan War, in which the Cretans proved themselves among the best of those who fought alongside Menelaus. But when they returned home from Troy, famine and plague struck both the people and their livestock, until Crete was depopulated for a second time. The current Cretans are the third population, living alongside the remnants of earlier inhabitants. It was by reminding them of all this misery that the Pythian priestess stopped the Cretans from helping Greece, even though they wanted to.
As for the Thessalians, they had initially sided with the Persians against their will, and they made it clear they were unhappy with the schemes of the Aleuadae. The moment they heard that the Persians were about to cross into Europe, they sent envoys to the Isthmus, where representatives of the Greek states that remained loyal had gathered. The Thessalian envoys addressed them: "Greeks, you must guard the pass at Olympus to protect both Thessaly and all of Greece from the invasion. We are ready to help defend it -- but you have to send a large force alongside us. If you don't, let us be clear: we will make terms with the Persians. We shouldn't be expected to die alone on your behalf, stationed as we are on the front lines far ahead of the rest of Greece. If you won't come to our defense, you can't force us to do the impossible. We'll find some way to save ourselves."
In response, the Greeks decided to send an army by sea to guard the pass in Thessaly. The force assembled, sailed through the strait of Euripus, landed at Halus on the Achaean coast, and marched into Thessaly, leaving their ships at Halus. They arrived at Tempe, the pass that leads from lower Macedonia into Thessaly along the Peneus River, running between Olympus and Ossa. About ten thousand Greek hoplites camped there, joined by the Thessalian cavalry. The Spartan commander was Euaenetus son of Carenus, chosen from among the polemarchs though not of the royal house, and the Athenian commander was Themistocles son of Neocles.
They stayed only a few days. Envoys arrived from Alexander of Macedon, son of Amyntas, who advised them to withdraw rather than be trampled by the approaching horde. He gave them a clear picture of the army's immense size and its naval strength. The Greeks took his advice -- they thought it was sound, and the Macedonian seemed genuinely well-disposed toward them. But I also think fear played a role, once they learned there was another pass into Thessaly through upper Macedonia, by way of the Perrhaebian territory and the city of Gonnus -- which was, in fact, the route Xerxes' army actually used. So the Greeks returned to their ships and sailed back to the Isthmus.
This Thessalian expedition took place while the Great King was still preparing to cross from Asia to Europe and was already at Abydos. Left without allies, the Thessalians now went over to the Persian side wholeheartedly, dropping all pretense of reluctance. They proved very useful to the king as events unfolded.
When the Greeks returned to the Isthmus, they debated -- keeping in mind Alexander's warning -- where to make their stand. The prevailing opinion was to defend the pass at Thermopylae. It was narrower than the one leading into Thessaly, it was a single pass, and it was closer to home. As for the mountain path that led to the destruction of the Greeks who died at Thermopylae, they did not even know it existed until the people of Trachis told them about it after they had arrived. So they resolved to guard this pass and block the Persians from entering Greece. They also decided that the fleet should sail to Artemisium on the coast of Euboea, since these two positions were close enough that each force could quickly learn what was happening to the other.
Here is how the terrain is laid out. Artemisium first: coming from the open Thracian Sea, the water narrows into the tight channel between the island of Sciathus and the Magnesian mainland, and right after this strait, along the Euboean coast, lies the beach called Artemisium, where there is a temple of Artemis.
As for the pass into Greece at Trachis, at its narrowest point it is only fifty feet wide. But this is not actually the narrowest part of the whole area. That distinction belongs to the spots in front of and behind Thermopylae -- at Alpeni behind it, and at the Phoenix River near the town of Anthela in front of it, the road narrows to a single cart track. To the west of Thermopylae rises a mountain, impassable and sheer, climbing to great heights toward the range of Oeta. To the east, the road drops immediately into the sea and coastal marshes. In this pass there are hot springs, which the locals call "the Pots," and an altar of Heracles stands nearby. A defensive wall had once been built across this pass, with a gate set in it, by the Phocians, who feared invasion when the Thessalians migrated from Thesprotia into the neighboring Aeolian territory. The Phocians even diverted the hot springs to flood the passage with scalding water, devising every trick they could to keep the Thessalians out. But that ancient wall had been built long ago and was mostly in ruins by now. The Greeks resolved to rebuild it and make their stand here against the invader. Near the road there was a village called Alpeni, where they planned to get their supplies.
The Greeks judged these positions well suited to their needs. They calculated that at Thermopylae the Persians would not be able to use their superior numbers or their cavalry. So they decided to meet the invader here. When word reached them that the Persians were already in Pieria, they broke camp at the Isthmus and marched out -- some heading for Thermopylae by land, others sailing for Artemisium.
The Greeks were hurrying to their positions. Meanwhile, the people of Delphi consulted the oracle on behalf of themselves and all of Greece, terrified of what was coming. The god told them to pray to the Winds, for the Winds would be powerful allies for Greece. The Delphians first reported this answer to all the Greeks who still wished to remain free -- earning themselves undying gratitude in their hour of dread -- and then they established an altar to the Winds at Thyia, in the sacred precinct of Thyia daughter of Cephisus, after whom the place was named. They offered sacrifices to the Winds and continue to do so down to my own time.
Meanwhile, the Persian fleet set out from Therma and sent its ten fastest ships ahead toward Sciathus, where three Greek vessels were keeping watch -- a Troezenian ship, an Aeginetan, and an Athenian. When their crews spotted the approaching enemy, they fled.
The Troezenian ship, commanded by Prexinus, was caught and captured immediately. The Persians took the most handsome soldier aboard and cut his throat at the prow as a good-omen sacrifice -- the first Greek they captured, and the handsomest. His name was Leon, and perhaps his name, which means "lion," had something to do with his fate.
The Aeginetan ship, captained by Asonides, gave the Persians more trouble, thanks to Pytheas son of Ischenous, who served as a marine on board. This man fought with extraordinary courage. Even after the ship was taken, he kept fighting until he was hacked nearly to pieces. When the Persians saw that he was still breathing, they were so impressed by his valor that they did everything they could to save his life, treating his wounds with myrrh ointments and bandaging them with the finest linen. When they returned to the main fleet, they showed him off to the whole army with admiration and gave him excellent care. The rest of the crew, however, they treated as slaves.
Two of the three ships, then, were captured. The third, commanded by the Athenian Phormus, ran aground at the mouth of the Peneus River during its escape. The Persians captured the ship but not the crew -- the Athenians jumped ashore the moment they beached and made their way overland through Thessaly back to Athens.
The Greeks stationed at Artemisium learned of all this through fire signals from Sciathus. In their alarm, they relocated from Artemisium to Chalcis to guard the strait of Euripus, while leaving lookouts on the Euboean heights to watch by day. Three of the ten Persian scouting ships ran aground on the reef called Myrmex, which lies between Sciathus and Magnesia. After the Persians marked this reef with a stone pillar, the main fleet set out from Therma -- the obstacles having been cleared -- and sailed with all their ships to Sepias, the beach between the city of Casthanaea and Cape Sepias. They had waited eleven days after the king's departure from Therma. A pilot named Pammon from Scyros had told them about the reef in the middle of the channel. Sailing all day, the fleet reached the coast of Magnesia and anchored between Casthanaea and Cape Sepias.
Up to this point and up to Thermopylae, the army had suffered no disaster. And the numbers, as I calculate them, were as follows: the ships from Asia totaled 1,207; their original crews, supplied by the various nations, amounted to 241,400 men, at a rate of 200 per ship. In addition, each ship carried thirty Persian, Median, or Sacan marines, adding another 36,210. I will add to both these figures the crews of the fifty-oared galleys, estimating roughly eighty men per vessel. As I mentioned earlier, there were 3,000 of these, giving us another 240,000 men. So the total naval force from Asia came to 517,610 men.
The infantry numbered 1,700,000, and the cavalry 80,000. To these I add the Arabian camel-riders and the Libyan chariot-drivers, whom I estimate at 20,000. Adding the ship and land forces together gives a total of 2,317,610 men. And this does not even include the attendants, supply ships, and their crews.
We still have to add the forces recruited from Europe. The Greeks of Thrace and the nearby islands supplied 120 ships -- that is, 24,000 men. The land forces from the Thracians, Paeonians, Eordians, Bottiaeans, Chalcideans, Brygians, Pierians, Macedonians, Perrhaebian, Enianians, Dolopians, Magnesians, Achaeans, and all the coastal peoples of Thrace I estimate at 300,000. Add these European forces to the Asian ones, and the total fighting force comes to 2,641,610 men.
With the fighting men numbering this much, the attendants and support crews -- the men on the supply ships and in the other vessels sailing with the army -- I estimate were no fewer than the fighters themselves, and quite possibly more. But I will assume them equal in number. This gives us a grand total of 5,283,220 men that Xerxes son of Darius led as far as Sepias and Thermopylae.
That is the number for the whole army. As for the women who baked bread for them, the concubines, the eunuchs -- no one could give an exact count. The same goes for the pack animals, other beasts of burden, and the Indian hunting dogs that traveled with the army. Given all this, I am not surprised that some rivers ran dry. What amazes me is how there was enough food to feed so many people. I calculate that if each man received just a quart of wheat per day and nothing more, 110,340 bushels would be consumed every day -- and that does not count the women, eunuchs, pack animals, or dogs. Of all these millions of men, not one was more worthy than Xerxes himself, in beauty and stature, to hold such power.
The fleet, as I was saying, sailed from Therma and put in along the Magnesian coast between Casthanaea and Cape Sepias. The first ships to arrive moored at the shore, with the rest anchored behind them in rows. Since the beach was not very wide, they lay at anchor eight ships deep, prows facing the sea. That was how things stood for the night. But at early dawn, after a clear sky and dead calm, the sea suddenly turned violent and a massive storm struck, driven by a powerful east wind -- the one the locals call the "Hellespontian." Those who noticed the wind picking up and had room to do so hauled their ships ashore before it hit, and they and their ships survived. But those caught at sea were scattered: some were driven onto the rocks called "the Ovens" at the foot of Mount Pelion, others onto the beach, others were wrecked on Cape Sepias itself, others at the city of Meliboea, and still others were tossed up on the shore at Casthanaea. The storm was irresistible.
There is a story that the Athenians had called on Boreas, the North Wind, to come to their aid, on the strength of an oracle that told them to summon their "brother-in-law" as a helper. According to Greek legend, Boreas had taken an Attic wife -- Oreithyia, the daughter of Erechtheus. Because of this connection, so the story goes, the Athenians figured out that their "brother-in-law" was Boreas. When they saw the wind rising while anchored at Chalcis in Euboea -- or perhaps even before that -- they made sacrifices and called on Boreas and Oreithyia to help them and destroy the enemy fleet, just as the Winds had done before, off Mount Athos. Whether Boreas actually fell on the Persians at anchor because of Athenian prayers, I cannot say. But the Athenians do claim that Boreas came to their aid, as he had before, and after they returned home they built a temple to Boreas beside the river Ilissus.
In this disaster, no fewer than four hundred ships were lost, according to the most conservative reports, along with countless men and an enormous quantity of treasure. The wreckage proved enormously profitable for a Magnesian named Ameinocles son of Cretines, who owned land around Sepias. He picked up gold cups, silver cups, and Persian treasure chests that washed ashore in great quantities, becoming fabulously wealthy. Yet he was not fortunate in every respect -- he too was afflicted by a private tragedy involving the death of a child.
Of the grain transports and other vessels lost, no count was made. The damage was so severe that the fleet commanders, terrified that the Thessalians would attack them in their weakened state, threw up a high palisade around their camp from the fragments of wrecked ships. The storm raged for three days. Finally, the Magi performed sacrifices, chanted incantations to soothe the Wind, and also made offerings to Thetis and the sea nymphs. On the fourth day, the storm ceased -- or perhaps it simply died down on its own. They made their offerings to Thetis because the Ionians had told them the story that Peleus had carried her off from this very spot, and that the whole headland of Sepias belonged to her and the other Nereids.
So the storm ended on the fourth day. Meanwhile, the Greek lookouts had raced down from the Euboean heights to report everything about the wreckage. When the Greeks at Chalcis heard the news, they first prayed to Poseidon the Savior and poured libations, then hurried back to Artemisium, expecting to find only a handful of enemy ships left to face them. They have called Poseidon "the Savior" ever since.
The Greeks returned to their station at Artemisium. Meanwhile, the Persians, once the wind died down and the sea calmed, pulled their ships back into the water and sailed along the mainland coast, rounding the tip of Magnesia and heading straight into the gulf that leads to Pagasae. There is a place in this Magnesian gulf where, according to legend, Heracles was left behind by Jason and the Argonauts, having been sent from the Argo to fetch water when they were sailing to Colchis for the Golden Fleece. They had planned to take on water there and then set out for the open sea, and from this the place got its name: Aphetae, meaning "the Launching Place." This is where Xerxes' fleet dropped anchor.
Now it happened that fifteen of these ships had put out to sea well behind the rest, and they caught sight of the Greek ships at Artemisium. Mistaking them for their own fleet, the Persians sailed straight toward them -- and fell right into enemy hands. Their commander was Sandoces son of Thamasius, the governor of Cyme in Aeolia. King Darius had once had this man crucified -- he was one of the Royal Judges -- for taking bribes to render an unjust verdict. But while Sandoces was actually hanging on the cross, Darius reconsidered and calculated that the man's services to the crown outweighed his crimes. Realizing he had acted with more haste than wisdom, Darius ordered him cut down. And so Sandoces escaped death at the hands of King Darius and lived to see another day. But this time, sailing into the middle of the Greek fleet, he was not destined to escape a second time. When the Greeks saw the ships approaching and realized the mistake, they sailed out and captured them easily.
On one of these captured ships was Aridolis, the tyrant of Alabanda in Caria. On another was the Paphian commander Penthylus son of Demonous, who had brought twelve ships from Paphos but lost eleven in the storm off Sepias, and was now caught sailing toward Artemisium with his sole surviving vessel. The Greeks interrogated these captives about Xerxes' army, then sent them in chains to the Isthmus.
So the Persian fleet, apart from those fifteen ships under Sandoces' command, had assembled at Aphetae. Meanwhile Xerxes, with the land army, had marched through Thessaly and Achaea and was already two days into the land of the Malians. While in Thessaly, he had held a horse race pitting his own horses against the Thessalian cavalry, since he had heard that the Thessalians had the best horsemen in all of Greece. The Greek horses were left far behind. Of the Thessalian rivers, only the Onochonus failed to provide enough water for the army. And in Achaea, even the largest river, the Epidanus, barely held out.
When Xerxes reached Halus in Achaea, his guides, eager to share every local detail, told him the legend of the Temple of Zeus Laphystius. The story went like this: Athamas son of Aeolus had plotted with Ino to kill his son Phrixus. Later, by command of an oracle, the Achaeans imposed this rule on Athamas' descendants: whoever was the eldest of the family was forbidden to enter the town hall -- which the Achaeans called "the People's Hall." If he entered, he could not leave until he was led out to be sacrificed. The guides also told Xerxes that many of these marked men, terrified of this fate, had fled to other lands. But if they ever returned and were caught, they were taken to the town hall, draped head to foot in sacrificial garlands, and led out in a solemn procession to be killed. This was the penalty imposed on the descendants of Cytissorus son of Phrixus, because when the Achaeans were about to sacrifice Athamas as a sin-offering on the god's orders, Cytissorus had arrived from Colchis and rescued him -- thereby bringing the god's anger down on his own line forever.
When Xerxes heard this, he avoided the sacred grove, ordering his entire army to do the same, and showed reverence to both the family's house and their holy precinct.
From Thessaly and Achaea, Xerxes proceeded into the land of the Malians, marching along a gulf where the tide rises and falls daily. Around this gulf lies a plain, broad in some places, very narrow in others, ringed by tall, impassable mountains that enclose the whole Malian territory -- the mountains known as the Rocks of Trachis. The first city on this gulf, coming from Achaea, is Anticyra, near where the Spercheius River flows into the sea. About twenty furlongs from the Spercheius is another river called the Dyras, which is said to have sprung up to help Heracles when he was burning on his funeral pyre. Another twenty furlongs further on is a river called the Melas.
Five furlongs from the Melas lies the city of Trachis. This area, around Trachis, is the widest part of the whole region between the mountains and the sea, with a plain stretching out to 22,000 plethra. In the mountain range that encloses Trachinian territory, there is a gorge south of Trachis through which the river Asopus flows along the mountain's base.
There is also another river, the Phoenix, a modest stream south of the Asopus that flows down from the mountains into the Asopus. At the Phoenix is the narrowest point, where only a single cart track has been cut. From the Phoenix, it is fifteen furlongs to Thermopylae. In between lies the village of Anthela, past which the Asopus flows out to sea. Around Anthela there is a wider space with a temple of Demeter of the Amphictyons, seats for the Amphictyonic councilors, and a temple dedicated to Amphictyon himself.
King Xerxes was camped in the Trachinian region, in Malian territory. The Greeks held the pass. Most Greeks call this place Thermopylae -- "the Hot Gates" -- but the locals and their neighbors simply call it Pylae, "the Gates." There the two armies faced each other: Xerxes commanding everything to the north, the Greeks holding the south.
These were the Greeks who waited for the Persian assault at this place: three hundred Spartan hoplites; one thousand men from Tegea and Mantinea, five hundred from each; one hundred and twenty from Orchomenus in Arcadia and one thousand from the rest of Arcadia; four hundred from Corinth, two hundred from Phlius, and eighty from Mycenae. That was the Peloponnesian contingent. From Boeotia came seven hundred Thespians and four hundred Thebans.
In addition, the Opuntian Locrians had been called up in full force, and a thousand Phocians came as well. The Greeks had summoned them with this message: that they themselves had come as the advance guard, that the rest of the allied forces were expected any day now, that the sea was securely guarded by the Athenians, Aeginetans, and the rest of the fleet, and that there was nothing to fear. After all, the man marching against Greece was not a god but a mortal -- and there never was or ever would be a mortal whose life was not mixed with misfortune from birth, with the greatest troubles reserved for the greatest men. The invader, being mortal, would surely fall short of his expectations. Encouraged by these words, the Locrians and Phocians marched to join the others at Trachis.
Each contingent had its own commander, according to its home state, but the man who commanded the most respect and who led the whole army was the Spartan Leonidas, son of Anaxandrides. His lineage went back through Leon, Eurycratides, Anaxander, Eurycrates, Polydorus, Alcamenes, Teleclus, Archelaus, Hegesilaus, Doryssus, Leobotes, Echestratus, Agis, Eurysthenes, Aristodemus, Aristomachus, Cleodaeus, and Hyllus -- all the way to Heracles. Leonidas had come to the kingship unexpectedly.
He had two older brothers, Cleomenes and Dorieus, and had never expected to become king. But Cleomenes died without a male heir, and Dorieus had already lost his life in Sicily. So the throne came to Leonidas -- he was older than his remaining brother Cleombrotus, who was the youngest of Anaxandrides' sons, and he had married Cleomenes' daughter besides. He now marched to Thermopylae with a picked force of three hundred, every one of them a man with a living son -- chosen in accordance with the law. He also took along the Thebans I mentioned earlier, commanded by Leontiades son of Eurymachus. Leonidas made a special point of including the Thebans because they had been strongly accused of collaborating with the Persians. He summoned them to war to test whether they would actually send troops or whether they would openly renounce the Greek alliance. They sent men -- but they were thinking very different thoughts.
The Spartans had sent Leonidas and his three hundred out first so that the sight of them would encourage the other allies to join the campaign, and to prevent those allies from going over to the Persians if they heard that Sparta was dragging its feet. Later, once the festival of the Carneia was over -- for the festival was the obstacle -- the plan was to leave a garrison at Sparta and march out in full force to help. The other allies had the same idea, since the Olympic Games happened to fall at the same time as these events. No one expected the fighting at Thermopylae to be decided so quickly, so they had sent only the advance force.
That was the plan. But the Greeks at Thermopylae, now that the Persians were close, became frightened and debated whether to retreat. Most of the Peloponnesians wanted to fall back to the Peloponnese and defend the Isthmus. But when the Phocians and Locrians protested furiously against this idea, Leonidas voted to stay, sending urgent messages to the allied cities to request reinforcements -- since they were too few to hold off the Persian army alone.
While they deliberated, Xerxes sent a mounted scout to observe the Greek camp and count their numbers. He had heard while still in Thessaly that a small force had gathered here, led by Spartans under Leonidas, a descendant of Heracles. The horseman rode up and got a clear view -- though not of the whole army, since those posted behind the rebuilt wall could not be seen. He observed only those stationed in front of it. As it happened, the Spartans were on duty outside the wall at that time. The scout saw some of them exercising, and others calmly combing their long hair. He stared at them in amazement, counted their number carefully, then rode back unmolested. No one chased him; no one even paid him any attention. He returned to Xerxes and reported everything he had seen.
When Xerxes heard this report, he could not grasp the truth -- that these men were preparing to kill and be killed to the limits of their ability. He thought they were acting absurdly. So he summoned Demaratus son of Ariston, the exiled Spartan king who was in his camp, and asked him what this behavior meant. Demaratus said: "You heard me speak about these men before, when we were setting out against Greece. You laughed at me then for telling you what I foresaw would happen. But the truth is the thing I struggle for above all else, my king. Hear me now: these men have come to fight us for control of the pass, and that is what they are preparing to do. It is their custom -- whenever they are about to put their lives on the line, they groom their hair. But know this: if you defeat these men and those who remain behind in Sparta, there is no other nation on earth that will dare raise a hand against you. You are about to fight the noblest kingdom and the finest warriors in all of Greece."
Xerxes found this utterly unbelievable and asked again how such a tiny force could possibly fight his enormous army. Demaratus answered: "My king, treat me as a liar if what I say does not come to pass."
But he did not convince Xerxes. The king let four days pass, expecting the Greeks to run away at any moment. On the fifth day, when they still had not moved -- their persistence struck him as sheer impudence and madness -- he flew into a rage and sent the Medes and Cissians against them with orders to take them alive and drag them into his presence.
The Medes charged the Greek line. They fell in great numbers, and more kept coming forward to replace them, but they could not break through despite terrible losses. They made it plain to every observer -- and above all to the king himself -- that he had plenty of human beings in his army, but very few real men. The fighting continued all day long.
When the Medes had been badly mauled, they pulled back, and the Persian troops known as the Immortals advanced under the command of Hydarnes, confident that they at least would make quick work of the enemy. But when they engaged the Greeks, they fared no better than the Medes -- exactly the same result. They were fighting in a narrow space, using shorter spears than the Greeks, unable to bring their numbers to bear. The Spartans fought brilliantly and demonstrated their immense superiority over their opponents in every aspect of warfare. Among their most effective tactics: they would turn their backs and pretend to flee. The Persians would charge after them with war cries and a clatter of arms -- and then the Spartans would wheel around and cut down enormous numbers of the enemy in the counterattack. A few Spartans fell in these exchanges too. But no matter how the Persians tried -- attacking in waves, in different formations, every strategy they could devise -- they could not force their way through. They pulled back.
During these assaults, it is said, the king leapt from his throne three times in terror for his army.
That was the first day's fighting. The next day went no better for the Persians. They had expected that with such a small force opposing them, the Greeks would be too wounded and exhausted to raise their arms. But the Greeks fought in relays, rotating by contingent and by nation, each unit taking its turn -- all except the Phocians, who were posted on the mountain to guard the path. Finding nothing different from the day before, the Persians again withdrew.
The king was at a loss for what to do. Then Ephialtes son of Eurydemus, a local man from Malis, came to him, expecting a huge reward. He told Xerxes about the mountain path that led around to Thermopylae from behind, and by doing so he brought about the destruction of the Greeks who held the pass. Later, Ephialtes fled to Thessaly in fear of the Spartans. While he was in exile, the Amphictyonic deputies put a price on his head at their assembly at Pylae. Some time after that, he returned to Anticyra and was killed by a man named Athenades of Trachis. Athenades actually killed him for a different reason, which I will explain later in this history, but the Spartans honored him for it all the same.
That is how Ephialtes met his end. There is another version of the story that says Onetes son of Phanagoras, from Carystus, and Corydallus of Anticyra were the ones who showed the Persians the path. But I do not accept this at all. First, the Amphictyonic deputies proclaimed a bounty not on Onetes and Corydallus but on Ephialtes the Trachinian -- and they surely had the most reliable information. Second, we know that Ephialtes went into exile specifically to escape this charge. It is true that Onetes might have known about the path even though he was not a Malian, if he had spent much time in the area. But it was Ephialtes who guided them over the mountain, and I name him as the guilty man.
Xerxes was delighted with what Ephialtes promised to do. Overjoyed, he immediately dispatched Hydarnes and the Immortals under his command. They left the camp at the hour when lamps are lit.
This path had originally been discovered by the Malians who lived in that region. They had used it to lead the Thessalians against the Phocians back when the Phocians had blocked the main pass with their wall -- that is how far back this path's military use went. The path runs as follows: it begins at the Asopus River where it flows through the mountain gorge. Both the mountain and the path share the same name: Anopaea. This path follows the ridge of the mountain and comes out at the town of Alpeni -- the first Locrian town on the Malian border -- near a rock formation called "Black Buttocks" and the Seats of the Cercopes, where the pass reaches its narrowest point.
Along this path the Persians crossed the Asopus and marched through the night, with the mountains of the Oetaeans on their right and the Trachinian range on their left. At dawn, they reached the summit. At this part of the mountain, as I mentioned before, a thousand Phocian hoplites were on guard, protecting their own homeland and watching the path. The main pass below was held by the forces I have already described; the mountain path was defended by these Phocian volunteers, who had offered their services to Leonidas.
The Phocians did not detect the Persians climbing up, because the whole mountainside was covered with oak trees. The night was calm, and the first warning the Phocians got was a great rustling noise -- inevitable with so many feet crunching through fallen leaves. The Phocians jumped up and began strapping on their armor, and by that time the Persians were right on top of them. The Persians were startled to find armed men -- they had expected the path to be unguarded. Hydarnes, afraid that these might be Spartans, asked Ephialtes what people they were. Learning they were Phocians, he drew up his forces for battle. The Phocians, pelted with volleys of arrows, scrambled up to the highest peak of the mountain, certain that they were the Persians' primary target, and prepared to make their stand there. But the Persians under Ephialtes and Hydarnes paid them no further attention and descended the mountain at top speed.
Down at Thermopylae, the Greeks first learned of the approaching danger from the seer Megistias, who read their doom in the morning sacrifices. Then deserters came in during the night with the report that the Persians were coming around the mountain. Finally, as dawn broke, the lookouts came running down from the heights with the same news. The Greeks held a council of war, and their opinions were divided. Some insisted they must not abandon their post; others disagreed. In the end, the army split apart. Some contingents left and went home to their various cities. Others were prepared to stay and die with Leonidas.
There is also a report that Leonidas himself sent them away because he did not want them to die needlessly, but believed it would be dishonorable for himself and the Spartans to abandon the post they had been sent to defend. I am inclined toward this view -- that Leonidas saw the allies were demoralized and unwilling to face the danger alongside him to the end, so he ordered them to go, while for himself he considered retreat dishonorable. By staying, he would leave behind an immortal name, and Sparta's greatness would not be erased. For an oracle had been given to the Spartans at the very beginning of this war, when they first consulted the Pythian priestess. It said that either Sparta would be destroyed by the Persians, or their king must die. The oracle ran:
Hear your fate, O dwellers in wide-spaced Sparta: Either your glorious city shall be sacked by the sons of Perseus, Or, if not, then the whole land of Lacedaemon Shall mourn the death of a king of Heracles' line. Not the strength of bulls nor the fury of lions shall stop him, For he has the might of Zeus. I say he shall not be held back Until he has utterly consumed one or the other.
It is my belief that Leonidas, weighing this prophecy and wanting to secure glory for Sparta alone among all the Greek states, dismissed the allies rather than have them leave in a disorderly squabble of conflicting opinions.
Here is the strongest evidence for this view: Leonidas is known to have tried to send away even the army's seer, Megistias the Acarnanian, said to be descended from Melampus, so that he would not die with the rest. But Megistias, though ordered to leave, refused to go himself. Instead he sent away his only son, who was serving with him in the army.
So the dismissed allies departed, obeying Leonidas' orders. Only the Thespians and the Thebans stayed behind with the Spartans. The Thebans stayed against their will -- Leonidas kept them essentially as hostages. But the Thespians stayed entirely of their own free will. They refused to leave Leonidas and his men, and they stayed and died alongside them. Their commander was Demophilus son of Diadromes.
At sunrise, Xerxes poured libations and then waited -- until about the hour when the marketplace fills with people -- before launching his attack. This was the timing Ephialtes had recommended, since the descent from the mountain was shorter and quicker than the long march around and up.
The Persians advanced. And the Greeks with Leonidas, knowing they were marching out to their deaths, now pushed forward much farther than before into the wider part of the pass. In the previous days' fighting, they had defended the wall and made their stand in the narrow section. Now they surged out into the open and slaughtered Persians in enormous numbers. Behind the Persian lines, the company commanders drove their men forward with whips, lashing them toward the front. Many were pushed into the sea and drowned. Many more were trampled to death by their own comrades. No one kept count of the dead. The Greeks knew that death was coming from behind the mountain. They threw themselves at the enemy with everything they had, fighting with abandon, with a kind of furious recklessness.
By now most of them had broken their spears, and they were killing Persians with their swords. In this fighting Leonidas fell, having proven himself the bravest of the brave, and with him fell other notable Spartans whose names I made a point of learning -- men who proved themselves worthy. In fact, I learned the names of all three hundred. On the Persian side, many distinguished men fell too, including two of Darius' own sons -- Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, born to Darius by Phratagune, daughter of Artanes. Artanes was King Darius' brother, the son of Hystaspes son of Arsames. When Artanes gave his daughter to Darius in marriage, he gave all his property with her, since she was his only child.
Two brothers of Xerxes, then, fell in this battle. Over the body of Leonidas, a ferocious struggle broke out between Persians and Spartans. The Greeks, fighting with extraordinary valor, dragged the body away from the enemy and drove them back four separate times. The battle raged on until the troops who had marched with Ephialtes finally arrived from behind.
When the Greeks realized they had come, the nature of the fight changed. They pulled back through the narrow pass, retreated beyond the wall, and took up their final position together on the hillock -- all of them except the Thebans. This hillock stands at the entrance to the pass, where the stone lion was later erected in Leonidas' honor. There, on that hill, they made their last stand, fighting with swords if they still had them, and if not with their bare hands and their teeth, until the Persians buried them under a hail of missiles -- some attacking from the front after tearing down the wall, others closing in from every side.
Even among such courage, the Spartans and Thespians were extraordinary. But the man said to have been the bravest of them all was the Spartan Dienekes. Before the battle, when a man from Trachis warned him that the Persian archers were so numerous that their arrows would block out the sun, Dienekes was not impressed. Making light of the Persian numbers, he said: "Our friend from Trachis brings us excellent news. If the Persians hide the sun, we will have our battle in the shade."
This and other memorable sayings are attributed to Dienekes. After him, the bravest Spartans were said to be two brothers, Alpheus and Maron, sons of Orsiphantus. The Thespian who won the greatest distinction was Dithyrambus son of Harmatides.
The dead were buried where they fell. Over them -- and over those who had died in the fighting before Leonidas dismissed the allies -- an inscription was carved:
Here once four thousand from the Peloponnese Fought against three million of the foe.
That was the inscription for the whole force. For the Spartans alone, there was this:
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
And for the seer Megistias, this:
Here lies Megistias, whom the Persians slew When they crossed the Spercheius stream -- A seer who clearly saw the doom approaching But would not abandon Sparta's leaders.
The Amphictyonic council erected the inscriptions and memorial pillars for the dead -- all except the one for Megistias. That one was composed by the poet Simonides son of Leoprepes, out of personal friendship.
Two of the three hundred -- Eurytus and Aristodemus -- had, it is said, been dismissed from the camp by Leonidas and were lying sick at Alpeni with a severe eye infection. They could have agreed to go home to Sparta together, or they could have agreed to go back and die with the others. But they could not agree between themselves. When Eurytus learned that the Persians had found the mountain path, he demanded his armor, put it on, and ordered his helot servant to lead him to the battle. The helot led him there and then ran away. Eurytus plunged into the fighting and was killed. Aristodemus, however, stayed behind -- his heart failed him.
Now, if Aristodemus had been the only one who was sick and had gone home, or if both men had returned together, I do not think the Spartans would have been angry with them. But since one of them had given his life while the other, who had every bit as much justification for leaving, chose not to die, the Spartans could not help but feel a burning indignation toward Aristodemus.
Some say Aristodemus survived in the way I have described, using his illness as his excuse. Others tell a different version: that he had been sent out from the camp as a messenger, and though he could have made it back in time for the battle, he deliberately lingered on the road to save his life, while his fellow messenger arrived and was killed.
When Aristodemus returned to Sparta, he faced reproach and disgrace. His disgrace took this form: no Spartan would share a fire with him or speak a word to him. He was given a name -- "Aristodemus the Coward."
But at the Battle of Plataea, he redeemed all the guilt that had been charged against him. There was also, it is reported, another survivor from the three hundred -- a man named Pantites, who had been sent as a messenger to Thessaly. When he returned to Sparta and found himself dishonored, he hanged himself.
As for the Thebans under Leontiades' command, they had fought alongside the Greeks for a time out of necessity. But when they saw that the Persians were winning, and that Leonidas and his Spartans were racing toward the hillock for their last stand, the Thebans broke away. They held out their hands in surrender and approached the Persians, shouting -- and this was perfectly true -- that they were on the Persian side, that they had been among the first to offer earth and water to the king, and that they had come to Thermopylae only under compulsion. They bore no responsibility for the king's losses. These words saved their lives, and the Thessalians backed up their story. Still, their luck was not entirely good: some had been killed during the approach, and when the rest surrendered and fell into Persian hands, most of them were branded with the royal mark on Xerxes' orders, starting with their commander Leontiades -- the same Leontiades whose son Eurymachus was later killed by the Plataeans when he led four hundred Thebans in a surprise attack on Plataea.
That was how the Greeks fought at Thermopylae. Afterward, Xerxes summoned Demaratus and said: "Demaratus, you are a good man. I can see that from the truth of your words -- everything turned out just as you said. Now tell me: how many Spartans are there in all? And are they all warriors like these, or only some of them?"
Demaratus answered: "My king, the total number of Spartans is great and their cities are many. But I will tell you what you want to know. In Lacedaemon there is a city called Sparta, with about eight thousand men. All of them are the equal of those who fought here. The other Spartans are not their equals -- but they are good men too."
Xerxes said: "Demaratus, how can we defeat these men with the least effort? Tell me your strategy -- you know the ins and outs of their thinking, since you were once their king."
Demaratus replied: "My king, if you truly want my honest counsel, here is the best plan. Send three hundred ships from your fleet to attack the coast of Laconia. There is an island nearby called Cythera. Chilon, one of the wisest men Sparta ever produced, once said it would be better for the Spartans if Cythera sank beneath the sea -- he always feared that something exactly like what I am now proposing would happen from that island. Not that he knew about your invasion specifically, but he feared any military force equally. Let your fleet operate from Cythera and keep the Spartans terrified. With a war on their own doorstep, they will not march out to rescue the rest of Greece while your land army conquers it. Once the rest of Greece has been subdued, Spartan power will be left alone and feeble. But if you do not do this, here is what you can expect: there is a narrow isthmus leading to the Peloponnese. All the Peloponnesians have sworn an alliance against you, and at that isthmus you will face battles even harder than what you have just seen. If you take my advice, the Isthmus and all its cities will come over to you without a fight."
After Demaratus finished, Xerxes' brother Achaemenes, who also commanded the fleet and happened to be present, spoke up. "My king," he said, "I see that you are listening to a man who envies your success -- or who may even be a traitor to your cause. This is typical Greek behavior: they resent anyone's good fortune and hate anyone stronger than themselves. In our present situation, having already lost four hundred ships in the storm, if you now detach another three hundred to sail around the Peloponnese, our enemies will be a match for us in battle. But as long as the fleet stays together, it will be too much for them to handle, and they will be no match for us at all. Let the whole fleet advance alongside the army, each supporting the other. If you split them apart, you will be no use to them nor they to you. My advice is this: keep your own affairs in good order and stop worrying about the enemy -- where they will fight, what they will do, how many they are. They are perfectly capable of worrying about themselves, and we should worry about ourselves. If the Spartans come out to fight the Persians again, they will certainly not recover from the wound they have just received."
Xerxes replied: "Achaemenes, your advice sounds good, and I will follow it. But Demaratus speaks what he honestly believes is best for me, even though your judgment wins out over his. I will not accept your claim that he is disloyal. I judge by his earlier advice and by a plain truth about human nature: one citizen may envy another's success and show hostility through silence, and if asked for counsel he may not give the best advice -- unless he is a man of exceptional virtue, and such men are rare. But a host and a guest-friend? A guest-friend is a man's truest well-wisher, and if asked for advice, he will give the best he has. So regarding any slander against Demaratus, who is my guest-friend, I order everyone here to stop it."
With that said, Xerxes went to view the bodies of the dead. When he came to the body of Leonidas and learned that this had been the Spartan king and commander, he ordered the head cut off and the body impaled on a stake. This proves to me, more clearly than anything else, that King Xerxes was more furious at Leonidas while he was alive than at any other man on earth. Otherwise he would never have committed this outrage against the corpse -- for the Persians, of all the peoples I know, are the most accustomed to honoring brave enemies in war. But those who were ordered to carry this out did as they were told.
I will now return to an earlier point in my story that I left unfinished. The Spartans had been the first to learn that the Great King was preparing to invade Greece. This is how it happened -- and it is a remarkable story. Demaratus son of Ariston, exiled in Persia, was not -- in my opinion, and as probability suggests -- well-disposed toward the Spartans. But whether what he did next came from goodwill or from the pleasure of gloating, anyone can judge for himself. When Xerxes decided to march against Greece, Demaratus, who was in Susa and had learned of the plan, wanted to warn the Spartans. The problem was how to get a message past Persian security. He came up with an ingenious solution: he took a folding wooden writing tablet, scraped off all the wax, and wrote the king's plans directly on the bare wood underneath. Then he poured fresh wax over the writing, so that the tablet would appear blank and arouse no suspicion as it was carried past the road inspectors.
When the tablet reached Sparta, no one could figure out what it meant -- until Gorgo, Cleomenes' daughter and Leonidas' wife, guessed the secret. She told them to scrape off the wax, and they would find writing on the wood beneath. They did as she suggested, found the message, read it, and sent word to the rest of Greece.
That, at least, is how the story is told.
The Greek fleet at Artemisium was made up as follows: the Athenians supplied 127 ships, with the Plataeans -- who had no naval experience but plenty of courage and spirit -- joining the Athenians in crewing them. The Corinthians brought forty ships, the Megarians twenty. The Chalcidians manned twenty ships that the Athenians supplied to them. The Aeginetans contributed eighteen, the Sicyonians twelve, the Spartans ten, the Epidaurians eight, the Eretrians seven, the Troezenians five, the Styrians two, the Ceans two ships and two fifty-oared galleys. The Opuntian Locrians also came to help with seven fifty-oared galleys.
I have listed these by the number of ships each supplied. The total assembled at Artemisium, not counting the fifty-oared galleys, was 271 warships. The overall commander was a Spartan, Eurybiades son of Eurycleides, though he was not of the royal house. The allies had insisted on this arrangement, saying they would break up the expedition rather than serve under Athenian command.
There had been talk, even before the delegation to Sicily, that the Athenians should lead the fleet. But when the allies objected, the Athenians gave way, judging that saving Greece was more important than squabbling over leadership. They were right: internal division among people of the same blood is worse than united war, just as war is worse than peace. The Athenians understood this and did not press their claim -- at least not while they desperately needed their allies. Later, after they had driven the Persians away and the war moved to Persian territory rather than their own, they used the arrogance of the Spartan regent Pausanias as a pretext to take the leadership from the Spartans. But that came later.
At this earlier time, when the Greeks at Artemisium saw the enormous Persian fleet anchored at Aphetae, filling the entire area with ships, they were terrified. Things had turned out very differently from what they had expected, and they debated retreating deeper into Greece. The Euboeans, realizing the Greeks were about to abandon them, begged Eurybiades to stay just long enough for them to evacuate their children and households. When he refused, they went to Themistocles, the Athenian commander, and paid him thirty talents of silver to ensure the fleet would stay and fight off the coast of Euboea.
Themistocles kept the fleet in place with this scheme: he gave five talents to Eurybiades, pretending it was his own money. Once Eurybiades had been persuaded, the only holdout was Adeimantus son of Ocytus, the Corinthian commander, who declared he would sail away and not stay. Themistocles swore an oath and told him: "You will not leave us -- I will give you a bigger reward than the king of Persia would send you for deserting your allies." With that, he sent three talents of silver to Adeimantus' ship. So they were all won over by gifts, the Euboeans got their wish, and Themistocles himself pocketed the remaining money. None of the recipients knew there was more -- they all believed the payments came from the Athenian state for this very purpose.
So the Greeks stayed in Euboean waters and fought. Here is how it went: the Persians arrived at Aphetae around early afternoon. They had already heard that a small Greek fleet was at Artemisium, and now they could see it for themselves. They were eager to attack, but decided not to sail straight at the Greeks just yet -- they were afraid the Greeks would flee when they saw the fleet coming, and night would cover their escape. The Persians wanted to make sure not even the fire-bearer survived.
So they came up with a plan. They detached two hundred ships and sent them on a long route around the outside of Euboea, past Cape Caphereus and around Geraestus to the Euripus strait, sailing on the far side of Sciathus to avoid being seen. The idea was that this squadron would come up behind the Greeks and block their retreat while the main fleet attacked from the front, trapping them completely. Having dispatched these ships, the Persians had no intention of engaging the Greeks that day -- they would wait until a signal confirmed the flanking squadron had arrived. Meanwhile, they spent the time counting their remaining ships at Aphetae.
While this counting was going on, something happened. There was a man in the Persian camp named Scyllias of Scione, the greatest diver of his time, who had recovered a great deal of Persian treasure from the shipwreck off Pelion -- and had kept a good portion of it for himself. Scyllias had been looking for an opportunity to desert to the Greeks for some time but had not found one until now. Exactly how he reached the Greek fleet I cannot say for certain, and the story told about him strikes me as incredible: it is said that he dived into the sea at Aphetae and did not surface until he reached Artemisium, having swum underwater for roughly ten miles. Now, there are many tall tales told about this man, some false and some true, but let me state my own opinion: he came to Artemisium in a boat. Once there, he immediately told the Greek commanders about the shipwreck and about the two hundred ships being sent around Euboea.
When the Greeks heard this, they debated what to do. After much discussion, the majority voted to stay put that day and camp on shore, then set out after midnight to intercept the encircling squadron. But when no attack came, they decided instead, in the late afternoon, to sail out and attack the Persians themselves -- wanting to test their fighting tactics and the technique of breaking through their line.
When Xerxes' commanders and troops saw this small fleet sailing out against them, they thought the Greeks had gone mad. They put to sea confidently, expecting an easy capture -- and their confidence was reasonable enough, given how vastly they outnumbered the Greeks and how superior their ships were in speed. So they moved to encircle the Greek fleet.
Among the Ionians serving in the Persian force, those who were sympathetic to the Greek cause watched this encirclement with great distress, certain that none of the Greeks would make it home -- so weak did the Greek position seem. Others in the fleet were thrilled, each man competing to be the first to capture an Athenian ship, since the Athenians had the biggest reputation in the enemy camp.
When the signal was given, the Greeks formed up with their prows facing outward and their sterns drawn together in the center. At the second signal -- though hemmed in and fighting prow to prow in a tight space -- they went to work with a fury. They captured thirty Persian ships, and among their prisoners was Philaon son of Chersis, the brother of the king of Salamis in Cyprus, a man of high standing in the fleet. The first Greek to capture an enemy ship was an Athenian named Lycomedes son of Aeschraeus, who won the prize for valor. The battle was evenly matched when nightfall separated the two sides. The Greeks sailed back to Artemisium, the Persians to Aphetae -- a result that fell far short of Persian expectations. In this battle, the only Greek serving with the Persians who deserted to the Greek side was Antidorus of Lemnos, and the Athenians rewarded him with a grant of land on Salamis.
When darkness came, even though it was the middle of summer, torrential rain poured down all night long, with violent thunder crashing from Mount Pelion. Dead bodies and pieces of wreckage drifted into Aphetae, tangling around the ships' prows and fouling the oar blades. The Persian troops were terrified, expecting they would all perish -- they had barely had time to catch their breath from the earlier shipwreck and storm off Pelion before being thrown into a naval battle, and now this: another violent storm with floods rushing down to the sea and deafening thunder.
That was how the night went for the Persians at Aphetae. But for the two hundred ships that had been sent to sail around Euboea, that same night was far worse, because the storm caught them in the open sea. When the gale and rain hit them near the "Hollows" of Euboea, they were driven by the wind without knowing where they were being carried and were smashed on the rocks. All of this was brought about by the hand of God, to bring the Persian fleet closer in size to the Greek one.
Those ships perished, then, at the Hollows of Euboea. Meanwhile, the Persians at Aphetae were relieved when dawn finally arrived. They kept their battered fleet quiet, content to sit still for the time being. But the Greeks received a welcome reinforcement: fifty-three Athenian ships joined them. This fresh squadron raised their spirits, and so did the news that the entire Persian flanking force had been destroyed in the storm. They waited until the same time as the day before, late afternoon, then sailed out and attacked a squadron of Cilician ships. After destroying these, they withdrew at nightfall to Artemisium.
On the third day, the Persian commanders -- humiliated that such a small fleet was inflicting real damage on them, and afraid of what Xerxes might say -- did not wait for the Greeks to attack. They gave the order and put out to sea around midday. As it happened, these sea battles took place on the very same days as the fighting on land at Thermopylae. The whole point of the naval campaign was control of the strait of Euripus, just as the point of Leonidas and his men was to hold the pass. The Greeks urged each other to keep the Persians from breaking through into Greece; the Persians cheered each other on to destroy the Greek fleet and seize the straits.
As Xerxes' fleet advanced in formation, the Greeks held their position at Artemisium. The Persians spread out in a crescent to encircle them. The Greeks put out to meet them, and this time the two sides fought roughly as equals. Xerxes' fleet, because of its enormous size, actually suffered from itself -- the ships fell into confusion and collided with each other. Still, the Persians refused to give way, scorning the idea of being routed by so few ships. Many Greek ships were destroyed and many men killed, but the Persian losses in ships and men were considerably greater. After this hard-fought engagement, the two sides separated and returned to their stations.
In this battle, the best fighters on the Persian side were the Egyptians, who performed many feats of valor and captured five Greek ships with their entire crews. Among the Greeks, the Athenians distinguished themselves the most on this day, and the standout Athenian was Cleinias son of Alcibiades, who served at his own expense with two hundred men and his own ship.
When the fighting ended, both sides were glad to return to their moorings. The Greeks held the field -- they had possession of the dead and the wreckage -- but they had suffered badly, especially the Athenians, half of whose ships were damaged. They began deliberating about retreating deeper into Greece.
But Themistocles had conceived a plan. If he could detach the Ionians and Carians from the Persian fleet, the Greeks could beat the rest. At that moment, the people of Euboea were driving their livestock down to the coast, and Themistocles assembled the Greek commanders. He told them he had a scheme that he believed could peel away the king's best allies. He did not reveal the details yet. For the immediate situation, he advised them to slaughter as many Euboean cattle as they wanted -- better that the army eat them than leave them for the enemy. He also told each commander to order his men to light fires. As for the timing of their departure, he would take care of that and make sure they reached safety. They agreed, lit their fires, and turned their attention to the cattle.
The Euboeans had brought this on themselves by ignoring the oracle of Bacis, which they had dismissed as meaningless. They had failed to evacuate their property or stockpile provisions against the coming war, and their negligence had caught up with them. The oracle of Bacis on this matter ran:
When a foreign-tongued man casts a yoke of papyrus upon the sea, Be sure to keep your bleating goats away from Euboea.
With disaster already upon them or bearing down fast, they had cause to deeply regret ignoring these words.
While the Greeks were thus engaged, the scout from Trachis arrived. There was a man named Polyas, from Anticyra, stationed at Artemisium with a boat standing by, whose job was to carry word to Thermopylae if the fleet was in trouble. Similarly, an Athenian named Abronichus son of Lysicles was posted with Leonidas, ready to sail to Artemisium with a thirty-oared galley if anything happened to the land army. It was Abronichus who now arrived with the news of what had happened to Leonidas and his men.
When the Greeks heard this, they delayed their retreat no longer. They set out in their assigned order -- the Corinthians first, the Athenians bringing up the rear.
Themistocles, however, selected the fastest Athenian ships and made a detour to the freshwater springs along the coast, where he carved inscriptions on the rocks. The Ionians read these when they arrived at Artemisium the following day. The inscriptions said: "Ionians, you are wrong to fight against the fathers of your race and to help enslave Greece. The best thing would be for you to come over to our side. If that is not possible, at least stand aside from the fighting, and urge the Carians to do the same. If neither option is open to you, and you are bound too tightly to revolt, then when battle comes, fight badly on purpose. Remember that you are descended from us, and that our quarrel with Persia started because of you in the first place."
Themistocles wrote this, as I believe, with two aims in mind: either the inscriptions would escape the king's notice and convince the Ionians to switch sides, or they would be reported to Xerxes, who would then distrust the Ionians and keep them out of the sea battles.
Right after Themistocles left his inscriptions, a man from Histiaea arrived in a boat to tell the Persians that the Greeks had retreated from Artemisium. The Persians did not believe it and kept the messenger under guard while they sent fast ships to investigate. When the scouts confirmed the report, the entire fleet sailed to Artemisium at daybreak. They lingered there until midday, then sailed on to Histiaea, where they occupied the city and overran all the coastal villages in the region of Ellopia.
While the fleet was at Histiaea, Xerxes made his arrangements regarding the dead at Thermopylae. He had the herald cross over to the fleet with an invitation for the troops to come and see. But first, the king's preparations: of the roughly 20,000 Persian dead at Thermopylae, he had about 19,000 of them buried in trenches, covered with leaves and heaped with earth, leaving only about a thousand visible. Then the herald addressed the assembled fleet at Histiaea: "Allies, King Xerxes grants permission to anyone who wishes to leave his post and come see how he fights against those idiots who thought they could overcome the king's power."
After this announcement, boats became the hottest commodity in the fleet -- everyone wanted to see. They crossed over and walked among the dead, and every visitor assumed that the bodies on display were all Spartans and Thespians, though helot servants were among them too. But nobody was fooled by what Xerxes had done with his own dead. It was actually laughable: on the Greek side there lay about a thousand bodies in plain view, while the Persian dead -- all four thousand left visible out of twenty thousand -- were heaped together in one place. The troops spent the day gawking, then sailed back to Histiaea, while Xerxes and his army resumed their march.
A few Arcadian deserters came in around this time -- men without resources, looking for employment. The Persians brought them before the king and asked what the Greeks were doing. The Arcadians said the Greeks were celebrating the Olympic Games, watching athletic and equestrian competitions. A Persian asked what prize the competitors were fighting for. When the Arcadians said it was a wreath of olive, Tigranes son of Artabanus spoke up with an observation that was truly noble -- though it earned him a charge of cowardice from the king. Hearing that the prize was a wreath and not money, he could not restrain himself and said in front of everyone: "Good God, Mardonius -- what kind of men are these you have brought us to fight? They compete not for money but for honor!"
Meanwhile, the moment the disaster at Thermopylae was known, the Thessalians immediately sent a herald to the Phocians, against whom they bore a long-standing grudge -- intensified by their most recent humiliation. Not many years before the Persian invasion, the Thessalians and their allies had invaded Phocian territory and been soundly beaten. The Phocians had been cornered on Mount Parnassus with a seer named Tellias of Elis, who devised a brilliant trick: he selected six hundred of the best Phocian fighters, covered them and their armor with white chalk, and sent them out in a night attack, with orders to kill any man who was not chalked white. When the Thessalian sentries saw these ghostly white figures coming at them, they panicked, thinking it was something supernatural. The panic spread to the main army, and the Phocians slaughtered four thousand Thessalians and captured their shields, dedicating half at Abae and half at Delphi. From the tithe of the spoils, they commissioned the large statues that stand around the tripod in front of the temple at Delphi, and similar ones at Abae.
That was what the Phocians had done to the Thessalian infantry. When the Thessalian cavalry invaded, the Phocians dealt with them too. At the pass near Hyampolis, they dug a deep trench, filled it with empty wine jars, covered it over with earth so it looked like solid ground, and waited. The Thessalian cavalry came charging in at full gallop and fell straight into the jars, crippling their horses' legs.
Burning with resentment over both these defeats, the Thessalians sent their herald with this message: "Phocians, it is time you admitted you are not in our league. In the old days, when we sided with Greece, we always ranked above you. Now we have such influence with the Persians that we could have you driven from your land and sold into slavery. But even with all this power, we bear no grudge. Pay us fifty talents of silver, and we will guarantee your safety from what is coming."
This was the Thessalian offer. The Phocians were the only people in that region who had not gone over to the Persians -- and the reason, as far as I can tell, was purely their hatred of the Thessalians. If the Thessalians had supported the Greek cause, I believe the Phocians would have sided with the Persians. When the Thessalians made their demand, the Phocians refused to pay. They said that if they wanted to, they could collaborate with the Persians just as easily as the Thessalians had. But they would not willingly betray Greece.
When this answer was reported, the Thessalians flew into a rage and became the Persians' guides. From Trachis, the army entered Doris -- a narrow strip of Dorian territory, about thirty furlongs wide, lying between Malis and Phocis, the region once called Dryopis. This was the ancestral homeland of the Dorians of the Peloponnese. The Persians did not touch Doris, because the Dorians were on their side and the Thessalians did not want them harmed.
But when they crossed from Doris into Phocis, the devastation began -- though the Persians did not catch the Phocians themselves. Some had fled to the heights of Parnassus -- to a peak near the city of Neon called Tithorea, which is large enough to shelter a great number of people, and there they had carried their possessions. Most, however, had evacuated their goods to the territory of the Ozolian Locrians, to the city of Amphissa above the Crissaean plain. The Persians, guided by the Thessalians, overran all of Phocis, burning and destroying everything they found along their march -- cities and temples alike.
Marching along the Cephisus River, they put to the torch Drymus, Charadra, Erochus, Tethronion, Amphicaea, Neon, Pedieis, Triteis, Elateia, Hyampolis, Parapotamii, and Abae. At Abae there stood a temple of Apollo, wealthy and filled with treasure rooms and votive offerings, and an oracle as well. They plundered and burned this temple. Some Phocians they hunted down and captured in the mountains, and some women they violated repeatedly until they died.
Past Parapotamii, the army reached Panopeus and there split into two forces. The larger and stronger division, accompanying Xerxes himself, marched toward Athens and entered Boeotia through the territory of Orchomenus. The Boeotian population had already gone over to the Persians, and their cities were being protected by Macedonian officers Alexander had posted in each one, to make it visibly clear to Xerxes that Boeotia was on his side.
That was the route of the main army. But another force, with guides, branched off toward the temple at Delphi, keeping Parnassus on their right. They ravaged every part of Phocis they marched through, burning the towns of Panopeus, Daulis, and Aeolis. This detachment had been split off for one purpose: to plunder the temple at Delphi and deliver its treasures to King Xerxes. Xerxes knew everything of value in the sanctuary -- better, I am told, than what was in his own palace -- since so many people constantly talked about the offerings there, especially the famous gifts of Croesus son of Alyattes.
The Delphians, when they learned of the approaching force, were consumed with terror. In their panic, they consulted the oracle about the sacred treasures -- should they bury them in the ground or carry them away to another land? The god told them to leave his things alone: he was perfectly capable of taking care of what was his. Reassured about the treasures but still frightened for themselves, the Delphians sent their women and children across the water to Achaea, while most of the men climbed the heights of Parnassus and stored their property in the Corycian cave. Others fled to Amphissa in Locrian territory. In the end, the entire population abandoned the town except for sixty men and the prophet of the oracle.
When the Persians drew close enough to see the temple, the prophet -- a man named Aceratus -- saw that sacred weapons had appeared outside the inner shrine, laid out in front of it. These were holy arms that no human hand was permitted to touch. He was on his way to report this miracle to the remaining Delphians when the Persians, pressing forward, reached the temple of Athena Pronaia. And there, something even more extraordinary occurred. Though the appearance of sacred arms outside the shrine was marvel enough, what happened next was worthy of astonishment beyond all other prodigies: as the Persians approached the temple of Athena Pronaia, thunderbolts fell on them from the sky, two enormous boulders broke free from the cliffs of Parnassus and came crashing down upon them, killing many, and from within the temple of Pronaia came the sound of a war cry and a shout of battle.
The combination of all these terrors threw the Persians into a panic. The Delphians, seeing them flee, came charging down from the heights and killed a great number. The survivors ran straight back to Boeotia. These returning soldiers reported, I am told, that they had seen other miraculous things besides: two warriors of superhuman size had pursued them, cutting them down as they ran.
The Delphians say these two were the local heroes Phylacus and Autonous, whose sacred precincts stand near the temple -- Phylacus' beside the road above the temple of Pronaia, and Autonous' near the Castalian spring beneath the peak called Hyampeia. The boulders that fell from Parnassus were still there in my own time, lying in the sacred precinct of Athena Pronaia where they had crashed through the Persian ranks. That was how the Persians were driven from the temple.
Meanwhile, the Greek fleet had left Artemisium and put in at Salamis at the Athenians' request. The Athenians wanted to dock at Salamis so they could evacuate their women and children from Attica to safety and also hold a new council of war. They needed to rethink their whole strategy, because the situation was nothing like what they had expected. They had thought the full Peloponnesian army would be waiting in Boeotia to face the Persians. Instead, they found that the Peloponnesians were fortifying the Isthmus with a wall, caring about nothing except the defense of the Peloponnese and willing to let everything else go. This was the news that prompted the Athenians to ask for the stop at Salamis.
The rest of the fleet put in at Salamis, but the Athenians crossed to their own shore and issued a proclamation that every Athenian should save his children and household however he could. Most sent their families to Troezen, others to Aegina, and others to Salamis. They were desperate to get everyone to safety, partly to obey the oracle, and partly for another reason. The Athenians say that a great serpent lives in the temple and guards the Acropolis. They not only say this -- they actually set out monthly offerings for it, a honey cake. This honey cake, which had always been eaten before, was now found untouched. When the priestess reported this, the Athenians abandoned the city with even greater urgency, believing that the goddess herself had deserted the Acropolis. Once they had removed everything precious, they sailed to rejoin the fleet.
When the ships from Artemisium had anchored at Salamis, the rest of the Greek navy, hearing the news, converged from Troezen, where they had been ordered to assemble at the harbor of Pogon. Far more ships gathered now than had fought at Artemisium, drawn from more cities. The overall commander was still Eurybiades son of Eurycleides, the same Spartan who had led at Artemisium -- though he was not of the royal blood. The Athenians, however, supplied by far the most ships and the best-sailing ones.
Here is the full roll call. From the Peloponnese: the Spartans with sixteen ships, the Corinthians with forty (the same as at Artemisium), the Sicyonians with fifteen, the Epidaurians with ten, the Troezenians with five, and the Hermionians with three. All of these except the Hermionians were of Dorian and Macedonian stock, having migrated from Erineus, Pindus, and the land of Dryopis. The Hermionians were Dryopians, driven from their original homeland by Heracles and the Malians.
Those were the Peloponnesians. From the mainland outside the Peloponnese: the Athenians supplied more ships than everyone else combined -- 180 -- and they manned them alone, since the Plataeans were not with them this time. When the fleet was leaving Artemisium and approaching Chalcis, the Plataeans had gone ashore on the Boeotian coast to evacuate their families, and in saving them they had been left behind. As for the Athenians themselves, they had a long history of name changes: in the time when the Pelasgians occupied what is now Greece, they were called Cranaans; under King Cecrops they were known as Cecropidae; when Erechtheus succeeded to power, they became Athenians; and when Ion son of Xuthus became their war leader, they took from him the name Ionians.
The Megarians furnished the same complement as at Artemisium. The Ambraciots came with seven ships, the Leucadians with three -- both being Dorians originally from Corinth.
Among the islanders, the Aeginetans contributed thirty ships, though they had others they were using to guard their own island. The Chalcidians served with the same twenty ships as at Artemisium, and the Eretrians with their seven. These are Ionians. The Ceans came with the same force as before; they are Ionians from Athens. The Naxians sent four ships. Like the other islanders, they had originally been ordered by their citizens to join the Persians, but ignoring those orders, they had come to the Greek side at the urging of Democritus, a distinguished citizen who commanded a trireme. The Naxians are Ionians, originally from Athens. The Styrians brought the same ships as at Artemisium. The Cythnians contributed one ship and one fifty-oared galley; they are Dryopians. The Seriphians, Siphnians, and Melians also served -- they were the only islanders who had refused to give the Persians earth and water.
All these peoples I have named lived inside the boundaries of Thesprotia and the river Acheron -- the Ambraciots and Leucadians, who came from the farthest distance, bordered on Thesprotian territory. From beyond those limits, the only people who came to help Greece in her hour of danger were the men of Croton, who sent a single ship commanded by Phaylus, a man who had won three victories at the Pythian Games. The men of Croton are Achaean by descent.
All the others who served in the fleet brought triremes, but the Melians, Siphnians, and Seriphians brought fifty-oared galleys. The Melians -- who are of Spartan descent -- sent two; the Siphnians and Seriphians, who are Ionians from Athens, each sent one. The total number of ships, not counting the fifty-oared galleys, was 378.
When the commanders from all these states had gathered at Salamis, they held a council of war. Eurybiades invited anyone who wished to give his opinion on where to fight the decisive sea battle, now that Attica had already been given up. The great majority favored sailing to the Isthmus and fighting in defense of the Peloponnese. Their argument was that if they lost at Salamis, they would be trapped on an island with no hope of rescue, whereas at the Isthmus they could retreat to friendly territory.
While the Peloponnesian commanders were making this case, an Athenian arrived with the news that the Persians had reached Attica and were setting everything ablaze. Xerxes' army, marching through Boeotia, had burned the city of Thespiae -- its people having already fled to the Peloponnese -- and the city of Plataea as well. They were now in Athens, laying waste to everything. Xerxes had burned Thespiae and Plataea because the Thebans told him those cities had refused to side with Persia.
Three months had passed since the Persians crossed the Hellespont and began their march -- having spent one month on the crossing itself -- and now they were in Attica. It was the year of the archon Calliades at Athens. They found the lower city deserted and occupied it. But on the Acropolis they found a small number of Athenians still holding out -- temple stewards and poor people who had barricaded the entrance with doors and a wooden palisade. These were men who had not gone to Salamis, partly because they could not afford to, and partly because they believed they had cracked the oracle's meaning: the "wooden wall" that would be impregnable was the Acropolis fence itself, not the fleet.
The Persians positioned themselves on the Areopagus -- the Hill of Ares, facing the Acropolis -- and besieged the defenders. They wrapped their arrows in flaming tow and shot them at the wooden palisade. The trapped Athenians fought on despite their desperate situation, even after the palisade was destroyed. They refused all offers of surrender that the sons of Peisistratus brought forward, and they devised every defense they could -- including rolling boulders down on the Persians when they approached the gates. For a long time Xerxes was stymied, unable to take them.
Eventually the Persians found a way up. It was fated, as the oracle said, that all of mainland Attica would fall to the Persians. On the front side of the Acropolis, behind the main gates and the approach road, in a spot so steep that no guard was posted because no one imagined anyone could climb it, a group of Persians scaled the cliff near the shrine of Aglaurus, daughter of Cecrops. When the Athenians saw them on the summit, some threw themselves off the walls to their deaths, while others fled into the inner sanctuary of the temple. The Persians who had climbed up went first to the gates, opened them, and killed the suppliants. When every defender was dead, they plundered the temple and burned the entire Acropolis.
Now in full possession of Athens, Xerxes sent a mounted messenger to Susa to report his success to Artabanus. The next day, he ordered the Athenian exiles in his entourage to go up to the Acropolis and perform sacrifices in the Greek manner -- perhaps prompted by a dream, or perhaps by a guilty conscience about burning the temple.
I mention this because of what happened next. On the Acropolis there is a temple of Erechtheus, said to have been born from the earth itself, and in it stand an olive tree and a pool of seawater -- which, according to the Athenians, Poseidon and Athena placed there as tokens when they competed for possession of the land. The olive tree had been burned along with everything else. But when the Athenian exiles went up the day after the fire to perform their sacrifice, they found that a new shoot had sprouted from the charred stump, already a foot and a half long. They reported this wonder.
When the Greeks at Salamis learned what had happened to the Acropolis, the shock was so great that some commanders did not even wait for the debate to conclude -- they ran straight to their ships and began hoisting sails, ready to flee. Those who stayed behind voted to fight at sea in defense of the Isthmus. Night fell, and the council broke up. The commanders went to their ships.
When Themistocles reached his vessel, an Athenian named Mnesiphilus asked him what had been decided. Hearing that they had voted to sail for the Isthmus, Mnesiphilus said: "If the fleet leaves Salamis, you won't be fighting any sea battle at all for our country. Everyone will scatter to their home cities, and neither Eurybiades nor anyone else will be able to hold the fleet together. Greece will be destroyed by bad planning. If there is any way, go now and try to reverse this decision. Perhaps you can persuade Eurybiades to change his mind and stay here."
This advice struck Themistocles as excellent. Without saying a word in reply, he went straight to Eurybiades' ship and said he needed to discuss a matter of common interest. Eurybiades invited him aboard. Themistocles sat down and repeated everything Mnesiphilus had said, passing it off as his own thinking and adding much more besides. By sheer persistence he persuaded Eurybiades to call the commanders back for another council.
When the commanders had reassembled, before Eurybiades could even introduce the topic, Themistocles launched into a passionate speech -- he had much to gain and was eager to make his case. As he was speaking, the Corinthian Adeimantus son of Ocytus interrupted: "Themistocles, at the games, the runners who start before the signal get the rod." Themistocles shot back: "True -- but those who fall behind never win the crown."
This time he answered the Corinthian mildly. To Eurybiades he did not repeat his earlier argument about the fleet scattering -- it would have been bad form to accuse allies to their faces. Instead, he took a different approach: "It is in your power to save Greece, if you will follow my advice and fight here, rather than listening to those who want to move the fleet to the Isthmus. Hear me out and compare the two options. If you fight at the Isthmus, you will be fighting in open water -- the worst possible conditions for us, since our ships are heavier and fewer than the enemy's. You will also lose Salamis, Megara, and Aegina, even if everything else goes well. And wherever their fleet goes, their land army will follow -- so you will actually be leading the Persians straight to the Peloponnese, putting all of Greece at risk.
"But if you do as I say, here are the advantages: first, by fighting in a narrow space with a few ships against many, if the battle goes as it reasonably should, we will have a great advantage. A narrow space favors us; open water favors them. Second, Salamis will be preserved -- the place where our women and children have been sent for safety. And here is the point you care about most: by staying here, you are defending the Peloponnese just as effectively as if you were at the Isthmus -- and without leading the enemy there. If we win here, the Persians will not advance to the Isthmus. They will retreat in disorder, and we will have saved Megara, Aegina, and Salamis -- the very place where an oracle has promised us victory over our enemies. When men plan wisely, things tend to go well. When they do not, even God is reluctant to favor human folly."
When Themistocles finished, the Corinthian Adeimantus attacked him again, demanding he keep quiet since he had no homeland -- Athens was occupied and in enemy hands. He urged Eurybiades not to let a man without a city put proposals to a vote. Themistocles fired back at him and the Corinthians both, declaring that as long as the Athenians had two hundred fully manned warships, they had a city and a land larger than Corinth -- and no Greek state would be able to withstand them in battle.
Then, turning to Eurybiades, he spoke with even greater urgency: "If you stay here and fight like a brave man, all will be well. If not, you will bring about the destruction of Greece. Our whole strength in this war rests on the fleet. Listen to me. But if you refuse, we Athenians will immediately take our families and sail for Siris in Italy -- it has been ours since ancient times, and the oracles say we are destined to colonize it. When you find yourselves alone without allies like us, you will remember my words."
This threat did the trick. Eurybiades changed his mind -- chiefly, I believe, out of fear that the Athenians would actually leave. If the Athenians withdrew, the remaining fleet would not stand a chance. So he chose to stay at Salamis and settle the matter there with a sea battle.
After this verbal sparring, the Greeks at Salamis prepared for battle, since Eurybiades had made his decision. At daybreak the next morning, as the sun rose, an earthquake shook both land and sea. The Greeks resolved to pray to the gods and call on the sons of Aeacus for help. They prayed to all the gods, then summoned Ajax and Telamon from Salamis itself, where the fleet was anchored, and sent a ship to Aegina to bring Aeacus and the other sons of Aeacus.
There is also a story told by Dicaeus son of Theocydes, an Athenian exile who had gained a high reputation among the Persians. He said that when Attica was being ravaged by Xerxes' army and the whole land was deserted, he happened to be on the Thriasian plain in the company of Demaratus the Spartan. They saw a cloud of dust rising from Eleusis, as if raised by a crowd of about thirty thousand people. They wondered what could be causing it. Then they heard a sound of voices, and Dicaeus recognized it as the sacred cry "Iacchus!" uttered at the Eleusinian mysteries. But Demaratus, who knew nothing of the rites at Eleusis, asked what the sound was.
Dicaeus said: "Demaratus, some great disaster is about to fall on the king's army. Attica is deserted -- there are no people there to make that sound. This is something divine, coming from Eleusis to help the Athenians and their allies. If it turns toward the Peloponnese, the king's land army is in danger. If it heads for the fleet at Salamis, the king risks losing his navy. This festival is the one the Athenians celebrate every year for Demeter and Persephone. Any Greek who wishes can be initiated in the mysteries, and the cry you hear -- 'Iacchus!' -- is what they shout during the celebration."
Demaratus said: "Be quiet, and do not tell this to anyone else. If these words are reported to the king, you will lose your head, and neither I nor any other man will be able to save you. Keep still. The gods will decide the fate of this expedition."
That was Demaratus' advice. After the dust cloud and the voices, a mist rose up and drifted toward Salamis and the Greek camp. That was how they understood, said Dicaeus, that Xerxes' fleet was destined to be destroyed. This was the account Dicaeus son of Theocydes gave, citing Demaratus and others as witnesses.
Meanwhile, the men assigned to Xerxes' fleet, after viewing the Spartan dead at Thermopylae and crossing to Histiaea, had waited three days and then sailed through the Euripus strait, arriving at Phaleron three days after that. In my estimation, the forces that attacked Athens by both land and sea were just as large as when they had arrived at Sepias and Thermopylae. Against those lost in the storm, at Thermopylae, and in the sea battles at Artemisium, I would set the reinforcements that had since joined the king: the Malians, Dorians, Locrians, and all the Boeotians (except the Thespians and Plataeans, who were wiped out), plus the men of Carystus, Andros, Tenos, and all the other islanders except the five cities I mentioned earlier. The deeper the Persians penetrated into Greece, the more peoples joined them.
So when all of these forces had gathered at Athens -- all except the Parians, who had stayed behind at Cythnos waiting to see how the war turned out -- when all the rest had reached Phaleron, Xerxes came down to the ships in person. He wanted to inspect them and hear the opinions of their commanders. When he arrived and took his seat in a prominent position, the rulers and division commanders were summoned from their ships and took their seats in the order of rank Xerxes had assigned: first the king of Sidon, then the king of Tyre, then the rest. When they were all seated, Xerxes sent Mardonius down the line to question each one: should the king fight a sea battle?
When Mardonius went down the line asking each commander's opinion, starting with the king of Sidon, every single one advised fighting a sea battle -- every one except Artemisia. She said this:
"Tell the king for me, Mardonius, that I -- who have proved myself no coward in the sea battles off Euboea, and whose deeds were second to none -- say this to him: Master, it is right that I give you my honest opinion and tell you what I believe is best for your cause. And my advice is this: spare your ships. Do not fight a naval battle. Their men are as much stronger than yours at sea as men are stronger than women. Why must you take the risk? You already have Athens -- the whole reason you launched this expedition. You have the rest of Greece too. No one stands in your way. Those who did stand against you got what they deserved.
"Let me tell you how I think things will play out for your enemies. If you do not rush into a sea battle, but instead keep your fleet here near the shore -- whether you stay put or advance toward the Peloponnese -- you will achieve your objective easily. The Greeks cannot hold out against you for long. You will scatter them, and they will flee to their separate cities. I am told they have no provisions on this island, and if you march your army toward the Peloponnese, the Peloponnesians in the fleet will not sit here fighting for Athens. They will race home.
"But if you force a battle at sea right now, I am afraid that a defeat for the fleet will drag down the army too. And consider this as well, my king: good masters tend to have bad servants, and bad masters tend to have good ones. You are the best of all men -- but your so-called allies, the Egyptians, Cypriots, Cilicians, and Pamphylians, are worthless."
Her friends were horrified when she said this, certain the king would punish her for advising against a battle. Her rivals were delighted, expecting she had just destroyed herself. But Xerxes was greatly pleased with Artemisia's opinion. He had already thought highly of her, and now he admired her even more. Nevertheless, he chose to follow the majority, believing that his fleet had performed poorly off Euboea only because he had not been there to watch. This time, he intended to observe the battle himself.
The order went out to put to sea. The Persians brought their ships to Salamis and quietly formed their battle line along the shore. Daylight ran out before they could engage, so they prepared for battle the next day. The Greeks, meanwhile, were consumed by fear and dread -- especially the Peloponnesians, terrified at the prospect of fighting for Athenian territory while trapped on an island. If they lost, they would be blockaded with no escape, while their own homeland lay undefended. And indeed, the Persian land army was marching toward the Peloponnese that very night.
Everything possible had been done to block the Persian army's overland route: the moment the Peloponnesians heard that Leonidas and his men had fallen at Thermopylae, they had rushed from their cities to the Isthmus. Their commander was Cleombrotus son of Anaxandrides, Leonidas' brother. They had destroyed the Scironian road and then, after deliberation, begun building a wall across the Isthmus. With tens of thousands of men and everyone pitching in, the work went fast -- stones, bricks, timber, and baskets of sand were hauled without pause, day and night.
The Greek states that came to defend the Isthmus in full force were the Spartans, all the Arcadians, the Eleans, Corinthians, Sicyonians, Epidaurians, Phliasians, Troezenians, and Hermionians. These were the ones who feared for Greece in her hour of danger. The rest of the Peloponnesians were indifferent. The Olympic and Carneian festivals had already passed by this time.
Now, the Peloponnese is inhabited by seven peoples. Two are native to the soil and still live where they always have: the Arcadians and the Cynurians. One people, the Achaeans, though they never left the Peloponnese, did move from their original territory. The remaining four came in from outside: the Dorians, Aetolians, Dryopians, and Lemnians. The Dorians have many famous cities; the Aetolians have only Elis; the Dryopians have Hermion and Asine, which lies opposite Cardamyle in the Laconian territory; and the Lemnians hold all the Paroreatan communities. The Cynurians, though native to the soil, appear to be the only Ionians in the Peloponnese, but they have become thoroughly Dorian through long subjection to Argos, being originally the people of Orneae and the surrounding district. Of these seven peoples, the cities I did not list sat on the sidelines and did nothing. And if I may speak bluntly: by sitting out, they were effectively siding with the Persians.
The men at the Isthmus were laboring with desperate urgency, knowing their very survival was at stake and no longer expecting much from the fleet. At Salamis, the Greeks knew about the wall-building and were anxious -- though less for themselves than for the Peloponnese. For a while men spoke of it in private, muttering to each other in amazement at the terrible judgment of Eurybiades. But finally it burst into the open. A meeting was called, and the same arguments were rehearsed: some said they should sail for the Peloponnese and fight there, not stay here defending captured territory, while the Athenians, Aeginetans, and Megarians urged them to stand and fight where they were.
Themistocles saw that the Peloponnesians were about to outvote him. He quietly slipped out of the assembly and sent a man by boat to the Persian camp with a message. The man was Sicinnus, Themistocles' personal servant and the tutor of his children. After the war, Themistocles got him enrolled as a citizen of Thespiae, when the Thespians were admitting new citizens, and made him wealthy. Sicinnus now rowed across and delivered this message to the Persian commanders: "The Athenian commander has sent me in secret, without the knowledge of the other Greeks. He is sympathetic to the king's cause and would rather see your side win than theirs. I am to tell you this: the Greeks are planning to flee. They are terrified and cannot agree among themselves. This is your chance to achieve a magnificent victory. If you do not let them escape, you will see them fighting each other -- those who favor your side against those who do not."
Having delivered this message, Sicinnus slipped away. The Persians believed it. First they landed a large detachment of troops on the small island of Psyttaleia, which lies between Salamis and the mainland. Then, around midnight, they began moving the western wing of their fleet in an arc toward Salamis, while the ships stationed near Ceos and Cynosura also put to sea, blocking the entire passage through to Munychia. Their purpose was to seal off the Greeks so that not one ship could escape from Salamis -- and make them pay for what had happened at Artemisium. They landed additional Persian troops on Psyttaleia because that islet lay directly in the path of the coming battle, and the men stationed there could rescue Persians and kill Greeks as wreckage and survivors washed ashore. All of this was done in complete silence, so the enemy would have no warning.
While they were making these preparations through the sleepless night, I must say something about oracles. I am not inclined to challenge the truth of prophecies, and I do not wish to undermine their credibility when they speak as plainly as this:
When they bridge with their ships the sacred shore of Artemis, Golden-sworded goddess, and wave-washed Cynosura, Driven by maddening hope, having given rich Athens to plunder, Then shall divine Justice destroy Excess, the child of Insolence, Raging to devour all things, terribly thirsting for blood. Bronze shall clash against bronze, and Ares shall stain the sea purple, Dyeing its waves with blood. Then a day of freedom for Greece Comes from far-seeing Zeus and from Victory, lady and mother.
When Bacis speaks as clearly as this, I do not dare dismiss oracles myself, and I will not accept it when others do.
At Salamis, the Greek commanders were still arguing fiercely with each other. They did not yet know that the Persians had surrounded them with their ships -- they still assumed the enemy was positioned where they had seen them during the day.
While the commanders quarreled, Aristides son of Lysimachus crossed over from Aegina. He was an Athenian who had been ostracized by the people -- a man I consider, based on everything I have heard of his character, the best and most honorable of all Athenians. This man came to the council and called Themistocles out. The two were not friends -- in fact, they were bitter enemies. But given the gravity of the crisis, Aristides set all of that aside. He called Themistocles outside and said: "Themistocles, you and I should be rivals in this: which of us can do more for our country. But I have to tell you -- it no longer matters whether the Peloponnesians talk a lot or a little about sailing away from here. I have seen it with my own eyes: even if the Corinthians and Eurybiades himself wanted to leave now, they could not. We are surrounded by the enemy. Go inside and tell them."
Themistocles replied: "Your advice is excellent, and so is your news. You have come as an eyewitness to confirm exactly what I wanted to happen. I should tell you -- this Persian move was my doing. When the Greeks would not fight willingly, I had to force the battle on them whether they liked it or not. But since you have brought good news, you should be the one to report it. If I tell them, they will think I am making it up and refuse to believe that the Persians are actually doing this. Go in yourself and tell them how things stand. If they believe you, excellent. If they do not -- well, it makes no difference now. They cannot run away, since we are surrounded on all sides, just as you say."
Aristides went in and told them the news -- that he had come from Aegina and had barely slipped through the blockade, because the Greek position was entirely encircled by Xerxes' ships. He advised them to prepare to defend themselves. Then he stepped back. Once again a dispute broke out, because most of the commanders refused to believe it.
But while they were still doubting, a trireme arrived, having deserted from the Persian side. It was manned by Tenians under the command of Panaitius son of Sosimenes, and it brought them the complete truth. For this act, the Tenians were inscribed on the tripod at Delphi among those who had defeated the Persians. With this ship that deserted at Salamis and the Lemnian ship that had come over at Artemisium, the Greek fleet reached its full strength of 380 ships -- it had been two short of that number before.
Now the Greeks believed. As dawn broke, they held an assembly of all the marines and fighting men. Themistocles gave the finest speech of the day. Its theme was the contrast between everything that is noble and everything that is base in human nature and circumstance. He urged them to choose the nobler path. Then he ordered them to embark. They did, and at that moment the trireme returned from Aegina carrying the sons of Aeacus.
The Greeks put all their ships to sea -- and the moment they pushed off from shore, the Persians attacked. Most of the Greek ships began to back water, about to beach themselves in retreat. But an Athenian named Ameinias of Pallene drove his ship forward and rammed an enemy vessel. When his ship became tangled with the enemy and his crew could not disengage, others rushed in to help him, and the battle was joined. That is the Athenian account of how the fighting started. The Aeginetans claim it was the ship that had gone to fetch the sons of Aeacus that struck first. There is also a story that a ghostly woman appeared and rallied the entire Greek fleet with a shout that everyone could hear, first reproaching them: "You fools -- how much longer are you going to back water?"
Facing the Athenians on the western wing, toward Eleusis, were the Phoenicians. Facing the Spartans on the eastern wing, toward Piraeus, were the Ionians. A few of the Ionians fought half-heartedly as Themistocles' inscriptions had urged, but most did not. I could name many Persian captains who captured Greek ships, but I will mention only two: Theomestor son of Androdamas and Phylacus son of Histiaeus, both Samians. I single them out because Theomestor was rewarded with the tyranny of Samos and Phylacus was recorded as a royal benefactor -- the Persians call such men orosangai -- receiving a large grant of land.
But the great majority of the Persian fleet was wrecked at Salamis, some ships destroyed by the Athenians and others by the Aeginetans. The Greeks fought in disciplined formation, each ship keeping its place, while the Persians had lost all order and were doing nothing according to plan. The result was inevitable. Yet the Persian crews surpassed their performance at Artemisium, every man fighting furiously. Each sailor was convinced that Xerxes was watching him personally.
I cannot describe in detail how every individual or nation fought in this battle. But I can tell you what happened with Artemisia, which raised her even higher in the king's esteem. When the Persian fleet had fallen into total chaos, Artemisia's ship was being chased by an Athenian warship. Unable to escape -- friendly ships were blocking her path ahead, and she was closest to the enemy -- she made a quick decision. She turned and rammed at full speed a ship on her own side, a vessel from Calynda with King Damasithymus of the Calyndians aboard. Whether she did this deliberately because of some quarrel she had with Damasithymus back at the Hellespont, or whether the Calyndian ship just happened to be in her way, I cannot say. But she rammed it and sank it, and this stroke of fortune saved her in two ways.
First, the Athenian captain who was chasing her saw her ram a ship flying Persian colors, assumed her ship was either Greek or a deserter fighting for the Greek side, and turned away to pursue other targets. Second -- and this was the best part -- she actually gained glory with Xerxes for this act. The king was watching the battle and saw her ship ram the other. One of his attendants said: "Master, do you see how well Artemisia is fighting? She just sank an enemy ship!" Xerxes asked if it was really Artemisia, and they confirmed it -- they recognized the emblem on her ship. The vessel she had sunk they naturally assumed was an enemy's. And the most fortunate thing for Artemisia was that not a single man from the Calyndian ship survived to accuse her.
Xerxes' comment, hearing what she had done, is reported as: "My men have become women, and my women have become men."
During this struggle, the Persian commander Ariabignes, Darius' son and Xerxes' brother, was killed along with many other Persian and Median officers of distinction. Greek losses in notable men were few. Since the Greeks could swim, those whose ships were destroyed but who survived the hand-to-hand fighting swam to Salamis. But the Persians, unable to swim, drowned in huge numbers. The worst slaughter came when the first Persian ships turned to flee, because those stationed behind them, trying to push forward to perform some feat of valor for the king to see, crashed into the ships of their own side as they retreated.
In the midst of this chaos, some Phoenicians whose ships had been destroyed came to the king and accused the Ionians of treachery, claiming the Ionians had caused their ships to be lost. But as it happened, the Ionian commanders were not punished -- and the Phoenician accusers received a fitting reward. While they were still speaking, a Samothracian ship rammed an Athenian vessel. As the Athenian ship was going down, an Aeginetan ship charged the Samothracian vessel and sank it. But the Samothracians, who were expert javelin throwers, cleared the deck of the Aeginetan ship with a hail of missiles, boarded it, and captured it. When Xerxes saw this extraordinary feat, he turned on the Phoenicians -- he was furious and looking for someone to blame -- and ordered their heads cut off, so that men who had been cowards themselves should not slander better men. Xerxes had been sitting on the slope of Mount Aegaleo across from Salamis, and whenever he saw one of his men perform a notable deed, he would ask who it was, and his scribes would record the captain's name, his father's name, and his city of origin. Ariaramnes, a Persian who was a friend to the Phoenicians, also suffered their fate. So much for the Phoenicians.
As the Persians broke and fled toward Phaleron, the Aeginetans were waiting for them in the channel and put on a remarkable display. While the Athenians in the general confusion were sinking ships left and right, both those that still fought and those trying to escape, the Aeginetans were destroying every ship that tried to sail out the channel. Whenever any vessel escaped the Athenians, it ran straight into the Aeginetans.
It was at this point that the ship of Themistocles, pursuing an enemy vessel, crossed paths with that of Polycritus son of Crius, an Aeginetan. Polycritus had just rammed a Sidonian ship -- the very same ship, as it happened, that had captured the Aeginetan advance guard at Sciathus, the ship carrying Pytheas son of Ischenous, the marine whom the Persians had kept alive out of admiration for his courage after they found him hacked nearly to pieces. The Sidonian ship was now captured with Pytheas and his Persian guards still aboard, and so Pytheas came safely home to Aegina. When Polycritus recognized Themistocles' flagship, he shouted across the water, taunting him about the accusation that the Aeginetans were secret Persian sympathizers. Such was the jibe Polycritus threw at Themistocles after sinking the Sidonian ship.
The Persians whose ships survived the battle fled to Phaleron and the shelter of the land army.
In this sea battle, the Aeginetans won the highest honors among all the Greeks, and the Athenians came second. Among individual fighters, the greatest distinction went to Polycritus the Aeginetan and to the Athenians Eumenes of Anagyrus and Ameinias of Pallene -- the same Ameinias who had chased after Artemisia. If he had known Artemisia was aboard that ship, he would never have stopped until he had either captured her or been captured himself. The Athenian captains had standing orders regarding Artemisia, and a prize of ten thousand drachmas had been offered for taking her alive, since they found it outrageous that a woman had dared make war on Athens. But as I have already said, she escaped. The rest of the Persian fleet that survived was now at Phaleron.
Regarding the Corinthian commander Adeimantus, the Athenians tell this story: that at the very start of the battle, he panicked, raised his sails, and fled, with the rest of the Corinthian ships following him. But as they were sailing away, near the temple of Athena Sciras on Salamis, they were met by a mysterious boat that no one was ever found to have sent. The men in it said to the Corinthians: "Adeimantus, you have turned your ships and abandoned the Greek cause -- but the Greeks are winning a victory as complete as they could wish!" When Adeimantus refused to believe them, they offered to be taken as hostages and killed if the Greeks were not winning. So Adeimantus turned his ships around, and he and his squadron arrived back when the fighting was over. That is the Athenian version. The Corinthians deny it completely, and they insist they were among the first to fight. The rest of Greece supports the Corinthian account.
Aristides son of Lysimachus -- the Athenian I mentioned earlier as one of the finest men of his generation -- performed this deed during the tumult of the battle: he took a force of Athenian hoplites who were positioned on the Salamis shoreline, landed them on the island of Psyttaleia, and killed every last one of the Persians who had been posted there.
When the sea battle was over, the Greeks towed all the wreckage they could find back to Salamis and prepared for another engagement, expecting the king to use the ships that remained. But many of the wrecks were carried by the west wind to a beach in Attica called Colias, fulfilling not only all the other oracles about this battle spoken by Bacis and Musaeus, but especially a prophecy uttered many years earlier by an Athenian oracle-giver named Lysistratus, which no one had noticed before:
Then shall the women of Colias roast their barley with oars for firewood.
This was destined to come true after the king had departed.
When Xerxes grasped the full scale of the disaster, he was seized with fear. What if some Ionian suggested to the Greeks -- or the Greeks thought of it themselves -- sailing to the Hellespont to destroy the bridges? He would be cut off in Europe and doomed. So he began planning his escape. But he did not want his intention to be known, either by the Greeks or by his own people. He attempted to construct a causeway across to Salamis, lashing Phoenician merchant ships together as a bridge and screen, and made a show of preparing for another naval battle. Everyone who saw this was convinced he meant to stay and fight. Everyone except Mardonius. He knew Xerxes' mind thoroughly and was not fooled for a moment.
While maintaining this charade, Xerxes sent a messenger to Persia to report the catastrophe. Now, there is nothing in the mortal world that travels faster than the Persian messenger system. The Persians have devised it brilliantly: for every day of a journey's length, a man and a horse are stationed, one relay after another. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness of night prevents each rider from completing his assigned stage at top speed. The first hands his message to the second, the second to the third, and so on down the line, like the torch-relay race the Greeks run for Hephaestus. The Persians call this system the angareion.
The first message to reach Susa -- that Xerxes had captured Athens -- sent the Persians who had stayed behind into ecstasy. They strewed the streets with myrtle branches, burned incense, and gave themselves over to feasting and celebration. But the second message threw them into utter anguish. They tore their garments, wailed, and wept without restraint, laying the blame on Mardonius. Their grief was not really about the ships -- it was fear for Xerxes himself.
This mourning continued in Persia until Xerxes himself arrived and put an end to it. Mardonius, meanwhile, could see that the king was devastated by the defeat and suspected he was planning to flee Athens. Mardonius reasoned that he would be punished for having persuaded the king to invade Greece in the first place. Better, he calculated, to gamble on either conquering Greece or dying a noble death in the attempt -- and he rather expected he would succeed. So he went to Xerxes and said:
"Master, do not grieve. Do not take this so hard. Our fate does not hang on a few timbers but on men and horses. Not one of these men who think they have already won will leave their ships to stand against you, nor will anyone on the mainland. Those who did stand against you paid the penalty. If you wish, we can attack the Peloponnese at once. Or if you prefer to wait, we can do that too. Do not lose heart -- there is no way for the Greeks to escape being your subjects eventually. They will have to answer for what they have done to you. That is my preferred course. But if you have already decided to withdraw the army, I have another plan for you. Do not let the Persians become a laughingstock to the Greeks. Nothing that has gone wrong is the fault of Persians -- you cannot point to a single occasion when we proved cowardly. It was the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Cypriots, and Cilicians who failed. Since the Persians are blameless, listen to me: if you have decided not to stay, take the bulk of the army and go home. Leave me here with 300,000 picked troops, and I will deliver Greece to you in chains."
Xerxes was as delighted by this as a man in his position could be. He told Mardonius he would think it over and give his answer later. When he consulted his Persian advisors, he decided to summon Artemisia as well, since she alone had previously shown real judgment about what should be done. When Artemisia arrived, Xerxes dismissed everyone else -- all the councillors and bodyguards -- and spoke to her privately:
"Mardonius urges me to stay and attack the Peloponnese, saying the Persians and the army are not to blame for the disaster and would gladly prove it. So he wants me either to do that, or to let him pick 300,000 men and conquer Greece on my behalf while I withdraw with the rest. You gave me good advice about the sea battle -- you told me not to fight it. Now advise me again: which of these two plans should I follow?"
Artemisia said: "My king, it is hard to give the best advice when asked. But as things stand, I think you should withdraw and leave Mardonius here with the troops he wants. Consider: if he succeeds in his conquests, the credit is yours, master -- your slaves accomplished it. And if things go badly for Mardonius, it is no great catastrophe. You will still be alive, and so will the power that protects your house. As long as you and your dynasty survive, the Greeks will have to fight many desperate battles for their own existence. But if Mardonius meets disaster -- well, who cares? He is merely your slave. And even if the Greeks defeat him, it is a hollow victory -- they have only destroyed a servant. You, meanwhile, will go home having accomplished what you came to do: you burned Athens."
This advice delighted Xerxes, because she said exactly what he was already thinking. In truth, I believe that even if every man and woman on earth had urged him to stay, he would not have done it -- he was that terrified. He commended Artemisia and entrusted her with the task of taking his illegitimate sons safely to Ephesus.
To accompany the boys, he sent his eunuch Hermotimus of Pedasa, who was the most valued of all the king's eunuchs. The Pedasians live above Halicarnassus, and they have a remarkable phenomenon: whenever trouble is about to befall their community, the priestess of Athena in their town grows a long beard. This has happened twice.
Hermotimus was from this Pedasan stock. And of all people we know of, he achieved the most complete revenge for a wrong done to him. He had been captured by enemies and sold as a slave. His buyer was Panionius of Chios, a man who made his living by the most abominable practice imaginable: whenever he acquired boys of exceptional beauty, he would castrate them and sell them in Sardis or Ephesus for huge prices, since the Persians valued eunuchs above intact men for positions of trust. Panionius castrated many boys for profit, including Hermotimus. But Hermotimus was not entirely unlucky -- he was sent from Sardis to the royal court among other gifts, and over time he rose to become the most honored of all the king's eunuchs.
When Xerxes was at Sardis, preparing his army for the march against Athens, Hermotimus traveled on business to the part of Mysia that the Chians occupy, a place called Atarneus. There he found Panionius. He greeted the man with warmth, telling him how much he owed him for all the wonderful things that had come his way through Panionius' actions. He promised to repay him with equal generosity -- if Panionius would bring his family and settle in the area. Panionius, overjoyed, brought his wife and sons.
When Hermotimus had them all together, he said: "You -- who have made a living from the most impious business any man has ever practiced -- what evil did I or any ancestor of mine ever do to you or yours, that you made me what I am -- nothing, instead of a man? Did you think the gods would not notice what you were doing? But they follow the rule of justice, and they have delivered you into my hands, because of the unholy things you did. So you will have no cause to complain about the punishment I now impose."
When he had said this, Panionius' sons were brought before their father, and Panionius was compelled to castrate all four of them with his own hand. When he had done it, his sons were compelled to do the same to him. This was how vengeance caught up with Panionius through Hermotimus.
After entrusting his sons to Artemisia for the voyage to Ephesus, Xerxes called Mardonius and told him to choose whichever troops he wanted from the army and to make his deeds match his promises. That day nothing more was done. But when night fell, on the king's orders, the fleet commanders began withdrawing their ships from Phaleron toward the Hellespont as fast as they could, to guard the bridges for the king's crossing. When the Persian ships passed the headland of Zoster, they mistook the small rocky points jutting out into the sea for enemy ships and fled a long way before realizing their mistake. They reassembled and continued their voyage.
At dawn, the Greeks saw the land army still in position and assumed the fleet was still at Phaleron too. They prepared for another sea battle. When they discovered the fleet had departed, they immediately resolved to pursue. They chased as far as Andros without catching sight of Xerxes' fleet, and there they stopped to deliberate. Themistocles proposed that they should continue through the islands, hunting the Persian fleet, and then sail straight to the Hellespont to destroy the bridges. Eurybiades argued the opposite: breaking the bridges would be the worst possible thing for Greece, because if the Persian king were cut off and trapped in Europe, he would be forced to fight rather than retreat. His army would starve if it stayed still, but if it advanced, it could conquer all of Europe city by city, living off each year's harvest. Better to let the Persians flee -- chase them all the way home, and then carry the war into Persian territory. The other Peloponnesian commanders agreed.
When Themistocles saw he could not carry the majority, he turned to the Athenians, who were the angriest about the enemy escaping and most eager to sail for the Hellespont, even alone if necessary. He told them: "I have seen it before, and heard of it even more often: men who are beaten and desperate will rally and fight again to erase their defeat. We have won an incredible prize -- we have saved ourselves and all of Greece, driving off this monstrous swarm of men. Let us not pursue a fleeing enemy. This was not our doing, but the work of the gods and heroes, who grudged that one man should rule both Asia and Europe -- a man so unholy and presumptuous that he made no distinction between sacred and profane, burning temples and toppling the images of the gods, a man who whipped the sea and dropped chains into it. Things are well enough as they stand. Let us stay in Greece and look after ourselves and our families. Let every man repair his house and attend to his sowing, now that the invader is gone. In the spring, we can sail for the Hellespont and Ionia."
He said this to lay the groundwork for a future favor from the Persian king -- a safe refuge if the Athenians ever turned against him. And this, in fact, is exactly what came to pass.
Themistocles was speaking deceptively, and the Athenians took his advice. He had a reputation for cleverness that preceded all of this, and now he had proven himself truly brilliant in both ability and judgment. They were ready to follow whatever he said. Once he had persuaded them, Themistocles immediately sent the same Sicinnus back to Xerxes in a boat, along with other trusted men, with this message: "Themistocles, the Athenian commander, the best and wisest of all the Greek generals, has sent me to tell you this: Themistocles, wishing to do you a service, held back the Greeks when they wanted to pursue your fleet and destroy the bridges at the Hellespont. You may now make your way home in peace."
Having delivered this message, they departed.
The Greeks, having decided not to pursue the Persian fleet any further or sail to the Hellespont, besieged Andros instead. The Andrians were the first islanders to refuse Themistocles' demand for money. When Themistocles told them that the Athenians came backed by two powerful gods -- Persuasion and Compulsion -- and that the Andrians would therefore have to pay up, they replied that it was no wonder Athens was rich and powerful, given such helpful deities. But the Andrians, they said, had reached the peak of their own success in a different way: they were blessed with two gods who never left the island -- Poverty and Helplessness. With these as their patrons, the Andrians could not possibly pay. No amount of Athenian power could overcome Andrian inability.
That was their answer, and for it they were besieged. Themistocles' greed was unquenchable: using the same agents he had sent to the Persian king, he dispatched threatening messages to other islands demanding money. If they did not pay, he said, he would bring the Greek fleet to besiege and destroy them. He collected large sums from the Carystians and the Parians, who heard that Andros was under siege for siding with Persia and that Themistocles was the most powerful man in the fleet. Whether other islands also paid, I cannot say, though I suspect some did. The Carystians gained no relief from their payment, but the Parians bought themselves safety by bribing Themistocles. Using Andros as his base, Themistocles was lining his pockets from the islanders without the other commanders knowing.
Meanwhile, Xerxes' army waited a few days after the sea battle and then marched back toward Boeotia by the same route it had come. Mardonius judged it wise both to escort the king and to delay further military action until the following spring -- it was too late in the year for campaigning. He planned to winter in Thessaly and strike at the Peloponnese when spring arrived. Once they reached Thessaly, Mardonius chose his army. First he took all the Immortals except their commander Hydarnes, who refused to be left behind by the king. Then he chose the armored Persian infantry, the thousand-strong cavalry force, and the entire contingents of Medes, Sacae, Bactrians, and Indians, both foot and horse. These nations he took in their entirety. From the other allied nations, he picked individuals -- the best-looking men, the ones he knew had distinguished themselves. His largest selections were from the Persians themselves, men who wore twisted-metal necklaces and bracelets. After them came the Medes, equal in number to the Persians though not as physically strong. The total came to 300,000 men, including cavalry.
While Mardonius was assembling this army and Xerxes was still in Thessaly, an oracle arrived from Delphi for the Spartans, telling them to demand satisfaction from Xerxes for the killing of Leonidas and to accept whatever was offered. The Spartans sent a herald at top speed, who found the whole army still in Thessaly. He came before Xerxes and said: "King of the Persians, the Spartans and the sons of Heracles of Sparta demand satisfaction for murder, because you killed their king while he was fighting in defense of Greece." Xerxes laughed. He was quiet for a long time. Then, pointing to Mardonius who happened to be standing beside him, he said: "Then Mardonius here will give them the satisfaction they deserve."
The herald accepted this pronouncement and left. Xerxes departed Thessaly, leaving Mardonius behind, and marched rapidly for the Hellespont, reaching the crossing point in thirty-five days -- bringing back virtually nothing of his army. Wherever they marched, they seized the crops of the local population for food. Where they found no crops, they ate grass from the ground, stripped bark from the trees, and plucked leaves -- from cultivated trees and wild ones alike -- and devoured them all. Famine left them nothing to choose. Then plague and dysentery struck the army and killed men along the way. Xerxes left the sick behind in whatever cities they happened to be passing through, ordering the locals to care for them and feed them. He left some in Thessaly, some at Siris in Paeonia, and some in Macedonia. It was in these parts that he had left the sacred chariot of Zeus on the way to Greece, but he did not get it back on his return. The Paeonians had given it to the Thracians, and when Xerxes demanded it, they told him the mares had been stolen while grazing by the upper Thracians who lived near the headwaters of the Strymon.
In this area, a Thracian king -- the ruler of the Bisaltians and the Crestonian territory -- committed an act of extraordinary horror. He had declared that he would not willingly submit to Xerxes and had gone into hiding on Mount Rhodope, ordering his sons not to join the march against Greece. But the sons either ignored his command or were simply eager to see the war, and all six of them went on the expedition. When they all returned home safely, their father gouged out their eyes.
That was the reward they received. As for the Persians, when they reached the Hellespont from Thrace, they crossed in haste to Abydos by ship, because they found the pontoon bridges had been broken up by a storm. Trapped at Abydos for a while, they were given more generous food rations than they had received on the march -- and the combination of gorging after starvation and the change of water killed many more who had survived until then. The survivors continued on with Xerxes to Sardis.
There is also another version of the story, which says that when Xerxes reached Eion on the Strymon during his retreat from Athens, he stopped traveling by road and turned the army over to Hydarnes to lead back to the Hellespont while he himself boarded a Phoenician ship and sailed for Asia. During the crossing, a violent storm blew up from the direction of the Strymon, raising enormous waves. The ship was dangerously overloaded -- the deck was packed with Persian nobles traveling with the king. In his terror, Xerxes shouted to the pilot and asked if there was any way to save them. The pilot said: "None, master -- not unless we get rid of most of these passengers." Xerxes, the story goes, then said: "Persians, now is the time to show your devotion to your king -- my life appears to depend on you." At this, they bowed before him and leapt into the sea. The ship, thus lightened, made it safely to Asia. The moment Xerxes landed, he first rewarded the pilot with a golden crown for saving the king's life, and then cut off his head for causing the death of so many Persians.
That is the other version of Xerxes' return. Personally, I do not believe it for a moment -- neither the part about the Persians jumping overboard nor anything else about it. If the pilot had really said that, I think not one person in ten thousand would disagree with me that the king would have sent the men on deck below into the hold, since they were Persians of the highest rank, and thrown an equal number of Phoenician rowers overboard instead. In fact, as I said before, he returned to Asia by road with the rest of the army.
Here is further strong evidence for the land route: Xerxes is known to have stopped at Abdera on his way back, forming a guest-friendship with the Abderites and presenting them with a golden Persian sword and a gold-spangled tiara. The Abderites themselves claim -- though I do not believe this either -- that it was at Abdera that Xerxes first loosened his belt since beginning his flight from Athens, feeling safe at last. But Abdera is farther toward the Hellespont than the Strymon and Eion, from where the alternative story says he embarked. So the geography does not support the sea-crossing version.
The Greeks, meanwhile, gave up the siege of Andros, moved on to Carystus, ravaged its territory, then returned to Salamis. First, they set aside the choicest spoils as offerings to the gods: three Phoenician triremes, one to be dedicated at the Isthmus, another at Sunion, and a third to Ajax on Salamis. The one at the Isthmus was still there in my own time. They divided the rest of the spoil among themselves and sent the first-fruits to Delphi, from which a statue was made, twelve cubits tall, holding the beak of a ship in its hand. This statue stood in the same spot as the golden statue of Alexander of Macedon.
When the Greeks sent these first-fruits to Delphi, they asked the god whether what he had received was sufficient and satisfactory. He replied that from the rest of the Greeks he had received enough, but not from the Aeginetans -- from them he demanded the offering of their special prize of valor for the Battle of Salamis. Hearing this, the Aeginetans dedicated three golden stars mounted on a bronze ship's mast, which are placed in the corner near the mixing bowl of Croesus.
After dividing the spoils, the Greeks sailed to the Isthmus to award the individual prize of valor to the man who had most distinguished himself during the entire war. The commanders gathered at the altar of Poseidon and cast their ballots for first and second place. Every single one voted himself first. But for second place, the majority agreed on one man: Themistocles. Each commander stood alone with a single vote for first, but Themistocles won the second place by a landslide.
Envy prevented the Greeks from making a formal decision -- they sailed home to their various cities without settling the matter. But Themistocles was celebrated and honored throughout all of Greece as by far the most brilliant man of the age. Since the fighters at Salamis had not given him his due despite his winning the vote, he went to Sparta to seek the honor he deserved. The Spartans received him magnificently. They gave Eurybiades a wreath of olive as the prize for valor, and to Themistocles they gave another wreath of olive for wisdom and skill, and also presented him with the finest chariot in Sparta. After heaping praise upon him, they escorted him on his departure with a guard of three hundred picked Spartans -- the elite corps called the "Knights" -- all the way to the border of Tegea. He is the only person we know of to whom the Spartans have ever given this honor of a military escort.
When Themistocles returned to Athens from Sparta, a man named Timodemos of Aphidnae -- one of Themistocles' political opponents, otherwise undistinguished -- was driven mad with jealousy. He kept attacking Themistocles, saying that his honors from Sparta were due to Athens, not to Themistocles personally. When Timodemos would not stop repeating this, Themistocles finally said: "I will tell you how it is. If I had been a man from Belbina, the Spartans would never have honored me this way. But neither would you, my friend -- even though you are an Athenian."
So much for that.
Artabazus son of Pharnaces, a man already respected among the Persians and destined for even greater fame after Plataea, had been escorting the king to the Hellespont with 60,000 troops chosen from Mardonius' army. When the king was safely across into Asia and Artabazus was on his way back, he found himself near Pallene. Since Mardonius was wintering in Thessaly and not calling for him urgently, Artabazus thought he might as well reduce Potidaea, which had openly revolted against the Persians the moment Xerxes passed through and the fleet fled Salamis. The other cities on Pallene had revolted too.
So Artabazus besieged Potidaea. Suspecting that Olynthus was also planning to revolt, he besieged that city too. Olynthus was occupied by Bottiaeans who had been driven from the Thermaic Gulf by the Macedonians. After capturing the Bottiaeans by siege, he marched them to a lake and slaughtered them. Then he handed the city over to Critobulus of Torone and the native Chalcidians. This is how the Chalcidians got control of Olynthus.
With Olynthus taken, Artabazus turned his full attention to Potidaea. The commander of the Scionean troops there, Timoxenus, had secretly agreed to betray the city to Artabazus. I cannot say how the conspiracy began -- that part of the story is not told. But eventually this is what they were doing: whenever Timoxenus wanted to send a message to Artabazus, or Artabazus to Timoxenus, they would wrap a note around the notched end of an arrow, cover it with feathers, and shoot it to an agreed-upon spot. But the plot was discovered when Artabazus, aiming at the rendezvous point, missed and hit a man of Potidaea in the shoulder. A crowd gathered around the wounded man, as always happens in battle, and they immediately pulled out the arrow and found the note. The commanders read it, identified the traitor, but decided not to publicly convict Timoxenus -- for the sake of Scione's reputation, so the Scioneans would not be branded as traitors for all time.
Three months into the siege, an extraordinary thing happened. An extreme ebb tide pulled the sea back a great distance and held for a long time. The Persians, seeing the shallow water, attempted to wade around to the Pallene peninsula. They had covered two-fifths of the distance, with three-fifths still to go, when an enormous flood tide surged in -- the biggest the locals had ever seen, and high tides were common there. Those who could not swim drowned. Those who could were killed by the Potidaeans, who rowed out in boats and struck them down. The cause of the flood, according to the Potidaeans, was divine punishment: these same Persians who drowned had committed sacrilege against the temple and the image of Poseidon in the suburb of the city. Personally, I think the Potidaeans are right about that. Artabazus led the survivors back to Thessaly to join Mardonius. That was the end of the king's escort force.
What remained of Xerxes' fleet, after its flight from Salamis, ferried the king and his army from the Chersonese to Abydos and then wintered at Cyme. When spring arrived, the fleet assembled early at Samos, where some ships had spent the winter. Most of the marines serving aboard were still Persians and Medes. The new commanders were Mardontes son of Bagaeus, Artayntes son of Artachaees, and Ithamitres, the nephew of Artayntes whom he himself had appointed. Having suffered such a heavy blow, they made no move to advance further west. No one was pushing them to do so. They sat at Samos keeping watch over Ionia to prevent revolt, with three hundred ships including the Ionian contingent. They did not expect the Greeks to come to Ionia -- they assumed the Greeks would be content to defend their own land, judging by the fact that the Greeks had not pursued them after Salamis. At sea, their spirit was broken. But on land, they expected Mardonius to dominate. So they remained at Samos, looking for any chance to damage the enemy while waiting for news of Mardonius' campaign.
The Greeks, for their part, were roused by the arrival of spring and by Mardonius' presence in Thessaly. Their land army had not yet assembled, but the fleet reached Aegina -- 110 ships, under the command of Leotychides son of Menares, who traced his lineage through many generations all the way back to Heracles. He was of the other Spartan royal house. All his ancestors except the first two after him had been kings of Sparta. The Athenian commander was Xanthippus son of Ariphron.
When the entire fleet had gathered at Aegina, Ionian envoys arrived at the Greek camp -- the same men who had recently gone to Sparta to beg for the liberation of Ionia. One of them was Herodotus son of Basileides. They had originally been a conspiracy of seven, plotting to assassinate Strattis, the tyrant of Chios. But when one of the conspirators betrayed them, the remaining six escaped from Chios and came first to Sparta and now to Aegina, begging the Greeks to sail to Ionia. But they could barely persuade the Greeks to advance even as far as Delos. Everything beyond that terrified the Greeks, who had no experience of those eastern waters and imagined them full of enemy forces. In their minds, Samos was as far away as the Pillars of Heracles. So at exactly the same moment, the Persians were too frightened to sail west of Samos, and the Greeks were too frightened to sail east of Delos. Fear guarded the gap between them.
The Greek fleet sailed to Delos. Mardonius, meanwhile, had been wintering in Thessaly. From there he dispatched a man named Mys, a native of Europus, to visit various oracles, with instructions to consult every one that would receive him. What exactly Mardonius hoped to learn from these oracles, I cannot say -- that was not reported. But I believe he was asking about his immediate prospects.
This Mys is known to have visited the oracle at Lebadeia, bribing a local to descend into the cave of Trophonius. He also went to the oracle at Abae in Phocis. When he came to Thebes, he first consulted the Ismenian Apollo -- where you consult, as at Olympia, through the examination of sacrificial animals -- and then he bribed a foreigner, a non-Theban, to sleep in the temple of Amphiaraus. No Theban is allowed to seek prophecy there, and this is why: Amphiaraus once offered the Thebans a choice through his oracle -- they could use him either as a prophet or as an ally in war, but not both. They chose him as a war ally, so no Theban may sleep in his temple.
But here is what I find truly astonishing, and the Thebans confirm it happened. Mys of Europus, on his tour of all the oracles, also visited the sacred precinct of the Ptoan Apollo. This temple, called the Ptoon, belongs to the Thebans and sits above Lake Copais at the foot of the mountains, near the town of Acraiphia. When Mys arrived at this temple with three Theban citizens who had been officially appointed to write down whatever the god pronounced, the prophet suddenly began delivering the oracle in a foreign language. The Theban scribes were dumbfounded -- they had expected Greek and were hearing something completely alien. They had no idea what to do. But Mys snatched the tablet from their hands and wrote down what the prophet was saying. He declared that the god was speaking in Carian. Then he took his transcript and departed for Thessaly.
After reading whatever the oracles had told him, Mardonius sent Alexander son of Amyntas, the Macedonian, as an envoy to Athens. He chose Alexander for several reasons: the Persians were connected to him by marriage, since Alexander's sister Gygaea had married a Persian named Bubares and borne a son, Amyntas, who had been given the great Phrygian city of Alabanda by the king. But more importantly, Mardonius knew that Alexander was a recognized friend and benefactor of Athens. He calculated that the Athenians were most likely to be won over through Alexander. Mardonius had heard the Athenians were a numerous and valiant people, and he knew they were primarily responsible for the Persian navy's destruction. If he could bring the Athenians to his side, he would easily control the sea (and he would have been right), while on land he already considered himself the stronger. With the Athenians as allies, his overall power would far surpass that of the remaining Greeks. Perhaps the oracles had told him this too, counseling him to make Athens his ally. If so, he was following their advice.
Now, Alexander's ancestor, the seventh generation back, was the Perdiccas who first became king of the Macedonians. The story goes like this: three brothers, descendants of Temenus, fled from Argos to Illyria -- Gauanes, Aeropus, and Perdiccas. From Illyria they crossed into upper Macedonia and came to the city of Lebaea, where they hired themselves out as farmhands to the local king. One tended horses, another cattle, and the youngest, Perdiccas, the smaller livestock. In those days, even rulers had little money, not just common people, and the king's wife cooked the servants' meals herself. She noticed that whenever she baked, the loaf for the boy Perdiccas always rose to double the normal size. When this kept happening, she told her husband, and he instantly recognized it as a portent of great things to come. He summoned the three brothers and ordered them to leave his land. They said they were entitled to their back wages before departing. The sun happened to be shining through the smoke hole in the roof, and the king, seized by a kind of divine madness, pointed to the sunlight on the floor and said: "There are your wages -- exactly what you deserve."
Gauanes and Aeropus stood speechless. But young Perdiccas, who happened to have a knife in his hand, said: "We accept what you give, O king." He traced a line around the patch of sunlight on the floor with his knife, then three times scooped the sunlight into the folds of his cloak. And with that, the three brothers departed.
After they left, someone at the king's table explained to him what the boy had done and how the youngest had taken the gift with a purpose. The king, alarmed, sent horsemen to kill them. But there is a river in that country to which the descendants of these Argive brothers still sacrifice as their savior. The moment the three brothers had crossed it, the river swelled to such a flood that the horsemen could not follow. The brothers settled in another part of Macedonia, near the famous gardens of Midas son of Gordias, where roses grow wild -- roses with sixty petals each and a fragrance beyond all others. In these gardens, according to Macedonian tradition, Silenus himself was once captured. Above the gardens rises Mount Bermion, inaccessible because of its cold. From this base, the brothers expanded outward and conquered the rest of Macedonia.
Alexander's descent from this Perdiccas was as follows: Alexander was the son of Amyntas, Amyntas of Alcetas, Alcetas of Aeropus, Aeropus of Philip, Philip of Argaeus, and Argaeus of Perdiccas, who first won the kingdom.
So this was Alexander son of Amyntas, the man Mardonius sent to Athens. When he arrived, he spoke as follows:
"Athenians, Mardonius sends this message: 'I have received word from the king, which says: I forgive the Athenians every offense they committed against me. Now, Mardonius, do this: first, give them back their land. Then let them choose any additional territory they want, and they may keep their independence. Rebuild all their temples that I burned -- if they agree to make a treaty with me.' Since this order has come to me, I must carry it out -- unless you prevent me. And so I say to you: why are you so mad as to make war against the king? You cannot defeat him, and you cannot resist him forever. You saw the size of Xerxes' army and what it did. You know the force I have with me now. Even if you beat us -- which you can have no realistic hope of doing -- another army will come, many times larger. Do not throw your land away and spend the rest of your lives running for survival. Make peace. You have the most honorable opportunity to do so, since the king himself has taken the first step. Join our alliance freely and honestly, and keep your freedom."
"These are Mardonius' words. As for me, I will say nothing about my own goodwill toward you -- that is well known by now. But I beg you to take Mardonius' advice. I can see that you will not be able to fight Xerxes forever. If I thought you could, I would never have come here with this message. The king's power exceeds that of any mortal, and his reach is very long. If you refuse to make a deal now, when he is offering such generous terms, I fear for you. Of all the Greek allies, you are the most exposed. Your land lies right in the path between the opposing armies, and you will always be the first to suffer destruction. Be persuaded. It is no small thing that the Great King singles you out from all the Greeks, forgives your offenses, and wants to make you his friends."
When Alexander finished, the Spartan envoys -- who had been informed that Alexander was coming to bring the Athenians to terms with the Persians -- spoke next. The Spartans had been terrified by an oracle predicting they would be driven from the Peloponnese by a Persian-Athenian alliance, and they had rushed to send envoys. It happened that they were introduced at the same session as Alexander -- the Athenians had deliberately stalled, knowing that the Spartans would hear about the Persian offer and rush to send their own representatives. It was all calculated to make sure the Spartans saw Athens' resolve firsthand.
The Spartan envoys said: "The Spartans sent us to ask you not to do anything to harm Greece, and not to accept offers from the Persians. That would be neither just nor honorable for any Greek -- but least of all for you, for many reasons. You were the ones who started this war. We did not want it. The fight was originally about your territory, but now it has spread to all of Greece. Setting all that aside, it would be intolerable if you Athenians -- who have always been known as liberators -- became the cause of Greek enslavement. We sympathize with your suffering: you have lost two harvests and your property has been ruined for a long time now. To compensate, the Spartans and their allies offer to support your women and all non-combatants for as long as the war lasts. But do not let Alexander the Macedonian smooth-talk you with Mardonius' offer. This is what you would expect from him -- he is a tyrant working for a tyrant. But it is not worthy of you -- not if you are in your right minds. There is no truth or honor in anything the Persians say."
The Athenians gave Alexander this answer: "We know perfectly well that the Persian army is many times larger than ours -- there is no need to remind us of that. But we love our freedom, and we will defend it as best we can. Do not try to talk us into making a treaty with the Persians. We will not be persuaded. Now go back and tell Mardonius this, from the Athenians: as long as the sun follows the course it follows now, we will never make an agreement with Xerxes. We will take the field against him, trusting in the gods and heroes whose temples and images he burned with such contempt. And do not come before the Athenians again with proposals like these, and do not imagine you are doing us a favor by urging us to commit sacrilege. We do not want any harm to come to you, Alexander -- you are our guest-friend."
To the Spartan envoys, the Athenians said this: "It is natural enough that the Spartans feared we might make terms with the Persians. But it is unworthy of men who know the Athenian character so well. There is not enough gold in the world, and no land so beautiful and fertile, that we would accept it in exchange for enslaving Greece by siding with the Persians. There are many powerful reasons why we could never do this, even if we wanted to. First and greatest: the temples and images of the gods, burned and destroyed -- these demand vengeance to the fullest, not a deal with the man who did it. Second, there is the bond of Greek blood: we are one people, sharing one language, common temples, common sacrifices, and a common way of life. For Athens to betray all of this would be unthinkable. Know this, if you did not know it already: as long as a single Athenian is alive, we will never make peace with Xerxes. We are grateful for your concern, and for your generous offer to support our families. Your kindness is complete. But we will endure as we can, without being a burden to anyone. What we ask is this: send your army as quickly as possible. As we read the situation, the Persians will not wait long before invading our territory again, the moment they learn that we have rejected every one of their demands. Before they arrive in Attica, you should march to meet them in Boeotia."
The Athenians said this, and the envoys departed for Sparta.
When Alexander returned and reported the Athenians' answer, Mardonius broke camp in Thessaly and marched his army toward Athens with all speed. Wherever he passed, he conscripted the local population into his forces. The Thessalian leaders, far from regretting anything they had done, urged the Persians on even more aggressively. Thorax of Larissa, who had helped escort Xerxes in his flight, now openly offered Mardonius passage into Greece.
When the army reached Boeotia, the Thebans tried to persuade Mardonius to stop and make camp there. They counseled him not to advance further. "There is no better place for your headquarters than this," they said. "You do not need to fight. You can conquer all of Greece without a battle. It is difficult to defeat the Greeks by brute force when they are united -- that has been proven. But here is what you should do: send money to the leading men in their cities. You will split Greece in two. Once that is done, those who will not take your side can be easily subdued by those who will."
That was the Theban advice. But Mardonius did not follow it. He was consumed by a desire to capture Athens a second time -- partly out of sheer stubbornness, and partly because he wanted to signal the king in Sardis, by a chain of beacon fires across the islands, that he held Athens. But when he reached Attica, he found no Athenians waiting for him. Most were on Salamis or with the fleet. He captured the city empty. This second capture took place ten months after Xerxes' first.
Once in Athens, Mardonius sent a man named Morychides, a Hellespontine Greek, to Salamis with the same terms Alexander had brought before. He knew the Athenians' feelings were hostile, but he hoped that having their entire country under enemy occupation might make them more flexible.
Morychides came before the Athenian Council on Salamis and delivered Mardonius' message. One of the councilors, a man named Lycidas, expressed the opinion that they should accept the proposal and put it before the full assembly of the people. Whether Lycidas had taken money from Mardonius or honestly held this view, I cannot say. But the reaction was instantaneous and violent. The councilors and the citizens outside the chamber were so outraged that they surrounded Lycidas and stoned him to death. Morychides the Hellespontine they sent away unharmed. But the uproar did not end there. When the Athenian women on Salamis heard what was happening, they passed the word from one to another, went on their own initiative to Lycidas' house, and stoned his wife and children to death.
Here is how the Athenians had come to be on Salamis. They had stayed in Attica as long as they expected an army from the Peloponnese to come help them. But the Peloponnesians were maddeningly slow and full of delays, and the invader was said to be already in Boeotia. So the Athenians moved everything of value to safety and crossed over to Salamis. At the same time, they sent envoys to Sparta to reproach the Spartans for letting the Persians invade Attica instead of marching out to meet them in Boeotia as agreed. They also reminded the Spartans of everything the Persians had promised to give Athens if the Athenians switched sides, and warned them that if no help came, the Athenians would find some other way to save themselves.
The Spartans, in fact, were busy celebrating the festival of the Hyacinthia and considered their religious obligations of the highest importance. At the same time, their wall across the Isthmus had just been completed with battlements. When the Athenian envoys arrived in Sparta, accompanied by envoys from Megara and Plataea, they came before the Ephors and said:
"The Athenians sent us to tell you this: the king of the Persians offers to give us back our land, to make us his allies on fair and equal terms, and to give us additional territory of our own choosing. But out of respect for Zeus, the god of all Greeks, and out of our refusal to betray Greece, we said no. We rejected his offer, even though we were being unjustly treated by the rest of Greece and left to be destroyed. We know it would have been more profitable to make peace with Persia than to fight. But we will never make a treaty -- not of our own free will.
"So our duty toward Greece is done honestly and completely. As for you -- when you were terrified that we might make terms with Persia, you took our intentions very seriously. But the moment you learned that we would never betray Greece, and the moment your wall across the Isthmus was finished, you stopped caring about Athens. You agreed to march to Boeotia with us to confront the Persians -- and then you deserted us and let them invade Attica. The Athenians are angry with you. You did not do what you should have done. Now they demand that you send an army out with us as quickly as possible to meet the Persians in Attica. Since we lost our chance to fight in Boeotia, the most suitable place for battle in our territory is the Thriasian plain."
The Ephors heard this and put off their answer until the next day. The next day they put it off again. They did this for ten straight days, deferring from one day to the next, while all the Peloponnesians worked frantically on the Isthmus wall, which was nearly complete. I cannot say with certainty why the Spartans had been so desperate to keep the Athenians from making terms with Persia when Alexander came to Athens, and yet now seemed not to care at all -- except that their wall was now finished. When Alexander had visited Athens, the wall was still under construction and they were building it in a frenzy of fear. Now they thought they no longer needed the Athenians.
Finally, here is how the answer came and the Spartan army marched out. On the day before the final scheduled hearing of the envoys, a man of Tegea named Chileus -- who had more influence in Sparta than any other foreigner -- learned from the Ephors everything the Athenians had been saying. He told them: "Here is the situation, Ephors. If the Athenians are not with us but join the Persians, then no matter how strong the wall you have built across the Isthmus, the door to the Peloponnese lies wide open to the enemy. Listen to them before the Athenians decide on some course that will be the ruin of Greece."
This advice hit home. That very night, without telling the envoys, the Ephors sent five thousand Spartans marching out under cover of darkness, each accompanied by seven helot attendants. Their commander was Pausanias son of Cleombrotus. The actual kingship belonged to Pleistarchus, Leonidas' son -- but he was still a boy, and Pausanias was his cousin and guardian. Cleombrotus, the father of Pausanias, was no longer alive. He had led the army home from the Isthmus and died shortly afterward. The reason Cleombrotus withdrew from the Isthmus was that while offering sacrifice before battle, the sun was darkened in the sky. Pausanias also chose as his co-commander Euryanax son of Dorieus, from the same royal house.
So Pausanias and his army had already left Sparta. When morning came, the envoys appeared before the Ephors, knowing nothing of the departure, and prepared to leave for home in frustration. They said: "Spartans, you stay here celebrating the Hyacinthia, amusing yourselves, while your allies are being destroyed. The Athenians, wronged by you and abandoned by their allies, will make whatever peace they can with the Persians. And once we become the king's allies, we will march alongside him against whatever land the Persians choose -- and then you will learn what that means for you."
The Ephors swore an oath that their army must have already reached Orestheion, on the road against -- as they put it -- "the strangers." (The Spartans used to call non-Greeks "strangers.") The envoys were bewildered and asked what this meant. When they learned the truth, they were astonished and set out at top speed to catch up. Five thousand elite hoplites from the Spartan territory, the perioikoi, marched with them.
They were hurrying toward the Isthmus. But the Argives, the moment they heard that Pausanias had marched out, sent the fastest long-distance runner they could find as a messenger to Mardonius in Attica. They had previously promised Mardonius on their own initiative that they would stop the Spartans from leaving. The runner reached Athens and said: "Mardonius, the Argives sent me to tell you: the Spartan army has marched out, and the Argives could not stop them. Plan accordingly."
Having delivered this message, he left. Mardonius had no further desire to remain in Attica once he heard the news. He had been waiting, hoping the Athenians would come to terms -- holding off on ravaging their land because he still expected them to make a deal. But now, having failed to persuade them and knowing everything, he withdrew before Pausanias could reach the Isthmus. First, however, he set fire to Athens and knocked down and destroyed whatever walls, houses, and temples remained standing.
He retreated for practical reasons: Attica was not cavalry country, and if he were defeated in battle there, the only retreat was through a narrow defile where a handful of men could block him. His plan was to fall back to Thebes, where he could fight near a friendly city on terrain that suited his cavalry.
Mardonius was already on the march when a report reached him that an advance force of a thousand Spartans had arrived at Megara. On hearing this, he paused to consider whether he could intercept and destroy them first. He turned his army toward Megara, and his cavalry rode ahead, overrunning the Megaran countryside. This was the westernmost point in Europe that the Persian army ever reached.
Then Mardonius received word that the Greeks had assembled at the Isthmus. He turned back, marching by way of Decelea, since the Boeotian leaders had summoned local guides from the Asopian settlements to lead the army along the route through Sphendaleis and then to Tanagra. After camping overnight at Tanagra, he marched the next day to Scolus and was now in Theban territory. There he began cutting down trees -- even trees belonging to the Thebans, who were his allies -- not from hostility, but out of urgent military necessity. He needed the timber both for a fortified camp and as a refuge in case the battle went badly. His army's line extended from Erythrae past Hysiae to the river Asopus, though the fortified wall he was building was smaller -- roughly ten furlongs on each side.
While the Persians were building their fortifications, a Theban named Attaginus, son of Phrynon, held a magnificent banquet and invited Mardonius himself and fifty of his most important Persians. These distinguished guests came, and the dinner was held in Thebes.
What follows I heard directly from Thersander of Orchomenus, a man of great reputation in his city. Thersander told me that he too was invited to this dinner, along with fifty Thebans. The host did not seat the two nationalities separately -- instead, he placed a Persian and a Theban on every couch, one of each. After dinner, as they were drinking toasts, the Persian who shared Thersander's couch asked him in Greek where he was from. Thersander said he was from Orchomenus.
The Persian said: "Since you are now my table companion and we have shared a libation, I want to leave you with something to remember -- a warning that may help you. Do you see these Persians feasting here, and the army camped by the river? Of all these men, in a short time you will see very few still alive." As he said this, the Persian wept openly.
Thersander was startled and said: "Surely you should be telling this to Mardonius and the other Persian commanders."
The man replied: "My friend, what God has ordained, no man can prevent. No one is willing to listen to good advice, even when it speaks the plain truth. Many of us Persians know this perfectly well, but we march along anyway, bound by the chains of necessity. And this is the most hateful grief of all human griefs: to know the truth and yet have no power over what happens."
I heard this from Thersander of Orchomenus, who also told me he had repeated the story to various people before the battle at Plataea actually took place.
While Mardonius was camped in Boeotia, all the local Greeks who had sided with the Persians supplied troops and had joined in the invasion of Attica -- all except the Phocians. The Phocians too were now collaborating with the Persians, though not willingly but under compulsion. A few days after Mardonius arrived at Thebes, a thousand Phocian hoplites showed up under their commander Harmocydes, the most prominent man among them. When they reached Thebes, Mardonius sent cavalry with orders for the Phocians to take up position by themselves on the open plain. The moment they did, the entire Persian cavalry appeared. Immediately a rumor swept through the Greek allies of the Persians that the cavalry was going to shoot the Phocians down with javelins. The Phocians themselves heard the same rumor.
Their commander Harmocydes rallied them: "Phocians, it is obvious that these men intend to kill us -- we have been denounced by the Thessalians, I am certain. Now every one of you must show his courage. It is better to die fighting and defending ourselves than to submit meekly to a dishonorable slaughter. Let them learn that we are Greeks, and they are the barbarians who plotted our murder."
While he was exhorting them, the cavalry encircled the Phocians and charged as if to destroy them. They were already drawing back their arms to hurl their missiles -- and some of them may actually have thrown. But the Phocians stood their ground, closing ranks into a tight formation on all sides. The horsemen then wheeled around and rode away. I cannot say for certain whether they came intending to massacre the Phocians at the Thessalians' request, and then lost their nerve when they saw men ready to fight back -- as Mardonius had ordered -- or whether Mardonius was simply testing them to see if they had any fight in them. When the cavalry withdrew, Mardonius sent a herald who said: "Take courage, Phocians. You have proven yourselves brave men -- not the cowards I was told you were. Fight this war with enthusiasm, and you will earn the gratitude of myself and the king."
That was the end of the Phocian affair.
When the Spartans reached the Isthmus, the rest of the Peloponnesians who supported the Greek cause -- some out of conviction, others because they were shamed by the sight of Spartans marching out -- joined them. They waited for favorable sacrifices and then marched together from the Isthmus to Eleusis, where they sacrificed again. When the omens were good, they continued their march. The Athenians crossed over from Salamis and joined them at Eleusis. When the combined army arrived at Erythrae in Boeotia, they learned that the Persians were camped along the Asopus. Seeing the enemy's position, they drew up their own forces on the lower slopes of Cithaeron, facing them.
When the Greeks refused to come down into the plain, Mardonius sent his entire cavalry against them under the command of Masistius -- known to the Greeks as Macistius -- a man of great reputation among the Persians. He rode a splendid Nisaean horse with a golden bridle and magnificent trappings. The cavalry charged the Greek line in squadrons, inflicting serious damage and taunting the Greeks by calling them women.
As it happened, the Megarians were posted in the most exposed position, where the ground was most accessible to cavalry. Under heavy attack, the Megarians sent a herald to the Greek commanders: "The Megarians say this: allies, we cannot hold this position against the Persian cavalry by ourselves. Until now we have held on through sheer endurance and courage, hard pressed as we are. But unless you send someone to relieve us, we will have to abandon our post."
When Pausanias heard this, he asked if any Greek contingent would volunteer to take the Megarians' place. None were willing -- except the Athenians. Three hundred picked Athenian troops under Olympiodorus son of Lampon stepped forward and took up the position at Erythrae, in advance of the other Greeks, with archers attached to their force.
They fought for some time, and here is how the engagement ended. While the cavalry was attacking in squadrons, the horse of Masistius was hit in the side by an arrow. In pain, the horse reared and threw Masistius to the ground. The Athenians rushed him at once. They captured his horse and tried to kill him as he fought back, but at first they could not. His armor was extraordinary: he wore a cuirass of golden scales beneath a crimson tunic. Their blows against the cuirass had no effect. Finally, someone realized what was happening and thrust a weapon into his eye. He fell dead.
Remarkably, the rest of the cavalry had not noticed any of this. They did not see him fall from his horse or see him being killed -- it happened during a turn and withdrawal. But the moment they halted and realized their commander was missing, they passed the word, and the entire cavalry force charged together to recover the body.
When the Athenians saw the cavalry bearing down on them no longer in squadrons but all at once, they shouted for the rest of the army to help. While the infantry was running to their aid, a brutal fight erupted over the body. As long as the three hundred Athenians fought alone, they were getting the worst of it and were on the point of abandoning the corpse. But when the main body arrived, the Persian cavalry could no longer hold its ground. They failed to recover the body and lost additional men in the attempt. They pulled back about two furlongs and deliberated. With no commander, they decided to ride back to Mardonius.
When the cavalry returned to camp, the entire army and Mardonius himself went into deep mourning for Masistius. They cut their own hair, the manes of their horses, and the hair of their pack animals, and gave themselves over to wailing and lamentation. All of Boeotia echoed with the sound of it, for after Mardonius, Masistius had been the most valued man among the Persians and in the eyes of the king.
While the Persians were honoring their dead in their own way, the Greeks were greatly encouraged by having withstood and repulsed the cavalry. They placed the body of Masistius on a cart and paraded it along the ranks. The corpse was worth seeing -- a man of exceptional size and physical beauty -- and the soldiers left their formations one by one to come and stare.
After this, they decided to move their position closer to Plataea, which was much better suited for an encampment -- better watered and more favorable in other respects. They marched along the lower slopes of Cithaeron, past Hysiae, and into Plataean territory. There they took up position by their various nations near the spring of Gargaphia and the sacred precinct of the hero Androcrates, spread across a landscape of low hills and level ground.
As they arranged their line of battle, a fierce argument broke out between the Tegeans and the Athenians over who should hold the second wing of the army -- the left -- since the Spartans held the right by universal agreement. Both sides cited their records, old and new.
The Tegeans spoke first: "We have always been given this position of honor in every allied expedition the Peloponnesians have ever made, going all the way back to the return of the sons of Heracles after the death of Eurystheus. We earned this honor at the Isthmus, when we stood with the Achaeans and Ionians to block the returning Heraclids. In that crisis, Hyllus proposed that instead of risking a pitched battle, the best warrior from each side should fight in single combat. The terms were agreed: if Hyllus won, the sons of Heracles would reclaim their homeland; if he lost, they would retreat and not attempt a return for a hundred years. Our man Echemos, son of Aeropus son of Phegeus, our king and commander, volunteered to fight and killed Hyllus. That is how we won this privilege, and we have held it ever since. We do not dispute the right wing with you, Spartans -- take whichever wing you prefer. But we say the other belongs to us. Apart from this, we have fought bravely in many battles against you, Spartans, and against others. It is just that we hold this post ahead of the Athenians, who have done nothing to match our record."
The Athenians replied: "We know this assembly was gathered to fight, not to make speeches. But since the Tegeans have challenged us to recite our records, we must point out where we get our claim. First, the sons of Heracles, whose leader the Tegeans boast of killing -- it was we who took them in when every other Greek city turned them away, and we broke the tyranny of Eurystheus by defeating his army. Second, when the Argives who marched with Polynices against Thebes were killed and lay unburied, we marched against the Cadmeans and recovered the dead for burial at Eleusis. Third, we have a glorious record against the Amazons when they invaded Attica from the Thermodon. And at Troy we were second to none.
"But it is pointless to cite ancient history. Men who were brave then might have grown worthless now, and the worthless might have improved. So let us speak of what we have actually done. By the deed at Marathon alone, we deserve this honor and more -- for we alone of all the Greeks faced the Persian in single combat, undertaking that mighty task and defeating forty-six nations. Do we not deserve this post for that deed alone?
"Yet since this is no time for squabbling over position, we are ready to obey your decision, Spartans. Tell us where you think it best for us to stand and against whom. Wherever you place us, we will do our best to prove ourselves brave men. Give us your orders and we will follow them."
The Athenians said this, and the entire Spartan army shouted that the Athenians were more worthy of the wing than the Arcadians. The Athenians were awarded the left wing, and the Tegeans were overruled.
After this, the Greeks formed their battle line -- both the original forces and those who had been arriving continuously. The right wing was held by ten thousand Spartans, of whom five thousand were full Spartan citizens, each attended by seven helots serving as light-armed troops -- 35,000 helots in all. The Spartans chose the Tegeans to stand beside them as a mark of honor and for their courage: 1,500 Tegean hoplites. After them came 5,000 Corinthians, who had gotten permission from Pausanias for the 300 men of Potidaea from Pallene to stand beside them. Next, 600 Arcadians from Orchomenus, then 3,000 Sicyonians, 800 Epidaurians, 1,000 Troezenians, 200 Lepreates, 400 from Mycenae and Tiryns, 1,000 Phliasians, 300 Hermionians, 600 Eretrians and Styrians, 400 Chalcidians, 500 Ambraciots, 800 Leucadians and Anactorians, 200 from Pale in Cephallenia, 500 Aeginetans, 3,000 Megarians, and 600 Plataeans. Last -- or first, if you prefer -- were the Athenians, holding the left wing: 8,000 strong, commanded by Aristides son of Lysimachus.
All of these, except the helots assigned to the Spartans at seven per man, were hoplites. The total number of hoplites was 38,700. The light-armed troops numbered as follows: 35,000 from the Spartan division, and roughly one light-armed fighter per hoplite from the rest of the army, giving another 34,500. The total light-armed force was 69,500. The entire Greek army at Plataea -- hoplites and light-armed fighters combined -- came to 110,000, less 1,800. But this total was rounded up to 110,000 by the surviving Thespians in the army, roughly 1,800 men, who served without heavy armor. This force took up its position along the Asopus.
When the Persians had finished mourning Masistius and learned that the Greeks had moved to Plataea, they marched to the Asopus as well and drew up opposite the Greeks. Mardonius arranged his forces like this: facing the Spartans he placed the Persians, who far outnumbered them and were therefore drawn up in deeper ranks. They also extended past the Tegeans. Mardonius placed his best Persian troops opposite the Spartans and his weaker troops alongside them facing the Tegeans. He did this on the advice of the Thebans. Next to the Persians he placed the Medes, facing the Corinthians, Potidaeans, Orchomenians, and Sicyonians. After the Medes came the Bactrians, facing the Epidaurians, Troezenians, Lepreates, Tirynthians, Mycenaeans, and Phliasians. After the Bactrians he stationed the Indians, facing the Hermionians, Eretrians, Styrians, and Chalcidians. Next came the Sacae, facing the Ambraciots, Anactorians, Leucadians, Paleans, and Aeginetans. And opposite the Athenians, Plataeans, and Megarians, he placed the Boeotians, Locrians, Malians, Thessalians, and the thousand Phocians. Not all the Phocians had sided with the Persians -- some were holed up on Parnassus and were actually raiding Mardonius' army and its Greek allies. The Macedonians and the Thessalian border peoples were also stationed opposite the Athenians.
These were the most notable nations in Mardonius' line. But his army also included contingents from many other peoples -- Phrygians, Thracians, Mysians, Paeonians, and the rest, including Ethiopians and the Egyptian warrior castes called the Hermotybians and Calasirians, who were the only Egyptians who served as soldiers. These Egyptians had been transferred from the fleet while the Persians were still at Phaleron, since they had originally been naval troops and were not part of the land army that came with Xerxes to Athens. The total Persian force was 300,000, as I have stated. The number of Greek allies fighting for Mardonius is unknown -- they were never counted -- but I estimate roughly 50,000. These were all infantry; the cavalry was positioned separately.
When all forces had been arranged by nation and division, both sides performed sacrifices the next day. The Greek army's seer was Tisamenus son of Antiochus, an Elean of the Iamid family, whom the Spartans had made one of their own citizens. Here is that story: when Tisamenus consulted the oracle at Delphi about having children, the Pythian priestess told him he would win five of the greatest contests. He misunderstood and took up athletics, training for the pentathlon. He actually competed at the Olympic Games and came within one wrestling fall of winning, losing to Hieronymus of Andros. But the Spartans realized the oracle meant military, not athletic, contests. They tried to hire him as a war-diviner alongside their Heraclid kings. When Tisamenus saw how badly they wanted him, he raised his price: he would serve only if they made him a full Spartan citizen with all rights -- nothing else would do. The Spartans were outraged and initially refused. But when the threat of the Persian invasion loomed larger, they gave in. Tisamenus then raised the price again: his brother Hegias must also receive Spartan citizenship. Inspired by the example of Melampus -- who, when the Argives needed him to cure their women of madness, first demanded half the kingship, and when they came back after refusing, demanded a share for his brother Bias too -- Tisamenus held firm. The Spartans, desperate, agreed.
With full citizenship, Tisamenus served as diviner and helped the Spartans win five great military victories. The first was this one, at Plataea. After that came the battle at Tegea against the Tegeans and Argives; then Dipaieis against all the Arcadians except the Mantineans; then the battle against the Messenians at Ithome; and finally the engagement at Tanagra against the Athenians and Argives. The fifth was the last of the series.
Tisamenus was now serving as diviner for the Greeks at Plataea. The sacrifices showed favorable omens for the Greeks if they fought defensively, but not if they crossed the Asopus and attacked.
Mardonius too was eager to attack, but his sacrifices also came out unfavorable for offense -- good only for defense. He was using Greek-style divination, with a seer named Hegesistratus, an Elean and the most famous of the Telliad family.
This Hegesistratus had an astonishing history. The Spartans had once captured him and put him in chains, intending to execute him for all the harm he had done them. Facing death and expecting torture first, he did something almost beyond belief: shackled in a wooden block clamped with iron, he somehow got hold of an iron tool that had been smuggled in. He calculated how much of his foot he would need to cut off to free it from the block, and then he did it -- he cut away the front of his own foot. After that, still under guard, he broke through the wall of his prison and escaped to Tegea, traveling by night and hiding in the woods by day. Despite a massive Spartan search, he reached Tegea on the third night. The Spartans were astonished both at his courage -- when they found the severed piece of foot left behind -- and at their inability to track him down. He took refuge in Tegea, which was then hostile to Sparta, and once his wound had healed, he got himself a wooden foot and became an open enemy of the Spartans. In the end, though, this enmity did him no good: he was caught practicing divination on Zakynthos and was executed.
But Hegesistratus' death came later. At the moment he was on the Asopus, hired by Mardonius for a substantial fee, performing sacrifices with enthusiasm -- motivated by his hatred of Sparta and by his payment. But the sacrifices refused to favor battle for either the Persians or their Greek allies. The Persian diviner Hippomachos, a Leucadian, was getting the same result. And Greek reinforcements kept streaming in. A Theban named Timagenides son of Herpys advised Mardonius to post a guard on the pass over Cithaeron, where Greek reinforcements were constantly arriving.
By this point, eight days had passed with the two armies sitting opposite each other. Mardonius took the Theban's advice and sent his cavalry to the Cithaeron pass that night -- the one the Boeotians call "Three Heads" and the Athenians call "Oak Heads." The cavalry raid was a success: they intercepted five hundred pack animals coming out of the Peloponnese with supplies for the Greek army, along with the men driving them. The Persians slaughtered everything mercilessly -- beast and man alike. When they had killed their fill, they rounded up whatever was left and drove the survivors back to Mardonius' camp.
After this, two more days passed with neither side willing to start a battle. The Persians would advance to the Asopus to test the Greeks, but neither side would cross the river. Mardonius' cavalry, however, kept attacking and harassing the Greek line. The Thebans, fighting zealously for the Persian cause, would guide the cavalry right up to the point of engagement, and then the Persians and Medes would take over and display their valor.
For ten days nothing more happened. But on the eleventh day, with the Greeks growing stronger by the day and Mardonius increasingly frustrated by the stalemate, Mardonius son of Gobryas and Artabazus son of Pharnaces -- one of the few Persians whom Xerxes held in the highest regard -- conferred with each other. Their opinions were very different. Artabazus argued that they should break camp immediately, withdraw the whole army behind the walls of Thebes, where they had stockpiled grain and fodder, and settle in there. Then, he said, they should use their vast reserves of gold and silver, coined and uncoined, and their drinking cups, and send these as bribes to the leading men in every Greek city. The Greeks would quickly surrender their freedom without a fight. It would be foolish to risk a battle. This was the same advice the Thebans had given, and Artabazus -- like the Thebans -- had genuine foresight.
But Mardonius' opinion was more aggressive and more stubborn, and he would not budge. He believed his army was far superior to the Greeks and wanted to fight immediately, before even more Greeks assembled. As for the sacrifices of Hegesistratus, he said they should ignore them and simply follow Persian custom by engaging the enemy.
No one opposed him -- after all, he held the supreme command from the king. He summoned his division commanders and the generals of the Greek allies and asked them if they knew of any oracle predicting that the Persians would be destroyed in Greece. The room fell silent -- some did not know the oracles, others knew but were afraid to speak.
Mardonius himself broke the silence: "Since you either know nothing or are afraid to say it, I will tell you myself. There is an oracle that says the Persians are destined to come to Greece, plunder the temple at Delphi, and then all perish. Very well -- since we know this, we will simply not go to the temple and not plunder it. We will not perish for that reason. So all of you who wish Persia well, take heart and rest assured that we will defeat the Greeks." Then he gave orders for everything to be prepared and put in order: battle would commence at dawn.
Now, the oracle Mardonius cited was, as I happen to know, actually about the Illyrians and the Enchelean army, not the Persians at all. But the oracle of Bacis, which did refer to this battle, goes:
By the banks of the Thermodon and the grassy Asopus, Where the Greeks mass together and the war cry of foreigners sounds, There shall many a bow-bearing Mede fall before his appointed day When the hour of destiny comes upon him.
These verses, and similar ones by Musaeus, I know were about the Persians. The river Thermodon flows between Tanagra and Glisas.
After Mardonius' consultation about the oracles and his rallying speech, night fell and the guards were posted. Late in the night, when the camps were quiet and the soldiers deep in sleep, Alexander son of Amyntas -- king and commander of the Macedonians -- rode his horse to the Athenian guard posts and asked to speak with the generals. Most of the guards stayed at their posts while some ran for the commanders. When they arrived, Alexander said this:
"Athenians, I entrust these words to you in confidence. Tell no one except Pausanias, or you will destroy me. I would not say this if I did not care deeply about the survival of Greece. I am a Greek by descent, and I would not wish to see Greece enslaved. So here it is: Mardonius cannot get favorable sacrifices. Otherwise you would have fought long ago. He has now decided to ignore the omens and attack at dawn. I believe he is afraid of your army growing even larger. So prepare yourselves. If Mardonius postpones the attack after all, stay where you are and hold firm -- his supplies will last only a few more days.
"And if this war ends as you wish, remember me and my part in your liberation. I have done a dangerous thing for the sake of Greece, because I wanted to show you Mardonius' plans before the Persians could catch you off guard. I am Alexander the Macedonian."
With that, he rode back to his position in the Persian camp.
The Athenian generals went immediately to the right wing and told Pausanias what they had heard from Alexander. At this news, Pausanias was gripped with fear of the Persians and said: "Since battle is coming at dawn, you Athenians should take your position opposite the Persians, and we will face the Boeotians and the other Greeks now posted against you. Here is my reasoning: you know the Persians and their way of fighting from experience at Marathon. We Spartans have never fought the Persians and know nothing about them. But we do have experience fighting Boeotians and Thessalians. You should take up your arms and move to this wing, and we will go to the left."
The Athenians replied: "We had the same thought ourselves from the very beginning, when we saw the Persians posted opposite you. We wanted to suggest exactly this but were afraid the idea would displease you. Since you have raised it yourselves, we are delighted and ready."
Both sides were happy with this arrangement, and as dawn broke they began to switch positions. But the Boeotians spotted the movement and reported it to Mardonius. He immediately began shifting his own forces, bringing the Persians over to face the Spartans again. When Pausanias saw what was happening, he realized he had been detected and led the Spartans back to the right wing. Mardonius mirrored this and returned to his left.
With both sides back in their original positions, Mardonius sent a herald to the Spartans with this message: "Spartans, the people around here say you are very brave -- they admire you because you never run from battle, because you stay at your post and either destroy your enemies or die. But none of this turns out to be true. Before we even came to grips, before we crossed spears, we saw you fleeing and abandoning your position, trying to put the Athenians in front of you against us while you lined up against our slaves. These are not the deeds of real warriors. We were badly deceived by your reputation. We expected you to send a herald challenging us -- the Persians -- to single combat. We were ready. But instead you cower in fear. Very well: since you did not make the challenge, we will. Why don't we fight it out -- equal numbers from both sides -- you for the Greeks, we for the Persians? If you think the others should fight too, fine, let them fight afterward. But if you agree that just the two of us should settle it, then let us fight to the finish, and whichever side wins, let their whole army be counted as victorious."
The herald waited a long time. When no one answered, he went back and reported this to Mardonius. Mardonius was delighted, puffed up by what he took for a victory -- though it was an empty one. He unleashed the cavalry against the Greeks. The horsemen attacked the entire Greek army, hurling javelins and shooting arrows from horseback -- mounted archers who were almost impossible to engage. They also fouled and choked up the spring of Gargaphia, which was the sole water source for the entire Greek army. Only the Spartans were posted near this spring; the rest of the Greeks were at various distances from it, though the Asopus was nearer to some of them. But the cavalry and archers kept the Greeks from reaching the river to draw water.
This was the situation: the Greek army had been cut off from its water supply and was under constant cavalry harassment. The Greek commanders gathered at Pausanias' position on the right wing to discuss this crisis and others that were even more urgent. They had run out of food. The servants they had sent to the Peloponnese to fetch supplies had been intercepted by the cavalry and could not get through to the camp.
The generals met and agreed that if the Persians held off the battle that day, they would move the army to a position called "the Island." This place was about ten furlongs from the Asopus and the spring of Gargaphia, where they were currently camped, and lay in front of the city of Plataea. It was called an island despite being on the mainland because the river Oeroe splits into two branches as it flows down from Cithaeron into the plain, running about three furlongs apart before merging again into a single stream. The locals said Oeroe was the daughter of the Asopus. The plan was to move there so they could have plenty of water and be shielded from the cavalry that was devastating them from their current position. They intended to march during the second watch of the night so the Persians would not see them and send the cavalry in pursuit. They also planned, once they arrived, to send half the army up to Cithaeron during the same night to rescue the supply teams that had been cut off there while fetching provisions.
Having settled on this plan, they endured another full day of cavalry attacks. But when evening came and the horsemen finally pulled back, and it was time to move, the majority of the troops broke ranks and set off -- but not for the agreed destination. The moment they started moving, most of them simply took the opportunity to flee from the cavalry. They headed straight for the city of Plataea and did not stop until they reached the temple of Hera, which stands in front of the city about twenty furlongs from the spring of Gargaphia. There they halted and stacked their arms in front of the temple.
When Pausanias saw the troops pulling out of camp, he gave the order for the Spartans too to take up their weapons and follow the others, assuming they were all heading for the agreed position. His officers were ready to obey -- all except one. Amompharetos son of Poliades, commander of the Pitanate division, declared that he would not run from the strangers and would not willingly bring disgrace on Sparta. He was bewildered by what was happening, since he had not been present at the earlier council of war. Pausanias and Euryanax were furious at his disobedience but even more dismayed at the thought of having to leave the Pitanate division behind. If they abandoned him to carry out the agreed withdrawal, both Amompharetos and all his men would perish. Caught in this bind, they kept the entire Spartan force in place and tried to talk him around.
While the Spartans and Tegeans were being held up by this argument with Amompharetos -- the one man in the whole army who refused to move -- the Athenians were keeping to their own position. They knew the Spartans well enough to know that what Spartans say and what they actually intend are often two different things. When the army began to move, the Athenians sent a horseman to find out whether the Spartans were really marching or had no intention of leaving. They told the rider to ask Pausanias directly what they should do.
When the horseman arrived at the Spartan position, he found them still in place. The leaders had come to open conflict with each other. Euryanax and Pausanias were both pleading with Amompharetos not to risk himself and his men by staying behind alone. They could not persuade him. At last, with the Athenian messenger standing right there watching, Amompharetos picked up a boulder with both hands and dropped it at Pausanias' feet. "There," he said. "With this pebble I cast my vote not to flee from the strangers" -- meaning the Persians.
Pausanias called him a lunatic and a man out of his senses. Then he turned to the Athenian messenger and told him to report the situation as he had seen it. He asked the Athenians to move toward the Spartan position and follow whatever the Spartans did about the retreat.
The messenger rode back to the Athenians. Meanwhile, dawn was breaking and the Spartans were still arguing. Finally Pausanias made his decision. He gave the signal and led the rest of the Spartans away over the low hills, with the Tegeans marching alongside. He calculated that Amompharetos would not actually stay behind once the rest of the army had gone -- and he was right. The Athenians, following their orders, set off in the opposite direction: the Spartans were clinging to the hills and the lower slopes of Cithaeron for fear of the cavalry, while the Athenians marched down into the plain.
As for Amompharetos, at first he refused to believe that Pausanias would really leave him behind. He held his ground stubbornly. But when Pausanias and the main body were well ahead, he finally understood that they had actually gone without him. He ordered his men to take up their arms and led them at a slow march toward the rest. Pausanias, who had gotten about ten furlongs ahead, halted at the river Moloeis and a place called Argiopion, where there stands a temple of the Eleusinian Demeter. He waited there so that if Amompharetos and his division did not leave their original post, he could march back to help them. And just as Amompharetos and his men were finally catching up, the Persian cavalry attacked in full force. The horsemen had been doing the same thing every day, and when they rode forward and found the position the Greeks had occupied the previous days completely empty, they kept pushing on until they caught up with the retreating army. They attacked at once.
When Mardonius learned that the Greeks had slipped away during the night and saw their camp deserted, he summoned Thorax of Larissa and his brothers Eurypylus and Thrasydeius and said: "Sons of Aleuas, what do you have to say now that you can see these positions empty? You who live nearby were always telling me that the Spartans never run from a battle, that they were matchless warriors. But you already saw them trying to switch their position, and now we can all see that they ran away in the night. When their turn came to fight men who are truly the best in the world, they proved themselves worthless -- men of no account, making a show of valor only among the equally worthless Greeks. I could easily excuse you for praising the Spartans, since you had no experience with Persians and could only judge by what you knew. But I am far more amazed at Artabazus -- that he should have been afraid of the Spartans, and out of that fear given the most cowardly advice of all, that we should pack up our army and let ourselves be besieged inside Thebes. The king will hear about that from me. But we will deal with this elsewhere. For now, we must not let them get away. We will pursue them, catch them, and make them pay for everything they have done to the Persians."
With that, he led the Persians at a run across the Asopus, following the Greeks' trail. He assumed they were in full retreat. His pursuit was aimed at the Spartans and Tegeans alone -- he could not see the Athenians, who had marched across the plain and were hidden by the hills. When the other Persian division commanders saw Mardonius leading the chase, they immediately raised their own battle standards and charged after the Greeks, each contingent as fast as it could go, with no order and no formation. They came on in a roaring, disorganized mass, expecting to sweep the Greeks away.
Meanwhile Pausanias, under attack from the cavalry, sent a horseman to the Athenians with this message: "Athenians, the greatest contest of all is upon us -- the contest that will decide whether Greece lives in freedom or slavery. We have been deserted by our allies: the Spartans and the Athenians are on our own, since the rest ran away in the night. So here is what we must do now: we must defend each other as best we can. If the cavalry had attacked you first, then we and the Tegeans -- who stand with us and refuse to betray Greece -- would have been bound to come to your aid. But as it is, the whole enemy force has fallen on us. So it is right that you come to the part of the army that is hardest pressed and help us. If something has happened on your end that makes it impossible for you to come in person, at least send us your archers. We know you have been the most devoted of all the allies in this war, and we trust you will not refuse us now."
When the Athenians heard this, they set out to help. But as they were marching, the Greek contingents fighting on the Persian side attacked them, and they could no longer reach the Spartans. The enemy in front of them was giving them more than enough to handle. So the Spartans and Tegeans were left to fight alone -- 50,000 Spartans including the light-armed troops, and 3,000 Tegeans, who never left the Spartans' side. They began offering sacrifices, preparing to engage Mardonius and the force bearing down on them. But the omens would not come out right. While they waited for favorable signs, many of them were being killed and many more wounded. The Persians had set up a barricade of their wicker shields and were firing arrows in enormous volleys, holding nothing back.
The Spartans were being hammered. The sacrifices refused to turn favorable. Pausanias raised his eyes to the temple of Hera at Plataea and called out to the goddess, praying that they would not be cheated of their hope.
Even as he was still praying, the Tegeans surged forward ahead of everyone else and advanced against the enemy. And at that very moment, the sacrifices finally came out favorable for the Spartans. When this at last happened, they too charged the Persians. The Persians put aside their bows and came out to meet them.
The first fighting was at the wicker-shield barricade. When those were knocked down, the battle raged fiercely beside the temple of Demeter and went on for a long time. It came down to close quarters, hand-to-hand, with the Persians grabbing hold of the Greek spears and snapping them off. In courage and sheer physical strength, the Persians were not inferior. But they had no heavy armor, and they were untrained in this kind of fighting and outmatched in skill. They would dash out individually or in small groups of ten, more or less, hurl themselves at the Spartan line, and die.
Where Mardonius himself fought -- mounted on his white horse, surrounded by his thousand picked bodyguards, the finest men in the Persian army -- the pressure was most intense. As long as Mardonius was alive, his men held their ground and fought back, cutting down many Spartans. But when Mardonius fell and his elite guard was destroyed -- the strongest part of the entire army -- the rest broke and gave way before the Spartans. Their greatest disadvantage was their lack of armor. They were light-armed men fighting against heavy infantry, and it destroyed them.
And so the satisfaction for the killing of Leonidas was paid by Mardonius, as the oracle had foretold to the Spartans. Pausanias son of Cleombrotus won the most glorious victory of any we know. Mardonius was killed by a Spartan named Arimnestos, a man of distinction, who later fought with three hundred men against the entire Messenian army at Stenycleros and was killed there along with all his men.
When the Persians were routed by the Spartans at Plataea, they fled in disorder to their fortified camp in Theban territory. It strikes me as remarkable that although the fighting took place right beside the sacred grove of Demeter, not a single Persian was found to have entered the holy enclosure or to have been killed inside it. All the dead fell in the unconsecrated ground around the temple. I believe -- if one may speculate about divine matters -- that the goddess herself refused to receive them, because they had burned her temple at Eleusis.
That was how the battle went. But Artabazus son of Pharnaces had been opposed to Mardonius remaining behind from the very beginning, and had constantly objected and urged them not to fight. When the battle started, Artabazus already knew how it would end. He had roughly 40,000 men under his command -- no small force -- and he led them away carefully, having ordered them all to follow wherever he led, at whatever pace he set. He marched them out as if heading into battle, but once he was well on his way and could see the Persians already in flight, he dropped all pretense. He broke into a run and fled -- not toward the stockade, not toward Thebes, but straight for Phocis, making for the Hellespont as fast as possible.
Meanwhile, while the other Greek allies fighting for the king were deliberately hanging back, the Boeotians fought the Athenians hard and long. The Thebans in particular fought with genuine conviction, and three hundred of their best men fell at Athenian hands before they too broke and ran -- to Thebes, not to the same place as the Persians. The rest of the allies routed without accomplishing anything worth mentioning.
This confirms what I believe: that the entire barbarian force depended on the Persians alone. When the others saw the Persians running, they ran too, without even engaging the enemy. All of them fled -- except the cavalry, including the Boeotian horsemen, who covered the retreat by riding between the fugitives and the pursuing Greeks.
The victorious Greeks were now chasing and killing the remnants of Xerxes' army. During this pursuit, word reached the other Greek contingents -- the ones who had retreated to the temple of Hera and missed the entire battle -- that Pausanias was winning. When they heard this, they rushed to join the fight. The Corinthians and those near them headed along the mountain path leading straight to the temple of Demeter, while the Megarians and Phliasians took the route across the flat ground. But when the Megarians and Phliasians got close to the enemy, the Theban cavalry spotted them hurrying along in no order at all. The cavalry commander Asopodorus son of Timander charged them, killed six hundred, and drove the survivors back to Cithaeron. They died without glory.
The Persians and the rest of the barbarians who had fled to the wooden stockade managed to scramble up to the towers before the Spartans arrived. Once inside, they reinforced the walls as best they could. When the Spartans came to attack, a fierce battle for the wall began. As long as the Athenians had not yet arrived, the defenders held the advantage -- the Spartans had no skill in siege warfare. But when the Athenians came up to join the assault, a prolonged and savage fight for the wall erupted. In the end, through sheer courage and endurance, the Athenians scaled the wall and broke through it. The Greeks poured in through the breach. The Tegeans were the first inside. They plundered the tent of Mardonius, taking among other things his horse's manger, which was made entirely of bronze and was a spectacular piece. The Tegeans later dedicated this manger in the temple of Athena Alea, but everything else they found they turned over to the common pool.
Once the wall was breached, the barbarians fell apart completely. Not one of them made a stand or showed any fight. They were in total panic -- hundreds of thousands crammed into a small space. The Greeks were able to slaughter them so freely that out of an army of 300,000 -- subtracting the 40,000 Artabazus had taken -- fewer than 3,000 survived. On the Greek side, the Spartans lost 91 men, the Tegeans 16, and the Athenians 52.
Among the Persians, the best fighters on foot were the Persians themselves, the best cavalry were the Sacae, and the single bravest man was said to be Mardonius. On the Greek side, though the Tegeans and Athenians both fought superbly, the Spartans surpassed them all. My only evidence for this -- since all three contingents defeated their opponents -- is that the Spartans took on the strongest part of the enemy and overcame it.
The man who in my opinion fought the best by far was Aristodemus -- the same man who had returned alone from Thermopylae and lived with disgrace and shame ever since. After him, the best were Poseidonius, Philocyon, and the Spartan Amompharetos. However, when the Spartans discussed the matter, their verdict was that Aristodemus had obviously wanted to die because of the charge against him. He had fought in a frenzy, leaving his position in the ranks and performing extraordinary deeds -- but from a desire for death, not from pure courage. Poseidonius, they said, had been equally brave but had not wanted to die, which made him the better man. They may have said this from jealousy. All the men I have named were given special honors for their valor in this battle -- all except Aristodemus. Aristodemus was denied honors because he had deliberately sought death.
These men won the greatest renown at Plataea. As for Callicrates -- the most beautiful man in the entire Greek army, not just among the Spartans but among all the Greeks of that time -- he was not killed in the battle itself. He was sitting in the ranks when Pausanias was offering the preliminary sacrifice, and an arrow struck him in the side. While the others fought, he was carried out and lay dying a slow death. He said to Arimnestos, a Plataean standing by him, that it did not grieve him to die for Greece. What grieved him was that he had not struck a single blow and had performed no deed worthy of the spirit he had in him.
Among the Athenians, the man who won the most glory was Sophanes son of Eutychides, from the deme of Decelea. The people of Decelea had once done their nation a service that earned them permanent privileges. Long ago, when the sons of Tyndareus -- Castor and Pollux -- invaded Attica with a great army to bring back Helen, and were destroying one village after another because no one could tell them where she was hidden, the men of Decelea (or, some say, Decelus himself) were so disgusted by the arrogance of Theseus and so worried for their land that they told the Spartans everything and led them to Aphidnae, where Helen was being kept. For this deed, the people of Decelea were granted permanent exemption from taxes in Sparta and front-row seats at the games -- privileges that persisted to the present day. Even in the great war that broke out many years later between Athens and the Peloponnesians, when the Spartans devastated the rest of Attica, they left Decelea untouched.
It was from this deme that Sophanes came, and he was the best of the Athenians in this battle. Two stories are told about him. One says he carried an iron anchor attached by bronze chains to his breastplate; whenever he closed with the enemy, he would throw this anchor down so that the enemy, charging out from their ranks, could not move him from his position. When the enemy fled, he would pick up the anchor and give chase. The other story disputes this and says his shield -- which was always in motion, never resting -- bore an anchor as a painted device, not an actual iron anchor tied to his armor.
Sophanes performed one other notable feat: during the Athenian siege of Aegina, he challenged and killed the Argive Eurybates, a five-time champion at the games. Sophanes himself died later, when he was serving as one of the Athenian generals alongside Leagrus son of Glaucon. He was killed by the Edonians at Datum, fighting for the gold mines.
After the barbarians had been destroyed at Plataea, a woman came of her own accord from the Persian camp to the Greeks. She was the concubine of Pharandates son of Teaspis, a Persian nobleman. When she realized that the Persians had been annihilated and the Greeks were victorious, she stepped down from her carriage, adorned in gold jewelry and her finest robes, and approached the Spartans while they were still in the midst of the killing. When she saw that Pausanias was directing everything, she recognized him -- she already knew his name and his lineage from hearing about him many times -- and she clasped his knees as a suppliant.
"King of Sparta," she said, "save me, your suppliant, from the slavery of a captive. You have already done me a service by destroying these men, who respect neither gods nor the children of gods. I am from Cos by birth, the daughter of Hegetorides son of Antagoras. The Persian seized me by force on Cos and held me prisoner."
Pausanias replied: "Woman, take courage. You are a suppliant, and I honor that. And if what you say is true and you are the daughter of Hegetorides of Cos, then all the more -- he is bound to me as a guest-friend, closer than any other man in that part of the world." For the moment he entrusted her to the Ephors who were present. Later he sent her to Aegina, where she wished to go.
Immediately after this, the Mantineans arrived -- too late for everything. When they learned they had missed the battle, they were mortified and said they deserved to be punished. They heard that Artabazus and the Persians with him were in flight, and they chased him as far as Thessaly, though the Spartans tried to stop them from pursuing fugitives. When they returned home, they exiled their military commanders. After the Mantineans came the Eleans, equally chagrined. They too went home and exiled their leaders. So much for the Mantineans and Eleans.
Among the Aeginetan troops at Plataea was a man named Lampon son of Pytheas, one of the leading citizens of Aegina. He came running to Pausanias with an appalling proposal.
"Son of Cleombrotus," he said, "you have accomplished a deed of extraordinary greatness and glory. God has granted you the distinction of rescuing Greece and winning the greatest renown of any Greek we know. Now finish what remains. Do this, and your reputation will grow even greater, and every barbarian in the future will think twice before committing acts of aggression against the Greeks. When Leonidas was killed at Thermopylae, Mardonius and Xerxes cut off his head and crucified his body. Pay them back in kind. Impale the body of Mardonius, and you will have taken vengeance for your uncle Leonidas."
He said this thinking he was offering welcome advice. But Pausanias answered: "Friend from Aegina, I appreciate your goodwill and your concern for my reputation, but you have missed the mark. Having lifted me up with praise of my family and my accomplishment, you now cast me down by advising me to mutilate a corpse, as if doing so would improve my standing. That is the sort of thing barbarians do, not Greeks -- and even in them we find it contemptible. I have no wish to please the Aeginetans or anyone else by such an act. It is enough for me to act and speak with decency, and so satisfy the Spartans. As for Leonidas, whom you urge me to avenge -- I declare that he has been greatly avenged already. The countless lives taken here today have honored him and all those who fell at Thermopylae. Do not come to me again with such a proposal or such advice, and be grateful that you leave without punishment."
Lampon took the hint and left.
Pausanias issued a proclamation forbidding anyone from touching the spoils and ordered the helots to collect everything. They spread out through the camp and found tents furnished with gold and silver, couches plated with gold and silver, golden mixing bowls, cups, and every kind of drinking vessel. They found sacks piled on wagons containing cauldrons of gold and silver. They stripped bracelets, necklaces, and gold-hilted swords from the dead. As for the embroidered robes, no one even bothered to count them. The helots stole much of it and sold it secretly to the Aeginetans, though they turned over whatever they could not hide. This was the origin of the Aeginetans' great wealth: they bought the gold from the helots at brass prices.
When everything had been gathered, the Greeks set aside a tenth for the god at Delphi -- which became the golden tripod resting on the three-headed bronze serpent near the altar. They also set aside a share for the god at Olympia, which became a bronze statue of Zeus ten cubits high, and a share for the god at the Isthmus, which became a bronze statue of Poseidon seven cubits high. After these dedications, they divided the remainder. Each contingent received its share: the concubines of the Persians, the gold, the silver, the other valuables, and the pack animals. How much was given as special prizes to those who had fought best at Plataea, no one reports -- though I believe rewards were given. Pausanias received ten of everything: women, horses, talents of gold, camels, and so on for all the other goods.
There is also this story. When Xerxes fled Greece, he left his personal furnishings with Mardonius. When Pausanias saw Mardonius' tent fitted out with gold and silver hangings and tapestries of every color, he ordered the bakers and cooks to prepare a meal exactly as they had been doing for Mardonius. They obeyed. And when Pausanias saw the golden couches with their luxurious covers, the gold and silver tables, and the magnificent feast laid out, he was astonished. For a joke, he ordered his own servants to prepare a Spartan meal. When both were ready, the contrast was enormous. Pausanias laughed and sent for the Greek commanders. When they had assembled, he pointed to the two meals and said: "Greeks, I called you together because I wanted to show you the sheer stupidity of the Persian commander. Look at how this man lived -- and then he came to attack us, who live like this." That is what Pausanias reportedly said.
In later years, many of the Plataeans found chests of gold and silver and other treasures buried in the ground. And when the flesh had been stripped from the bones of the dead and the Plataeans collected them all in one place, some remarkable things were discovered: a skull made of a single piece of bone with no suture, a jawbone with all the teeth -- both front and grinding teeth -- formed from a single piece of bone, and the skeleton of a man who had stood five cubits tall.
As for the body of Mardonius, it disappeared the day after the battle. I cannot say with certainty who took it, but I have heard many names from many cities, of men who claim to have buried him, and I know that Artontes, the son of Mardonius, rewarded many of them for the service. Which one actually recovered and buried the body I cannot determine for certain, though an Ephesian named Dionysophanes is the one most credibly reported to have done it.
After the Greeks had divided the spoils at Plataea, they buried their dead, each nation in its own separate grave. The Spartans made three burial plots: one for the younger warriors -- including Poseidonius, Amompharetos, Philocyon, and Callicrates -- another for the rest of the Spartans, and a third for the helots. The Tegeans buried their dead together in one place, and the Athenians did the same. The Megarians and Phliasians buried those who had been killed by the cavalry. All of these graves actually contained bodies. But many of the other burial mounds visible at Plataea, I am informed, are empty -- raised by various cities that were ashamed of having missed the battle and wanted posterity to think otherwise. Among these, there is supposedly a burial mound of the Aeginetans, which I have heard was built at their request by Cleades son of Autodicus, a Plataean who was their official representative -- and this was done no less than ten years after the battle.
When the Greeks had buried their dead, they immediately resolved in council to march on Thebes and demand the surrender of those who had fought for the Persians -- chief among them Timagenides and Attaginus, two men of the highest rank. If the Thebans refused to hand them over, the Greeks would not leave until they had taken the city. Having made this resolution, they arrived before Thebes on the eleventh day after the battle and began the siege, demanding the surrender of the collaborators. When the Thebans refused, the Greeks began devastating their territory and attacking the walls.
The destruction went on for twenty days before Timagenides addressed the Thebans: "Men of Thebes, since the Greeks have decided not to leave until they either take the city or we are handed over, let the land of Boeotia suffer no more on our account. If what they really want is money, using our surrender as a pretext, then let us pay them from the state treasury -- after all, we took the Persian side as a state, not just as individuals. But if they truly want us and nothing else, then we will give ourselves up to stand trial."
Everyone agreed this was fair and well-timed advice. The Thebans immediately sent a herald to Pausanias offering to surrender the men. But when the terms were settled, Attaginus slipped out of the city and escaped. His sons were delivered up in his place, but Pausanias released them, saying the sons bore no guilt for their father's decision. The other men the Thebans surrendered believed they would get a fair trial and trusted they could buy their way out. But Pausanias suspected exactly this. When he received the prisoners, he first dismissed the entire allied army, then took the men to Corinth and executed them. That was the end of Plataea and Thebes.
Artabazus son of Pharnaces, meanwhile, was well on his way in his flight from Plataea. When he reached Thessaly, the Thessalians offered him hospitality and asked about the rest of the army, knowing nothing of what had happened. Artabazus realized that if he told the truth, both he and his entire force would be destroyed -- the Thessalians would turn on them the instant they heard. He had already kept silent about the battle when passing through Phocis, and now he told the Thessalians this: "As you can see, I am marching in haste toward Thrace. I have been dispatched with these men on a special mission from the army. Mardonius himself and his army are marching right behind me and should be expected at any moment. Give him your hospitality and show him your loyalty. You will not regret it."
With that, he continued his forced march through Thessaly and Macedonia, heading straight for Thrace by the shortest possible route. He was in genuine haste. He reached Byzantium, but he had lost great numbers of his men along the way -- some cut down by Thracians, others overcome by hunger and exhaustion. From Byzantium he crossed over by ship. That was how Artabazus made his way back to Asia.
Now on the very same day that the defeat at Plataea took place, another battle occurred -- as fate would have it -- at Mycale in Ionia. When the Greek fleet under the Spartan Leotychides was lying at Delos, three Samian envoys arrived: Lampon son of Thrasycles, Athenagoras son of Archestratides, and Hegesistratus son of Aristagoras. They had been sent by the people of Samos without the knowledge of either the Persians or their puppet ruler Theomestor son of Androdamas, whom the Persians had installed as tyrant. When the envoys were brought before the Greek commanders, Hegesistratus spoke at length and used every argument he could muster. He said the Ionians would revolt from the Persians the moment they saw the Greek fleet. The barbarian ships sailed badly and were no match for the Greeks. If the Greeks suspected a trap, the Samians were willing to serve as hostages aboard the Greek ships.
The Samian envoy was pressing his case passionately when Leotychides interrupted with a question -- either because he wanted to hear a good omen, or because some god put the idea in his head: "Stranger from Samos, what is your name?"
"Hegesistratus," said the man. The name means "army leader."
Leotychides cut him off before he could say another word: "I accept the omen of your name, Hegesistratus. Now give us your pledge -- you and your companions -- that the Samians will truly be our allies. Then you may sail for home."
This was word and deed together. The Samians immediately gave their oaths of alliance. The other two envoys sailed home, but Leotychides ordered Hegesistratus to sail with the fleet, considering his name a portent of victory.
The Greeks stayed at Delos that day, and on the next made favorable sacrifices. Their diviner was Deiphonos son of Euenios, from Apollonia on the Ionian Gulf. This man's father Euenios had a remarkable story.
In Apollonia there were sheep sacred to the Sun. By day they grazed along a river that runs from Mount Lacmon through the territory and into the sea near the port of Oricos. By night they were guarded by men chosen from among the wealthiest and most noble citizens, each man serving for a year. The Apolloniates set great store by these sheep because of an oracle. The sheep were folded in a cave some distance from the city. During the time I am talking about, Euenios had been chosen as their guardian. One night he fell asleep during his watch, and wolves crept into the cave and killed about sixty sheep. When he woke and saw what had happened, he kept quiet, intending to buy replacements. But the people of Apollonia found out. They put him on trial, found him guilty, and sentenced him to be blinded for sleeping at his post.
But the moment they blinded Euenios, their flocks stopped breeding and their land stopped bearing crops. When they consulted the oracles at Dodona and Delphi to find out why, the answer came back the same: they had done wrong in blinding Euenios. The gods themselves had sent the wolves. The gods would not stop punishing Apollonia until the people gave Euenios whatever compensation he chose. Once that was done, the gods would give Euenios a gift that many men would envy.
The Apolloniates kept this oracle secret. They appointed some citizens to handle the matter, and these men did it shrewdly. They found Euenios sitting on a bench in public, sat down beside him, and made small talk. Gradually they steered the conversation to his misfortune and began expressing sympathy. Leading him on, they asked casually: if the people of Apollonia offered him compensation, what would he choose? Euenios, who knew nothing of the oracle, named the two best pieces of farmland in the city (he knew whose they were) and the finest house. If he received those, he said, he would hold no further grudge. That would be enough.
The men beside him spoke up: "Euenios, the people of Apollonia pay you this compensation for your blinding, in accordance with the oracles they have received."
Euenios was furious when he realized the full story -- that he had been tricked into naming a modest price. But the citizens bought the properties from their owners and gave him what he had asked for. And immediately afterward, Euenios was granted the natural gift of divination. He became famous for it.
Deiphonos, his son, was now serving as the army's diviner at Mycale, brought along by the Corinthians. I have also heard it said that Deiphonos was not actually Euenios' son but merely used the name to get the work.
When the sacrifices came out favorable, the Greeks sailed from Delos to Samos. Arriving off Calamisa, they anchored near the temple of Hera and prepared for battle. But the Persians, learning the Greeks were on their way, sailed their remaining ships to the mainland. The Phoenician contingent had already been sent home. After deliberation, the Persians decided not to risk a sea fight -- they knew they were outmatched. They sailed to the mainland to take shelter under their land army at Mycale, a force of 60,000 men that had been left behind by Xerxes to guard Ionia. Its commander was Tigranes, a Persian of exceptional beauty and stature. The fleet commanders planned to beach their ships under the army's protection, build a stockade around them, and create a defensible position.
With this plan, they put out to sea and sailed past the temple of the Venerable Goddesses to the Gaeson and Scolopoeis on Mycale, where there is a temple of the Eleusinian Demeter, built by Philistus son of Pasicles when he accompanied Neileus son of Codrus in founding Miletus. There they hauled the ships ashore, built a wall of stones and timber around them, cut down the surrounding orchards for material, and fixed stakes around the perimeter. They had prepared for both outcomes: siege or victory.
When the Greeks learned that the Persians had fled to the mainland, they were annoyed, thinking the enemy had slipped away. They debated whether to sail home or head for the Hellespont. In the end they did neither -- they sailed for the mainland. They prepared boarding bridges and everything else needed for fighting ashore and headed for Mycale. As they approached the Persian camp, no ships came out to meet them. They could see vessels hauled up behind the wall and a large army deployed along the shore.
First, Leotychides sailed along the coast as close as he could, and through a herald made a proclamation to the Ionians: "Ionians, any of you within earshot, listen to what I say -- the Persians will not understand a word. When the fighting starts, each of you must remember freedom first and foremost, and the watchword is 'Hebe.' Let those who hear pass this on to those who have not." The purpose was the same as Themistocles' inscriptions at Artemisium: either the message would reach the Ionians without the Persians knowing and persuade them, or it would be reported to the Persians and make them distrust the Ionians.
After this appeal, the Greeks brought their ships to shore and disembarked. As they were forming up for battle, the Persians -- seeing the preparations and the call to the Ionians -- first disarmed the Samians, suspecting them of sympathizing with the Greeks. The Samians had previously ransomed five hundred Athenian prisoners of war from Persian captivity and sent them home with provisions for the journey. This was the main reason the Persians suspected them. Next, the Persians assigned the Milesians to guard the mountain paths leading to the heights of Mycale, supposedly because the Milesians knew the terrain best. The real reason was to get them out of the camp. Having taken these precautions against the Ionians they distrusted, the Persians lined up their wicker shields as a barricade.
When the Greeks had finished their preparations, they advanced. As they marched, a rumor suddenly swept through the entire army, and at the same time a herald's staff was found lying on the beach. The rumor said that the Greeks in Boeotia were fighting Mardonius' army and winning. The divine hand shows itself in earthly affairs through many signs, and this is one of them: on the very same day that the defeats at Plataea and Mycale took place, a rumor reached the Greeks at Mycale that gave the army far greater courage and a much fiercer will to face the danger.
There was another coincidence as well: a sacred enclosure of the Eleusinian Demeter stood beside both battlefields. At Plataea, as I have already described, the fighting took place right next to the temple of Demeter, and at Mycale it was exactly the same. The rumor that Pausanias and his army had already won proved to be true. The fighting at Plataea happened in the early morning, while the battle at Mycale took place in the afternoon. That both occurred on the same day of the same month was confirmed shortly afterward when they compared the dates. Before the rumor arrived, the army had been anxious -- not so much for themselves as for Greece as a whole, afraid that Greece might stumble and fall before Mardonius. But once the report swept through, they advanced with far more vigor and speed. Both Greeks and Persians were now eager for battle: the islands and the Hellespont were the prizes at stake.
For the Athenians and the troops next to them -- roughly half the army -- the route to the enemy lay along the beach and level ground. But the Spartans and those with them had to go through a ravine and over the mountain. While the Spartans were still picking their way around, the Athenian wing was already fighting.
As long as the Persians' wicker shields remained standing, they defended themselves well and had the better of it. But the Athenians and their neighbors, determined that the victory should belong to them and not arrive as a gift from the Spartans, shouted encouragement to each other and threw themselves at the enemy with renewed fury. From that point the battle turned. They shoved aside the wicker shields and charged the Persians in a single mass. The Persians sustained the first assault and fought back for a long time, but finally they broke and fled to the wall. The Athenians, Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Troezenians -- in that order of battle -- rushed in with them, and when the wall too was stormed, the barbarians stopped fighting entirely and took to flight. The only exception was the Persians themselves, who formed into small clusters and continued to fight the Greeks as they swarmed inside the wall. Of the four Persian commanders, two escaped and two were killed: Artayntes and Ithamitres, the fleet commanders, got away, but Mardontes and the land army commander Tigranes were killed.
While the Persians were still fighting, the Spartans and their contingent arrived and helped finish the job. Many Greeks fell, especially the Sicyonians, including their commander Perilaus. As for the Samians who were serving in the Persian army and had been stripped of their weapons, when they saw from the very beginning that the battle could go either way, they did everything in their power to help the Greeks. Seeing the Samians' example, the other Ionians followed suit, turned on the Persians, and joined the revolt.
The Milesians, too, had been assigned to guard the Persian escape routes so they could guide the Persians to safety if needed. But when the moment came, the Milesians did the opposite of what they were supposed to do. They deliberately led the fleeing Persians along the wrong paths -- paths that led straight into the enemy. In the end, the Milesians themselves turned on the Persians and began killing them. Thus Ionia revolted from the Persians for the second time.
In this battle, the Athenians distinguished themselves most of all. The best individual fighter among them was Hermolycos son of Euthoinos, a man who had trained for the pancration. He was killed in a later war, fighting the Carystians at Cyrnus near Geraestus in Carystian territory, and was buried there. After the Athenians, the Corinthians, Troezenians, and Sicyonians fought best.
When the Greeks had killed most of the barbarians, some in the battle and some in the rout, they set fire to the ships and burned the entire stockade. They had first dragged the spoils out to the beach, where they found stores of money. Having destroyed everything, they sailed away.
When they reached Samos, the Greeks deliberated about what to do with the Ionians. They discussed whether to relocate the entire Ionian population to those parts of Greece that were under Greek control, giving them the trading ports that had belonged to the Greek cities which had sided with the Persians. It was obvious that the Greeks could not station a permanent garrison to protect the Ionians, and without protection there was no hope that the Ionians could escape Persian retaliation. The Peloponnesian leaders favored this plan -- evacuating the Ionians and handing over the traitors' land to them.
But the Athenians refused outright. They would not hear of removing the Ionians from their homes, and they objected to the Peloponnesians having any say in the fate of Athenian colonies. The Athenians pushed back so forcefully that the Peloponnesians yielded. The result was that the Samians, Chians, Lesbians, and the other islanders who had fought with the Greeks were formally admitted to the Greek alliance. They were bound by oaths and pledges to remain loyal and not break away. Having secured these oaths, the fleet sailed for the Hellespont to destroy the bridges, which they assumed were still intact.
The fleet headed for the Hellespont. Meanwhile, the handful of Persians who had escaped the battle and retreated to the heights of Mycale were making their way to Sardis. During the march, Masistes son of Darius, who had been present at the disaster, was heaping abuse on the commander Artayntes. Among other insults, he told him that the generalship he had displayed made him worse than a woman and that he deserved every punishment for the damage he had done to the king's house. Among the Persians, being called worse than a woman is the ultimate insult. After enduring a torrent of this, Artayntes finally lost his temper, drew his sword, and charged at Masistes to kill him. But a man from Halicarnassus named Xeinagoras son of Prexilaus, who was standing right behind Artayntes, saw him rushing forward. Xeinagoras grabbed him around the waist, lifted him off the ground, and slammed him down. Meanwhile, the bodyguard of Masistes stepped in front to protect him. By this act Xeinagoras earned the gratitude of both Masistes and Xerxes himself for saving the king's brother's life. As a reward, Xerxes appointed him governor of all Cilicia. Nothing else happened on the march, and they arrived at Sardis.
As it happened, Xerxes had been at Sardis ever since his flight from Athens after the naval defeat. While there, he had developed a passionate desire for the wife of Masistes, who was also at Sardis. When his messages failed to sway her, and he was unwilling to use force out of respect for his brother Masistes -- a consideration the woman understood perfectly, which is why she felt free to refuse -- Xerxes devised another plan. He arranged for his son Darius to marry the daughter of Masistes and this woman, thinking this would give him easier access to the mother. He performed the betrothal and all the customary rites, then traveled to Susa. But once he was there and had brought the bride into his household for Darius, he lost interest in the mother entirely. His desire shifted to the wife of Darius -- the daughter of Masistes. Her name was Artaynte. He pursued her and succeeded.
Here is how the affair came to light. Amestris, the wife of Xerxes, had woven an extraordinary mantle -- large, brilliantly colored, and spectacular to see. She gave it to Xerxes, who was delighted with it and wore it when he went to visit Artaynte. He was so pleased with Artaynte that he told her to ask for whatever she wanted as a reward for her favors, and she would have it. She -- for it was fated that she and her whole house would come to a terrible end -- said to Xerxes: "Will you really give me whatever I ask?"
He promised, and swore an oath. She asked for the mantle.
Xerxes tried everything to avoid giving it to her. He was not unwilling out of stinginess but because he feared that Amestris, who already had her suspicions, would discover the truth. He offered Artaynte cities, unlimited gold, an army under her sole command -- a thoroughly Persian gift. But she would not be moved. He gave her the mantle. She wore it openly and gloried in it.
When Amestris learned that Artaynte had the mantle, her anger was not directed at the girl but at the girl's mother, the wife of Masistes, whom she believed was behind everything. She planned that woman's destruction. She waited for the day when Xerxes held the royal feast -- a banquet served once a year on the king's birthday. Its Persian name is tycta, meaning "complete" in Greek. This was the only day the king washed his hair and gave presents to the Persians. On this day, Amestris asked Xerxes to give her the wife of Masistes.
Xerxes was appalled. It was monstrous to hand over his brother's wife, especially since she was completely innocent -- he knew exactly why Amestris was making the request. But Amestris persisted. And the rule was absolute: when the royal feast was laid, no request made of the king could be refused. At last, much against his will, Xerxes consented. He delivered the woman to Amestris and then sent for his brother.
"Masistes," he said, "you are the son of Darius and my brother, and you are also a man of worth. I tell you this: do not continue living with your present wife. I will give you my own daughter in her place. Marry her. But the wife you have now -- get rid of her. This is my wish."
Masistes was astonished. "Master," he said, "what an outrageous thing to say to me! You tell me to throw away a wife by whom I have grown sons and daughters -- one of whom you yourself chose as a bride for your own son -- a wife who suits me perfectly. And you tell me to marry your daughter instead? I consider it a great honor to be judged worthy of your daughter, my king. But I will do neither of these things. Do not force me. Another husband as good as I am will be found for your daughter. Let me keep my own wife."
Xerxes was furious. "Here is your situation then, Masistes. I will not give you my daughter, and you will not keep your wife either. That will teach you to accept what is offered."
Masistes heard this and said only: "Master, you have not really destroyed me -- have you?" He left.
During this conversation, Amestris had already sent for the royal guards. They brought her the wife of Masistes. And Amestris did appalling things to her. She cut off her breasts and threw them to the dogs. She cut off her nose, her ears, her lips, and her tongue, and sent her home disfigured beyond recognition.
Masistes knew nothing of this yet, but sensing some disaster, he ran home. When he saw his mutilated wife, he immediately took counsel with his sons, and they set out for Bactria -- Masistes along with his sons and no doubt others as well. His plan was to raise the province of Bactria in revolt and inflict the greatest possible damage on the king. This would very likely have succeeded, in my opinion, if he had reached the Bactrians and the Sacae, who were devoted to him. He was also the governor of Bactria. But Xerxes learned of his plans and sent an army after him while he was still on the road. Masistes was killed, along with his sons and his followers.
That was the story of Xerxes' passion and the death of Masistes.
The Greeks who had sailed from Mycale to the Hellespont first put in at Lectum, where they were held up by contrary winds. From there they proceeded to Abydos. They found the bridges already broken up -- the bridges they had come specifically to destroy. The Peloponnesians under Leotychides decided to sail home to Greece. But the Athenians under their commander Xanthippus resolved to stay and make an attempt on the Chersonese. The Peloponnesian fleet sailed away. The Athenians crossed from Abydos and began the siege of Sestos.
Sestos was the strongest fortress in the region, and men from the surrounding cities had gathered there when they heard the Greeks had arrived at the Hellespont. Among them was Oiobazus, a Persian from Cardia, who had brought the cables of the bridges to Sestos. The town was held by its native inhabitants -- Aeolian Greeks -- but a large number of Persians and allies were living there as well. The province was governed by Artayctes, a Persian viceroy appointed by Xerxes -- a man of reckless and impious character.
During Xerxes' march against Athens, Artayctes had deceived the king and plundered the shrine of Protesilaus at Elaeus. For at Elaeus in the Chersonese stands the tomb of Protesilaus son of Iphiclus, surrounded by a sacred precinct that contained great treasures: gold and silver cups, bronze work, fine robes, and other offerings. Artayctes carried it all off as loot, with the king's permission. He had tricked Xerxes by saying: "Master, there is the house of a Greek who made war against your land and met the death he deserved. Give me his house, so that everyone may learn not to make war against your territory."
This was likely to persuade Xerxes easily enough -- a man's "house" sounded harmless. But when Artayctes said that Protesilaus had "made war on the king's land," one must understand that the Persians consider all of Asia to be theirs and the property of their reigning king. Protesilaus, the first Greek to die at Troy, had technically landed on Asian soil. So with the king's grant in hand, Artayctes had carried the treasures from Elaeus to Sestos. He sowed crops in the sacred precinct and used it as his own property. Whenever he came to Elaeus, he even had sexual intercourse with women in the inner sanctum of the temple. And now he was under siege by the Athenians -- a siege he had not expected and for which he was completely unprepared. The Greeks fell upon him, as one might say, inevitably.
When autumn came and the siege dragged on, the Athenians grew frustrated at being away from home and unable to take the fortress. They asked their commanders to lead them back. The commanders refused: they would not leave until the town fell or Athens officially recalled them. So the army endured.
Inside the walls, the garrison had been reduced to the most extreme desperation. They boiled the leather straps of their beds and ate them. When even those ran out, the Persians -- Artayctes and Oiobazus among them -- escaped in the night, climbing down the back of the wall where the defenses were weakest. When day broke, the people of the Chersonese signaled from the towers to the Athenians, telling them what had happened and opening the gates. Most of the Athenians gave chase, while the rest occupied the city.
Oiobazus fled into Thrace, where the Apsinthian Thracians caught him and sacrificed him to their local god Pleistorus according to their own rituals. His companions they killed in other ways. Artayctes and his group, who had started their escape later, were overtaken a short distance above Aegospotami. They put up a fight for some time, but in the end some were killed and the rest were taken alive. The Greeks bound them and brought them back to Sestos -- Artayctes and his son in chains.
One of the guards, as the story goes, was frying dried fish. And a strange portent occurred: the dried fish on the fire began to leap and thrash as if they were freshly caught. The others gathered around in amazement. But Artayctes, seeing the portent, called out to the man doing the cooking: "Stranger from Athens, do not be afraid of this sign. It was not sent for you. It is for me. Protesilaus at Elaeus is showing me that even though he is dead and dried like those fish, the gods have given him the power to punish the man who wronged him. This is what I propose: in place of the treasures I took from his shrine, I will pay a hundred talents to the god. And as ransom for myself and my son, I will pay the Athenians two hundred talents -- if you spare my life."
But his offer did not persuade Xanthippus the commander. The people of Elaeus were demanding that Artayctes be put to death to avenge Protesilaus, and the commander himself was inclined to agree. They took Artayctes to the headland where Xerxes had bridged the strait -- or, as some say, to the hill above the town of Madytos. There they nailed him to boards and hung him up. His son they stoned to death before his eyes.
Having done this, the Athenians sailed home to Greece, taking with them, among other things, the cables of the bridges, which they intended to dedicate in their temples. Nothing further happened that year.
Now a forefather of this Artayctes who was hung up was Artembares, who once put a proposal to the Persians that they adopted and brought before Cyrus. It went like this: "Since Zeus has given the Persians supremacy, and above all men has given it to you, Cyrus, by overthrowing Astyages -- come, let us leave this small, rough country of ours and move to a better one. There are many close at hand, and many more at a distance. If we take one of them, we will be even more admired by even more peoples. It is only reasonable for a ruling nation to do such a thing. When will we ever have a better opportunity than now, when we rule so many nations and all of Asia?"
Cyrus heard this and was not impressed. He told them to go ahead if they wished, but he advised them to prepare in that case to be ruled rather than to rule. "Soft lands," he said, "breed soft men. It is not the nature of the same soil to produce both fine crops and men who are good in war."
The Persians recognized his wisdom and went away with their minds changed. They chose to rule from a harsh land rather than sow crops on a level plain and be slaves to others.
F I N I S