Page images
PDF
EPUB

the gold taken from Sardis in his possession, he hired mercenaries and persuaded the inhabitants of the coast to join him ; and then, having marched against Sardis, he besieged Tabalus, who was shut up in the citadel.

155. When Cyrus heard this news on his march, he said to Croesus, "Croesus, what will be the end of these things? The Lydians, it seems, will never cease to give trouble to me and to themselves. I am in doubt whether it will not be better to reduce them to slavery; for I appear to have acted like one who, having killed the father, has spared the children; so I am carrying away you, who have been something more than a father to the Lydians, and have intrusted their city to the Lydians themselves; and then I wonder at their rebellion!" Now he said what he had in contemplation to do; but Croesus, fearing lest he should utterly destroy Sardis, answered, "Sir, you have but too much reason for what you say; yet do not give full vent to your anger, nor utterly destroy an ancient city, which is innocent as well of the former as of the present offense; for of the former I myself was guilty, and now bear the punishment on my own head; but in the present instance Pactyas, to whom you intrusted Sardis, is the culprit; let him, therefore, pay the penalty; but pardon the Lydians, and enjoin them to observe the following regulations, to the end that they may never more revolt, nor be troublesome to you: send to them and order them to keep no weapons of war in their possession; and enjoin them to wear tunics under their cloaks, and buskins on their feet; and require them to teach their sons to play on the cithara, to strike the guitar, and to sell by retail; and then you will soon see them becoming women instead of men, so that they will never give you any apprehensions about their revolting." 156. Croesus suggested this plan, thinking it would be more desirable for the Lydians than that they should be sold for slaves; and being persuaded that unless he could suggest some feasible proposal, he should not prevail with him to alter his resolution; and he dreaded also lest the Lydians, if they should escape the present danger, might hereafter revolt from the Persians, and bring utter ruin on themselves. Cyrus, pleased with the expedient, laid aside his anger, and said that he would follow his advice; then, having sent for Mazares, a Mede, he commanded him to order the Lydians to conform themselves to the regulations proposed by

Croesus, and moreover to enslave all the rest who had joined the Lydians in the attack on Sardis; but by all means to bring Pactyas to him alive. 157. Cyrus then, having given these orders on his way, proceeded to the settlements of the Persians; but Pactyas, hearing that the army which was coming against him was close at hand, fled in great consternation to Cyme; and Mazares the Mede having marched against Sardis with an inconsiderable division of Cyrus's army, when he found that Pactyas and his party were no longer there, in the first place compelled the Lydians to conform to the injunctions of Cyrus; and by his order the Lydians completely changed their mode of life after this Mazares dispatched messengers to Cyme, requiring them to deliver up Pactyas. But the Cymæans, in order to come to a decision, resolved to refer the matter to the deity at Branchidæ, for there was there an oracular shrine, erected in former times, which all the Ionians and Æolians were in the practice of consulting: this place is situated in Milesia, above the port of Panormus.9 158. The Cymæans therefore, having sent persons to consult the oracle at Branchidæ, asked "what course they should pursue respecting Pactyas that would be most pleasing to the gods:" the answer to their question was, that they should deliver up Pactyas to the Persians. When the Cymeans heard this answer reported, they determined to give him up; but, though most of them came to this determination, Aristodicus, the son of Heraclides, a man of high repute among the citizens, distrusting the oracle, and suspecting the sincerity of the consulters, prevented them from doing so; till at last other messengers, among whom was Aristodicus, went to inquire a second time concerning Pactyas. 159. When they arrived at Branchida, Aristodicus consulted the oracle in the name of all, inquiring in these words: "O king, Pactyas, a Lydian, has come to us as a suppliant, to avoid a violent death at the hands of the Persians. They now demand him, and require the Cymæans to give him up. We, however, though we dread the Persian power, have not yet dared to surrender the suppliant, till it be plainly declared by thee what we ought to do." Such was the inquiry of Aristodicus; but the oracle gave the same answer

'It will be proper to remark that there were two places of that name, and that this must not be confounded with the port of Panormus, in the vicinity of Ephesus.-Beloe,

as before, and bade them surrender Pactyas to the Persians. Upon this Aristodicus deliberately acted as follows; walking round the temple, he took away the sparrows and all other kinds of birds that had built nests in the temple; and while he was doing this, it is reported that a voice issued from the sanctuary, and addressing Aristodicus, spoke as follows: "O most impious of men, how darest thou do this? Dost thou tear my suppliants from my temple?" Aristodicus without hesitation answered, "O king, art thou then so careful to succor thy suppliants, but biddest the Cymæans to deliver up theirs?" The oracle again rejoined: "Yes, I bid you do so; that, having acted impiously, ye may the sooner perish, and never more come and consult the oracle about the delivering up of suppliants." 160. When the Cymeans heard this last answer, they, not wishing to bring destruction on themselves by surrendering Pactyas, or to subject themselves to a siege by protecting him, sent him away to Mitylene. But the Mitylenæans, when Mazares sent a message to them requiring them to deliver up Pactyas, were preparing to do so for some remuneration; what, I am unable to say precisely, for the proposal was never completed; for the Cymæans, being informed of what was being done by the Mitylenæans, dispatched a vessel to Lesbos, and transported Pactyas to Chios, whence he was torn by violence from the temple of Minerva Poliuchus by the Chians and delivered up. The Chians delivered him up in exchange for Atarneus: this Atarneus was a place situate in Mysia, opposite Lesbos. In this manner Pactyas fell into the hands of the Persians; therefore, having got possession of Pactyas, they kept him under guard in order that they might deliver him up to Cyrus. And for a long time after this, none of the Chians would offer barley-meal from Atarneus to any of the gods, or make any cakes of the fruit that came from thence; but all the productions of that country were excluded from the temples. Thus the Chians gave up Pactyas. 161. Mazares, after this, marched against those who had assisted in besieging Tabalus ; and, in the first place, he reduced the Prienians to slavery, and in the next overran the whole plain of the Maander, and gave it to his army to pillage; and he treated Magnesia in the same manner; and shortly afterward he fell sick and died.

162. On his death Harpagus came down as his successor in the command; he also was by birth a Mede, the same whom

Astyages, king of the Medes, entertained at an impious feast, and who assisted Cyrus in ascending the throne. This man, being appointed general by Cyrus on his arrival in Ionia, took several cities by means of earthworks; for he forced the people to retire within their fortifications, and then, having heaped up mounds against the walls, he carried the cities by storm. Phocæa was the first place in Ionia that he attacked.

163. These Phocæans were the first of all the Grecians who undertook long voyages, and they are the people who discovered the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas, and Iberia, and Tartessus. They made their voyages in fifty-oared galleys, and not in merchant-ships. When they arrived at Tartessus they were kindly received by the king of the Tartessians, whose name was Arganthonius; he reigned eighty years over Tartessus, and lived to the age of one hundred and twenty. The Phocæans became such great favorites with him, that he at first solicited them to abandon Ionia, and to settle in any part of his territory they should choose; but afterward, finding he could not prevail with the Phocæans to accept his offer, and hearing from them the increasing power of the Mede, he gave them money for the purpose of building a wall round their city; and he gave it unsparingly, for the wall is not a few stades in circumference, and is entirely built of large and wellcompacted stone. 164. Now the wall of the Phocæans had been built in the above manner; but when Harpagus marched his army against them, he besieged them, having first offered terms; "that he would be content if the Phocæans would throw down only one of their battlements, and consecrate one house to the king's use." The Phocæans, detesting slavery, said "that they wished for one day to deliberate, and would then give their answer;" but while they were deliberating, they required him to draw off his forces from the wall. pagus said that, "though he well knew their design, yet he would permit them to consult together." In the interval, then, during which Harpagus withdrew his army from the wall, the Phocæans launched their fifty-oared galleys, and having put their wives, children, and goods on board, together with the images from the temples, and other offerings, except works of 1 Tartessus was situated between the two branches of the Boetis (now Guadalquiver), through which it discharges itself into the sea.

* See Note ",

B. I. c. 2.

Har

brass, or stone, or pictures-with these exceptions, having put every thing on board, and embarked themselves, they set sail for Chios; and the Persians took possession of Phocæa, abandoned by all its inhabitants. 165. The Phocæans, when the Chians refused to sell them the Enyssæ islands, for fear they should become the seat of trade, and their own island be thereby excluded, thereupon directed their course to Cyrnus; where, by the admonition of an oracle, they had twenty years before built a city, named Alalia. But Arganthonius was at that time dead. On their passage to Cyrnus, having first sailed down to Phocæa, they put to death the Persian garrison which had been left by Harpagus to guard the city. Afterward, when this was accomplished, they pronounced terrible imprecations on any who should desert the fleet; besides this, they sunk a mass of red-hot iron, and swore "that they would never return to Phocæa till this burning mass should appear again." Nevertheless, as they were on their way toward Cyrnus, more than one half of the citizens were seized with regret and yearning for their city and dwellings in the country, and violating their oaths, sailed back to Phocæa; but such of them as kept to their oath weighed anchor and sailed from the Enyssæ islands. 166. On their arrival at Cyrnus they lived for five years in common with the former settlers; but as they ravaged the territories of all their neighbors, the Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians combined together to make war against them, each with sixty ships; and the Phocæans, on their part, having manned their ships, consisting of sixty in number, met them in the Sardinian Sea; and having engaged, the Phocæans obtained a kind of Cadmean victory;3 for forty of their own ships were destroyed, and the twenty that survived were disabled, for their prows were blunted. They therefore sailed back to Alalia, and took on board their wives and children, with what property their ships were able to carry, and leaving Cyrnus, sailed to Rhegium. 167. As to the men belonging to the ships destroyed, most of them fell into the hands of the

3 A proverbial expression, importing "that the victors suffered more than the vanquished."

I have ventured to depart from the usual rendering of this passage, even though it has the sanction of Baehr. It is commonly inferred from the use of the word λaxóv that the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians "divided their prisoners by lot." That word appears to me, however,

« PreviousContinue »