[464-454 B.C.]

Bactriana at the death of Xerxes, now arrived at the head of an army to claim his rights, but he and his followers were defeated in 462 in two bloody battles.

Every incident which threatened the existence or the integrity of the empire, affected Egypt, and before the generation, which had taken up arms for Khabbash, had passed away, a fresh generation, weary of the Persian yoke, rose up against Artaxerxes. Since the fall of the Said, Libya was the most important of the fiefs of the Delta. Being masters of the Marea, and the fertile districts between the Canopic branch of the Nile and the mountain and lake of Mareotis, her rulers probably had suzerainty over the Adyrmachidæ, the Giligammas, the Asbystæ, and the majority of the nomadic tribes of the desert. Inarus, son of a Psamthek, who was then in power, declared war against the Persians, and the population of the Delta, being ill-treated by Achæmenes, received him warmly, drove off the tax-collectors and flew to arms. Since their victory on the Eurymedon, the Athenians always kept a squadron by Cyprus, and its two hundred vessels now had orders to set sail for Egypt and to remain there at the disposal of the insurgent chiefs. Artaxerxes then prepared to take personal command of the naval and military forces, but he finally submitted to the advice of his counsellors who advised him to let his place be taken by Achæmenes, his uncle, who had fled to the court in alarm at the first successes of Inarus. Achæmenes had not much difficulty in thrusting back the Libyans, but the arrival of the Greeks put quite another face on the matter; and he was beaten at Papremis, and his army almost entirely exterminated. Inarus killed him with his own hand in the battle, and sent the corpse to Artaxerxes perhaps out of bravado, and perhaps out of respect for the blood of his victim. Some days later the Athenian squadron under the command of Charitimides encountered the Phoenician fleet hastening to the succour of the Persians, and sank thirty ships, and took twenty. The allies then went up the river and appeared at Memphis, where the rest of the Persians had taken refuge, as the natives had remained faithful to the Great King. The town soon surrendered, but the fortress of the White Wall shut its gates and its resistance gave Artaxerxes time to collect fresh forces.

Before risking his generals in the Delta, the Great King sent his envoys to Greece to try and buy the Lacedæmonians' assistance for the invasion of Attica. But Spartan virtue happened just then to be proof against the Persian darics, so the troops of the Great King were assembled in Phoenicia and Cilicia, and the three hundred thousand foot-soldiers and the fleet of three hundred vessels were placed under the command of Megabyzus. On the approach of the enemy, the allies raised the siege of the White Wall, and beaten in a first engagement, in which Charitimides was killed, and Inarus wounded in the thigh, they entrenched themselves in the island of Prosopitis, where they sustained a long siege of eighteen months, which ended by Megabyzus succeeding in turning off one of the arms of the river, and the Athenian fleet thus stranded, an opportunity was afforded of storming the place. The majority of the Greek allies perished in the battle, but some succeeded in getting back to Cyrene, and returning thence to their country, and others fled with Inarus, and were forced to give themselves up a little later. To add to their misfortunes, a reinforcement of fifty ships, which arrived at the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, was more than half destroyed by the Phoenician fleet. When laying down his arms, Inarus had stipulated that his life and that of his companions should be saved. Artaxerxes seemed at first inclined to respect the capitulation, but five years later

[454-449 B.C.]

he gave over the prisoners to his mother Amestris, who had Inarus crucified to avenge the death of Achæmenes.

The victory of Prosopitis concluded the rebellion, and Thannyras, the son of Inarus, was made king of Libya in his father's place. But some bands of refugees retired to the marshes on the seacoast, which had often been a sanctuary to the people of the Saïd, and having proclaimed Amyrtæus king, they successfully repelled all the attacks of the Persians. The integrity of the empire was re-established, but the war with the Greeks

went on.

Six years after their defeat, the Athenians equipped a fleet of two hundred sail, and put it under the command of Cimon, with orders to conquer Cyprus or at least occupy several of its towns. Cimon, wishing to divide the force of the enemy, sent a squadron of sixty ships to King Amyrtæus, as if he were going to recommence the campaign in Egypt, and then, with the remaining men and ships, he laid siege to Čitium. He died soon afterwards from a wound, and for want of provisions his successors were forced to raise the siege; but in sailing past Salamis they defeated the Phœnician and Cilician fleet, and then landed and routed a Persian army stationed near the town. Artaxerxes was overcome by this last reverse, and fearing that the Athenians, if once they had Cyprus, would take possession of Egypt, which was always disaffected, he decided to treat for peace at any price. Peace was therefore concluded on condition of freedom being granted to the Greeks of Asia, no Persian army was to approach the Ionian coast within a distance of three days' journey, no Persian man-of-war was to sail in Greek waters, which extended from the eastern point of Lycia to the entrance of the Bos

porus.

This treaty in 449 terminated the first war between the Persians and Greeks, after it had lasted from the burning of Sardis to the seventeenth year of the reign of Artaxerxes, from 501 to 449.

Eastern empires could not exist without the excitement of constant wars and victories, and directly they gave up their aggressive policy they began to go down-they were conquerors, or nothing-and Persia was no exception to the rule. Darius I had been a very great king, greater perhaps than Cyrus himself. The vigour and skill with which he organised armies, conceived plans of campaigns, and chose his officers, and the promptitude with which he quelled the revolts on his accession to the throne, show us that he was at least equal to the best generals of his time, and as a ruler he was superior to the whole line of the Achæmenidæ.

Both Darius and Xerxes turned to Europe when their conquests in Asia had extended their empire to where their frontiers were bounded by the almost impassable barriers of the deserts of Africa and Arabia, the mountains of India and the Caucasus, and the steppes of central Asia; but when the Greek victories obliged them to retire, the day of Persia's decadence dawned. Her fall was not so sudden as had been that of Assyria, Chaldea, and Media, for the administrative organisation of Darius had been too skilfully adjusted to fall at a single blow, but the nonchalance and inaptitude of the sovereigns finally destroyed its action. Several satrapies were now governed by a single satrap, who commanded the armies and acted as king, and there was not only an incessant succession of rebellions in the provinces and in Egypt, where the national sentiment was not attuned to peace, but in Chaldea, Bactriana, and Asia Minor; and tragedies in the palaces, where the dagger and poison made havoc in the royal family, were as common as civil wars between the satraps.

[448-405 B.C.]

Peace was hardly signed with Greece when Megabyzus, governor of Syria, discontented with the way the king had treated Inarus after his victory, raised an army under his command. He defeated two generals, one after the other, and only disbanded his force after having dictated the terms of peace.

Some years later his son Zopyrus headed a rebellion in Caria and Lydia, and the success of the revolt was so fatal to the other satraps that their fidelity henceforth was only a question of caprice or circumstance. Artaxerxes died in 424, and the intrigues which had cost so much blood at the beginning of his reign now recommenced. His eldest legitimate son, Xerxes II, was assassinated at the end of forty-five days by Sogdianus, one of his illegitimate brothers; he in his turn was dethroned and killed after a reign of six months and a half by Ochus, another bastard of the old king, who, on ascending the throne, took the name of Darius, and whose life was one long tissue of miseries and crimes. His reign from the beginning was disturbed by the rebellion of his brother Arsites and Artyphius, son of Megabyzus, who took up arms in Asia Minor, enrolled Greek mercenaries, and gained two important victories. Persian gold now compassed what was beyond Persian bravery, and the rebels, abandoned by their soldiers, surrendered on condition that their lives should be spared.

DARIUS II

Darius II had married his aunt Parysatis, one of the cruellest and most depraved women that ever entered an Eastern harem, and it was by her advice that he broke his word and Arsites was burnt to death. But this example did not deter Pissuthnes, the satrap of Lydia, who had been in office for twenty months, from rebelling; however, he, like Arsites, fell by treachery ; for Tissaphernes having bribed the mercenaries in his pay to desert him, he was obliged to surrender. Darius had him put to death, and made his conqueror his successor.

But this was not the last of the troubles in Asia Minor, for Amorges, the natural son of Pissuthenes excited Caria to revolt, and after abrogating the title of King, he held out till 412.

It was at this time that the whole of Greece was laid waste by the Peloponnesian war. Athens had just lost in Sicily the best part of her fleet and the bravest of her soldiers, and when the news of her defeat reached the East, Darius saw that it was a favourable time to break the treaty of 449. He sent orders to the satraps of Mysia and Lydia to collect the taxes from the Greek towns on the coast and to treat with the Lacedæmonians. Sparta accepted the alliance offered her, and henceforth the different Hellenic states were but playthings in the hands of the Great King and his agents. Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus tried at first to keep the balance equal between the Dorians and Athenians, without allowing either of the rival races to deal the mortal blow; but this equalising policy did not last long. Darius had two sons, and the second one, named Cyrus after the founder of the empire, obtained through the influence of Parysatis the supreme rulership of the provinces of Asia Minor.

Cyrus was ambitious of reigning, and he hoped that his mother would manage by intrigues to obtain for him the succession which rightfully belonged to his eldest brother, Arsaces; and, in the event of failure, by those means he intended to win the throne by force of arms.