Darius the Great Part 3

The name of the second speaker in this celebrated consultation was Megabyzus. He opposed the plan of Otanes. He concurred fully, he said, in all that Otanes had advanced in respect to the evils of a monarchy, and to the oppression and tyranny to which a people were exposed whose liberties and lives were subject to the despotic control of a single human will. But in order to avoid one extreme, it was not necessary to run into the evils of the other. The disadvantages and dangers of popular control in the management of the affairs of state were scarcely less than those of a despotism. Popular a.s.semblies were always, he said, turbulent, pa.s.sionate, capricious. Their decisions were controlled by artful and designing demagogues. It was not possible that ma.s.ses of the common people could have either the sagacity to form wise counsels, or the energy and steadiness to execute them. There could be no deliberation, no calmness, no secrecy in their consultations. A populace was always governed by excitements, which spread among them by a common sympathy; and they would give way impetuously to the most senseless impulses, as they were urged by their fear, their resentment, their exultation, their hate, or by any other pa.s.sing emotion of the hour.

Megabyzus therefore disapproved of both a monarchy and a republic. He recommended an oligarchy. "We are now," said he, "already seven. Let us select from the leading n.o.bles in the court and officers of the army a small number of men, eminent for talents and virtue, and thus form a select and competent body of men, which shall be the depository of the supreme power. Such a plan avoids the evils and inconveniences of both the other systems. There can be no tyranny or oppression under such a system; for, if any one of so large a number should be inclined to abuse his power, he will be restrained by the rest. On the other hand, the number will not be so large as to preclude prudence and deliberation in counsel, and the highest efficiency and energy in carrying counsels into effect."

When Megabyzus had completed his speech, Darius expressed his opinion.

He said that the arguments of those who had already spoken appeared plausible, but that the speakers had not dealt quite fairly by the different systems whose merits they had discussed, since they had compared a good administration of one form of government with a bad administration of another. Every thing human was, he admitted, subject to imperfection and liable to abuse; but on the supposition that each of the three forms which had been proposed were equally well administered, the advantage, he thought, would be strongly on the side of monarchy. Control exercised by a single mind and will was far more concentrated and efficient than that proceeding from any conceivable combination. The forming of plans could be, in that case, more secret and wary, and the execution of them more immediate and prompt. Where power was lodged in many hands, all energetic exercise of it was paralyzed by the dissensions, the animosities and the contending struggles of envious and jealous rivals. These struggles, in fact, usually resulted in the predominance of some one, more energetic or more successful than the rest, the aristocracy or the democracy running thus, of its own accord, to a despotism in the end, showing that there were natural causes always tending to the subjection of nations of men to the control of one single will.

Besides all this, Darius added, in conclusion, that the Persians had always been accustomed to a monarchy, and it would be a very dangerous experiment to attempt to introduce a new system, which would require so great a change in all the habits and usages of the people.

Thus the consultation went on. At the end of it, it appeared that four out of the seven agreed with Darius in preferring a monarchy. This was a majority, and thus the question seemed to be settled. Otanes said that he would make no opposition to any measures which they might adopt to carry their decision into effect, but that he would not himself be subject to the monarchy which they might establish. "I do not wish," he added, "either to govern others or to have others govern me. You may establish a kingdom, therefore, if you choose, and designate the monarch in any mode that you see fit to adopt, but he must not consider me as one of his subjects. I myself, and all my family and dependents, must be wholly free from his control."

This was a very unreasonable proposition, unless, indeed, Otanes was willing to withdraw altogether from the community to which he thus refused to be subject; for, by residing within it, he necessarily enjoyed its protection, and ought, therefore, to bear his portion of its burdens, and to be amenable to its laws. Notwithstanding this, however, the conspirators acceded to the proposal, and Otanes withdrew.

The remaining six of the confederates then proceeded with their arrangements for the establishment of a monarchy. They first agreed that one of their own number should be the king, and that on whomsoever the choice should fall, the other five, while they submitted to his dominion, should always enjoy peculiar privileges and honors at his court. They were at all times to have free access to the palaces and to the presence of the king, and it was from among their daughters alone that the king was to choose his wives. These and some other similar points having been arranged, the manner of deciding which of the six should be the king remained to be determined. The plan which they adopted, and the circ.u.mstances connected with the execution of it, const.i.tute, certainly, one of the most extraordinary of all the strange transactions recorded in ancient times. It is gravely related by Herodotus as sober truth. How far it is to be considered as by any possibility credible, the reader must judge, after knowing what the story is.

They agreed, then, that on the following morning they would all meet on horseback at a place agreed upon beyond the walls of the city, and that the one whose horse should neigh first should be the king! The time when this ridiculous ceremony was to be performed was sunrise.

As soon as this arrangement was made the parties separated, and each went to his own home. Darius called his groom, whose name was...o...b..ses, and ordered him to have his horse ready at sunrise on the next morning, explaining to him, at the same time, the plan which had been formed for electing the king. "If that is the mode which is to be adopted," said Oebases, "you need have no concern, for I can arrange it very easily so as to have the lot fall upon you." Darius expressed a strong desire to have this accomplished, if it were possible, and Oebases went away.

The method which Oebases adopted was to lead Darius's horse out to the ground that evening, in company with another, the favorite companion, it seems, of the animal. Now the attachment of the horse to his companion is very strong, and his recollection of localities very vivid, and Oebases expected that when the horse should approach the ground on the following morning, he would be reminded of the company which he enjoyed there the night before, and neigh. The result was as he antic.i.p.ated. As the hors.e.m.e.n rode up to the appointed place, the horse of Darius neighed the first, and Darius was unanimously acknowledged king.

In respect to the credibility of this famous story, the first thought which arises in the mind is, that it is utterly impossible that sane men, acting in so momentous a crisis, and where interests so vast and extended were at stake, could have resorted to a plan so childish and ridiculous as this. Such a mode of designating a leader, seriously adopted, would have done discredit to a troop of boys making arrangements for a holiday; and yet here was an empire extending for thousands of miles through the heart of a vast continent, comprising, probably, fifty nations and many millions of people, with capitals, palaces, armies, fleets, and all the other appointments and machinery of an immense dominion, to be appropriated and disposed of absolutely, and, so far as they could see, forever. It seems incredible that men possessing such intelligence, and information, and extent of view as we should suppose that officers of their rank and station would necessarily acquire, could have attempted to decide such a momentous question in so ridiculous and trivial a manner. And yet the account is seriously recorded by Herodotus as sober history, and the story has been related again and again, from that day to this, by every successive generation of historians, without any particular question of its truth.

And it may possibly be that it is true. It is a case in which the apparent improbability is far greater than the real. In the first place, it would seem that, in all ages of the world, the acts and decisions of men occupying positions of the most absolute and exalted power have been controlled, to a much greater degree, by caprice and by momentary impulse, than mankind have generally supposed. Looking up as we do to these vast elevations from below, they seem invested with a certain sublimity and grandeur which we imagine must continually impress the minds of those who occupy them, and expand and strengthen their powers, and lead them to act, in all respects, with the circ.u.mspection, the deliberation, and the far-reaching sagacity which the emergencies continually arising seem to require. And this is, in fact, in some degree the case with the statesmen and political leaders raised to power under the const.i.tutional governments of modern times.

Such statesmen are clothed with their high authority, in one way or another, by the combined and deliberate action of vast ma.s.ses of men, and every step which they take is watched, in reference to its influence on the condition and welfare of these ma.s.ses, by many millions; so that such men live and act under a continual sense of responsibility, and they appreciate, in some degree, the momentous importance of their doings. But the absolute and independent sovereigns of the Old World, who held their power by conquest or by inheritance, though raised sometimes to very vast and giddy elevations, seem to have been unconscious, in many instances, of the dignity and grandeur of their standing, and to have considered their acts only as they affected their own personal and temporary interests.

Thus, though placed on a great elevation, they took only very narrow and circ.u.mscribed views; they saw nothing but the objects immediately around them; and they often acted, accordingly, in the most frivolous and capricious manner.

It was so, undoubtedly, with these six conspirators. In deciding which of their number should be king, they thought nothing of the interests of the vast realms, and of the countless millions of people whose government was to be provided for. The question, as they considered it, was doubtless merely which of them should have possession of the royal palaces, and be the center and the object of royal pomp and parade in the festivities and celebrations of the capital.

And in the mode of decision which they adopted, it may be that some degree of superst.i.tious feeling mingled. The action and the voices of animals were considered, in those days, as supernatural omens, indicating the will of heaven. These conspirators may have expected, accordingly, in the neighing of the horse, a sort of divine intimation in respect to the disposition of the crown. This idea is confirmed by the statement which the account of this transaction contains, that immediately after the neighing of Darius's horse, it thundered, although there were no clouds in the sky from which the thunder could be supposed naturally to come. The conspirators, at all events, considered it solemnly decided that Darius was to be king.

They all dismounted from their horses and knelt around him, in acknowledgment of their allegiance and subjection.

It seems that Darius, after he became established on his throne, considered the contrivance by which, through the a.s.sistance of his groom, he had obtained the prize, not as an act of fraud which it was inc.u.mbent on him to conceal, but as one of brilliant sagacity which he was to avow and glory in. He caused a magnificent equestrian statue to be sculptured, representing himself mounted on his neighing horse.

This statue he set up in a public place with this inscription:

DARIUS, SON OF HYSTASPES, OBTAINED THE SOVEREIGNTY OF PERSIA BY THE SAGACITY OF HIS HORSE AND THE INGENIOUS CONTRIVANCE OF OEBASES HIS GROOM.

CHAPTER V.

THE PROVINCES.

B.C. 520

Intaphernes.--He is denied admittance to Darius.--Intaphernes's cruelty to the two guards.--Darius's apprehensions.--Intaphernes and family arrested.--They are condemned to die.--Alternative offered to Intaphernes's wife.--Her strange decision.--Death of Intaphernes.--The provinces.--The governors.--Their independence.--Power of the governors.--Oretes, governor of Sardis.--Conversation between Oretes and Mitrobates.--Polycrates.--Dominion of Polycrates.--Letter of Amasis.--Suggestion of Amasis.--Adopted by Polycrates.--Polycrates throws away his ring.--Its singular recovery.--Predictions of Amasis.--Their fulfillment.--Letter of Oretes.--His hypocrisy.--The pretended treasure.--Fears of Polycrates's daughter.--Oretes murders Polycrates.--He commits other murders.--Oretes destroys Darius's messenger.--Darius is incensed.--Plan of Darius for punis.h.i.+ng Oretes.--His proposal.--Commission of Bagaeus.--His plan.--Oretes beheaded.--Divisions of Darius's empire.--Tribute of the satrapies.--The white horses.--The gold of India.--Mode of gathering it.--The wonderful ants.--Their prodigious size.

Several of the events and incidents which occurred immediately after the accession of Darius to the throne, ill.u.s.trate in a striking manner the degree in which the princes and potentates of ancient days were governed by caprice and pa.s.sionate impulse even in their public acts.

One of the most remarkable of these was the case of Intaphernes.

Intaphernes was one of the seven conspirators who combined to depose the magian and place Darius on the throne. By the agreement which they made with each other before it was decided which should be the king, each of them was to have free access to the king's presence at all times. One evening, soon after Darius became established on his throne, Intaphernes went to the palace, and was proceeding to enter the apartment of the king without ceremony, when he was stopped by two officers, who told him that the king had retired. Intaphernes was incensed at the officers' insolence, as he called it. He drew his sword, and cut off their noses and their ears. Then he took the bridle off from his horse at the palace gate, and tied the officers together; and then, leaving them in this helpless and miserable condition, he went away.

The officers immediately repaired to the king, and presented themselves to him, a frightful spectacle, wounded and bleeding, and complaining bitterly of Intaphernes as the author of the injuries which they had received. The king was at first alarmed for his own safety. He feared that the conspirators had all combined together to rebel against his authority, and that this daring insult offered to his personal attendants, in his very palace, was the first outbreak of it. He accordingly sent for the conspirators one by one, to ask of them whether they approved of what Intaphernes had done. They promptly disavowed all connection with Intaphernes in the act, and all approval of it, and declared their determination to adhere to the decision that they had made, by which Darius had been placed on the throne.

Darius then, after taking proper precautions to guard against any possible attempts at resistance, sent soldiers to seize Intaphernes, and also his son, and all of his family, relatives, and friends who were capable of bearing arms; for he suspected that Intaphernes had meditated a rebellion, and he thought that, if so, these men would most probably be his accomplices. The prisoners were brought before him. There was, indeed, no proof that they were engaged in any plan of rebellion, nor even that any plan of rebellion whatever had been formed; but this circ.u.mstance afforded them no protection. The liberties and the lives of all subjects were at the supreme and absolute disposal of these ancient kings. Darius thought it possible that the prisoners had entertained, or might entertain, some treasonable designs, and he conceived that he should, accordingly, feel safer if they were removed out of the way. He decreed, therefore, that they must all die.

While the preparations were making for the execution, the wife of Intaphernes came continually to the palace of Darius, begging for an audience, that she might intercede for the lives of her friends.

Darius was informed of this, and at last, pretending to be moved with compa.s.sion for her distress, he sent her word that he would pardon one of the criminals for her sake, and that she might decide which one it should be. His real motive in making this proposal seems to have been to enjoy the perplexity and anguish which the heart of a woman must suffer in being compelled thus to decide, in a question of life and death, between a husband and a son.

The wife of Intaphernes did not decide in favor of either of these.

She gave the preference, on the other hand, to a brother. Darius was very much surprised at this result, and sent a messenger to her to inquire how it happened that she could pa.s.s over and abandon to their fate her husband and her son, in order to save the life of her brother, who was certainly to be presumed less near and dear to her.

To which she gave this extraordinary reply, that the loss of her husband and her son might perhaps be repaired, since it was not impossible that she might be married again, and that she might have another son; but that, inasmuch as both her father and mother were dead, she could never have another brother. The death of her present brother would, therefore, be an irreparable loss.

The king was so much pleased with the novelty and unexpectedness of this turn of thought, that he gave her the life of her son in addition to that of her brother. All the rest of the family circle of relatives and friends, together with Intaphernes himself, he ordered to be slain.

Darius had occasion to be so much displeased, too, shortly after his accession to the throne, with the governor of one of his provinces, that he was induced to order him to be put to death. The circ.u.mstances connected with this governor's crime, and the manner of his execution, ill.u.s.trate very forcibly the kind of government which was administered by these military despots in ancient times. It must be premised that great empires, like that over which Darius had been called to rule, were generally divided into provinces. The inhabitants of these provinces, each community within its own borders, went on, from year to year, in their various pursuits of peaceful industry, governed mainly, in their relations to each other, by the natural sense of justice instinctive in man, and by those thousand local inst.i.tutions and usages which are always springing up in all human communities under the influence of this principle. There were governors stationed over these provinces, whose main duty it was to collect and remit to the king the tribute which the province was required to furnish him.

These governors were, of course, also to suppress any domestic outbreak of violence, and to repel any foreign invasion which might occur. A sufficient military force was placed at their disposal to enable them to fulfill these functions. They paid these troops, of course, from sums which they collected in their provinces under the same system by which they collected the tribute. This made them, in a great measure, independent of the king in the maintenance of their armies. They thus intrenched themselves in their various capitals at the head of these troops, and reigned over their respective dominions almost as if they were kings themselves. They had, in fact, very little connection with the supreme monarch, except to send him the annual tribute which they had collected from their people, and to furnish, also, their quota of troops in case of a national war. In the time of our Savior, Pilate was such a governor, intrusted by the Romans with the charge of Judea, and Matthew was one of the tax gatherers employed to collect the tribute.

Of course, the governors of such provinces, as we have already said, were, in a great measure, independent of the king. He had, ordinarily, no officers of justice whose jurisdiction could control, peacefully, such powerful va.s.sals. The only remedy in most cases, when they were disobedient and rebellious, was to raise an army and go forth to make war upon them, as in the case of any foreign state. This was attended with great expense, and trouble, and hazard. The governors, when ambitious and aspiring, sometimes managed their resources with so much energy and military skill as to get the victory over their sovereign in the contests in which they engaged with them, and then they would gain vast accessions to the privileges and powers which they exercised in their own departments; and they would sometimes overthrow their discomfited sovereign entirely, and take possession of his throne themselves in his stead.

Oretes was the name of one of these governors in the time of Darius.

He had been placed by Cyrus, some years before, in charge of one of the provinces into which the kingdom of Lydia had been divided. The seat of government was Sardis.[D] He was a capricious and cruel tyrant, as, in fact, almost all such governors were. We will relate an account of one of the deeds which he performed some time before Darius ascended the throne, and which sufficiently ill.u.s.trates his character.

[Footnote D: For the position of Sardis, and of other places mentioned in this chapter, see the map at the commencement of the volume, and also that at the commencement of chapter xi.]

He was one day sitting at the gates of his palace in Sardis, in conversation with the governor of a neighboring territory who had come to visit him. The name of this guest was Mitrobates. As the two friends were boasting to one another, as such warriors are accustomed to do, of the deeds of valor and prowess which they had respectively performed, Mitrobates said that Oretes could not make any great pretensions to enterprise and bravery so long as he allowed the Greek island of Samos, which was situate at a short distance from the Lydian coast, to remain independent, when it would be so easy to annex it to the Persian empire. "You are afraid of Polycrates, I suppose," said he. Polycrates was the king of Samos.

Oretes was stung by this taunt, but, instead of revenging himself on Mitrobates, the author of it, he resolved on destroying Polycrates, though he had no reason other than this for any feeling of enmity toward him.

Polycrates, although the seat of his dominion was a small island in the aegean Sea, was a very wealthy, and powerful, and prosperous prince. All his plans and enterprises had been remarkably successful.

He had built and equipped a powerful fleet, and had conquered many islands in the neighborhood of his own. He was projecting still wider schemes of conquests, and hoped, in fact, to make himself the master of all the seas.

A very curious incident is related of Polycrates, which ill.u.s.trates very strikingly the childish superst.i.tion which governed the minds of men in those ancient days. It seems that in the midst of his prosperity, his friend and ally, the King of Egypt--for these events, though narrated here, occurred before the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses--sent to him a letter, of which the following is the purport.

"_Amasis, king of Egypt, to Polycrates._

"It always gives me great satisfaction and pleasure to hear of the prosperity of a friend and ally, unless it is too absolutely continuous and uninterrupted. Something like an alternation of good and ill fortune is best for man; I have never known an instance of a very long-continued course of unmingled and uninterrupted success that did not end, at last, in overwhelming and terrible calamity. I am anxious, therefore, for you, and my anxiety will greatly increase if this extraordinary and unbroken prosperity should continue much longer. I counsel you, therefore, to break the current yourself, if fortune will not break it. Bring upon yourself some calamity, or loss, or suffering, as a means of averting the heavier evils which will otherwise inevitably befall you. It is a general and substantial welfare only that can be permanent and final."

Polycrates seemed to think there was good sense in this suggestion. He began to look around him to see in what way he could bring upon himself some moderate calamity or loss, and at length decided on the destruction of a very valuable signet ring which he kept among his treasures. The ring was made with very costly jewels set in gold, and was much celebrated both for its exquisite workmans.h.i.+p and also for its intrinsic value. The loss of this ring would be, he thought, a sufficient calamity to break the evil charm of an excessive and unvaried current of good fortune. Polycrates, therefore, ordered one of the largest vessels in his navy, a fifty-oared galley, to be equipped and manned, and, embarking in it with a large company of attendants, he put to sea. When he was at some distance from the island, he took the ring, and in the presence of all his attendants, he threw it forth into the water, and saw it sink, to rise, as he supposed, no more.

But Fortune, it seems, was not to be thus outgeneraled. A few days after Polycrates had returned, a certain fisherman on the coast took, in his nets, a fish of very extraordinary size and beauty; so extraordinary, in fact, that he felt it inc.u.mbent on him to make a present of it to the king. The servants of Polycrates, on opening the fish for the purpose of preparing it for the table, to their great astonishment and gratification, found the ring within. The king was overjoyed at thus recovering his lost treasure; he had, in fact, repented of his rashness in throwing it away, and had been bitterly lamenting its loss. His satisfaction and pleasure were, therefore, very great in regaining it; and he immediately sent to Amasis an account of the whole transaction, expecting that Amasis would share in his joy.

Amasis, however, sent word back to him in reply, that he considered the return of the ring in that almost miraculous manner as an extremely unfavorable omen. "I fear," said he, "that it is decreed by the Fates that you must be overwhelmed, at last, by some dreadful calamity, and that no measures of precaution which you can adopt will avail to avert it. It seems to me, too," he added, "that it is inc.u.mbent on me to withdraw from all alliance and connection with you, lest I should also, at last, be involved in your destined destruction."

Whether this extraordinary story was true, or whether it was all fabricated after the fall of Polycrates, as a dramatic embellishment of his history, we can not now know. The result, however, corresponded with these predictions of Amasis, if they were really made; for it was soon after these events that the conversation took place at Sardis between Oretes and Mitrobates, at the gates of the palace, which led Oretes to determine on effecting Polycrates's destruction.

In executing the plans which he thus formed, Oretes had not the courage and energy necessary for an open attack on Polycrates, and he consequently resolved on attempting to accomplish his end by treachery and stratagem.