The First Clash (34 page)
Authors: Jim Lacey
At Marathon, Athens saved itself, Greece, and by extension all of Western civilization. Some have proposed that Marathon made little difference
in the creation and development of a unique Western civilization. After all, this argument goes, Pericles, Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates still would have been born. They still would have been brilliant, and their achievements would have been as great. One is hard-pressed, however, to think how these great minds and independent spirits would have soared as slaves to a despotic empire. In truth, Western civilization owes its existence to a thin line of bronze-encased “men as hard as oak” who went bravely forward against overwhelming odds, to victory and never-ending glory.
No book ever gets written without the help and encouragement of a number of other people. In my case I first want to thank my agent, Eric Lupfer, who believed in this project from the beginning and was instrumental in steering it to its final conclusion. I also wish to thank my editor, Jessie Waters. Her expert guidance, patient work, and friendly support were greatly appreciated. During the writing of this book, I also received the encouragement and assistance of two of the country’s foremost historians, Williamson Murray and Paul Rahe, both of whom provided me with invaluable advice and suggestions. Still, this book deals with an area of history where there remains much for scholars to debate. So where there are interpretations in this book that may trouble others, the responsibility for my claims rests solely with me.
Finally, I wish to thank my wife, Sharon, whose encouragement and support made it possible to write this book. I am fortunate to have found a wife willing to read multiple iterations of the same book and still remain ready to give cheerful advice. Without her, this book would have been much the poorer.
Introduction1.
For evidence of this, one has to look no further than the depiction of the Persians in the recent hit movie 300.
2.
The Athenians were aided at Marathon by a small force of hoplites (one thousand) from Plataea.
3.
Edward Creasy,
The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo
(Cambridge, UK: 1994).
4.
J. A. S. Evans, “Father of History or Father of Lies: The Reputation of Herodotus,”
Classical Journal
64, no. 1 (October 1968): 11–17.
5.
A new edition of Herodotus’s
Histories
has recently been released and is strongly recommended for anyone looking for a starting point for delving into the original source material on the Greco-Persian wars. See Robert Strassler,
The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories
(New York: Pantheon Books, 2007). All endnotes to Herodotus’s works refer to Strassler’s book.
6.
In this last regard, one needs to make exceptions for Professors Donald Kagan and Victor Davis Hanson.
7.
Most historians now agree that while Plutarch caught some minor errors, Herodotus’s major problem, as far as Plutarch was concerned, was that he dared to criticize some Greek cities that Plutarch thought had saved Greece from the Persians. As a hyperpatriot, Plutarch could not let these “insults” to Greek national pride go by uncontested.
8.
The Behistun inscription was engraved by King Darius at the site of his greatest victory at the end of the Persian civil war that marked the first year of his rule. The engravings were made on a cliff face approximately one hundred yards off the ground. The Babylonian Chronicles, which include the Nabonidus Chronicle, are a collection of clay tablets and cylinders that detail the great events of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. All of these works are translated online at
http://www.livius.org/
.
9.
A. R. Burn,
Persia and the Greeks: The Defense of the West 546–478 B.C
. (New York: Minerva Press, 1968). This excellent volume begins with an extensive review of the ancient sources of the Greco-Persian wars and is a wonderful starting point for anyone desiring to dig deeper into this aspect of events.
10.
Ephorus (400–330 BC) wrote a universal history of Greece in twenty-nine
volumes. Unfortunately, nothing but isolated fragments of his work survives. Cornelius Nepos’s work,
The Lives of Eminent Commanders
, includes a short history of Miltiades. A translation of the work can be found at
http://www.tertullian.org/
.
AN EMPIRE RISES
1.
The Cimmerians were a tribe of nomads who inhabited the Caucasus region. In one of their great raids south in about 652 BC, they destroyed a large part of the Lydian capital, Sardis, which they captured in its entirety a decade later. Between 637 and 626 BC, Alyattes II in a series of campaigns broke the back of Cimmerian power and forced their retreat into the Caucasus.
2.
A solar eclipse was visible in the region in late May 585 BC.
3.
The following pictures and story are drawn from Crawford H. Greenewalt Jr., “When a Mighty Empire Is Destroyed: The Common Man at the Fall of Sardis, ca. 546 BC,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
136, no. 2 (June 1992): 247–271.
4.
For a thorough discussion of Croesus’s fate, see J. A. S. Evans, “What Happened to Croesus?”
Classical Journal
73, no. 1 (October–November 1978): 34–40.
5.
The Median Wall was constructed between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the north of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II. Its purpose was to stand as a first line of defense against a Median invasion.
6.
Ctesias’s original has been lost, but a fragment was copied by Nicholas of Damascus (Nicol. Damasc. Frag. 66, Ctes.; Frag. Pers., II, 5). According to Ctesias, Cyrus starts life as a peasant who rises from street sweeper to become Astyages’ most trusted adviser. A complete copy can be found at
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:mTqEQn5tcK4J:www.sacred-texts.com/neu/mbh/mbh10.htm+%2Bctesias+Astyages+harpagos&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us/
.
7.
There are three main sources for this conflict: Herodotus, the Babylonian Chronicles, and the Dream Text of Nabonidus. While these three versions often contradict one another, what follows is a synthesis of the three into what is the most likely historical circumstance.
LOOKING TO THE WEST
1.
Herodotus, 1.153, p. 83.
2.
The following regions came under Persian control during this period: Parthia, Drangiana, Aria, Chorasmia, Bactria, Sogdiana, Gandhara, Scythia, Sattagydia, Arachosia, and Maka. All of these regions are listed on the Behistun inscriptions as part of the inheritance of Darius and were not under the control of the Medes when Cyrus assumed control of their empire.
3.
As we will see, Cambyses attempted to make his name as a great conqueror in Egypt.
4.
Herodotus, 1.162.
5.
Ibid., 1.169.
6.
That the Carians were capable of greater resistance was proven fifty years later during the Ionian revolt, when they massacred a large Persian army.
EMPIRE AT LAST
1.
Herodotus’s account of Cyrus’s Babylonian campaign is notoriously flimsy and unreliable. It presents the improbable story that Cyrus, unobserved, diverted the Euphrates River, thereby allowing his army an uncontested entry into the city along the unguarded riverbank. By using various other sources (the Nabonidus Chronicle, the Verse Account of Nabonidus, and the Bible), this chapter hopefully presents a fuller and more accurate account of this war.
2.
Isaiah 45:1.
3.
Many historians have interpreted the Nabonidus Chronicle’s comment “The inhabitants of Akkad [Babylonia] revolted, but he massacred the confused inhabitants” as Cyrus conducting the massacre. However, the joyful welcome that greeted his forces all along their route of march makes this interpretation highly unlikely.
4.
The similarity to how the Germans flanked the French Maginot Line and broke through at Sedan in 1940 is too alluring a comparison to go unmentioned.
5.
Herodotus gives a different version of the fall of Babylon (1.190–1.191). According to him, Cyrus besieged Babylon and finally took the city by lowering the level of the Euphrates River and then sneaking his assault troops in along the lowered river, which was unguarded.
6.
Unreliable accounts by Berossus, writing in the early third century BC, state that he was permitted to live and was exiled to Carmania.
7.
The Babylonian Chronicles of the seventeenth year of the reign of Nabonidus state: “Till the end of the month, the shield carrying Gutians were staying within Esagila [Marduk’s temple], but nobody carried arms in Esagila and its buildings.”
8.
James Bennett Pritchard,
Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969): 315–16.
9.
The cylinder was discovered in 1879 by Hormuzd Rassam and is currently on display in the British Museum. It confirms much of what is found in the Nabonidus Chronicle and the Nabonidus Verse Account (both of which are at odds with Herodotus’s account, which states that Babylon fell only after a long siege). The cylinder has been called by many the first “declaration of human rights,” and a replica is on display in the United Nations. Unfortunately, this is probably a misinterpretation of the document’s meaning and is better looked upon as a masterful act of propaganda not untypical of the kinds of pronouncements many rulers of the period made upon their accession to the throne. A complete translation of the cylinder can be found online at
http://www.livius.org/ct-cz/cyrus_I/cyrus_cylinder2.html/
.
10.
In the
Anabasis:
“For it is a fact that Cyrus came here with the intention of invading India, but found the going so bad and the country so wild and barren that he lost nearly all his men before he could do so.”
11.
Herodotus, 1.201–1.216.
12.
Herodotus comments that there were many versions of Cyrus’s death circulating and that he finds this one the most credible. He does not give any indication as to what other stories were known to him.
THE RISE OF DARIUS
1.
A small statue in the Vatican Museums, purported to have the autobiography of an Egyptian admiral, Wedjahor-Resne, presents a different and much more balanced portrait of Cambyses, portraying him as a beneficent ruler who made every attempt to appeal to the Egyptian people. As there is no account of any naval fighting during Cambyses’ invasion of Egypt, it might be assumed that Wedjahor-Resne was bribed to desert his pharaoh and then rewarded with the position of adviser to Cambyses.
2.
As will be discussed later, there is a strong possibility that Darius and his co-conspirators murdered Cambyses and therefore would have seized on any excuse to justify their actions.
3.
This explanation of the death of Smerdis (he is called Bardiya in the Persian sources) is considerably more satisfying than the account given by Herodotus. For a full analysis of the various traditions regarding Smerdis’s death, see Mabel L. Lang, “Prexaspes and Usurper Smerdis,”
Journal of Near Eastern Studies
51, no. 3 (July 1992): 201–207.
4.
Egypt had joined Lydia in a defensive alliance against Cyrus. Although Lydia collapsed before the Egyptian army could come to its relief, the act must have marked Egypt as the next target on the Persian agenda of conquest.
5.
Herodotus, 3.12.
6.
Ibid., 3.14.
7.
See
Archaeology
53, no. 5 (September–October 2000): “A Helwan University geological team, prospecting for petroleum in Egypt’s Western Desert, has come upon well-preserved fragments of textiles, bits of metal resembling weapons, and human remains they believe to be traces of the lost army of the Persian ruler Cambyses II.”
8.
As was mentioned above, in the historical records, Smerdis is also referred to as Bardiya. He is often also referred to as Gaumata. All three names are the same person. Herodotus relates that the man pretending to be Cambyses’ brother Smerdis was actually named Smerdis himself.
9.
The Magi were originally a Median tribe. From this tribe were drawn most, if not all, of the Median priesthood. Over time, the Magi tribe became a religious caste, with considerable power throughout first the Median Empire and then the Persian Empire.
