by Herodotus
84. See ch. 13.
85. The river Ismenius washed the foot of the hill on which this temple stood (Pausanias IX, x, 2); hence the phrase ‘Ismenian Apollo’.
86. The temple of Athene at Delphi stood in front of the great temple of Apollo. Hence the Delphian Athene was called Athene Pronaia. See viii, 37. Pausanias mentions that the shield was no longer there in his day. It had been carried off by Philomelus, the Phocian general in the Sacred War (Paus. X, viii, §4).
87. This has been supposed to mean that Alyattes associated Croesus with him in the government. But there are no sufficient grounds for such an opinion. Association, common enough in Egypt, was very rarely practised in the East until the time of the Sassanian princes; and does not seem ever to obtain unless where the succession is doubtful.
88. The colossal size of the monuments in Egypt is sufficiently known. They increased in size as the power of Egypt advanced. The taste for colossal statues is often supposed to be peculiarly Egyptian; but the Greeks had some as large as, and even larger than, any in Egypt.
89. The following account of the external appearance of this monument, which still exists on the north bank of the Hermus, near the ruins of the ancient Sardis, is given by Hamilton (Asia Minor, vol. i, pp. 145-6): ‘One mile south of this spot we reached the principal tumulus, generally designated as the tomb of Halyattes. It took us about ten minutes to ride round its base, which would give it a circumference of nearly half a mile. Towards the north it consists of the natural rock, a white horizontally-stratified earthy limestone, cut away so as to appear as part of the structure. The upper portion is sand and gravel, apparently brought from the bed of the Hermus. Several deep ravines have been worn by time and weather in its sides, particularly on that to the south: we followed one of these as affording a better footing than the smooth grass, as we ascended to the summit. Here we found the remains of a foundation nearly eighteen feet square, on the north of which was a huge circular stone ten feet in diameter, with a flat bottom and a raised edge or lip evidently placed there as an ornament on the apex of the tumulus. Herodotus says that phalli were erected upon the summit of some of these tumuli, of which this may be one; but Mr Strickland supposes that a representation of the human face might be traced on its weather-surface. In consequence of the ground sloping to the south, this tumulus appears much higher when viewed from the side of Sardis than from any other.
Besides the barrow of Alyattes there are a vast number of ancient tumuli on the shores of the Gygaean lake. Three or four of these are scarcely inferior in size to that of Alyattes.
90. This lake is still a remarkable feature in the scene.
91. It is probable that the Greeks derived their first knowledge of coined money from the Asiatics with whom they came into contact in Asia Minor.
92. The ball was a very old game, and it was doubtless invented in Egypt, as Plato says. It is mentioned by Homer (Odyssey viii, 372), and it was known in Egypt long before his time, in the twelfth dynasty.
93. The Umbria of Herodotus appears to include almost the whole of Northern Italy.
94. The royal palace at Agbatana is said by Polybius to have been 7 stades (more than four-fifths of a mile) in circumference.
95. There is every reason to believe that the original form of the name Hellenised as Agbatana or Ekbatana was Hagmatan, and that it was of Arian etymology, having been first used by the Arian Medes. It would signify in the language of the country ‘the place of assemblage’.
96. This is manifestly a fable of Sabaean origin, the seven colours mentioned by Herodotus being precisely those employed by the orientals to denote the seven great heavenly bodies, or the seven climates in which they revolve. The great temple of Nebuchadnezzar at Borsippa (the modern Birs-Nimrud) was a building in several platforms coloured in a similar way.
97. There is reason to believe that this account, though it may be greatly exaggerated, is not devoid of a foundation. The temple at Borsippa (see the preceding note) appears to have had its fourth and seventh stages actually coated with gold and silver respectively. And it seems certain that there was often in oriental towns a most lavish display of the two precious metals.
98. Herodotus intends here to distinguish the Assyrians of Assyria proper from the Babylonians, whom he calls also Assyrians (i, 178, 188, etc.). Against the latter he means to say this expedition was not directed.
99. See chapter 74.
100. According to Strabo, Madys, or Madyes, was a Cimmerian prince who drove the Treres out of Asia.
101. From the mouth of the Palus Maeotis, or Sea of Azof, to the river Rion, (the ancient Phasis) is a distance of about 270 geographical miles or but little more than the distance (240 miles) from the gulf of Issus to the Euxine, which was called (ch. 72) ‘a journey of five days for a lightly-equipped traveller’. We may learn from this that Herodotus did not intend the day’s journey for a measure of length.
102. The Saspirians are mentioned again as lying north of Media (ch. 110) and as separating Media from Colchis (iv, 37).
103. Herodotus, clearly, conceives the Cimmerians to have coasted the Black Sea, and appears to have thought that the Scythians entered Asia by the route of Daghestan, along the shores of the Caspian.
104. Ascalon was one of the most ancient cities of the Philistines (Judges i, 18, xiv, 19, etc.). Ascalon is first mentioned in cuneiform inscriptions of the time of Sennacherib, having been reduced by him in the famous campaign of his third year.
105. Herodotus probably intends the Syrian goddess Atergatis or Derceto who was worshipped at Ascalon and elsewhere in Syria, under the form of a mermaid, or figure half woman half fish. She may be identified with Astarte, and therefore with the Aphrodite of the Greeks.
106. Cambyses, the father of Cyrus, appears to have been not only a man of good family, but of royal race – the hereditary monarch of his nation, which, when it became subject to the Medes, still retained its line of native kings, the descendants of Achaemenes (Hakhamanish). In the Behistun Inscription (col. 1, par. 4) Darius carries up his genealogy to Achaemenes, and asserts that ‘eight of his race had been kings before himself – he was the ninth.’ Cambyses, the father of Cyrus, Cyrus himself, and Cambyses the son of Cyrus, are probably included in the eight. An inscription has been found upon a brick at Senkereh in lower Chaldaea, in which Cyrus the Great calls himself ‘the son of Cambyses, the powerful king’. This then is decisive as to the royalty of the line of Cyrus the Great, and is confirmatory of the impression derived from other evidence, that when Darius speaks of eight Achaemenian kings having preceded him, he alludes to the ancestry of Cyrus the Great, and not to his own immediate paternal line.
107. Whether there was really any connection of blood between Cyrus and Astyages, or whether they were no way related to one another, will perhaps never be determined.
108. Xenophon (Cyrop. I, iv, §20) gives Astyages a son, whom he calls Cyaxares. The inscriptions tend to confirm Herodotus.
109. Ctesias seems to have called this person Atradates. Atradates may fairly be considered to be a mere Median synonym for the Persian Mitradates – the name signifying ‘given to the sun’, and Atra or Adar (whence Atropatene) being equivalent in Median, as a title of that luminary (or of fire, which was the usual emblem of his worship) to the Persian Mitra or Mihr.
110. According to Xenophon the number of the Persian tribes was twelve (Cyrop. I, ii, §5), according to Herodotus, ten.
111. The distinction of superior and inferior tribes is common among nomadic and semi-nomadic nations.
112. Pasargadae was not only the name of the principal Persian tribe, but also of the ancient capital of the country (Strabo xv). It seems tolerably certain that the modern Murg-aub is the site of the ancient Pasargadae. Its position with respect to Persepolis, its strong situation among the mountains, its remains bearing the marks of high antiquity and, above all, the name and
tomb of Cyrus, which have been discovered among the ruins, mark it for the capital of that monarch beyond all reasonable doubt.
113. The Achaemenidae were the royal family of Persia, the descendants of Achaemenes (Hakhamanish), who was probably the leader under whom the Persians first settled in the country which has ever since borne their name. This Achaemenes is mentioned by Herodotus as the founder of the kingdom (iii, 75; vii, 11). Achaemenes continued to be used as a family name in after times. It was borne by one of the sons of Darius Hystaspes (vii 7).
114. Nomadic hordes must always have been an important element in the population of Persia. Large portions of the country are only habitable at certain seasons of the year.
115. i.e. they ruled (128 – 28=) 100 years. This would make their rule begin in the twenty-third year of Deioces.
116. In the great inscription of Darius at Behistun a long and elaborate account is given of a Median revolt which occurred in the third year of the reign of Darius, and was put down with difficulty.
117. The readiness of the Persians to adopt foreign customs, even in religion, is very remarkable. Perhaps the most striking instance is the adoption from the Assyrians of the well-known emblem consisting of a winged circle with or without a human figure rising from the circular space. This emblem is of Assyrian origin, appearing in the earliest sculptures of that country (Layard’s Nineveh, vol. I, chap. v). Its exact meaning is uncertain but the conjecture is probable, that while in the human head we have the symbol of intelligence, the wings signify omnipresence, and the circle eternity. Thus the Persians were able, without the sacrifice of any principle, to admit it as a religious emblem, which we find them to have done, as early as the times of Darius, universally (see the sculptures at Persepolis, Nakhsh-i-Rustam, Behistun, etc.).
118. This identification is altogether a mistake. The Persians, like their Vedic brethren, worshipped the sun under the name of Mithra. This was a portion of the religion which they brought with them from the Indus and was not adopted from any foreign nation. The name of Mithra does not indeed occur in the Achaemenian inscriptions until the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon, but there is no reason to question the antiquity of his worship in Persia. Xenophon is right in making it a part of the religion of Cyrus (Cyrop. VIII, iii, §12, and vii, §3).
119. At the secret meetings of the Ali Allahis of Persia, which in popular belief have attained an infamous notoriety, but which are in reality altogether innocent, are practised many ceremonies that bear a striking resemblance to the old Magian sacrifice.
120. It is a common custom in the East at the present day, to roast sheep whole, even for an ordinary repast; and on fete days it is done in Dalmatia and in other parts of Europe.
121. At the present day, among the ‘bons vivants’ of Persia, it is usual to sit for hours before dinner drinking wine, and eating dried fruits, such as filberts, almonds, pistachio nuts, melon seeds, etc. A party indeed often sits down at seven o’clock, and the dinner is not brought in till eleven.
122. Tacitus asserts that the Germans were in the habit of deliberating on peace and war under the influence of wine, reserving their determination for the morrow.
123. The Persians are still notorious for their rigid attention to ceremonial and etiquette.
124. In an early stage of geographical knowledge each nation regards itself as occupying the centre of the earth. Herodotus tacitly assumes that Greece is the centre by his theory of Greek or ‘extremities’ (iii, 115). Such was the view commonly entertained among the Greeks, and Delphi as the centre of Greece, was called ‘the navel of the world’.
125. It is quite inconceivable that there should have been any such system of government either in Media or Persia, as Herodotus here indicates. With respect to Persia, we know that the most distant satrapies were held as directly of the crown as the nearest. The utmost that can be said with truth is, that in the Persian and Median, as in the Roman empire, there were three grades; first, the ruling nation; secondly, the conquered provinces; thirdly, the nations on the frontier, governed by their own laws and princes, but owning the supremacy of the imperial power, and reckoned among its tributaries. This was the position in which the Ethiopians, Colchians, and Arabians, stood to Persia (Herodotus iii, 97).
126. It appears from ch. 71 that the old national dress of the Persians was a close-fitting tunic and trousers of leather. The Median costume, according to Xenophon (Cyrop. VIII, i, §40) was of a nature to conceal the form, and give it an appearance of grandeur and elegance. It would seem therefore to have been a flowing robe.
127. The Persian regard for truth has been questioned on the strength of the speech of Darius (iii, 72). This speech, however, is entirely unhistoric. The special estimation in which truth was held among the Persians is evidenced in a remarkable manner by the inscriptions of Darius, where lying is taken as the representative of all evil.
128. See vii, 194.
129. With the Persian isolation of the leper, compare the Jewish practice (Lev: xiii, 46; 2 Kings: vii, 3; xv, 5 and Luke: xvii, 12).
130. Here Herodotus was again mistaken. The Persian names of men which terminate with a consonant end indeed invariably with the letter s or rather sh, as Kurush (Cyrus), Daryavush (Darius). But a large number of Persian names of men were pronounced with a vowel termination, not expressed in writing, and in these the last consonant might be almost any letter.
131. Agathias and Strabo also mention this strange custom, which still prevails among the Parsees wherever they are found, whether in Persia or in India.
132. The dog is represented in the Zendavesta as the special animal of Ormazd, and is still regarded with peculiar reverence by the Parsees.
133. Miletus, Myus, and Priene all lay near the mouth of the Maeander (the modern Mendere). At their original colonisation they were all maritime cities.
134. These cities are enumerated in the order in which they stood, from south to north. Erythrae lay on the coast opposite Chios, between Teos and Clazomenae.
135. The Triopium was built on a promontory of the same name within the territory of the Cnidians.
136. Lindus, Ialyssus, and Cameirus were in Rhodes; Cos was on the island of the same name, at the mouth of the Ceramic Gulf. Cnidus and Halicarnassus were on the mainland, the former near to the Triopium, the latter on the north shore of the Ceramic Gulf, on the site now occupied by Budrum. These six cities formed an Amphictyony, which held its meetings at the temple of Apollo, called the Triopium, near Cnidus, the most central of the cities.
137. The Italian Crathis ran close by Herodotus’ adopted city, Thurium (v, 45).
138. This expression alludes to the solemnities which accompanied the sending out of a colony. In the Prytaneum, or Government-house, of each state was preserved the sacred fire, which was never allowed to go out, whereon the life of the state was supposed to depend. When a colony took its departure, the leaders went in solemn procession to the Prytaneum of the mother city, and took fresh fire from the sacred hearth, which was conveyed to the Prytaneum of the new settlement.
139. See Homer, Iliad, ii, 876.
140. The Caucons are reckoned by Strabo among the earliest inhabitants of Greece, and associated with the Pelasgi, Leleges, and Dryopes. Like their kindred tribes, they were very widely spread. Their chief settlements, however, appear to have been on the north coast of Asia Minor.
141. The Apaturia was the solemn annual meeting of the phratries, for the purpose of registering the children of the preceding year whose birth entitled them to citizenship. It took place in the month Pyanepsion (November), and lasted three days.
142. Under the name of Panionium are included both a tract of ground and a temple. It is the former of which Herodotus here speaks particularly, as the place in which the great Pan-Ionic festival was held. The spot was on the north side of the promontory of Mycale. The Panionium was in the territory of Priene, and conse
quently under the guardianship of that state.
143. Heliconian Poseidon was so-called from Helice, which is mentioned above among the ancient Ionian cities in the Peloponnese (ch. 145). This had been the central point of the old confederacy, and the temple there had been in old times their place of meeting.
144. It is remarkable that Thucydides, writing so shortly after Herodotus, should speak of the Pan-Ionic festival at Mycale as no longer of any importance, and regard it as practically superseded by the festival of the Ephesia, held near Ephesus (iii, 104). Still the old feast continued, and was celebrated as late as the time of Augustus.
145. The district here indicated, and commonly called the Troad, extended from Adramyttium on the south to Priapus on the north.
146. The five Lesbian cities were: Mytilene, Methymna, Antissa, Eresus, and Pyrrha.
147. These islands lay off the promontory which separated the bay of Atarneus from that of Adramyttium, opposite to the northern part of the island of Lesbos.
148. Penteconters were ships with fifty rowers, twenty-five on a side, who sat on a level, as is customary in rowboats at the present day.
149. Compare v, 73 and 105.
150. Markets in the strict sense of the word are still unknown in the east, where the bazaars, which are collections of shops, take their place. The Persians of the nobler class would neither buy nor sell at all, since they would be supplied by their dependents and through presents with all that they required for the common purposes of life. Those of lower rank would buy at the shops, which were not allowed in the forum, or public place of meeting.