Histories
Page 56
46. Certain Spartans accompanied Dorieus on his voyage as co-founders, to wit Thessalus, Paraebates, Celeas, and Euryleon. These men and all the troops under their command reached Sicily; but there they fell in a battle wherein they were defeated by the Egesteans and Phoenicians, only one, Euryleon, surviving the disaster. He then, collecting the remnants of the beaten army, made himself master of Minoa, the Selinusian colony, and helped the Selinusians to throw off the yoke of their tyrant Peithagoras. Having upset Peithagoras, he sought to become tyrant in his room, and he even reigned at Selinus for a brief space – but after a while the Selinusians rose up in revolt against him, and though he fled to the altar of Zeus Agoraeus, [58] they notwithstanding put him to death.
47. Another man who accompanied Dorieus, and died with him, was Philip the son of Butacidas, a man of Crotona; who, after he had been betrothed to a daughter of Telys the Sybarite, was banished from Crotona, whereupon his marriage came to nought; and he in his disappointment took ship and sailed to Cyrene. From thence he became a follower of Dorieus, furnishing to the fleet a trireme of his own, the crew of which he supported at his own charge. This Philip was an Olympian victor, and the handsomest Greek of his day. His beauty gained him honours at the hands of the Egesteans which they never accorded to any one else; for they raised a hero-temple over his grave, and they still worship him with sacrifices.
48. Such then was the end of Dorieus, who if he had brooked the rule of Cleomenes, and remained in Sparta, would have been king of Lacedaemon; since Cleomenes, after reigning no great length of time, died without male offspring, leaving behind him an only daughter, by name Gorgo. [59]
49. Cleomenes, however, was still king when Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus, reached Sparta. At their interview, Aristagoras, according to the report of the Lacedaemonians, produced a bronze tablet, whereupon the whole circuit of the earth was engraved, with all its seas and rivers. Discourse began between the two; and Aristagoras addressed the Spartan king in these words following: ‘Think it not strange, O King Cleomenes, that I have been at the pains to sail hither; for the posture of affairs, which I will now recount unto thee, made it fitting. Shame and grief is it indeed to none so much as to us, that the sons of the Ionians should have lost their freedom, and come to be the slaves of others; but yet it touches you likewise, O Spartans, beyond the rest of the Greeks, inasmuch as the pre-eminence over all Greece appertains to you. We beseech you, therefore, by the common gods of the Grecians, deliver the Ionians, who are your own kinsmen, from slavery. Truly the task is not difficult; for the barbarians are an unwarlike people; and you are the best and bravest warriors in the whole world. Their mode of fighting is the following: they use bows and arrows and a short spear; they wear trousers in the field, and cover their heads with turbans. [60] So easy are they to vanquish! Know too that the dwellers in these parts have more good things than all the rest of the world put together – gold, and silver, and brass, and embroidered garments, beasts of burthen, and bondservants – all which, if you only wish it, you may soon have for your own. The nations border on one another, in the order which I will now explain. Next to these Ionians’ (here he pointed with his finger to the map of the world which was engraved upon the tablet that he had brought with him) ‘these Lydians dwell; their soil is fertile, and few people are so rich in silver. Next to them,’ he continued, ‘come these Phrygians, who have more flocks and herds than any race that I know, [61] and more plentiful harvests. On them border the Cappadocians, whom we Greeks know by the name of Syrians: they are neighbours to the Cilicians, who extend all the way to this sea, where Cyprus (the island which you see here) lies. The Cilicians pay the king a yearly tribute of five hundred talents. [62] Next to them come the Armenians, who live here – they too have numerous flocks and herds. After them come the Matieni, inhabiting this country; then Cissia, this province, where you see the river Choaspes marked, and likewise the town Susa upon its banks, where the Great King holds his court, [63] and where the treasuries are in which his wealth is stored. [64] Once masters of this city, you may be bold to vie with Zeus himself for riches. In the wars which ye wage with your rivals of Messenia, with them of Argos likewise and of Arcadia, about paltry boundaries and strips of land not so remarkably good, [65] ye contend with those who have no gold, nor silver even, which often give men heart to fight and die. Must ye wage such wars, and when ye might so easily be lords of Asia, will ye decide otherwise?’ Thus spoke Aristagoras; and Cleomenes replied to him – ‘Milesian stranger, three days hence I will give thee an answer.’
50. So they proceeded no further at that time. When, however, the day appointed for the answer came, and the two once more met, Cleomenes asked Aristagoras, ‘how many days’ journey it was from the sea of the Ionians to the king’s residence?’ Hereupon Aristagoras, who had managed the rest so cleverly, and succeeded in deceiving the king, tripped in his speech and blundered; for instead of concealing the truth, as he ought to have done if he wanted to induce the Spartans to cross into Asia, he said plainly that it was a journey of three months. Cleomenes caught at the words, and, preventing Aristagoras from finishing what he had begun to say concerning the road, addressed him thus: ‘Milesian stranger, quit Sparta before sunset. This is no good proposal that thou makest to the Lacedaemonians, to conduct them a distance of three months’ journey from the sea.’ When he had thus spoken, Cleomenes went to his home.
51. But Aristagoras took an olive-bough in his hand, and hastened to the king’s house, where he was admitted by reason of his suppliant’s guise. Gorgo, the daughter of Cleomenes, and his only child, a girl of about eight or nine years of age, happened to be there, standing by her father’s side. Aristagoras, seeing her, requested Cleomenes to send her out of the room before he began to speak with him; but Cleomenes told him to say on, and not mind the child. So Aristagoras began with a promise of ten talents if the king would grant him his request and when Cleomenes shook his head, continued to raise his offer till it reached fifty talents; whereupon the child spoke: ‘Father,’ she said, ‘get up and go, or the stranger will certainly corrupt thee.’ Then Cleomenes, pleased at the warning of his child, withdrew and went into another room. Aristagoras quitted Sparta for good, not being able to discourse any more concerning the road which led up to the king.
52. Now the true account of the road in question is the following: Royal stations [66] exist along its whole length, and excellent caravanserais; and throughout, it traverses an inhabited tract, and is free from danger. In Lydia and Phrygia there are twenty stations within a distance of 94 1/2 parasangs. On leaving Phrygia the Halys has to be crossed; and here are gates through which you must needs pass ere you can traverse the stream. A strong force guards this post. When you have made the passage, and are come into Cappadocia, 28 stations and 104 parasangs bring you to the borders of Cilicia, where the road passes through two sets of gates, at each of which there is a guard posted. Leaving these behind, you go on through Cilicia, where you find three stations in a distance of 15 1/2 parasangs. The boundary between Cilicia and Armenia is the river Euphrates, which it is necessary to cross in boats. In Armenia the resting-places are 15 in number, and the distance is 56 1/2 parasangs. There is one place where a guard is posted. Four large streams intersect this district, all of which have to be crossed by means of boats. The first of these is the Tigris; the second and the third have both of them the same name, [67] though they are not only different rivers, but do not even run from the same place. [68] For the one which I have called the first of the two has its source in Armenia, while the other flows afterwards out of the country of the Matienians. The fourth of the streams is called the Gyndes, and this is the river which Cyrus dispersed by digging for it three hundred and sixty channels. Leaving Armenia .and entering the Matienian country, you have four stations; these passed you find yourself in Cissia, where eleven stations and 42 1/2 parasangs bring you to another navigable stream, the Choaspes, on the banks of which the city of Susa is built. Thus
the entire number of the stations is raised to one hundred and eleven; and so many are in fact the resting-places that one finds between Sardis and Susa.
53. If then the royal road be measured aright, and the parasang equals, as it does, thirty furlongs, [69] the whole distance from Sardis to the palace of Memnon (as it is called), amounting thus to 450 parasangs, would be 13,500 furlongs. Travelling then at the rate of 150 furlongs a day, [70] one will take exactly ninety days to perform the journey.
54. Thus when Aristagoras the Milesian told Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian that it was a three months’ journey from the sea up to the king, he said no more than the truth. The exact distance (if any one desires still greater accuracy) is somewhat more; for the journey from Ephesus to Sardis must be added to the foregoing account; and this will make the whole distance between the Greek Sea and Susa (or the city of Memnon, as it is called [71] ) 14,040 furlongs; since Ephesus is distant from Sardis 540 furlongs. This would add three days to the three months’ journey.
55. When Aristagoras left Sparta he hastened to Athens, which had got quit of its tyrants in the way that I will now describe. After the death of Hipparchus (the son of Pisistratus, and brother of the tyrant Hippias), who, in spite of the clear warning he had received concerning his fate in a dream, was slain by Harmodius and Aristogeiton (men both of the race of the Gephyraeans), the oppression of the Athenians continued by the space of four years; [72] and they gained nothing, but were worse used than before.
56. Now the dream of Hipparchus was the following: The night before the Panathenaic festival, he thought he saw in his sleep a tall and beautiful man, who stood over him, and read him the following riddle:
Bear thou unbearable woes with the all-bearing heart of a lion;
Never, be sure, shall wrong-doer escape the reward of wrong-doing.’
As soon as day dawned he sent and submitted his dream to the interpreters, after which he offered the averting sacrifices, and then went and led the procession in which he perished.
57. The family of the Gephyraeans, to which the murderers of Hipparchus belonged, according to their own account, came originally from Eretria. My inquiries, however, have made it clear to me that they are in reality Phoenicians, descendants of those who came with Cadmus into the country now called Boeotia. Here they received for their portion the district of Tanagra, in which they afterwards dwelt. On their expulsion from this country by the Boeotians (which happened some time after that of the Cadmeians from the same parts by the Argives [73] ) they took refuge at Athens. The Athenians received them among their citizens upon set terms, whereby they were excluded from a number of privileges which are not worth mentioning.
58. Now the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus, and to whom the Gephyraei belonged, introduced into Greece upon their arrival a great variety of arts, among the rest that of writing, [74] whereof the Greeks till then had, as I think, been ignorant. And originally they shaped their letters exactly like all the other Phoenicians, but afterwards, in course of time, they changed by degrees their language, and together with it the form likewise of their characters. Now the Greeks who dwelt about those parts at that time were chiefly the Ionians. The Phoenician letters were accordingly adopted by them, but with some variation in the shape of a few, and so they arrived at the present use, still calling the letters Phoenician, as justice required, after the name of those who were the first to introduce them into Greece. Paper rolls also were called from of old ‘parchments’ by the Ionians, because formerly when paper was scarce they used, instead, the skins of sheep and goats – on which material many of the barbarians are even now wont to write. [75]
59. I myself saw Cadmeian characters [76] engraved upon some tripods in the temple of Apollo Ismenias [77] in Boeotian [78] Thebes, most of them shaped like the Ionian. One of the tripods has the inscription following:
Me did Amphitryon place, from the far Teleboans coming.
This would be about the age of Laius, the son of Labdacus, the son of Polydorus, the son of Cadmus.
60. Another of the tripods has this legend in the hexameter measure:
I to far-shooting Phoebus was offered by Scaeus the boxer,
When he had won at the games – a wondrous beautiful offering.
This might be Scaeus, the son of Hippocoön; [79] and the tripod, if dedicated by him, and not by another of the same name, would belong to the time of Oedipus, the son of Laïus.
61. The third tripod has also an inscription in hexameters, which runs thus:
King Laodamas gave this tripod to far-seeing Phoebus,
When he was set on the throne – a wondrous beautiful offering.
It was in the reign of this Laodamas, the son of Eteocles, that the Cadmeians were driven by the Argives out of their country, [80] and found a shelter with the Encheleans. [81] The Gephyraeans at that time remained in the country, but afterwards they retired before the Boeotians, and took refuge at Athens, where they have a number of temples for their separate use, which the other Athenians are not allowed to enter – among the rest, one of Achaean Demeter, in whose honour they likewise celebrate special orgies.
62. Having thus related the dream which Hipparchus saw, and traced the descent of the Gephyraeans, the family whereto his murderers belonged, I must proceed with the matter whereof I was intending before to speak; to wit, the way in which the Athenians got quit of their tyrants. Upon the death of Hipparchus, Hippias, who was king, grew harsh towards the Athenians; and the Alcmaeonidae, [82] an Athenian family which had been banished by the Pisistratidae, [83] joined the other exiles, and endeavoured to procure their own return, and to free Athens, by force. They seized and fortified Leipsydrium above Paeonia, and tried to gain their object by arms; but great disasters befell them, and their purpose remained unaccomplished. They therefore resolved to shrink from no contrivance that might bring them success; and accordingly they contracted with the Amphictyons to build the temple which now stands at Delphi, but which in those days did not exist. [84] Having done this, they proceeded, being men of great wealth and members of an ancient and distinguished family, to build the temple much more magnificently than the plan obliged them. Besides other improvements, instead of the coarse stone whereof by the contract the temple was to have been constructed, they made the facings of Parian marble.
63. These same men, if we may believe the Athenians, during their stay at Delphi persuaded the Pythoness by a bribe [85] to tell the Spartans, whenever any of them came to consult the oracle, either on their own private affairs or on the business of the state, that they must free Athens. So the Lacedaemonians, when they found no answer ever returned to them but this, sent at last Anchimolius, the son of Aster – a man of note among their citizens – at the head of an army against Athens, with orders to drive out the Pisistratidae, albeit they were bound to them by the closest ties of friendship. For they esteemed the things of heaven more highly than the things of men. The troops went by sea and were conveyed in transports. Anchimolius brought them to an anchorage at Phalerum; [86] and there the men disembarked. But the Pisistratidae, who had previous knowledge of their intentions, had sent to Thessaly, between which country and Athens there was an alliance, [87] with a request for aid. The Thessalians, in reply to their entreaties, sent them by a public vote 1000 horsemen, [88] under the command of their king, Cineas, who was a Coniaean. When this help came, the Pisistratidae laid their plan accordingly: they cleared the whole plain about Phalerum so as to make it fit for the movements of cavalry, and then charged the enemy’s camp with their horse, which fell with such fury upon the Lacedaemonians as to kill numbers, among the rest Anchimolius, the general, and to drive the remainder to their ships. Such was the fate of the first army sent from Lacedaemon, and the tomb of Anchimolius may be seen to this day in Attica; it is at Alopecae (Foxtown), near the temple of Heracles in Cynosargos. [89]
64. Afterwards, the Lacedaemonians despatched a larger fo
rce against Athens, which they put under the command of Cleomenes, son of Anaxandridas, one of their kings. These troops were not sent by sea, but marched by the mainland. When they were come into Attica, their first encounter was with the Thessalian horse, which they shortly put to flight, killing above forty men; the remainder made good their escape, and fled straight to Thessaly. Cleomenes proceeded to the city, and, with the aid of such of the Athenians as wished for freedom, besieged the tyrants, who had shut themselves up in the Pelasgic fortress. [90]
65. And now there had been small chance of the Pisistratidae falling into the hands of the Spartans, who did not even design to sit down before the place, [91] which had moreover been well provisioned beforehand with stores both of meat and drink – nay, it is likely that after a few days’ blockade the Lacedaemonians would have quitted Attica altogether, and gone back to Sparta – had not an event occurred most unlucky for the besieged, and most advantageous for the besiegers. The children of the Pisistratidae were made prisoners, as they were being removed out of the country. By this calamity all their plans were deranged, and – as the ransom of their children – they consented to the demands of the Athenians, and agreed within five days’ time to quit Attica. Accordingly they soon afterwards left the country, and withdrew to Sigeum on the Scamander, [92] after reigning thirty-six years over the Athenians. By descent they were Pylians, of the family of the Neleids, [93] to which Codrus and Melanthus likewise belonged, men who in former times from foreign settlers became kings of Athens. And hence it was that Hippocrates [94] came to think of calling his son Pisistratus: he named him after the Pisistratus who was a son of Nestor. Such then was the mode in which the Athenians got quit of their tyrants. What they did and suffered worthy of note from the time when they gained their freedom until the revolt of Ionia from King Darius, and the coming of Aristagoras to Athens with a request that the Athenians would lend the Ionians aid, I shall now proceed to relate.