The Project Gutenberg eBook of History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12)
Title: History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12)
Author: G. Maspero
Editor: A. H. Sayce
Translator: M. L. McClure
Release date: December 16, 2005 [eBook #17329]
Most recently updated: December 13, 2020
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David Widger
Character set: ISO-8859-1
HISTORY OF EGYPT
CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
By G. MASPERO,
Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of
Queen’s College,
Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at
the College of France
Edited by A. H. SAYCE,
Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
Translated by M. L. McCLURE,
Member of the Committee of the Egypt
Exploration Fund
CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Volume IX.
LONDON
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
PUBLISHERS
THE IRANIAN CONQUEST
THE IRANIAN RELIGIONS—CYRUS IN LYDIA AND AT BABYLON; CAMBYSES IN EGYPT—DARIUS AND THE ORGANISATION OF THE EMPIRE.
The constitution of the Median empire borrowed from the ancient peoples of the Euphrates: its religion only is peculiar to itself—Legends concerning Zoroaster, his laws; the Avesta and its history—Elements contained in it of primitive religion—The supreme god Ahura-mazâ and his Amêsha-spentas: the Yazatas, the Fravashis—Angrô-mainyus and his agents, the Daîvas, the Pairîkas, their struggle with Ahura-mazdâ—The duties of man here below, funerals, his fate after death—-Worship and temples: fire-altars, sacrifices, the Magi.
Cyrus and the legends concerning his origin: his revolt against Astyages and the fall of the Median empire—The early years of the reign of Nabonidus: revolutions in Tyre, the taking of Harrân—The end of the reign of Alyattes, Lydian art and its earliest coinage—Croesus, his relations with continental Greece, his conquests, his alliances with Babylon and Egypt—The war between Lydia and Persia: the defeat of the Lydians, the taking of Sardes, the death of Croesus and subsequent legends relating to it—The submission of the cities of the Asiatic littoral.
Cyrus in Bactriana and in the eastern regions of the Iranian table-land —The impression produced on the Chaldæan by his victories; the Jewish exiles, Ezekiel and his dreams of restoration, the new temple, the prophecies against Babylon; general discontent with Nabonidus—The attach of Cyrus and the battle of Zalzallat, the taking of Babylon and the fall of Nabonidus: the end of the Chaldæan empire and the deliverance of the Jews.
Egypt under Amasis: building works, support given to the Greeks; Naukratis, its temples, its constitution, and its prosperity—Preparations for defence and the unpopularity of Amasis with the native Egyptians—The death of Cyrus and legends relating to it: his palace at Pasargadæ and his tomb—Cambyses and Smerdis—The legendary causes of the war with Egypt—Psammetichus III., the battle of Pelusium; Egypt reduced to a Persian province.
Cambyses’ plans for conquest; the abortive expeditions to the oceans of Amnion and Carthage—The kingdom of Ethiopia, its kings, its customs: the Persians fail to reach Napata, the madness of Cambyses—The fraud of Gaumâta, the death of Cambyses and the reign of the pseudo-Smerdis, the accession of Darius—The revolution in Susiana, Chaldæa, and Media: Nebuchadrezzar III. and the fall of Babylon, the death of Orætes, the defeat of Khshatrita, restoration of peace throughout Asia, Egyptian affairs and the re-establishment of the royal power.
The organisation of the country and its division into satrapies: the satrap, the military commander, the royal secretary; couriers, main roads, the Eyes and Ears of the king—The financial system and the provincial taxes: the daric—Advantages and drawbacks of the system of division into satrapies; the royal guard and the military organisation of the empire—The conquest of the Hapta-Hindu and the prospect of war with Greece.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I—THE IRANIAN CONQUEST
CHAPTER II—THE LAST DAYS OF THE OLD EASTERN WORLD
List of Illustrations
012.jpg the Ahura-mazd of The Bas-reliefs Of Persepolis
012b.jpg Hypostyle of Hall Of Xerxes: Detail Of Entablature
013.jpg an Iranian Genius in Form of a Winged Bull
014.jpg Ahura-mazd Bestowing the Tokens of Royalty on An Iranian King
022.jpg One of the Bad Genii, Subject to AngrÔ-mainyus
023.jpg the King Struggling Against an Evil Genius
031.jpg the Two Iranian Altakrat Nakhsh-Î-rustem
032.jpg the Two Iranian Altars of Murgab
032b.jpg the Occupations of Ani in The Elysian Fields
033.jpg the Sacred Fire Burning on The Altar
039.jpg a Royal Hunting-party in Hun
042.jpg Remains of the Palace Of Ecbatana
050.jpg the Tumulus of Alyattes and The Entrance to The Passage
051.jpg One of the Lydian Ornaments in The Louvre
052.jpg Mould for Jewellery of Lydian Origin
054a.jpg Lydian Coin Bearing a Running Fox
054b.jpg Lydian Coin With a Hare
055.jpg Lydian Coins With a Lion and Lion’s Head
056a.jpg Coin Bearing Head of Mouflon Goat
059.jpg View of the Site and Ruins Of Ephesus
078.jpg a Persian King Fighting With Greeks
080.jpg the Present Site of Miletus
083.jpg a Lycian City Upon Its Inaccessible Rock
105.jpg Table of the Last Kings Of Ptolemy
111.jpg an Osiris Stretched Full Length on the Ground
113.jpg Amasis in Adoration Before the Bull Apis
114.jpg the Naos of Amasis at Thmuis
120.jpg the Present Site of Naucratis
145.jpg the Naophoros Statuette of The Vatican
148.jpg Encampment de Bacharis
159.jpg Darius, Son of Hystaspes
166.jpg Darius Piercing a Rebel With his Lance Before A Group of Four Prisoners
174.jpg Rebels Brought to Darius by Ahura-mazd This Is The Scene Depicted on the Rock of Behistun.
181.jpg Map of the Archaemenian Strapies
186.jpg Street Vender of Curios After the Painting By Gerome.
188.jpg Daric of Darius, Son Of Hystaspes
212a.jpg Alexander I. Of Macedon
215.jpg the Battle-field of Marathon
219.jpg Darius on the Stele of The Isthmus
220.jpg Walls of the Fortress Of Ditsh-el-qalÂa
221.jpg the Great Temple of Darius at HabÎt
239.jpg the Battle-field of Plataea
258.jpg View of the Achaemenian Ruins Of Istakhr
261.jpg the Hill of The Royal Achaemenian Tombs At Nakush-i-rustem
262.jpg One of the Capitals from Susa
262b.jpg Freize of Archers at Suza
263.jpg General Ruins of Persipolis
267.jpg the Propylaea of Xerxes I. At Persepolis
268.jpg Bas-relief of the Staircase Leading to The Apadana of Xerxes
269.jpg the King on his Throne
270.jpg a View of the Apadana Of Susa, Restored
273.jpg Processional Display of Tribute Brought to The King of Persia
305.jpg Evagoras II. Of Salamis
312.jpg Table of the Last Egyptian Dynasties
313.jpg Small Temple of Nectanebo, at the Southern Extremity of Philae
314.jpg Naos of Nectanebo in the Temple at Edfu
315.jpg Great Gate of Nectanebo at Karnak
316.jpg Fragment of a Naos Of the Time Of Nectanebo II. In the Bologna Museum
317.jpg One of the Lions in The Vatican
321.jpg Map of the Persian Empire
325.jpg Coins of the Satraps With Aramaean Inscriptions
327a.jpg Coin of a Lycian King
328.jpg Lycian Sarcophagus Decorated With Greek Carvings
337.jpg Chaldean Seal With Aramaic Inscription
346.jpg Fountain and School of the Mother Of Little Mohamad
348.jpg Modern Mohammedan Shekhs Tombs
349.jpg Part of the Inundation in a Palm Grove
350.jpg Ephemeral Hovels of Clay Or Dried Bricks
359.jpg the Step Pyramid Seen from The Grove Op Palm Trees to the North of Saqqarah
362a.jpg Long Strings of Laden Vessels
362b.jpg the Vast Sheet of Water in The Midday Heat
363.jpg the Mountains Honeycombed With Tombs And Quarries
368.jpg an Elephant Armed for War
376.jpg the Battlefield of Issus
377.jpg a Bas-relief on A Sidonian Sarcophagus
CHAPTER I—THE IRANIAN CONQUEST
The Iranian religions—Cyrus in Lydia and at Babylon: Cambyses in Egypt —Darius and the organisation of the empire.
The Median empire is the least known of all those which held sway for a time over the destinies of a portion of Western Asia. The reason of this is not to be ascribed to the shortness of its duration: the Chaldæan empire of Nebuchadrezzar lasted for a period quite as brief, and yet the main outlines of its history can be established with some certainty in spite of large blanks and much obscurity. Whereas at Babylon, moreover, original documents abound, enabling us to put together, feature by feature, the picture of its ancient civilisation and of the chronology of its kings, we possess no contemporary monuments of Ecbatana to furnish direct information as to its history. To form any idea of the Median kings or their people, we are reduced to haphazard notices gleaned from the chroniclers of other lands, retailing a few isolated facts, anecdotes, legends, and conjectures, and, as these materials reach us through the medium of the Babylonians or the Greeks of the fifth or sixth century B.C., the picture which we endeavour to compose from them is always imperfect or out of perspective. We seemingly catch glimpses of ostentatious luxury, of a political and military organisation, and a method of government analogous to that which prevailed at later periods among the Persians, but more imperfect, ruder, and nearer to barbarism—a Persia, in fact, in the rudimentary stage, with its ruling spirit and essential characteristics as yet undeveloped. The machinery of state had doubtless been adopted almost in its entirety from the political organisations which obtained in the kingdoms of Assyria, Elam, and Chaldæa, with which sovereignties the founders of the Median empire had held in turns relations as vassals, enemies, and allies; but once we penetrate this veneer of Mesopotamian civilisation and reach the inner life of the people, we find in the religion they profess—mingled with some borrowed traits—a world of unfamiliar myths and dogmas of native origin.
The main outlines of this religion were already fixed when the Medes rose in rebellion against Assur-bani-pal; and the very name of Confessor—Fravartîsh—applied to the chief of that day, proves that it was the faith of the royal family. It was a religion common to all the Iranians, the Persians as well as the Medes, and legend honoured as its first lawgiver and expounder an ancient prophet named Zarathustra, known to us as Zoroaster.* Most classical writers relegated Zoroaster to some remote age of antiquity—thus he is variously said to have lived six thousand years before the death of Plato,** five thousand before the Trojan war,*** one thousand before Moses, and six hundred before Xerxes’ campaign against Athens; while some few only affirmed that he had lived at a comparatively recent period, and made him out a disciple of the philosopher Pythagoras, who flourished about the middle of the fifth century B.C.
different ways. The Greeks sometimes attributed to it the
meaning “worshipper of the stars,” probably by reason of the
similarity in sound of the termination “-astres” of
Zoroaster with the word “astron.” Among modern writers, H.
Rawlinson derived it from the Assyrian Zîru-Ishtar, “the
seed of Ishtar,” but the etymology now most generally
accepted is that of Burnouf, according to which it would
signify “the man with gold-coloured camels,” the “possessor
of tawny camels.” The ordinary Greek form Zoroaster seems to
be derived from some name quite distinct from Zarathustra.
** This was, as Pliny records, the opinion of Eudoxus; not
Eudoxus of Cnidus, pupil of Plato, as is usually stated, but
a more obscure personage, Eudoxus of Rhodes.
*** This was the statement of Hermodorus.
According to the most ancient national traditions, he was born in the Aryanem-vaêjô, or, in other words, in the region between the Araxes and the Kur, to the west of the Caspian Sea. Later tradition asserted that his conception was attended by supernatural circumstances, and the miracles which accompanied his birth announced the advent of a saint destined to regenerate the world by the revelation of the True Law. In the belief of an Iranian, every man, every living creature now existing or henceforth to exist, not excluding the gods themselves, possesses a Frôhar, or guardian spirit, who is assigned to him at his entrance into the world, and who is thenceforth devoted entirely to watching over his material and moral well-being,* About the time appointed for the appearance of the prophet, his Frôhar was, by divine grace, imprisoned in the heart of a Haoma,** and was absorbed, along with the juice of the plant, by the priest Purushâspa,*** during a sacrifice, a ray of heavenly glory descending at the same time into the bosom of a maiden of noble race, named Dughdôva, whom Purushâspa shortly afterwards espoused.
nourish”), or the frôhar (feruer), is, properly speaking,
the nurse, the genius who nurtures. Many of the practices
relating to the conception and cult of the Fravashis seem to
me to go back to the primitive period of the Iranian
religions.
** The haoma is an Asclepias Sarcostema Viminalis.
*** The name signifies “He who has many horses.”
Zoroaster was engendered from the mingling of the Frôhar with the celestial ray. The evil spirit, whose supremacy he threatened, endeavoured to destroy him as soon as he saw the light, and despatched one of his agents, named Bôuiti, from the country of the far north to oppose him; but the infant prophet immediately pronounced the formula with which the psalm for the offering of the waters opens: “The will of the Lord is the rule of good!” and proceeded to pour libations in honour of the river Darêja, on the banks of which he had been born a moment before, reciting at the same time the “profession of faith which puts evil spirits to flight.” Bôuiti fled aghast, but his master set to work upon some fresh device. Zoroaster allowed him, however, no time to complete his plans: he rose up, and undismayed by the malicious riddles propounded to him by his adversary, advanced against him with his hands full of stones—stones as large as a house—with which the good deity supplied him. The mere sight of him dispersed the demons, and they regained the gates of their hell in headlong flight, shrieking out, “How shall we succeed in destroying him? For he is the weapon which strikes down evil beings; he is the scourge of evil beings.” His infancy and youth were spent in constant disputation with evil spirits: ever assailed, he ever came out victorious, and issued more perfect from each attack. When he was thirty years old, one of the good spirits, Vôhumanô, appeared to him, and conducted him into the presence of Ahura-mazdâ, the Supreme Being. When invited to question the deity, Zoroaster asked, “Which is the best of the creatures which are upon the earth?” The answer was, that the man whose heart is pure, he excels among his fellows. He next desired to know the names and functions of the angels, and the nature and attributes of evil. His instruction ended, he crossed a mountain of flames, and underwent a terrible ordeal of purification, during which his breast was pierced with a sword, and melted lead poured into his entrails without his suffering any pain: only after this ordeal did he receive from the hands of Ahura-mazdâ the Book of the Law, the Avesta, was then sent back to his native land bearing his precious burden. At that time, Vîshtâspa, son of Aurvatâspa, was reigning over Bactria. For ten years Zoroaster had only one disciple, his cousin Maidhyoi-Mâonha, but after that he succeeded in converting, one after the other, the two sons of Hvôgva, the grand vizir Jâmâspa, who afterwards married the prophet’s daughter, and Frashaoshtra, whose daughter Hvôgvi he himself espoused; the queen, Hutaosa, was the next convert, and afterwards, through her persuasions, the king Vîshtâspa himself became a disciple. The triumph of the good cause was hastened by the result of a formal disputation between the prophet and the wise men of the court: for three days they essayed to bewilder him with their captious objections and their magic arts, thirty standing on his right hand and thirty on his left, but he baffled their wiles, aided by grace from above, and having forced them to avow themselves at the end of their resources, he completed his victory by reciting the Avesta before them. The legend adds, that after rallying the majority of the people round him, he lived to a good old age, honoured of all men for his saintly life. According to some accounts, he was stricken dead by lightning,* while others say he was killed by a Turanian soldier, Brâtrôk-rêsh, in a war against the Hyaonas.
by Western historians of the post-classical period.
The question has often been asked whether Zoroaster belongs to the domain of legend or of history. The only certain thing we know concerning him is his name; all the rest is mythical, poetic, or religious fiction. Classical writers attributed to him the composition or editing of all the writings comprised in Persian literature: the whole consisted, they said, of two hundred thousand verses which had been expounded and analysed by Hermippus in his commentaries on the secret doctrines of the Magi. The Iranians themselves averred that he had given the world twenty-one volumes—the twenty-one Nasks of the Avesta,* which the Supreme Deity had created from the twenty-one words of the Magian profession of faith, the Ahuna Vairya. King Vîshtâspa is said to have caused two authentic copies of the Avesta—which contained in all ten or twelve hundred chapters**—to be made, one of which was consigned to the archives of the empire, the other laid up in the treasury of a fortress, either Shapîgân, Shîzîgân, Samarcand, or Persepolis.***
Persian forms âvasta, ôstâ, is derived from the
Achæmenian word Abasta, which signifies law in the
inscriptions of Darius. The term Zend-Avesta, commonly used
to designate the sacred book of the Persians, is incorrectly
derived from the expression Apastâc u Zend, which in
Pehlevi designates first the law itself, and then the
translation and commentary in more modern language which
conduces to a knowledge (Zend) of the law. The customary
application, therefore, of the name Zend to the language of
the Avesta is incorrect.
** The Dinkart fixes the number of chapters at 1000, and the
Shâh-Nâmak at 1200, written on plates of gold. According to
Masudi, the book itself and the two commentaries formed
12,000 volumes, written in letters of gold, the twenty-one
Nasks each contained 200 pages, and the whole of these
writings had been inscribed on 12,000 cow-hides.
*** The site of Shapîgân or Shaspîgân is unknown. J.
Darmesteter suggests that it ought to be read as Shizîgân,
which would permit of the identification of the place with
Shîz, one of the ancient religious centres of Iran, whose
temple was visited by the Sassanids on their accession to
the throne. According to the Ardâ-Vîrâf the law was
preserved at Istakhr, or Persepolis, according to the Shâh-
Nâmak at Samarcand in the temple of the Fire-god.
Alexander is said to have burnt the former copy: the latter, stolen by the Greeks, is reported to have been translated into their language and to have furnished them with all their scientific knowledge. One of the Arsacids, Vologesus I., caused a search to be made for all the fragments which existed either in writing or in the memory of the faithful,* and this collection, added to in the reign of the Sassanid king, Ardashîr Bâbagan, by the high priest Tansar, and fixed in its present form under Sapor I., was recognised as the religious code of the empire in the time of Sapor II., about the fourth century of the Christian era.*** The text is composed, as may be seen, of three distinct strata, which are by no means equally ancient;*** one can, nevertheless, make out from it with sufficient certainty the principal features of the religion and cult of Iran, such as they were under the Achæmenids, and perhaps even under the hegemony of the Medes.
specifying which of the four kings named Vologesus is
intended. James Darmesteter has given good reasons for
believing that this Valkash is Vologesus I. (50-75 A.D.),
the contemporary of Nero.
** This is the tradition reproduced in two versions of the
Dinkart.
*** Darmesteter declares that ancient Zoroastrianism is, in
its main lines, the religion of the Median Magi, even though
he assigns the latest possible date to the composition of
the Avesta as now existing, and thinks he can discern in it
Greek, Jewish, and Christian elements.
It is a complicated system of religion, and presupposes a long period of development. The doctrines are subtle; the ceremonial order of worship, loaded with strict observances, is interrupted at every moment by laws prescribing minute details of ritual,* which were only put in practice by priests and strict devotees, and were unknown to the mass of the faithful.
religious sect; it is a Talmud, a book of casuistry and
strict observance. I have difficulty in believing that the
great Persian empire, which, at least in religious matters,
professed a certain breadth of ideas, could have had a law
so strict. I think, that had the Persians possessed a sacred
book of this description, the Greeks must have mentioned
it.”
The primitive, base of this religion is difficult to discern clearly: but we may recognise in it most of those beings or personifications of natural phenomena which were the chief objects of worship among all the ancient nations of Western Asia—the stars, Sirius, the moon, the sun, water and fire, plants, animals beneficial to mankind, such as the cow and the dog, good and evil spirits everywhere present, and beneficent or malevolent souls of mortal men, but all systematised, graduated, and reduced to sacerdotal principles, according to the prescriptions of a powerful priesthood. Families consecrated to the service of the altar had ended, as among the Hebrews, by separating themselves from the rest of the nation and forming a special tribe, that of the Magi, which was the last to enter into the composition of the nation in historic times. All the Magi were not necessarily devoted to the service of religion, but all who did so devote themselves sprang from the Magian tribe; the Avesta, in its oldest form, was the sacred book of the Magi, as well as that of the priests who handed down their religious tradition under the various dynasties, native or foreign, who bore rule over Iran.
The Creator was described as “the whole circle of the heavens,” “the most steadfast among the gods,” for “he clothes himself with the solid vault of the firmament as his raiment,” “the most beautiful, the most intelligent, he whose members are most harmoniously proportioned; his body was the light and the sovereign glory, the sun and the moon were his eyes.” The theologians had gradually spiritualised the conception of this deity without absolutely disconnecting him from the material universe.