XXXIII. End as of 10/18/95
A. Story of Cyrus the Great: Herodotus at his story- telling Best, Her. 1.107-191
1. Prophecy of the dangerous child and the kindly shepherd (Oedipus)
2. The unusual boy (Theseus, Romulus & Remus), the old linkage of physical sueriority to the kingship
3. Evil wizard-king, Astyages and his Minister (Hrolf Kraki's Saga, King Aghils of Sweden)
4. Cyrus rallies the oppressed Persians (Robin Hood! William Wallace (Braveheart)
5. Overthrow of decadent Medes: Astyages and the butchery/banquet of Harpagus's son.
6. A good definition of decadent: No longer actively engaged in conquering other peoples.
7. Good King Cyrus spares Astyages (Lion King)
B. Why am I telling you all this: BE ALERT!!
C. Influence of Family in Ancient History: Croesus of Lydia moves to restore his brother-in-law Astyages (and the previously desirable status quo)
1. Lydian kingdom the product of the destruction of the wealthy Phrygian empire (King Midas, 738-696 and Gordion) by Conan and his pals (Robert Howard read his Herodotus) c. 700.
2. Lydians did well--fertile territory and reasonably competent rulers and the great economic innovation of stamped and proofed ingots of precious metal as a means of facilitating trade=Money.
3. Like Greek trade goods and so liked Greeks, and it's hard (but not impossible) to hate a good market
4. Croesus, their last great King, 560-546, did move down to the coast of Asia Minor and finally reduced the Greek cities to subject status BUT:
5. Miletus gave him a good fight and that led to a negotiated settlement and mutual respect.
6. Several convenient miracles inspired Croesus to respect the Greek gods and Delphi won his (turtle soup story) Her, 1.46-48. Who says that the ancients didn't conduct scientific experiments (cf. Her. 2.1)?
a) Gifts to Delphi and temple of Diana at Ephesus: B3 points out that's another way of keeping the Greeks respectful and quiet.
b) We mentioned his effort to seek an alliance with the Spartans
c) Conversation with Solon: This is a barbarian?
d) The all-time great oracular utterance, backed by Egypt and Babylon
D. War with Cyrus in 546 and fall of the Lydian Empire, Cyrus takes Sardis and gets the warning from Sparta. We now begin around 125 years of sanguinary miscomprehension.
1. Cyrus's point of view was fairly simple: What had belonged to Croesus now belonged to him.
2. The Greeks, however, knew that they were the centers of Creation, a view with which we Westerners tend to agree for some reason.
3. If you can read the argument about why the Persians should have let the Greeks direct their empire (B3, p. 146) without smiling, you're terribly naive.
4. Worth noting that when Bury wrote the original book, the British empire had conquered the entire Middle East and the Turkish Empire was the laughing stock of the world.
5. Again, the system:
a) Over it all, the "Great King, king of king
b) Excellent road Network allowing the safe passage of revenues and messengers in and the King and his army out, the "Royal Road" from Sardis in Asia coast to Persepolis and beyond that to Susa (Royal road to Geometry--Euclid)(Her. 5.49-54
c) "The Kings Eyes and Ears" to spy on the local "protectors of the territory," Kshattripavan/Satraps, governors and commanders of the local army.
(1) Basic responsibilty: keep revenues flowing.
(2) Independence allowed revolts, but King powerful enough to put down any one or two... More than that and it got chancy. Also, sometimes the Satrap had or developed regional loyalties.
(3) Quite a bit of local autonomy (Her. 1.135), but the taxes were heavy and there was the problem of mutual contempt:
(a) Greek dislike of Perisan absolutist moral system, unquestioning obedience, and "barbarism" (admiration too)
(b) Persian contempt for Greek mercantilism and disunity
(i) Milesian incident: Persian establish oligarchy to maintain tax flow, Her. 5.17-38
(ii) Agorai: Where they go to cheat each other
E. And so, unaware that they were bucking a trend in Asia, the Greeks showed fight, twice.
1. They tried a reasoned approach: legend of Thales' advice that they should form a federated state and act in concert vs. Bias of Priene's advice that they should flee to to Sardinia.
a) The Phocaeans (Corsica--Wars with Carthage and the Etruscans) and the Teians (Abdera in Thrace) did flee before the conquest.
b) Harpagus Cyrus's general systematically reduced the individual Poleis (Fish and Flautist--too late now! Her. 1.142) while Cyrus went off and
(1) Conquered Babylon ("Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin--Good press in the Old Testament) 540
(2) Got killed in Scythia (Her. 1.201-14)and
(3) Cambyses the Clearly Insane (Her. 3.61-87) conquered Egypt in 530-25.
(4) Darius (after a nightmarish accession! Heh.) set about organizing the Empire into the successful Assyrian mold (3.89-96). "Cyrus the father, Cambyses the despot, and Darius the shopkeeper," and, incidentally, the most successful. (Her. 4.1-4, 4.83-98, etc.)
(a) Note Herodotus's curiousity and interest in the Scyths and
(b) The Amazons (Her. 4.118-144) and incidentally
(c) The Persian Way of War
c) You should have noticed, that, due to your forced knowledge of geography, Darius's campaigns had taken him all the way into Europe and across the Hellespont (Her. 5.1-2, 11) into Thrace and Macedonia (Her. 5.17-38) by 512
d) By 496, Darius's armies had crossed the Danube-- Greece was nearly cut off.
(1) Two more incdients: Artaphernes tells the Athenians to take back Hippias
(2) Militiades vs. Histiaeus to the Ionians: Cut the bridge vs. the Persians are supporting the local tyrants, AMONG WHOM was
2. Aristagoras of Miletus
a) Classic opportunist: collapse of expedition to reduce Naxos (4 month siege, quarrel with the Persian admiral) in 511 ruined him with the Persians
b) And so he led Miletus (which had survived all along by selling out the other Greeks and having strong walls) into revolt against the Persians in 499 when his father in law Histiaeus began to be be considered too clever for the Empire's good.
(1) He had the sense to try and draw the mainland Greeks into it. At Sparta he pointed out the vulnerability of the Persian Empire to attack, but got into his famous problem of map scale (Her. 5.49-54) and forgot to pay off the kid before trying to bribe Cleomenes
(2) He had better luck at Athens, thanks to Artaphernes stupidity in trying to intervene on Hippias's behalf (Her. 5.97- 103) He got 20 ships and some Athenian troops--enough to swat Megara, maybe, but the equivalent of trying to kill an elephant with a tiki dart here. (498)
c) Hecateus made his point that they either grab the temple treasure at Didyma and build a fleet or get used to eating couscous. But no one ever listens to historians until it's too late
d) The Ionian army marched to Sardis, Artaphernes' capital, and burned it, even if they didn't take the citadel
e) Darius (Remember the Athenians) was piqued and destroyed the Greek army near Ephesus (5.122-6)
f) After which the Athenians split, but not quite quickly enough...
XXXIV. End as of 10/26/95