The Historians' History of the World 02

Egypt had certainly prospered under the administration of her latter indigenous kings. From the reign of Amyrtæus to that of Nectanebo, the sovereigns had conscientiously worked to efface the traces of the foreign invasions and to restore the kingdom to its old prosperity. The two capitals Thebes and Memphis, were not forgotten, and the cities of the Delta, Sebennytus, Bubastis, and Pithom were also embellished. And in spite of the short time given to the work, the majority of these works bear no trace of haste or carelessness; and the artists being quite conversant with the methods of ancient art, knew how to produce chefs d’œuvre comparable to those of the Saïtic period.

But now the victory of Ochus was a more fatal blow to Egypt than the invasion of Cambyses had been. Ochus had personal feelings of hate against his new subjects, and he has been compared to Typhon for cruelty, and he was dubbed an ass, because it is the animal consecrated to the god of evil.

Arrived at Memphis, he gave orders for the Apis bull to be roasted for a banquet, and he enthroned and worshipped an ass in the temple of Ptah.

The goat of Mendes shared the fate of Apis, the temples were sacked, the sacred books carried off to Persia, the walls of the city razed to the ground, and the chief partisans of the indigenous royalty were massacred.

When these acts were over, the Greek mercenaries returned to their country, laden with booty, and the Great King returned to Susa, leaving the reconquered satrapy in charge of Pherendates. The success of the expedition had been mainly due to the eunuch Bagoas and Mentor the Rhodian; and to them Ochus entrusted the government of the empire. Bagoas directed the politics of the interior, and Mentor, placed at the head of the maritime provinces, soon reduced them to order.

Artabazus retired from the struggle and sought refuge with Philip of Macedon. Some tyrants on the coast of the Ægean Sea willingly submitted to the new dominion, and others resisting, like Hermias of Atarneus, the friend of Aristotle, were seized and put to death.

Thus Persia in a few years seemed to regain the widespread power which she had lost since the accession of Artaxerxes II, and Ochus ranked as high in the minds of his contemporaries as her great conquerors, Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius. But Ochus himself was only an oriental despot of the common type. His empire still had the appearance of strength, but the races, strangers to each other, and with difficulty suppressed by the satraps, inclined more and more to detachment from him, and already some of the governments of the previous century only existed in name. In the north towards the sources of the Euphrates, Tigris, and Halys, there was nothing but a confused mass of kingdoms and tribes, of which some like the Armenians still recognised the suzerainty of the Persians, and others, like the Chalybes and the Tibareni retained their independence. The kings of Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus still paid tribute in an intermittent fashion; but the Mysians, Pisidians, Lycaonians, had ceased payment. The countries beyond the Tigris were in the same disorder. The Cadusians, the Amardians, and the Tapuri, protected by the mountains of the Caspian Sea, withstood every effort to dislodge them. India and the Sacæ had passed from the state of subjects to that of friendly allies, and the savage hordes of Gedrosia and Paropamisus rebelled against all authority. During the dismemberment of the empire the order of administration, so cleverly organised by Darius, was broken by the feebleness of his mercenaries. Not only had the custom of annually sending inspectors to the provinces become a mere formality, which was often omitted, but the distinction between the civil and military power had disappeared. The officer who commanded the troops nearly always filled the post of governor and united several satrapies under one rule.

The army and revenue were still, in spite of everything, the greatest in the world, but, if the darics had retained their value, the battalions had lost in strength. The old powers of the Persians, Medes, and Bactrians, and other races of Iran, were doubtless undiminished, but nobody troubled to make them conversant with the progress made during the century in military tactics. Their contingents were only heavy, undisciplined companies, easy to conquer in spite of the incontestable bravery of the individuals composing them; so, as their training would have taken a long time, it was better to add to their ranks mercenaries at a great price.

Since the time of Artaxerxes II the Greeks formed the kernel of the Persian forces; and the armies of the Great King were commanded by Hellenic generals of the school of Agesilaus, Iphicrates, Epaminondas, and the best tacticians of the time.