Artaxerxes

Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language

The first Artaxerxes, who surpassed all the kings of Persia in gentleness and greatness of soul, was called Longhand (Makrocheir), because his right hand was longer than the other; Xerxes was his father. This account concerns the second Artaxerxes, who was called Mnemon, and he was descended from that first Artaxerxes through a daughter. For Darius and Parysatis had four children: the eldest was Artaxerxes, after him Cyrus, and younger than these Ostanes and Oxathres.

Cyrus took his name from the elder Cyrus, and that Cyrus, they say, got his name from the sun, for the Persians call the sun Cyrus. Artaxerxes had earlier been called Arsicas -- though Deinon says he was called Oarses. But it is not likely that Ctesias, however many incredible and wild tales he has crammed into his books, a whole marketplace of every kind of thing, did not know what name the king he served actually went by, though he attended him along with his wife, mother, and children.

Now Cyrus had, from his earliest age, something intense and vehement about him, while the other seemed gentler in every way and by nature softer in his impulses. He took a beautiful and good wife at his parents' bidding, and kept her even when they later forbade it. For the king, having put her brother to death, was minded to destroy her as well,

but Arsicas, becoming a suppliant of his mother and weeping greatly, with difficulty persuaded her neither to kill the woman nor to part her from him. But the mother favored Cyrus more, and wished him to become king; and so, when their father was now ill, Cyrus, summoned from the sea, went up in full confidence, hoping that with her help he would be declared successor to the throne,

for Parysatis had a plausible argument, the very one the elder Xerxes had once used at Demaratus' urging: that Arsicas had been born to Darius while he was still a private citizen, but Cyrus while he was king. Yet she did not prevail; the elder son was declared king, renamed Artaxerxes, while Cyrus was made governor of Lydia and given command of the troops along the coast.

A little after Darius' death the king rode out to Pasargadae, so that he might be initiated into the royal rite by the priests of Persia. There stands a shrine there to a battle-loving goddess, comparable to Athena.

Into this the one being initiated must go, having first laid aside his own robe, and put on the one which the elder Cyrus wore before he became king; and he must eat a cake of dried figs, chew up terebinth, and drink a cup of sour milk. Whether they do anything else besides these things

is unclear to everyone else. While Artaxerxes was about to do these things, Tissaphernes came to him bringing one of the priests, a man who had been overseer of Cyrus' customary upbringing as a boy and had taught him magianism, and who appeared to lament, as much as any Persian, that Cyrus had never, for that reason, been proclaimed king; it was this that made his charge against Cyrus believable.

He accused him of intending to lie in ambush in the temple, and, when the king took off his robe, to set upon him and destroy him. Some say that it was from this slander that the arrest came about; others say that Cyrus actually entered the temple and was betrayed while hiding there by the priest,

and that when he stood already on the verge of execution, his mother flung her arms about him, wound her hair about him, drew his neck close to her own, and with much lamenting and supplication begged him off and sent him back down to the sea -- Cyrus not content with that reprieve, nor remembering the release so much as the arrest, and burning with anger even more than before for the kingship.

Some say that it was not being satisfied with what he received for his daily table that made him revolt from the king -- foolish talk, for even if nothing else were true, his mother was there to let him use and take whatever he wished of her own resources, supplying and giving it to him. His wealth is confirmed also by the mercenary force his friends and guest-friends kept up on his behalf in numerous locations, as Xenophon has recorded. For he did not gather them all together at once, still concealing his preparation, but kept others elsewhere recruiting soldiers on many pretexts.

The king's mother, by her presence, removed suspicions, and Cyrus himself always wrote to him in a flattering way, sometimes asking favors of him, sometimes accusing Tissaphernes in turn, as though his rivalry and contest were directed against that man.

There was also a certain hesitancy in the king's nature, which appeared to most as fair-mindedness. At the start he seemed very much to be emulating the gentleness of his namesake Artaxerxes, showing himself more agreeable to approach, exceeding due measure in honoring and granting favors, and removing from every punishment anything of insult or of pleasure taken in it; and in receiving favors he showed himself no less gracious and kindly toward those who gave than toward those who received in the giving,

for nothing offered to him was too small for him to accept gladly. Indeed, when a man named Omisus once brought him a single pomegranate of remarkable size, he remarked, "By Mithras, this man could quickly make a small city into a great one, if he were trusted with it."

Once, when various people were bringing him various things along the road, a laboring man, finding nothing ready at hand in time, ran to the river, took up water in his cupped hands, and offered it to him; Artaxerxes, delighted, sent him a golden bowl and a thousand darics. To Eucleides the Spartan, who spoke to him with much blunt freedom, he had the chiliarch tell him, "It is permitted to you to say what you wish, but to me both to say and to do."

Once during a hunt, when Teribazus showed him his kandys torn, he asked what should be done. When Teribazus said, "Put on another yourself, but give this one to me," he did so, saying, "I give it to you, Teribazus, but I forbid you to wear it." Teribazus paid no heed -- for he was not wicked, but somewhat light and flighty -- and immediately put on the kandys himself and put on gold necklaces and other feminine ornaments of the royal wardrobe. Everyone else was indignant, for this was not permitted, but the king only laughed and said, "I give you the golden things to wear as a woman, and the robe to wear as a madman."

No one shared the same table except the king's mother or his wedded wife, the one sitting below him, the mother above him; yet Artaxerxes invited even his younger brothers, Ostanes and Oxathres, to the same table. And among the things most pleasing to the Persians was the sight of the carriage of his wife Stateira, always brought forth with its curtains open, allowing the women of the people to greet and approach her; for this the queen was beloved by the many.

The revolutionaries and busybodies, however, thought that Cyrus, being a man brilliant in spirit, exceptionally warlike, and devoted to his companions, was what the situation longed for, and that the greatness of the empire needed a king with high ambition and love of honor.

So Cyrus, trusting no less in those from the interior than in those around himself, undertook the war; and he wrote to the Lacedaemonians urging them to help and to send men along with him, to whom he said he would give, if they came as infantry, horses, and if as cavalry, chariot-teams; and if they had fields, villages, and if villages, cities; and that pay for those who served would be, not a fixed number, but a full measure.

Boasting much about himself, he said he carried a heart heavier than his brother's, was a better philosopher and better versed in magianism, and could drink more wine and bear it better, while his brother, out of cowardice and softness, could not so much as sit a horse in the hunt, nor sit upon the throne in dangers. The Lacedaemonians accordingly sent a skytale to Clearchus ordering him to serve Cyrus in everything.

Cyrus advanced against the king leading a sizable native army together with Greek mercenaries numbering just under thirteen thousand, making one pretext after another for the campaign. Yet he did not remain hidden for long; Tissaphernes came to the king himself with the news, and great confusion seized the palace, with Parysatis bearing most of the blame for the war, and her friends falling under suspicion and slander.

What most vexed Parysatis was Stateira, who was deeply distressed over the war and cried out, "Where now are those pledges? Where the entreaties, by which you saved the man who plotted against your brother, and have filled us with war and troubles?" From this Parysatis came to hate Stateira, and being by nature sullen and barbarous in her wrath and in nursing grievances, she plotted to destroy her.

Deinon has said that the plot was carried out during the war itself, while Ctesias says it was later -- and it is not likely that Ctesias, who was present at the events, was ignorant of the time, nor did he have willing cause to shift the deed from its actual time in his account of how it happened, though his narrative often suffers from turning aside from the truth toward the fabulous and the theatrical. As for this matter, then, it shall keep the place he assigned it.

As Cyrus advanced, rumors and reports kept coming to him that the king had not decided to fight at once, nor was eager to close with him in battle, but meant to wait in Persia until his forces gathered there from every side. Indeed he had dug a trench ten fathoms wide and of equal depth across the plain for four hundred stades, and yet he allowed Cyrus to pass within it and to come not far from Babylon itself.

But when Teribazus, as they say, was the first to dare say that he ought not to avoid battle, nor, after yielding Media and at the same time letting slip Babylon and Susa, hide himself away in Persis -- he having a force many times greater than the enemy's, and countless satraps and generals better in judgment and in fighting than those of Cyrus -- the king set out to fight it out as quickly as possible,

and at first, appearing suddenly with nine hundred thousand troops drawn up in splendid array, he struck terror and confusion into the enemy, who were marching in disorder and unarmed out of confidence and contempt, so that it was with much uproar and shouting that Cyrus with difficulty got them into formation; but then, advancing in silence and at a measured pace, he presented a marvel of good order to the Greeks, who had expected disorderly shouts, leaping about, much confusion, and scattering in so great a multitude.

And well did he draw up, opposite the Greeks, the strongest of his scythe-bearing chariots in front of his own phalanx, so that before coming to close quarters they would cut through their ranks by the force of their charge.

That battle has been reported by many, and Xenophon all but shows it before our eyes, always setting the hearer, through his vividness, in the midst of the events as though they were not past but happening now, and keeping him engaged and sharing the danger; so it is not the part of a sensible man to go over it again, except for such things worth mention as he passed over in silence.

The site chosen for the battle-line bears the name Cunaxa, lying five hundred stadia distant from Babylon. Before the battle, they say, when Clearchus urged Cyrus to stay behind the fighters and not risk himself, Cyrus said, "What are you saying, Clearchus? Are you telling me, who am reaching for the kingship, to be unworthy of the kingship?"

But though Cyrus made a great mistake in plunging rashly into the thick of danger and not guarding against the risk, Clearchus erred no less — if not more — in refusing to draw up the Greeks against the king himself, but instead hugging the river with his right wing, to avoid being surrounded. For a man pursuing safety above all else, and setting the highest store on suffering no harm, it would have been best to stay home.

But he who had marched ten thousand stadia up from the sea under arms, compelled by no one, but in order to seat Cyrus on the royal throne, and who then, in looking about for position and formation, considered not from what point he might save his commander and paymaster, but in what position he himself might fight safely and at his ease — such a man was, out of fear of the dangers at hand, like one who had cast out all reckoning of the whole enterprise and abandoned the very purpose of the campaign.

For that none of those stationed around the king would have withstood the Greeks had they charged home, and that once those forces were driven off and the king had fled or fallen, it was open to Cyrus, if victorious, to survive and to reign — this is clear from what actually happened. Hence one must blame Clearchus's over-caution, rather than Cyrus's boldness, as the cause that ruined the whole affair, Cyrus included.

For if the king himself had been looking to find where, by stationing the Greeks, he would meet with the least harmful enemy, he could not have found any place better than the one farthest from himself and his own men — a position from which he himself would not have perceived his own defeat, and Cyrus would have been cut down before he could make any use of Clearchus's victory.

And yet Cyrus was not ignorant of what was advantageous — he ordered Clearchus to take position there, in the center — but Clearchus, saying that he would see to it that things went as well as possible for himself, ruined the whole plan.

The Greeks, for their part, defeated the barbarians as thoroughly as they wished and pressed the pursuit very far. But as Cyrus rode a noble horse, hard-mouthed and unruly, called Pasacas, as Ctesias says, Artagerses, commander of the Cadusians, rode out against him, shouting loudly,

"You who disgrace the fairest name among the Persians, that of Cyrus, most unjust and most senseless of men, you come leading the wretched Greeks on a wretched road against the blessings of Persia, hoping to destroy your own master and brother, who has ten thousand times ten thousand slaves better than you. You will find out at once — you will lose your head here before you set eyes on the king's face."

So saying, he hurled his javelin at him. The breastplate held firm, and Cyrus was not wounded, though he was shaken by the force of the heavy blow. As Artagerses wheeled his horse about, Cyrus, throwing in turn, did not miss, and drove the spear-point through his neck beside the collarbone.

That Artagerses died at the hand of Cyrus almost everyone agrees. But as to the death of Cyrus himself, since Xenophon spoke of it simply and briefly, not having been present himself, there is perhaps nothing to prevent us from going through the accounts of Dinon, and again those of Ctesias, separately.

Dinon, then, says that when Artagerses had fallen, Cyrus charged violently into the ranks drawn up before the king and wounded his horse, so that the king slipped off; and when Tiribazus swiftly mounted him upon a fresh horse, saying, "Remember, my king, this day, for it merits no oblivion," Cyrus, driving his horse at him again, struck Artaxerxes down.

At the third charge the king, unable to bear it any longer and saying to those present that it was better not to live, rode out to meet Cyrus, who was bearing down rashly and heedlessly into the enemy's missiles. The king himself cast a javelin, and those around him cast theirs,

at him, and Cyrus falls — according to some, struck by the king himself; according to others, by a Carian man, to whom the king gave, as the prize for this deed, the honor of always carrying a golden rooster on a spear before the ranks on campaigns; for the Persians were accustomed to nickname the Carians "roosters," on account of the plumes they wear atop their helmets.

Ctesias's account, to abridge much and report it briefly, runs something like this. Cyrus, having killed Artagerses, rode his horse straight at the king himself, and the king at him, both in silence. Ariaeus, a friend of Cyrus, got his throw in first at the king, and did not wound him; the king, letting fly his spear, missed Cyrus, but struck and killed Satiphernes, a loyal and noble man in Cyrus's service.

Cyrus, hurling his javelin at him in turn, wounded him through the breastplate in the chest, the javelin sinking in some two fingers' depth, and the king fell from his horse from the blow. In the flight and confusion that followed among those around him, the king rose with a few companions, among whom Ctesias himself was one, and, taking a nearby hill, kept quiet; but Cyrus, entangled among the enemy, was carried far off by his horse in its fury, unrecognized in the now-gathering darkness by the enemy, and sought after by his friends,

elated by his victory and full of dash and boldness, he rode through shouting, "Get out of the way, wretches!" And as he shouted this repeatedly in Persian, they did get out of the way, doing obeisance; but Cyrus's tiara slipped off in the confusion. A Persian youth called Mithridates, rushing by, hurled a javelin that caught him near the eye, at the temple, not knowing whom he had struck.

As much blood poured from the wound, Cyrus, grown dizzy and faint, fell; and his horse, slipping away, wandered off, while the blood-soaked saddle-cloth that slipped from it was retrieved by the servant belonging to the man who had dealt Cyrus the blow. Cyrus, struggling and barely managing to recover from the blow, was attended by a few eunuchs who happened to be present, and they tried to set him on another horse and save him.

As he was unable, and yet eager to walk on his own, they took hold of him and led him on, his head heavy and reeling in body, though he believed he was winning, hearing those fleeing calling out to Cyrus as king and begging for mercy. Meanwhile some Caunians, wretched and destitute men who followed the king's army for the sake of menial services, happened to have gotten mixed in among Cyrus's company as though they were friends — but with difficulty:

they made out the scarlet tunics, while all the king's men wore white, and realized they were enemies. So one of them, not knowing who it was, dared to hurl a javelin at Cyrus from behind. The vein behind his knee was slashed open; Cyrus collapsed, and in that same instant the wound at his temple met a stone as he fell, and he died. Such is Ctesias's account, in which, as though with a dull little dagger, he barely manages to finish the man off.

Now when Cyrus was already dead, Artasyras, the king's Eye, happened to be riding past. Recognizing the eunuchs wailing, he asked the most trusted of them, "Who is this, Pariscas, that you sit weeping over?" And he said, "Do you not see, Artasyras? Cyrus is dead." Artasyras, amazed, told the eunuch to take courage and guard the body, while he himself hurried to Artaxerxes,

who had already given up hope for his cause, and whose body was faring badly under the strain of thirst and his wound, and gladly reported that he had with his own eyes seen Cyrus lying dead. The king at first set out at once to go there himself, and ordered Artasyras to lead him to the spot; but since there was much talk of the Greeks, and fear that they were pursuing and conquering and prevailing everywhere, he decided to send a larger party to see for themselves — and thirty men were sent, carrying torches.

As the king, close to death from thirst, waited, Satibarzanes the eunuch ran about seeking drink — since no water was to be found there, and the camp lay some distance off. With difficulty he came upon one of those wretched Caunians who had, in a poor wineskin, some corrupted and foul water, about eight cotylae, and taking this and bringing it to the king, gave it to him. When he had drunk it all down, he asked whether he did not find the drink altogether disagreeable.

But the king swore before the gods that never had he tasted wine, however delightful, nor even the clearest and lightest water, with such delight. "So," he said, "if I am unable, after searching, to reward the man who gave you this, I pray the gods to make him blessed and rich."

Meanwhile the thirty rode up, radiant and overjoyed, announcing to him the unhoped-for good fortune. And now, with the crowd of men rallying and gathering around him again, he took courage, and came down from the hill, bathed in a blaze of light.

When he stood over the corpse, and, according to a certain Persian custom, the right hand was cut off along with the head from the body, he commanded that the head be carried to him, and, seizing it by its thick, shaggy locks, held it up on display to those still wavering and in flight. They marveled and did obeisance, so that soon seventy thousand gathered around him and rode back together into the camp.

Ctesias reports that he marched into battle at the head of four hundred thousand troops; Dinon and Xenophon, however, put the fighting forces at a considerably higher number. As for the count of the dead, Ctesias says nine thousand were reported to Artaxerxes, but that to his own eye the bodies lying there appeared no fewer than twenty thousand. This point is disputed; but here is a brilliant lie of Ctesias's already — that he claims to have been dispatched to the Greeks together with Phalinus of Zacynthus and a few others.

For Xenophon was aware that Ctesias attended upon the king — he refers to him, and is clearly acquainted with his books — and so would not, if Ctesias had actually gone and served as interpreter for such important words, have left him unnamed, while naming Phalinus of Zacynthus. But Ctesias, it seems, being extraordinarily fond of honor and no less fond of the Spartans and of Clearchus, is always giving himself some role in the narrative, in which, once placed there, he will have much fine occasion to remember Clearchus and Sparta.

After the battle he sent out the finest and greatest gifts to the son of Artagerses, who had fallen at Cyrus's hand, and he honored Ctesias and the others well too. And having sought out that Caunian who had given him the wineskin, he made him, from obscure and poor, honored and rich; there was also some concern shown for the punishment of wrongdoers.

As for a certain Mede named Arbaces, who fled in the battle before Cyrus and then, when Cyrus fell, changed sides again, the king judged him guilty of cowardice and weakness, not of treachery or ill will, and ordered him to take up a naked prostitute and carry her astride on his neck through the whole day in the marketplace. And another man, who besides deserting had falsely claimed to have struck down two of the enemy, he ordered to have his tongue pierced through with three needles.

Wishing and believing that all men should think and say that he himself had killed Cyrus, he sent gifts to Mithridates, the man who had first struck Cyrus, and instructed those bearing the gifts to say: "The King honors you with these because you found and brought back the horse-cap of Cyrus." But when the Carian, by whose blow to the hollow of the knee Cyrus had fallen, also asked for a reward, he ordered those bearing gifts to say to him: "The King gives you this as the second prize for good news, for Artasyras was first, and you second, to report the death of Cyrus."

Mithridates then went away in silence, grieved; but the wretched Carian was overtaken by a common misfortune born of foolishness. Corrupted, it seems, by the good things then present, and persuaded at once to claim more than was owed him, he was not content to have what was given as pay for good news, but grew indignant, protesting and shouting that no one else, but he himself, had killed Cyrus, and that he was being unjustly robbed of the glory. Hearing this, the King was greatly provoked and ordered the man's head cut off. But his mother, being present,

said: "Do not you, O King, release this Carian so easily from his ruin, but he shall receive from me the wages he deserves for what he dares to say." And when the King permitted it, Parysatis ordered those in charge of punishments to seize the man, stretch him on the wheel across a span of ten full days, and only afterward to gouge out his eyes and pour molten bronze down into his ears until he died.

Mithridates too perished miserably not long after, from the same foolishness. For having been invited to a dinner where eunuchs of both the King and the Queen Mother were present, he came adorned in the clothing and gold he had received from the King,

and when they came to drinking, the most powerful of Parysatis's eunuchs said to him: "What fine clothing the King has given you, Mithridates, and what fine collars and bracelets; and how valuable the scimitar! Truly he has made you blessed and admired by all." And Mithridates, already drunk, said: "What is all this, Sparamizes? For I proved myself worthy that day of far greater and finer things from the King."

And Sparamizes, smiling, said: "There is no envy, Mithridates; but since the Greeks say that wine and truth go together, what is so brilliant or great, my friend, in finding a horse's cap that slipped off and bringing it back?" He said this not in ignorance of the truth, but wishing to expose it to those present, he stirred up the man's frivolity, for he had become talkative and uncontrolled from the wine.

So, unable to restrain himself, Mithridates said: "You may call it a cap and nonsense, whatever you like; but I tell you plainly that it was this very hand that brought Cyrus down. Unlike Artagerses, I did not fling my spear uselessly and miss my mark, but I missed his eye by a little, and struck his temple, and drove the blow through and brought the man down, and he died of that wound."

The others then, seeing already the end of Mithridates and his misfortune, bowed their heads to the ground; but the host said to them: "Come now, Mithridates, let us drink and eat for the present, doing obeisance to the King's fortune, and let us leave aside talk too great for the likes of us."

After this the eunuch reported the story to Parysatis, who then carried it to the King; the King grew indignant, feeling exposed, as though he were losing the finest and sweetest part of his victory, for he wished all the barbarians and Greeks to be persuaded that in the charges and clashes he had given and received a blow, and had been wounded himself while killing Cyrus. He therefore ordered Mithridates to die by the boats.

The punishment of the boats is this: taking two boats built to fit one upon the other, they lay the condemned man on his back in one of them; then bringing the other over and fitting it together, so that his head and hands and feet are left outside while the rest of his body is entirely hidden within, they give the man food to eat, and if he is unwilling they force him by pricking his eyes; and after he has eaten they pour into his mouth a mixture of milk and honey, and pour it also over his face.

Then they keep turning his eyes always toward the sun, and a swarm of flies settling upon it covers his whole face; and since inside he does all that men eating and drinking necessarily must do, maggots and worms boil up out of the decay and corruption of his waste, by which, as they eat their way inward, his body is consumed.

For when the man is now plainly dead, the upper boat being removed, they see the flesh eaten away, and around his entrails swarms of such creatures clinging to it and devouring it. In this way Mithridates, wasting away for seventeen days, at last barely died.

There remained for Parysatis one more target: Masabates, eunuch to the King, the very man who had severed Cyrus's head and hand. Since he gave her no opening of his own accord, Parysatis devised a plot of the following kind.

She was in other respects a woman shrewd in temperament and skilled at dice, and for this reason she often diced with the King in the years before the war broke out; then, once the war had ended and she had been reconciled to him, she did not avoid his friendly overtures, but joined in his amusements and shared in his love affairs, cooperating and being present, and in general allowed Stateira only the smallest part of his company and companionship, hating that woman above all others and wishing herself to have the greatest power.

Once, catching Artoxerxes at leisure and restless with idleness, she challenged him to play dice for a thousand darics; and while playing she let him win, and paid over the gold, but pretending to be vexed and eager to compete again, she proposed they play once more from the start for a eunuch; and he agreed.

Having made an agreement that each should set aside five of his most trusted eunuchs, and that from the rest the winner might choose whichever one he wished, the loser to hand him over, on these terms they played dice. She applied herself intensely to the matter and was earnest about the game, and the dice falling well for her somehow, having won, she takes Masabates, for he was not among those set aside.

And before the King came to suspect the matter, she handed him over to those in charge of punishments and ordered them to flay him alive, and to fix his body sideways upon three stakes, and to nail up the skin separately. When this had been done and the King took it badly and grew angry at her, she said mockingly with a laugh: "How sweet and blessed you are, if you are angry over an old wretched eunuch, while I, cheated out of a thousand darics at dice, keep silent and am content."

The King then, regretting how he had been deceived, kept quiet; but Stateira openly opposed her in other matters as well and was displeased at this, on the ground that she was cruelly and lawlessly destroying men who were eunuchs loyal to the King, on account of Cyrus.

Now when Tissaphernes deceived Clearchus and the other generals and broke faith after oaths had been sworn, and having seized them sent them up bound in fetters, Ctesias says that Clearchus asked him to provide him with a comb. Having obtained it and having groomed his head, he was pleased with the service and gave him his ring, a token of friendship for his relatives and household in Lacedaemon; and the engraving on the seal was of Caryatid dancers.

The food sent to Clearchus was taken and consumed by the soldiers bound with him, who gave only a little of it to Clearchus; and Ctesias says he remedied this too, arranging for more to be sent to Clearchus, and privately having other food given to the soldiers; and that these services and provisions were rendered as a favor and by the will of Parysatis.

And when a ham was sent daily to Clearchus along with the other food, he urged and instructed him that he should conceal a small blade within the meat before sending it in, rather than let the King's cruelty finish him off unopposed; but he himself, fearing, was unwilling to do so. And the King, entreated by his mother not to kill Clearchus, agreed and swore an oath; but being persuaded again by Stateira, he put all to death except Menon.

After this, he says, Parysatis plotted against Stateira and contrived the poisoning against her, saying things not plausible but containing much unreason in the charge, if Parysatis really did so terrible a deed and put herself at such risk for the sake of Clearchus, daring to kill the King's legitimate wife and partner in children being raised for the kingship,

but it is clear enough that these things are embellished melodramatically in honor of the memory of Clearchus; for indeed he says that when the generals were killed, the others were torn apart by dogs and birds, but over the corpse of Clearchus a windstorm heaped up a great mound of earth and hid the body; and that from some date-palm stones scattered there, in a little while a marvelous grove sprang up and shaded the place, so that the King greatly repented, as one who had killed a man dear to the gods.

Parysatis, then, with hatred toward Stateira lying beneath the surface from the start, and with jealousy, seeing that her own power rested on the King's respect and honor for her, while Stateira's rested on his love and was firm and strong through his trust, plotted concerning the greatest matters, as she thought, staking everything.

She had a trusted maidservant able to wield the greatest influence with her, named Gigis, who Deinon says assisted in the poisoning, though Ctesias says she was only aware of it unwillingly. The one who gave the poison Ctesias names Belitaras, but Deinon calls him Melantas. Having begun again from their former suspicion and quarrel to visit and dine together, still out of fear and caution they used the same food and from the same portions.

There is in Persia a small bird which has no waste matter at all, but is entirely full inside with fat, and they suppose the creature is nourished by wind and dew; it is called the rhyntakes. This, Ctesias says, Parysatis, with a small knife smeared with poison on one side, cut in two, wiping the poison onto one portion; and putting the untainted, clean portion into her own mouth she ate it, but gave to Stateira the poisoned portion. But Deinon says it was not Parysatis,

but Melantas who, cutting with the little knife the poisoned pieces of meat, placed them before Stateira. The woman, dying amid great pain and convulsions, herself perceived the evil, and gave the King cause for suspicion against his mother, since he knew her savage and implacable nature.

For this reason he set out at once on the search, and seized and tortured his mother's attendants and table-servants. But Parysatis kept Gigis with her at home for a long time, and although the king demanded her surrender she would not give her up; only later, when Gigis herself asked to be let go home by night, did he learn of it, and setting an ambush he seized her and condemned her to death.

Poisoners in Persia are put to death by law in this manner: there is a broad flat stone, upon which they lay the head, and with another stone they strike and press it until they crush the face and the skull. So Gigis died in this way; but toward Parysatis, Artoxerxes neither said nor did any other unkind thing, apart from dispatching her to Babylon, since it was her own wish to go there, declaring that while she remained alive he personally would never set eyes on Babylon. That, in short, was the condition of matters within the household.

When the king, though eager to capture the Greeks who had gone up with Cyrus no less than he had been to overcome Cyrus and secure his kingdom, failed to take them, but they, having lost Cyrus their leader and their own generals, made their way to safety from within almost the very palace itself, having exposed and shown for all to see that the affairs of the Persians and of the king, though rich in gold and luxury and women, were in everything else mere show and pretension,

all Greece took courage and grew contemptuous of the barbarians, while to the Lacedaemonians it seemed a terrible thing not now, at least, to free from servitude the Greeks who dwelt in Asia, nor to put a stop to their being abused by the barbarians; and though they had earlier waged war first through Thimbron, then through Dercyllidas, without accomplishing anything worth mention, they entrusted the war to King Agesilaus,

who, having crossed over into Asia with his ships, was at once vigorous in action and won great renown, defeating Tissaphernes in pitched battle and causing the cities to revolt from him. When this had happened, Artoxerxes, taking counsel as to how he must make war upon them, sent Timocrates the Rhodian into Greece carrying much gold, with orders to give it and to corrupt those who had the greatest power in the cities, and to stir up a Greek war against Lacedaemon.

While Timocrates was carrying out these instructions, and the greatest cities were combining against Sparta and the Peloponnese was being thrown into confusion, the magistrates sent for Agesilaus to return from Asia; and it was then, they say, that as he was departing he remarked to his companions that thirty thousand archers were driving him out of Asia—for the Persian coin bore the device of an archer.

He also pushed the Lacedaemonians back from mastery of the sea, making use of Conon the Athenian, general in company with Pharnabazus. For Conon had been spending his time in Cyprus after the naval battle at Aegospotami, not content with safety, but waiting, as one waits at sea for a change of wind, for a reversal of fortune.

Seeing that his own calculations required a power, and that the king's power required a man of sense, he sent a letter to the king about what he had in mind. And he ordered the bearer to deliver it, if possible, through Zeno the Cretan or Polycritus the Mendaean—of whom Zeno was a dancer and Polycritus a physician; but if these were not available, through Ctesias the physician.

According to report, once Ctesias had the letter in hand, he inserted on his own initiative, alongside what Conon had written, a plea that he too be dispatched to the king, since he would prove useful in naval matters. Ctesias himself, however, says that the king assigned him this service on his own initiative.

But when, having prevailed in the sea-battle off Cnidus through Pharnabazus and Conon, he took away from the Lacedaemonians their command of the sea, he turned all Greece at once toward himself, so that he became the arbiter, for the Greeks, of that renowned settlement known as the Peace of Antalcidas.

Antalcidas was a Spartiate, son of Leon, and by courting the king's favor he secured the outcome that every Greek city in Asia, together with the neighboring islands, would be surrendered to him as tribute-paying subjects, once peace had been made for the Greeks—if indeed one ought to call peace an outrage and betrayal of Greece, the end of which no war ever brought more ingloriously upon the defeated.

For this reason Artoxerxes, who always loathed the rest of the Spartiates, and thought them, as Deinon says, the most shameless of all men, held Antalcidas in extraordinary affection when he went up to the Persians. And once, taking one of the floral garlands and steeping it in the richest perfume, he sent it from his own dinner to Antalcidas, and everyone marveled at this mark of friendliness.

This man was, it seems, a fitting one to be so pampered and to receive such a garland, having danced away in Persia the memory of Leonidas and Callicratidas. For Agesilaus, it appears, when a certain man remarked to him, "How sad for Greece, now that the Laconians are turning Persian," replied, "Rather, is it not that the Medes are Laconizing?" But the neatness of the retort did not remove the shame of the fact; instead, the Spartans lost their supremacy by fighting badly at Leuctra, though the glory of Sparta had already been destroyed beforehand by those agreements.

Now so long as Sparta held first place, she made Antalcidas her guest-friend and called him her own friend; but when the Spartans were defeated at Leuctra and, brought low, were in need of money, they sent Agesilaus off to Egypt, while Antalcidas went up to Artoxerxes to beg him to come to the aid of the Lacedaemonians.

But the king so utterly neglected him, overlooked him, and cast him aside, that when he came down again, mocked by his enemies and fearing the ephors besides, he brought about his own death by starvation. Ismenias of Thebes likewise made the journey up to the king, and Pelopidas too, already victor in the battle at Leuctra. But Pelopidas did nothing shameful; Ismenias, however, when ordered to prostrate himself, dropped his ring on the ground before himself, then stooped and picked it up, and so gave the impression of performing obeisance.

As for Timagoras the Athenian, who through Beluris his secretary sent in a confidential note, the king was so delighted that he presented him with ten thousand darics; and because illness required him to drink cow's milk, eighty cows were made to follow him about so he could be supplied; besides this he sent him a couch and bedding along with attendants to make it up, since he supposed the Greeks did not know the proper way to make up a bed, and litter-bearers to carry him, since he was in poor health, all the way to the sea,

and while he was there a most splendid dinner was sent to him, so that Ostanes, the king's brother, said, "Timagoras, remember this table: it is not set before you so splendidly for small services." This amounted to a rebuke for his betrayal rather than any recollection of a favor done. And in fact the Athenians put Timagoras to death, having convicted him of accepting bribes.

But Artoxerxes gave the Greeks one joy to offset all the pain he caused them, by putting to death Tissaphernes, their bitterest and most hostile enemy. He put him to death through the accusations of Parysatis, who joined in the attack against him. For the king did not remain angry with his mother for long, but was reconciled with her and sent for her, since he saw that she had intelligence and a spirit worthy of royalty, and there was no longer any reason standing in the way for which, being together, they should suspect or grieve each other.

After this, doing everything to please the king, and having, through her power to gratify him in nothing that he did being troublesome, the ability to prevail with him and obtain anything, she perceived that one of her daughters, Atossa, was suffering a terrible passion of love, kept hidden above all for her sake, and that he was restraining the passion—so some say—although intimacy with the girl had already taken place secretly,

As soon as Parysatis suspected this, she embraced the girl more than before, and praised to Artoxerxes both her beauty and her character, as being royal and magnificent. In the end she persuaded him to marry the girl and to declare her his lawful wife, dismissing the opinions and customs of the Greeks, and taking himself, for the Persians, as a law appointed by god and an arbiter of what was shameful and honorable.

Some, however—among them Heraclides of Cyme—say that Artoxerxes married not one only of his daughters but a second as well, Amestris, of whom we shall report a little later. But Atossa the father loved so much while she lived with him that, when a leprous disease spread over her body, he was not in the least troubled by it,

but prayed on her behalf to Hera, doing obeisance to her alone of the gods, touching the ground with his hands, and had his satraps and friends send such gifts to the goddess, at his command, that the space between the temple and the palace, sixteen stadia, was crowded with gold, silver, purple cloth, and horses.

He waged war against the Egyptians through Pharnabazus and Iphicrates, but failed, since those two fell into factional strife with each other; but against the Cadusians he campaigned in person with three hundred thousand foot and ten thousand horse. Invading a country harsh and misty in its ruggedness, barren of the fruits of sowing, but nourishing on pears and apples and other such tree-fruit men who were warlike and spirited, he found himself, before he knew it, fallen into great difficulties and dangers.

For there was nothing edible to be had, nor could any be brought in from outside, and they slaughtered only the pack-animals, so that the head of a donkey barely sold for sixty drachmas. The royal dinner ceased to be served; and few of the horses still survived, the rest having been eaten up and used up. At this point Teribazus, a man who had often stood in the first rank for his valor, and often had been cast down for his frivolity, and was then in low circumstances and looked upon with contempt, saved the king and the army.

For there were two kings among the Cadusians, each encamped separately, and Teribazus, meeting with Artoxerxes and explaining his plan of action, went in person to one of the two Cadusian kings, while secretly sending his son to the other. Each deceived the other, telling him that the other was sending an embassy to Artoxerxes seeking friendship and alliance for himself alone: therefore, if he were wise, he ought to approach the king first, and Teribazus himself would help arrange everything.

Both were persuaded by this, and thinking they were forestalling one another, one sent envoys accompanied by Teribazus, the other sent his along with Teribazus's son. Yet as time wore on, suspicions and accusations against Teribazus began to fall upon Artoxerxes; he himself grew despondent and regretted having trusted Teribazus, and gave those who envied him occasion to bring charges.

But when Teribazus arrived, and his son arrived too, bringing the Cadusians with them, and a truce and peace was made with both kings, Teribazus, now great and splendid, marched back together with the king, who displayed in every way that his cowardice and softness were not, as most people suppose, the offspring of luxury and extravagance, but of a base and ignoble nature that followed wicked opinions,

for neither the gold nor the robe nor the ornament of twelve thousand talents that always hung upon the king's body kept that man from toiling and enduring hardship like ordinary men; instead, with his quiver slung on and carrying his light shield, he himself marched first along mountain roads, steep and difficult, leaving his horse behind, so that the others grew winged, as it were, and were lightened in spirit at the sight of his eagerness and strength: for he would cover a day's march of two hundred stadia and more.

When he came down to a royal station that had marvelous parks, splendidly adorned, in a district round about that was otherwise treeless and bare, since it was bitterly cold, he allowed the soldiers to cut wood from the park, felling the trees, sparing neither pine nor cypress.

But since they hesitated and spared the trees because of their beauty and size, he himself took an axe and cut down the largest and finest of the plantings. After this, taking wood freely and making many fires, they passed the night comfortably. Nevertheless, having lost many good men, and nearly all the horses along with them, he made his way back.

And since he was thought to be held in contempt because of this misfortune and the failure of the campaign, he grew suspicious of his leading men; many he put to death out of anger, and more out of fear, for cowardice is the most murderous thing in tyrannies, while boldness is gracious and gentle and free of suspicion. That is why, among wild beasts, those that are untamable and hard to domesticate are the most timid and skittish, while the noble ones, trusting more because of their courage, do not flee from friendly advances.

By this time Artaxerxes had grown quite elderly, and he noticed that his sons, together with their respective friends and powerful backers, were vying with one another over who would succeed to the kingship. Those who reasoned soundly maintained that, since he himself had come to the throne by right of age, he ought likewise to hand the crown down to Darius as the elder; but the youngest son, Ochus, hot-tempered and violent by nature, commanded no small number of eager supporters, even among the palace household, and counted above all on winning his father over through Atossa.

For he was courting her as one who would marry him and share the kingship with him after his father's death. There was also a story that even while the king was alive he had secretly been intimate with her, though Artaxerxes was unaware of this. Wishing quickly to dash Ochus's hope, so that, should he dare the same things as Cyrus, wars and struggles might not again seize hold of the kingdom, he proclaimed Darius king, he being then fifty years old, and gave him leave to wear the so-called upright tiara,

and since it was law among the Persians that the one proclaimed heir might ask a gift, and the one who proclaimed him must give whatever was asked, if it were possible, Darius asked for Aspasia, the woman who had been most cherished by Cyrus, and who was then concubine to the king. She was Phocaean by birth, from Ionia, born of free parents and brought up virtuously.

When she was brought in along with other women while Cyrus was dining, the other women, sitting down beside him, received his playful advances, his touching and jesting, not unpleasantly; but she stood beside the couch in silence, and though Cyrus called her, she did not obey; and when the chamberlains wished to bring her forward, she said, "That man shall rue it, whoever lays hands on me." So she seemed to those present to be graceless and boorish.

But Cyrus, delighted, laughed, and turned to the man responsible for bringing him the women, asking, "Do you notice, then, that of everyone you delivered to me, she alone remains untouched and honest?" From that moment onward he showed her special favor, cherished her above the rest, and gave her the name "the wise one." She fell into captivity at the time Cyrus was killed in battle and his camp was overrun.

Darius, in asking for her, distressed his father; for barbarian peoples are terribly jealous in matters of licentiousness, so that not only the man who approaches and touches a royal concubine, but even one who, in traveling, passes ahead and drives through the wagons in which they are conveyed, is punished with death.

And yet Artaxerxes himself had married Atossa out of his own desire, in defiance of custom, and he maintained three hundred and sixty concubines of exceptional beauty at his court. All the same, when Darius asked for Aspasia, the king replied that she was a free woman, telling Darius he might have her only with her own consent, never by compulsion. Aspasia was accordingly summoned, and, to the king's surprise, she opted for Darius; unwilling to override custom, the king surrendered her, though not long afterward he took her back for himself.

For he appointed her priestess of Artemis at Ecbatana, whom they call Anaitis, so that she might spend the rest of her life in chastity — thinking that he would thereby exact from his son a punishment not harsh, but rather moderate and even mixed with playfulness. But Darius bore it immoderately, whether because he had become passionately smitten with love for Aspasia, or because he thought himself insulted and mocked by his father.

Terobazus, noticing Darius in such a mood, stirred him up still more, recognizing in Darius's grievance a mirror of his own experience. The matter stood thus: among the king's several daughters, he had pledged Apama's hand to Pharnabazus, Rhodogune's to Orontes, and Amestris's to Terobazus himself. The first two pledges he honored, but he cheated Terobazus, taking Amestris as his own wife instead and giving Terobazus his youngest daughter, Atossa, as a substitute betrothal.

But when, as already related, the king fell in love with this daughter as well and married her, Terobazus turned wholly against him — all the more so since Terobazus was by nature inconsistent, given to sudden swings of temper. Thus, whether he rose to prominence among the leading men or fell into disgrace and rejection, he never faced either turn of fortune calmly: honor made him overbearing out of conceit, while disgrace left him neither meek nor composed, but instead bitter and overbearing.

So Terobazus became fire upon fire for the young man, ever pressing upon him and saying that the tiara standing upright upon his head profited nothing to those who did not seek to set their own affairs upright; and that Darius was foolish if, while his brother was working his way into affairs through the women's quarters, and his father had so fickle and unstable a character, he supposed the succession to be secure for himself.

For someone who, on account of a Greek woman, had broken the Persian rule against ever lying could scarcely be relied upon to honor his word in matters of the highest weight. Nor, he added, was it equivalent for Ochus to miss out on the throne and for Darius to have it taken away once granted; Ochus, after all, would be free to live out a contented life as a commoner, while Darius, having already been proclaimed king, faced a stark choice — rule, or perish altogether.

Generally speaking, then, as the Sophoclean line has it, persuasion toward evil travels a quick road; for the path is smooth and downhill toward what one desires. And most men desire base things through inexperience of noble ones and through ignorance; yet it was not this alone — the greatness of the empire, and fear of Ochus on Darius's part, gave Terobazus his opening; nor was the Cyprus-born goddess entirely without blame, in the matter of the taking of Aspasia.

So Darius gave himself over to Terobazus, and when many were now conspiring, a eunuch revealed to the king the plot and its manner, knowing precisely that they had resolved to fall upon him by night as he lay in his chamber, and kill him. When Artaxerxes heard it, it seemed to him a terrible thing to overlook so great a danger by neglecting the accusation, and more terrible still to believe it when no proof had been given. So he did as follows:

He ordered the eunuch to be present with the conspirators and to follow along with them, while he himself had a wall behind his bed in the chamber cut through and fitted with a door, and covered the doorway with a curtain; and when the hour arrived and the eunuch signaled the moment, he waited on his bed and did not rise until he had seen the faces of those coming against him and clearly recognized each one.

But when he saw them with daggers drawn, advancing upon him, he quickly caught up the curtain and withdrew into the inner room, and slammed the doors shut, crying out. So the assassins, having been seen by him and having accomplished nothing, fled in flight through the doors, and told those around Terobazus to withdraw, since they had been discovered.

The others then scattered and fled, but Terobazus, being seized, killed many of the king's spearmen, and was at last struck by a javelin from a distance and fell. As for Darius, who was brought up along with his children, the king set royal judges to try him — he himself not being present, but others bringing the accusation — and ordered his attendants to write down the verdict of each judge and bring it back to him.

When all had given the same judgment and condemned Darius to death, the attendants seized him and led him away to a nearby chamber, and the executioner was summoned and came with the razor with which they cut off the heads of those punished; but seeing Darius, he was struck with dread and drew back, looking toward the doors, as though he would not be able nor dare to lay hand himself upon the king,

but when the judges waiting outside pressed and threatened him, he turned back, grabbed Darius's hair with one hand, pulled his head downward, and sliced through his neck with the razor. Some accounts, however, say the king himself was present for the trial, and that Darius, crushed under the weight of the evidence against him, dropped to the ground face-down and pleaded

and pleaded for mercy; but the king, rising in anger and drawing his short sword, struck him until he had killed him; then, going out into the courtyard, he bowed down to the Sun and said, "Rejoice as you depart, O Persians, and tell the others that great Oromazes has visited punishment upon those who devised unlawful and forbidden things."

That, in short, is how the conspiracy came to its end. Ochus's ambitions now shone all the brighter, buoyed up as he was by Atossa, yet he continued to dread two remaining rivals: Ariaspes among the legitimate sons, and Arsames among those born of a concubine. Ariaspes was regarded by the Persians as worthy of kingship, not on the grounds of being senior to Ochus, but because of his gentle, unaffected, and humane character; Arsames, meanwhile, had a reputation for good judgment and, being especially beloved by his father, could not escape Ochus's watchful suspicion.

Plotting, then, against both, and being at once deceitful and murderous, he employed the savagery of his nature against Arsames, but against Ariaspes his cunning and cleverness. For he sent in secret to him eunuchs and friends of the king, who continually reported certain threats and terrifying words, saying that his father had resolved to kill him cruelly and with insult.

And these men, day after day bringing this out as though it were secret, saying that some things the king intended, and other things he was on the very point of doing, so terrified the man and cast such fright and confusion and despondency into his reasoning, that he prepared a deadly drug, and drinking it, was freed from life.

When the king learned the manner of his death, he wept for him, but suspected the cause. Being unable, because of his old age, to investigate and prove it, he embraced Arsames all the more, and was plainly most trusting of him and spoke freely to him. Whereupon those around Ochus did not delay their design, but, having prepared Harpates, son of Terobazus, killed the man through his agency.

By this point, then, Artaxerxes's hold on life hung by the merest thread owing to his advanced years; so when the disaster involving Arsames struck him, he had no strength left to endure it, and grief and despair snuffed him out almost immediately. He had lived ninety-four years, ruled for sixty-two of them, and earned a reputation for gentleness and goodwill toward his subjects — a reputation only heightened by contrast with his son Ochus, who outdid every man alive in cruelty and lust for blood.

← All of Plutarch: Parallel Lives